Page 20 of S.O.S. Billboard

“What are you trying to tell me, Billboard? That it’s too soon for you to jump from one mattress to another?”

Please, please, please, tell me you want to exploreeverythingwith me, she inwardly pled.

He regarded her seriously. “No. It’s just… I don’t want to have a relationship with you that’s only physical…”

O’Shea’s heart did a happy flip.

Ding, ding, ding! Give the man a prize. He’d saidrelationship.

“…but I’m not sure I’m capable of anything more. I’ve never had… I don’t know…”

Damn.Billboard looked so uncomfortable that O’Shea wanted to fill in the blanks for him, but she knew he had to get the words out on his own.

She waited as patiently as she could, and something in her accepting demeanor must have eased his anxiety, because eventually he smiled before continuing. His lovely, deep baritone, when it emerged again, sounded more confident.

“Here’s what I think,” he managed. “Before we let our monkey brains take over, I’d like to see if we have anything in common. If I can talk to you. If we can share…stuff,” he told her. “Is that asking too much?”

O’Shea couldn’t have been more overjoyed.

Billboard wanted something with her that he’d always been missing with a partner.

Her answer, when she was finally able to speak, was filled with tenderness. “No, Billboard. It’s not too much to ask for. It’s exactly right.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Billboard walked out of O’Shea’s hotel room, following behind her toward the elevator, and… Yeah. He didn’t mean to, but he couldn’t help watching the sway of her delectable posterior.

That lovely ass…

He didn’t know how things had gone from zero to sixty in such a short time, but he was checking her tail end out, proprietorially; like it was already his. Not his normal modus operandi with women. But…

It was all O’Shea’s fault, because she’d just had her lips on him.

If he hadn’t halted her backward jaunt toward that large, king-sized mattress, he might very well be buried deep inside her right now.

Billboard stifled a groan and hoped the discrete adjustment of his dick wasn’t on some hotel camera feed somewhere, fueling some pimply security guard’s amusement.

Which begged the question, how had this thing between him and O’Shea ramped up so quickly? One minute he’d been acting cordial, maintaining his distance, and the next, he’d innocently put his hand on her back and a bonfire had been lit. Not just conflagrating things physically, but verbally as well.

While he’d been surreptitiously shaking out his oddly electrified palm, she’d taken that small touch, and run with it, like it had given her permission to ask some pretty probing questions.

And he’d answered.

Or grunted.

But those gruntshadbeen actual responses, right?

He’d gone on to tell her a few things that only he and Doctor Ed knew. Not that his mother and his team weren’t aware he had problems, but on his request, none of those people ever confronted him about them.

If he wasn’t careful, O’Shea would have him dropping all his barriers, and he’d end up bawling on her shoulder, revealing all his dirty laundry to her before he knew what happened.

And it was all due to O’Shea’s lips.

After the truncated Q and A, she’d gone in for that simple kiss on his dimple. That’s when his brain had truly short-circuited. He’d wanted to cry uncle at that moment, and give her everything she demanded.

The question was, would he beableto open up and let her in on his secrets, more than the small amount that he already had? He wasn’t stupid. In order to make anything work between them, he’d have to turn all his dark past over to her, because one thing he understood about O’Shea? She never accepted things halfway. It was all-in, or not in at all.

But for now…

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