CHAPTER NINE CLARKE
Chapter Nine
Clarke
Clarke had just turned off his cell and thrown it in his pocket after receiving another text from Roxanne when the door swung open.
He had a pretty good idea what the text would contain—more advice on what he should and should not do on this date.
She’d already sent him three such texts.
Her advice was aimed at getting good press.
But he preferred no press at all. She had no idea he’d come to Montana to avoid that very thing.
Ceci was standing before him, but all he could see were her eyes. He hadn’t imagined it. There was some gray there. Sure, they sparkled, but there was depth there too.
Depth and Ceci Rivers seemed like an oxymoron.
And yet there was no denying it, he thought as he peered at them.
It’s like looking at the horizon, the more I look the further my eye goes and keeps on going.
Grrr.
He blinked.
Did she just growl?
His eyes shifted and he suddenly noticed the bulldog in her arms. But almost immediately after, he noticed something else. He told himself to look away. But his eyes seemed to be operating independently of his brain.
And all his brain could manage was …
North Star. North Star. North Star.
Where the fuck is the North Star? It’s north. Where is north?
Up. Just look up.
But he couldn’t get his eyes to look. Up.
It was as if he’d morphed into one of those weird creatures that lived at the bottom of the sea and had suddenly been hit with a flash of light. And that light had locked his pupils, cornea, rods, and all the rest of what was responsible for his vision on …
Her breasts. And those nipples.
You would think holding a fifty-pound bulldog would block my view.
“Ahem!”
She shifted the position of the dog, and that was enough to release that Vulcan grip those things had on his eyes.
What are you, twelve years old? You’ve seen nipples before.
He swallowed.
Just not hers. Definitely not hers. I would have remembered.
Fuck, he suddenly thought glumly, now going forward, I’m going to remember.
While her eyes had surprised him, those two ripe cherrystones under that white T-shirt were one hundred percent high-octane Ceci Rivers.
They were as brazen and bodacious as she was.
Not that her breasts were especially large.
But they weren’t exactly small either. He flexed the fingers of his left hand.
I could fit them in my hand. I think. Well, most of them.
Or my mouth. No, not all of them, but those nipples, yes.
Fuck. Forget the damn nipples.
“You’re not going to wear that, are you?” he suddenly blurted out.
She blinked. “Why shouldn’t I? You’re wearing jeans.”
“No. No. Not that. It’s just really cold out,” he said, while placing his hand on the back of his neck, just as he felt beads of sweat turn into rivulets and slide down his back.
“Oh. I’m going to wear a sweater over this and a parka.”
“Oh.” He sighed. “Good.”
“Good?”
“Yes, good. As in okay, you won’t get frost …” His voice veered off without completing that sentence. The next word out of his mouth was going to be bite. But that got him thinking of those nipples.
“Frost …? What?”
“Whatever. Just it’s cold.”
“Yes, you’ve already said that. What I’d like to know is what are you doing with that?” She pointed at his dog. “You can’t bring a dog into a restaurant.”
“Then it’s good we won’t be going to a restaurant. If you’d like, you can bring him as well,” he said, indicating Boudica. “It is a him, isn’t it?” He tilted his head to get a better look.
“It is.”
He nodded. “I figured as much.”
“Why?”
“I just picture you with a male dog.”
She wrinkled her forehead. “Why?”
“I don’t know why.”
He’d put a definitive period at the end of that sentence. He wasn’t about to explain himself, especially not to her.
Both dogs were unusually silent and staring at each other. Clarke wondered if it was because they were picking up on the mutual animosity between their owners.
Clarke set his dog down and remained beside the whippet, waiting for Ceci to do the same.
“Okay, Boudica,” Ceci said, setting the bulldog down.
Clarke frowned. “Boudica?”
She glared at him. And for a reason unknown to him, he made the stupid move of allowing his eyes to drift to the southern ice caps.
Is she wearing a bra? What woman doesn’t? This one. Maybe. But in freezing temperatures like this?
She might even do it on purpose.
“Oh really.” He heard her say in a mocking tone.
