CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Yikes ! What had she done?

She’d never seen Billboard like this before. The words she’d normally use to describe the man were stoic, loyal, steadfast…but never had she seen this dangerously playful side of him.

And it gave her frissons all over.

The good kind.

O’Shea circled Billboard’s small dining room table, wanting to get into the kitchen where there was a door to the back yard. She managed to skirt Billboard as he went clockwise and she went the opposite, gaining her objective, which she immediately attempted to yank open. But…grrr. It was locked. She fiddled with it for a moment until…success.

She wrenched the door inward and launched herself out, just managing to dodge the swish of air she felt as Billboard’s hands nearly reached her.

Once outside, she tore across the yard, scouting her surroundings, wondering where to go next. There was a fence all around the property. She could try to scale it, but chances are, Billboard would snag her legs before she made it very far.

She whirled about. There were paths that led to Billboard’s front yard on one side, and to his mother’s on the other, but Billboard had positioned himself smack dab between the two escape routes, grinning, with his arms crossed over his chest.

“What’s it going to be, O’Shea?” he taunted devilishly.

Maybe if she dodged…

O’Shea made up her mind quickly, feinting to the right, then speeding off to the left, but she hadn’t fooled Billboard.

He ran for her and…

Dammit!

His arms came around her waist and he scooped her from her feet.

O’Shea squirmed, but the iron muscled-manacles wouldn’t budge.

Eventually, she gave in.

That had gone well.

Laughter began bubbling up in her throat as she squirmed. Oh, yeah. She was good and trapped.

If Billboard had been a perp, of course, she would have fought him tooth and nail; head-butted his nose, kicked back into his balls, but… She liked the first appendages too much to do it damage, and those second soft bits… Well, she hadn’t seen them yet, but she certainly hoped to, and didn’t want them compromised in any way.

Billboard kissed the top of her head, then hefted her like she weighed nothing, sending her up and over his left shoulder.

“Hey,” she complained with a pretend, outraged snicker. “I wasn’t going anywhere.”

“Yeah, but now I have access to…” He brought up his large, free palm, placed it firmly on her ass, and made small circles.

“Oh, no you don’t,” she hissed with some sass. “Unless you give me carte blanche with your body, you’re not getting free access to mine.”

“We’ll see about that,” he retorted, then began marching toward his back door.

There was the sound of a footstep on the adjoining deck.

“George?”

O’Shea groaned. Just what she needed. Billboard’s mother being witness to her humiliation.

“Hi Mom. What’s up?” Billboard paused and answered casually, as if O’Shea wasn’t draped all over him.

“Um, I was about to ask you the same thing.” Celia’s voice held equal parts amusement and censure.

“Oh. This?” He spanked O’Shea’s ass.

O’Shea would get him for that. She pictured his eyebrows rising innocently.

“O’Shea and I were just having a discussion.”

O’Shea banged her head against his rock-hard back. Seriously ?

She took it upon herself to talk to his Mom. “He’s actually not behaving himself at all, Celia, so I might need some help. Can’t you give him a time-out or something?”

“Hmm. Probably not,” the woman answered with a hint of laughter in her tone. “He started challenging that form of punishment when he was about six, so I don’t think it would do us any good now. But tell me honestly. Do you actually need my intervention? Because I worked late, and I’m dying to change into my pj’s. So, if you two think you can contain your…squabbling…”

O’Shea snorted. Squabbling, huh ? More like Billboard was being a jerk; promising a conversation earlier to clear the air, then clamming up before going all troglodyte on her.

But, if that’s how he wanted things…

“Don’t worry, Celia,” O’Shea reassured the woman. “I’ve got him right where I want him.” And to prove her point, she wiggled her soft breasts into Billboard’s back. Sure enough, she felt a small, nearly silent groan escape him.

Indeed.

O’Shea smirked. Despite her precarious position and the location of his warm palm, O’Shea was damned sure she had the upper hand.

