“It’s amazing,” she said. He gave her a look that said he didn’t quite believe her. “I wish . . . I always wanted to get off the rez and see the world.”
“But life happens,” he said quietly.
“Yeah, you could say that. Mikey happened, anyway.” She looked down to where their hands were joined. “This is probably the first time I’ve left him to do something for myself.”
A weird mix of emotions played through her as she said it. She was thrilled she’d done something for herself—but yet, she still felt guilty that she’d left him for something as selfish as a peaceful meal that didn’t involve spills or screaming.
Clarence was watching the sky. Thin clouds scurried over the bright blue sky. “Really? You haven’t even gone out since he was born?”
“No.” Now she just felt ashamed. Who was she going to go out with? There’d been no interest in her, none at all. And truthfully, she hadn’t sought that attention out. Something about being knocked up and dumped made a girl wary. “Not since his father left before he was born.” She’d gained so much weight while she was pregnant and hadn’t managed to lose any of it afterwards. “Not that many men are interested in a—well, in someone like me.”
He appeared to think that over. “Well, most men are idiots.”
She grinned as she felt her cheeks heat up. “This has been really nice. Much better than just a few minutes in the morning.”
He took a drink. “We could do this again.”
The way he said it made it sound like . . . dating. Something that happened regularly. Something that was dependable. “We could.”
Clarence squeezed her hand. “Do you want to?”
Want. A few days ago, he’d whispered in her ear that he wanted her and for an electric second, she wasn’t the single mother of a young boy but a woman who was being chased by a good man who could reduce her to a quivering mass of jelly with a few simple words.
She turned her hand over and laced her fingers with his. “Did you mean what you said? That you wanted me?” She had to force herself to say that last word because it was still so hard for her to believe that anyone would want her. “Because I don’t want to be played again and I won’t let Mikey get played with me.”
Clarence picked up her hand and kissed her palm. “You were played?”
His lips were warm against her palm, which was rapidly heating up other parts of her body. She tried to push the desire down. “I was stupid. I was twenty and I had a decent body and I thought . . .” She’d thought men could be trusted, that love would conquer all and that everything would work out. She’d thought she was smarter than she’d turned out to be.
“You’re beautiful,” he murmured—and then he kissed her palm again. “I like your body. I like you.”
She couldn’t respond to that because she just didn’t know how. All she could do was sit there as want—need—started to course through her veins.
Once, she’d liked sex. A lot. But she hadn’t had the time to even think about it for the last four years or so, not when she fell into bed in a state of exhaustion every single night.
“You’re twenty-four?” he asked, still holding tight to her hand.
“Yeah.” Some days she felt so old, but she knew there were people in this world who were still in college, still trying to get it figured out. She’d heard the phrase—a quarter-life crisis. At least that was one upside of Mikey—she simply did not have the time for existential self-doubt. She had to make it through each day, one stinking day at a time.
“I’m going to be forty next year.” He announced this as if it were a death sentence he had no desire to carry out. “If that’s too old for you, I’ll understand. Fifteen years is a big gap.”
She looked at him. His gaze was still fastened on the sky, as if he were afraid to look at her—afraid of what she might say.
“Why me?”
His head snapped down and he stared at her. “What?”
“Why me? I’m a broke single mother. I live with my mom and my sister—and you know what that means.” He grimaced at the mention of Tara. “You’re good looking, smart, you’ve got a good job and a nice house. You could have your pick of any woman on this rez.” She swallowed. It was the truth, but it didn’t make it any easier to say it. “So why me?”
Was it just because she was an easy target? Available? Or was there something else going on?
Please, God, let there be something else, she prayed.
He locked his gaze onto hers. “Because you’re beautiful and thoughtful and a good mom and when you look at me, I don’t feel like the butt of some cosmic joke about a male nurse.”
She gaped at him. “Really?” Because that’s not how she saw herself. And that wasn’t how she saw him, either. “You’re not a joke to me, Clarence. You’re an amazing man.”
That grin—oh, my. “Did you ever consider,” he said in a low voice that sent a thrill right through her, “that maybe I already looked over other women and you’re the best woman on this rez?”
No. She could honestly say she hadn’t considered that option—hadn’t even considered it to be an option. She opened her mouth to respond, but nothing came out.
His mouth curved into a smile that darn-near bordered on wicked as he lifted his hand and cupped her face in his massive palm. “Because you are,” he whispered as he leaned forward. “You’re the best woman on this rez.”
“You can’t mean that.” It was her last gasp at keeping some sort of distance between them—some sort of grip on herself.
And then the distance was gone. “I can and I do.” Then his mouth captured her and she was powerless to do anything but kiss him back.
No one could see them. Mikey wasn’t about to barge in on them. Tara was nowhere.
This was just him and her. She could do whatever she wanted. The feeling was intoxicating.
He ran his fingers through her hair and angled her head back so he could kiss her neck. “Tammy . . .”
