Clayton (Bourbon & Blood Book 2) (4 page)

To break the tension, I say, “Emma Grace will be so upset that she missed a chance to swim in the kitchen.”

The pitiful attempt at humor did its job. There’s a smile playing at her lips. She won’t let it out, but I know it’s there. She gestures toward the sink, “Yes, she will. If she’d been here she would have had on flippers and goggles before we could even turn around… I don’t know what you just did, but I’ve never been so happy to see you in my life.”

I can’t help but grin. “This trumps our first date, our wedding and the birth of our child? Really?”

“Well, not trumps,” she admits reluctantly. “But this was pretty high on my disaster list… They were working on the water line down the street today. It was shut off for hours. And I guess I didn’t have the taps off, after all. When they turned the water back on, all the air pressure in the pipes—it’s just a disaster.”

I can’t remember the last time we talked when it wasn’t about Emma Grace’s schedule or this paper or that paper needing to be signed and delivered to the attorneys. Somewhere along the way, in the process of being parents and homeowners and running businesses, we forgot how to be a couple. That doesn’t just get laid at my door either. Long before Japan, long before I found out the truth of what Samuel was, and what I’d have to do to free us all from him, we’d been drifting apart. We’re both guilty. All I know is that right now, I feel closer to her than I have in more than a year, and it’s not enough. Not even close.

I
can feel
his gaze on me, the weight of it is substantial, almost like he’s touching me. I know I’m a mess. My hair is tied up in a ponytail and the truth is that I can’t even remember if I brushed it today. I’m wearing one of his T-shirts and praying to God he doesn’t notice and comment. Either way, it’s soaking wet and completely see through, so if he’s looking at what the shirt says and not my boobs, then divorce was definitely the right move.

His eyes begin to wander, moving from my face to my chest then down, and slowly, very slowly back up. I know that look. I’ve seen it on his face more times than I can count. I respond to it accordingly, like I’ve been conditioned to it. My nipples grow hard, aching beneath the damp fabric and I can feel myself getting wet for him. I hate that he still has the power to do that to me without even touching me.

“I know what you’re thinking,” I tell him. “And you can just stop. That isn’t going to happen. Never again.”

He doesn’t smile at me. But his eyes crinkle at the corner the way they always do before he unleashes that devastatingly sexy grin that just makes my panties fall off. It doesn’t help that we christened every room in this house and that while standing in this kitchen all I can think about is the time he fucked me against the refrigerator hard enough that we actually broke the damned ice maker. Afterward, he just smiled and said it was worth it.

“Just remembering the good times,” he replies. “There were a lot of them.”

“There were a lot of bad too,” I point out. I hate being a bitch to him. It just sneaks out. The simple truth of it is that I never intended to divorce Clayton. I was stupid enough to think that when I gave him that ultimatum, that he had to tell me what the hell he was hiding or we were done, I really believed I was important enough to him that he’d do what I asked. Even with Brit’s idiotic plan of me going out on a date, which was a disaster of epic proportion, he hadn’t reacted the way I’d expected.

For the last year, things had been wrong with us. Since Clayton and his brother and sister bought into the distillery and took over the running of it from Samuel, things had just been off with us. After his trip to Japan, he wouldn’t even look at me, or touch me. I thought at first it was an affair, but I know him. I know that’s not who he is. Or at least I thought I knew him. When I asked for a divorce and his only response was “okay” that was a little unexpected.

Now he’s standing in this kitchen looking at me like he could sop me up with a biscuit. I want to be pissed. I want so badly to just tear into him and let him have it, but all I can think about is getting naked and rolling around with him on a flooded kitchen floor.

If my wet clothes are a problem, his aren’t helping. His white dress shirt is plastered to his chest. Why the hell do men just look sexier with their cuffs rolled back?

“You think we can focus on the kitchen for the moment?”
Something that’s fixable.