His heart raced as his eyes shot back up to meet hers. He hadn’t said any of that out loud, had he? Sometimes he did that without realizing it. But he always made a special effort not to do it out in public.
To do it. Now. With her. Unthinkable. Unbearable.
“Are you even listening to me?”
“Sorry,” he managed, swallowing that stone that had lodged in his throat.
“I was just focused on the dogs. You know, worried they might not—” He looked down to see that the dogs were no longer there.
“Get along,” he added, glancing into the house, where he saw the two dogs wagging their tails, or in Boudica’s case, butt, and running circles around each other.
The whippet made a delicate leap and hugged Boudica.
She was rewarded with a healthy lick of the bulldog’s lusty tongue.
He looked back at Ceci. She stood up and he did likewise.
“So what’s wrong with Boudica?” she hissed.
“I didn’t say there was anything wrong with it.”
“You didn’t have to. That thing you do with your eyes and your mouth does it for you. The disapproval just wafts off you like some kind of toxic chemical.”
“It does?”
“It does. You didn’t know?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t mean it like that. I mean the way you make it sound. I don’t disapprove of the name. I’m just surprised by it.”
She placed her hands on her hips, and he could feel his eyes begin to drift until he forced them to stay put and opened them wider. He probably looked like one of those subterranean goggle-eyed fishes the way he was staring back at her. Better that than a trip down south to Antarctica.
Where is that fucking sweater? Why doesn’t she put it on already?
He wiped his palm on the back of his neck and only then realized she had yet to invite him in. He was still standing outside in something like thirty-degree temperature and sweating. How was that possible?
“Do you even know who Boudica was?” she demanded.
“She was a warrior queen of the Iceni people. She led a revolt against Roman rule around 60–61 CE, I think. But she was a female and he is not.”
She lifted her chin. “He has the same sort of spirit. Why shouldn’t he bear the name of a female warrior? Gender be damned.”
“Oh, okay.”
He’d already pissed her off, and the date hadn’t even started yet. God, this day was going to be miserable. And long.
Things had changed after that crash at Silverstone. She used to flirt with him, put her hands on him, anything to make him blush. It made him uncomfortable, but he’d sort of liked it. Now, given the things they’d said to the press and on social media, there was this animosity between them.
He heard a roar of laughter coming from inside. And then as if suddenly realizing he was still standing on the porch, she stepped aside, inviting him to enter.
He followed her into what he supposed was the living room, where he saw two women.
“This is Pixel,” Ceci said. “Pixel, Sir St—uh—Leo Clarke.”
“Just Clarke,” he said. “Or Leo.”
“And this is my Aunt Delilah,” Ceci said, indicating her aunt, who was just placing the whippet back on the floor, much to Boudica’s delight.
The woman stood up. He held out his hand but she ignored it, and before he knew it, she was holding his face in her hands, one palm on his left cheek and the other on his right. He felt his cheeks burn.
“You have enough modesty to blush,” she said as she peered into his eyes. “Not that I put any stock in modesty myself.”
He sighed, relieved when she removed her hands, but that relief was short-lived as she ran them over his shoulders.
One eyebrow hiked up her forehead while her lip curled, and he thought, I can read your mind, I know what you’re thinking.
If ever there was an image to convey when someone had a sly thought concerning sex, this was it.
“It’s too bad you’re wearing long sleeves,” she said, her hands simultaneously stroking and gripping his arms all the way down to his wrists. “I’d like to see these forearms.”
“Aunt Delilah!”
She placed her hand on his chest, directly over his heart, and smiled possibly the warmest, most endearing smile he’d ever seen, and without thinking, he found himself smiling back.
“I notice the black eye has almost completely healed. It’s still a mystery as to how you got it, but I hear my niece brought you back to life.” She paused. “There seems to be a lot of that going around.”
He frowned. “Huh?”
“Kissing. Done much of it yourself lately?”
His cheeks burned. He could actually feel the blood pulsating. The question in and of itself was a loaded one, but in this context, it had the arsenal of an AK-47 strapped onto it.
