Talk Nerdy to Me

by Vicki Lewis Thompson

  "Maybe we should pile all your discarded hobby supplies across the front door," he said as they stood in front of it.

  "That's mostly soft stuff. I don't know if it'll make enough noise."

  Charlie dredged up some memories from his college days. "What we really need is marbles."

  "Marbles?"

  "If you scatter marbles over the floor, then if someone walks in they step on them, lose their footing, and fall down. At least that's the way it's supposed to work. I've never actually tried that one."

  Eve snapped her fingers. "I have beads! Be right back."

  While she was going after the beads, Charlie stood with his hands on his hips, gazing at that front door. It had to be Eunice. Nothing else made sense. But Eve wasn't buying it, so he'd have to hope more proof came along, and soon.

  He wanted Eve to ask for the key back, but he didn't think she'd agree to do that. She was still holding on to the hope that her view of Middlesex wouldn't have to change. Besides, it might not matter whether she retrieved the key or not. Eve had had plenty of time to get a second one made.

  Eve came back holding a plastic bag with beads in every color of the rainbow. "Will that work?"

  "Absolutely." He took the beads and opened the package. "We'll just sprinkle them all along here by the threshold." He crouched down and started pouring the beads out. They clattered and bounced on the hardwood floor like the Mexican jumping beans Rick had brought him once from Tijuana.

  "I'm glad something I bought is turning out to be useful."

  "We just have to remember they're here." He stood and surveyed the bead-strewn floor. "We don't want to be the ones crashing to the floor."

  She glanced at him. "For someone from a small town with a low crime rate, you know a lot about booby-trapping a house."

  "College stuff. My buddies and I didn't have much money for fancy alarms, and we had a ton of electronic equipment in our apartment, so we were always brainstorming ways to keep from being robbed. And it also worked for those times you had a girl in your room and didn't want anyone barging in."

  "Well, guess what?" She caught his hand and began tugging him through the living room to the hall. "You're about to have a girl in your room."

  Chapter Nineteen

  Eve wasn't in the mood for games this time around. They'd had a long night, and now it was time to get down to basics. Two naked people making use of both the diameter and the circumference of her round bed—that was as complicated as she wanted things to get.

  Fortunately Charlie seemed of the same mind. They stripped down to nothing, ditched their glasses, and tumbled onto the bed. Charlie, not being used to the shape, almost tumbled off again.

  Eve grabbed one nicely muscled arm and hauled him back. "Easy does it there, big fella."

  He rolled on top of her, his erect penis brushing her thigh. "I'd better keep close track of you. You know this territory better than I do."

  She gazed up at Mm, his hair tousled and falling down over his forehead, his deep brown eyes gazing straight into hers. She could feel him trembling, feel the rapid beat of Ms heart against her breast. How sweet to be wanted this much.

  She cupped his face in both hands. "Can you see me okay?"

  "Up close I do great."

  "Me, too. Come closer."

  Smiling, he leaned down. "You have such big poufy lips."

  "The better to kiss you with, kilowatt man."

  "You can say that again."

  "The better to kiss you with, kil—"

  "Smart aleck. Don't talk. Just let me get at that gorgeous mouth."

  She lifted her chin to put herself in better position. From the eager way he swooped down, she expected the kiss to be deep and wet, with lots of tongue. He surprised her.

  His trembling increased, which showed how much he was restraining himself. His mouth barely touched hers. "I want you so much. I'm a fuse about to blow," he whispered.

  Her pulse raced as she thought of all that power ready to be unleashed on little old her. She could hardly wait. "Or like Hoover Dam about to crack," she murmured.

  "I am cracking." His breath was warm on her face as he brushed his lips over hers. "I had everything figured out, and now ..."

  "Now you'll still go." She kissed him back with the same light pressure.

  "How can I?"

  "How can you not?"

  "Eve." Her name was a groan of surrender as he gave her the kiss she'd been expecting, the one that erased the boundaries between them, the one that made her forget everything but the taste and feel of his mouth.

