Forbidden (Southern Comfort)

by O'Neill, Lisa Clark

  “Are you ready?” he asked Tate softly, when they’d done all they could for the time being.

  Tate nodded, and after offering a last word of support to Casey’s mother, he shepherded his date and her sleeping child back to his car.

  THE quiet ride home was a far cry from their trip out that afternoon.

  Max had fallen asleep even before they’d left the parking lot, and the closed look on Clay’s face kept Tate from peppering him with questions. She had a million, born of concern and frustration, but she knew they’d done all they could for now. And like he said, maybe he was wrong. Maybe Casey had gone off of her own free will. She wanted to ask what the statistics were for teenagers getting grounded until they reached adulthood for scaring their parents to death, but she thought it was better to leave it alone. Her cousin Kathleen was a homicide detective, and Tate understood that there were times when they just had to shut everything out.

  Poor Clay.

  Considering this was supposed to have been a no-stress trip to the beach, he’d spent more time embroiled in crises than lying on the sand.

  “You know, for a man who’s on vacation you sure haven’t had much time to relax.”

  Clay’s tone was rueful as he pulled into the inn’s lot. “Well, I can’t say our dates have been boring.”

  Tate studied him in the shadows. The gas street lamp cast flickering patterns of light across his face, which still bore the insult of last night’s battle. The swelling in his lip was down but the bruise beneath his eye had bloomed a sickly violet. Added to that was the accumulated evidence of their day: His white T-shirt bled red from the grasp of ketchup-smeared little fingers, and his hair– stiff from sweat and dust – was more burnished now than golden.

  There was a small piece of what looked to be a popcorn kernel caught between his two front teeth.

  “Actually,” she informed him to lighten the mood, and because she found his disarray ridiculously attractive. Perhaps because she’d learned that the shiniest things usually tarnished faster than most. “You can’t really consider them dates. Last night you kidnapped me from my place of employment, and my son invited you along today. If anything they’ve been more like… random encounters.”

  “Random encounters?” One side of his mouth drew up in amusement.

  “Uh-huh. Dates are when one person asks another to accompany them someplace. Usually involving a shared meal. Possibly some form of diversionary entertainment.”

  “I see.” Clay leaned against the window. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I do believe we shared an ungodly amount of food today, as well as hours of various forms of entertainment.”

  “True.” The nod was acknowledgement. She was glad her teasing had drawn out his smile. “But you’re forgetting that crucial ‘date’ component. You never actually asked me out.”

  “I see,” he repeated, reaching out to stroke her fingers. She extended them to link with his. “Is this where you tell me that because I skipped a step I’m required to go back to the beginning? Do not pass go?” He kissed their joined fingers. “Do not collect two hundred dollars?”

  “I’m afraid those are the rules.”

  “Well,” he tightened his grip. “I’ve never been very good at following directions.”

  Dragging her over the console, Clay shot his other hand into her hair. Surprised, Tate could only blink as his mouth descended against hers. She’d been bantering with him, hoping to cheer him up… and possibly angling for another kiss like they’d shared beneath the Ferris wheel. A little sweetness to wash away the awful taste the last couple of hours had left in her mouth.

  But this was no innocent sampling. He angled his head, parted her lips, and went after her with his tongue.

  Some small, sane part of her brain whispered this is a bad idea. She’d lectured herself earlier about the dangers of playing with fire.

  But her blood heated. Her skin went damp beneath the hand that slid under her T-shirt. The muscles in her stomach quivered when his fingers blazed a trail.

  “God. You taste good.”

  As compliments went, it wasn’t the most poetic. But when he nipped at her lip, traced the tip of his finger around the edge of her bra, she considered that sweet talk was overrated.

  “That’s just the chocolate from that banana.”

  He groaned against her throat, and the thick shoulders beneath her hands shuddered. “I have a confession.”

  The husky rasp of the words made her shiver.

  “Oh?” She caught her breath. His finger dipped beneath the black lace.

  The lace rasped against her nipple as he drew the cup down. “When I watched the way you were using your mouth on that tasty little frozen confection, I’m afraid it caused… an involuntary reaction.”

  Tate was pretty sure he was reacting now.

  And as much as she wanted to be put off by that, the fact was her blood was sizzling. His fingers skimmed, then cupped her breast as if to weigh it. Circled her nipple, drawing a whimper from Tate’s throat. And when he pinched, ever so slightly at first, then just short of actual pain, it short-circuited whatever protests her brain might make.

  She tugged his hair to get his mouth back on hers.

  CLAY had hoped to throw her off guard with that first kiss, shake her up a little. Not allow her the time to think it through. But since she wasn’t the only one who’d been shaken, he fought to wrestle his desire under control.

  Tate was sweet, so devoid of artifice, and she’d gone utterly willing under his hands.

  Not that he wasn’t delighted about that. But she deserved the time and space to do this right. If he wasn’t careful, he’d end up taking her in the back seat.

  Shit.

  The back seat.

  Opening one heavy lid Clay caught sight of the sleeping Max, still clutching that purple bear to his chest. They definitely needed to move this inside. The boy could wake up any minute, and Clay didn’t want to invite any more observations about his penis.

