Chapter 23
CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE
ALLY
I slept like a felled tree and woke up to cries of “No way!” and “You messed up, dude!”
The sun was already shining brightly through the gauzy nylon of the tent, but that only meant it was after six in the morning. Other than that, I had no idea what time it was. Telling time by the sun’s position would have to fall into next year’s camping tutorial.
Looking next to me, I saw that Clay was already up and out of the tent—no surprise that he’d heard the call of the wilderness. He probably had already prepared breakfast for everyone. But the continued shouts of various students in the distance had me curious, and if they were awake, I really needed to put my boots on and join them.
A few minutes later, with my hair piled into a typhoon of a ponytail and a flannel shirt buttoned up beneath my puffer coat, I strode over in the direction of the voices. Under the tall pines, I found Cassius and Miles standing with Clay and the park ranger among the trees where we’d practiced hanging food the day before yesterday.
Since the bear hang had only been an exercise, we’d taken all the food down and stowed it in the bear boxes. All but one bag, apparently.
And it looked like a bear had found it overnight.
The nylon sack itself was in shreds, easily torn in two with a bear’s claw. The food that had been inside—a loaf of bread, a bag of trail mix, and several packages of hot chocolate mix—was now mostly an assortment of torn wrappers on the ground.
“Ms. Dalbotten!” Cassius yelled when he saw me and dashed over. “Check it out.”
I walked carefully in the direction of all the chaos, where a couple more students who’d heard the yelling now joined. Chatter erupted anew as Miles and Cassius filled them in on the bear visit last night.
I caught Clay’s eye and cocked my head. “No bears, huh?”
“I just promised you wouldn’t be visited personally. I didn’t say black bears don’t exist out here.”
The ranger chimed in with all kinds of statistics about bear sightings in the surrounding area, all information I was glad I didn’t know about before the trip. “But no one’s been attacked, in part thanks to the bear boxes. This here, though”—he pointed up at the paltry-looking rope dangling from a branch right next to the trunk of the tree—“that’s just bear bait, hanging so close to the trunk. A bear has no problem climbing up there to get it.”
“Clearly,” I said, surveying the damage again. Clay was still eyeing me quietly, probably waiting for me to freak out. I surprised us both by calmly nodding and concluding, “Guess we got lucky. Good lesson for the kids on how not to do a bear hang, right?”
“Exactly,” the ranger agreed. “Not so good for the black bear because sourdough isn’t exactly part of its diet, but I’m not chasing down a bear to say so.”
The near bear sighting had all the students so fired up, they helped make breakfast and cleaned the campsite without needing much instruction from us. Within a few hours, we’d packed up and hiked down the trail to where the bus took us all back to campus.
The weather had cooperated all weekend long, but by late Sunday afternoon, the clouds rolled in as if to say, We did our best to hold off as long as we could, but now we’re coming . The first drops of rain splattered on the blacktop in the parking lot as the kids hugged each other goodbye and we loaded them into their respective parents’ cars.
And then...it was just Clay and I in the parking lot standing next to Clay’s blue truck.
He took my hand and led me around to the passenger side, popping the automatic lock. Then he opened the door, swept me up into his arms, and deposited me on the seat, just like he’d done that day I’d splatted on the track.
Clay and I drove back to his house in silence, but the rush of blood in my ears with each beat of my heart would have drowned out a conversation anyway. Clay kept my hand grasped in his own, every so often raising it to his lips. I nearly swooned every time he did it, my heart so full of feelings for him.
When we pulled into his driveway, I had an idea. “Clay, do you still have the tents pulled out from when we camped in your yard?”
“Yeah, they’re in my shed. Why?”
“Can we sleep in them tonight?”
He started to laugh, swinging open his door and coming around to my side of the truck. “Are you serious?”
I shrugged. “I like the close quarters.” He took my hand and helped me down from the truck, ever gentlemanly.
