chapter Twelve
As Josh turned the truck onto a small pebbled lane, all he could see was darkness.
“Are you sure you haven’t forgotten how to get there?” he asked around a laugh.
“Funny, Josh. It’s just up here around the bend.”
The truck crawled along slowly, bumping and swaying over a couple of potholes. As it made the final bend in the road, Josh felt his mouth drop open.
Right in front of him, like something out of Gone with the Wind, was a driveway lined by huge oak trees draped in Spanish Moss. They were stunning all on their own, but when the six light posts on both sides of the driveway illuminated them, they were absolutely spectacular.
As Josh turned into the drive, he saw a huge white plantation-style mansion at the end of the road. He abruptly stopped the truck.
He turned to the woman beside him and asked, “This is your house?”
She gave him a lopsided grin and nodded. “Yep. This is home.”
Josh turned back to the opulence in front of him, suddenly feeling extremely intimidated. “That is not a home, Georgia. That’s a damn mansion.”
He heard her chuckle beside him.
“Try not to be too impressed when we get there. My father loves to gloat.”
Josh could understand why. He looked down at his thirteen-hour worn shirt and jeans, and then back at Shelly.
“Maybe we should go somewhere and change.”
She looked him over quickly and raised her eyebrows. “If we go somewhere and you take your clothes off, I’m not going to leave until you’ve been inside of me.”
Josh felt himself harden, and his eyes widened. “We are right outside your family’s house. I don’t think now is the time to be acting that way.”
Suddenly, she started laughing, hard.
“What?” he demanded, knowing her laughter was at his expense.
“You.” She paused to giggle. “You’re so proper all of a sudden. It’s just a house.”
“Georgia. That is not a house. My place back in Chicago is just a house.”
He watched her bite her lip to keep from laughing.
“Well, I wouldn’t know. I haven’t seen your house.”
He grunted at that. “Well, maybe you can visit when we get back.”
She moved across the truck, putting her hands on the middle seat to lean up to him. Josh looked down at her.
She whispered, “I have another deal for you.”
Josh shook his head and suddenly felt like this woman was weaving her hot Southern magic around him again.
“Oh yeah? And what’s that?” he asked like the stupid lust-hazed fool he was.
“I don’t have to go back to work until Wednesday. So, when we arrive back in town, if you show me your house on Tuesday morning, I promise not to put on a stitch of clothing until I need to head home on Tuesday night at 10:00 p.m.”
Josh looked at the woman who was seducing him with her words, instantly deciding he could call Cole and postpone their meeting. He muttered, “You’re trouble.”
She leaned in and flicked her tongue across his bottom lip. “And you love it.” Sitting back up, she said, “Let’s get this show on the road, Josh. I suddenly want it to be Tuesday.”
***
Shelly took a deep breath as the truck made its way up the long driveway. Josh was right. This place was a mansion, and she knew it was extremely impressive whenever people saw it for the first time.
She had loved growing up here.
It was a cool night, but nowhere near cold when compared to Chicago.
A lovely breeze was blowing through the majestically large trees that were draped with moss. The leaves and branches danced with the wind giving off an almost eerie but beautiful quality.
The main house itself was a throwback to the days of the plantations. It was massive and had four white columns at the front, supporting a balcony on the second level and a huge roof.
It was remarkable and enormous. That was what mattered to her father. Other people were impressed.
Sighing as Josh pulled the truck to a stop, Shelly flipped the visor down and looked in the mirror. She was a mess, but there was nothing she could do about that. Running a hand through her hair, she opened the passenger door when her mother appeared on the landing.
“Well, I’ll be damned. You made it here on time.”
Shelly smiled at her and moved up the stairs to hug her tight. “Of course, ma, we told you seven.”
“Oh, I know, I know! I just thought the traffic might hold ya’ll up a bit.” Her mother’s charming Southern accent reached Shelly and wrapped around her like a warm embrace.
Her mother made a move, looking at the man and dog behind Shelly.
Shelly turned to stand beside her, so she could also look at the pair. They looked disheveled and tired, but all in all, Shelly thought they made a very fine team—even though one was a hairy beast.
