Her Shirtless Gentleman

by M. Q. Barber

  But not knowing whether he’d prepared for her comfort specifically or had seduction down to a science bothered her. Maybe years spent honing and perfecting his style had taught Rob to pinpoint to the minute when his date would shuck her clothes so long as he had everything lined up. His insistence about not expecting sex might be part of the ploy, a way to put women at ease.

  How the hell would she know? She’d been stupid enough to believe David when he lied to her face, and she’d known him for years. She’d known Rob one week. Kneeling on the mat, she locked her gaze on him. He covered ground fast, more from a long stride than seeming rushed. He walked with his shoulders back and his head up. He dodged distracted wanderers with easy steps. His shirt didn’t sport a telltale all men are liars slogan.

  Closing in, he grinned at her with those kind hazel eyes, their golden flecks too far away to discern. He waved at himself. “Do I pass inspection?”

  “I—you—” Fumbling with the sheet, she tossed one end toward him. “Help me shake this out.”

  Catching the cotton in one hand, he tipped his head. “All right, Eleanora.”

  She turned her back on his frown and hopped out the far side of the truck. “On three.”

  Too late, she realized she hadn’t explained her intent. But they lifted together in a smooth motion, the sheet billowing with a flick of their wrists. Pale blue cotton rose in a second sky, and she gave in to the urge to lift her arms with it.

  Ducking her head under, she gazed up at the falling fabric and imagined playing parachute like a first-grader in gym class. A wave rippled across.

  Rob’s affable smile and the intense heat of his gaze met her startled glance. He’d raised his arms, too, and shook the sheet again. “My brother and me entertained our baby sisters like this when Mama made us bring in the wash. Can’t say we got a lot of folding done.” He leaned in, pulling the edge of the sheet down behind his shoulders. “Plenty of smiles, though.”

  She let the cotton sink, stepping back until the sheet settled into the truck bed. More down-home, putting-her-at-ease, gosh-I’m-a-nice-guy Rob. “You always carry fresh sheets in your truck for emergencies?” Shit, she sounded bitchy.

  Rob’s smile faded.

  “I mean, my parents always sat in lawn chairs at the drive-in.” She rushed her words out, as if fast-talking would halt the slumping mouth and flattening cheeks reshaping his face. “They’d spread a blanket on the hood of our sedan, and my sisters and I lined up and leaned back on the windshield to watch.”

  “It’s hot out, even with the sun near down.” Rob rested his hands on the side of the truck. “I thought you might rather a padded seat than bare metal, and a thin sheet instead of a heavy, scratchy blanket that’ll cling to sweaty limbs in the heat. That’s all, Eleanora.”

  He didn’t sound angry, but she must’ve offended him. Hell, she’d offended herself by asking. Time to change the subject.

  “So, how ‘baby’ are your baby sisters? Mine—” She babbled. Prattled. Went into detail overload about her mother having three babies in four years and how close—and sometimes fiercely competitive—she and her sisters had been growing up.

  But she didn’t budge from her position beside the truck, and he held firm to his opposite her. The bed grew into a gulf between them even as he divulged his own sibling details.

  He’d come along thirteen months after his brother and learned quick to keep up. When neighbors meant miles down the road, playmates were blood or nothing. His first sister had arrived three years later, and the second sixteen months behind.

  The screen flickered to life with a ten-minute warning. She took a moment to regroup as they both made bathroom trips and Rob picked up a fresh drink to go with their popcorn. Returning first, she clambered into the truck bed without him, settled a pillow against the footlocker, and leaned back. A quick tug arranged the popcorn bags to either side.

  She’d never lain in the darkness beside a man who wasn’t David. Rob’s expectations remained a mystery. Hell, her own expectations had mystified her this whole week. Thinking of him, wearing his shirt while she—

  Awkward guilt shrouded her deeper than the darkening sky. David hadn’t liked her touching herself unless the act was for him. With him watching. After a while, inspiring the need got less and less important. Arousal grew harder to find.

