Clayton (Bourbon & Blood Book 2) (10 page)

“What’s the hurry?” he asks with a soft laugh.

If I don’t say something outrageous, if I don’t do something that makes him completely lose control, he will drag his feet and torture me like this all night.

“I can’t wait, Clayton. I want your cock inside me.” I don’t know that I’ve ever, in the twelve years I’ve known him, said anything quite that crude to him. But it works. His eyes darken, the tension in him shifts into something darker. He’s not holding back now.

He picks me up and spins me around until my back is pressed against the door. His hands are at my waist, unsnapping my jeans and lowering the zipper. But he doesn’t push them off my hips, instead he just slips his hand inside, his fingers moving over the lace that is the only barrier between us. When his fingers slip beneath my panties, moving over bare skin, I can’t hold back the moan.

“Clayton, just touch me… for the love of God, don’t make me wait.”

I don’t have to ask him again. His hand dips lower, two fingers sliding inside me while his thumb brushes against my clit. My head falls back and I can’t catch my breath. He’s holding me there, my weight supported by his thighs, my legs draped over his, and he’s driving me insane with just that touch. The need is like a living thing inside me, clawing and wild.

“You feel so good,” he whispers hotly. “I can’t wait to be inside you, to feel you closing around me. But first, I want to make you come. I want to make you remember just how good I can make you feel.”

I can’t respond. I can’t even think. He knows just how to touch me to make me wild. I’m clutching at his shoulders, my nails sinking into his flesh as he takes me higher. I let out a broken sob that might have been a plea, or just some unintelligible muttering of his name. But abruptly, he stops.

I cry out in protest, but it’s cut short as he turns and drops me on the bed. It bounces under me, but my focus is on him and way he grabs my jeans and strips them off me. I part my thighs, instinctively welcoming him. His hands slide under me, around my thighs and he pulls me toward him, dipping his head to press a hot kiss against my inner thigh. Then he bites, his teeth scraping over my skin in a way that makes me shiver and moan.

“Clayton, you’re killing me! Please!”

I don’t care that I’m begging. I’ll plead. I’ll cry. I’ll do whatever it takes to escape this knife edge of need.

I
can’t even count
the number of nights I’ve lain awake dreaming of her like this. Cold showers, jacking off like a horny teenager, nothing helped. There were moments where I was even tempted to find another woman just to chase away her ghost. But those thoughts were always quickly dismissed, mostly because I knew no other woman would ever do, and because I knew that whatever it took, someday I’d have her back… I’d have her laid out before me just like this.

Touching the silken skin of her thighs, inhaling the hot, drugging scent of her, I dip my head again, but it isn’t her thigh I kiss. Instead, I press my lips against the slick folds of her sex, sliding my tongue between them and tasting her. She moans and shivers beneath me, so I repeat the gesture, this time licking all the way up to the hardened nub of her clit.

She grabs my hair, her fingers tightening in it to the point of pain as she arches beneath me. I suck her clit into my mouth and she goes quiet. Annalee was never a screamer. When she’s close, hovering on the edge of orgasm, she holds her breath and not a sound escapes her. I slip two fingers inside her, curling them forward as I withdraw, all the while keeping my mouth on her clit. I know what she likes. I’ve always known. There’s power in that, but it’s a two way street. She can make me beg, too.

Her whole body trembles, from head to toe, every muscle tightening, and then going lax. I can feel the pulse of her orgasm on my tongue. Her grip on my hair loosens and she simply sinks into the bed, all the tension leaving her.

“Oh God,” she breathes, “I forgot how good that could feel.”

“We’re not done yet. Not by a long shot,” I tell her.

Immediately she sits up on the edge of the bed and reaches for the fly of my pants. Her lips are curved in a seductive smile as she frees the button and lowers the zipper. “You are so right about that.”

I kick off my shoes and push my pants down. I don’t know what she has in mind, but as long as it involves both of us getting to come at some point, I don’t care. She slides off the bed onto the floor, until she’s on her knees in front of me. I can feel her breath on my cock, the hard points of her nipples pressed against my thighs.

She leans in and kisses the head of my cock, her tongue swirling over me like it’s a treat, it’s all I can do not to lose it right there. I don’t doubt for a minute that she knows exactly what she’s doing to me. She’s watching me watch her and putting on a hell of a show.