“Don’t you worry, Alexandra. I’m keeping you close for the rest of the night.” He kissed my temple and left a lingering kiss on my cheek. “I love your new appreciation for camping, but we’re sleeping in the house. On sheets. In a bed.”
I grinned. “I like the sound of all of that too.”
The last time I’d been here, we’d barely spent any time inside the house, other than as a passthrough to the yard. Tonight, Clay gave me a tour of the downstairs, pointing out the living room and den and guest bathroom, all of which were decorated with modern furnishings and masculine grays and blues. Pulling us into the kitchen, Clay rummaged through the refrigerator.
“Chicken burrito? Will that work?” He held up two packaged burritos with the guilty smile of a kid who’s about to eat a box of sugary cereal.
I nodded, and Clay popped them into the microwave.
Leaning against the marble counter, I watched him set the timer, liking the domesticity of the moment. After misunderstanding him from afar for all these years, I loved seeing him with new eyes, performing simple tasks.
Turning back toward me, he smiled and lifted me onto the kitchen counter. Stepping between my legs, he was the perfect height to kiss me. He leaned in, cupping my cheeks in his hands, and his lips found mine. Soft, tender, unhurried.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and surrendered to a kiss that felt like it lasted for hours. Only the ding of the microwave gave me a sense of time.
Clay poured some salsa into a dish, and we ate side by side on barstools at the counter. He held his burrito in one hand and let the other rest on the back of my neck, where he gently rubbed out the muscles that were sore from carrying my pack.
When we’d finished eating, he walked me upstairs, never taking his hands off of me, never leaving more than a few inches of space between us. It was like an invisible barrier had snapped, and now we were two magnets unendingly pulled toward each other.
Wordlessly, he opened a cupboard in the hallway and handed me a fluffy white towel. “Three days in the wilderness. You earned yourself a hot shower.” He pointed me in the direction of a guest bathroom with a white-tiled shower, and came back a moment later with a pair of sweatpants and a tee. After a minute, I heard the water turn on in another bathroom.
I loved that he knew me well enough to understand that I’d endured bugs and dirt without complaint, but now I wanted a shower more than anything else. I loved that he’d given me a change of clothes without my having to ask. I loved so many things about him, and that made me a little nervous because of all my mother’s warnings.
And then I reminded myself that I was not my mother. And not all of her warnings applied to me.
The hot water felt amazing, but I showered quickly, noticing a soap dish shaped like a duck and a neat display of river rocks in a bowl on the blue-tiled counter. Checking my reflection in the mirror, I wound my wet hair into a bun and put on Clay’s oversized clothes.
When I padded down the hall toward his room, I could hear the soft notes of blues playing, and I could smell the heady scent that was all Clay.
I hovered in the doorway and took a moment to gaze at Clay in his bare-chested splendor, as he stood shuffling through music on his phone in the dim evening light through the window. Hair wet and slicked back. Abs still damp above a navy pair of boxer briefs that hugged sculpted thighs. The blues track changed to a quiet instrumental and Clay seemed satisfied.
“Hey there, greyhound,” I said as Clay looked over at me lingering just outside the room.
“Hi, gorgeous.” In two strides, he reached me, extending his hand and pulling me toward him. Walking backward, he led me to his bed, covered in a large white comforter with big square pillows rimmed in blue stitching. In a quick motion, he swept me up and placed me in the center of the bed.
Almost like he knew where my mind had wandered, Clay took both of my hands in his and held them between us while his mouth claimed mine in a searing kiss.
Our bodies folded into each other, his hard muscles finding my soft places. Everything fit, and Clay released my hands, freeing them to roam over his sculpted pecs and along his strong shoulders.
My heart fluttered in my chest like a panicky hummingbird. My breathing came out in uneven exhales, even as I tried to steady it.
How could I feel so much and crave this man so much when he’d barely touched me. The mere proximity of him had me feeling more alive than I’d ever felt. Every nerve flared on high alert. Every tremble across my skin raced through my body, ending in a hot bundle of nerves at my core.