  “Tate,” he said against her mouth. Her arms twined around his neck. One hand slipped down to stroke his chest and he had to force the words out through his teeth. “We need… to go… in the house.”

  “What?” She squirmed a little closer, all but climbing onto his lap. He felt her breasts crush against his chest and beat his fist on the dash.

  “For God’s sake, Tate.” His voice was raw with desperation. One more minute of this and he was going to burst through his fly. “Let’s get Max put to bed and we can finish this inside.”

  The words were like a slap in the face. Tate shot back, looked guiltily toward her son, and then blinked at Clay in horror.

  “Oh, my God. You must think I’m awful.”

  “I can assure you,” Clay said on a pained laugh. “Thinking you’re awful never entered my mind.”

  The look she shot him was incredulous. “I just jumped you in front of my son.”

  “He’s sleeping.”

  Tate apparently failed to find that reassuring. “Well. As you were kind enough to remind me before I tossed myself bodily into your lap, I believe it’s time to put my son in bed.”

  “I’ll help you carry him up.”

  Clay slid out of the car with no grace whatsoever and hobbled around to open Tate’s door. And when he lifted Max from his car seat, barely controlled a wince.

  Tate’s eyes flew to his crotch. Recognizing the cause of his discomfort had heat creeping back into her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she said helplessly as she attempted to open the back door. She fumbled the key, dropping it before finally wrestling the door open with a squeal of hinges.

  They entered a large and cozy kitchen, gleaming with commercial grade appliances. The two coloring book pages attached to the huge Sub-zero refrigerator gave Clay a jolt that faded into pleasure.

  The picture of Peter Parker was his.

  Mossy green walls formed a quiet well of shadows, the light over the range guiding their passage. Tate moved past its thin yellow glow and
showed Clay toward the back stairs.

  He’d been doctored in her bathroom the previous night, so he was familiar with the third floor layout. He turned left at the head of the stairs and walked to Max’s door. Tate rushed ahead of him to push it open, brushing a small army of toys from her son’s bed. When she turned down the Thomas the Tank Engine sheets, Clay laid Max between them.

  Max rolled over, clutching his bear.

  Tate pulled off Max’s shoes before covering him up, grimacing at his dusty feet. The kid would need a bath first thing in the morning. Then she straightened, offering Clay a grateful smile as he reached out to shut off the light. He put a finger to her lips, grasping her hand.

  And then drew her toward her bedroom.

  PULSE pounding an erratic beat, Tate recalled her earlier conversation with herself, which had focused on why sleeping with Clay was a Bad Idea. She just didn’t do that sort of thing.

  And besides, he would be leaving in a few days. There were simply too many factors to consider. And after weighing them – again – she knew what she had to do.

  “Clay.” She pulled back on his hand to stop him from crossing the threshold. He lingered there, arching a brow. He looked so handsome, even in his disheveled state, and so utterly capable of fulfilling her every fantasy, that telling him “no” seemed like shooting herself in the foot.

  She didn’t want to do it.

  “I…” God, now he was going to think she was a tease. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think we can do this.”

  “Sure we can,” he said in a low voice, cognizant of the nearby presence of her mother and her son. “Tab ‘A’ goes into slot ‘B’. Trust me; people do it all the time.”

  Tate knew he was trying to make her relax, but this was one time humor wasn’t going to work. “It’s not that simple for me, Clay. I’m not the type of woman who thinks purely in terms of the physical.”

  Clay cupped his hand under her chin. “Is that what you think this is?”

  Tate shrugged, a gesture of futility. “How can it be anything else?”

  She had him there, but Clay didn’t like it. “It can be whatever we make it.”

  Tate hesitated a moment, wanting desperately to believe, but it didn’t change the fact that he was leaving. She already cared enough that she would feel his loss when he was gone.

  How much more significant that loss if she made love with him?

  She cupped her own hand over his, which had moved to stroke her cheek. “I’m sorry.” And she was, truly. “I can’t. Even if I understand why you have to leave, I’m not sure that Max would, and I don’t want to set us both up for disappointment.”

  THAT statement hit Clay like a blow. He hadn’t even considered Max. And it both pleased and horrified him to realize he could have that kind of impact on the child’s feelings.

  And Tate was a conscientious mother to keep that at the forefront of her mind, because he had absolutely no doubt that she wanted him.

  And God, he wanted her.

  So he purposely stepped back, allowing her some distance. “It’s okay.” Although it wasn’t. “In the grand scheme of things, I respect your decision. I might not like it.” His smile was wry. “But I respect it.”

  Because there was nothing left to say, because if he didn’t get out of there he’d forget his good intentions, he leaned forward, dropping a regretful kiss on her cheek. “Good night, Tate Hennessy. Tell Max that I said goodbye.”

  Clay cursed himself on the way to Justin’s for making a royal mess of his vacation. How the hell, in two days, mind you, had he managed to form – what the hell was this? An attachment? An obsession? God help him, an actual relationship? – with a woman he met on the beach? And not just any woman, either.

  A woman with a kid.

  A really super-terrific kid, whose smile was almost as appealing as his mother’s.

