She lifted her hips so he could drag her dress upward and touch her through her panties. She shoved at his trousers until he rose from the couch and dropped them. He grappled for his wallet in his pants pocket to produce a plastic package and tore it open, but she was too fascinated by the tent of his jersey boxers to pay attention.
Only when he remained silent and standing did she raise her gaze to his face. He was staring down at her as if she were a feast for the gods.
When he spoke, he confirmed what she saw in his eyes. “Do you have any idea how beautiful you are? I feel pagan enough to kneel down at your altar and worship you.”
Her usual embarrassment at her overabundance didn’t materialize. Clay’s appreciation released her from all inhibition. “You make a good Jupiter to my Juno,” she murmured, unable to hide from his shameless display of masculinity.
He towered over her, his gaze heating to smoking at her words. Playtime was over. She lay prone before a sex god of no mean proportions and obvious intent.
She no longer cared if this was for one night or forever. She needed now.
Rory opened her arms to welcome him, and Clay immediately knelt on the couch, covering her with his golden body. He lowered his weight until his erection pressed and rubbed where she ached for him. She couldn’t stop him if she wanted to. She was too swept up in his kisses, in the magic of his hands on her bare breasts, in the murmurs of pleasure and nonsense he dispensed as he tugged her dress over her head and returned her to the peaks his abrupt departure had reduced.
“Tell me when,” he demanded, his breath whispering against her cheek. They lay nearly naked together, the friction of their skin heating their blood. “Say the magic words.”
Clay had turned sex into a game and taught her how to play. She didn’t know if she was winning or losing, but he was offering her the next turn. She wasn’t about to refuse it.
If she thought of what they were doing as a game, she could do this. She reached for the waistband of his boxers. “Do I win a treasure for setting the dragon free?”
“Magic wand,” he corrected, maneuvering his underwear off with a single quick tug. “Insert with caution.”
Laughing, breathless at the prize revealed, she corrected, “Magic club.”
Ignoring her approving appraisal, Clay stripped off her panties while his mouth and tongue did things to hers that made words meaningless. Surrendering, she whispered “Alakazam” against his lips.
He took instant advantage, covering her with his weight, capturing her mouth with his tongue before taking possession of her body with his sex.
With a cry, Aurora accepted the thrust of magic, fell under the Purple Knight’s spell, and let the potion of life bubble and lift her high in shivering sparkles of joy.
Chapter Seventeen
Purple mushrooms exploded across the monitor to the tune of “Love Me Do.”
Lying on his side, Clay awoke in such a cloud of contentment, he wondered if the mushrooms flashing before his eyes were hallucinogenic.
Then the scent of strawberries reached him, and he realized the soft cushion of breasts that had warmed him all night had disappeared. Missing them, missing Aurora’s warm body next to his, he shifted position so he could see the end of the couch.
In the soft light of dawn, Aurora sat splendidly naked at his feet, absorbed in manipulating the game controller, trying to conquer the game that he’d created. It was such a glorious sight, he thought he might lie here forever and just watch. Fantasies of waking up like this every morning danced through his addled head.
Fantasies that encouraged more physical urges.
He stroked his toe against her bare hip to show he was awake and willing. She stopped playing to regard him cautiously. That wasn’t the reaction he wanted, but it was better than some he could name. At least she hadn’t wrapped herself up in armor again.
“Good morning, my queen.” He propped himself on his elbow and inquired, “How soon can we expect your father to arrive?”
She didn’t shriek or run, and hope ran rampant. Maybe he hadn’t imagined they’d connected on a deeper level than the physical last night. Maybe she’d simply retreated to the game because she was shy of the intensity of that connection. It certainly made him nervous, but he was prepared to take risks. She wasn’t.
To his regret, she apparently decided against extending their pleasurable interlude. In a fluid movement of breasts and hips and cascading hair that captured his admiration, she grabbed her denim dress off the floor.
