Raspberry Crush (26 page)

Sighing softly, he whispered, "I think I'm falling in love with you again." But he could barely hear himself over the strong gust of wind blowing outside, the tree branches swatting against the house, and the deep, even breathing of this girl he loved.

Chapter 20

Billy's eyes snapped open, and it took her a minute to realize where she was and what she'd done. Seth had carried her upstairs to his bedroom in the middle of the night, and now he was lying next to her on his stomach, with one arm buried under his pillow, the other lying loosely across her abdomen.

She crept out of bed while Seth continued to sleep with his face half-buried, his blond hair messy and sticking up in all directions. Once Billy had used the bathroom and the mouthwash, she studied her reflection in the mirror above the sink. Her hair was a messy firestorm of tangles, and her cheeks were glowing pink.

With Ryan sex had been good but not great. It wasn't really his fault; it had just been so new to her then that she hadn't had an overflowing amount of confidence in that area. But with Seth it was so different. She still wasn't very experienced, but when he'd looked at her last night—when that compelling, unstoppable moment had descended upon them—she'd known what to do.

Eyeing the marble tub in the reflection in the mirror, Billy decided to take a quick shower before Seth got up. Then she'd get dressed, run to the train station, and hopefully make it to Bella Donna by eleven.

Her shower lasted longer than she intended, but the beating hot spray felt like a massage, and as she ran her hands over her body, she noticed that everything seemed to possess a new kind of sex appeal.

Her hips, her breasts, even her belly—the beast. Instead of feeling like a bulging little butterball this morning, Billy felt... well...
sultry.

Turning off the water, she reached for a towel and stepped out of the tub. "Hello," Seth drawled, leaning against the doorjamb, sexy and rumpled with a hell of a morning erection pushing against his boxer briefs.
Yum.

"Oh, hi," Billy said, clutching the towel to her body, suddenly feeling shy. Seth didn't seem to notice, though. He crossed the bathroom, pulled her into his arms, and smiled down at her before kissing her deeply... passionately.

Mmm...
He'd visited the mouthwash, too, that morning. Billy moaned softly, lifting up on tiptoe to savor the kiss.

Then a rush of cold air washed over her naked body, and she heard the towel hit the floor. "Hey!" she yelped, feeling apprehensive about being naked in the light of day.

"You don't need it," Seth murmured, kissing her again and walking them back to the wall. Okay, she was over her apprehension now. She reached in between their bodies to grab the elastic waistband of Seth's briefs. He groaned as she started to pull his underwear down, and brought one hand up to help her shove them down to his ankles. Running her tongue down his neck, Billy massaged the head of Seth's erection—squeezing his shaft and rubbing her thumb over the tip—and Seth responded by inserting his hand between her legs, stroking her and sliding inside her. Choppy moans sputtered out of them both as Seth fingered Billy almost roughly, bringing her to the brink of ecstasy.

Then he dropped to his knees, and before she knew it, she was lying on the soft bathroom rug, and Seth was kissing and licking the most intimate part of her. She arched and twisted and moaned, until she finally burst and her muscles rippled with contractions. He held her tightly while she climaxed.

Cuddled on the bathroom floor on the rug, with Seth flat on his back and Billy smiling into his chest, she said teasingly, "Why do I always end up on the floor?"

Seth just laughed. But Billy knew the answer: It was the most fitting place to be when you were getting down and dirty.

* * *

"Okay, I gotta go," she said, drinking the glass of orange juice that Seth had poured for her. She'd thrown on her sweater and jeans from the day before, which Seth had washed and dried for her, and now they were warm and cozy on her skin. After she pulled her hair into a ponytail, she shrugged on her battered green coat, which had been through the dryer, too, and somehow made it through alive.

"Wait," Seth said, pausing at the cabinet. "I can make you breakfast if you're hungry."

"No, really, I'm gonna be late. But thank you."

"When will you get out of work tonight?" he asked.

"Seven-thirty or eight," she replied, and scurried over to him, leaning up to kiss his cheek, but he made this even harder by turning his face and giving her a slow, passionate kiss. She kissed him back, trying not to feel sad that this was just a short-term fling.

