"This is much softer than mine was," she told him. "My mother believes a firm mattress keeps the posture straight and the body supported. It's also extremely uncomfortable. I used to pile extra blankets on the mattress and sleep on top of them. Now, of course, I have a nice soft mattress, like this." She laid back on the bed, her legs dangling off the end. "Look, you have the universe on your ceiling. That is so cool."
He glanced up at the ceiling, which his grandfather had painted like a nighttime sky, a dark blue with twinkling gold stars. "My grandpa got tired of me climbing up on the roof. When my mom would leave, I'd go up there to watch for her. Then I started stargazing."
"What's that one?" She pointed to the ceiling.
"Orion. Get up, Paige."
"What's the problem?" She sat up halfway, resting on her elbows.
"I want you out of my bed." He could have bit his tongue at the way that came out, but he was fighting an overwhelming feeling of lust at the moment, and it was that or jump on top of her and show her just how much the bed could bounce.
"Sorry," Paige said hastily as she scrambled off with a hurt look on her face.
He caught her by the arm. "That's not what I meant."
"You were pretty clear."
He gazed into her face and knew he couldn't look away, couldn't walk away, couldn't make her go away.
"Riley," she whispered, "let me go."
"I can't." He leaned over and covered her mouth with his. She tasted sweet, sinful, sexy, sophisticated. It was a heady combination and completely irresistible, especially when she moved into his body, when her breasts came into contact with his chest, when her hands crept around his waist. She should have been resisting, pushing him away, not kissing him back like she didn't want to stop. And when he slipped his tongue into her mouth, she absolutely should not have met him halfway. Nor should she have made that lusty little gasp of desire that he wanted to hear again and again.
"Riley, I need to breathe," she murmured against his mouth.
He played his lips across her face, her neck, the curve of her shoulder. He moved behind her and used his hands to memorize her body, from her slim waist to her soft breasts. He rolled his palm over one breast, feeling the nipple tighten beneath his fingers. It was too much of an invitation to resist. He slipped his hand inside the V neck of her blouse, into her lacy bra so he could touch her bare skin, feel the heat rising between them. He used his other hand to bring her bottom flush against his groin, where he was hard as a rock.
There was that little gasp of desire again. It made him crazy.
His name rolled off her lips like a plea for more. And he intended to give her more, much more. He turned her to face him again, backed her up against the bed until the backs of her knees hit the mattress, and they both went down. He landed on top of her, exactly where he wanted to be, and found her mouth again. He wrestled with the buttons on her blouse, one, two, three. Finally, he had them undone, and as he pulled open her shirt, he broke away from her mouth to gaze down at her. Her beautiful breasts were rising up and down, her nipples peaking through the sheer lacy cups. God, he was in heaven.
He leaned over and pushed her bra aside, putting his mouth to her breast, rolling his tongue around her nipple until she groaned. But she didn't push him away; she put her hand around the back of his neck and pressed him closer.
"Don't stop," she whispered. "Don't stop."
"I won't," he promised. But the words had barely left his mouth when the sound of a door slamming penetrated his foggy brain.
A voice came from down below. "Riley? Riley, are you here?"
Paige shoved him off, panic in her eyes. "Is that your grandmother?"
"Riley?" Nan called out again.
"Oh, my God. She can't see us like this," Paige said.
Riley sat back in a daze, watching as Paige fumbled with the buttons of her shirt. She looked incredible, with her blond hair tangled from his fingers, her lips red from his kisses, her breasts moist from his tongue. He knew he needed to move, get up, go to the door, tell his grandmother he'd be right down, but all he could do was look at Paige and wish to hell they could go back to doing what they had been doing.
"Riley, help me," Paige begged as they heard footsteps on the stairs.
He finally got his brain to function. "I'll head her off." He got off the bed and took a deep breath, willing the rest of his body to cooperate. His grandmother might be in her seventies, but her eyesight was still perfect.
"I'll be right there, Grandma," he yelled. He gave Paige a rueful smile. "She always did have bad timing. I'll get rid of her."
"How are you going to do that?"
"I don't know."
"Don't tell her I'm here."
"I wasn't planning on it." He walked out of his bedroom and took care to close the door behind him. He found Nan in her room, staring at the mess.
"It's worse than I remembered." She walked over to the dresser and set up the photo of herself and Ned at their fortieth anniversary party. "That's better."
Riley's heart began to slow down as he realized his grandmother's distraction was definitely to his benefit. "What are you doing here? I thought you were staying at Millie's."
"I needed my robe. I forgot to get it earlier. I saw your car so I figured it would be all right to come in. Plus, I saw Gilbert sitting in his car at the corner, so I know I'm safe. You hired those old boys to watch over me, didn't you?"
"Yes," he admitted, still feeling a bit uncomfortable when she turned her gaze on him.
She stared at him for a long minute, and he wondered what she was seeing. Did he have lipstick on his face? Was his hair as messy as Paige's? He distinctly remembered feeling her fingers run through his hair.
"What's wrong?" she asked him.
"Nothing."
"You look—funny."
"It must be all the dust I've been stirring up."
"Must be."
"There's your robe." He grabbed it off the chair in front of her dressing table. "This is your favorite one, isn't it?"
"Yes, it keeps me warm." She gave him another long look. "I guess I'll go back to Millie's, unless you want me to stay and help."
"No. You take the night off. There will be plenty to do tomorrow."