  She was so involved in the power of that kiss that she didn't realize he'd reached between her thighs until his fingers slipped without resistance into her moist heat. She moaned in pleasure.

  He lifted his head, his mouth hovering over hers as he stroked her gently. "There's that lubrication you were telling me about." His words were thick and heavy with lust. "Ready to make those neurons fire?" He increased the pressure.

  She gasped. "All... systems are up ... and running."

  "Let's switch to alternate current."

  She didn't understand what he meant at first. Then he slid down between her thighs and she knew exactly what he meant. Here was a guy who generated enough electrical impulses to power the town of Middlesex, if someone could figure out how to harness that energy. She was sure that the friction of his tongue alone could make her glow in the dark.

  The fireworks began slowly, little showers of stars raining down on her quivering body. Then the explosions grew in size, coming faster, and faster yet, until her world filled with a regular Fourth of July display. She greeted the grand finale with enthusiastic cries of appreciation.

  As the sparkling stars gradually faded, Charlie eased back up, kissing her belly, her breasts, and her throat on his way to her mouth. She had never felt so thoroughly loved in her life. That Charlie put on quite a spectacular show.

  She tried to find the words to tell him, but before she could he was kissing her again in that deep, soul-satisfying way of his. All she had to do was hang on and enjoy. She realized that he was completely in charge, and with moves like that, he was welcome to the job.

  Finally he lifted his mouth from hers once again. He was breathing hard as he leaned his damp forehead against hers. "I never want to stop kissing you."

  She gulped for air. "I never want you to."

  "But if I don't stop kissing you, I'm going to come. It's high school all over again."

  She responded to the desperation in his voice. "Condoms. Nightstand drawer."

  "Thank God." He dragged in a breath. "I was afraid I had to go get my jeans." Lifting himself away from her with a groan, he pulled open the drawer and riffled around inside it. "Got one. Magnificent invention."

  She opened her eyes. He was holding the condom packet as if he'd managed to get his hands on the Hope Diamond. "You actually like condoms?"

  "I actually hate condoms." He sat back on his haunches and ripped open the packet. 'The day I don't have to use them will be a great day." He rolled it expertly down over his penis. "But tonight... they make everything possible."

  Not everything, she thought with a stab of longing. Everything would be a future with this man who was the essence of all she was looking for. Everything would be planning for the day when they could throw away the condoms and make babies together. Everything would be barbecues in the backyard and Little League games in the summer, snowball fights and cocoa by the fire in the winter.

  But then Charlie moved over her, and with one sure thrust made that intimate connection she craved. It wasn't everything, but for tonight, it was enough.

  A screech and a loud thud brought Charlie awake. Startled, he sat up too fast and fell on the floor. Where was he? And who was out there swearing so loud at this time of the morning?

  "Oh, God." Eve leaped out of bed and grabbed Charlie's flannel shirt. "Denise! Stay where you are! You might have broken something!"

  Charlie sat in a daze as Eve hop
ped over him and ran out of the room, buttoning the shirt she'd swiped as she went. Denise? The sister? What the hell? And then it came back to him. The bead booby trap.

  Scrambling to his feet, he grabbed his jeans and put them on without bothering with underwear. He'd never met Denise. Assuming she'd taken a header on the beads he'd scattered in front of the door, he didn't suppose the meeting would be auspicious. He'd rather not go into it naked.

  As he carefully zipped his jeans, he listened to Eve trying to calm her sister, who sounded furious. Charlie started to feel guilty about giving Denise a tumble, but then he began to wonder if the beads had worked, after all. Had they caught their suspect sneaking into the house?

  He located his glasses and his watch and put them both on. Two minutes after ten. Denise had arrived right on time. A person couldn't really sneak into a house when they were expected, but she'd obviously used her key. Charlie supposed that was logical enough. No reason to stand there ringing the doorbell if you could just let yourself in.

