“I wasn’t expecting that,” he says.
“Neither was I, but I liked it.”
He turns his head and wraps his other arm around me, tenderly kissing me once again. It feels good to next to him. My heart twinges when I think of his plans to move to Seattle, and I know that we can’t keep avoiding the topic. For now I just rest in his arms.
Chapter 40 - Clay
I wake up and realise I’d fallen asleep. Val is sleeping next to me and has the most peaceful look on her face. Her arm is flung across my chest and I run my fingertips along the length of it. She shivers and wakes up gently. I turn my head to look at the bedside clock.
“What time is it?” she asks sleepily.
“It’s 6:30pm,” I respond.
“I’m starving.” Her voice is muffled into my shoulder
“What else is new,” I say laughing. “You’re always hungry.”
She groans in response.
“So am I. We should get up.”
I follow her to the bathroom and we jump in the shower together. I grab a loofah and soap it up before turning towards Val. I start with her back and shoulders, moving down over her perfect ass. The suds cover her body and I turn her around. I scrub her collarbone down to her chest, circling her breasts and massaging them as I move over her stomach. I move the loofah over her mound, washing between her legs and then lean down to wash the rest of her. She places a small foot on my leg and I soap it up. I love the way she giggles when it tickles her.
She rinses off and takes the loofah from me. It feels so good, so intimate to be in the shower here with her. She runs her hands over me, making sure to wash my body from head to toe. It feels like a new beginning. If I thought we were connected before, this afternoon has shown me what true intimacy feels like.
When we’re clean we both rinse off again and step out of the shower. The steam fills the bathroom and the mirror fogs up as soon as we step out. Val hands me a towel and I dry myself.
Something so simple as showering together has never made me feel as good. I like being around her, being close enough to touch, being comfortable enough with each other to wash together. I didn’t think I wanted it until I almost lost it.
We get dressed quietly, sneaking glances at each other. When she walks by with those tight jeans on I can’t resist smacking her ass. She giggles playfully.
“Now now, Clay. None of that. It’s food time.”
We head out together into the fresh evening air. It’s nice to get out, to walk together. I like having her beside me when we walk down the street. I feel proud to be the man next to her. I see how all the guys check her out and then glance at me and it makes my chest swell up with pride to be the one she chose. I grab her hand in mind and it fits perfectly as we stroll around the corner to the local pasta place.
“Another gem,” Val says proudly when we get there. “Doesn’t look like much but they make all their own pasta fresh in-house and have the best meatballs you’ll ever taste.”
“I think I have the best meatballs you’ll ever taste, but we can leave that open to discussion,” I respond. She laughs and elbows me lightly in the ribs. I’ll say anything to make her laugh, to see how it brightens her whole face. I love when she finds something really funny and her whole body shakes with laughter in the most infectious way possible. It’s cute and sexy and endearing at the same time. I smile and open the door to the restaurant for her, happy to be here together.
We sit down at the table and I’m finding it hard to focus on the menu. I keep thinking about the way it felt to be inside her, to feel the real her like that. The raw her. She catches me staring at her and sticks her tongue out at me. The waiter reappears and Val orders first.
“I’ll have the spaghetti and meatballs. Can you make it extra saucy please?”
I almost choke on my water and she glances over at me with laughter in her eyes. How is she keeping a straight face!
The waiter doesn’t even blink, “Certainly, miss. And for you, sir?”
“I’ll have the same,” I squeak out. The waiter walks away and Val breaks into that silent, shaking laughter that I love so much. Her shoulders are shaking up and down and her hand is covering her mouth. The way her face scrunches is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
Just when we’ve recovered from our laughter I hear a familiar voice behind me. My heart drops when I hear the overly sultry, honey-sweet voice that reeled me in so many years ago.
“Well if it isn’t Clay O’Neill,” the voice says, amused. “Is it Doctor Clay O’Neill by now? And you have a new plaything! How cute.”
I turn around and see her. She looks just like she did eight years ago, curvy and gorgeous with sex dripping out of every pore. The only difference is that this time it doesn’t turn me on. If anything, it turns me off completely and my blood runs cold. She’s tall with jet black hair. It’s perfectly straight and falls to her waist. Her features are sharp. She’s beautiful, but looking at her I feel nothing but disgust. She does nothing for me except fill me with dread. Val is looking at her and then me, waiting for an explanation.
“Caroline. This is Val and she’s not my plaything.” I know my voice is excessively curt.
Caroline extends a long hand and I see the vermillion polish on the end of her fingers, each nail sharpened to a point. Claws, I think. Seems appropriate. Val reaches up and shakes her hand gently and I resist the impulse to shudder when the two of them touch.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Val says politely. I can’t help but feel like her voice is a breath of fresh air after the honeyed, sticky sweetness of Caroline’s drawl.
“So what stories has Clay here been telling you. I’m sure he’s mentioned me,” she says with a sly smile playing over her lips. She looks at me and raises a thin eyebrow.
“No, actually, he hasn’t. How do you guys know each other?”