"Are you going to sleep here tonight, honey?"
Sleep was the last thing he had on his mind. "I don't know yet. I'll see how late it gets."
"If you are, you should change the sheets on your bed. I have extras in the hall closet. Why don't I help you do that before I go?"
"No," he said abruptly. "I mean, I already did it. So you can just go back to Millie's."
"You already did it? I must have taught you something after all." She smiled at that. "Well, don't work too hard."
He followed her down the stairs, praying she wouldn't suddenly stop and decide she needed to get something else. But they made it to the front door without a hitch.
"I'll watch you walk next door," he said.
"You always take good care of me, Riley."
"That's my job."
She stood on her tiptoes and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Good night, honey." She walked down the steps, then paused. "By the way, tell Paige I said hello." Her knowing grin made him feel fourteen years old again. "I hope you didn't make her hide in the closet like you did Jenny Markson."
"Paige is definitely not in the closet," he replied. Her laughter lasted all the way next door. When be shut the door, Paige was right behind him.
"I am totally embarrassed," Paige said. "She knew I was here the whole time."
"I never could get away with anything." He took a step toward her. "Now, where were we?"
She put a hand on the middle of his chest, holding him at arm's length. "Who is Jenny Markson?"
"She's not competition, if that's what you're worried about. I think she has a couple of kids by now, and at least one husband."
"Was she your girlfriend?"
"For about two weeks in the tenth grade."
"Did you make out in your bedroom?"
"We tried, but my grandmother came home early."
"So I wasn't the first." Paige crossed her arms in front of her chest, a sexy little pout on her face.
He grinned. "You were definitely not the first."
"Did you have sex with her?"
"Unfortunately, that bedroom has never been lucky for me in the sex department. I'm hoping tonight we can change my luck."
She dodged his oncoming embrace. "Are you kidding me? Your grandmother knows I'm here. I can't possibly have sex with you in that bedroom tonight."
"The idea wasn't bothering you a few minutes ago."
"I went a little crazy," she admitted.
"I like you a little crazy." This time when he put his hands on her waist, she didn't move away. "Want to know what else I like?"
"I don't think so," she said breathlessly. "I should go home."
"I could come with you. Your bedroom would certainly be more private."
She hesitated, and he saw the answer in her eyes even before she said it. She'd had time to think—too much time, apparently.
"You have a lot to do here," she said.
"It's not going anywhere."
"Riley—"
"The moment is over. I get it."
"It's not that I don't want to." She looked at him with her heart in her eyes, and he felt a rush of emotion as well as panic. What was he thinking? What was casual for him would probably not be casual for Paige. She wasn't a one-night-stand or a three-day-fling kind of girl. She was marriage and children and happily ever after, and he'd given up on that a long time ago.
"Fine. Whatever," he said.
"It's just more difficult to make the choice than to simply let it happen, you know? I guess that makes me a coward."
"Or smart."
"I don't feel smart. I feel ... frustrated."
"That makes two of us. You should go."
"I want to help you with the cleaning."
"Why?"
"Because I do, and because, dammit, I don't want to go home yet. Is that the deal, if I don't sleep with you, I have to leave?"
He smiled at her obvious annoyance. "That's usually how it works."
"That's not the way it works with me. But to be on the safe side, we'll clean down here." She entered the living room. "Has this room been lucky for you?"
"Nope."
"Good."
He laughed. "Not so good for me."
She knelt down next to the pile of photographs on the floor. "This is quite a mess. Your grandmother sure has a lot of pictures."
"My grandmother has been talking about putting those in photo albums since I was a kid. She just never gets around to it."
"Is this you?" She held up a baby picture.
He squatted down beside her, his chest tightening. "No, that's my mother."
"Oh, I'm sorry. I should have guessed." She picked up more pictures of his mother at various stages of her life. Riley didn't want to look. He tried not to remember his mother at all. He certainly didn't want a visual reminder. But as Paige went through them, he found himself looking over her shoulder. His stomach clenched at the one in her hand. His mother was holding him in her lap at what was probably his third Christmas. She was trying to hand him a doll, but he was pushing it away.
"Now, I know this is you." Paige looked at him with tenderness in her eyes. "I recognize the scowl."
"I wanted a fire truck. Not that stupid rag doll."
"Oh, this is you, too." She pulled out a photo his grandmother had taken at his junior high school graduation. "There's that scowl again. Do you ever smile for the camera?"
"I didn't see any point in recording those moments in my life." He paused, remembering that day. He'd only been at his grandmother's house since that Christmas. He'd transferred into yet another school to finish up the eighth grade. His mother was supposed to be at the graduation, but she'd gone off on a weekend retreat that had lasted six months. That's when his grandparents had told him he would be living with them from now on.
"Aren't there any of those naked baby pictures in here? I'd like to see your bare ass on a blanket," Paige said, lightening his mood.
"I'd be happy to show it to you. It's much more impressive now than it was then."
Her brown eyes sparkled at him. "So you say." She picked up another photograph. "This must be your grandparents at their wedding."
"You're really going back in time now As I said, my grandmother never organized any of these. She always said she was too busy living life to look at it."
"That sounds nice." Paige let out a sigh. "There are six photo albums of my life to date, every minor or major event captured on film for generations to see."
"Who was the photographer? Your mother or your father?"
"They usually hired photographers."
"Of course. My mistake."