“And who do we have here?” her mother asked, walking down the stairs.
Shelly had always thought of her mother as a tiny powerhouse. The only problem was that she was never strong enough against the steel force that resided in this house—her father.
“Ma, I’d like you to meet Josh Daniels and his dog, Mutley.”
Shelly noticed Josh raised an eyebrow when she finally referred to the dog as indeed a dog. He stepped forward and took her mother’s hand in his.
“Please excuse me, ma’am. We’ve been traveling for nearly thirteen hours now, and I’m not as clean as I’d like to be.”
“Oh, please! Don’t you worry yourself ‘bout that. You look mighty fine to me.”
“Ma!”
“Well, it’s true. Fine young man you have here, Shel.”
Shelly groaned, moving down the stairs to the grinning Josh.
“Yes, well, this fine young man is going to grab his suitcase, and I’ll grab mine. We’ll be inside in a minute.”
Her mother turned and walked back up the stairs, mumbling. “I don’t know why you insist on talking like you ain’t from the South.”
Chuckling beside her, she turned to glare at Josh before giving up and grinning.
She asked in the sweetest most Southern accent she could muster up, “Hey, Ma? Where’s Father tonight? I thought for sure he’d be out here to greet us at the door.”
She heard Josh suck in a deep breath, and she knew he was reacting to her accent. Sucker.
“He’ll be here, sweetheart. Don’t you worry yourself. He wouldn’t miss ya’ll for the world,” she replied, walking inside.
Shelly turned and leaned up against the truck. “Well?”
“Well what?” Josh questioned as he lifted the first bag out.
“I know you’re dying to say something to me, cowboy?” Shelly asked, still putting on the thick country accent.
“Hmm. All I’m going to say to you is the next time we’re all alone and you’re wrapped around me…I want you to talk just like that.”
“Why?” she teased in her Southern twang as she sidled up closer, wrapping her arms around his waist. Tipping her head back, she bumped her hips up against his. “Oh, I see. You like the way I talk all country. It that right, Joshuahh?” she asked, adding an extra-long drawl to his name.
He reached up, taking her face between his hands. “Yeah, I like this country girl.”
“Well, good, cowboy, ‘cause she likes you, too.”
She went up on her tiptoes and was about to kiss him when another truck drove up the driveway.
Letting go of him, Shelly took a step back, glancing at Josh with a tight smile. She dropped the accent altogether and straightened her spine.
“Good thing you didn’t have your lips on me, Josh. My father would have shot you on sight.”
With that comment, she walked around the truck to greet her father.
***
Josh watched as Shelly made her way over to the truck that had just pulled up. He leaned against the side of his own truck with his arms crossed, watching the man that got out of the Ford F-150.
He was tall and blonde, instantly reminding Josh of Robert Redford. The guy was good-looking, and Josh could see where Shelly had inherited the fair skin and blue eyes.
When the man kissed her cheek, Josh noticed Shelly was still and stiff, losing that relaxed air she’d had about her only five minutes earlier.
Mutley took the opportunity to run around the truck, heading over to the stranger. Josh watched as her father bent down, his hand reaching out to ruffle over the dog’s head. Mutley, of course, licked his hand and wagged his tail. With a smile, Josh noticed Shelly was discreetly taking a step away from the dog, still not quite comfortable with him.
Josh found himself grinning until her father stood and turned to look at him.
As their eyes locked, Josh felt the other man assess him straight away. Shrewd eyes took in the truck first, then they moved back to him, looking over the T-shirt and jeans, and then he turned back to the dog and his daughter.
Josh was left wondering if he had passed or failed. Well, I’m about to find out, he thought. With a pinched expression, the man made his way over to Josh with the dog trotting along one side and his daughter on the other. Stopping when they reached Josh, her father held out his hand.
“Hello. I’m Dr. Lawrence Monroe.”
Oh shit, Josh thought as he looked to Shelly. Her father is a doctor, too?
He wondered if that had anything to do with the cool relationship between the two of them.
Josh reached out, taking his hand in a firm clasp, and shook it. He had to look up at the man and found himself caught in a kind of stare down.
