Slow Hands

by Debra Dixon

  “Yes.”

  “Good. I’m going to let an impulse fade away right now. I’m not going to do what I want to do, but you think about it. Think about what I’m not going to do.” He reached for the brass handle of the door. “Anticipation and foreplay. Helluva combination. Good night, Clare,” Sam said softly, and left the bathroom.

  When the bedroom door clicked quietly shut, Clare remembered to breathe.

  “Please, check again,” Clare said desperately, then paused and bit her lip. She tried to block the mental image of Ellie catching a cab and showing up at the condominium. Continuing more calmly, Clare explained, “Ellie, my cousin, wasn’t on the early flight this morning. She’s got to be on this one.”

  “I’m sorry,” said the flight attendant, sounding genuinely apologetic. “But I’m certain all the passengers are off. Maybe you looked away as she left the plane. Why don’t you try the baggage claim area?”

  “Thank you. Maybe I will.” Clare gave the woman a weak smile and walked away, wondering why disaster had followed her like a black cloud for the past few months.

  Before she’d taken more than a few steps, Clare stopped, finally admitting that rushing off to baggage claim would be a foolish waste of time. She’d gotten to the terminal gate a full thirty minutes before the plane landed. She’d studied the faces of every man, woman, and child as they’d gotten off the plane. She’d watched joyous reunion after joyous reunion. Her attention hadn’t wandered, and Ellie wasn’t on the plane or in baggage claim. After everything she’d done to make the visit perfect, Ellie hadn’t even bothered to show up.

  At the moment the long walk through the terminal and out to her car required more energy than she had. Feeling defeated, Clare leaned against the cool wall and stared at the empty blue plastic chairs and deserted boarding counter of Gate 47. She couldn’t even begin to think about what to do next. Everything in her life had been put on hold, waiting for Ellie’s arrival.

  Adrenaline had gotten her through the day, through the hours of tedious reading and research about the Japanese auto industry, through the endless mountain of paperwork on her desk. Adrenaline had pushed her along from task to task, making her forget the dread that had settled in the pit of her stomach as she waited for the Saturday evening flight. Adrenaline had persuaded her that Ellie would actually believe she belonged in Sam’s house.

  Sam’s house. Sam’s bed. Sam. Those were thoughts that had kept her up all night when she should have been worrying about how to handle Ellie. Instead, she’d lain in bed, replaying the scene in the bathroom over and over, trying to discover why the thought of Sam rubbing her robe against his stomach escalated the unfamiliar rush of blood in her veins. She’d struggled with how to handle him and the sensuous thoughts he skillfully deposited in her imagination.

  The man planted erotic images and nurtured them like a master gardener. She’d never met a man who occupied her thoughts the way Sam did. Even when he wasn’t with her, she couldn’t keep him out of her mind. She heard his voice in her dreams.

  “Pensive? Clare McGuire in a pensive mood?” Sam was suddenly flesh and blood beside her, grinning at her as he teased, “What are you doing, Clare? Compiling another list? Am I on this one too? Or at least on your mind?”

  Startled, Clare pushed away from the wall and evaded his hand. She refused to let him brush her cheek which burned with guilty knowledge. Sam Tucker had most definitely been on her mind. “What … what are you doing here?”

  “I came to find you.” Sam deftly captured her shoulders and brought her to him for a chaste peck on the lips. “I missed you today.”

  “Why?” Clare asked, and pushed him away as heat suffused her bones and threatened to melt her reserve.

  “That is a particularly stupid question,” Sam informed her before taking her hand in his and answering, “I missed you because I like having you around.”

  Clare stared at her hand nestled in his and realized that she had no intention of pulling away from the comfort his touch offered. When she looked up into Sam’s face, she said, “You came looking for me because you missed me?”

  “No,” Sam said gently as he started down the corridor. “I came looking for you because Ellie called to say she’s been delayed.”

  “Delayed?” Clare echoed. Then her eyes snapped wide open and she gasped, “Oh, my God, you didn’t answer the phone, did you?”

