Show and Tell

by Jasmine Haynes

  He could never ride the surface of a relationship with her. He’d done it for too many years with Katy.

  He made it to the depot in San Jose by 6:05, a few minutes prior to departure. Traffic had been hell, but thank God most commuters took either the light rail or Caltrain so he didn’t need to fight for a parking spot. The southbound train rumbled on the track, the platform deserted except for a mother bustling two children and a collapsible stroller through the middle door of the second car. Diesel fuel laced with the scent of damp concrete faintly perfumed the night air. Since he didn’t have luggage, he boarded with a minimum of fuss.

  Seating was unassigned, a free-for-all, but the compartments were sparsely filled. Starting at the front, he worked his way back through the aisles and the double-decker dining area.

  He found her in the last car, huddled in a companion row of four seats facing each other. Her blonde hair piled in a knot on her crown, she buried her nose in a book. In the otherwise deserted train car, he took the window seat facing her and waited for her to drop the book. She didn’t.

  The cover displayed a torrid clinch of naked body parts. There might have been scarves twined about a pair of hands, but he couldn’t determine without closer perusal. Crossing her legs, calling attention to the slit in her skirt, she flipped a page.

  And ignored him. The train belched, shuddered, jerked lightly, then rolled out of the station. Scott absorbed himself in her every detail as the night began to race by.

  The three open buttons of her emerald green blouse revealed a significant amount of cleavage. The calf-length skirt was circumspect, but the black stockings were a promise, and her left high heel swung back and forth on her toes. Keeping her nose in the book, she leaned forward to slide a hand slowly down her leg, propped the shoe back on her heel, then slid all the way back up, lifting the hem of her skirt enough to make his cock jump.

  She would always do that to him. He didn’t know how to convince her they could be so much more. The fantasy would never be enough. No matter how badly he wanted her, he needed more.

  Lifting her eyes to his over the top of her book for a brief glimpse, she then returned to the pages. Two, three times, she glanced up, each a little longer, her gaze gliding over his body. Finally, she dropped the book to her lap and began to play with a button as she read, tracing one finger idly down her chest to disappear in the V of her blouse. He wanted to follow with his tongue. Up, up, up again, to the hollow of her throat, his gaze tracked every move until his breath came faster and his blood pressure rose. His pants got tighter. She leaned forward, slipping her hand from her knee to the bottom of the skirt’s slit, where she stopped to caress her ankle. Her blouse fell open, giving him an eyeful of her breasts and the lacy bra that barely covered her nipples.

  She began to straighten, shifted her body slightly, and the book fell from her lap. She met his gaze with an ooh of dismay.

  Scott bent to pick it up, snapping it shut, then slid into the seat next to her. Raising the armrest so it no longer separated them, he let his thigh come to rest against her. The train rocked, and she swayed toward him.

  Handing her the book, his fingers lingered on hers. “I’m afraid you lost your place.” He needed her to find him.

  “And it was such a good place, too.” She sighed. “They were about to . . . ,” she trailed off, then smiled, her lashes lowered seductively. “Well, it was something naughty, so I really shouldn’t say.”

  “Show me the spot, and I’ll read it myself.” He would write them a fucking new story with the ending he wanted.

  She hugged the racy novel to her breasts. “I couldn’t do that. I don’t even know you.”

  “Oh, but I do believe we’ve met somewhere before.”

  “I don’t think so,” she murmured, her voice low, husky, tempting. “I’d have remembered you.”

  “Let me introduce myself.” Let me start over with you and make everything right.

  She put her hand over his mouth, and his brain misfired at the light scent of her fruity lotion, her soft touch, and her gorgeous eyes.

  “Let me introduce myself.” All her seductive flirtiness vanished. “I’m Trinity Green. My husband cheated on me two months ago, and I knew in that moment that I’d divorce him.” She lifted one corner of her mouth in what he could only hope was a smile. “I used to want men to tell me how pretty I was, what a perfect little girl I was, the dream wife, the dream girlfriend.”

  “You are.” And so much more.

  She shushed him with a finger to her own lips. “When my husband left me . . .” She fanned the pages of her book as if looking for an answer in its words. “When he left, I decided I was going to indulge in all the things I’d missed. Good food, good wine.” She saluted him with an imaginary glass. “But most of all I was going to enjoy good sex.” She captured his gaze. “I met you that same night.”

