“You’re not being paranoid, Angela. You’re being smart. Finally. Sort of. The only way I can protect you is if I am with you. If I have to sleep in your bed to make sure that happens, then that’s what I’ll do.”
She was on her feet, toe to toe, with him in less than a heartbeat.
“Don’t think you can tell me what to do, Mr. Waters. This is all on a trial basis, and pissing me off two days in a row isn’t helping your average right now, bucko.” She jabbed him in the chest with her finger to emphasize her point, and he clenched his fists, grinding his teeth again.
“The first thing we need to do is set some ground rules,” Clay decided. “Rule number one: do not call me Mr. Waters. Do it one more time and I will paddle that pretty little ass of yours.”
She didn’t miss a beat before retorting, “Number two: you don’t sleep in my room, much less my bed.”
Her irises grew darker, like the midnight sky, and for a moment he thought about kissing her. He was close enough, no doubt, and she was absolutely just as turned on as he was. He’d bet his military pension on it.
Dammit, this is not what I want!
Mark chose that particular moment to open his door and begin rolling his suitcase down the hall. Neither of them moved a muscle.
“So, already at each other’s throats this morning, I see.” Mark came around the corner.
“Not yet,” Clay said.
“I’d win,” Angela answered at the same time they retreated from each other.
Clay went to the kitchen, grabbed one of the coffees, threw her a glare over his shoulder and stomped downstairs.
Mark made his way over to where Angela stood, fuming.
“Are you okay?” he asked as he took a seat on the arm of the chair next to her.
She snatched up the newspaper, crumpled it and then tossed it down again. Staring at her brother, a look of trepidation marred his face.
For just a second she wanted to tell him everything. About back home and why she didn’t visit, but her mouth wouldn’t form the words.
“I’m fine,” she answered.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?”
“No, no,” she said holding up her hands and brushing off the sleeves of her jacket. “One babysitter is quite enough, thank you.”
“Just promise me you’ll give him a chance.”
Mark made the please face at her and her resolve to be bitchy just wouldn’t hold up.
“I’ll do my best,” she said without enthusiasm. He wrapped her in a big brotherly hug and she held on tight.
He loosened his grip and kissed her forehead. “Then everything will turn out fine because your regular is better than most people’s best.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere, Mark,” she said as he gave her an extra squeeze. She went into the kitchen and grabbed his coffee.
“Clay and I’ve gotten into quite a few arguments over the years, but everything has blown over fairly quickly. Just an FYI, he is a sucker for tears, I hear, so just let a few fall over those pretty lashes of yours and I’m sure you’ll get your way.”
Angela opened her mouth to speak when, from downstairs, Clay barked, “I can hear you.”
A chuckle rumbled in Mark’s chest as he took the coffee she held out to him. “Yeah, and I don’t hear you denying it either.”
A few minutes later Angela and Clay saw Mark to his taxi after the cabbie loaded his suitcase.
He hugged Angela one more time and clapped Clay on the back, then told them, “Play nice.” Climbing in, he smiled and waved goodbye as the cab pulled away into morning traffic.
Angela led the way back into her building, not caring to turn around and see if Clay followed her. She hated admitting, even if just to herself, that he was right. She shouldn’t have left. Taking off on her own wasn’t smart. Thankfully, she hadn’t been hurt. It was nothing but a misunderstanding. But just as easily she could have been on her way to the hospital. Or worse.
“Lock the door,” she ordered as she made her way to the stairs to her apartment.
Clay cursed under his breath and locked the door before following her upstairs.
As soon as he cleared the top stair he asked, “Are you taking these threats seriously at all?”
Angela walked into the kitchen and dumped her now-unappetizing coffee down the drain, trying her hardest not to go off on him.
“Of course I’m taking them seriously, Clay. I’ve gotten quite a few threats over the years and I’ve tried to take them as serious as each of them warranted.”
“So leaving alone before dawn, without letting me know where you were going, is you taking them seriously?”
“No, that was me going to get a cup of coffee.” She walked into the living room, arms crossed over her chest.
“And the attack last week? That’s no threat. You were hurt. Probably more than you’re letting on.”
“I like my life and I like the small freedoms I can still participate in like getting the paper, or coffee down the block, or going to the park just because I want to. If I stop any of that, I’m letting them win.”
Clay shook his head and she wanted to brain him. “But you’re thinking about this like a level-headed human being with a conscience. These people don’t have any of that.” He made his way back over to her box of threats and rifled through. “They have no grasp on reality and the proof is here on your coffee table. They are watching you everywhere you go.”
To prove his point, he pulled out a picture of her at the same coffee stand she was at that morning.
Angela slowly reached for the photograph. She wished she could make it disappear, but it was her, looking happy-go-lucky. It was her before she was frightened, attacked.
“What is the park, Angela?”
She handed the photo back and went to look out the window, silent for a moment as she tried to figure out exactly what to tell him.