  “Sorry,” Sam confessed, his eyes narrowing as he noted that Clare’s first reaction hadn’t been concern over Ellie’s delay. “I pick up the telephone when it rings. I know it’s a bad habit. I’m trying to stop. Really I am.”

  “This isn’t a joke, Sam.” Unconsciously, she rubbed her thumb against his and gripped his hand more tightly. “You really did talk to Ellie?”

  “Don’t worry. She doesn’t suspect a thing. I told her I was the gardener.”

  Clare almost stumbled and stared at Sam, knowing he couldn’t possibly have read her thoughts earlier. Nevertheless, she wondered why he’d chosen a gardener instead of a painter or electrician. He always seemed to be one step ahead of her, reading her mind, analyzing her.

  “Something wrong?” Sam asked.

  “Everything,” she said, irritated. She sighed and pulled her hand away from his. “Now I’ve got a butler, a boarder, and a gardener to explain. Why couldn’t you have let the machine take a message as we agreed?”

  “Because I never expected Ellie to be on the other end of the line. By the way, does she always talk in that melodramatic, breathless way?”

  Clare’s eyebrows drew together as she stepped on the escalator that would take them down into the parking garage. Ellie’s voice had been described as earthy and sensual, but never melodramatic and breathless. “You don’t like her voice?”

  “Not particularly.” Sam stepped onto the escalator behind Clare, placing his arms on either side of her.

  He found it interesting that they were talking about everything except Ellie’s delay and when she’d be coming, but he didn’t mind. For the first time since he’d met her, Clare wasn’t thinking about Ellie’s arrival or Ellie’s approval. She was thinking about his approval of Ellie, and if he read her right, she was comparing herself to her cousin again, wondering whose voice he liked better.

  “As a matter of fact, I don’t like her voice at all,” he corrected her, and leaned down to breathe in the scent of her hair. He let his tongue lightly touch the side of her neck before he whispered, “Your voice, however, I definitely like. The faint drawl is sexy as hell. Find a dark corner, and I’ll show you just how sexy.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Clare said as she caught herself leaning back into Sam’s chest. Straightening, she scrambled down the escalator.

  “You’re running, Clare.”

  “Damn right!” she agreed, stepping on the solid concrete. No sense in denying the obvious anymore. She had a bad case of raging hormones. “Running as far and as fast as I can until Ellie decides to show up. I can’t think with you touching me all the time.” She stopped, suddenly struck by a thought. “When is Ellie coming?”

  “She’s not sure. Maybe not for a week.”

  “A week!”

  “Yeah, what a shame,” Sam said, pretending sympathy for her disappointment and taking the opportunity to drape an arm around her shoulders and walk with her. “But you don’t have to move back to the condominium. I’m a man of my word. I said you could use the house until the crisis with Ellie passed.”

  A whole week alone with Sam? She’d be crazy to tempt fate. Already, she’d become accustomed to his habit of touching her, of absently pulling her close as though she belonged at his side. Just yesterday her temper had gotten the best of her twice. She couldn’t afford to live in Sam’s house. He was the kind of man that was habit forming, and she didn’t want to have to live through the withdrawal pains when he moved on.

  Because he would move on. She was a challenge to be met, mastered, and ultimately forgotten. She had no doubts that he would forget he
r. After all, her aunt and uncle had taught her how easily “poor Clare” could be forgotten. No, she shouldn’t tempt fate. She had to keep him at a distance, away from her heart. Away from her body. Especially away from her body. Because he had no intention of ignoring the chemistry between them.

  “I’d have to be a fool to stay in your house, Tucker,” she said sweetly, disguising all the turmoil beneath her calm exterior. She dug in her purse for her car keys. “And I’m not a fool.”

  Confused, Sam asked, “Now, exactly what is that supposed to mean?”

  Clare rolled her eyes and a disbelieving huff escaped her. “Two plus two plus the condoms you put in the nightstand drawer add up to trouble.”

  “Condoms!” Sam exploded, and then quickly glanced at the rows of cars beside them, groaning as his gaze met that of an interested nun. Shrugging his shoulders, he nodded an apology and turned away. He planted both feet firmly beneath him and swung Clare around to face him. Very carefully, very slowly, he asked, “What condoms?”

