Clayton’s hand moved to the other breast, his thumb rubbing over the other nipple. Jo brushed her leg over Clayton’s body and she felt him huge and hard against her leg.
“You saved my life,” she said on as she exhaled. His body worked over hers, taut and strong. “You should let me say thank you.”
She reached for his fly and unzipped his pants. Pulling him hard and full out into the moonlight she moved her hand over him.
Clayton sucked in his breath at her touch. She moved her hand around him, learning him, wanting so badly to arouse him as much as he excited her.
She pushed his torso back with her free hand and brought her mouth to his impressive erection, ready to suck him off. She wanted to swallow him down, drink him in.
“Oh god,” Clayton reached his strong hands down and lifted Jo up, “it’s too much. I want to be inside of you.”
Jo smiled and stood in front of him. She reached down to the edge of her gray cotton tee shirt and pulled it up over her head. Clayton reached for the edge of her panties and pulled them over her thick ass and thighs, down to her ankles where Jo stepped out of them, naked in the moonlight. Her skin glistened a milky white glow.
“You look amazing,” Clayton reached a hand out and touched the curve of her breast. He let his fingers trail across her stomach, then gripped her ass in his hands and held her fast.
Clayton’s glistening erection called to her and Jo moved forward. She straddled him on the edge of the bed and waited, the tip of him ready and pulsing at her throbbing opening.
"Are you going to make me beg?" Clayton sat tensely underneath Jo. She smiled as she imagined him begging. It was a nice thought, but her own self-control wasn't up to the task. Her body was aching for him to fill her up and she didn't think she could wait any longer.
Clayton grabbed Jo’s ass in both hands and guided her down on top of him. Jo let out a loud cry as her body covered his. She’d never experienced a man so large, so filling. She lifted and moved, gliding her body over his, feeling him acutely inside of her. Then Clayton took over.
With his hands guiding her ass he moved her up and down, his strong muscles taking the full weight of her despite his position on the bottom.
“Don’t stop—” Jo pulled her body in close to Clayton’s as his lips brushed her breasts. “Don’t ever stop.”
Clayton looked up at Jo, his eyes burning into hers, “I’m afraid that is an impossibility, but I won’t stop until you want me to.”
“I will never want you to stop,” she felt sensations fly through her body, out to her nerve endings and back again.
He rocked Jo’s body on top of him. Her body slid forward, her clit sliding against his body as he moved her and Jo could feel her body mounting, pulsing, pushing, she was about to boil over.
Jo pushed her fingers back through his thick hair and leaned forward to pull his earlobe into her mouth. Her body was out of her control. There was no stopping the explosion that was coming.
She gripped her upper body around Clayton as her body shook and quaked with its final spasms of complete ecstasy.
Clayton felt Jo tense around him, and he let his body build and push past his final threshold until they both sat spent and exhausted in each other’s arms.
Jo’s head hung against the side of Clayton’s neck and shoulder, her body covered in a sheen of sweat. She felt sensations running through every part of her skin. Her toes buzzed, her stomach swirled, her hair stood on end.
“I’ve never experienced anything like that before,” Jo smiled into Clayton’s neck. He smelled supremely masculine with an edge of musk and cloves. Jo hummed to herself for a moment then, wrapped in the contentment of orgasm, she leaned forward to his ear.
“I love you,” she let the words slide easily out of her mouth.
As soon as the words were out Clayton was fully awake. His torso moved and his hands lifted so that Jo had to lift off and over him to rest on the bed.
Jo understood her mistake immediately, “That’s just the sex talking.” She tried to smile at him but her heart was breaking for Clayton’s reaction to her words.
Clayton pulled his energy away from Jo and withdrew back into himself. Jo felt her face turn red.
“I should go clean up, maybe even get some sleep myself,” he stood from the bed and grabbed his clothes.
Jo wanted to state the obvious, that he could stay here, he could shower here and sleep next to her in her bed, but she could feel the rebuff she would undoubtedly receive to these words before she’d even said them.