Feeling a bit exposed, Clay grappled on the rug for his khakis. She dropped them on his lap before wiggling her dress on.
He wasn’t adept at reading women, but he figured her continued silence didn’t bode well. Last night hadn’t been enough for him. He’d thought she felt the same. Maybe she wasn’t a morning person.
He watched with regret as the denim slid to cover rosy nipples, supple curves, and finally, the darker red of curls no longer concealed by panties. His Viking princess radiated the colors of dawn and the sensuality of an earth goddess. She grounded him in reality, and he wanted to keep her around longer.
He tugged on his khakis, and wadded his shorts up with the shirt he’d borrowed. “Coffee?”
He meant to make it for her, but she nodded and pattered off in bare feet to find the beans and fill the pot. Fearing anything he said would set her off in the wrong direction, Clay wandered back to her bathroom to make himself presentable—not an easy task without a razor.
He grimaced at his whisker-stubbled face in the mirror, took a quick shower, and ran a comb through his hair. Normally, the morning after, he just wanted the woman he was with to go away so he could get back to work. Strangely, he had no interest whatsoever in work this morning.
So maybe Diane had been right to leave him. She’d been good to look at, athletic in bed, but once he’d looked and touched, he’d wandered off to his own pursuits, and she’d gone after hers. They’d had no interests in common. Neither of them had been much on lazy mornings or playful nights.
He was just rediscovering the fun of fantasizing that had led him into game writing and programming. He wanted to fantasize about Aurora naked in his bed on a regular basis. She stirred his imagination as much as his body.
He pulled on the shirt that had looked expensive and businesslike when he’d dressed for the meeting last night. It currently resembled a refugee from a trash bin. Last night’s fire had burned holes in the fabric, and his impromptu laundering had left it hopelessly wrinkled.
Aurora didn’t seem to notice. Looking up from the coffee she was pouring when he returned to the kitchen, she didn’t smile, but he thought it he saw appreciation in her eyes when she handed him a mug.
She’d taken time to brush her glorious hair and tie it into a ribbon. The denim was no worse for wear after a night on the floor. She still looked like a goddess.
“Good coffee,” was all he said.
o0o
Uncomfortable with the thick cloud of unspoken words between them, Aurora wrapped her hands around her mug and tried not to admire the man across from her too blatantly. No man had ever made her feel as Clay had. She ought to be ashamed of having fallen into bed so easily with a man who had no intention of hanging around, but she wasn’t. Mornings-after were always a little strange, but Clay didn’t make her feel uncomfortable with her sexuality or her looks or anything else.
She just didn’t know where to go from here, and he offered no clues.
She wandered to the patio doors to look out on last night’s devastation. The colorful array of flowers and the spring-laden vegetable garden they had mulched with pine straw had vanished in the fire. The oaks were charred but still standing, the leaves shriveled by heat. Some of the blackened pines still smoldered. The smoking ashes of the toolshed served to remind her of the tragedy that could have been.
She didn’t know what to say. They’d behaved like a pair of adolescents last night, and it had been fun. A necessary release, perh
aps. The morning recalled the dangers of childishness. At least he’d had the sense and maturity to remember protection. She wouldn’t have.
Knowing he’d been the responsible one, that he’d taken care of her when she hadn’t been thinking, lightened the confusion she’d experienced since waking. The night had been merely a life-affirming reaction to the earlier horror. It didn’t have to mean anything serious. Sometimes people had sex just for the fun of it.
She turned and offered him a tentative smile. “I think gaming could become addictive.” Sex with McCloud certainly could be.
Wearing khakis and a wrinkled dress shirt, he didn’t look like a biker anymore, despite the beard stubble. Leaning back against the table, crossing his legs at the ankles, he looked sexy, experienced, and almost as uncertain as she felt, which seemed odd. A man like Clay McCloud could have women begging at his feet. Shouldn’t that lead to a measure of arrogance at times like this?
“Yeah, it probably is, but there are worse addictions,” he agreed, after sipping his coffee.