“Just a park I go to sometimes, to think, to read, to browse samples, or redo sketches.”
She felt claustrophobic with Clay hovering behind her. She cast a glance over her shoulder and he eyed her with such a questioning stare.
Breaking eye contact, she turned back to the spectacular view and admitted, “It’s my thinking spot, if you really must know—a place where, even with all the hustle and bustle of the city whirling all around it, I can clear my head. I relish it above all other places in the city.”
“What is so different about it, why like it so much?” he asked, genuinely perplexed.
“I can always find my little spot, where no one else knows me and I am just me. Just me,” she answered so low he took a step closer to hear her.
“Why do you have a problem with me, Angela?” he asked. He must have noticed her stiffen at his approach.
She looked down her nose at him. “I loved you, for most of my life and you knew it. After our night together, I was ready to walk away from everything to be with you and you had the audacity to regret all of it. It was the best night of my life and you turned it into something dirty and sad. You broke my heart and I had to deal with the consequences, while you went off to fight alone, because I wasn’t good enough to hold any part of you except your cock for less than one day. That is why I have a problem with you.”
He stood brooding over her but didn’t say a word.
“You were my everything, Clay, and you ruined it with your regret and fear.”
She brushed past him, shaking from head to toe, knowing she had probably said too much. When she was more than halfway through the living room he caught up to her, spinning her around by the arm.
“If you knew I was a dick, why even let me come?” He shrugged and finally released her arm, balling his hands into fists by his thighs.
Tears welled in her eyes, but she willed them to stay in place. “I had little chance to say no with the timeline you
and my brother worked out.”
“You still had enough time to tell Mark to take a flying leap,” he added while raking his fingers through his hair.
After retreating from him a few steps, putting space between them, she admitted, “I’m not blind to the fact he thinks I am worth protecting.” Before he could interrupt she added, “He’s my older brother, so there’s some kind of rule stating he has to figure out what’s best for me, even if I am unwilling to see it.”
“Protecting you from other people is the easy part. From yourself…”
“Well, if you’re so high and mighty and know everything, why did you agree to come here, Clay? Why didn’t you say something before it got this far?” she fumed from across the living room. “You’ve known for a hell of a lot longer than I have.”
“What would I have said? No, I’m sorry, Mark, I can’t protect your baby sister because I fucked her nine ways to Sunday years ago and oh yeah I took her virginity, too. That would have gone over real well.”
He ran a hand through his tousled hair again as she stared back at him in disbelief.
Without thinking, she wrapped her arms around her middle, trying to hold herself together.
His voice was hollow as he continued. “He trusts me, Angela, and I couldn’t betray that trust.”
“He trusts you?”
“Yes. He does.”
“Well, what about me? I gave myself to you and you couldn’t even spare me a phone call? Not even one? In all that time?”
“What do you want me to do? Just tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it,” he asked calmly, even though his eyes were alive with emotion.
“Get the fuck out of my apartment, Clay! The last person I would trust with my life is you.”
His eyes darkened at her words and her heart melted.
Damn him! Despite everything, she still wanted him, loved him if she was really being honest. But to him it seemed love still wasn’t worth the trouble.
She was about to leave the room when he said, “What about the promotional dinner in downtown tonight? I don’t have enough time to get a replacement for that and I’ll be damned if I let Mark down again.” She flinched when it became evident Mark’s opinion was his only concern. “That came out wrong. I don’t want to leave you unprotected. I’ll stay until I can find a suitable replacement and then I’ll tell Mark whatever I need to so he doesn’t blame you for me leaving.”
Angela thought for a long moment, wading through the cesspool of her battered heart. She knew he wasn’t going to leave until after the dinner. Surely she could paste on an I’m not dying inside face for one night. “Agreed, on two conditions.”
Clay cocked an eyebrow. “What?”
“That you don’t touch me for the rest of the time you’re here, and when you leave I never see you again. Ever.”
He glared back at her, clenching his teeth so hard she could see his jaw flex from across the room. “Agreed,” he finally replied as if he were willingly walking to the gallows for her. Pompous jerk!
“Good,” Angela spat back. “We’ll be leaving here at six to get to the dinner by six thirty. Don’t be late because I won’t wait for you.” She was spent. Emotionally and physically she ran on nothing more than fumes. She knew her will to stay standing much longer wasn’t going to last.
“Don’t worry. And for your information, when you left, it was the hardest time of my life. I felt more alone than I’d ever felt before and that’s saying something. I did it for our own good.”
A mocking smile touched her lips. “What, do you want a medal for deciding we weren’t worth a chance? You have no idea what alone means, Clay. You have no idea.”
She turned around as the first tear fell.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” he yelled after her.
She didn’t even jump when he bellowed behind her. “Nothing, it means nothing anymore. I made sure of it.”
She retreated into her bedroom, shut the door behind her and sank to the floor, her knees no longer able to hold her weight.
She heard Clay storm downstairs and exit the building with a loud bang of the door.