“Ok,” Jo nodded trying to act calm, cool, collected… trying to act as if his walking away right now wasn’t stabbing her to the very core.
She suddenly felt naked and she grabbed the top sheet and pulled it over her body, staring at Clayton. Even with her hurt feelings she couldn’t help but notice the perfect flex of his muscles, the perfect shape of him.
“I’ll see you in the morning then,” Jo was surprised at how positive she actually sounded.
Clayton nodded and she could feel words building up inside of him, words she couldn’t bear to hear, words that would make what they just did a mistake.
Jo stood up before he could open his mouth and walked past him into the bathroom. She closed the door and locked it, standing silently until she heard the sounds of Clayton leaving the room.
She leaned back against the door, tension and emotion gripping her throat. But she wouldn’t cry. If she began now she wasn’t sure she would be able to stop again.
Jo took a warm shower, bundled herself into a robe, and sat on her bed. The air was stifling inside. She crawled over the bed to an adjoining window and opened it wide.
Fresh air came tumbling in. Jo inhaled greedily.
The cool night air swam over her face. The smell of pine trees, dirt, and the approaching fall filled her with a false sense of wellbeing. Jo put her arms on the windowsill, laid her head on her arms, and fell asleep.
Chapter Eight
Clayton lifted the decanter and poured himself a stiff drink.
What was he doing? He had completely lost self-control. He thought of Jo and her blue eyes, the curve of her hips, the way she’d looked standing naked in the moonlight.
Stop, he shook his head.
The library fire was empty and he thought of lighting a fresh fire, he could spend the night here safely away from Jo’s bedroom. The sound of her voice in the night still rang through his head.
She’d been having a nightmare but he’d only been able to hear her cries. The panic that had flooded his body left no room for time to think of what he was doing. He’d run right in without thinking.
Clayton took another long sip of his drink. The fiery liquid went down, warming his throat and body.
He already knew it was pointless to sleep. It would be a waste of time to try…now more than ever. He wouldn’t just be thinking of Jack Henderson anymore, he would be thinking of Jo.
The thing that scared Clayton the most was his desire to stay with her. His inner longing to spend the night next to her skin, smelling her most intimate smells, touching her skin, feeling her heart beat.
He looked at his open, unread volume of Proust then he walked over to his desk and turned on his computer. His email repopulated.
Scanning through the normal business and work emails he stopped when he got to the subject line, Jack Henderson is Bradley Saunders?
It was from his closest work associate, the one he’d asked to get background information on Jack.
Clayton opened the email.
Clayton,
I couldn’t find any information on a Jack Henderson and it appears that there is very good reason. Jack Henderson doesn’t exist. I did find a Bradley Saunders.
There was a picture of Jack's face attached to the text.
Does this look like your man?
He seems to be doing some serious business with a Chinese company interested in mining a very rare stone used in a new field of Asian art. These pie
ces bring in millions of US dollars and would certainly go for a good price. It also seems that these stones can only be found in a very few, limited locations across the globe. Northern Montana and southern Alberta could certainly be one of them.
I hope this helps!
There was a link at the bottom of the email and Clayton clicked on it. It went to Christie’s Auction House in London.
He scrolled down to see an incredible stone statue. Three pieces of stone appeared to be woven like interconnected rings, all three moved upward, like a plant, toward the sky. The stone was obsidian black along one side, transforming to a grayish pink in certain strips. It was remarkably beautiful.
The four-inch statue had an estimated value of 2.3 million pounds, close to 3 million US dollars.
If Jack had found this stone, if he’d been using Clayton’s resources and new ownership of the land to acquire and sell it, he could certainly be making a sum worth killing for.
Clayton sat back in his chair. His mind went to Jo. Perhaps it was a sum that would push him to kill again.
He would call the governor in the morning and hire his own private investigator to make sure the police had everything they needed to put Jack…Bradley away for a very long time.
