Clayton (Bourbon & Blood Book 2) (13 page)

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EEP SCROLLING
FOR A SPECIAL BONUS SCENE FEATURING CLAYTON AND ANNALEE. ALSO, THERE'S A SNEAK PEEK AT BOOK THREE OF THE BOURBON & BLOOD SERIES, CARTER.

I
t's
five in the morning and I'm still wide awake. I'm in the passenger seat of my car, looking up through the sun roof that always leaks, as the first light of dawn starts to filter through. I'm more than awake. I feel completely alive and it's because of the girl beside me.

“Tell me about your family,” she says.

“I already told you,” I say.

“Tell me again. I like hearing about them.”

I turn my head to look at her. Somehow, with mind boggling flexibility, she's curled up on her side in the driver's seat with her legs tucked beneath her. “My mom will like you... when you're ready to meet her. My dad... not so much. But he doesn't like anybody, so fuck him.”

She smiles. “Tell me about your brother and sister... I always wanted siblings. It sucked being an only child.”

“Quentin... He's just an asshole. A total smartass, but he plays football like nobody I've ever seen. He's really good. And girls love him, for a little while anyway. He invariably pisses them off and then they go psycho on him.”

“Is that a family trait? Are you going to do something so bad that I turn into one of those crazy women they make TV movies about?”

Now it's my turn to laugh. I'd have to be an idiot to fuck this up. “No. I'm not doing that... and I don't really want to talk about my family anymore. I want to hear about yours.”

She looks up at the sun roof. “There's not a whole lot to tell. It's just me. I don't have a family.”

“What do you mean you don't have a family?”

A shrug of her shoulders is all I get for the longest time. “I don't know my father. I don't even know his name... no siblings. My mother died two years ago. So, it's just me.”

I can't imagine being that alone. The idea of it terrifies me. “I'm so sorry.”

“I'm not. My mom wasn't really.... well, when she had drugs, she ignored me. When she didn't have drugs, I wished she would ignore me. Trust me when I tell you that I'm totally okay with not having her in my life any more. I hate that she wasted her life the way she did, but it's a relief to not have her wasting anymore of mine.”

The silence in the car is overwhelming. The weight of what she just said is tangible. Yes, my father is an asshole and he makes everyone around him miserable, but we still have my mother and she keeps that in check. She's made sure that we always had what we needed and that she was always there for us. And this amazing girl has had no one.

“Now that we're both depressed,” she says with a self deprecating laugh, “I do actually need to go. I have to work today. And if I leave now, I can get a total of five hours of sleep before I have to be at the restaurant.”

It's selfish but I'm not ready to let her go yet. “Just a few more minutes?”

She sits up in the seat and, in one fluid motion that I can't begin to comprehend, climbs over the console until she's straddling my thighs, her mouth just inches from mine. “I have to go... but don't you think you should at least try to kiss me first?”

“I want to do a hell of a lot more than kiss you but I'm trying to show off how much of a gentleman I can be.”

“I'd rather you show me what it's like when you stop being a gentleman.” Her voice is pitched low, sexy as hell, and impossible to resist.

I slide one hand beneath the hem of her skirt, over the satin skin of her thigh and then the curve of her hip. She's not wearing any panties. If there was any blood in my body going anywhere but to my cock, it just changed direction.

“So is this no panties thing a policy you have or just a pleasant surprise?” I ask.

“I hate panties. I avoid them at all costs,” she says. “But do you really want to talk about my underwear, right now?”

She never wears panties. I've been sitting next to her all night long and she's had not a stitch on under that skirt. “You're trying to kill me aren't you?”

She leans forward slightly, until her lips are less than a breath from mine. “No. You're no good to me that way.”

I honestly think I'll die if I don't kiss her. Placing my other hand in her hair, I wrap my fist in it and tug her just a little closer, until her mouth is on mine. The softness of her lips, the taste of her when I lick the curve of her lower lip is enough to make me crazy.

Her lips part on a soft, little sigh and the kiss deepens, takes on a life of its own. She kisses like sin. Like everything that is so bad for you but feels so goddamn good.

She rocks her hips slightly and I can feel the heat of her even through the jeans I'm wearing. We're dry humping in a car like a couple of horny teenagers and it's the best moment of my life.

I shift my hand beneath her skirt, moving it between her thighs and meeting nothing but bare, slick skin. God above.

She breaks the kiss and I'm almost certain she's about to tell me no. “We could take this inside,” she offers. “My apartment isn't much bigger than this car and my bed is also my couch, but at least it's private.”

If I do what she expects me to, if I have sex with her here in the front seat of this car or if I follow her into her apartment, I'll never see her again. So as much as it kills me, I'm not going to get what I want today. But I'll make sure she does. “If I go in with you, we both know what will happen.”

She grins. “That's kind of why I'm inviting you in.”

“And that's why I'm saying no... Because I'm not going to be a one night stand. Not with you,” I tell her.

“So you like me too much to have sex with me?” she asks dubiously.

“That sums it up,” I reply. “I want to see you again. And when I'm sure you're not going to bolt, then we'll spend the night at my apartment.”

“Why yours?”

“Because I have a king size bed and we can cover every inch of it,” I answer.

She looks at me for a long moment, clearly puzzled, and then says, “That is a compelling argument... so if we're not going to have sex, you should probably move your hand.”

