Shameless (6 page)

She blinked open her eyes again, just then realizing she wasn’t wearing the blindfold.

Somewhere in the middle of the night, after climaxing so many times she’d lost count, she’d drifted off to sleep in her mystery lover’s arms, the blindfold still firmly in place.

Now she felt around the top of her head, and her neck, thinking it must have come loose while she slept. Out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of something black. She turned her head to see that the blindfold had been laid against the other pillow.

She reached out and fingered the silken material. Had he taken it off her? It stood to reason that he had, since she’d tied the knot tightly and now both ends were open. And the way it perfectly rested against the white pillow-case told her someone had laid it there.

Her heart skipped a beat at the thought of being watched while she slept, sans blindfold. Strange, really, since she hadn’t minded being watched while they’d indulged in sex.

Maybe it was because she’d missed the opportunity to see who had been the master of those hands and that magnificent body.

Had he thought her aware and wanted to reveal himself?

She crumpled the mask in her hand and brought it to rest against her chest under the comforter, smiling secretly even as a hot flush claimed her cheeks at the memory of all that had passed the night before.

She’d gotten a copy of the
Kama Sutra
from her grandmother one year for Christmas. She’d been seventeen and still at home and her mother had nearly had a heart attack when the gift was unwrapped. It was all Nina could do not to choke at the grossly inappropriate holiday gift. But Gladys had argued that she wasn’t a child anymore and that there was nothing dirty about sex. And the sooner she learned the right way to do it—even if it was only through the diagrams in the book—the better.

Her mother had confiscated the book and Nina had rescued it from the bottom of the kitchen garbage can later that night, tucking it into the bottom of her stationery box where her mother would probably never see it. The biggest risk of discovery was when she’d told her parents goodnight and pored over the illustrated pages alone in her bedroom.

Thankfully her mother had never found out about the book. And Nina herself hadn’t seen it for a number of years.

But last night she was pretty sure she’d accomplished a good percentage of the positions outlined.

She smiled again and snuggled deeper into the blankets.

Bless Kevin and Gauge’s little hearts. They’d been right. Pure, anonymous sex had been exactly what she’d needed. And then some.

Now, the problem lay in figuring out which one of them she’d spent the night with….

She heard scratching coming from the direction of the kitchen. Ernie. Nina laughed and then rolled closer to the edge of the bed. Thankfully, she didn’t have to be in the shop until later that morning, since it was a Saturday and she’d arranged for Heidi to handle everything until she got in.

But she felt so good she thought she might go in, anyway.

And see which of her two partners was in as bad…or as good a shape as she was.

Nina shook her head and sighed, looking over her shoulder to see if either Kevin or Gauge had made it in yet.

She’d come down expecting to find them both at work, making her job of figuring out which one of them had visited her easier. But neither one of them was in. And neither was expected in until later that day.

Strange….

Few and far between were the times when all three of them hadn’t been present at the shop—mostly because it had taken some time to pay back the loan they had taken to combine the three stores and put them solidly in the black. But now that they had a staff of three that they rotated, they had the luxury of missing a day or two here and there. Only they had never done it at the same time.

Nina pulled her cell phone out of her apron pocket and checked the display. No missed calls. Of course, she would have felt the vibration had someone called, but that wasn’t the point.

She scrolled through her numbers. Gauge’s name came up first.

Her thumb hovered over the call button. Then she sighed and closed the phone again, putting it back into her pocket.

Sneaky devils. They’d probably planned it this way so she couldn’t play amateur sleuth and figure out which of them had given her so much pleasure.

She turned around with purpose and strolled toward the café where she’d watched first Gauge, and then Kevin, go, helping themselves to the display cabinet.

She walked into the room to find them sitting side-by-side at the counter eating bear claws.

Nina rounded the counter and crossed her arms, staring at them both.

Gauge sat back and grinned.

Kevin blinked at her and grimaced.

“Have a nice night, Nina?” Gauge asked, openly considering her.

“Why don’t you tell me?” she said, leaning her palms on the cool tile. “I mean, wouldn’t you know that as well as I?” She took in his suggestive expression and his relaxed posture and then moved her gaze to the man next to him. “Or are you the one who would know that, Kevin?”

He grumbled something under his breath and pretended an interest in his coffee.

“What was that?” Nina asked.

Gauge’s chuckle drew her attention back to him. “You know better than to think it would be that easy, Nina. Deal was that you wouldn’t know who paid you a visit last night. And that you’d never know.”

Yes, that was part of the deal. But she was reneging on it. She needed to know who had rocked her world. Partly to give him thanks. Partly so that she could get more where that had come from.

“Both of you were scarce this morning.”

“Yeah, we heard you were looking for us,” Gauge said. “I had meetings in Ann Arbor with a distributor.”

“Mmm,” Nina said. “I just bet you did.”

Gauge finished off his claw and wiped his mouth casually with a paper napkin. “You know, Nina, what you’re leaving out of the equation is that your midnight lover might have been a stranger.”

Kevin shifted on his stool. “Can we just drop this?”

“We’re not dropping anything,” she said. “As for the stranger part, Gauge, I know he wasn’t a stranger. He knew me too well to be a stranger.” She slid her gaze between them. “Which means that it had to be one out of the two of you.”

Again, the scowl from Kevin, the grin from Gauge.

She sighed. Well, that hadn’t worked, had it? She’d set out to find which one of them had made the earth move for her and she was being stonewalled.

Which was only fair, a small voice told her. She’d agreed to the terms wholeheartedly when they’d been extended to her. Just because she wanted to change the arrangement didn’t mean they did.

“Are we going to talk about anything else?” Kevin asked. “Because there are a couple of business matters I’d like to discuss.”

Nina and Gauge stared at him.

