by Maisey Yates
But the feeling. She just wanted the feeling.
She stood up from the blanket, moved into a vacant spot in the barn, the floor covered with dirt and hay. “You can’t laugh at me,” she said, giving Alex a warning look.
He was leaning back, just out of the pool of light, and his expression was shadowed. “I would never laugh at you.”
She believed him.
She took a deep breath, and maneuvered herself into first position. Then, she began to dance.
* * *
ALEX COULDN’T BREATHE. Clara, wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt, dancing to classical music in her head, her movements graceful, slow and precise, was the most stunning thing he’d ever seen.
And it wounded him. What she’d said about her good days.
It killed him. He knew life wasn’t fair. Hell, he’d always known it. Sometimes you were just born into a hard life and there was nothing you could do about it. Nothing but smile through it, not let it get to you. He’d done that as much as he could in his own life.
But with her...with her it struck him as being wrong. Unfair. She should have more good days. So many she’d lose count.
More than that, he wanted to give them to her. That conviction burned deep inside him and it felt perilously close to hope.
But hope hurt. And he didn’t want it.
She was nervous, he could tell, and sometimes she stumbled. But she kept on going. Her eyes closed, her face tilted toward the light. And he could see when she began to forget she had an audience. When she shook off her nerves, her concerns about him watching her, her fears over getting a step wrong.
He could see when she just started feeling it. And the strange part was that he could feel it too. It was a helluva thing. He had never imagined that Clara—who loved macaroni and cheese and had just hopped around him like an excited puppy waiting for the bison to arrive, who kissed with enthusiasm, if no real skill—could be graceful too.
Could take his breath away.
A slow smile spread over her face, and she swept her arms in an elegant movement as she turned, then did a small hop, landing almost soundlessly.
She did another turn, and then transitioned into a leap that looked effortless, as easy as if she had never stopped practicing. She looked weightless. As though with each movement she had shed some of the baggage she carried around on her shoulders.
And for just a moment, he was right there with her. For just a moment, he felt like he could breathe. Like he was lighter inside too.
Then she turned, pausing, her hands on the hem of her T-shirt, her expression indecisive. For only a moment. Then she pulled her top over her head. She shed her layers with each move. It was erotic, it was sexy, but it also felt different than any kind of striptease he might have seen before.
Maybe because it wasn’t a tease.
It was just Clara. Honest, open and uncovered. Bare to him.
The lantern light cast a glow over her pale skin, her nipples tight in the cool night air. She kept on going till she was completely naked. Until she was dancing with nothing to hide at all.
She glided forward, and dropped down to the floor, moving toward him, her blue eyes glittering. “That’s not part of the original routine,” she whispered.
“I didn’t figure,” he said, hardly able to speak around the lump in his throat.
She crawled forward, her hands on either side of him, her breasts brushing his chest. “Alex,” she said, still whispering.
“What?”
“Thank you. Thank you for asking me to dance.”
He groaned, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her against him. She was so soft. So damn soft. And naked. And it was like he’d never touched a naked woman in his life. Maybe he hadn’t. He couldn’t remember. Because this was Clara, and there was no one like her. No experience he could compare her to.
“Did it make you happy?” he asked, his mouth pressed against hers.
He tasted a tear as it slid over her top lip. “Happy. Sad. Everything. It’s hard for a moment to be only happy when so many moments in my life are connected to sadness in some way. But I think it makes this feeling deeper than. Fuller. Sometimes it feels like too much.” She lifted her hand and dragged her fingertips over his cheek. “But it’s better than that fog. It’s better than hiding.”
He caught her wrist and turned her palm so he could kiss it. “Is this better than hiding?”
“So much better.”
He didn’t ask her if this was happy. Because he knew the answer already. Deeper. Fuller. Too much.
So he just kissed her. Kissed her until they were both drowning in it. Kissed her until neither of them could breathe.
“This is a much better memory,” she said, kissing the corner of his mouth.
“What?”
“A better memory. For the last thing that happened after a dance. Being with you. Being held by you. Being kissed by you. This is better.”
He slid his thumbs across her face, wiped away her tears. She’d cried way too many times in her life. Had experienced way too much hurt. If he could take it all away from her he would, and give her more happy moments. More bright spots, he would. If he could trade with her, he would, but he didn’t have any more good memories to give.
But she looked at him like this was a bright spot. He was part of one of her happy days.
He didn’t deserve that. He didn’t deserve her. But if there was one thing he’d learned over the past few years, it was that justice didn’t exist in the world, and some men paid prices they shouldn’t, and others got rewards they could never hope to earn.
That was Clara. For him. For now.
And he wasn’t strong enough to do anything but let himself get washed away by the tide.
