Читать книгу Dreams & Desires - Kat Cantrell - Страница 15

Eight

It was just starting to get dark when Clare pulled in the driveway. Parker’s car was gone, and she realized that deep down she had been hoping he was still there. Which was completely ridiculous. He had better things to do than hang around all day waiting for her.

But it would have been a little cool if he had. And a little terrifying.

She parked her aunt’s car in the garage and stepped inside the house. “I’m home!”

“In here!” her aunt called from the living room.

Aunt Kay sat in her recliner, a book in her lap. She loved murder mysteries and psychological thrillers. The darker and gorier the better.

“So,” Clare said, setting her purse down on the coffee table. “Is he buried in the backyard in a shallow grave?”

“Oh, please,” her aunt scoffed. “There are much more effective ways to get rid of a body. And a car.”

Clare gave her a look.

“I’m kidding. I like him.”

Huh? Aunt Kay never “liked” anyone without getting to know them first, and that process could take weeks, and sometimes even months. “Just like that? You like him.”

She shrugged. “Sometimes you just know. I would think you of all people would realize that.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know exactly what I mean, Clare. You’ve got it bad for the man.”

Yeah, she did. “He doesn’t know that.”

“He sure thinks he does.”

Of course he did. He was a man. He thought he knew everything. It just so happened that in this case he was right.

Lucky guess.

“He is a little stubborn. I almost ran him to death on the jogging path the other day. Then I served him a half-frozen breakfast sandwich, which he actually ate. I should have known he would be too damned polite to complain.”

“Sounds as if you’ve been having fun with him,” Kay said.

“At his expense.”

“Nothing wrong with that. Is he good in bed?”

Clare collapsed onto the sofa. “We never made it to the bed, but he’s good on a couch.”

“I’m just happy to hear that you’re letting your hair down and having fun for a change. You need a man in your life.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself.” It had bad idea written all over it. She couldn’t think straight when she was around him. All she could feel was an edgy sort of excitement, and she had been displaying a dangerously blasé attitude. She’d left him alone in her house, for God’s sake. She never did that.

Although to be fair, removing him would have required dragging him sound asleep out the front door and leaving him on the porch. She’d tried to wake him when she was ready to go, but the man slept like the dead. “I haven’t even decided if I’m going to sleep with him again,” she told her aunt.

“Well, that just breaks my heart,” Aunt Kay said. “A body that perfect should be put to good use.”

Though she and Kay looked a little bit alike, and they both shared a deep aversion to farm life, Clare and her aunt couldn’t have been more different. Kay grabbed life by the horns and didn’t let go, while Clare wouldn’t even venture on the other side of the fence.

“Here’s something you might find interesting,” Kay said. “I told him he could go up to your room to change.”

Clare’s jaw fell. “Why? You know I hate that.”

“He apparently knows, too, because he asked to change in the bathroom down here instead. Said he didn’t want to invade your space.”

She blinked. “Oh.”

“Sounds like he knows you pretty well already.”

Yeah, it sort of did.

“And he respects your space.”

Finally.

“And he’s so hot.”

Yes, he was.

“Maybe you should cut the guy a break and give him a chance. Not all men are liars and cheats. Something tells me that he’s one of the good guys. Go out on a date or two. Have some fun, see where it goes.”

“Why would I date someone that I can’t even take home to my family? You said it yourself. They would have a field day with him.”

“Maybe you should stop worrying about what they think.”

She wished it were that easy. “How badly did you scare him?”

She shrugged. “If he scared easily you would have been rid of him months ago.”

That still didn’t make a relationship a good idea. It just meant that he was stubborn.

“I wish you could have seen the look on his face when he woke up and saw me standing there,” Kay said with a smile. “If only I’d had my camera.”

Clare would have paid big money to see that. “I hope you don’t mind but I had to use your car. Mine committed suicide last night. It will cost almost as much as a new one to fix it.”

“Of course I don’t mind. Do we need to go car shopping?”

“I’m thinking it’s time.” Her aunt was a ruthless haggler. Be it a car or a refrigerator, when the salesman gave his rock-bottom price, she always managed to talk him down just a little lower. When they were rebuilding the house after the tornado she’d haggled the builder into paying out of pocket for the upgrades the insurance refused to cover. People just had a hard time telling her no.

“What brought you home so early?” Clare asked her.

“Claud and I had a fight. He asked me to marry him again.”

“I take it you said no?”

She sighed, shaking her head. “Some men never learn.”

She could have been talking about Parker, but Clare didn’t bother to point that out.

“Are you hungry?” Kay asked. “Let’s order dinner.”

“I could go for sushi.”

“Hmm, sounds good,” she said, pulling out her phone. Neither of them cooked, so her aunt had the number of every restaurant in Royal that delivered on speed dial. “You want the usual?”

“Yes, please. While I’m waiting I’m going to go upstairs and get out of these scrubs.” She was exhausted, thanks to a certain someone waking her at the crack of dawn that morning. But in all fairness it had been worth it.

“I’ll let you know when it gets here,” her aunt told her.