The phone rang and, thinking of Cissy, Rory grabbed it.
“Aurora, this is Jeff Spencer.”
Looking up at Clay’s expression of concern, she narrowed her eyes and shook her head. Why would Jeff be calling her?
Before she could ask, he continued, “Is your sister there?”
Her eyebrows must have shot to her hairline. Clay closed in, but she didn’t need his support—yet. “No, she’s not. May I take a message?”
She heard the hesitation on the other end, and her stomach did a nervous jig. Cissy had taken an equity loan against the land at Jeff’s bank to pay for Mandy’s braces, but as far as she was aware, it was up-to-date.
“Your name is on the note, so I guess it’s okay to talk to you,” Jeff agreed reluctantly. “We’ve had our adjusters surveying the damage from the fire. Your place and a couple of others around there must have taken the brunt of it.”
Still suspicious, Rory tried to figure where this was leading. She’d worked in a bank. Banks did not send out insurance adjusters. They expected property owners to do that. “We have a few trees that need removing. I haven’t gone down the road yet, but the house is fine.”
He coughed nervously, unlike his usual assured self. “Manufactured housing doesn’t appreciate. Yours doesn’t have any value left. We loaned the money on the value of the land. The adjusters say it’s considerably diminished without the timber. We’ll have to call in the loan as too risky.”
Were she a violent person, Rory would gladly have reached through the phone and strangled Jeff. As it was, she was glad Cissy wasn’t here to listen to this self-serving nonsense. Remembering the bottle cap, she grinned in glee.
She now had the means to take Jeff’s measly loan and shove it down his throat. Spitefully, the knowledge tickled her all the way down to her toes.
“That’s no problem, Jeff,” she said in tones so dulcet Clay frowned. “I was planning on paying the loan off next week. Why don’t you pull together a payoff figure as of next Friday?”
She’d planned on taking the bank interest off against her taxes, so she hadn’t considered using her bottle cap to pay the mortgage. But if that was the way the bank wanted to play, she’d work it out. Mandy’s braces couldn’t have cost anywhere near the hundred thousand or more the hospital bills had reached to date.
She loved having a million dollar pillow to fall back on. She could really get into scenes like this, jerking the rug out from under the feet of self-anointed VIPs.
Jeff coughed again, hemmed and hawed a few surprised pleasantries, then dropped the big one. “I’m showing the equity account with a balance outstanding of over two hundred thousand. If you need a little more time, we can take it in increments....”
Dumbfounded, Rory didn’t hear the rest of his speech. Two hundred thousand? Braces didn’t cost two hundred thousand dollars. She’d known the equity line on the account when she’d signed the papers, but she’d never thought Cissy would use it for any more than a fund for emergencies.
Even if they sold the whole acreage, after the devastation of the fire they’d be lucky to get two hundred thousand—except from the bank’s realty company.
Dismissing Jeff, Rory hung up the phone and sank onto a kitchen stool, trying hard not to fall off while her thoughts whirled.
“What did the bastard want?” Clay demanded.
She shook her head, frantically tabulating debts and taxes and plans for the future against the prize in her drawer. What if the prize wasn’t real?
As the immensity of the debt sank in, she shivered. Panic doused her earlier glee. They couldn’t possibly owe that much. They lived like paupers. This couldn’t be happening.
She needed to talk to Cissy.
Cissy was in the hospital. She could have been badly injured last night. Her sister’s overworked conscience would be devastated over the loss of the car. Rory couldn’t explode all over her.
But two hundred thousand?
Taking a deep breath, Rory tried to remain calm, but her hand trembled as she reached for her coffee. Last night’s terror had undermined her confidence. Clay’s lovemaking had torn open her shields. She needed time to pull herself together.
Coffee slipped over the rim of the mug and burned her hand. She set the cup down too hard, and more sloshed on the counter. Before she knew it, tears were sliding down her cheeks.