I do, but not in the way she intended. I slip my fingers inside her, gently grazing her clit. “I'm not going to have sex... I'm saving myself. But that doesn't mean we both have to suffer.”

W
hen I first met him
at that party, I thought he was just another rich, frat boy. But he was so hot I was willing to overlook it. Then he convinced me to go to breakfast with him. Now, I'm sitting across his lap in the front seat of his car and he's doing things with his fingers that have melted every bone in my body.

I don't know what to make of Clayton Darcy. He's not who I thought he'd be and that scares me to death. “What's your game?” I ask him. My voice is breathless, husky, and I can't keep the tremor out of it as he touches me.

“I don't have one,” he says and his fingers move deeper, pressing inside me in a way that takes my breath away. I grip his shoulders because it's the only way I can stay upright. “I want to make you come. Then tonight, I'm going to be at the Green Lantern at closing time to pick you up. I'll take you to breakfast again.” He kisses my neck, then my collar bone, the gentle glide of his tongue on my skin and the thrusting of his hand between my thighs is more than I can take.

“I don't know what you want from me,” I whisper, but it ends on a moan as his thumb brushes over my clit.

“I want you to say yes,” he tells me.

“To what?”

He smiles and shifts his hand slightly. Every muscle in my body goes tense. I'm hovering on the edge and he knows it. “To whatever I ask you for.”

He's still moving inside me, curling his fingers in a way that makes my whole body quake. Those gentle brushes of his thumb over my clit are perfect torture. “Clayton, for the love of God! Are you trying to make me beg?”

He dips his head and places a kiss between my breasts and then turns slightly to take one nipple between his teeth. It's just the right amount of pressure, that perfect balance between pleasure and pain. Couple with the slow deliberate movements of his hand between my thighs, I fall. There's no other way to describe it. All the tension in my body holding me upright simply vanishes and I collapse against him, trembling.

I've had orgasms, more often on my own than not, but nothing like this where it just goes on and on. My thighs are quaking and I can't catch my breath as he continues to play me like an instrument.

“Stop... please, stop.” I am begging now. It's too much.

He kisses me again, gently, his lips moving over mine as if I were something precious. No one has ever kissed me that way. No man has ever made me come without getting his own.

As he withdraws his hand, I shiver and his arms close around me.

“You're dangerous,” I tell him.

“Why do you say that?”

I look at him then, at the green eyes that seem so sincere. “Because you make me believe in things I shouldn't, and that could break my heart.”

“I won't do that,” he says. “That's the last thing I ever want to do.”

I need to be away from him, just to clear my head. Opening the door, I climb out of the car and try to ignore the fact that my knees are wobbling like I've been on a three day drunk.

“I will see you tonight, Annalee,” he insists. “You can count on it.”

God, I hope so.

I
should go back
to the apartment and survey the damage from the party I abandoned. But my roommate is probably passed out and he's more than likely invited some random couple to fuck like rabbits in my bed. I don't want to deal with that. I don't want to deal with a bunch of drunk, hungover assholes puking all over the place.

On the north side of town, I'm just as close to Fontaine as I am to my apartment near campus. It's almost six by now. By the time I get there, Mama will be up, and like every mama's boy ever born, I have the overwhelming urge to go home to her.

I put the car in drive and take the familiar route. I could drive it in my sleep, and considering I haven't seen a bed in around twenty-four hours, that's a good thing.

Parking at the back of the house, I walk into the kitchen and she's sitting at the counter having her first cup of coffee and scouring her cook books.

“Who are you trying to impress?” I ask, leaning against the refrigerator.

“You look like something the cat dragged in. Have you even been to bed?” she demands.

“Not yet,” I answer. I don't lie to her. I can't. She always sees straight through me. “I'll crash in a minute.”

“Why are you here, Clayton? It's either something really good or really bad to have you standing in my kitchen at this time of morning,” she surmises.

“It's good. I met the girl I'm going to marry.” It's a crazy thing to say, and I honestly didn't intend to say it. But it's out there. No doubts or second guesses. I knew it the moment I laid eyes on her.

Mama rolls her eyes and laughs. “Please tell me you didn't say that to her!”

Now I'm rolling my eyes. “I'm not crazy. She'd bolt. I'll just bide my time and ease her into the idea... by the way, Samuel will hate her on sight.”

“He hates everybody. How is that news?”

It's not a secret that their marriage sucks, that he's a cheating bastard. I've never asked the question, but now I have to. “Why do you stay with him?”

She sips her coffee and considers her answer carefully. “I don't plan to for much longer. This town is so small... and everything we do is under scrutiny. When Mia has finished high school and gone off to college and doesn't have to stay here with every busybody in Fontaine digging at her, then I'm going to divorce him.”

“
P
lease tell
me you plan to hire a shark for an attorney and take every last penny he has?”

Mama laughs. “He's got fewer pennies than anyone realizes. The money, Clayton, is mine. It always was. We'll see how many of those pretty, young blondes are still interested in him then, won't we?”

The word divorce in reference to one's parents ought to prompt fear or dread or sadness. In this instance, it's just relief. “We'll have a party.”

“No, we will not. You have partied enough,” she says. “Go to bed before you fall over and when you get up, you can tell me all about this girl.”