No, a fling would be too painful; she could
never
handle a fling. More like a one-time-only thing.
That
she thought she might be able to deal with. Something she could tell her grandchildren. Well, not quite, but still... making love with Seth was something she'd always wanted to do—always wondered about—and now she'd had the experience. But to continue sleeping with him was just begging for heartache. Which brought her to her next point.

"Seth," she said, pulling back. "About last night... well, it was wonderful. Of course, you know that. But I think it's best if it doesn't happen again." His face darkened a little, but he didn't say anything. "It's just that I don't want to make things too complicated."

"What's complicated about it?" Seth asked, an edge to his voice. "The other guy again? What's the deal with you guys anyway?"

"Oh, no—I mean, he and I are kind of on the outs right now. That's not it."

"Then what?"

Hello... She didn't want to get hurt again; couldn't he see that? "I just think it's better that way," she said.

The thought saddened him, made him feel frustrated almost to the point of anger. But he tried to play down the wealth of turbulence that went with the depressing prospect of sleeping with Billy only once. Jesus, if he'd known the last time would be the
last
time, he would've prolonged the sex even more. Definitely would've brought a condom into the bathroom with him that morning. As it was, he'd honestly planned only to brush his teeth and give her a kiss good morning. Finally he shrugged, his expression blank. "Okay, if that's what you want."

"Yeah. Um, I think that would be best," Billy repeated firmly, trying to convince herself—her new pastime, apparently. "But you're still gonna come with me to investigate our librarian lead, right?"

"Oh... yeah, definitely," Seth replied, because even though he was disappointed and his ego was bruised, he didn't want Billy sleuthing around by herself. Somehow he had the feeling she'd only get into trouble. And the truth was, he liked helping her; the Ted Schneider mystery was a refreshing distraction from the daily grind. "I'll ask Sally today about who works at the Churchill Public Library," he added.

"Okay, great," Billy called over her shoulder on her way to the front door.

"I can drive you," Seth offered.

"No, it will take longer with all the morning commuter traffic," she said, turning to say good-bye, because Seth had followed her to the foyer. Jeez, she wished he'd put some clothes on. He was parading around in just his boxers, and he looked so sexy it was hard to think.

"Oh, don't forget this," he said, picking her cell phone off the table by the stairs. He must've taken it out of her pocket before he'd tossed her coat into the dryer.

The green message light was flashing. Flipping the phone open, Billy pressed the button to hear her voice mail, expecting her mother's prying, or her sister's sarcasm, or even Kip's sugar talk, but instead she heard a voice that was harsh, whispering, and terrifyingly familiar: "I hate you, you bitch! For the last time: just go away!"

"Oh, God," Billy muttered, feeling the color drain from her face. Her chest constricted with fear. Fear of being watched—of being targeted.

"What is it?" Seth asked, coming closer. "Billy, what's wrong?" She hadn't told him about the other weird phone message she'd gotten, or the tomatoes smeared on her window... or, come to think of it, that eerie hang-up call she'd gotten last week, or the mysterious rustling she heard in the bushes outside her brownstone the night she'd met Mark at the Kenmore Pub. But wait—surely the last two incidents weren't related to the threats, because they predated Ted Schneider's murder. They had to be coincidental... right?

God, she was just so damn confused.

Swallowing hard, Billy passed Seth the phone, and he listened.

"I don't get it," he said, looking pissed as hell. "Who would say something like that to you?"

"Oh, why is this happening again?" Billy moaned, clutching her stomach, which was skittering nervously.

"Wait a minute, what do you mean? Has this happened
before?"

She filled him in as best she could, but she still had so many unanswered questions. For example: If these threats were somehow connected to Ted's murder, how did anyone even know Billy was looking into the case? She hadn't said anything to her parents or Aunt Penelope yet. The only people she'd told were Corryn and Seth. Sure, she'd asked Greg Dappaport about his argument with Ted on the beach before the jubilee began, but she'd never shared her suspicions with him that Ted was, in fact, murdered. Besides, Dappaport hadn't seemed too fazed when she'd brought up the argument; he'd explained it away as a simple squabble over where Ted had docked his boat.