She wrapped her arms around herself and rose to escape, but Clay caught her. Just the strength of his grip preventing her from running broke her last remaining thread of control. She buried her face against his shoulder and wept.
She shook with the force of her sobs, knowing the ridiculousness of it, knowing she should stand up and strike back, but simply not finding it within her right now.
“Is your family all right?” he demanded, stroking her hair. “I can go into the city, find a good doctor....”
She shook her head, choking back tears, desperately striving for her usual control. “Fine. They’re fine.”
“Okay, then it’s the banker. I can have him hung out high and dry. Just tell me what he did. I know people. I can make a few calls.”
She gulped on a watery chuckle. She needed to pull away, to pull herself together, but it felt so good to have someone to lean on right now. She’d step away in a minute. She’d just like a moment to absorb and cherish this new experience. If she thought about it, she knew Clay wasn’t really John Wayne, and he couldn’t come riding to her rescue, but pretending helped. And his tough guy assurances tickled her back to reality.
“You have an Uncle Guido I can hire?” she asked with a hint of her usual humor, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “Maybe we could just pepper Jeff’s ankles with gunshot and make him dance.”
“You’re dangerous, you know that?” Instead of backing away, Clay leaned against the counter and tucked her under his arm.
She thought maybe the gaze he bestowed on her was affectionate, sort of like the kind she’d give to an amusing puppy. She didn’t want to disillusion him just yet.
“I try. What would you like for breakfast?” Now that she was returning to some semblance of control, she tried to pull away.
Clay was having none of it. He clamped both arms firmly around her waist so she couldn’t escape. “Fix anything you like, but first you have to tell me why I’m calling in Uncle Guido.”
“I haven’t worked it all out yet. It’s too early in the morning. I need sustenance first. Let me go.”
He reached over to a bowl of fruit, grabbed a banana, and, holding it at her waist, began peeling it. “Sustenance.” He offered it to her.
“If you turn into one of those controlling gorillas after a little sex, I’m outta here,” she warned, snatching the banana and biting into it.
“I’m not the one eating the banana,” he pointed out. “I’ll slip back into turtle mode, if you like, but I’m not watching a stuffed-shirt banker reduce you to tears without striking back. So you might as well t
ell me what’s happening.”
“It’s none of your business,” she replied defiantly.
“Is so, too.” He removed the banana, took a bite, and handed it back. “I’m not a dumbass bum who can’t add two and two. Bankers... mortgages... land... fire... disaster. Am I getting close?”
She sagged against him. “Yeah, close. Let me go. I’ll fix some eggs. Fried or scrambled?”
“Sunny-side up.” He released her to sip his coffee and watch her move about the kitchen. “If he’s working with whoever is surveying the Bingham property, he may be pressured into forcing you to sell. Is that what’s happening?”
“Maybe. The amount caught me by surprise. Cissy’s been borrowing behind my back. It’s no wonder she was willing to sell Mama’s land. She knew she could never pay her way out.”
Clay regretted the millions he’d siphoned from his own funds to pay his company’s investors, but she probably wouldn’t take loans from friends anyway. She had that stubborn look about her. “You told him you were planning on paying it off next week. Do you have insurance money coming in from your father’s accident?”
She snorted. “Pops never carries insurance, and we’d have to find an attorney willing to sue the guy who crashed into them. Since it was a drunk in a fifteen-year old pickup, what are the chances we’d win anything?”
“So you were lying.” That shouldn’t bother him. He probably would have done the same if cornered. But she’d done it with such delight, he had to think she had experience. Somehow the knowledge that his Amazon warrior against social injustice had her human side disappointed him. Apparently he wanted to believe in angels. Stupid of him.
She flipped over her eggs and lifted his onto a plate sporting a colorful rooster. “Put some toast in, will you?” She pointed out the bread cabinet.
Thinking his accusation had flown right over her head, Clay considered rewording it. Before he could, Aurora threw her gorgeous hair over her shoulder and looked him straight in the eye.
Carolina Girl Page 18