  He felt at a definite disadvantage wearing only his jeans and needing both a razor and a toothbrush before he'd feel ready to meet someone as pivotal as Eve's only sister. But he couldn't very well hide in the bedroom until she left. Eve had said she'd be staying a few days.

  In fact, Denise's impending arrival had been the justification for having all that sex last night. As of now, he and Eve had a chaperone. Might as well suck it up and go out to meet her.

  Walking down the hall, he listened to the conversation between the two sisters. Eve was still trying to make amends, but Denise didn't seem to be buying it.

  "You knew I was coming," Denise said. "You could have called my cell and warned me to ring the doorbell." Her voice was a lot like Eve's, only with an edge to it that Eve's didn't have.

  "I should have remembered to do that," Eve said. "I'm so glad you're not seriously hurt."

  "I'll probably have a bruise on my butt. Fortunately, I'm not dating anyone right now, so I'm the only one who will see it. These slacks are a mess, though. Somebody must have been tracking dirt in here, and now it's all over the back of my pants."

  Charlie came to the end of the hall where he had a view of Denise, who was facing away from him. She was shorter than Eve by a good four inches, and her dark hair was cut in a no-nonsense style not unlike Charlie's. She held a red leather jacket folded precisely over her arm like a maitre d's towel.

  Under the jacket she'd worn a navy suit, and sure enough, the slacks had dirt smears all over the seat. He was probably responsible for that, too, because he'd been the one who'd left his boots on when he'd come to see about Eve's back door.

  Denise brushed at the dirt. "At least they're washable. I can change into something else and toss the whole suit in your washing machine."

  Eve glanced toward the hallway where Charlie was standing. "The washing machine's out of commission, right now. But I can run it down to the Press 'n' Go. They can have it back in—"

  "That's silly," Denise said. "That's why I buy washable clothes, so I won't have to spend the money on dry cleaning. What do you mean, your machine's out of commission? Don't they have repair people in this town?"

  "I'm sure they do." Eve sent Charlie a look of apology.

  "Well, here's Charlie! Charlie Shepherd, I'd like you to meet my sister, Denise."

  Denise spun around. "A man? You didn't say there was ..." Denise took in Charlie's bare chest and bare feet. Then she glanced back at her sister, who wore what was obviously a man's flannel shirt. "Eve, you could have warned me."

  "She didn't have time," Charlie said, coming forward. "This was completely unexpected." He extended his hand to Denise because she looked like the kind of woman who liked to shake hands. Although she was attractive, her features were a little too sharp for anyone to describe her as pretty. But intelligence shone from her blue eyes. Charlie could believe that she'd cut a wide swath on Wall Street.

  Denise had a firm handshake. And some of her prickly behavior seemed to disappear as she continued to gaze at Charlie. "Eve said something about a break-in. I guess it's a good thing you stayed with her, then."

  He was slightly encouraged by that show of sisterly caring. "I'm also the one who suggested the beads," he said. No reason for Eve to take all the heat on that score.

  "But I was the one who knew Denise was coming at ten," Eve said. "I should have set my alarm."

  "I have one on both my watch and my cell, for what good that did." Charlie tried to imagine either of them thinking of setting an alarm in the state they'd been in. First had come the unbridled lust, and then the sleepy collapse into each other's arms. He'd never slept so deeply in his life.

  Denise glanced around at the beads scattered all over the hall. "So you think someone is trying to steal the design for your …what did you call it, again?"

  "Hovercraft," Eve said. "And we don't have any proof that's what they're after. But someone broke through the back door while I was in New York this week and last night someone ..." She paused to take a shaky breath.

  "Someone was in the house when we came home from my mother's bakery," Charlie said.

  Denise's eyes widened. "How do you know that?"

  "We heard them leave." Charlie decided there was no reason to give Denise the lurid details.

  "What do you mean?"

  "There was a click, like the front door closing," Eve said. "We both heard it."