“It’s not that much of a disaster,” he says, finally dragging his eyes off me and the T-shirt that’s practically pornographic at the moment. “Once it dries, we’ll figure out how much damage is done to the floor. We need to open all the cabinet doors though, get some air flowing and maybe empty out the bottom ones.”

And there he is. The man I married. The decision maker. The I-can-fix-this man. Every problem we ever had, every issue that ever came up, he always had a plan. And until a year ago, he always shared it with me.

“You don’t have to do that. You don’t live here anymore. It’s not your responsibility.” The minute the words are out, I know I’ve made an awful mistake. Any hint of teasing is gone from his face. He’s pissed, and not just a little.

“Why don’t you just take the fucking knives from the drawer and stab me?” he asks. “It’d be kinder.”

“I didn’t mean it that way,” I offer. “Really.”

“And I didn’t offer because it was my responsibility. I’m here. It’s no trouble,” he says and starts opening up cabinet drawers and pulling out all the cast iron cookware that I’d collected needlessly.

I watch the play of muscle under the wet cotton of his shirt as he lugs everything toward the counter. Everything about him looks good and it’s killing me. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked you to come… but I couldn’t get the water to shut off, and it just kept pouring out and—I’m sorry, Clayton. I just didn’t know what else to do.”

“It’s fine. I don’t mind helping out,” he replies. “I know I don’t live here, Annalee. And maybe it won’t be true for much longer, but right now, I’m still your husband.”

Yes. He is. And it’s killing me. I change the subject. “I must have scared you to death with that text,” I continue, striving for a tone of normalcy, as if I’m not standing there torn between railing at him and ripping both our clothes off. “I didn’t think about how it sounded at the time! I was just so frantic. You’re a saint for coming so quickly.”

“I needed to talk to you anyway… about helping out with Mama. I know it’s a lot to ask, but—.”

I shake my head immediately. This is not a question that even needs to be asked. “I’ll help with Patricia as long as you need me to. You know that! She’s Emma’s grandmother, for goodness’ sake.”

He shoves his hands in his pockets and leans back against the counter. He’s wearing his thinking expression and then, decision made, he opens his mouth and starts to speak. “Mia is still seeing Bennett Hayes. I expect it all to get ugly soon.”

I don’t know his stance on the issue. He was pissed enough when I’d told him about seeing Bennett climbing down from Mia’s window while driving Emma Grace to school one morning. But that is a touchy subject for a lot of people. “Are you going to intervene?” I ask.

He smirks. “I already have. I was the one who told Bennett that if he wanted her, he needed to do something about it… they’re not kids anymore.”

That was so not what I expected. “You—What the hell, Clayton?”

He shrugs in response, the movement emphasizing the breadth of his shoulders. I realize he looks even better than he did when we first met twelve years ago. There are just a few strands of silver in his brown hair, and his features have hardened, become more masculine and rugged rather than just being pretty the way he was as a younger man. He walks over to where I’m standing and removes his loosened neck tie, tugging it from his collar in a move that is so dead sexy I have to clench my thighs together.

“The night of Mia’s accident, he came back to see her… and it just hit me that there really isn’t any reason for them to be apart unless that’s what they want.” He explains it clearly, and while I know he’s talking about them, the look in his eyes, the way he’s staring at me, tells me he’s also talking about us. I squash that little bit of hope. It’s pointless, I remind myself. He made a choice and it wasn’t me.

“How’d that go over?” I ask, trying to keep the conversation focused on them, on anything but us.

Clayton laughs, really laughs in a way that I haven’t seen in so long it hurts me to think about it. “Before or after he told me to go fuck myself?”

I gasp, not because Bennett said it, but because Clayton doesn’t seem to mind it. “Did he really?”

“Thereabouts,” he admits, a grin curving his lips that makes my heart race. “Not that I blame him. The last time he came after my sister, I did beat the shit out of him… but I didn’t have a choice.”

