Chapter 13 #2
Stevie almost whimpered at the loss of his caress but there was a stubborn set to his jaw and a gleam of determination in his eyes, both of which she’d seen that day on the back of Electra.
He’d been relentless in his pursuit of her submission and she had no doubt he’d apply the same level of willpower to her which, while frustrating, also promised to be a veritable smorgasbord of sexual awakening.
Hopefully she wouldn’t die of sexual frustration along the way.
A husky pent-up breath left her mouth in the form of a dramatic sigh as she eased down, snuggling her head into the crook of his shoulder, her hand resting over the solid roundness of his pec. ‘So what now?’
‘It’s customary to talk.’
Stevie scrunched her brow. ‘You talk after…’
After being with a woman. That’s what she’d been going to say, but a hot shard of green light sliced into her side at the thought of him with another woman.
The tips of his fingers trailed up and down her arm as his low chuckle reverberated through his chest wall. ‘Yes. Contrary to popular belief, I don’t just dip and run.’
To her shame, Stevie had pictured Clay as someone who dipped and ran – not that she’d thought of it in such crude terms. So his denial was surprising. The juxtaposition of man whore and pillow-talker was a puzzling dichotomy.
But if he wanted to talk and not have her hands down his jeans then, fine…
‘What did you do today, dear?’ she asked with painstaking sweetness, her fingers absently swirling small circles on his shirt now.
He laughed, clearly not deterred by the underlying sarcasm. ‘I slushed around in the mud with recalcitrant cattle and smart-mouthed cowhands. What did you get up to?’
Stevie had to admit, the brush of his fingers was nice, lulling her back into that post-orgasm mellowness, the quiet stillness of the barn conducive to inane, how-was-your-day chatter.
Closing her eyes, she pressed her nose to his shirt, breathed in the essence of him for a beat or two before answering.
‘The trail ride was cancelled today because of the weather so I spent a couple of hours in the stables with the horses.’
‘Talking to them?’
Amusement laced his voice, but she didn’t care; she found their company restful. ‘Yes. And brushing them down, it’s soothing.’
‘It is,’ he agreed amicably, the amusement morphing to something that sounded very much like approval.
‘Then I went up to the house where your mom was teaching a bunch of us how to make beans and biscuits.’
‘Beans and biscuits, huh? I guess we’ll make a country gal out of you yet.’
Stevie smiled at the tease in his voice. ‘I guess.’
Surprisingly, she had enjoyed the time in the ranch kitchen. With her mind often preoccupied with whatever lyric she was working on, Stevie tended to burn most things she attempted so cooking had never been her thing.
Yolly had been the wizard in the kitchen.
But in the company of the half dozen other people keen to occupy themselves during the inclement weather, it had been a pleasant way to pass a rainy day.
Theresa had set up stations around the spacious kitchen with something different to do at each and the mix of friendly chatter, the patter of rain against the large picture window and the aromas of cooking had been cosy.
‘It’s a shame your first ever trail ride was cancelled. I know our guests enjoy them.’
‘Yeah. I’d been looking forward to getting out there.’
Thankfully Mags had offered to take her out solo tomorrow, which Stevie truly appreciated. Guided trail rides were only scheduled every other day so Mags hadn’t had to offer her services, especially when Stevie knew how busy she was around the ranch.
‘I would be too if I’d had to put up with being Mags’s latest project for the last ten days.’
Stevie laughed at the tone of exasperated affection she often heard when the siblings talked about each other, but surely people who lived in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones?
She may well be a project to his sister who’d been tasked with teaching the city girl how to sit on a horse and ride one competently, but what did he call what they were doing?
‘Isn’t that what I am, to you?’ Her fingers paused their swirling as the thought gave her pause. ‘A project?’
Operation Cherry Pop.
His fingers also stopped their inexorable path up and down her arm. ‘No.’
Clay shifted then, rolling up onto his side, displacing her onto her back against the blanket, the still unbuttoned sides of her shirt falling open, her nipples on full, wanton display.
A dark frown furrowed his brow as he loomed above, his amber gaze blazing sincerity. His full mouth straight and serious.
‘You’re the woman I haven’t been able to stop thinking about since I first saw you.’
Stevie’s breath stilled in her lungs at the admission. Maybe he told every woman he slept with – or fooled around with – the same thing. Maybe it was just a smooth line from a very smooth operator.
But the clench in her gut, the skip in her pulse, didn’t care.
Because, the truth was, she felt the same. She’d known Clay Calhoun for less than two weeks but he already occupied every corner of her brain. He was the first thing she thought about in the morning and the last thing she thought about when she went to sleep.
Stevie just hadn’t expected him to admit to the same.
Could that be true? And… gah! How could this be so all-consuming already? How could her chest be so full of this… feeling? God, was it crazy to already label it?
Was this love?
What? No. No way. And yes. It was totally crackers.
Stevie had to remember that Clay was a seasoned veteran at this fooling around thing and she was a mere rookie.
What can’t stop thinking about you meant to a guy like him might not be the same thing it meant to someone like her.