“Okay then,” Celia remarked amiably. “Have fun.” The woman walked back into her side of the house, the door closing behind her.

“ You’ve got me ?” Billboard scoffed as soon as his mother was inside. “Uh, O’Shea? I think your brain is scrambled from being upside down.”

“Oh really? We’ll see about that.”

He’d find out how wrong he was.

Slowly, but with deliberate intent, she reached down and grasped the hem of his shirt, hiking it up methodically to reveal, inch by inch, his bare back.

“What are you doing?” he growled.

“Just having a look,” she answered innocently. “I wondered if you had ink back here to match your arms and chest.”

“None,” he stated with a glower in his voice, but it didn’t deter her. She knew what she wanted, and it involved her mouth on all that luscious skin.

As soon as his shirt was high enough, she sent her tongue out to lick a line up his spine.

“O’Shea,” he yelped. “What the hell?”

“Mmm. Relax,” she told him, smoothing across his breadth with her fingers as she continued to kiss. “I’m just getting started.” She soothed, then bit the protrusion of one shoulder blade.

“Like hell you are,” he barked, and began taking huge strides toward his door.

Hah ! It was time to escalate her assault.

Moving her hands from his upper back, she swiftly threaded them downward into the waistband of his jeans. Oh, yeah. She knew exactly where she was headed.

Just as she breached his briefs, however, she was abruptly dragged upward and yanked back over his shoulder to find herself cradled in his hard, corded arms.

“Mmphh.” She lost her breath for a minute. The view of his lustful face was more than any red-blooded girl could take, soo…

Yup . Not a bad switcheroo. If Billboard thought her new position would keep her from going after what she wanted, he could think again. Didn’t he know her by now?

Almost before she was settled, she pulled down the collar of his T-shirt and fastened her lips to his collarbone. She felt him shiver, and there was a definite vibration under her mouth; one of satisfaction if she were reading things right.

To give him props on his concentration skills, the man continued walking. But as they entered Billboard’s kitchen, she snuggled in further, her lips roaming further, up and down his delicious neck. She was loving the hell out of his flavor, slightly salty with a hint of musk. His pheromones had attracted her before, but now, with the taste of him tantalizing her senses… Glorious .

Billboard groaned. “Why can’t you behave?”

“I thought I was,” she answered cheekily, taking another swipe with her tongue. “All this ink to explore,” she purred. “I hope you don’t have any plans for the evening.”

He huffed. “I don’t. But I thought you were moving out?”

“Huh,” she countered. “I thought you were going to sit me down and try to talk me out of it.”

“Talk…” he responded, and she could almost feel him withdraw as his feet stuttered to a stop. “Right. We haven’t done that yet.”

“Nope.” O’Shea made up her mind then and there, and if Billboard didn’t like it, tough. “No turning back. You put communication off at least three times tonight, and now I’m calling a moratorium for the balance of the evening. The next few hours are all about ripping off clothes and getting to know each other in a different way.”

O’Shea held her breath, waiting for his verdict. She’d never force him into anything.

“Are you sure?” he asked, a crack showing in his ever-present armor.

“Haven’t I said so since the get-go?” she rebutted. “I’ve wanted you naked since the first time we met, and I’m currently all about moving things along.” She nuzzled his armpit, breathing him in.

“What if…”

He sounded hesitant, and O’Shea didn’t like that.

He continued. “What if we like what we find between the sheets, then you discover I’m not the…upstanding man you believe I am. That I’m…domineering, proprietorial, and that…I’m afraid. There are things I’ve done in the past, O’Shea. Things that are far darker than you can imagine.”

She could hear in his voice, the need for reassurance. Peggy leaving him had probably done more of a number on Billboard’s ego than he’d let on.

“First of all,” she assured him, stroking his tense jaw, “what we do between the sheets will be epic.” Of that she had no doubt. Just the scent of Billboard made her crazy with desire.

“Second, don’t sell yourself short. I know who you are. You’re a man who loves his mother. A man who gives everything to his team, and a man who’d risk his life to protect women and children.”