  Could she—was she ready for…

  The crunch of the popcorn bag in her hand startled her, and she laughed at herself. Worse than a fraidy-cat jumping at the wind knocking the screen door. That’d be sure to impress him.

  Rob hustled back to the truck, keyed the accessories, and slid open the back window as he tuned the radio to pick up the movie soundtrack. With the first green preview screen flashing behind him, he sauntered around to the tailgate. The mix of fading sunlight and movie brightness set him aglow. “Room for one more up there, miss?”

  “What if I say no?” Dammit. She hadn’t meant to ask, but she craved his answer in every tense muscle, about matters weightier than seating arrangements.

  He set down the drink cup and patted the end of the truck. Cartoon racecars zipped across the screen behind him. “Then I’ll be cooling my heels here.”

  Pulling the second pillow beside her, she paused. He sounded sincere, not like a man cracking a joke. “Won’t you be lonely?”

  “I expect so.” He held his head level and his body still, a marble pillar of honesty and integrity. A man who’d never cheat on his taxes. Or on other things.

  This man would put her comfort above his. He’d respect her boundaries. Acknowledge her emotions. Listen to her and understand what she said. Maybe even what she meant. So far from David they didn’t seem the same species, let alone the same gender.

  “I think you should come sit next to me.” She toed off her shoes and flexed her feet in her cotton footie socks. The freedom breathed tingling joy in her veins. “Otherwise all the talking will annoy our neighbors.”

  He boosted himself into the bed and passed her the drink. “You’re the kind of gal who talks through a movie, huh?”

  “You didn’t invite me on a date so we could spend hours staring at a screen in silence, did you?” She sipped cherry lemonade through the straw.

  Shaking his head, he rubbed his jaw. “Talk all you like, Eleanora. First show’s for the little ones anyway.”

  She fell silent as the movie started. Her shoulder brushed Rob’s. They passed the popcorn and lemonade between them, grazing hands in the heady overlap of accidental and on-purpose. Squinting against the screen’s brightness, she made out the silhouettes of the families in front. Memory and imagination sketched them in greater detail than reality could match.

  The kids watching with rapt attention and the ones spinning in circles with no care for the screen. The younger ones climbing into mom or dad’s lap, ready to nod off before the credits rolled. The mothers with blankets thrown over one shoulder, babies nursing in the privacy beneath.

  They could be anyone. Any family. And in the darkness, every one of them could be happy and perfect.

  “Do you ever think about parking down front?” Whispering, she waved toward the sea of anonymous families.

  He twitched, his shoulder jerking.

  Oh God. The drive-in was his go-to date. He had the details down to a science. Of course he didn’t park where kids would see. “I don’t mean for, you know, doing things.” Please let something stop her mouth. Power outage. Lightning crash. Alien invasion. Anything. “Because that’s, I mean, obviously not—”

  “Not for making out or putting on a show,” he broke in. “I understood what you meant, Eleanora.”

  Did he? She didn’t. Heck, she didn’t know why she’d asked the question. Half the things she’d said or done with him remained inexplicable. She got near him and unexpected things popped out.

  “Much as I like the drive-in, I don’t bring dates here. I relax here, and that’s not what a lotta women want from a date.” His fingers found hers in the narrow gap between
their bodies. “Most of the ones I’ve met want something fancy, an inch pretentious and a yard uncomfortable, everybody jumping through hoops in a three-ring circus.”

  He cleared his throat and squeezed her hand. “I brought you here because I think we’re alike in that respect. Tired of the fake things. Thinking about”—scanning the rows ahead of them, he rolled his shoulders—“something real.”

  Fear and hope gripped her. The desire to believe. He made picturing a future together so easy.

  With a tilt of his head, he leaned on her. The faint pressure sent her pulse soaring.

  “And yeah. I think about parking down there.” Low and yearning, like the cool caress of a foggy morning, his voice swirled over, around, and through her. “Car seats and sippy cups and skinned knees. Toothy grins and tantrums from tots running wild, and the one on the way resting safe under his mama’s heart.”

  Shuddering, she sucked in a breath and prickled with goose bumps. Too perfect. Rob presented himself as everything David wasn’t. She couldn’t deserve him.