The sobs that tore through her chest echoed off the walls of her bedroom for more than an hour. He would hate her if he ever knew the truth of what happened after their night together. Of what she’d done.
How could loving someone be so hard?
Outside, Clay stomped to the end of the block and kept walking. He remembered the morning after her prom, the moment when everything between them had turned to shit. And somehow he was letting it happen all over again.
What in the hell was wrong with him? He was always cool under pressure. Never broke a sweat, never batted an eyelash at danger, but one teary-eyed look from her and he wanted to put his fist through a wall.
The urge to kick a trash can on the corner as he turned back towards her apartment was nearly overwhelming.
Letting her walk away when they were kids nearly broke him. He didn’t love her, he couldn’t, but he cared for her. That was why he did it. He didn’t want to hurt her then, didn’t want to now, but his mouth be damned he couldn’t help but flap his gums, and nothing but shit kept falling out.
It was the hardest time in his life, and by God if it didn’t look like it had been worse for her, and he hated to admit that scared the shit out of him. She had been all smiles and kind words when they were young. Those faraway glances out of the corner of her eye he used to catch caused all the blood in his body to rush to his dick that still wanted a chance to make her scream his name.
But he wasn’t good enough for her. And wanting to be better wasn’t going to change the past and it wouldn’t erase the scars from his body, nor his mind.
The last morning he saw her she had been trying to sneak back into his bed. She was beautiful, naked, the world was her oyster, until he went and killed the one good thing he had going for him. His hands tingled at the thought of her warm skin against his palms.
No matter how many years had passed, her taste was still imprinted in his mind. No one had ever tasted so good.
It never could have worked out. They were too different. She wanted different things than he did. A high-profile fashion career. A jet-setting lifestyle that took her all over the world.
He lived in the background and liked it that way. Being out in the open for the world to see him? To judge him? That wasn’t the life he wanted. He was an old dog that didn’t want to learn any new tricks.
Surely he didn’t do the wrong thing so many years ago by leaving.
Chapter Thirteen
Ten Years Prior
Clay struggled to open his eyes with the sun streaming in through the bare window. It was still early, he knew, but a new day had dawned. And for once, he couldn’t wait to greet it. Things had changed the night before when he made love to her. God, he felt in a rush to talk to her. To tell her how he felt and what she meant to him. He reached over to where she lay on the bed beside him, only to find it cold and empty.
Struggling to sit up, he saw her trying to sneak back in the room.
He had to swallow a laugh at seeing her tiptoe so as not to wake him. Something else flared to attention as she turned around and he could see her naked backside facing him and a most inviting space between her thighs as she shut the door.
She turned to find him staring at her and giggled.
She shrugged her shoulders and climbed back in bed. “Sorry, had to go to the bathroom.”
Clay lay back down and Angela snuggled next to him with a contented sigh.
“What else did you do while you were gone?” Clay asked nonchalantly.
Angela stilled and looked up at him. She bit her bottom lip and asked, “How did you know I did something else? You couldn’t have been up for more than a minute.” Her eyebrows creased in concentration.
Clay smoothed her face and answered, “The bed was totally cold so you must have been out of it for longer than just a pee break.”
“Wow, you got all that from a cold sheet. I’m impressed.” Her smile warmed him.
“Well, if you must know, I also called Becca. When I woke up this morning I realized that I left last night and didn’t tell her anything. Obviously this isn’t something I do often, so I didn’t want her to worry.” Quite satisfied with her answer she settled back down, rubbing her breasts against his side.
“And you had to do all of that at oh seven hundred in the morning?”
Angela smiled mischievously and replied, “Well, I didn’t exactly know what time it was when I called, and it did sound like I woke her up just a little bit. I’m sure she had almost as good a night with Jacob, as I had here…almost.”
Angela trailed small patterns on Clay’s stomach as she watched his chest rise and fall. She was so warm and content.
“So, what did Becca think about what you’ve been up to since you left last night?”
Clay noticed Angela’s fingers pause for a second before she resumed her shape making.
“Umm…I haven’t exactly told her yet.”
Clay pondered that revelation for a second. “But don’t girls talk about that shit?”
Angela smiled sheepishly and replied, “Normally, yes.”
“What’s different about this?” Clay wanted to know, more than a bit curious now.
“Because you’re mine.” She stated it like it was no big deal, a revelation like that.
“What do you mean?” Clay wanted to know. He sat up in bed so he could look down at her face.
She sat up reluctantly and pulled the covers up to her waist. He wanted to pull them off her. Her naked juicy parts were definitely on the menu for breakfast.
“I’ve never told anyone what I feel for you. Not even Becca. So if I told her I ran off with you at prom last night, it would have been a much longer conversation than I really wanted to have while standing naked in your bathroom.”
Clay was rather surprised by her silence with her best friend and didn’t know what to make of it.
Final Surrender: The Surrender Series, Book 1 Page 12
