The day dragged by, the usual medical conundrums failing to fascinate her the way they normally did—the way they should—and all she wanted was to get back home.
To him.
If he was still there.
Her mood, giddy one moment, swung drastically at the knowledge that he’d probably run as far and fast as possible after last night’s intimacy. He wasn’t the type of man who could handle closeness like that. And yet…she thought of the way he’d accepted her late-night comfort, and a wave of affection ran through her. Yes, she wanted to help him, but it was more than that. So much more.
She finally drove home, wondering, unsure, excited, worried. And then she was there, and his truck wasn’t. It wasn’t until she caught sight of the bare, new boards in her front steps that she let herself hope he might have decided to stay.
* * *
It was Clay’s third trip to Blackwood BigValue Hardware, and the clerk—probably the owner, judging from his age and attitude—laughed right in his face as he pushed through the door.
“Just closin’ up for the night, son,” the man said. “You forget somethin’ else?”
“No, sir. Just switching projects.”
“Done with those steps?”
“Everything but the paint.”
That elicited an impressed pursing of the man’s lips, which gave Clay a burst of pride.
“Smart to let it cure first. What you got goin’ now?”
“Thought I’d start on the clapboard.”
“Whoa. You takin’ the whole thing down?”
“No, just a bit. Here.” He placed a rotten board on the guy’s counter.
“Gettin’ smarter, ain’t we?”
“Yep. Slow learner. But it sinks in eventually.”
“Got some of this out back in the lumberyard. How much you need?”
“’Bout a dozen.”
“Where’d you say this house is?”
“Didn’t.”
“Wouldn’t be Dr. Hadley’s place, would it? Over on Jason Lane?”
Before Clay could answer, the man went on. “Nice woman, the doc. Down at the IGA one day, and she come up to me at the register and tole me I needed to go and see someone, what with the spot I had right here.” He pointed at the top of his shiny, bald head. “Saw me that day. Cut the dang thing out and all. Turned out to be a melanoma, and we caught it good and quick. Darn good woman, that doc.”
He eyed Clay in a way that wasn’t quite as benevolent as it had been before, the big wad of snuff in his cheek making him look like an angry chipmunk. An angry, old chipmunk. “You take good care of that house, now,” he said, but the subtext was obvious. Replace house with woman and the man was warning him clear as day.
After he’d loaded everything into the back of his truck, Clay went back inside to pay. Halfway to the register, his eyes landed on a bag of heavy-duty zip ties. He threw those onto the counter and waited as the man rang him up.
As he reemerged onto the sidewalk with the old man, Clay let his eyes take in the town around him. Closing time. The people of Blackwood were headed home for the day—like Whos in Whoville. The poor fuckers had no idea. No idea.
A few feet farther up the walk, a door opened, and three figures emerged. Clay recognized two of them instantly as the little shits who’d attacked George his first weekend here, but it took them a bit longer to notice him standing there. Beside him, Clay felt the energy from the hardware store guy—nervous, edgy, and clearly unhappy. Everything shifted when the punks caught sight of him and stilled, frozen like deer in the headlights.
“Going somewhere?” he asked, almost smiling at their reactions—the fear, the hatred, the childish bravado.
“No, sir” came the reply, finally, and the three kids turned to walk away, fast.
“Great day,” said the man beside him. “You wouldn’t be the one who beat the crap outta those two the other night, would you?” When he didn’t answer, the hardware store man spat a long, brown stream of saliva into the gutter before going on, looking Clay up and down through eyes that had grown distinctly friendlier. “Git on now, son. See you tomorrow.”
The man’s words followed Clay to his truck, and he whistled—actually whistled aloud—on the short trip home. It wasn’t until he was about halfway there that he realized he’d started thinking of George’s place as home. Christ, he was in trouble.
When Clay pulled up to George’s, her car was there, and the house was open.
The screen door squeaked as he let himself inside, and he heard the scrape of one of her kitchen chairs before she appeared at the end of the hall.
Christ, her face. So beautiful, this woman. Radiant. Everything loosened in his body.
In the kitchen, he kissed her, sucked in the warm tomato-and-garlic air, and accepted the plate she pushed at him. He loved the way she made him sit across from her, their feet entwined beneath the table.
Afterward, they went out to the porch, where she lit a ton of candles, and he settled onto the wicker sofa they’d shared yesterday morning. George disappeared, and a minute later, guitar music curled from a speaker in the kitchen. She came back onto the porch on quiet bare feet, a tin of cookies in hand. She took one, handed him the rest with a smile, and curled up on the armchair across from him.
“What you doing all the way over there?” he asked, all heavy and warm.
She shrugged. “You looked content on your own. I didn’t want to disturb that.”
They sat for a while, taking in the fading light apart, but together.
George finally spoke. “Thank you for all the work you’ve been doing.”
“Sure.”
“You’re a miracle worker,” she said, facing the darkening yard. “The garden has never looked so pruned. And the steps… Usually, I feel like I’m channeling those women from Grey Gardens.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a movie, based on a true story. Actually, a documentary originally. These women live in their massive old mansion while it falls to pieces around them. They have mental health issues, and it’s tragic,” she finished with a big breath and a forced smile. “Anyway, I’ve got too many projects.”