"At first I thought it was my neighbor," Billy said now—rambled, really—"but now I don't. I just can't believe she'd keep stalking me over some stupid tomatoes. Then I thought maybe it was someone who knew something about Ted Schneider's murder—like maybe they wanted to scare me off so I'd stop snooping. But I've barely even gotten anywhere with the investigation yet. I don't know; I just don't know—"

"All right, calm down, sweetheart," Seth said soothingly, trying to calm her. "Have you gone to the police yet?"

"Yeah, but they just think of these things as pranks, and at this point they say they can't do anything. I'm scared," she said.

"Don't be," he said, and slid his arm around her shoulders. Protectively he hugged her to him. "I'm not gonna let anything happen to you. I promise."

In that moment Billy believed him. Partly because she wanted to, partly because she needed to, and partly because it was Seth and he had integrity. If he said he'd look out for her, she knew he would, and she was unspeakably grateful. Now the question was: What and who were they even looking out
for?

No matter how much she analyzed each piece of her recent situation, she couldn't seem to fit it all into one cohesive puzzle.

Seth said, "Okay, now I'm driving you to the city, and please don't argue. But first I'm calling Joe to see what he thinks about all this."

* * *

Luckily, Joe was a little less worried, telling them how common pranks like that truly were, and how 99 percent of the time they were harmless. But he promised to drive by Billy's apartment regularly to make sure there was no one lurking, and said that if anything else happened, to give him a call. Plus, he said he was still trying to find out whatever he could about Ted Schneider's past, and when he did, he'd be in touch.

Billy had also asked Seth to see what he could find out about Dappaport. She didn't want to believe there could be anything sinister about him—not when he was her quasi-benefactor, commissioning her for her first mural and telling her how much he liked her work. She didn't want to believe he could have any other agenda, and she wanted it so much that she was afraid she was deliberately avoiding the possibility. Obviously, with the threats continuing, she couldn't afford to do that anymore.

Around noon Seth dropped Billy off in front of the Copley Mall, and she thanked him profusely for the ride. Even though traffic had made her late to work, she was grateful not to have ridden the T today. She'd been shaken up, and in no mood to be on a crowded subway, alone in a city of strangers.

"Billy?" Seth said, as she stepped out of his car.

He wanted to tell her he was falling in love with her again, that last night was fucking amazing, that he wished she'd skip work and spend the day with him, that he'd protect her. But words that were futile stayed clogged in his throat.

Finally he said, "Just be careful." She smiled softly at him, and then she was gone.

* * *

Just when life couldn't get any more surprising, Mark showed up at Bella Donna with a bouquet of flowers and his own jovial version of remorse plastered across his face. But before that happened, Katie, Georgette, and Billy were congregated in the front, talking. It was funny, but once Billy got back to the bakery, back to her routine, she didn't feel quite as vulnerable.

"So what ever happened with that guy Louis you met at the Kenmore Pub?" Katie asked Georgette as she hopped up to sit on the counter. Right now there were no customers, and Donna was in her back office writing up next week's schedule.

Georgette scoffed. "Nothin'. I asked if he wanted to go back to my place, and he said no, cuz it was gettin' late." It sounded like she was definitely harboring some bitterness about it. Snidely, she added, "Wasn't my type anyway. Too old."

"Wasn't he only, like, thirty-something?" Katie said with a laugh.

"Yeah, but what I need is a young stud who can get it up and get it
done,
if ya know what I'm sayin'."

Georgette seemed to think that if she
kept
saying it, it would come true. But still... for once Billy did know what she was saying. All too well. There was definitely something to be said for great sex. Hot, relentless sex you could still feel the next day. Flushing, she recalled last night—the way she and Seth had fallen so passionately into bed—but first, onto the floor. Each time they'd made love, it had been with an intensity that left her limp and weak. And then this morning, in the bathroom... heat washed over her as she remembered every detail.

Not that it could ever happen again, but was there really any harm in reenacting the encounter a million times in her head?