  Scott forgot to breathe.

  “And ever since, I’ve been trying to get you to tell me how perfect sex with me is, that I’m the best you’ve ever had.”

  “You’re that and more—” He cut himself off at her look.

  She tipped her head, regarding him a long moment that stretched his nerves. “But,” she said, “I finally realized that I was doing exactly the same thing with you as I’d done with my husband. Looking for my perfect reflection in your eyes.”

  She was perfect for him. In every way, not just sex. But she was trying to tell him something, or maybe she was trying to tell herself.

  She curled her feet beneath her and shifted back into the corner of her seat. “It isn’t true that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. My own beauty is in here.” She rubbed her temple. “What counts is how I feel about myself. I’m the one I have to try the hardest to please, not everyone else.” Reaching for his hand, she lifted it to her lips and placed a sweet kiss on his knuckles. “I wanted to keep you a secret so that no one could say I was wrong for the things I did with you. So that no one could make me feel ashamed.”

  His chest hurt, and he closed his eyes. The one thing he couldn’t handle was her shame, when everything they’d done together was so right. Then he felt her touch along his jaw.

  “But I figured out I was seeing it all wrong,” she murmured. “The shame was in letting other people’s opinions matter when what we had between us was so hot and so beautiful. Even Norman.” Her breath whispered across his cheek.

  Something started to melt inside him.

  “The only thing wrong about what happened with Norman was why I did it—to punish you. Two people who care shouldn’t resort to punishing each other.”

  He opened his eyes. She beamed him a gorgeous smile that kick-started his adrenalin. “Forgive me?” she asked.

  “There is nothing you’ve done that needs forgiving.”

  The blue of her eyes softened. “I am ready for a relationship, Scott.”

  “What kind of relationship?” Scott put his fingers to her lips before she could answer him. “Wait. Don’t say a word.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “My name’s Scott Sinclair. I’m forty-five, I have two beautiful daughters in college, and a couple of years ago, after twenty-two years of marriage, my wife walked out because I put my job and my career above my family and my home.” Removing his touch from her mouth, Scott leaned close, inhaling as if he needed to gather her scent deep inside. “I’m not perfect at relationships, and I’ve made a lot of mistakes.”

  Trinity knew all that about him, but just as he’d let her say everything she needed to, she had to allow him the same, when God, all she wanted was to throw herself on him.

  He touched her chin and tipped her head to meet his gaze. “I bulldozed over your feelings, always demanding more.” Stroking a lock of hair, he tucked it behind her ear, his caress so sweet and gentle. “It’s hard admitting aloud that I was a total jerk Saturday night, but I wanted you to walk into the living room and make some sort of open declaration to your father. Tell him you were mine. It felt like
shit that you wanted to keep what we had a secret. ”

  She parted her lips, but he wouldn’t let her say it, stopping her with a tilt of his chin. “Don’t apologize for that either. I never gave you the chance to deal with your divorce, your father, me. I rushed everything. I rushed what happened with Norman.”

  She leaned in to nuzzle his ear. “It’s nice to have a guy take all the blame.” No one had ever done that for her before. Scott had given her so many firsts. “But it does take two to screw things up, you know. I’ve made mistakes, treated you badly, and I’m not perfect. I won’t ever be perfect.”

  He cupped her jaw and brought her gaze back to his. “I don’t want a perfect dream girl. I don’t need a dream. I need a real woman, imperfections and all.”

  It was just what her heart needed to hear.

  He tipped his head back, closing his eyes, then finally stroked with the lightest touch down her cheek to the corner of her mouth. “But I can’t be your hot little secret anymore.”

  Her heart stopped, then thumped hard, fast. “I don’t want a secret. ”

  “And I don’t want just a relationship.”

  This time her heart beat its way into her throat. “What do you want then?” Please don’t leave, not now, not when I’ve figured out I can do this right with you.

  “I’m in love with you. Are you prepared to deal with that?”

  Oh God, she could breathe again. She wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. Instead, she held his hand to her cheek. “Don’t scare me like that. I thought you’d sayonara, baby me.”

  He laughed but it had the slightest edge to it, as if he were remembering her sayonara, baby voice mail. “I told you I’d never be the one to end this,” he said.