He sighed heavily. “Fine. I’m calling it a night then.”

He pushed from the counter.

Gauge wiped his hands with his napkin and then hit a perfect shot into the garbage can, rising as well. “That means I’d better wrap things up, too.”

Nina planted her hands on her hips. Hips that bore trace marks from the fingers that had held them last night. “Oh, no you don’t,” she said, coming from around the counter. “You two aren’t going anywhere until we have this out.”

“There’s nothing to have out,” Kevin said, getting his coat from the back room and handing Gauge his leather jacket.

They both shrugged into their respective garments as they headed toward the back door where their cars were parked.

“Get back here this minute,” Nina demanded, following them.

She stopped and let out a long breath. “Come on, guys, you can’t just leave me hanging this way. I’ve got to know which one of you it was.”

Gauge was shaking his head. “Nothing doing, sweetheart.” He bent in and kissed her cheek.

Nina closed her eyes, trying to discern whether it had been his kisses that had bruised her lips.

“Told you she’d try to misinterpret sex for a relationship,” Kevin said, leaning in to kiss her other cheek.

She blinked her eyes open, trying to figure out if it had been him.

“Goodnight, Irene, goodnight,” Gauge said, holding the door open for Kevin.

He walked through it and Gauge followed.

Nina caught the door before it could close.

“Give a girl a break!” she called after them, Kevin going right, Gauge left.

“I thought we already did that,” Gauge said, his chuckle echoing in the still, cold winter night’s air.

Kevin opened his car door. “Goodnight, Nina. See you in the morning.”

As both of them pulled away into the night, Kevin in his conservative Honda, Gauge in his vintage Chevy, Nina stood stock-still, watching after them.

Then she released a sound of frustration that only she could hear.

But she hadn’t. And for the past four days she’d been an emotional wreck, thinking one moment that Gauge was the man, the next that it had been Kevin.

And now that she was sitting with her grandmother for their weekly lunch, she was this close to blurting the entire story out to Gladys, desperate for advice.

“He sent me flowers yesterday,” her grandmother was saying as she dug in to her chicken salad. “Roses. Red.”

“Who?” Nina blinked.

“Harold, of course.” She stared at her. “Haven’t you heard a word I’ve been saying?”

Nina waved her hand over her bowl of homemade minestrone. “Of course I have.”

Her grandmother’s wide smile made her wince. “Okay, out with it. Who is he?”

Nina grumbled into her soup. “I don’t know. That’s the problem.”

“So you’re in this agitated state because of a man you’ve never met? Must be some man. What, was he a customer?”

Nina shook her head, wondering how much she dared tell her. “No.”

Gladys threw her napkin to the table. “Out with it, girl. I’m too damn old for the game of cat and mouse.”

Nina stared at her grandmother. It was like her to be so short. “It’s nothing. Like you said. Just some guy who came into…the store. I don’t even know who he is. But…” She bit hard on her bottom lip. “But I’ve been having some interesting dreams about him ever since.”

Gladys laughed quietly. “Sometimes dreams can be better than the real thing.”

“Not in this case, they aren’t.”

Gladys’s smile widened. “Uh-huh. I thought you had that well-sexed look about you when I came in. So you’ve finally gone and done what I’ve been telling you to do for years and indulged in some anonymous sex.” She reached over and squeezed Nina’s hand. “Good for you. I’m proud.”

Nina found it odd that Gladys couldn’t have been talking about her being granted with an award for something.

She grimaced.

“What did he look like? I bet he was hot.”

Nina nearly choked on the spoonful of soup she’d taken.

Gladys rubbed her left arm before she picked her napkin back up and resumed eating. “Damn age. I reached for a box of cereal off the top of the refrigerator this morning and must have pulled a muscle.” She shook her head. “Although it could be worse. Violet—You remember Violet, don’t you dear? My friend from bingo? Anyway, a month back she broke her hip just walking out her front door.”

Nina was desperate to change the subject. “So who’s Harold?”

Gladys’s smile returned. “You remember that usher I told you about last week?”

“Ah, yes. The one that’s been widowed a year and is prime…um…dating material.”

“That would be him.” Gladys crunched on lettuce and swallowed. “Anyway, I went to that movie. Only I didn’t see any of it. Harold and I sat in the back row making out the whole time.”

Nina gaped at her, trying to imagine her seventy-year-old grandmother making out in a theater with an equally old man.

Eeeew.

“Don’t worry. It wasn’t a regular cinema. It’s one of those old places that shows old movies.
Casablanca
was playing and there were only about five people in the place. All my age. Well, except for the one young guy. But he didn’t even notice us.”

Nina held up her hand. “I could do without the imagery.”

Gladys laughed. “Seems sex hasn’t loosened you up any.”

She had her there. Sex
hadn’t
loosened her up. It had only served to make her more frustrated. Although for an entirely different reason.

Her grandmother rubbed her left arm again.

“Maybe you should have that looked at, Nana.”

Gladys shook her head and sighed. “I have my regular appointment next week. Whatever it is can wait until then.”

Just then Heidi came up to the table. “Sorry to interrupt, Nina. But there’s a minor emergency in the kitchen….”

Nina told her assistant that she’d be there in a minute and waited as Gladys finished her salad, wiped her mouth and then reapplied her lipstick. “It’s just as well. I’ve got another date with Harold.” She smiled as she clicked her purse closed. “
Doctor Zhivago
is playing today.”

Nina fought a groan.

What did it say about you when your seventy-year-old grandmother had a more interesting sex life than you did?

Then again, that wasn’t entirely true. Not anymore.

The problem lay in that Nina wanted it to continue.

And that the two men involved wanted to make sure it didn’t.

Which made her think of another deal.

What if…She wondered. What if she asked them if she could have one more night?