CHAPTER TWENTY
CLARA WASN’T A very good cook, but she was more than capable of opening cans of SpaghettiOs. So maybe it wasn’t the most glorious spread. Bowls of SpaghettiOs and cans of Coke poured into wine glasses—which she had never used before, but were still in the cupboard from years ago.
She had put a flower in the center of the table too. And maybe that was stupid. Or lame. But she had never really had a boyfriend before, so she didn’t know exactly what she was supposed to do when she wanted to do something special for him. Well, except for what she had done the other day.
Just thinking about the past few days with Alex made her feel like she was breaking apart inside. But it wasn’t in that bad, hopeless way that grief had broken her apart so many times before. It was different. Deep and rich. And wonderful even when it hurt. She wanted to hold on to it forever. Knowing that she couldn’t was part of what made her feel like she was being pulled apart in the first place.
She frowned and wiped her hands on her jeans. She wasn’t supposed to want this to go on forever. She wasn’t supposed to feel like she wanted this thing with Alex to last. This was all about carving out the life that she wanted to move forward with. Not about putting herself in another impossible position where loss was inevitable and pain was certain.
It was funny to think that only a few weeks ago she had been planning some kind of strange, elusive future with Asher that she knew she would actually hate. But she had been so convinced that she had to be a different person in order to be happy. That in order to find some sense of normalcy she had to become a person that was entirely separate from the one who had lost her mother, her father and her brother.
That to be with someone she would have to push those losses down deep, hide the fact that she preferred sugary drinks to coffee. Hide the fact that she had the palate of a five-year-old and no interest in changing it. That she would have to be someone else, something else, to be interesting to a man. To be interesting to herself.
She didn’t feel that way now. Somehow, being with Alex like thi
s made her feel more centered, more who she was. Made her feel more at peace with certain parts of herself. She didn’t feel she could say she was at peace with what she’d lost. She wasn’t sure that was possible. But she definitely wasn’t sitting around feeling stagnant. Definitely wasn’t feeling consumed by that pain anymore.
There was a middle ground, she was learning. She didn’t have to forget about the life she had lived up to this point, that had brought her here. Didn’t have to let go of everything that made her Clara in order to be happy.
But all of that was supposed to be a revelation moving her to a point where she could stand on her own feet, not one that made her feel like she wanted to cling to Alex forever.
She was twenty-one. She should date other men. She should sleep with other men.
She didn’t want to.
Part of her feared that, much like her resolute dislike of kale and her certainty that she would never like coffee as much as she liked cocoa, there was no man out there who would appeal to her the way that Alex did. And it wouldn’t take sampling to prove it.
She had a feeling she was even more picky about men than she was about food.
Only one would do.
She frowned even more deeply and looked at the front door, hoping that Alex would come in soon.
He had been taking care of her. Bringing her food, helping her organize her bills, bringing the bison to the ranch, arranging for that contract with Lane so that she could sell the honey in her store.
She wanted it to feel more equal.
The front door swung open, and in he walked, bringing with him the smell of hay and sunshine and hard work. It seemed like he had brought the air in with him too. Like she could breathe fully for the first time all day.
“Hi, stranger,” she said, resting her hand on the back of the kitchen chair and treating him to a smile.
“Hi,” he said, surveying the table. “You cooked?”
“I microwaved.”
“I’ll take it.” He bent down and kissed her, and it left her feeling dizzy.
He sat down at the table and then picked up the wineglass, taking a drink. He frowned, his brows locking together. “What is this?”
“It’s Coke.”
“I did not expect soda in the wineglass.”
“Did you really think I found a nice red to pair with the canned pasta?”
“I guess I wasn’t thinking.”
Her lips twitched. “It’s a little bit of a Clara dinner.” She sat down and picked up her own glass.
“I think I can handle it.”
“Do you?” There was a needy note winding its way through the words, and she kind of hated it. Hated the fact that the question was kind of a leading, layered one. Even if she hadn’t meant it to be. How long could he handle it? Did he actually like it? Could he handle it for a long time? Could he handle it enough to make this a place where he stayed?
She wouldn’t say the rest of that. But she felt it. It burned hot inside of her breast, and she did her best to just take a sip of soda and look nonchalant.
“You know,” he said after he took a bite of the SpaghettiOs. “This isn’t that bad.”
“It’s amazing,” she said. “Only snobbery prevents you from admitting it entirely.”
“I’m not sure about that.”
“I’m telling you,” she continued, “people eat things they don’t like because of what they’re told is better.”
“And I’m telling you that most people genuinely think homemade pasta is better, but we don’t need to argue about it.”
He smiled, and it felt real.
She would remember that smile. When she remembered her good days.
But it made her wonder. It made her wonder why his smiles so often weren’t real. Why he seemed to play the part of the funny brother in front of his family. Why he was so married to a facade he didn’t need.