When she takes me in completely, sucking deep and hard, my breath hisses out. My hands are in her hair, whether to hold her there or push her away I’m not sure. It feels too good, and if she keeps going, this night is going to be a hell of lot shorter than I planned.

“
Fuck
.” The word comes out on a hiss as her hand closes tightly around me, sliding over me as she withdraws. “No more, Annalee. I can’t take it.”

She pouts, her full lips wet and glistening, hovering over me. “But I love doing this for you… I like making you moan.”

“Some other time,” I tell her and lift her onto the bed. I shed the rest of my clothes before joining her. Her thighs part immediately, her legs locking around me, guiding me home.

Sliding into the scorching heat of her, feeling her close around me like a fist, takes my breath away. Literally. With my weight resting on my elbows, looking down at her beautiful face—eyes closed, her lips parted on a soft cry—I never thought I’d have this again.

Nudging a little deeper, I take one hand and slide it behind her knee, hiking it up just a little further. I swear to God, she could probably hook her foot behind her own head. I’ve never been so happy to have paid for yoga classes in my damned life.

The angle is perfect. I knew it would be because I know her, her body, every little tell, every place to touch her that makes her shiver and moan. Her stomach is quivering, the muscles flexing and contracting rhythmically. I can feel the tension in her thighs, before the first stroke.

She opens her eyes and looks at me. A smile spreads across her lips, slow and sexy. Her hair is fanned out on the pillow and there’s a soft flush on her cheeks… she’s every fantasy I’ve ever had and I’m balls deep inside her right now. For the first time in a goddamn year, my life is nearly perfect.

“What are you waiting for, Clay? You’ve got me where you want me… do something about it,” she dares.

I flex my hips against hers, deeper, thrusting just a little. “Once I start, it’ll be a mad rush to the finish line. I want this moment to savor.”

She moves against me, her hips undulating in a slow circle that it takes everything in me to resist. I place one hand on her hips, holding her still. She’s not taking control. Not this time anyway.

“I like looking at you this way—watching your eyes flutter closed when you moan my name, watching your lips part when you cry out,” I pause for a second and then utter words that I know will make her crazy. “And knowing that every time you moan, beg or call out to God, it’s because I’ve got my cock buried inside the sweetest pussy I’ve ever tasted.” She shudders beneath me, her whole body reacting to the statement like it was something physical.

Her hands fist in the bedclothes and she strains against me, arching upward and taking me in just a little deeper. I have to grit my teeth and count just not to come on the spot.

I withdraw almost completely, feeling her body clench around me, trying to hold on. I’m not gentle when I plunge into her again. It’s hard and fast, even a little angry. Her hands are on my back, her nails digging into my shoulders, and she throws her head back on a sob.

I grab her wrists and pin her hands to the bed with mine. The little bit of control I had is now long gone. There’s no sound in the room except our heavy breathing and our bodies coming together.

It’s no longer about finesse or skill. It’s just need and the animalistic drive to finish, to mark her, to make sure that she and everyone else knows she’s mine.

The heat of her closes around me, her inner muscles flexing and clenching in a rhythm that makes my head spin. Every thrust and withdrawal, I’m aware of her, of the tension in her thighs, the quivering of her belly. When I feel her hips arch beneath me, her body pushing up from the bed as her head falls back, her lips part on a silent cry. I can feel the pulsing of her body around me as she comes for me.

I’m right behind her. Driving deep one last time, I press my face against her neck and let it wash through me.

C
layton’s weight
presses me down into the bed, his hands are still shackling my wrists. I’ve never felt trapped by him. Only cherished, protected, desired. It’s no different now, except that I had forgotten just how good it feels to have him inside me, to feel the strength and heat of him. I’ve also forgotten how good it feels to orgasm with someone else, no batteries required.

He shifts slightly, withdrawing from me. I shiver at the movement. All the nerve endings are still firing, creating a heightened sensitivity to every touch. I’m still waiting for the world to right itself. Yes, the sex was amazing. It always was. That was why it was such a blow when he just stopped touching me, stopped looking at me, when I’d go to bed and wake up alone. I didn’t understand the shift, and a part of me still doesn’t.