  Denise shuddered. "That's creepy. Are you sure you didn't imagine it?"

  "We thought so at first," Charlie said. "But when we checked the front door, it was unlocked. Eve's sure she locked it when we left for the bakery."

  "Well, you can't trust that information, Charlie." Denise glanced at her sister with a patronizing smile. "This one would forget her head if it weren't attached. She's the original scatterbrain."

  Charlie's jaw tensed. "Oh, I wouldn't say that. She's managed to put together one hell of a hovercraft, not to mention the fuel converter she designed herself. I don't know too many engineers who could have done as well, and I know a lot of engineers."

  "Thanks, Charlie." Eve smiled at him.

  God, she was something. He'd been too engrossed in the awkwardness of the situation to register how cute she looked standing there in his plaid flannel shirt. The sleeves covered all but the tips of her fingers and the bottom hem reached to the middle of her thighs. And those were damned sexy thighs, too. Her hair fanned out in luxurious waves around her shoulders and her cheeks were pink from sleep and good sex.

  Charlie wasn't up on sibling rivalry. He'd never had a sibling, so he wasn't sure how the whole dynamic worked. But watching the way Denise looked at Eve, he was getting a pretty good education on the subject.

  "I drove here today exactly because of that hovercraft," Denise said. "Eve doesn't have an engineering degree, and she tends to go off half-cocked. If you had a few hours I could tell you stories of what she did when we were kids."

  "I learned a lot from those experiments," Eve said.

  Charlie was glad to see her standing up for herself. "I'd like to hear about them one of these days. Sounds like fun."

  "The point is," Denise continued, "Eve has no business constructing something that will fly through the air. Someone is liable to get hurt."

  Charlie had some of those same concerns, but that didn't diminish his admiration for what Eve had accomplished. "There's an element of danger in every experiment," he said.

  "That's the key." Denise faced him her chin jutting with determination. "An element of danger is one thing. When I take risks in the stock market there's always an element of danger that it won't work out. But those risks are carefully calculated. I'll guarantee that Eve's project has at least a ninety percent chance of failing spectacularly."

  "I don't agree with those odds," Charlie said quietly. "The concept is brilliant and the execution is close to flawless."

  "And you know this because?"

  "I'm an electrical engineer with some background in mechanical
engineering. And I'm putting my knowledge at Eve's disposal, although she's already done most of the heavy lifting. I'll only be helping her fine-tune things."

  Denise looked him up and down, as if taking his measure. "Are you currently unemployed, then?"

  "He has a great job!" Eve said. "He's an electrical engineer for the Middlesex Light and Power Company. And one day soon he's going to be taking a position of great authority at Hoover Dam. Right, Charlie?"

  Charlie met the challenge in Denise's gaze. "I think your sister is wondering why a man with a normal job is standing barefoot in your entry way at ten o'clock on a Thursday morning."

  "That has crossed my mind," Denise said. She all but tapped her foot as she waited for an answer.

  "The fact is, I should be at work right now. I probably have a call on my cell wondering where I am. No doubt I've caused several people some concern, because I'm never late for work. As I mentioned, this was an unexpected development."

  Eve gasped. "I hadn't thought of that. You'd better call in right away. I'm sure people are wondering what happened to you. They might think you've been in an accident or something."

  "I'll call in a minute." Charlie felt as if he and Denise were having a high-noon sort of encounter. And he wasn't going to blink. "Maybe it's good for them to realize I'm not perfect."

  "I feel the need to point out that this is what can happen," Denise said. "Schedules thrown off today, dangerous accidents tomorrow. I should know. I lived with her for almost fourteen years. No telling what she got away with after I went off to college and wasn't there to keep an eye on her."

  "That's not fair, Denise." Eve combed her hair back from her face. "I'm not a kid anymore. You can't judge what I'm doing now based on twenty-year-old memories."

  "Yeah, you're older, and your projects have just become bigger and more dangerous!"