And then his facial expression made sense. He was protecting himself.
“No. It’s okay. I was packing up some stuff. Come on in.” She sniffled, and realized she must look a mess since he’d interrupted her cry. “How’d you get in?”
“There’s only one guy down at the desk at night. He’s gotta go pee sometime.”
She stepped aside and he entered, stopping right inside the doorway. Instead of his usual confident demeanor, he was tentative. It must have been hard for him to come here. Risky even. She knew now that he had been sincere and that meant there was a lot at stake for him—just like there was for her.
“Look, Will, I—”
“Wait.” He held his palms up. “Please. I need to say some things.”
As if a hole had opened up in the floor, she felt like she was sinking.
“I know I hurt you. And it was inexcusable,” he began. “And I was probably taking things too fast, so I understand why you thought—”
“Stop.” Her voice was much louder and more forceful than she’d intended. Time stood still as they stared at each other, gauging each other. She didn’t want their relationship to end. “Yes, I was hurt, but you didn’t do it on purpose. You get why I was upset, and I get why you did what you did. That’s it. An ugly set of circumstances.”
He stood straighter, his face relaxing slightly, but he didn’t respond.
“As for taking things too fast, they couldn’t go fast enough for my tastes,” she said, relaxing a bit herself. “They still can’t.” She regretted blurting that out until the look in his eyes completely changed. It was as if they had darkened and deepened. She could drown in those eyes.
He wiped a remaining tear from her cheek with his thumb, then held out his arms and she stepped into them, loving his warmth and the faint smell of mint.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered into her hair.
“Me, too. I’m glad you came by. I didn’t expect to see you again, especially in light of our game of ‘keep away’ going on in the office.” She pulled back enough to look into his face so she could read his reaction.
His smile was bittersweet and dimple-free. “I couldn’t stay away. When I watched you with Beth through the security cameras, I knew I had to try to talk to you, even if you turned me away.”
Turning him away would have been impossible. “How did you and Beth end up together? She doesn’t seem like your type. She’s so…”
He dropped his arms from around her and took a step back. “Self-absorbed?”
She nodded. “You guys were together a long time, though.”
He took a deep breath and opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He looked away and exhaled.
“How about a drink?” she offered, heading toward the bar to get some distance between them. Being in his arms again had put her body into an adrenaline frenzy.
“Nah. I’m driving, but I’d love a soda or some water.”
He followed her to the kitchen where she pitched him a bottle of water from the fridge. She pulled one out for herself and bumped the door closed with her hip. “You don’t have to talk about Beth if you don’t want to. It’s just a little confusing to me. I’ll be honest. I don’t like the woman.”
He leaned against the counter and twisted the top off the water bottle. “I met Beth at a frat party during my junior year of college. I wanted nothing to do with her.” He slid the cap into his pocket. “She felt differently.”
He took a sip from his bottle, staring at the cabinets over Claire’s shoulder, avoiding eye contact. She knew this was hard for him. “Beth represented everything I grew up with and wanted to get away from: society, the show of money, prestige. It seemed like no matter where I went after that, she was there. It turned out that she had known who I was since our freshman year and I’d never even noticed her.” He smiled, but it was not a happy smile, and it made Claire’s chest ache. “She resented the hell out of that—probably still does.”
Claire cranked open her own bottle and took a sip, waiting while he stared off into space for a moment.
“It became a running gag with my frat brothers that I had a stalker. After a semester of supposedly coincidental meetings, I started actually looking forward to seeing her. She was familiar by that point. So I finally asked her out.”
He took another chug of water and then set the half-empty bottle on the counter behind him. “Turns out we got along really well. Both sets of parents were over the moon about us dating. I mean, hey, an Anderson-Carmichael union would be like uniting two small countries in their eyes. Peace, love, and glitter-shitting unicorns.”
She laughed. He gave her a slight smile and continued. “Beth said she wanted the things I wanted, but it was all an act.”
“What kind of things?”
He shook his head. “Open air, quiet, a family eventually.”
“So you asked her to marry you.”
“No. She asked me.” He ran his hands over his closely cropped hair. “Honestly, when I look back on it, I should have seen the signs. I was projecting what I wanted, rather than seeing what was really there. I just kept looking for rainbows.” He took a slow, deep breath. “Even in Afghanistan, I kept chasing those rainbows.”
Claire knew all about chasing rainbows. Rainbows obscured the reality that crept up on you in the middle of the night when you realized your mommy wasn’t ever coming home. Or when the screams of pain started in the next room because the morphine pump wasn’t enough anymore.
They stared at each other until she felt a little dizzy. She knew what he’d been through and how much he’d been hurt. “I’ve been told that sometimes, there’s a pot of gold at the end of those rainbows. I’d sure like to find it.”
This time when he smiled, his dimples showed. “Me, too.”
She couldn’t help but smile back at him from across her small kitchen.
“You up for a little adventure?” he asked. “I’d love to show you something.”
There were lots of things she’d like him to show her. Maybe her pot of gold was closer than expected. “Sure. You’re the boss, Mr. Anderson. Set the agenda.”