“This doesn’t mean we’re back together,” I say aloud. It would be more convincing if my breath wasn’t still ragged and my voice didn’t sound like, well, like I’d just been fucked.

“Can we fight later? I’m too tired now,” he replies.

“Asshole.”

He rolls off me completely, onto his back to stare up at the ceiling. “I don’t think we
can
go back to where we were, instantly. But do you think we can at least wait until our heart rates have returned to normal before we’re at each other’s throats again?”

I turn on my side. “Is that what this is? At each other’s throats? I thought we were having a conversation.”

“We can’t have a conversation… not until all the blood makes it back to my brain anyway.”

He’s got me there. There’s no denying that, at least at the present moment, I have the advantage. “What are you going to do now… about Samuel?”

He scratches his chest. I watch his hand moving over his skin, mesmerized by it. I’ve had two mind blowing orgasms. It shouldn’t be possible to want more, but I do.

“First thing tomorrow, I meet with the attorney and get the papers drawn up that will allow him to transfer guardianship to Mia, Quentin, and myself. Then the house… Quentin doesn’t want it. He can barely stand to step foot in it. I don’t know if Mia does or not, but my plan is to have him deed it to her.”

“And the evidence in the box? That’s all just to make him go along with it? Nothing happens to him for committing heaven only knows how many crimes?”

“I’m going to do what I can. But if it comes down to getting justice, or just ensuring that the people I love are taken care of, you know what I have to go with. All of this, was for Mama… and for you, Emma Grace, Mia. He’s destroyed too many people already,” Clayton says. The hand that was on his chest has moved over and is now tracing lazy circles on my hip.

“Stop trying to distract me. How do you get that evidence to someone to do something with it and not incriminate yourself?”

“I can’t,” he admits. “I could maybe give Matt Crawford a heads up about some of it, but the really serious stuff is out of his jurisdiction.”

“Do what you need and then just let it all go… I don’t care if he goes to prison. I don’t care what happens to him as long as I get to have you back.”

He looks at me. “I thought this didn’t mean we were back together.”

“Don’t be an idiot. Of course we’ll get back together. But we need to, on the surface, take things slow. Emma Grace is already confused enough.”

Clayton laughs. “She isn’t confused about anything. That kid has it more put together than either one of us.”

I can’t deny that. “Fine.
I’m
confused. Happy?”

He smiles at me, tugs me closer until I’m tucked against his side. “I’m getting there. If you let me get some sleep now, we could probably do this again before I have to leave in the morning.”

I reach behind me and turn off the lights. “Fine. But if it’s early morning, you’re doing all the work.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I
’m sitting
in my office with my attorney. John has known what I had in mind for a long time now, so when I called him to ask for the documents, he brought them over along with a celebratory six-pack.

“You do realize it’s only ten in the morning?” I ask him.

“You’re about to hand your crooked SOB of a father his proverbial ass, and your wife’s attorney called me this morning to call a halt to divorce proceedings… not cancel them, just put a hold. Still, I figure that means you wormed your way back into her good graces. If that doesn’t call for celebration, what does?”

I grab one of the beers and pop it open. “You make an excellent point.”

John pulls a folder from his briefcase and places it on my desk. “That’s everything you asked for. Transfer of guardianship, a deed of transfer for the house, and a deed of transfer for the remaining forty percent of Fire Creek. Get his signature, I’ll file everything with the clerk and then that son-of-a-bitch can fall off the face of the earth.”

I frown. “I know why I hate him… but why do you?”

“I’ve handled a lot of divorces in this town,” John admits. “And he comes up… again and again and again. Let’s just say that I knew long before you showed up at my door that he was poison.”

I nod and take a sip of my beer. Day-drinking at the office is probably not the smartest thing I’ve ever done, but I’m still riding on a high. Waking up with Annalee wrapped around me was one of those perfect moments that you just want to hang on to.

“So when does this all go down?”

I check my watch. “I’ve got about ten minutes before he strolls in.”

John takes his beer and chugs it before getting to his feet. “In that case, I’ll see you around. I don’t want to be anywhere in the vicinity when that shitstorm happens.”

“Coward,” I say with a grin.

“Damn straight,” John agrees and heads for the door.