“What? You? Nah.”
“Yes. And don’t lie to make me feel better.”
“Am I one of those projects?” he asked, going for nonchalant but feeling anything but.
She looked him straight in the eye. “No.”
He didn’t believe her but decided to let it go. Sometimes it was better not to delve too deeply into a person’s reasons. He, of all people, with his experience of the darker side of humanity, should know that.
He changed the subject. “Who is this?”
“The music? David Gray.”
“This is old, isn’t it? From the nineties, right? Your musical taste is stuck like twenty years ago.”
“Really? Usually it’s more like forty.”
“Well, whatever decade you’re from,” he said, squinting at her, “you, Dr. Hadley, are an old soul.”
“Practical, stoic Clay Navarro believes in souls? Intriguing.”
“I’m perceptive.” He put on a defensive voice but softened it with a grin. “Sometimes.”
“I know that” was her only response before they disappeared back into their heads, soaking in the earthy smells of the garden and the sad strains of the music against the night’s never-ending soundtrack, all of it bathed in candlelight.
After a bit, another song came on, one he kind of recognized from back in his young and sentimental days—high, soft guitar chords, intense but quiet. He closed his eyes and let it affect him. Let the music work its way under his skin, pricking through his eyeballs and somewhere inside his chest.
It got more rhythmic, swingy like a lullaby. His skin burned with recognition, and then the words slid out, warm and sad and sweet
and straight from the memory of his sister’s CD player.
His skin pebbled over.
So much noise in life, Clay thought. So much, so fucking much. In stereo, all over, everywhere, layers upon layers of it, enough to smother you.
He tuned back into the music, listened to the words, which didn’t make sense alone, but with the strumming guitar, this woman, this ache… He was in a bubble that only a soothing voice, a practical white hand, a warm pair of sparkling green eyes could pierce, and then…and then he was a balloon losing air, wheezing until there was nothing left. Empty. He kept his eyes closed tight, not wanting to listen, but needing the rest of the song, the high, plaintive call to God, over and over until…
Clay’s eyes opened.
George was there, strong and soft and decent and the only person he’d ever wanted with such intensity.
“Come here,” he scraped out, needing her.
“I think you should be the one to get up,” she said, although she had to see how mixed up he was right now—she had to.
But he did it anyway. He stood, his leg miraculously holding him, and limped the few steps to where she sat, enveloped in her bewitching brand of night music.
“Why’d you put this song on?” he asked.
Her brows lifted. “‘Hallelujah’?”
“Yeah.”
“I love this song.”
“You love a lot of songs.”
Her smile looked confused. “I do.”
“You seem to…” He cleared his throat, started over again. “To love a lot of things.”
“Love?” She shrugged. “There’s no reason not to. It’s not like we’re given a finite amount of love at birth.”
“Oh yeah? You got enough to spare?” Clay didn’t realize until he’d said the words quite how they’d sound, but once they were out, their meaning spun dangerously in the air between them.
“You just going to stand there?” George asked, looking up at him through her lashes. It occurred to him that she was toying with him. He was dying inside, or coming awake, or something equally painful, and this woman was flirting.
“May I have this dance?” he asked, holding out his hand to the strains of heavenly guitar.
George stood. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“What?” Clay asked. “You think this is more dangerous than what we did on the steps? In the shower? Your bed? Your goddamn office? It’s just a dance,” he lied.
She looked at him, her eyes big and liquid. “It’s never just anything with us, Clay, is it?”
God, he loved the sound of his name on her lips.
He pulled her into his arms, probably too warm for this heat, but so elemental that temperature didn’t matter. Your own skin is always just right, after all. Slowly, he moved, and their bodies shifted together to the sad, sad music, with nobody but a cat and bats and a million little insects to witness them.
Her head felt perfect on his chest, over his collarbone, and he danced—something he’d never thought to do again.
Finally, finally, the song came to its mournful end, and they stilled, standing together, breathing—just breathing. And, through the deafening white noise, he could feel one thing perfectly: the beating of this woman’s heart against his.
“Jesus, lady,” Clay whispered into the top of her head. “What the hell are you doing to me?”
* * *
Clay kissed her on the porch, in the kitchen, and by the front door, leaving her waiting, dazed, when he ran out to his truck for something. Then, again on the stairs, a shivering flashback to two nights before. He filled her with wonder, this big man with his rough hands and hard eyes, whose lips were plush and tender, too soft to make sense, but perfect, perfect against hers.
He urged her up the last few steps, then into her room, where clothes started coming off, and they landed on her bed in a messy, moaning heap, nothing but underwear separating them.
“I can’t…” his gruff voice started, and she knew, she knew exactly what he meant, but she couldn’t either. She couldn’t get enough, wanted to consume him, eat him, pour him inside her, meld and melt and come apart with him. Her hands on him made him groan until he moved them off.