Josh had promised himself he would not be intimidated. After all, he was successful and owned his own company, not that Shelly knew that. Overall, he was a good guy.
A good guy who wants to sleep with this man’s daughter. So?
“Nice to meet you, sir. I’m Joshua Daniels.”
Since when did I start calling people sir and ma’am? When I entered the South?Who knows?
“Yes, so my daughter was just tellin’ me.” He paused, and then turned to look at Shelly, effectively dismissing him. “Dinner will be served at 7:30.”
Shelly nodded. “We’ll be there.”
He looked his daughter over again, and then turned back to Josh, looking him over, too. “Cleaned up, I presume?”
“Of course,” Shelly muttered.
Josh watched as her father walked up the stairs and into the house where Shelly’s mother had disappeared to earlier.
Shelly turned to face him, giving him a smile so painfully false that it almost looked as though it hurt her face.
“And that is my father.”
***
With Josh’s help, Shelly had managed to get her things inside and upstairs to her bedroom. Then, she’d directed him to the room across from hers. She had just finished washing up, and she was slipping into some cutoff jean shorts when there was a knock on the door. She tied her blue-and-white gingham shirt at the waist and opened the door to see a fresh-faced, cleaned-up Josh leaning against the frame.
He looked her up and down, and then moved back out into the corridor, glancing both ways. Pushing her back into her room and following her, he shut the door and leaned back against it, pinning her with fiery eyes. She had just finished tying her hair into a high but messy ponytail and hadn’t put on any shoes yet.
“Whatcha doin’, Josh?”
She watched as he reached down between his legs with one of his big hands, adjusting the hard-on that had very obviously formed behind the faded denim. And didn’t that just send a shiver of desire straight down between my thighs.
“Just looking at you. I had this exact fantasy in my car today.”
She licked her lips and moved closer to him. “Oh yeah? And what was the fantasy?”
He let his eyes travel down her legs, and then they came back up to rest on her face. “You in a cowgirl hat, some Daisy Dukes, and cowboy boots.”
Shelly laughed, placing a hand on his chest. “Well, one out of three ain’t bad, sugah.”
“When you talk like that, the other two don’t even need to exist.”
“Hmm,” Shelly hummed in the back of her throat. “We’ve still got an hour or so before dinner.”
“We do, don’t we?” Josh told her as he pushed himself off the door, starting to walk forward. Reaching out, he grasped the knot that rested over her navel.
With each step he took forward, Shelly took a step back. “And just what do you think we should do in those sixty or so minutes?”
“Well,” he drawled, his eyes watching his fingers as they untied the knot. “I think we should start with this,” he told her right before he gripped the material and pulled it apart, the buttons popping from the shirt.
Shelly gasped, and then felt a smile touch her lips as she watched Josh give her the most deliciously wicked grin she had ever seen.
“And then what?” she asked, uncaring of the fact that she was now standing in front of him in her ripped shirt, her breasts barely covered by a black demi-cup bra, and cutoff jean shorts.
“Then,” he said as he reached out, stroking a fingertip down her chest, dipping it into her navel, and then stopping at the top of her shorts, “I’ll undo these.”
Feeling her heart start to beat rapidly, Shelly reached out and gripped his hand.
His eyes came up to meet hers, and he asked, “No?”
Chuckling at him, Shelly shook her head and whispered, “I don’t have a lock on my door, Josh.”
He blinked, and then what she was telling him seemed to sink in. He looked over his shoulder at the unlocked door, and then back to her.
“You don’t?”
Biting her bottom lip, Shelly gave him an impish grin and reached out with a fingertip to trace his shoulder.
In the country voice she knew melted him, she drawled, “Nu-uh, sugah. Ma didn’t trust me to have a lock on the door.”
***
Josh felt his mouth fall open after that comment. F*ck, she is sexy.
As she stood there with her ripped shirt and her sly little grin, Josh almost fell to his knees. He was debating in his head if it was worth the risk to do what he wanted, knowing that the door was unlocked, when she took the choice out of his hands.