I know the story. Clayton wasn’t a violent person. He could be when pushed, but he’d never been one to fight just for the hell of it. That was Quentin. Mad at the world and looking for a place to put it. But he’d beaten the hell out of Bennett the night he and Mia had been supposed to elope.

If he hadn’t, Samuel would have killed Bennett. It had nothing to do with Mia, nothing to do with protecting his daughter. Bennett’s only crime was having the last name of Hayes. Samuel hated him out of habit, out of spite, and out of pride.

“You’re a good big brother to her,” I tell him. “And you’re a good father. I give you shit a lot… more than I ought to because—I just didn’t see us here, Clay. I didn’t see us in this spot. But whatever it is, you’re a good man.”

His eyes darken, fill with shadows of things I just don’t understand. “I’m not,” he says. “I used to think that, but… I’m Samuel Darcy’s son. I can’t get away from that.”

I don’t know what this about. I’m afraid to know. Clayton has always been sure, confident. Steady and rock-solid. This man, with the darkness in his eyes and the banked fury I can sense in him, I don’t know this man.

Changing the subject, I say, “Mia is happy, I think. As happy as she’ll let herself be.”

He nods. “I don’t know who long it’ll last. Even if it’s not forever, it’s better than nothing, right?” His expression changes, shifts into something dark for a moment, then fades again.

He walks toward me and I can’t catch my breath. I know that look on his face, the tension in his jaw and the fire burning in his eyes. I’ve seen it more times than I can count. He stops just a few inches from me. “Are you happy?”

No. I’m lonely. I miss you. I miss the way we used to be. I miss having you hold me and I miss being the one who could make you laugh.
“I have a good life.” The non-answer rolls off my tongue easily enough. “I know how hard you’ve worked, Clayton, to give me this… to stay home with our daughter, to keep this house for her. I will always be grateful for that.”

His jaw clenches, and I can see that underneath the desire still burning, there’s anger and hurt. I can’t understand why. He chose to leave, he chose to keep his secrets instead of sharing them with me.

“I didn’t ask if you were grateful. I asked if you were happy,” he growls. “Did my moving out, leaving you alone here with Emma Grace, make you happy?”

“We shouldn’t do this.” The protest is weak. A part of me wants to do it. A part of me wants to hash out everything, to lay out all our secrets and all our dirty laundry once and for all.

“Why not? It’s about damn time we said things that matter! I’m tired, Annalee!” As he speaks, his hands move up to my shoulders, his fingers dig into the tense muscles there, pressing in with that intense mixture of pleasure and pain that just turns my body to jello.

“Tired of what?” I ask the question striving to sound normal, to sound like I don’t want to just rip his clothes off and rub my naked body against his.

“Of pretending,” he says softly, and he leans in close enough that his breath is moving over the skin of my neck, waking nerve endings and impulses that have been dormant for so long. “Fuck being polite. Fuck being an adult. How about let’s just be honest?” he asks.

“No,” I admit in a whisper so broken it’s barely audible. “I’m not happy. I wasn’t happy before you left and I’m not any happier now. But I got tired, Clayton! I got tired of trying to fix what was broken between us when I couldn’t even get you to look at me!”

“I’m looking at you right now,” he insists, and his hands move from my shoulders up to my hair, dislodging my haphazard ponytail and threading through my hair. He’s not gentle, but I don’t want him to be. When he tightens his hand, tugging at my hair, tilting my head back, my whole body reacts. My nipples harden instantly and I can feel the rush of heat between my thighs, that empty, aching feeling that will only be satisfied by him.

Even wanting him as I do, I know this isn’t a smart move. “You do realize what a disastrous mistake we’re making right now, don’t you?” I’m just poking at him now, pissing him off because I can. I don’t even understand it myself. There’s a well of pettiness inside me that I’m truly shocked at.

“Like that’s new,” he snaps. “Disastrous mistakes are kinda our thing.”