  SEVEN

  Clare could feel the tension in Sam flow down his arms and through his hands into her body, flowing until it filled her, stretching her taut. His dark eyes held hers and demanded an answer. Suddenly Clare felt as though she stood in quicksand, and every word out of her mouth threatened to sink her deeper into the quagmire. Shrugging off his hands, Clare separated her car door key from the others on the ring.

  “Forget I said anything,” she suggested as she turned toward the pale blue Spitfire convertible. She had no intention of having a conversation about—of having this conversation with Sam. What on earth had possessed her to bring up the subject of condoms?

  “What condoms, Clare?”

  The softness of his repeated question didn’t fool her. Sam wasn’t going to let the matter drop quietly into the black hole of misguided conversations. Not Sam. Sam didn’t like secrets. He’d dig and pry, just like he always did, until he was satisfied with her response.

  “Don’t play innocent with me, Sam Tucker,” she finally answered, and glared at him. “You know as well as I do that I’m talking about the condoms I found in my—in your—nightstand.”

  “I didn’t put any condoms in our nightstand,” Sam said as he pulled her completely around to face him. He slid his hand slowly down her bare arm until he cupped her elbow. “I didn’t have condoms in the nightstand, because I’ve never made love in that bed.”

  “Right! Well, if they don’t belong to me, and you didn’t put them there, then who—” Clare stopped abruptly, and her mouth hung open for a second before she snapped it shut.

  William!

  Jumping to the same conclusion a fraction of a second before Clare, Sam said, “I’ll kill him.”

  “You can’t kill family.” Clare’s tone implied regret.

  “Watch me,” Sam invited her.

  Clare’s face burned as she thought of William tactfully placing the condoms in the drawer. To hide her embarrassment, she focused on unlocking the car with shaky hands, her keys making a faint tinkling sound.

  “He saw my shoes on the rug,” she whispered as Sam’s hand steadied hers.

  Sighing because he understood exactly what she was referring to, Sam drew her away from her struggle with the door lock and forced her to look up at him. Distressed eyes met his, and he hated the misery he saw there. Hated that her own passion embarrassed her and wondered if he could ever make her realize that love and loving weren’t to be hidden in a closet, but to be shown off in public and shouted from the rooftops. Like his parents had.

  “Shh, Clare,” Sam soothed as he fit her body against the length of his. “What if William did see the shoes?”

  “What if he did?” Clare repeated as though she couldn’t believe her ears. When she’d extricated herself from Sam’s embrace, she threw a brief glance around the parking garage and lowered her voice. “Your butler knows we’ve—thinks we’ve—he saw—”

  While she struggled to find the right words to describe their activities, Sam raked his hands through his hair. Slowly, he let his hands trail over his neck and down his jawline, but he restrained the impulse to shake Clare and to provide her with a vocabulary of blunt, explicit words to describe what they’d almost done. With every fiber in his being he ached to tell her, in plain English, everything he’d like to do to her, for her, and in her. Most of which would probably shock the hell out of her sense of propriety. All of which would certainly disturb William a lot more than her shoes on the rug.

  Unexpectedly, a deep chuckle rumbled through Sam as he remembered what he’d said to Clare while she was in the bath the previous night. You have no idea how much William approves of you.

  Mistaking his chuckle for amusement at her, Clare clamped her mouth shut and pulled open the door. With a thump her purse landed in the passenger seat, but Sam caught her arm before she could disappear inside the convertible. “Hey, come back here. I wasn’t laughing at you. I was laughing at William’s paternal instincts. I’m thirty-three years old, and he still thinks it’s his job to keep the big bad wolf from the family door.”

  “And why is that funny?”

  “This time around,” Sam explained with a wry grin as he pinned her lower body against the small car. A satisfied growl escaped him as the distance between them evaporated, bringing her full breasts in contact with his chest. “This time around, you’re the family, and I’m the big bad wolf.”

  “You’re the …” Clare’s sentence trailed away when his hips moved in a circular motion that pressed his arousal against her. She sucked in a tiny breath and said the first thing that came to mind. “My, what big … eyes you have.”

