“What’s so funny?” he asked.
As if she was going to tell him she’d been thinking about her ex, even if it had been a comparison entirely favorable to him. “Nothing,” she said, twining her arms around his neck and stretching beneath him a little. “Just feeling good.”
“Ah.” He kissed her mouth lightly. “You’re welcome.”
She laughed, but dammit, that made her inner muscles tighten and push him half out of her. They both sighed and he rolled off her. He used a couple of tissues for the condom, then hiked his jeans back up, leaving them unbuttoned. Shelby licked her bottom lip, sat up and tried to run her hands through her tangled hair.
“Leave it,” he said, voice deep. “It looks sexy.”
She smiled, sitting there naked, amazed at how comfortable that felt. He stood in front of her, jeans low on his lean hips, emphasizing the hard muscles of his abs. Was he going to leave now?
He held out a hand to her. “Let’s go to bed,” he said.
She took his hand and rose, warmth swelling in her chest.
Chapter Twelve
They made love again, this time in her bed, this time with slow, easy touches and long, lingering kisses, lush licks and soft sighs.
And they talked.
He’d been dismayed when her friends had showed up earlier, and not just because they’d interrupted them. He never usually got to know girls’ friends very well and he didn’t want to, because that just made it into more of a “relationship”. Friends got pissed off when their friends got hurt, which he tried to avoid but which still happened, and he didn’t need every female on the face of the earth pissed off at him. But somehow, he’d found himself wanting Shelby’s friends to like him for some crazyass fucking reason, and then he’d found himself relaxing, liking the way they cared about Shelby and actually—Jesus—enjoying himself.
And now he found himself talking about stupid shit that he never talked about to anyone, telling Shelby more about his sisters and their kids. And she talked about her parent’s marriage and how alone she’d always felt because of their focus—their destructive focus—on each other. And they’d ended up talking about Andrew.
“He’s never done anything inappropriate,” Shelby said, curled against him, rubbing her hand over his chest, over one nipple, in a way that made him tingle.
“But you feel uncomfortable.”
“Yes.”
“Is it possible you misread him?”
Shelby thought about it. “I suppose. I might be a little paranoid.”
“Huh? Why?”
She smoothed her hand over his shoulder. “Because of what happened at my last job.”
“What happened?”
She rolled away from him and flopped onto her back with a groan.
He rolled toward her and lifted up on one elbow to look down at her, stroking hair off her cheek. “Tell me.”
Her eyes closed. “I worked at RBM Pharmaceuticals. As a project manager. It was a really interesting place to work. My boss…”
His gut clenched.
“When I’d been there about five years, I got a new boss. He and I got along great. We did the coffees, the lunches, the business trips.” She licked her lips and swallowed. Her eyes opened and he gazed down into that beautiful liquid blue. “He paid a lot of attention to me and we started seeing each other outside of work. I thought I was in love with him. He was my boss, and I knew it was a bad thing to do, but…”
His belly muscles went rigid, and the hand smoothing her hair back stilled. A feeling of pressure rose in his chest.
“But I fell for him, and I thought he loved me too.” A small smile touched her lips. “Stupid me. People were talking about us. It was quite the gossip fest even though we thought we were keeping it totally on the down low. What an idiot I was. Anyway, it seemed like things were going great. I was working hard, but I didn’t know that Mark was taking all the credit for the work I was doing, with his bosses.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake.” The tension in his chest built.
“He kept telling me what a good job I was doing, what great ideas I came up with, and how everyone above him recognized it too, and I believed him. And trusted him. And then…the project was going way over budget. I brought it to his attention. He said it must be my fault.” She stopped, her voice thick, and she blinked rapidly. “I looked back through all the project documents and I discovered that he’d screwed up a budget projection. It was a big mistake and it was going to cost the company a lot of money. It was going to look really bad for us. I felt sick about it, but…” She paused again. “But he told his bosses that it was my fault. He saved his own ass and let me take the fall for it.”
“Oh, Shelby Rose.” He pulled her into his arms, rolling again so she was tucked against him.
“It was even worse because I thought I was in love with him. He let them fire me. My reputation was a bit uh, tarnished in the project management world. I didn’t get a good reference. All RBM would do was confirm I’d worked there for six years if anyone called them for a reference.” Her tone was casual but he could hear how hard that had been for her. “It kind of made job hunting hell. And there aren’t that many companies in Rocky Harbor with project management departments. But you know, you can’t let stuff like that take you down, right?”
Many people would. He tightened his grip on her.
“So I was ecstatic when Gold Shield offered me a job. It was less money, but it’s a good company, and it turns out I’ve gotten two promotions already in the last year. But…” She hesitated. “But that’s what makes me paranoid. That Andrew’s only doing that because he wants something from me.”
A noise like a growl rumbled in Jake’s throat. He wanted to growl. Hearing her confession of love for that bastard kind of stung a bit. Huh. But that was clearly why she wasn’t interested in falling in love again, and that was fine by him.
“I don’t want that to happen again,” she said fiercely.
“That’s why your friends are so protective of you, isn’t it?”
She paused. “Protective?”
He smiled, remembering their interruption. The last thing he wanted was to get involved with her life on a deeper level, when all they had was their little deal, and meeting her friends and getting to know them was bad enough without them clearly concerned about him and what he and Shelby were doing together. “Yeah, protective. They were giving me the third degree.”
“I’m sorry,” she said with a sigh. “You didn’t seem too offended.”
“I wasn’t offended. I thought it was sweet. But…” He hesitated to tell her about his reluctance to get to know them or let them get to know him. Which strangely hadn’t stopped him from talking to them and actually enjoying it. “I just felt a little put on the spot.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll make sure they understand what’s going on. I guess they are a little protective.”
“They’re good friends.” He stroked her hair. “And they care about you. That’s nice.”
“Yeah. You’re right. Sometimes they annoy me, but I love them. Anyway, that’s why it’s so important to me that I keep this job. I don’t want to piss my boss off, though. I just want to keep my job.”
“Just do a good job,” he said, stroking a hand down the curve of her back. “You’ll be okay if you just do a good job.”
“That’s not true.” She lifted her head and gave him a wry smile. “I was doing a good job at RBM and look what happened. There’s more to the business world than doing a good job, and sometimes I think I suck at all that political shit.”