She pivoted in her chair to give him better access. She was feeling things—things she’d forgotten how to feel. No, that wasn’t true—she remembered desire and want coursing through her body. She’d just pushed it all down and locked it away. She’d refused to acknowledge that she still had needs because she wasn’t a young woman with a future anymore—she was a mom who put her son first.
Except for right now.
“I want you to stay,” Clarence whispered against her skin as he ran his tongue over her throat. “It’s fine if you don’t, but I want you to.”
That was really why she’d come, wasn’t it? To see if Clarence was the kind of man she wanted to be with—the kind of man who wanted to be with her? To see if she could let a little of that desire out of the box she’d stored it in. To see if she could still be a woman worth wanting.
And this time, there would be no confusion, no hiding her desire behind alcohol. Clarence liked her. He wanted her. He was not promising her the sun, the moon and whatever stars he could round up. There was no grand talk about the future. Just the present. Just right now.
“Clarence,” she told him, promising herself she would not regret this, not like the last time. “Take me to bed.”
Chapter Six
Hands down, those had to be the sweetest five words he’d ever heard. But he had to play it cool because somehow, he didn’t think that jumping up and going, “Really? AWESOME!” was the most effective form of foreplay.
Instead—trying to be cool—he stood and pulled her up into his arms. “Do you have . . .” She blushed. God, she was so pretty.
“Yeah.” That’d been an important part of his last trip into town—a box of condoms. He might want kids one day—but not today.
He just wanted Tammy.
He swept her into his arms, which made her squeak. “Clarence!”
“I’ve got you,” he told her as he cradled her against his chest. Then he kissed her again, right in the middle of the patio.
She curled her fingers a
round his shirt, pulling his chest into hers. Right. He needed a bed before she got him so worked up that he couldn’t walk. He had to make sure he did this right. She deserved nothing less.
He managed to get the door open with his foot and then he was heading back toward his bedroom. It wasn’t fancy—he didn’t have matching curtains and bedspreads or anything—but it had his bed and that was the important thing right now.
He carried her inside and set her down on the edge of the bed. “Tell me what you want,” he murmured as he cupped her face in his hands. “Tell me what you like.”
She blushed again, as if having sex was one thing but talking about it was an entirely different thing. Then she looked up at him through her lashes, just like she did in the morning and he was lost to her. Completely lost.
“I like the way you kiss me,” she replied.
So he kissed her again. He took his time. He didn’t have to think about anyone walking in on them. He could love on her all day and all night long, if that’s what she wanted.
She scooted back on the bed a bit and he kneeled in between her legs, which had the convenient side effect of putting their heads on almost the same level. He wrapped one arm around her waist and cupped her left breast with the other. She gasped at the touch.
“Do you like that?” He felt her body respond, felt her nipple grow hard under his touch. He circled that point with his thumb.
“Oh,” she breathed, like she was trying desperately to hold onto . . . something.
“Yes or no?” When she didn’t immediately answer, he slipped his hand under her shirt and found her hard nipple again. “Yes or no?”
“Yes,” she gasped. Her back arched into him and she gripped his shoulders. “Yes.”
Blood pounded in his ears. He grabbed the back of her shirt and lifted it over her head, leaving her in just a plain white bra that had a hint of lace on the edge of the cups. “So beautiful, Tammy,” he growled as he filled both his hands with her breasts. “So beautiful.”
He was fighting hard for his self-control because all he wanted to do was peel off the rest of her clothes and bury himself in her body, but he dug deep and focused on her breasts. He kissed the edge of skin right above that little bit of lace as his thumbs teased her nipples until she was panting and moaning. “Oh, Clarence.”
“Yeah, babe—let go. Let me . . .” he relinquished his hold on her breasts but only so he could try to get the bra off. Thankfully, the clasps gave and suddenly, her breasts—truly, one of the best sets he’d ever seen—were free. He lowered his mouth onto the left one and went back to teasing the nipple of the right one.
“Oh, yes,” she moaned. She laced her fingers through his hair and held him to her. “Yes, I like that.”
“Mmm,” he hummed into her skin as he shifted his attention to the other one. He let his free hand drift down over the front of her jeans and down between her legs. “How about this?” he asked as he rubbed against the seam of her jeans.
She gasped, but she didn’t pull away. “Yeah,” she said, grabbing at the back of his shirt and pulling it over his head. “I want to touch you, too.”
She went for his jeans, but he grabbed her hands and held them away from his dick. If she went in hard, he wouldn’t last. “Easy,” he growled as he pushed her back onto the bed.
It was then, when he was over her and she was looking at him that he saw the tension—the fear—ease back. “I always wondered,” she whispered as she looked at his chest. She pulled one of her hands free and ran it down his chest. “Scrubs don’t do you justice.”
“I’m not as young as I once was,” he told her. Once, he’d been ripped with the kind of body that ladies in ports the world over couldn’t resist. But middle age had made him less cut, more cuddly.
She thought about that. “No, probably not. I bet you’re better.”
Clarence grinned before he kissed her again. She wanted better? He’d show her better. He let his tongue taste her lemonade sweetness before he worked his way back down to those fabulous breasts.