“I’ve always wanted a boy to kiss me in my bedroom.”
Josh licked his lips, knowing he was up, literally, for that challenge.
“No boy ever came up here?”
Shelly shook her head, and for some reason, that answer greatly pleased Josh. How stupid is that?
“Georgia, if this boy kisses you in your room, he’s not going to stop,” he warned her, reaching out to touch her sexy lips with his finger.
True to form—well, true to the man-eater he knew—Shelly nipped his finger, once again shocking him to his boots.
“I’d be disappointed if he did.”
Groaning low, Josh made up his mind.
Slipping his fingers into her shorts, he unsnapped the buttons and parted the material.
As her bare skin appeared, Josh sent up a prayer of thanks that he was the one standing here about to lay down with Shelly Monroe.
He slid his hand down into her jean shorts and panties, turning his hand around so his palm was cupping her, and watched as her mouth parted on a sigh.
Her eyes were on his, and he couldn’t help but smile as he whispered, “Shh, got to be quiet up here. Don’t want anyone to come in and ruin the moment.”
***
Shelly widened her legs just a little to get Josh’s hand deeper inside her Daisy Dukes. Closing her eyes for a minute, she wiggled closer to him and tried to slow her breathing as she felt his clever fingers slip down between her wet lips.
“So, tell me, Georgia, you think you can keep it down?”
Opening her eyes, Shelly looked into his sparkling ones. “I don’t know, Josh. Willing to risk it?”
“F*ck yeah,” he told her as he reached out with his free hand, hauling her in close. He kept his other hand down her shorts while his mouth crashed down on hers, his tongue spearing into her mouth.
Shelly squirmed against his fingers as she reached up, wrapping her arms around his neck. Tilting her head to the side, she moaned as he deepened the angle of the kiss, his tongue rubbing and stroking up against her own.
“Josh,” she begged. Then, his hand left her pants. “No,” she cried out, hearing him chuckle as he put that hand under her ass, hitching her up into his arms.
Shelly immediately wrapped her legs around his waist as he walked around to the bed she had slept in her whole adolescent life.
Placing her down on the edge of it, Shelly scooted across the comforter, laying back with her legs hanging off the side.
“So, you really are going to have me under you—under my father’s roof?”
Josh shook his head, reaching out to grip her shorts and panties. Biting his lip, he concentrated on tugging them off of her.
“Let’s not discuss that right now,” he groaned.
“Why not, Josh?” Shelly asked. After her shorts and panties were removed, she raised a foot to the edge of the bed, now giving him an unobstructed view of just how excited she really was. “Do you feel guilty?”
***
Josh sure as shit did not feel guilty.
He felt horny, hungry, and ready to f*cking explode.
She was lying across her bed with her shirt ripped apart, her sexy bra still in place, and nothing on from the waist down. As if that wasn’t enough, she had raised her foot to rest on the edge of the mattress, and he could now see her glistening, plump lips weeping for him.
“I don’t feel guilty at all. I just don’t want to talk about your father right now,” he told her as he reached down, unsnapping his own jeans at a record pace.
“Well, I can understand that,” she told him as though she wasn’t lying there naked and open to him. “But, Josh, you need to understand something.”
Josh stepped out of his jeans and boxers, and then pulled his shirt over his head. He stopped, completely naked, and raised a brow.
“What? What is it I need to understand, Georgia?”
***
Shelly couldn’t remember.
She had been about to tell him something. But after he had lost the shirt and pants, her eyes had latched onto his built chest, where an intricate little symbol was inked onto his right pec, and all thoughts had left her head. Slowly, as her eyes glanced at his impressive hard-on, she licked her lips, and then raised her eyes to his.
“Huh?”
A slow, sensual smile spread across his lips as he moved to the edge of the bed. Reaching out, he slid a long finger slowly through her wetness.
Sucking in a deep breath, Shelly let her bent leg fall open into a wide straddle.
“You don’t have a shy bone in your sexy-as-sin body, do you, Shel?”
Keeping her eyes on his, she asked, “No. Should I?”