With sore, tired feet Clare climbed the stairs. A soak in the tub sounded good, but with the food on the way she took a hot shower instead. And though they were barely stubbly, she shaved her legs and cleaned up the bikini line, as well.

Just in case.

After her shower, as she was drying off, she took note of her new svelte figure. She looked damn good. Not that she’d been overweight, per se, but she hadn’t exactly been healthy before.

She was still standing at the mirror naked, brushing the knots from her wet hair when her aunt knocked on the bedroom door. “Come on in! Just leave it on the bed.”

She heard the door open, then close again, and a second later saw movement in the bathroom doorway. She turned and her breath caught in her lungs.

It was Parker standing there.

He grinned, his eyes raking over her from the top of her head all the way down to her pink-tipped toes, and every inch of her skin came alive all at once. He looked sexy as hell in faded jeans and a black T-shirt with the hospital logo. She had never seen him dressed so casually. She took in the way those biceps stretched the armholes of his shirt, and the way the jeans hugged his lean hips. But as good as he looked in his clothes, she knew he looked even better out of them.

He held up the sushi bag and said with a frustratingly sexy smile, “Special delivery.”

Clare would have grabbed her robe to cover herself, but by the look in his eyes, and the fact that he had put the bag down and begun to peel off his clothes, she had the feeling the damage was already done.

“Your aunt sent me up,” he said, taking off his shirt and dropping it on the floor. “Remind me to thank her profusely.”

Aunt Kay would hear about it later, all right. Because she was meddling. Unfortunately she was really good at it.

The jeans went next, and Clare just stood there like a dummy watching, when she should have been kicking him to the curb for being so presumptuous. But then the boxers dropped and that was all she wrote. She couldn’t tell him no now if her life depended on it.

“Come here,” he said, taking her hand and leading her to the bed, walking backward so he didn’t have to take his eyes off her. “You are so sexy.”

Before she could censor herself, she said, “Look who’s talking.”

With a grin, he pulled her in and kissed her. And kissed her. Oh, did she love kissing him. He smelled freshly showered and his chin was smooth. And as he hauled her up against the length of that ripped physique she was no more sturdy than her trembling hands. Lucky for her he wasted no time getting her off her feet and into bed.

He laid her on her back. Typically she didn’t like being on her back, but as he climbed in beside her, she decided to let it slide. Then he started to kiss her again and she ignored that irrational need to be in control. She liked the feel of his weight pressing her into the mattress, his hands skimming her body, igniting a trail of fire across her skin. Then he began to kiss his way downward. It felt so good, and she wanted to relax and enjoy it, but as he reached the lowest part of her stomach, she automatically tensed.

Parker froze and lifted his head to look at her. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

He frowned and pushed himself up on his elbows. “Don’t lie to me.”

Damn it. Why did he have to be so intuitive? So concerned about her needs and her weird hang-ups. He needed to stop being so wonderfully thoughtful. “It’s nothing.”

“The hell it is. Talk to me, Clare.”

The tone in his voice when he said her name sent shivers across her skin. After months of listening to the annoying nicknames he came up with for her, he had to choose now to start using her real name? When she was feeling most vulnerable? And did he have to say it with so much...feeling?

“What you’re doing, what you’re getting ready to do, it makes me feel very...”

“Vulnerable?”

“Yes. Very vulnerable.”

“Do you want me to stop?”

“Yes. And no. I don’t know, it’s weird. I’m weird.”

To his credit he didn’t ask why she felt that way, because that was one big ole can of worms she would rather not spill just yet. Or maybe ever. He was just so darned open and honest, it was difficult not to give him some sort of explanation.

“You’re not weird.” He kissed her stomach once more, then made his way back upward. “And I don’t want to do anything that makes you uncomfortable. This is supposed to be fun.”

“I don’t want you to think that I don’t trust you.”

“Clare, you barely know me. Trust is earned.” He kissed her so sweetly she could have cried, or punched him, then he rolled onto his back and pulled her on top of him, grinning that devilish smile. “Better?”

“You don’t mind?”

“I get to lie here while a gorgeous woman rides me like I’m a rodeo bull. What do you think?”

She leaned down to kiss him, for fear that if she didn’t do something, she really would cry. Why did he have to be so wonderful? So understanding?

So damn hot.

He clearly had no reservations about being dominated, because she did ride him like a rodeo bull. He let her take the lead and set the pace, and even though he was on his back he didn’t just lie there. He kept his hands and his mouth and his hips plenty busy making her crazy, and when he cradled her face in his hands and gasped her name as he shattered, that sent her sailing. Her own release came on like a tsunami that set her soaring headlong into ecstasy.

And he wasn’t even through with her. He rolled her over and started from the top again. Her senses blurred and her body quaked and she forgot all about being in control, being nervous, and let him do his thing. And boy, did he do his thing. When she couldn’t take it any longer, he was still champing at the bit to pleasure her again.

She’d rediscovered muscles tonight that she hadn’t used in a long time, and it was way past time to take them out, dust them off and put them to good use. But she was going to pay for it tomorrow.