“Ally...” He closed his eyes on a long blink that made me wonder if I was trying his patience. When his lids lifted, there was a fiery determination in his eyes that hadn’t been there moments earlier. “Always. I’ve always wanted you like this.”
I swallowed hard, a nervous tiny voice telling me there was still time to back out.
I didn’t want to back out.
I nodded.
Clay leaned closer, and for a moment, time hung there in the space between us, gobbled up by the infinite possibilities of what could happen next. “There’s something magical about the pause, isn’t there?” His quiet voice danced across my lips. “The holding of breath, the knowing, and anticipating, and waiting just another moment before...” He lingered there, and I felt his breath against my lips, a quiet caress that was almost enough to throw every nerve ending into overdrive. Almost.
The proximity of him was making me dizzy. All sexy stubble and angular cheekbones. Pine scent mixed with soap. The faintest hint of mint from his toothpaste. My eyes drifted shut and I leaned closer. Millimeters separated us, and all of my other senses came alive when I stopped fighting them.
Clay’s hand cupped my chin, sending chills down my spine and making me lean into his touch as he slid his hand along my skin and into my hair. He grasped the back of my head and turned my face slightly, leaning back to look at me. Like he was giving us one last chance to change our minds.
I nodded, eyes locked on his.
I saw the moment his resolve shredded. A tiny crack in his controlled fa?ade. A softening of his jaw and a darkness in his eyes that hardened with decision. Then he angled my face to the side, his hand twisting into my hair as he drew me closer.
It was a different brush of his lips, a hint of something deeper that leveled my senses with such force that I gasped. But there was no time to feel self-conscious about the sound because he wasn’t stopping, kissing me like I was a salve to his aching body, not just hinting but insisting. I kissed him back with equal fervor, overwhelmed by a hunger I couldn’t explain because it was so unfamiliar.
I just wanted him. I wanted his hands touching me in more places, his lips on me everywhere.
When his tongue swept inside my mouth, I moaned a little and grasped his shoulders again for purchase, digging my fingers into the sculpted muscles. They were every bit as rock hard and broad as they looked, and feeling them beneath my hands, I felt a little faint.
Then there was no end of me or beginning of him. We were locked into a steamy, languid kiss that went on and on.
When Clay pulled back again to look at me, I saw his eyes had heated to a deep molten color that made no mistake about what he wanted.
“Yes,” I breathed. Yes to everything. I wanted him more than I’d ever craved anything or anyone in my life.
Rolling me onto my back, Clay moved over me, holding himself up on his forearms on either side of my head. The tender way he looked at me made me feel cherished. The feral gleam in his eyes left no doubt about what he wanted to do with me.
Then the weight of his body bore down on me, his hard length pressing exactly where I needed him. I moved beneath him, needing friction, but he lifted away, teasing me with tinier kisses and withholding what I wanted until I moaned in protest.
Pecs that looked carved from marble, abs that rippled, and a deep V that led exactly where I wanted my hands to go.
I took one more opportunity to let my eyes roam his chest and double-check that he was real. That I was here with him.
“Holy shit,” I mumbled appreciatively. His lips tipped up into a smile, and he bent to nip at my neck.
One hand trailed along my shoulder and drifted across my collarbone. Chills erupted over my skin as he bent to kiss the dip at my throat. Trailing kisses lower, he tugged at the collar of my shirt with his teeth before his hand drifted beneath it, gently stroking the skin along my waist.
I was all ready for him to rid me of the shirt when he stopped, his gaze roaming over my face, my chest, his eyes locking on mine. The look of utter reverence startled me.
“What?” I gasped, half expecting him to tell me this was a terrible idea. It was, but I didn’t care.
“I don’t trust myself. If I have a tiny bit of you, I won’t be able to let you go.”
“Then don’t.” I was too amped up to stop this now, and he needed to stop wrestling with his fear about seeing me back at work or whatever was concerning him about this fling.
