Chapter 9 #3
Clay grinned triumphantly but she quickly obliterated it from his face as she ground back, shooting a bolt of lightning straight to his dick.
His pulse spiked rapidly as a roaring imperative to devour her washed through his blood.
He took her mouth then with an almost savage intensity, his torso pressed to hers, the mad thump of their hearts aligning, beating as a single organ.
She met him tongue stroke for tongue stroke, sending Clay’s brain into a dizzying spiral of lust and need he didn’t think he’d ever be able to put back in the tube. He sure as shit was not capable of stopping. A dozen Electra-esque wild horses couldn’t have stopped him.
Her mother on the other hand…
‘Stephanie?’
The faint voice of Cindy Everhart drifting towards them was like a foghorn as their mouths parted, their frantic breathing intermingling as air chugged back and forth.
They stared at each other, the overwhelming feeling that things could never go back to what they were before the kiss a clarion call ringing through Clay’s blood.
Ringing in hers, too, if he was reading her right.
‘Sorry,’ she panted, her voice hushed. ‘My mother always has had the worst timing.’
She didn’t scurry away from him, however, staying in his arms, obviously needing to collect herself with the voice still some distance away.
Her fell head back against the wall, her eyes shut, her chest rising and falling as rapidly as his.
She looked gorgeous like this – thoroughly kissed. Her mouth wet, her cheeks flushed.
‘Stephanie?’
The voice was a little closer this time but again she didn’t move. Cindy hadn’t reached the stables yet and Electra’s stall was at the far end.
A sigh sliding from her lips, Stevie’s eyes fluttered open, her pupils so big that all Clay could see was a thin lip of bluey-grey. ‘I should go.’
‘Okay.’
But she made no move to leave and Clay wasn’t about to back away before she was ready. Hell, the husky rasp of her breath, knowing that he had done that to her, only made him want to go in again.
Keeping his voice low, Clay asked, ‘Will you play it for me? The song. When it’s done?’
Her thoroughly kissed lips kicked up at the edges. ‘Yes.’
‘Promise?’
She nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘Stephanie? Are you in here?’
That one was much closer and Clay reluctantly muttered, ‘Go.’
Easing away, he reached for her guitar and handed it over before he stepped aside to let her pass. Clutching her guitar, she held his gaze as she pushed off the wall and called, ‘Coming, Mom.’
Turning away, she walked the three steps to the stall gate, lifted the latch and pushed it open, not looking behind as she stepped out and turned in the direction of her mother’s voice, the door quietly clicking closed.
Clay expelled a shaky breath as he groped for the wall, his palm flattening as he tried to get his body under control. Not that he was planning on stepping out with Stevie’s mom here, not least because he had an erection that could probably be detected from the moon.
Definitely by moms of daughters wearing purity rings.
‘You’ve done it now, Clay,’ he muttered under his breath as he lowered his head, letting it hang between his shoulder. ‘You’ve really done it now.’
Cindy’s voice, which only sounded like it was a couple of stalls away, drifted in. ‘What are you doing here? With your guitar?’
‘Just tinkering with a song. Horses are good listeners.’
Clay’s mouth spread into a broad smile at hearing Stevie quote him to her mother. He didn’t know why but it unfurled tendrils of warmth in his chest.
As if making out with Stevie hadn’t already made him hot enough.
‘Mom?’ Stevie said, the sound of her voice further away now as she no doubt walked her mother away from the scene of the seduction. ‘You look terrible. Are you okay?’
Clay’s head shot up. He strained to eavesdrop on their conversation, which wasn’t very gentlemanly of him but if there was something wrong, he wanted to know.
‘It’s Granny. She’s had a stroke.’
Stevie’s gasp came to him loud and clear. ‘What? When? Is she…’
‘No, she’s okay, she’s in hospital. The doctor said it wasn’t too bad but she missed the window for that clot-busting medication so she’s weak down one side and her speech is slurred.’
‘Oh, Mom. I’m so sorry.’
There was silence for a few beats and Clay thought they might be embracing. Then Stevie, her voice thick with emotion, said, ‘Do you want me to book some flights for us back to Boston?’
Clay’s stomach dropped at the thought of Stevie leaving.
But of course she would want to see her grandmother, and wishing that this…
thing could keep going, that they had more of a chance to fully explore it, was utter lunacy.
He should be grateful – except for the granny stroke bit – that the universe had given him the chance to nip it in the bud.
‘No.’ Cindy’s voice was husky with emotion too, but her response was decisive. ‘I’ve already organised it. They’ve assured me she’s doing better but I need to eyeball her. I’m leaving on an evening flight and I’ll go straight to the hospital as soon as it lands.’
A dizzy sense of relief flowed like cold water through Clay’s veins. Stevie was staying. Was he an asshole for wanting her to stay? With her helicopter mother gone?
‘I’ve already organised everything here. Theresa said they’ll make one of the ranch vehicles available for your use so I’ll drive the rental to the airport. If I think you need to…’
Clay heard the sound of a throat clearing and definitely felt like the asshole.
‘…to fly home,’ she continued, ‘I’ll let you know. Otherwise the record company had paid for another three weeks.’
The record company. Clay remembered Stevie’s lament before he’d kissed her. Can you make me forget everything? My sister. My career. The record company…
‘You need to stay here and keep up your lessons and get your cowgirl on.’
Clay shut his eyes and tried valiantly to not picture Stevie getting her cowgirl on while her grandmother was lying in some hospital bed after a stroke. Because that would really make him the asshole.
‘Mom… I don’t want you to be alone for all that.’
‘I won’t be alone. Your father will be there. Truly,’ Cindy assured her, ‘I’ll be fine and hopefully with any luck she’ll be discharged properly and I can stay with her in her house to help out for a while, because you know her.’
‘Fiercely independent,’ Stevie replied, her voice echoing in admiration.
Her mom laughed but it sounded brittle. ‘Right. So come on, quick sticks, come and help me pack and we’ll map out a schedule for you for the next few weeks if I’m not able to get back here in that time.’
The crunching of shoes on the concrete got fainter as did their voices until Clay could no longer hear anything.
He dropped his forehead to the cool cinder block for several moments as he collected himself.
Stevie would be here – alone. Maybe for the rest of her stay.
He should be running a hundred miles away but no part of him wanted that.
Turning around, he leaned his butt into the wall to find Electra regarding him steadily with her soft brown eyes.
Fuck, he’d forgotten she was here. He’d necked in front of the filly like a goddamned teenager and had been that swept away by it he hadn’t given the animal – which had preoccupied him for months now – a second thought.
Maybe it was his latent guilt over that purity ring Stevie still wore on her finger, but the horse did not look impressed by Clay’s actions.
Bending a leg, he flattened his booted heel against the wall. ‘Hey, don’t judge me. Your kind fuck out in the open and don’t give a damn who’s watching.’
Electra snorted haughtily. Clay hadn’t thought it possible that a horse could snort haughtily but that just proved you could get to twenty-eight and still know jack shit.
‘Yeah, yeah, I know,’ he said with a sigh as she continued to judge. ‘I’m the asshole.’
Pushing off his heel, Clay strode to the gate, opened it and walked away.