“I need to rest,” she told him, flopping down on her back.

“I’ve heard that more than once tonight,” he said with a grin, his hand teasing its way downward.

She intercepted it just above her navel. “I really mean it this time. I’m exhausted.”

Looking disappointed, he rolled onto his back beside her. She didn’t usually do the afterglow part, but as he took her hand, weaving their fingers together, she was too tired to move. Besides, it felt good to be near to him, their bodies close, their fingers intertwined. She liked it way too much.

“So what did my aunt say to you when you got here?” she asked him.

“She handed me the bag and said, ‘Clare is in her bedroom, go on up.’”

She and Aunt Kay were going to have to have a talk about boundaries. About how it was not okay to send sexy men up to her bedroom. Although in this particular case Clare was willing to overlook the transgression.

“Your aunt is tough,” he said. “But I think she likes me.”

She wouldn’t have sent him up here otherwise. “She has to be tough. She’s been on her own most of her life. At a time when women didn’t stay single and have careers instead of families.”

He pushed himself up on his elbow. “She’s never been married?”

“She was once, a really long time ago. But only for a few months.”

“What happened? If you don’t mind my asking.”

“As a kid Kay hated farm life. Probably more than I do. She always dreamed of being a ‘sophisticated city slicker,’ as she put it. When she was seventeen she met a wealthy businessman from Tulsa. He was fifteen years older and worldly and she fell hard for him. Everyone loved him. He was charming and personable, and he showered her and her family with gifts. He took her to fancy restaurants and bought her nice clothes.

“I guess times were pretty hard and her parents were so happy to have a rich son-in-law, they didn’t bat an eyelash when she turned up pregnant. So they had a shotgun wedding, then he took her to his house in Tulsa. Everyone thought he was perfect, and that Kay was such a lucky girl.”

“No one is perfect.”

“Yeah. They were married about a week when he started beating her.”

Parker winced. “He was a predator.”

“A predator with a volatile temper. She said he was like Jekyll and Hyde. The first time he hit her it was over the grocery money. He got angry because she bought a magazine. She called him stingy, and he backhanded her.”

Parker cringed. “She didn’t leave?”

“She had nowhere to go. Her parents were too poor to take her and her baby in, and back then a pregnant woman couldn’t just go out and get a job, or even get a credit card without her husband’s signature. Plus, he’d been subsidizing her family’s farm. She knew that if she tried to leave, he would cut them off. Without that money, they would have fallen into poverty and lost everything. There would be no place for her parents and her five siblings to go. She was, as she puts it, in one hell of a pickle.”

“Did her parents know what was going on?”

“No, of course not. If they had they would have driven to Tulsa and taken her back home, even if it meant losing everything. But she said the guilt would have hurt far worse than his fists ever could.”

“That’s one hell of a sacrifice. But she obviously got away.”

“Yes, when he almost killed her. He came home from work angry and she said the wrong thing, so he used her as a punching bag. It was dumb luck that a neighbor had her window open and just happened to hear him screaming at her. When he stormed off the neighbor came by to see if she was okay. She found her bleeding and battered on the kitchen floor and called for help. Kay had internal injuries and would have bled to death if not for her. They got her to the hospital in time to save her life, but she lost the baby. And her uterus.”

He closed his eyes and shook his head. Jesus.

“But she made sure it would never happen again. To her or anyone else.”

“How?”

“Long story short, the day she got out of the hospital he said he was going to teach her a lesson, so she ran him over with his car.”

His eyes went wide and his jaw fell. “Did she kill him?”

“Almost. He never walked right again. Or beat anyone else, I’m sure.”

“Did she get in trouble?”

“She claimed it was self-defense, and after the way he beat her before that, people believed her. And Kay being Kay, she pulled herself up by her bootstraps and started over. When she was healed she wound up getting a job as a stewardess. She worked the international flights, so she’s traveled pretty much everywhere, and has friends all over the world. When she was labeled ‘too old’ to do the job, she started a travel agency in Dallas. When the industry was at an all-time high she retired and sold the business for a small fortune. Now she spends most of her time traveling and volunteering for domestic-abuse organizations. She counsels young people trapped in abusive relationships.”

“Wow, that’s one hell of a life.”

“I keep telling her that she needs to write a memoir. Her story could help a lot of people.”

Parker’s stomach rumbled loudly and Clare laughed. “Hungry?”

“I guess I skipped dinner,” he said, rubbing a hand across his belly.

“I’ve got sushi and I’d be willing to share. And I could probably find a couple of beers in the fridge.”

For several seconds he just looked at her, a funny little half smile on his face.

“What?”

“You surprise me, Clare.”

“Why is that?”

“I thought for sure you would kick me out of your bed the second we were finished.”

So did she. And normally she would have. “If I wasn’t so tired I probably would,” she lied, when the truth was she didn’t want him to go anywhere.

She was playing a dangerous game, letting him get so close. If she wasn’t careful she might do something stupid like fall head over heels in love with him.