“No, you sure as hell shouldn’t,” he breathed out, reaching down to grip the ankle of her bent leg. Tugging her down until her ass was at the edge of the bed, he kept hold of her ankle in his hand, pushing her leg back toward her body.
Holy f*ck, the way his eyes are looking over me—it’s making me so goddamn hot. I’m surprised I haven’t set the mattress on fire.
“Do I need to get something?” he asked, his eyes battling for where they should look.
His voice, so low and deep, felt as if it had vibrated right through her. Shelly tried to comprehend what he was asking, but she was coming up blank. She wanted him, and she wanted him now.
“Shel?” he asked with a little more force, tightening the grip on her ankle. “Do I need protection?”
“Oh,” she sighed, shaking her head.
She lowered her eyes and raised her hips. “I’m on birth control. So, unless you think—”
“I’m not thinking much about anything but getting inside of you. I’m safe. It’s been months. You?”
“I’m good, too,” she sighed, her eyes now moving down to his pulsating cock that was so close yet still so damn far away from her.
“Well, in that case—”
“In-that-case discussion is over, Josh,” she almost whined. Shelly watched as a feral grin met those sexy lips of his. “Please?” she added, batting her eyelashes.
She watched as he looked to the side. He reached out, grabbing a pillow. Shelly felt even more moisture pool down between her thighs, knowing exactly what he had planned.
“Lift up,” he told her in a deep gruff voice.
Raising her naked hips, she watched as Josh placed the pillow beneath her, making her the perfect height to his own.
Reaching down his own body, he gripped that fantastically hard cock in his hand, and Shelly thought she might come from that alone.
He lifted his burning gaze from her aching body and moved closer, dragging his hot tip through her weeping folds.
“Now, Georgia?”
“Yes?” Shelly panted, feeling her body contract with each slow delicious slide of him against her throbbing *.
“Do you need something to scream into?”
Shelly felt both her eyebrows raise at that as she asked, “Scream, huh?”
Josh nodded, gripping her hips tight, as he thrust his cock so deep and hard inside of her that she had a hard time keeping a scream from leaving her mouth. Instead, she bit her lip with so much force that she thought she might draw blood.
When he was buried to the hilt in her warmth, he stilled and looked down at her, trying to get a hold of his breathing. “So?” he asked on a panting breath. “Do you need something, Georgia?”
Feeling her breath coming fast and her body contracting from the thick intrusion of his body, Shelly lifted her legs to his hips and wrapped them around his ass. She then reached down and brought the end of her shirt to her mouth. “Do your best, rock star,” she challenged, and then clamped her teeth around the material.
***
Josh gripped her naked hips and hauled her tighter to his body, if that was possible. He felt like his cock was encased in a warm fist. Although she was dripping wet, she was so tight that Josh thought he might have hurt her at first, but no, it was clear that Shelly was ready to enjoy the ride.
Rocking his hips a little, Josh closed his eyes and groaned.
“Do you need something to keep you quiet?” she asked from below.
Opening his eyes, he noticed Shelly had removed her shirt from her mouth and now had her hands busy, squeezing her bra-covered breasts.
“Pull it down,” he instructed, watching as she immediately obeyed.
He flexed his hips, and she moaned softly as she pinched her tight nipples.
“Make me scream, Josh.”
Never one to disappoint a lady, Josh gripped her hips and ass and started to slowly pull out of her snug body. Her eyes latched onto his, and her hips chased his as he thrust home.
“F*ck, Georgia,” he hissed, starting to move his hips at a fast and steady clip.
He couldn’t slow down. The climax was barreling down his spine, urging him toward completion. There was not a damn thing he could do about it.
Looking down at the sexy woman below him, he watched as one of her hands slid down her body to where his cock was sliding in and out, and then she touched him. Her flirty little fingers stroked his wet cock with each pull out and every thrust back in until his climax gripped him hard, and he gritted his teeth. He felt her body grip his cock tight while he heard her muffled scream. He clenched his jaw and flew over the edge of sanity with her.
***
Later that night as they sat around the dining room table, Josh started to wonder how he could have gone from feeling such bliss only an hour or so earlier to such extreme awkwardness.