…
Will loved the feel of Claire on the bike behind him with her arms wrapped around his torso. At first, she had tried to maintain some distance, but before long, she was resting fully against him, and it felt so right.
He turned into his subdivision and his heart rate kicked up a notch. He wished it weren’t nighttime so that she could get a better look around, but the streetlights created pools of light that were big enough to give her the gist of it. His need for her to like his home bordered on irrational. He made a right at the second stop sign and took a deep breath. She was leaving in a little over a week, so in truth, her liking it was neither here nor there. Maybe he just wanted affirmation that the house he had restored and loved had value. Or maybe he wanted the girl he was falling for to value it, too. And with that thought, Will knew he was completely and totally fucked. He had it bad for this woman. Fate had thrown him a bone he couldn’t chew and it pissed him off.
Claire’s arms tightened around his body and she let out an excited squeal when they passed a large bush in front of the house two doors down from his. “Whoa! Did you see that bunny? There was a bunny! Like the hoppy, cute, white-tailed kind.”
“There are lots of them.” He turned into his driveway and parked the bike under the overhang in front of the garage. “Off you go.”
His body felt cool where her arms and thighs had been. He got off and flipped down the kickstand as she walked out to the middle of the yard to check out his house. He held his breath, waiting for her verdict. The last time he’d brought a woman here, it hadn’t gone well. Beth was less than impressed.
“Wow. This is perfect. It’s your family’s?”
He almost laughed. The Anderson Foundation would never invest in a small, restored, historic home. Islands, high rises, Riviera condos? Yes. Long Island bungalow? No. “It’s all mine.”
Claire made no attempt to hide her enthusiasm over the house and it made him want to kiss her right there under the porch lights in view of the neighbors. But he didn’t. He planned to take it slow this time.
“I love this, Will. No wonder you don’t like coming into the office.”
“Want to see the inside?”
She bounced on her toes and nodded. Claire was excited, and it made him feel alive for the first time in years.
She ran her fingers over everything she passed as if committing it to memory—counters, furniture, cabinets—as he gave her a tour of the house including the kitchen, dining area, living room, office, guest room, and his bedroom. Only, she didn’t run her fingers over anything in his bedroom. She clasped her hands in front of her as if resisting the urge, but her eyes kept straying to his big king-size bed. So did his. Time to change the unspoken subject screaming at them through libido-powered speakers.
“There are swans in the pond out back,” he said.
“Swans?” she squealed.
That broke the bedroom spell, he thought with a smile, pleased by her enthusiasm. “My lot backs up to a big neighborhood pond, and a family of swans has set up camp in my yard. A grown pair and three cygnets.”
“Can I see?” She charged out of the bedroom and headed straight for the back porch door.
He caught up with her before she opened it. “Not at night. It upsets them, but you can see them sometime in the daytime.”
She turned to face him and stood very still. “Maybe I can see them in the morning…”
There was nothing in the world he wanted more than to have her spend the night. Nothing. The problem was that he had decided to take it slow this time. “I didn’t bring you here to have sex. I’m interested in more than that. I want us to be friends. To get to know each other better. We’ve been given a do-over. I want to play it differently this time.”
“You can’t be serious,” she said, arms crossed over her ribs.
Part of him wanted to deny it. To carry her straight to his bed, rip off her clothes, warm her up until she screamed, then bury himself inside her until the world went away. But he couldn’t. She needed time. “I’m dead serious. If you feel the same tomorrow, we’ll renegotiate.”
“Well, negotiations are my forte, Mr. Anderson. You’ve met your match. Come tomorrow, I’ll show no mercy.”
He grinned. “I’m counting on it, Miss Maddox. I’ll take you home now.” He pulled the motorcycle key out and gestured for her to lead the way, but she didn’t budge.
“Oh, come on. It’s late and we’re tired. I’d really like to stay.”
It was a long drive, and the round trip would be miserable. Still, he wanted to prove his sincerity in taking it slow, and having her here all night would make that close to impossible. Maybe he’d drop her off and then sleep at the office. “You staying is a terrible idea.”
She put her hands on her hips. “Why? Do you think you can’t control yourself?”
Pretty much, yeah. “Of course I can. It’s your self-control I worry about,” he teased.
She walked past him to the bedroom, wandered over to his bed, sat on the edge, and slipped off her shoes. “I have an iron resolve. Do your best.”
He sat next to her. “Really, Claire. It’s a bad idea.”
“Going home is a bad idea. Even if it were only a block away, I wouldn’t want to go back there tonight. I want to stay here with you, surrounded by your arms rather than my grandparents’ stuff and the memories of their suffering. I’m leaving soon.” She took a deep breath and gave a helpless shrug. “We don’t have to mess around, I just don’t want to be alone.”
Neither did he. He’d been alone way too long. “Deal.”
Her grin was worth the self-restraint he was going to have to summon to make it through this.
After digging up an extra toothbrush from his cabinet for her, checking into the security status of the other Anderson properties, and rolling his bike into the garage, Will changed into gym shorts in the bathroom as a layer of insurance. Sleeping in the nude like he usually did would not help at all. Hell, the shorts wouldn’t really help either, he realized, staring down at the woman he’d dreamed about sharing this bed with since he’d met her. Only in his dreams, she wasn’t wearing warm-up pants and a T-shirt. And she wasn’t sound asleep, like she was now.