  “I’m hard-wired to be a family man, I guess. Maybe a little more with every year that passes.” He glanced away, his swallow audible.

  She tightened her fingers on his. Saying these things might make him as nervous and excited as hearing them made her.

  “Haven’t had much luck finding the right gal who feels the same,” he whispered.

  I’m that girl.

  The words floated in the space above her tongue, but she held her lips closed. She’d known him one week. Offering to be his wife, the mother of his children—that would be insane. But affection and arousal crashed like the sea in her body, swelling toward high tide and pulling her along. “You owe me three kisses, Robin, and I think you’re a man of your word.” God, such a sultry tone couldn’t belong to her. Where had she dredged those low notes from?

  His quiet growl suggested a similar origin. “Whatever my lady desires.”

  He grasped her with one hand, his palm heating her cheek and his fingers splayed down her neck.

  She tensed for a rough kiss, awaiting his delving demand.

  He nibbled.

  She gasped, air puffing out with her surprise.

  Despite the firm command in his muscles, his kiss didn’t demand anything. Slow, teasing bites and flicks of his tongue coaxed her open as if the idea had belonged to her all along.

  Their bodies slipped down, and the line between seducer and seduced blurred. His hand slipped, too, edging beneath her gauzy cover-up. He fingered the thin strap of her camisole beneath.

  She twined her fingers in his orange t-shirt to keep him close. She’d used his black shirt, the clean one lying in the cab, as a sleep aid all week. She’d reluctantly washed the loaner Thursday because manners demanded she return it tonight. Six nights she’d lain in bed with his rich, earthy claim surrounding her, and six nights she’d slipped her hand into her underwear and stroked herself to climax with thoughts of him.

  All that satisfaction, hell, more than she averaged in a year—no, in six—should’ve worn her out. Another message her body hadn’t gotten. Days of orgasms hadn’t eased her hunger for him. They didn’t stop her arousal from surging in his presence.

  The need seemed stronger, as if she’d created some expectation in her belly that now was the time for touching before sleep. She’d advanced from one failed attempt a month at the most to nightly success thanks to Rob.

  With a final press of his closed lips, he pulled back.

  Her lips stayed open. Her lungs demanded air faster than her nose allowed.

  “One,” he whispered.

  He counted his effort as one kiss? Seven, at least. Maybe eight. But damn. One meant she had two more coming, and not a single part of her disagreed with that idea. She nodded. “One.”

  “Don’t wanna squander the two I have left.” He tugged the brim of her cap. “Sun’s gone. This an indispensible part of your look?”

  “High fashion.” Her dry tone raised a chuckle from him. “But you can take it off me.”

  He leaned in close, his mouth next to her ear and his breath warm. “I like those words, Eleanora.”

  She pressed her thighs together to quell the spasm between her legs. Not helpful in the least. Whatever he stirred in her overpowered her ability to hold back. Not alone, and not with him, either. She’d gone from David’s lackluster wife to Rob’s wanton slut in a hot second. What the hell was wrong with her?

  Her hat, pulled off with careful attention not to disturb her ponytail, landed somewhere behind her. Humidity had given her bulk and curl. He wound her hair around his hand once and fingered the strands.

  His growl made her shiver. The slight pull at her scalp as he rubbed his fingers together tightened her nipples and set them to tingling.

  She opened her mouth, and he swooped in.

  He delivered the harder kiss she’d expected the first time around. His show, start to finish. He overwhelmed her with raw power. Mouth sealed to hers, he swept his tongue inside and stroked.

  Their bodies rocked. He guided her backward on his arm. They no longer lay on their sides, facing each other as equals. Now she rested on her back, and his weight pressed into her side with the burning heat of a blast furnace.

  She wiggled to settle herself more comfortably.

  He groaned into her mouth and clamped his hand down on her far hip.

  He was hard.

  She didn’t have to guess this time, because this touch wasn’t fleeting. The immovable stone digging into her, pressing high on her thigh, was his cock.