As he leaves, I look through the paperwork to make sure everything is in order. It’s all falling into place, but Samuel Darcy is no one’s fool. I can have everything in place, but that doesn’t mean he won’t still manage to weasel his way out of it.

With a few minutes to spare before he shows up, I take my phone from my jacket pocket and send a text to Annalee.

Keep thinking about how you looked this morning. Naked. In my bed.

I turn to the window and watch the parking lot, waiting for my first glimpse of Samuel’s car, but the second my phone buzzes, I’m checking to see what she said. Please, let it be dirty.

I’m standing in MY walk-in closet trying to decide if you’re worth giving up half the space for.

I can’t help but smile at her reply, even as I’m tapping out my own.

We could just give up clothes altogether. I’m a big fan of nudity where you’re concerned.

Samuel’s car pulls in. Play time is definitely over. I leave my phone on the desk and grab the forms that John dropped off along with my laundry list of my father’s sins. He won’t go quietly. But he’ll go. Whatever it takes.

I’m sitting in his office when he walks in. The sneer on his face is telling. He’s still ticked at being out maneuvered last night, which means that this is really going to set off a bomb.

“You’re in the wrong office,” he says. “You don’t get this one till I die.”

“I’ll get it a little sooner than that,” I reply. “You should sit down. You’re not going to like this conversation very much.”

He tosses his briefcase onto the desk and takes off his jacket before walking to the antique breakfront cabinet that has been in there since the beginning of time. He pours himself a healthy dose of some of our best bourbon. I’m not really surprised when he doesn’t offer me one, not that I’m interested in having a drink with the old man anyway. I’ll do my drinking when he’s finally gone for good.

“Get on with it then,” he says. “More extortion and blackmail from my eldest son?”

“Am I? Your eldest? I know Quentin and I aren’t your only sons, or so rumor would have it.”

“My eldest legitimate son,” he corrects. “You shouldn’t be so quick to acknowledge the bastards. They’ll only try to take a piece of what’s yours.”

I’m shaking my head. It’s a typical response for him, always putting himself first. Greed and avarice are the things he understands. The idea that I could have brothers and sisters out there I don’t know leaves me with a sick feeling in my gut. But all he cares about is the cost of acknowledging them.

“Without you digging your fingers into the pot to lavish gifts on yourself and your gold-digging, side-side bitches, we should have plenty to go around,” I reply. “And for the record, that all stops today. Today, you’re leaving Fontaine, Mama, the house, the distillery… today will be the last time any of us have to deal with your worthless ass.”

Samuel laughs as if he’s actually amused by this. “Son, you greatly mistake the amount of power you have here.”

It’s my turn to be amused. “Oh, it’s not my power, Samuel. It’s the power of the truth… and there’s a little matter of evidence. I know all about how you and your worthless father cheated the Hayes family out of Fire Creek. Not only do I know about it, I have documentation.”

He’s not smiling now. “It’d never hold up in court. I’m the only person in that room who’s still living.”

“Yes, but the president of First Bank of Fontaine is still living. He had some pretty interesting things to say about how you coerced, bribed and intimidated his employees into holding the Hayes’ mortgage payments instead of applying them to their account. Then there’s the tax issue… or ten. You forcing other people’s property taxes to be raised while the taxes on Fire Creek and the house mysteriously dropped.”

“Is this what your sister whored herself to Bennett Hayes for?”

I want to punch him right in the damn mouth, but losing my cool will only give him the upper hand. “Call her that again and I will gut you like a fish. I have this information for the simple fact that everyone in this town would happily watch you burn.”

“I’m not giving you any of this… not the house, not the business, and you’re sure as hell not getting guardianship over your mother.”

I lean back in the chair and prop my feet on the desk. “I didn’t put two and two together initially, but then after that little fiasco the other night, it all started to make sense.”

“Get to the damn point, Clayton. You’re trying my patience.”

“I’m referring to the accidental drowning of Katherine Shelby. Was it… accidental that is?”

He scoffs, but I can tell he’s on the run now. The nerves are starting to rattle. I can see it in him as he paces to the window and looks out. “I didn’t hurt that girl. You’re reaching.”

“She fell off your boat, and you didn’t do a goddamn thing to save her. That’s an important distinction that the police have never been able to make. Her body washed up, but no one could say definitively where she’d come from. But I can.”