He undid the button on her jeans and began kissing down her stomach. Suddenly, she tensed. “No,” she whispered as she covered her stomach.
He froze. “No?”
She tried to roll away from him, like she wanted to hide. “Not that. It’s—after I had the baby—”
“I don’t mind the stretch marks. They’re a part of you.”
She shook her head. “Not . . . not this time.”
That was a concession he was willing to make. “Maybe next time?” Because he’d like a next time. Several next times.
She didn’t meet his gaze. “Maybe.”
He wanted her to let go of her self-consciousness but he didn’t want to push the issue right now. So he went back to licking and sucking her nipples. When he scraped his teeth over the hard nub, she bucked against him. That was better.
He forced himself to sit back and dig the condoms out of the drawer on his bedside table. Tammy sat up and this time, when she reached for his jeans, he didn’t stop her.
For years, Clarence had touched people. That was the job. He lifted them onto tables and sewed them back together and performed exams and cleaned wounds. But how long had it been since someone had touched him?
Way too long, was all he could think when Tammy slipped her hand into his pants and stroked his dick. “Oh, my,” she whispered as she pushed his jeans and briefs down. He sprang free, at full mast. “Oh, Clarence.”
Then, before he could stop her, she leaned forward and took him in her mouth.
The overwhelming sensation almost did him in. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t even move as Tammy licked along his shaft and took the head of his dick into her mouth again.
His eyes drifted shut as she swirled her tongue around his tip. He fisted his hand in her hair. He didn’t know if he was holding her to him or pulling her back—both, maybe. All he knew was that he was desperate for more and just as damned desperate to make her stop. He was supposed to be taking care of her—showing how he could be good for her, not the other way around. “Tammy . . .”
“Mmm?” she hummed around his dick, which made telling her to stop impossible.
“God,” he groaned, his hips flexing as she took him again and again. But when she started to stroke more than just his dick with her hands while she licked him, he had to pull her away before he lost it. “Easy,” he managed to say again, but his voice came out as a strained whisper.
She looked up at him with worried eyes. “Not good? I thought . . .”
He brushed her hair away from her face and trailed his fingers down her cheek. He could guess what she thought. That the men she’d been with before had always put themselves first, her second. Blow jobs were just as good as sex to a man who didn’t care about his woman.
And that wasn’t Clarence. “Listen to me, Tammy Tall Trees.” His voice came out as a low growl. “You are not allowed to come after I do. I will always put you first. Always.”
Her eyes widened in shock and he had to wonder if she’d ever really come—or just settled for what bone she got thrown after blow jobs.
He was having a lot of trouble thinking straight, what with the sheer desire that had him on the brink. “Your jeans,” he heard himself say as if from a long distance away. “Take them off.”
Her eyes still wide, she nodded. She stood and shimmied out of her jeans. He tried to honor her wishes and keep his gaze on her breasts—because they were really worth studying—but when she finally got out of her jeans and her panties, he couldn’t help but spread her before him.
Even though he was straining to be inside her, he pushed her legs open and touched her. He rubbed his thumb over her, listening as she sucked in little breaths.
Oh, she was warm and ready for him. “So wet,” he murmured as he lowered his mouth back to her breasts, stroking against her tight little clit as he sucked her nipples.
She gasped and he thought she might put the brakes on again, but it wasn’t long befo
re she was writhing underneath him as he went from rubbing her clit to stroking a finger inside her body. “I want you so bad,” he told her, because that was the truth and also because talking helped him hang onto the very last thread of his self-control.
“Yes—oh, Clarence!” she moaned as he slipped two fingers inside of her.
Her nails dug into his shoulders as she said it, but he didn’t care. This was how he wanted her—full of need that only he could answer. “Yeah,” he whispered against her neck as he worked over her body. “You like that?”
Her hips shifted as her inner muscles gripped his fingers. God, he though. This woman. His.
“Now,” she gasped as he stroked in and out, learning her body’s rhythm.
“Now?” Was she about to come or—
“I need more, Clarence.” Her hips lifted. “I need you inside me—now!”
The sound of her asking for what she wanted—yeah, he was ready for that. “Yes, Ma’am.”
He leaned back, rolled on the condom and fit his dick against her. Then he began to thrust. He tried to go slowly, but the feeling of her body engulfing his and her hands on his back and his name on her lips did something to his brain. The next thing he knew, he was plunging into her again and again, harder and faster, making her cry out, “Yes, oh, God—just like that, oh Clarence, yes,” until her body tightened around his and she opened her eyes and met his gaze as she came and she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, just like that.
She fell back panting and he buried himself deep inside her, feeling the waves of her climax pull his from his body until he came with a roar that he muffled against her neck.
He lay on top of her for a moment, too stunned to think, to speak—to do anything but just be in her arms.
“Stay with me, Tammy,” he murmured as he kissed her ear, her neck, her lips. “I want you to stay. Whatever it takes, I’ll do it.”
She didn’t answer.
*****
Tammy lay under Clarence’s weight, trying to think straight and doing a really lousy job of it.
ClarenceBN Page 5