  It was one hell of a package deal.

  Whoa, Nellie. He put a rein on those horses before he found himself flattened by the pitter-patter of little hooves. There were absolutely, positively no deals to be made here, because he had nothing to bring to the table. He lived in another state. And his job kept him on the road nearly four days out of seven.

  Not to mention the fact that he was a confirmed… well, womanizer wasn’t exactly the word. That indicated that he lacked respect for women, which he didn’t. He genuinely admired and liked women. He liked a lot of women. And in general the feeling was reciprocal.

  There was absolutely no room in his life for any type of commitment.

  “Shit!” Clay almost drove his truck off the Cooper River Bridge when that traitorous thought entered his head. Not that he was afraid of commitment. Exactly. Hell, he’d had relationships before, hadn’t he?

  But not after a few days’ acquaintance. And not with a woman who came as part of a set.

  Cringing, he vividly recalled busting Justin’s brother Jordan’s chops quite recently for pretty much the same thing.

  “Christ, Copeland.” Clay scrubbed his hand over his face and tried to think. What had he consumed today that had turned his mind to mush? It must have been that last, high-intensity spin on the Tilt-O-Whirl, combined with a boatload of sugar and saturated fat that had managed to pickle his brain.

  Of course, it hadn’t impaired his second most highly functioning organ, which even now was protesting the fact that he’d done the decent thing and tried to make love to Tate inside. If he’d kept his big mouth shut, he probably could have opened his fly, adjusted her position by a couple inches, and had this whole little dilemma taken care of.

  Right now he’d be driving home physically sated, thinking clearly, and… feeling like a total jerk.

  Tate was simply too special to be treated like a piece of… hell, he couldn’t even think it. Putting her name and ass in the same sentence made him want to punch his own face.

  There was an edge here, and he was walking dangerously close to it. And whatever lay on the other side was scary as hell.

  Deciding that he really, really needed to get some sleep, he pulled his vehicle in beside Justin’s, a little cheered that his friend was home. If he didn’t have to work tomorrow night, they’d go out and paint the town red.

  Clay opened the back door, which Justin had thoughtfully left unlatched, and wandered in to find his friend sprawled on the leather sofa. He was stripped down to his underwear again – boxer shorts, this time, at least – and watching the evening news. He looked dazed and a little groggy.

  Justin looked him over skeptically. “What the hell happened to you? You look like you came out on the losing end of a food fight.”

  Until then, Clay honestly hadn’t noticed how much crap his clothes had accumulated. He was smeared with ketchup, chocolate, dust, grease and God knew what else. Plus he had the strange and sudden certainty that there was something lodged between his front teeth.

  Shit. Had that been there when he’d been kissing Tate? No wonder she’d told him to get out.

  “Carnival food,” Clay explained, as he crashed into the recliner. He noticed there was gum stuck to the toe of his left shoe.

  Justin raised one dark brow. “Was it worth it?”

  If you called a bad case of indigestion, a fortune spent to win a stupid purple bear, a nice foray into the complexities of trying to seduce a woman while in the presence of her young son, not to mention a brief stopover into everyone’s favorite nightmare – child abduction – worthwhile, he guessed he hadn’t come away empty handed.

  Then he thought about the feel of Tate’s soft lips as they raced over his, and the look on Max’s face when he’d called him his deputy.

  And the way his stupid frickin’ heart had swelled all out of proportion when he’d walked – just walked – holding both of their hands.

  He’d gotten more out of the day then he’d bargained.

  “It was fun,” he told Justin with a shrug.

  Being a guy, Justin considered the subject dropped and pushed the volume button up on
the remote.

  Just before the sports could be recapped, an aggressively groomed brunette with a microphone filled the screen. A large Ferris wheel dominated the background, spinning gaily amidst a blinking array of lights. Clay sat mesmerized, a sinking feeling beginning to pull at his already abused stomach. He did a little mental cataloguing, filing this under Things That Did Not Bode Well.

  He just knew that woman was going to find a way to drag him into this.

  He sat rigidly as the reporter began talking.

  “Traveling carnivals are as ubiquitous to the American landscape as baseball and apple pie. But tonight, this slice of Americana set the stage for tragedy, as thirteen-year-old Casey Rodriguez disappeared from the area surrounding this Ferris wheel right behind me, where she’d been waiting for a family member to finish the ride. Law enforcement officials on the scene – which included local sheriff’s deputies and an FBI agent – have declined comment, explaining that their investigation into the girl’s disappearance is still pending. However, sources close to the investigation have indicated that there is suspicion of foul play. Volunteer search teams have fanned out tonight in the woods and fields surrounding the fairgrounds, hoping to find some clue that might lead to the discovery of the lost teen’s whereabouts.”

  Here, the camera panned to show several policemen and volunteers on the scene, and then cut to some earlier footage that included Casey Rodriguez’s mother. The reporter kept babbling, but Clay focused in – as did the camera – on an interesting tableau in the background. Clay, with his arm around Max and Tate, was deep in discussion with one of the deputies who’d been among the first responders. The cameraman had the perfect angle to all but zoom in on the badge on Clay’s hip.