“Aunt Delilah, stop already!” Ceci shot him a look.
“I didn’t tell her. But I swear the woman’s got ears that operate like reverse megaphones.
And her hearing seems especially acute when it comes to conversations and subject matter that are none of her business.
Just ignore her. She’s doing this on purpose.
Trying to see how long it will take for her to get a rise out of you, probably counting the number of times she can make you blush. ”
“So, this is where you get it from,” Clarke said in an even tone.
Aunt Delilah clapped her hands gleefully.
“Well done! Just tell me one thing. Anything familiar about that kiss? Perhaps you could provide us with an account of it. It’s all in the interest of science.
We’re conducting a sort of research project into”—she glanced over her shoulder— “what was that again, Piper?”
So Piper was her name. Pixel must be a nickname.
“Um. The oxytocin cocktail?” she ventured. “Dopamine, serotonin, that kind of thing?”
“Exactly,” replied the aunt.
“Well, I …” He swallowed.
Am I really going to recount that kiss? Here? To them?
He cleared his throat. “I was unconscious. And then, um …”
“Stop already, Aunt Delilah,” Ceci said. “We’re changing the subject.”
Clarke sighed.
Thank you, Ceci Rivers.
He blinked at the thought. Never in a million years could he have imagined ever having it.
“What’s your dog’s name?” Piper asked.
“Holly.”
Ceci tilted her head, eyeing him warily. “Just Holly?”
He nodded. “Yes. More or less.”
“What does that mean, more or less?”
“What does it matter?” he asked, making no attempt to hide the exasperation in his voice.
Ceci grinned. “What do you think, Pixel? Holly. Feminine. Delicate. Dainty …”
“Holly Golightly?” her friend ventured.
Ceci snapped her fingers. “Of course! That’s it!” She turned to Clarke. “It is, isn’t it?”
He sighed. “Yes.”
“And I’m assuming that’s the movie version of Holly Golightly; dainty, demure and delicate, just like the woman who played her, Audrey Hepburn.”
“Okay, yes, fine, you are correct.”
“Well, maybe not entirely,” said Piper. “Did you know she wore a size ten and a half shoe?”
“Pixel has a photographic memory,” Ceci said. “It’s nearly impossible to stump her. I’ll show you. Who is the youngest driver ever to race Formula 1?” She shot him a triumphant smile.
“That would be Sir Leo Clarke.”
Her head swiveled and she stared at her friend. “Wait? What? Not …”
“Who?” he asked.
“Nobody,” she said.
“Were you thinking it was Anker?” he asked, grinning back at her.
“Anker started driving F1 when he was seventeen years and six months,” Piper said. “Clarke was seventeen years and five months.”
“Big deal,” Ceci scoffed. “One month.” She paused. “Okay, how about this one? Who has mounted the podium the most times in a row?”
“Without a break?” Piper asked.
Ceci nodded.
“Just mounting the podium? It doesn’t matter whether or not he came in first?”
“That’s right,” said Ceci.
“Again, that would be Sir Leo Clarke.”
“What?” Ceci swung around. “What about Rocco Vittori?”
“Rocco Vittori had eighteen consecutive podiums. Clarke—nineteen.”
Clarke smiled at Piper. He liked this girl.
Boudica and Holly began running circles around them, barking like mad.
“These two are in love!” Aunt Delilah cried, watching the two romp and tumble.
“Looks like a lot of oxytocin flooding to me,” Pixel said.
Clarke grinned. “They did a study in 2014 and discovered the level of oxytocin in dogs didn’t rise from the dog initiating interaction. It was when the other dog reciprocated that it did.”
Piper smiled at him. “I know that study.”
“It seems very sensible.”
Ceci peered at him. “Why?”
“It makes sense to dive in so long as you know the other person wants to dive in as well. It saves one a lot of bother.”
“Bother?” Ceci spat.
He scowled. “Okay, heartache if you prefer.”
There was a moment of silence as they glared at each other.
“So,” Piper clapped her hands, “where are you two—or should I say four—going?”