“Oh, you know,” Caroline responds casually, waving her claws in the air by her head. She uses her hand to move her long hair behind her shoulder. “We dated for a few years, back when he was a stripper.”
Val’s eyes widen and she looks at me in shock. I glance at Caroline and open my mouth to tell her to be quiet. She continues before I can jump in.
“What, he didn’t tell you? Yeah, he didn’t tell me either. Then I found out he had girls all over him. It’s what broke us up. He just couldn’t keep his hands to himself.”
Val’s jaw is hanging open and she closes it, only to let it fall open again. Her eyes are burning through me, I can see the betrayal in them.
“Val..” I start. “Don’t listen to her. It’s not true.”
Caroline shifts her hips and places a hand on my shoulder. I flinch away.
“Why shouldn’t she listen, Clay. You afraid she’ll find out what kind of guy you really are?”
She laughs an emotionless laugh and then waves at us both before cat-walking out of the restaurant.
Chapter 41 - Valerie
I watch as that woman tosses a grenade at our table and then casually struts out the door. My mind is moving at a hundred miles an hour. Stripper!? Couldn’t keep his hands to himself!? I look across the table at the man on the other side and realise I know absolutely nothing about him.
For the second time today I feel like an absolute fool. I’ve let myself be carried away by my own emotion and I’ve put myself in this position. Here I am, completely infatuated with a man who has not only evidently slept with half of New York, but who just tells me what I want to hear to get between my legs.
Hot pangs of jealousy shoot through me. My cheeks are burning and my heart feels completely hollow. How could I do this to myself. I knew this morning, after I learned he’d slept with my best friend that I should just forget about him. I should have just listened to myself. Emma was probably just feeling sorry for me and telling me to talk to him to make me feel better.
I should never have wasted my time with him, and I definitely should have walked away when I had the chance. Who do I th
ink I am, having a fling with a hot doctor?! Of course he’s running around with every girl he can. I can’t believe I let him in when he showed up at my door this afternoon. My cheeks burn when I think about our sex this afternoon, about the intimacy of the shower. I’m an idiot.
The woman’s words are playing on repeat in my head. They were together. They broke up because he couldn’t keep his hands to himself. He was saying it’s not true but of course he would say that. We’ve just spent the past couple weeks spending every possible moment together and he somehow forgot to mention he used to be a STRIPPER??
I don’t exactly have a problem with it, a part of me might even be turned on by the thought. But as I look at him across the table from me I can’t help but feel like I’ve been lied to. I’ve been played. I don’t know anything about him and I’ve opened up to him completely.
“Val, I can explain. She was lying.”
“Did you used to be a stripper?”
He pauses, his eyes burning into me. He opens his mouth and answers slowly. “Yes, it’s what put me through medical school.”
“And when we were talking about our pasts, you didn’t think that was worth mentioning?”
“I…”
I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to hear his explanation, his excuse, his way of weaselling his way back into my bed. My bed. I’ve let myself get carried away by the promise of the orgasms I’ve so desperately wanted for so many years.
He couldn’t even tell me that he dated a girl before! All he’s ever told me is that he had a “rule” to not date women long term to focus on his career, and that he was “breaking” that rule for me. What a load of horseshit. I can’t believe I’ve been so blind.
I stand up and shake my head.
“I can’t do this, Clay.”
“Val, wait!” His eyes are pleading, his arms raised in supplication towards me. “I can explain, just give me a second.”
“I don’t want to hear any more of your explanations!” People in the restaurant are staring at us and for once I don’t give a shit. “All you’ve done since this morning is backpedal and explain and wheel and deal your way back into my heart. Well we’re done. You’re done.”
His dark eyes are brimming with tears, boring through me like lasers. It’s all an act. I don’t know why he bothers. He could have any girl he chooses, why go through all this trouble with me.
I look at him one more time, from head to toe. His t-shirt is tight across his muscled chest, forearms strong and vascular. His neck is red, veins popping out in anger. I can see his pulse in them, pumping his blood at a fast pace. Chiseled jaw with a bit of stubble and those eyes that have captivated me since I walked into his office.
Not anymore.
No orgasm is worth this amount of hurt.
I follow in the other woman’s footsteps and stumble out the door. It’s all I can do to make it to my apartment before I break down. Hot tears of lava stream down my face, burning trails down my cheeks.
I opened up to him, gave myself up to him in body, mind… and heart. Now I realise none of it was real. He’s an expert at telling me what I want to hear. I must have been amusing to him, the girl who can’t come who’s now completely infatuated with him. God, I feel like an idiot.
With the door closed and locked behind me I crumple onto the floor. Once again I’m in my apartment, destroyed. My arms and legs feel weak, I’m dizzy with pain. The blurry outlines of my furniture are barely visible through my tear-filled eyes and I can’t help but cry even harder. My heart is shattered and I sit on the floor as I try to understand what just happened.
Emma was right to walk away from him this morning, to call him a user. He’s played me and now he’ll move onto the next girl and play her too. He’ll go on “breaking his rules” whenever he wants to get in someone’s bed.