  “All the better to see you with, my dear,” Sam whispered, sinking his fingers into her hair and wishing he could do more than that. Tilting her head, he let his teeth gently scrape and pull her bottom lip. “Open your mouth, Clare,” he ordered. “Let the wolf in.”

  The flicker of need that hovered in her belly whenever Sam came near her flared into full awareness. He smelled like autumn sunshine, and she wanted to bask in the warmth for once without worrying how long it would last, without regard to the consequences. She was tired of being careful and tired of being disappointed, tired of controlling the impulses nurtured by the image of Sam and her damned silk robe.

  Hesitantly, Clare let her hands creep up the cotton knit shirt and curled her fingers into his collar. Would one kiss be that crazy? Just one kiss. A barn-burner to teach Sam the dangers of playing with fire. One kiss to cleanse her system of the awful anticipation he’d created last night by leaving her alone with her fantasies. One kiss on her terms, with her in control. With confidence Clare pulled Sam closer and opened her mouth.

  Barn-burner was as apt a description as any for the searing kiss that scorched her logic and melted her fantasies. Heat invaded her mouth as Sam slid his tongue against hers. With his hands still cupping her head, he controlled her movements, taking pleasure from her mouth and giving it back to her. This became Sam’s kiss, not hers. He stoked the fire, and she burned.

  “Let’s go home, Clare,” Sam suggested as he pulled his mouth from hers and rested his forehead against hers. “I will not make love to you in a parking garage! Besides, your convertible is too small. Why in God’s name couldn’t you have a nice, practical minivan with tinted windows instead of a tiny thirty-year-old convertible?”

  “The Spitfire will double my investment in five years,” Clare answered unsteadily, painfully aware she’d been passionately kissing Sam in a public place. Her lips still throbbed from the pressure of his, and her head throbbed with the knowledge that a few moments earlier she would have gladly traded the convertible for the minivan. So much for teaching Sam a lesson. So much for staying in Sam’s house. She’d simply have to find some other way to deal with Ellie.

  “I’m not going home with you, Sam. I have my own car. But I am going there to pack. Please,” Clare whispered as she pushed at Sam’s chest. “People are staring.”

  Sam let
her go. “Let them stare. And separate cars or not, you are going home with me. I’m not going to spend the next week packing and unpacking every time Ellie gets the urge to plan a trip and you need a house.”

  “Well, I’m not going home with you,” Clare repeated as she slid into her seat and unrolled her window. “Because I’m not spending the next week worrying about when and where you’re going to strike next.”

  Sam’s laughter rang out, echoing through the concrete garage and drawing the attention of several passersby. “If you’re worrying about sex, Clare,” Sam cautioned in a smooth drawl, “you are worrying about the wrong thing! Never waste brain cells worrying about the inevitable.”

  The engine roared to life, and Clare threw the gearshift into reverse. “I’m not worried about the inevitable. I’m worried about how I’ll like prison life when I’m found guilty of murdering you.”

  “If I don’t bring you home, you won’t have to worry about prison. William will murder me first. He’s the one who sent me after you. He thinks you need us.”

  “I’m not staying, Sam.” Clare backed out of the parking place and roared away.

  Sam grinned as the powder-blue sports car sped off. Softly, to her taillights, he said, “You go right back to my house and pack up if you think that’s best, but I’d bet the farm that William’s going to change your mind about staying. He fixed snap beans for dinner, Miss Clare.”

  Clare’s mouth began to water the minute she opened the front door. With every breath she inhaled the taste of spicy, southern fried chicken, fresh biscuits, and vegetables. She could hear the clatter of pot lids in the kitchen and William’s strong baritone singing. She wondered what it would be like to really live in this house, to come home to an interfering butler and home-cooked meals every day. To know that someone waited for her, cared about her.

  Startled by the direction her thoughts had taken, Clare put a straitjacket on her imagination and headed for Sam’s room as quietly as possible. Packing—not daydreaming—should be her number-one priority. She needed to get her clothes, her cat, and get out. Tonight. Before anything else disastrous happened.