Then…then Jo would go back to her normal life and he would be left alone.
Clayton picked up his drink and finished it off.
Chapter Nine
A sound woke her.
Jo’s head lifted off her arms and she was surprised to be looking out into the foggy new morning.
She concentrated, what had she heard? Jo was unsure. Peering out into the morning she looked for signs of a sound. A deep fog met her gaze.
Then she heard it, the sound of a bear roaring—an animal growl of pain.
The next sound she heard made her heart stop, a gunshot. The crack was so loud and resounded with such authority that Jo nearly fell back from the window.
Jo pushed herself, fumbling, off the bed. She landed on all fours and she tucked her legs, forcing her upper body to lift.
Clayton. Clayton. Clayton. Her heart pounded out the beat. What had she done? She’d gotten him involved. Her legs pumped down the stairs and to the front door. Jo swung the door open and ran out into the morning.
She had no shoes on, was wearing only a robe, but she didn’t care. Her only thought was of Clayton.
The dream she’d had. The nightmare. Where Clayton had been shot. Had that been a premonition? She saw the vision she’d had, the vision of Clayton’s legs buckling beneath him. The vision of him dying. Of him dead.
The fog wrapped over her body, enveloped her.
She hadn’t seen where the sound had come from. She only knew the general direction.
The silence around her left her only more frightened. She should hear something. She should hear another roar. She should hear sounds of pain, whimpers. But there was nothing. Dead silence.
Jo’s feet split open on rocks and sticks as she ran over them. Her leg scrapped against a log. A shot of pain ran through her shoulder as she banged it against a large branch.
She wanted to yell for him, scream, but her voice wouldn’t come.
She felt something wet underfoot and stopped. She was standing on blood. Jo felt like she was in a nightmare, only worse than the one she’d actually had.
Jo walked backward in the blood and looked around. She saw a clump of fur, then another. Jo walked toward it. She felt sick. She was going to be sick.
Clayton, her heart was still saying the name.
When she came upon the body Jo’s face tightened. In front of her was a large brown bear, shot through the head. He lay dead. But he wasn’t Clayton.
Jo put a hand to her mouth. Who would do this?
“Josephine,” her name was said loudly and Jo spun around. “I’m mighty glad to see you, though I doubt you can say the same.”
Jack Henderson stood smiling at her. He had a hunting camouflage on and a rifle in his hand.
Jo waited, she expected him to cock his gun, to aim, to shoot. But he didn’t move. He just kept looking at her with that same smile.
“Did you want to talk?” her voice was full of sarcasm but she didn’t have the energy to try and save herself. If he was determined to kill her then he would.
“Tsk, tsk,” Jack made a clucking sound and began walking toward her. He put a finger up to his lips in a sign of silence. There was a sound of breaking sticks in the woods.
Jo was confused, Jack seemed more interested in the woods around her then he was in her.
Jack raised his shotgun and pointed it into the fog then he got very low with his back against a tree. He was only a few feet from Jo and could easily move the muzzle of the gun and shoot but he seemed concentrated on the trees.
What was he waiting for?
“That grizzly yesterday was mighty interesting, wouldn’t you say?” Jack’s voice was quiet and his eyes flicked around him, barely landing on Jo at all. She should move. She should do something.
Jo put a foot toward the trees and suddenly the gun was on her again. She held her breath and waited but still there was no shot.
“It was larger than any grizzly I’ve ever seen…and it almost…almost seemed to be protecting you.” Jack’s eyes came to rest on Jo and there was a smile on his lips that Jo wished she could slap away.
Her heart hammered. He was waiting for Clayton. He was waiting for her protector.
There was another crack coming from the brush and Jo began to panic. Of course, he would have heard the gunshots, he would see the open door, he would think… Jo looked at the fog around her.
“And so you are hunting him? The grizzly?” she felt her throat constrict.