“No, you can’t! You don’t know a goddamn thing!” he shouts.

“Let’s just get Erica in here and ask her,” I suggest. “It was that pic Bennett had snagged off Erica’s social media that really sealed the deal there. The two of them were thick as thieves apparently.”

“You leave Erica out of this,” he says.

He doesn’t give a damn about Erica. I know that and so does he. But that answers another question I had. Erica and Katherine hadn’t been on the boat together. Samuel had been up to his same old tricks, wooing one behind the other’s back.

“It’ll go one of two ways… either Erica was on the boat with you and will tearfully confess, or she had no clue that you’d taken her best friend out that day without her. Which of those things is going to get you in the most trouble? That you were fucking her best friend or that you killed her?”

“You want the house and the distillery, you can have them both… But I refuse to turn guardianship of Patricia over to you or anyone else!”

“Guardianship isn’t really what’s holding you back.” He’s sweating now. I can see it. He needs Erica because she knows too much. She’s also the missing piece that can incriminate him in what would amount to manslaughter, at the very least. “It’s that final payment from the trusts that’s keeping you here.”

He punches the wall, a large hole appearing in the drywall next to the door. “Goddamn you and your snooping! Going through my trash, through my mail? What the hell kind of man did I raise?”

I meet his glare dead on. “You didn’t raise anyone, male or otherwise. Patricia raised us and she did a damned fine job of it without you ̓round… I’m willing to give you two things. You can have the condo in Boca Raton and when the trust comes through, I will give you one million dollars. Or, you can fight me on this and I can challenge your guardianship in court… and win, since you clearly don’t have Mother’s best interests at heart and never have. I can turn over all the evidence I have to the police about your wrong doings and let them sort it out.”

“You wouldn’t dare!” He’s shouting again, his face purple with rage.

“I would and I will. Maybe they can’t charge you with anything, but you’d be done for in Kentucky. Every door would be closed to you. The society, the parties, the clubs… you’d be shut out like a pariah.”

“You are not doing this to me! You’re not taking everything I’ve built—.”

“You haven’t built
anything
.” I’m shouting now too, less out of anger than to be heard overtop his bellyaching. “You’re bankrupting us and it’s going to stop one way or another. Sign the fucking forms, Samuel, or I will make your life such a living hell, you’ll pray for it to end.”

I tap the forms on the desk with the pen. “Sign them and you get one million dollars and the opportunity to live out the rest of your life in a sunshiny paradise. Don’t, and you face financial ruin, social ruin, and possibly prison. It’s not a hard choice.”

He snatches the pen and begins signing the documents by all the numerous flags attached to them. “I will make you regret this.”

I don’t say anything else. I don’t need to. For the moment, I’ve won.

I
n between Clayton’s
many flirty and dirty text messages, I’ve cleaned house all day. It’s a coping mechanism. When I need to clear my head, I clean. Of course, I also need to make room for Clayton to move back in. Even though I’ve given him a hard time and told him it can’t happen immediately, it won’t be long. Once we talk to Emma Grace, it’s pretty much a done deal. I smile thinking of how excited she’ll be to have her daddy back home.

The exhaustion, as I head downstairs, isn’t just about the work I’ve done today. It’s about the fact I got no sleep last night courtesy of Clayton. Thinking about it, about him, and the way it felt to wake up in the middle of the night to the feeling of his hands on me, his mouth, I literally have to squeeze my thighs together. I feel hot immediately. It shouldn’t be possible to want him again, but I do. The drought is officially ended. Thank God.

I glance at the clock. “Shit.” I’ve got to get Emma Grace from school and get her to dance class. Even if I leave right now, I’m still going to be late. I grab my keys from the counter and head into the garage.

The instant I’m behind the wheel I know something is wrong. The seat has been moved. I glance at the rearview mirror and my stomach drops. Samuel is sitting in the back seat. I don’t even have time to scream before he’s got his hands over my mouth.

The chemical smell is overwhelming. My brain begins to fog immediately. I lay on the horn, but from inside the garage, with the door closed, no one will hear. I’m reaching for the garage door opener, but I can’t lift my arm. It’s too heavy. My vision wavers, growing dimmer. Oh God, no.