  “Yeah, I know, but I’m struggling to find myself, and for a second there I didn’t think you’d put up with that.”

  Turning, he kissed her palm. “Trust me, I’m a helluva lot older than you, and I’m still struggling.”

  The train swayed on the track, the iron wheels a steady shush outside the window. The heating was on a little too high, but Trinity still wanted to burrow into him.

  “I’ve never been in love before,” she whispered. “I’m not sure what it feels like.” Was it the ache in her chest when she’d left him the other night? Or the way she wanted to e-mail him a thousand times a day? Or how his scent, man, soap, aftershave, made her feel safe yet hot all over?

  “Sometimes it feels like you’re dying,” he said.

  Like the three weeks she’d gone cold turkey and kept telling herself she was fine even though the fear of never hearing his voice again was . . . like dying. “I’ve been afraid of thinking I’m in love and finding out—” She cut herself off before she even finished the thought and sat up straight next to him. “I’ve been afraid of everything . What other people think of me. Upsetting my father. Doing a bad job. Being a bad friend. Afraid you’re going to ask too much of me.” She took his hand in hers. “But you make me want to stop being afraid and give you everything.”

  With a hand at her nape, he pulled her close for a lingering kiss. “I will always ask for too much. Because I want so much.”

  His smile felt so good, her heart actually ached with it. “You make me love you, Scott. I don’t have a choice.”

  “Good, because neither do I. With you, I feel more alive than I have in years, and it makes me a little crazy wanting to get inside you.” He glanced down. “In a metaphorical sense.”

  She laughed, slightly giddy with his closeness. “You didn’t mean that metaphorically.” But he did bring up the age thing earlier, and really, it wasn’t something they could ignore forever. Especially after the nasty thing she’d said in her father’s foyer. “I apologize for calling you old. I was angry with something my father said, and I took it out on you.” He nodded his acceptance, and she went on. “But does it bother you that I’m closer to your daughters’ ages than I am to yours?”

  “I love my daughters, but I’m in love with you. Age doesn’t make a difference.” Then he leaned his forehead against hers to whisper, “Now, about how fucking kinky you are. That makes a definite difference. ”

  Her heart turned over at his words. He loved her. It was incredibly scary yet amazingly wonderful. “You turn everything back to sex,” she teased.

  “And I always will because you make me crazy enough to want to try every new thing I can think of.”

  “See?” She smiled. “You’re all about sex.” She put a finger to the tip of his nose. “But will your daughters get over me being a ditz that night at the restaurant? I mean, first impressions.” She pursed her lips. “Not that I’d give you up even if they hated me.”

  With a hand on her hip, he hitched her closer to his body heat. “I’ll never let you give me up. Once was enough. I couldn’t take it again.” He pecked her mouth. “But my girls love me, they want me to be happy, and you make me happy, so they’ll come around.”

  His words cocooned her like a fleece blanket. “You make me happy,” she whispered, then poked him in the chest. “But don’t think you’re going to get out of doing naughty things with me wherever and whenever I choose”—she dropped her voice seductively— “even with whomever watching us.” Craning over the top of the seat, she glanced through the rest of the car. Empty. “So”—she nuzzled his neck—“do you think anyone would notice if we got a little kinky back here?”

  “I’m not passing up my train fantasy, baby.”

  “I can give you that.” She licked the seam of his lips, loving his taste. “And a whole lot more.” Whatever he wanted. She wanted it, too.

  Jasmine Haynes has been penning stories for as long as she’s been able to write. Storytelling has always been her passion. With a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, she has worked in the high-tech Silicon Valley for the last twenty years and hasn’t met a boring accountant yet! Well, maybe a few. She and her husband live with their cat Eddie (short for Eddie Munster, get the picture) and Star, the mighty moose-hunting dog (if she weren’t afraid of her own shadow). Jasmine’s pastimes, when not writing her heart out, are hiking in the Redwoods and taking long walks on the beach.

  Jasmine also writes as Jennifer Skully and JB Skully. She loves to hear from readers. Please e-mail her at skully@ skullybuzz.com or visit her website www.skullybuzz.com. Her newsletter subscription is skullybuzz-subscribe@yahoo groups.com.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  About the Author