“You know I can’t. Can’t last if you touch me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you mean it.”
George stilled, eyes hurting, lungs tight, breath scraping roughly against her throat.
“I do mean it, Clay.”
“Fuck.” His eyes slid back and forth over hers, and something passed between them. He dipped his hips, letting his erection slide against her panties; even through the cotton, she was wet.
Kissing again, crazed, her hands all over him, despite his protests, stroking taut shoulders, enjoying the thick muscles of his arms, and somehow managing to avoid the places where his skin was chafed and burned from the laser.
“Good. So fucking good,” he muttered hotly against the side of her face as their sexes came together, the rhythm perfect, the feel utterly explicit.
And then, his underwear was shoved down and hers pushed aside, and George groaned at the feel of him, there. Slick and sliding and swollen and, Jesus, her breasts were sensitive, tight and painful and absolutely dying for his touch.
It’d never been like this. Never. Not in high school with Dylan Dean, not in her marriage bed. Never.
He leaned back, his eyes glittering in the lamplight. Clay grasped one of her legs and lifted it, bit the calf, and let his eyes travel from her face to her sex, where they stayed to watch him work and work and work through all that wetness her body had created.
Never before, she thought, drinking in the sight of him, her body dying for more of a taste.
“Fuck me, Clay,” she said and, with satisfaction, watched as the intense focus in his features fell apart.
17
“Stay there,” Clay said and watched with satisfaction as she complied. He got up, eager as a goddamn kid, yanked his shorts all the way off, and reached for the plastic bag he’d brought in from his truck. And Christ, her eyes on him made him thicker, harder. He ripped the bag open and pulled a zip tie from it, then stilled when he saw her eyes change. From lust to curiosity but, he was gratified to note, no fear.
“What are you doing?” She sat up.
“I have to stop hurting you.”
“What? You’re not—”
“I almost fucking choked you last night, George. Not gonna do that again. It’s the only way I can make sure.” The tightness in his belly felt like guilt, shame, excitement. He wanted her, but he couldn’t risk disappearing into his head again, coming to only to find he’d hurt her. The bite mark still visible on her neck was proof enough of the damage he could do.
She caught his eyes, and for a few seconds, he could see her decide.
“So, if you’re all trussed up…” she said, an evil glint in her eye.
He pulled the tie on, hard, and tightened it with his teeth. “Get a condom. Put it on me.”
Without a word, she leaned back to grab one, but she just held it in her hand and waited.
“How’s your back?”
“Fine.”
“Can you lie on it?”
“Come on. Please just—”
“I’m in charge?”
Oh fuck. Those words. “Yeah.” He swallowed the instinct that didn’t want to let him give up power and settled onto the bed, allowing the excitement to take over.
“Whatever I want?” she asked, clearly into this, whatever it was.
“Yeah. Like when we’re in your office. I’m up on one of those tables.”
All traces of indecision left her face, and she looked purely turned on—that bright-red flush she got high and dark on her cheeks. “Oh, kinky,” she whispered. “I’ll have my wicked way with you.”
“Doesn’t feel quite right without the fluorescent lighting,” Clay said. He was actually joking, which was a miracle, considering he was fucking tied up—which maybe hadn’t been the best idea after all, considering the way he responded to feeling trapped. He went on, “And that sexy paper sticking to my back.”
“Okay, so what do you want me to—”
“You could open up that package for starters.”
With a nod, she knelt above him, grasped the condom, fumbled it, dropped it on the bedspread, and reached for it again before letting her head fall forward through a couple of deep breaths. Then she lifted up to look him straight in the eye. “I’m in charge.”
Clay hesitated, then gave a quick nod. “You’re the boss.”
“I want to touch you.”
Feeling like he’d already crossed over to that place he’d gone when she’d touched him in her office, he said, “Do it.”
“What happens when I touch you, Clay? What do you feel? Does it hurt?”
A flash: leaning over the back of the chair at the Sultans’ clubhouse, the medicinal ink stink strong in his nostrils, thankfully beating out the usual smells of beer and puke and piss. The wild beat of thrash metal hot in his ears, overlaid by the buzzing of the tattoo machine. It was the moment he’d waited for, the milestone he’d worked so hard toward—he was in. And he was proving it by letting that fucker ink their goddamned blazon on his back. Around him, guys laughed and went about their business, but inside, Clay had felt every prick of the filthy needle like splinters in his soul, the ink a poison he’d never get rid of. This was it. This hellfire and damnation spread across his skin, thinner than body armor, but ten times more effective.
Somewhere close by, a softer touch, incongruously layered onto the ugly memory. Caresses along his arms, his shoulders, and he struggled, the memory slipping into another one—the stink of decay, the buzz of flies, Kathy’s dead eyes and—
“Clay,” said a voice in his ear, clear and strong and clean. There came a press of warm lips to his face, his neck, his shoulder and chest. A tongue painting a stripe along his abdomen, warm breath on his cock. Fuck, one of the club hangers-on. He didn’t want to, because Carly, Carly had been like this, and her memory—
By Her Touch Page 25