Dinner was painful as he sat opposite Shelly while her mother and father sat on each end. At least, the food, roast beef and vegetables, was absolutely delicious. As the meal was winding down, Josh could sense a shift in the air. Now that the small talk was over, it seemed the real stuff was about to happen.
He just wasn’t sure what the “real stuff” involved.
Josh had been right in his first opinion of Dr. Lawrence Monroe. He did look like the actor Robert Redford. He had sandy blonde hair that was a little longer than a classic, clean cut, and his eyes were a piercing blue that seemed to slice right into you without a second thought. Did I mention the man is tall?
By the looks of him, he was tall and strong, not at all fitting Josh’s picture of a doctor. Usually, doctors were wiry, lean, and intellectual. Not this guy—this guy looked like a tough quarterback.
“So, Joshua, what is it that you do?”
“Here we go,” Shelly muttered as she picked up her glass of red wine.
“What? I’m just askin’ the boy what he does for a livin’,” her father told her matter-of-factly.
“He’s not a boy, Father, and you weren’t just asking. You’re judging when you have no room to.”
“Shel, please,” her mother whispered.
Josh decided that now was a good time to answer. “I’m in construction.”
Josh watched as Shelly stiffened in her seat, and then he noticed her father arch the same damn eyebrow she used.
“You work in a construction crew?”
Josh thought about this and wondered if it were a trick question. He looked to Shelly, who was taking another sip of her wine. Then, she did something he wouldn’t have expected. She gave him a smug look and turned to her father.
Suddenly, it all fell together as he sat there in the firing line. He was the target. For some reason, she had brought him all the way across the country to deflect her father’s bullets onto an unsuspecting bystander—him.
While he didn’t overly care about this man’s opinion, Shelly’s behavior pissed him off. So, she did care that he was in construction, or so she thought, and she had decided to use that to as ammunition against her father..
Nice, Man-Eater, real nice.
“Yes, I work with a construction crew—as in building things, such as restaurants, offices, and hospitals, just in case you weren’t sure.”
Josh didn’t like to be rude. When he heard Mrs. Monroe suck in a breath, he felt a slight twinge of guilt until Shelly’s father spoke.
“And that satisfies you?” he asked. “Is it really the kind of job that is stable enough these days to provide for a family?”
Josh felt a headache forming and clenched his teeth. He was about to answer when Shelly decided to pipe up.
“Father, Josh doesn’t have a wife. Otherwise, I hardly think he’d be here, trying to get to know me better.”
Josh blinked across at her, not believing she had just said that.
“Shelly, why do you find the need to be so blunt and distasteful about these things?” her father asked.
Josh sat dumbfounded as the sweet Southern girl disappeared, and the Man-Eater appeared.
“Why shouldn’t I? I took lessons from the best, Father. If I’m attracted to someone, I should just tell them or show them, and I am most definitely attracted to Josh.” She paused and took another sip of her wine as she turned her smoldering blue eyes on him.
Josh felt that hot stare all the way down to his toes, but he was still livid with her. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to nail her or strangle her.
“I mean, look at him.”
“Shelly Monroe! That’s quite enough,” her mother snapped her accent sharper, like a whip cracking.
Josh watched Shelly turn to face the small woman at the other end of the table.
“Is that right, Mother? When will what he does be enough for you?”
“Shelly!” her father boomed.
Josh watched her stand.
“What, Father?” she said, now adding an ugly twist to the word. “You’re quite happy to sit in lofty judgment and regard of everyone else in this world, but when it comes to you—shhh, we can’t talk about that.” She stood and moved to leave the room. When she reached the door, she turned back to look at her mother. “I’m sorry, Ma, but what he does, it just isn’t right. Not for me and certainly not for you.” With that, she left with her wine glass in hand.
Josh sat completely still in the aftermath of a storm he didn’t quite understand.
Then, her mother’s soft accent floated across the quiet space, “I’m sure she went down to the barn, Josh, if you’d like to go after her. It’s down the back of the property.”
Josh nodded, placing his utensils down. “Thank you for dinner,” he said as politely as he could before he left the now cold and silent room.