His eyes heated and he nodded. “Deal.”
His hands lifted off the giant tee, baring me to him. I heard him suck in a breath as his eyes traveled over my curves. Then his lips returned to mine with more fervor. He nipped at my bottom lip and soothed it with his tongue. I heard myself whimper, and I’d never been a whimperer.
We’d had two nights of holding ourselves back, and the result was this—hunger, haste, curiosity, abandon.
It was like we’d flipped a switch. There was no more hesitation, no thinking. Clay kissed my breasts, taking one in his mouth and sucking hard. His hands trailed lower, tickling the skin of my abdomen as he went.
Clay slid down the sweatpants, ridding me of them, and moved down my body, laying kisses in a trail across my hip.
His hands trailed up the inside of my thigh and my eyes drifted shut as his hands parted my legs. He nipped at the sensitive skin at the apex of my thighs and soothed it with his tongue. These were moves I’d only read about, imagining someone would want me enough to have me like this but never being able to form a solid picture in my mind of who that someone would be.
Now it felt clear that Clay was the only possible someone in that picture, and this was the only fantasy I wanted.
His tongue lapped straight up my center and I gasped, my hands tangling in his hair. His hands teased my inner thighs while his mouth took me to a place I’d never been.
I felt my orgasm build—hell, it had been building since the day Clay administered first aid to me on campus—and Clay’s deft tongue had no mercy. He sucked hard on the sensitive bundle of nerves and my senses exploded in fireworks, earthquakes, rolling thunder. The natural world had nothing on this man and he took me to places I’d never imagined existed. Places I never wanted to leave.
“God, Clay . . . ,” I moaned.
As he moved back up my body, I felt light-headed and slightly crazed. My lips fell to his neck, which hit me with the manly scent of pine.
Reaching inside his boxer briefs, I wrapped my hand around his hard cock and felt all logic and rationality leave my brain. As I stroked the length of him, I heard him suck in a breath. “Ally,” he growled. “Fuck.”
His curse fueled me. “I want you inside me,” I breathed against his neck.
“Ah...” Then he froze and pulled back to look at me. “I...wasn’t exactly planning this. I don’t think I have any condoms.”
I was baffled. This was Clay, notorious bachelor. Didn’t he carry a roll of them in his wallet at all times?
“You—you don’t?”
A quiet laugh escaped his lips. “No, Alexandra. I don’t keep condoms here because I don’t bring women back to my house.”
“Oh. Well, I’m on the pill,” I said, unhelpfully, because if anyone called for a condom, it was a notorious bachelor.
“Okay, well, I haven’t been with anyone for over a year,” he said, as though it made any sense at all.
“You haven’t?” I didn’t mean to sound so disbelieving. But come on. This was Clay Meadows.
“No. I haven’t. Why does that surprise you so much?”
“Just . . . you’re you.”
“And?”
I had no interest in explaining when I had Clay Meadows, still clad in those damn boxer briefs, hard and here and so damn sexy. Ridding him of the last stitch of clothing, I felt emboldened. I gestured for him to roll onto his back and I straddled his legs.
Clay’s hands slipped up my torso and he palmed both breasts as I ground against him, already feeling another orgasm starting to build.
I rolled my hand over the tip of his cock before edging it inside. Slowly. An inch at a time. Until he filled me.
When we started to move, it had none of the clumsy first-time feel to it I’d come to think of as normal. We were a symphony conducted by a maestro. Seamless, blissful harmony.
“Fuck, Ally,” he bit out as I rode him. Watching his half-lidded eyes as he began to let go fueled me. I loved having this effect on him.
And then we were both falling, useless at anything, perfect at everything. Coming apart and melting into each other.
This was not the man I thought I knew. He was so much better, and that would make it so much harder to get over him when I eventually had to, but I didn’t care. Right now, I’d give myself over and live out every fantasy with him. I could let myself have a little fun.
Or a lot. Hours of it, to be exact.