Part of him was glad she’d drifted off before he joined her. It made her easier to resist, which was getting harder to do; the reasons to resist made less sense every minute.
In the blue moonlight coming through his window, he studied her beautiful face. She’d curled up on her side near the far edge of the bed, facing out. Her hand was tucked under her chin and her gold hair was fanned out on her pillow, spilling onto the mattress. He quelled the urge to run his fingers through it.
Calm, easy breaths came through her parted lips, which he wanted to kiss as much as anything he’d ever wanted in his life. But he didn’t. He needed to earn her trust back. And going back on his word wasn’t the way to do that.
He slid under the covers on the opposite side of the bed, focusing on her even, relaxed breathing. “You’re a rainbow, Claire,” he whispered right before he drifted off to sleep himself.
Chapter Twelve
Will remained perfectly still until he got his bearings—a habit left over from his days in the Marines. At some time during the night, Claire had snuggled against him, and at that moment, the feel of her was setting off alarm bells and waking every part of him.
More than one alarm was going off, he realized, as a shrill chime sounded from her side of the bed. She murmured something under her breath and grabbed her phone from the nightstand, silencing it. “Freaking Heather won’t leave me alone,” she said, shoving the phone under her pillow and rolling back against him again, filling him with a red-hot desire that made his pulse hammer and his cock swell. All his fine intentions of going slow seemed silly now. Ludicrous, actually. “What time is it?” he asked.
“Just after two,” she answered.
“Technically, tomorrow. Time to negotiate, Miss Maddox.”
“I have a proposal for you.” She pushed back against him and he groaned as her hot body pressed against his erection. “I take that vocalization as an acceptance of my proposal, Mr. Anderson?”
He slid his hand under her shirt and cupped a breast. “Your proposal meets my approval, and is accepted with enthusiasm.”
“You’re lifting the ban?”
He rolled her to her back. “Yes. I’m lifting the ban…and the covers.” He threw them off. “And your shirt.” He pulled the bottom of her shirt up, exposing her breasts, then ran his fingers over her amazing, soft skin before following with his tongue. She made a gratifying moan and squirmed. “And these pants need to go as well,” he said, untying the cord that held them in place. He pulled them, along with her thong, down to her ankles. “In fact, let’s get straight to business and just get naked. What do you say?”
“I like the way you think,” she said, ripping the shirt over her head and kicking the pants the rest of the way off.
“I like the way you think, too, but right now, I also like the way you look.” She was absolutely beautiful stretched out on his bed wearing nothing but a sexy smile and her socks. He ran a hand from her throat, trailing slowly between her breasts down to her belly button and back up again, forcing himself to take it slow.
He trailed his fingers down her body again, enjoying how her muscles tightened and her breaths became shallow and rapid. He loved the way she reacted to his touch.
Her voice was breathy. “I think our collaboration is working very well so far. What do you think, Mr. Anderson?”
“Best project I’ve ever worked on,” he said, leaning over to run his tongue over her nipple. It took everything in him to not roll on top of her and move things as fast as his body wanted. He was almost crazy from need.
“Lose those shorts,” she said. “Because I need you inside me, like quick. Like now.”
He chuckled. She felt the same urgency he did. “Feeling bossy, are you?”
She sat up and pushed him onto his back, her intent to take charge and move things along clear. Amused, he laced his fingers behind his head and relaxed—well, most of him relaxed. “I think you should be in charge of this project for a while. It’s your turn to be the boss, Miss Maddox.”
“Position accepted,” she replied in a husky, throaty tone that made him even harder. She lifted the elastic from his body enough to get the shorts over his aching cock, and to his delight, she stopped, mid-thigh, and simply stared at him as if she’d opened a present. The unguarded lust on her face made his balls tighten in anticipation. Thank God for the spy, whomever it was. Had it not been for her, his brothers wouldn’t have called him into the office and she wouldn’t be here right now.
“This project has moved beyond the planning stage, Mr. Anderson.” She pulled his shorts off the rest of the way and pitched them over her shoulder with a grin.
Heaven. He’d absolutely died and gone to heaven, he thought as she crawled up the bed over his body and then straddled him. She made a raspy sigh as their naked skin met for the first time. He closed his eyes and reveled in the sensation of her slick heat. Then she placed her hands on his chest, and rubbed forward and back. Too much. He didn’t want to lose it. He grabbed her pelvis and stilled her, then reached down and pressed his thumb against her in just the right place, and she groaned.
He stroked in small circles, the way he knew she liked it, and she threw her head back, resuming her forward-and-back action until both of them were close to the edge.
“Drawer,” he managed to say.
He didn’t stop making circles with his thumb as she stretched to the side, opened the drawer of the nightstand, and pulled out a small box. “You are very distracting,” she said. “Is this what you wanted?”
“Yes.”
She resumed her rocking motion and he found himself gasping for breath. “Open it.”
“Oh, no. I’m in charge. You open it,” she said, never breaking her tempo.
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