“Hunting you too, but you were disappointingly easy to catch,” Jack pointed his gun directly at Jo. There was another crack from the brush and he swiveled his body and the tip of the gun toward it.
Jo pulled her hands into fists and tried not to think about what she was going to do. She had to move and she had to move now.
With no time for hesitation, Jo dove behind the nearest tree and into the fog. It was one thing to resign oneself to death it was another entirely to give someone else up to it.
“Clayton,” she bellowed at the top of her voice, knowing full well that yelling would alert Jack to her location. “It’s Jack and he’s got a rifle,” she ran forward to the next tree and then the next as she yelled. There was the sound of a rifle crack and Jo grimaced. She had not been hit.
Jo took a breath then ran forward again. She would get as far as she could. Wouldn’t Clayton be able to track her, to smell that she’d gotten away? If she could make Jack chase her then he wouldn’t be able to focus on Clayton.
“Help,” she yelled the word more for the benefit of Jack than anything else. She wanted him to know that she was moving away, she wanted him to try to find her. To follow her.
The fog was beginning to lift and her vision was getting better, but that meant that Jack’s vision would be getting better as well.
Jo plunged forward again and again. She wasn't sure if she heard movement behind her or if the sounds were created by her own movement.
As she ran forward she ran out of the trees and into an opening. The trees offered cover but she couldn’t go back. Jo sprinted out into the clearing, she needed to get to the other side as quickly as possible, to get back to the cover of the trees.
Then she was certain she heard the sounds of someone else. Jo ran as fast as she could her legs hitting the ground, her heart ready to pop out of her chest.
Her foot hit a root and sent her into the air. She reached her arms out but there was nothing to steady her, nothing to grab onto. Jo hit the ground and all the air in her lungs knocked out of her.
She turned and looked back toward the trees she’d come from. She had to get up, had to keep moving.
The outline of Jack loomed blurry behind her. He raised his gun.
“Drop it… Bradley.” The sound came from the st
ill hazy fog and Jo peered toward a new figure. Clayton stood with a gun cocked, aiming directly at Jack.
“Fancy seeing you here,” Jack was trying too hard to be nonchalant. Jo could feel the tinge of fear and hot energy in the man, “Sounds like someone’s been doing their homework.”
“Drop it,” Clayton’s voice was low and commanding. Jo looked between the two men.
Jack began to drop the muzzle of his gun, inch by inch. Jo could see the man’s mind working. Clayton moved closer, and closer, then just as he was about to reach out and grab the gun Jack turned on him. Jack used the butt of his gun to knock Clayton’s arm and his gun went flying.
Chapter Ten
Clayton watched his gun launch into the air. His mind was processing a million different scenarios but only one outcome came to the forefront of his mind and it wasn’t a good one.
He moved closer to the other man but Jack had backed up and pushed his gun between him and Clayton. Clayton extended his hand out and snapped the front of the gun away just before it went off.
"Change," Jo's voice came from his right. Jo. He'd been out of his mind with panic when he'd heard the gunshots when he'd heard her scream.
He’d fallen asleep at his desk somewhere in the wee hours of the morning. An empty glass decanter next to his hand. He’d woken to the sound of a gunshot but thought it had been a bad dream. It wasn’t until he’d heard the front door clang that he realized it hadn’t been a dream. Clayton had grabbed the gun he kept safely in his desk and gone after her.
It was the first time Clayton’s instincts had kept him a man rather than barreling out as his grizzly self. He wasn’t sure why but he wanted to put a stop to Jack Henderson, to Bradley Saunders, once and for all and to do it as a man.
Now, he wasn’t so sure. Clayton moved in, throwing his right fist, making contact with Jack’s face. He heard a crunch under his fist and felt bone breaking.
Jack swung the butt of the gun around again and landed it on Clayton’s left temple. He saw black for a moment before his vision came sharply into focus again.
The Dragon's Secret Queen Page 33