Deep breaths. I need to calm down.
One thing is for sure, it won’t be my bed.
That thought doesn’t make me feel better, it might even be making me feel worse. The searing pain in my chest isn’t subsiding, I can’t move from my spot on the floor. I was falling for him and now it’s like the curtain has been lifted. He’s been like a drug to me, waltzing into my life and sweeping me off my feet, showing me pleasure like I’ve never experienced.
Sobs rake through my body, making my shoulders shake as the tears fall from my eyes. I should have known I didn’t deserve to feel that kind of happiness.
Chapter 42 - Clay
No words can explain the hurricane of emotion inside me right now. My blood feels like fire in my veins as I try to understand what just happened.
The look on Val’s face when she put up her hands and walked away from me was pure hurt and anger and betrayal. If she’d only given me a second, I could explain!
For the second time, that woman, that black-haired snake, slithered her way into my life and left me holding my heart in my hand with a hole in my chest. Except this time it’s not just me she’s hurt, it’s Val.
The waiter walks up to the table with two steaming plates of pasta and all of a sudden I realise where I am. I look around and see the sideways glances from the tables around me. I’m naked and exposed.
It’s not true! I want to scream. I’m not that kind of guy!
The plates are dropped in front of me and the waiter hovers awkwardly.
“Will the lady be coming back?” he asks tentatively.
I look up at him in a daze.
“I’ll just get the bill please.”
“No problem. Would you like this food to take away?”
“No, just the bill.” I can’t eat right now. I can’t think, I can’t talk. I’m not even sure if I’ll be able to stand.
Just when I thought I had Val back, when my heart was singing just looking at her across from me, she was ripped away from me again.
I need to fix this.
My heart is beating faster, I’m frantic.
I need to explain.
I need to tell her everything. Tell her what happened before.
I need her to listen.
I can’t lose her. I can’t go back to the way things were! She’s shown me how good things can be, what happiness tastes like.
It tastes like her.
I pay the bill and get out.
Stumbling, frantic, panicking, I make my way towards her. I need to talk to her. I run up the stairs to her apartment and bang on her door.
“Val! Valerie! Please open the door!”
“Go away!” The words sound like they’re coming from just the other side of the door. Her voice, her beautiful voice sounds strained and choked. A knife passes through my heart like hot butter at the thought that I did this to her, I made her feel like this.
No, I didn’t. Caroline did.
“Val, please,” I plead to the door, my voice softer. “The things she was saying weren’t true. I can tell you everything.”
I hear shuffling on the other side of the door and the lock scrapes open. My heart beats faster and I feel a tendril of hope sparking inside me. The door flies open and there she is.
Her eyes are red, her cheeks blotchy. The tears are still streaming down her face and my heart breaks all over again. Her pain shoots through me and almost knocks me down. My arms are aching for her, I just want to wrap myself around her and make it better. She speaks before I can.
“Leave.” Her bottom lip is shaking violently but her voice is low and firm. My heart drops like a stone.
“What?”
“Leave, and don’t come back.”
“Val, just let me explain.”
“I told you, Clay. I’m sick of your explanations. You’ve made a fool out of me one too many times. So you can make me come, so what!” she spits the words at me. “You’re a player, and congratulations, you’ve played me. Don’t come back.”
The door slams and locks with a finality that knocks me back.
Just like that, she’s gone. I’ve lost her.
Somehow I make it
home. I have no idea how, I can’t remember getting here.
She’s gone. I’ve lost her.
Chapter 43 - Valerie
I wake up with the sun streaming through my open blinds. For a couple blissful seconds before I’m fully awake I don’t remember what happened last night. I bring my hands up to rub my eyes. I realise they’re almost swollen shut and then the tidal wave of emotion rushes back to me and kicks me down.
I try to rub my eyes and coax them open. The bright sunlight is almost like a slap in the face. How dare the sun shine when I feel like I’ve fallen into the deepest, darkest hole on earth.
Thank goodness it’s Sunday and I don’t need to go to work today.
I scrape myself up and swing my legs over the side of the bed. My whole body is sore. I simultaneously feel like I’ve run a marathon and like have the worst hangover of my life. I groan as I try to convince my legs to work.
My room is a mess. Discarded clothes from last night and towels from our shower are littered around the room, taunting me. Reminders that he was here. Reminders of the few blissful hours we had together before it all came crashing down.
Ignorance is bliss, as they say.
I can’t ignore it any longer. I know who he is, what he is. I need to move on. I had a good life before him, and I can have a good life after him.
My good life before him was good except for the thing that drove me to him in the first place. I wonder if my newfound ability to climax is gone with him. I feel the tears welling up when I think about losing him, his companionship, his smile, his sex.
My heart hardens. I need to stop thinking like that. If I let him in again I’ll only be betrayed again.
I wander through my apartment over to the kitchen. I’m on autopilot when I put on some coffee and then walk over to my purse, still sitting on the floor next to the door where I dropped it last night.
Swear to Me: A Second Chance Mountain Man Romance (Clarke Brothers Series Book 2) Page 30