  Ready for the word, but for the man? Uncertainty warred with desire. He wanted her. The thought crashed through her body like lightning. Shock, heat, and fear.

  He pulled his mouth away.

  She whimpered at the loss. Honest-to-God whimpered. A sound she didn’t realize herself capable of making.

  “Two.” Hand splayed across her stomach, Rob stroked her through her camisole. The edge had risen out of her jean shorts, and her gauzy cover-up had fallen to the side. Night air caressed a thin strip of skin above her shorts, tickling her navel.

  Tension made her stretch in an instinctive search for relief. The motion rippled through her, highlighting every point of contact between them. The roughness of his leg against hers. The press of his erection, digging in harder than a metal belt buckle but a hell of a lot more pleasant. The firm planes of his torso, hidden now beneath his shirt, but familiar from the eyeful she’d gotten last week. His left arm, steady and supportive under her neck. He’d let go of her hair. When, she didn’t know.

  “Ready for that third prize, Eleanora?” He nuzzled her face, pushing and bumping like the cat she’d had as a child.

  His playful affection settled her nerves. She was ready for three. She’d make three count. And after he took her home, she’d touch herself like a madwoman to quiet the jangling need driving the thumping rhythm between her legs and dampening her panties.

  “I hear the third time’s the charm.” Excitement deepened her voice, until he grazed the bare strip of belly above her shorts and made her squeak. “Lots of charm.”

  Rolling his fingers lower, he circled her navel with his thumb. Slow, and gentle, and not stopping. He tapped his fingers.

  Jesus. His touch sank through her shorts, through her panties, an inch north of flesh thumping in reply. If he stretched, he’d be touching—he’d be touching the places she’d touched thinking about him.

  Her clitoris. Her vulva. Clinical words for pieces of herself she’d never felt so connected to before.

  “Mm-hmm. You have lots of charms, Eleanora.” His fingers drifted.

  Her muscles twitched. Her body broadcast needs she begged herself to permit. Let him come closer. Let him. Please.

  * * * *

  Cupping the curve of her sex in his palm, Rob pressed the heel of his hand where he hoped the weight’d do the most good. Thick denim played havoc with his accuracy.

  Her gasp and the tense bend at her kne
e as she curled her leg tighter beside his groin seemed promising.

  He captured her mouth and speared his tongue through her parted lips.

  She raised her head and gave as good as she got. Chasing the pressure or staking her own claim. He’d take either.

  He pushed back harder. Heated passion consumed him, adding intensity to the kiss and his clenching hand between her legs. The denim of her shorts had the softness of a hundred washings, but she’d be softer still beneath them.

  She rocked her hips into his motion. The thinnest thread of her moan made him yearn to hear her in full-throated cry.

  Not here. She’d be mortified. He jabbed himself with a sharp reminder to take things gentle with her. Creativity would be his ally. No reason they couldn’t both enjoy this night to the fullest. Working her up and leaving her unsatisfied smacked of the rude, uncaring treatment she seemed to expect.

  He drew his hand toward her waistband and released her mouth. Her mewl an unspoken question, he aimed to reassure. He brushed his thumb across the zipper on her shorts and tweaked the button flap.

  “I’d sure like to touch you, Eleanora.” With his forehead pressed to hers, they shared the same air. He breathed slow and steady. Her quick puffs teased his skin like the kiss of the west wind. “I wanna feel you under my fingers.”

  “I, I want that too, but…” She closed her eyes.

  “But what?” He had an inkling. Nerves. The location. Ties to her ex-husband, unhappy memories. If she needed to wait, they’d wait.

  “It’s so”—her whisper dripped out in a halting tremor—“slutty.”

  No. No. No. Nothing shameful in loving. He gentled his voice and his touch, tracing the waistband of her shorts. “Why do you say that?”

  “The people.” Opening her eyes, she dug her fingers into his chest, curling his t-shirt in her grip. “They could see.”

  “It’s dark back here.” He kissed the corner of her mouth. “And I won’t let anyone see an inch of you.” They’d both keep their clothes on for this. He aimed to show her a good time, not embarrass her. Not make her feel dirty.