He was talking sex. Physical stuff. And she was conflating it with something else entirely.
She was romanticising this whole thing and she was smarter than that.
Except right now, she’d take it, because she’d already chosen him to be the one and his words were the level of obsession she needed to confirm she’d made the right choice.
‘Same,’ she murmured, which was an insipid response to his admission but she was too overawed by it, by what it might mean, to say much at all so she wound her arms around his neck instead and pulled him down.
Stevie met his mouth halfway, her barely banked desire from earlier flaring to life again as the force of their passion had her head bumping down on the blanket. She opened to him greedily, her pulse a water hammer through her ears as their tongues tangled and their groans intermingled.
And then a phone rang, piercing the heady cocktail of lust, breaking them apart. It had been so quiet in the loft – just him and her, only the sound of their voices and the thud of their hearts disturbing the stillness. The outside world intruding so rudely was temporarily discombobulating.
‘I think that’s you,’ he said, his mouth wet from their kisses, his lungs grabbing air.
Stevie blinked, realising that her butt was vibrating. And that it was her mother’s ring tone. ‘Sorry. That’s my mother. She really does have the worst timing.’
‘I’d say it was perfect timing,’ he said with a smile before he dropped a brief kiss on her mouth, then rolled away, settling onto his back, leaving enough space between them for their arms to rest.
Stevie spoke over the ringing phone. ‘She’s been calling each night to update me on my grandmother. I just…’ In her preoccupation with her rendezvous with Clay, she’d forgotten her mother usually called at this time. ‘I had other things on my mind tonight.’
Clay chuckled, rolling his head to the side, and Stevie did the same. She met his gaze and what she saw there took her breath away. He was so damn sexy, his eyes rich with humour, his lips parted on a smile. ‘I know you did.’
She laughed, seeing the humour in the situation. Here they were, two twenty-somethings making out like teenagers in a haystack being unknowingly cock blocked – she’d read that expression in one of Yolly’s spicy romance novels – by her mother from eighteen hundred miles away.
But she knew she couldn’t ignore it, either.
‘Do you mind if I get it? She’ll just keep calling if I don’t. She…’ Stevie cleared her throat of a sudden bout of huskiness. ‘…worries when I don’t answer.’
The night of Yolanda’s accident, her mother had been trying to get hold of her eldest daughter for a few hours.
It wasn’t unusual for Yolly not to pick up but when the police had called at two in the morning Cindy Everhart’s worst motherly fears had been realised.
And she’d been hypervigilant about Stevie’s whereabouts ever since.
Was that chafing at times? Sure. But Stevie had lived through the depths of her mother’s grief first hand and understood her need to know that when she wasn’t at home in Boston, her younger daughter was tucked up safe every night.
‘Of course,’ he assured, his fingers sliding into hers and entwining.
It was a simple gesture but a lump rose in Stevie’s throat at Clay somehow knowing that she’d needed the assurance of his touch in that moment.
Lifting her hips, Stevie dug in her back pocket for her phone, which stopped ringing just before she hit the green answer button. She knew in a minute her phone would beep to let her know that her mom had left a message. She also knew that her mom would probably call again in ten minutes.
A squeeze to her hand had her rolling her head to look at him again. ‘Call her back,’ he murmured.
Stevie’s lungs felt too big for her chest at Clay’s understanding. ‘I’ll text her and let her know I’ll call her back shortly.’
Sitting, Stevie pulled the edges of her shirt together just as the notification of her mother’s message chimed. She tapped out a quick text, one handed.
Hey Mom. Just finishing up at the ranch house. I’ll call you in 15.
She could have said thirty or forty-five or an hour. She could have given herself longer with Clay. But he’d already called a halt to the proceedings and now their bubble of bliss had been so rudely ruptured, Stevie felt weirdly exposed and not just because of those undone buttons.
This intrusion from the real world had her wondering how much of herself she’d given away. Had her remembering that whatever was happening here, it wasn’t the real world.
‘I told her I’d call in fifteen,’ she said hesitantly as she pushed to her feet, one hand still absently clutching the edges of her shirt together.
He watched her steadily for a moment before also pushing to his feet, walking the two paces that separated them, his boots a muffled pad against the floorboards.
Smiling down at her, he eased her grip off her shirt.
Stevie’s breath hitched as slowly but surely – his eyes never leaving her face – Clay redid each button.
‘There,’ he murmured once the last one was fixed in place.
Lifting a hand, he stroked it from her cheekbone to her temple, pushing back strands of hair that had fallen forward, his gaze roaming her face. ‘Can I see you tomorrow?’
Stevie could no more have denied him that request than written the score for an Italian opera. No matter how much this didn’t make sense, she wanted it anyway. ‘Yes,’ she said on a whisper.
His slow smile spread warmth from the pit of her stomach to the follicles of her hair. ‘I’ll text you,’ he murmured.
‘Uh huh.’
‘Be careful on the ladder.’
Stevie nodded dumbly but the truth was, she felt so light and airy and giddy, she could have flown down from the loft. Which was pretty much what she did.