She had seen more to him. She had seen him angry. She had seen him grieving. And she still liked him.
“I’m going to ask you something,” she said.
“Should I be scared? Because that sounds a lot like a warning.”
She lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know. I guess that depends. Do my questions scare you?”
He smiled again, but this time it looked more forced. “You’re pretty scary, Clara Campbell.”
“Well, I’ll be gentle. Alex, why do you feel like you have to be happy all the time?”
His smile slipped. “Have I acted happy all the time around you?”
“No. But I get the feeling that’s what you do with everybody else. For some reason. And I don’t know why. I think you’ve shown me a lot more than you show other people.”
When she said that, he drew back slightly as though she had slapped him. “It’s just social graces, Clara. People in general understand that. Given the amount of time you’ve spent dealing with all the crap life has handed you, maybe you don’t realize that. But people don’t want your baggage. So you push it down.”
“Even with your brothers?”
“I don’t know those bastards. I live with them now. I’m getting to know them.”
“Are you?”
His jaw went tight, the lines by his mouth deepening. “I don’t recall giving you permission to have open access to me, honey. We’re sleeping together. That’s it.”
“That’s it? Like sleeping together is nothing? Like it’s so small?”
“I’ve slept with a lot of people.”
“So what? That wasn’t this. None of it was.”
She knew that. She knew it with all of herself. Because how could anything else be what they had? If he’d had it before, then he’d have it still, she was sure of that. No, this was something unique. It was something singular. She didn’t need to have had a lot of sex to know that. There was no way it was this easy to find somebody you could laugh with and cry with, grieve with and then have amazing sex with after. She could never have danced for anybody else. Not the way she had for him yesterday. She couldn’t even admit to Asher that she didn’t like coffee until she didn’t care anymore what he thought. How could she have done any of those other things?
“I don’t care how many women you’ve slept with. You told me about Jason. And you haven’t told any other women about that, have you?”
“Just because you have sex with somebody doesn’t mean you share things.”
“No,” she said. “Not with them. But with me.”
“I haven’t been with anyone since Jason died.”
She blinked. “No one?”
“No.”
“But you’ve been here and...and I’m sure a lot of women would...”
“Well, I didn’t want to.”
Hope and defiance filled her in equal measure. “Until me. You didn’t want anyone until me. And you’re trying to compare me to other women, to other sex. You can’t. We’re not like anyone else, and I know that. I don’t have to have had another lover to know it.”
He was looking at her, looking at her like he was confused and dumbfounded by everything she was saying. It was so clear to her. So clear this was a singular thing. And he was the one who was supposed to have experience.
“What?” she asked.
“I don’t think I’ve ever met anybody less afraid than you,” he said.
“You were in the army. I’m pretty sure you’ve met a lot of brave people.”
“Not very many people would come at me like this, Clara. And even fewer would show so much of themselves with no guarantee of getting anything back.”
She was confused, and she was frustrated. She didn’t understand why he was acting like she was breaching some kind of social contract by pushing for personal information. Maybe to Alex, being naked with someone wasn’t personal.
She might not understand that, but she could take on board that he felt that way. But even so, wasn’t their relationship something else? He’d watched her brother die, a man they’d both cared for. He was sharing her grief with her. And that seemed like the most naked you could be with someone. Shouldn’t they share their feelings?
Alex looked defeated. As if he couldn’t quite come up with a response to a near-virgin’s verbal manifesto on why their sex was surely different than any he’d had before. But it was. She knew it. She felt it.
“Clara,” he said, his voice weary. “That’s not how this kind of thing works.”
“Why are you acting like there’s a rulebook for this?”
“Because there always has been in the past.”
“You just sleep with women and don’t tell them anything? You sleep with them, and you never get to know them? You see them naked, and you touch their breasts and their...and you never...you never get to know them any better than that?”
“Yes. That’s how it’s always worked. You don’t have to know a woman to screw her.”
Clara frowned, her head starting to throb. “What’s the point of that?”
He looked at her, his expression bland. Forced. “It feels good.”
“Sure. But doesn’t it feel lonely?”
He stood up, clearly irritated with her now. “It’s not about feelings. It’s about getting off.”
“But what we have is about more than that. You can’t pretend that it isn’t. We do more. We feel more.”
“Don’t get ideas about this,” he said, looking tired all of a sudden. “Don’t start thinking this is going to be forever.”
“I don’t,” she said, standing up and planting her hands flat on the table. “There’s such a thing as middle ground, you know? I’m pretty sure I’m capable of wanting more than just your body and not expecting that I get your entire soul. But you more than anyone understand me. I mean, I think you could. And I think that I could understand you. I don’t need you to just be big muscles and a male member. I don’t need you to just be the guy that’s here running my ranch. You can be you.”