“But I haven’t always been—”

O’Shea placed a finger against Billboard’s lips, stopping whatever he was going to say. It was time for an ultimatum.

“Okay. I get it. You don’t believe that. But I’m all in, Billboard, and I won’t be changing my mind. However, I’m leaving the next step up to you. Talk, or action?”

“What if—”

O’Shea cut him off again. “I’m not going to ditch you, Billboard. That’s a promise. If we split, it will be up to you.”

“You can’t know that.”

“I know it,” she said as firmly as possible. “I don’t care that you’re controlling. Hell, I am, too. And whatever it is that has you scared and all twisted up inside, we’ll talk about it when the time is right. But if you perseverate for too long, you’ll find out I’m as stubborn as I purport to be, because I’ll get you to spill.”

Billboard still wasn’t moving his big, gorgeous body toward the bedroom. “Peggy says I don’t talk.”

“And that’s bullshit,” O’Shea responded. “You’ve already shared so much. I know about your childhood, your school years, and everything about your SOS journey. The only thing we haven’t discussed is your military career.”

Yup. His body tightened the minute she mentioned it, but she wasn’t going to let him get stuck in his head right now.

“And I know a lot about the military,” she informed him. “I didn’t tell you this before, but my brother was in the Army. Initially for four years, then he did one additional two-year tour of duty where he saw even more action.”

She wouldn’t go into how much she’d missed Cedric when he’d enlisted at the age of twenty, but like the good brother and protector he’d been, he’d made sure she was secure and taken care of; able to live in his apartment while he was gone. When he returned, they’d lived together for two years, and she—along with a good therapist—had helped him work through nightmares and PTSD. It hadn’t been easy, but as she’d told Billboard, she was a rottweiler when presented with a bone.

Also, as previously mentioned to Billboard, she and her brother had held their best conversations over the kitchen sink, where she’d seen and heard firsthand what the military could do to a good man’s mind and confidence.

“He…he’s okay now?” Billboard asked.

“Did I mention he and his wife have twins on the way?” she grinned. She knew she had. “He’s better than fine,” she assured Billboard. “He’s thriving.”

Billboard grunted, but he looked a little less conflicted than before, so she kept going. Hopefully convincing him he wasn’t beyond hope.

“Then there were all the cops I worked with who came back from Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Yup. Billboard tightened again.

“They had stories to tell and shit to get over, and I always lent them an ear. Of course, they’d all worked on their issues previous to telling me, since they had to pass psyche evaluations before they could join the force.”

Billboard grunted. “SOS didn’t have any such requirements when they took me on.”

O’Shea scoffed. “But I’ll bet you let them know you have issues, anyway. Am I right?”

“You are,” he agreed reluctantly. “To a point.”

“And it didn’t stop Del, a brilliant man by the way, from hiring you, did it?”

“No.” He flexed his arms underneath her body, and shifted uncomfortably.

O’Shea was tired of seeing the clock tick away their time, and got to the point. “Then can we just say that since your boss—who trusts you with all kinds of sensitive jobs—doesn’t think you’re a lost cause, that I won’t, either?”

When he didn’t respond with anything more than some more foot-shuffling, she figured she’d poked enough.

It was time to get back to the fun stuff.

“So now that we have that out of the way, aren’t your arms getting tired, big guy? Don’t you want to put me down somewhere, like…on your bed?” She batted her eyelashes up at him.

Billboard snorted. “Seriously, O’Shea? Worst segue in history,” he grumbled.

“Yeah,” O’Shea agreed. “I’ll give you that. But it’s a hopeful one, right? And you can make it happen.”

“Promise you won’t end up hating me?”

O’Shea found herself loving this vulnerable side of Billboard, and laughed, knowing there was a simple direction in which she could steer things that would take him out of his head.

“That depends,” she taunted.

“On?” His top lip quirked up at her tone, and he fell right into her trap.

“On whether or not you know where to find my clit.”