by Kara Lennox
“But what if you can’t make it right? What do you do if there’s no way to make amends, no way to atone?”
Claudia had a strong feeling he was no longer talking about her situation. “I guess then it becomes a matter of self-forgiveness.”
“What if I can’t—” He stopped, seeming to remember himself. “You don’t have to forgive yourself. You did nothing wrong. And anyway, Mary-Francis is still alive, and we’re not done yet. We have more stuff to check out.”
“You were going to say something else, a minute ago,” Claudia said, unable to stop herself from trying to wedge herself into the tiny crack he’d opened. “What is it you can’t forgive yourself for?”
His face hardened. “Nice try. But did you forget the rules? No crawling inside my head. I don’t want you to be my shrink.”
Claudia started to pull back, stung by his sudden change of tone.
He immediately softened and pulled up a grin. “I’d much rather you be my lover.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
HAD HE JUST SAID THAT out loud?
Judging from Claudia’s expression, he had. She had that deer-in-headlights, what-am-I-supposed-to-do-now look on her face that meant she was either about to slap him—or kiss him.
“You can just tell me to go to hell,” he said. “I won’t take offense.”
“That is exactly what I should say. You coming on to me—it’s very unprofessional. It could even constitute sexual harassment.”
“Then say it. ‘Billy Cantu, you giant dirtbag, go to hell.’”
She sighed. “I can’t. It wouldn’t be fair.”
“What does fairness have to do with anything?”
“You only said what I’ve been thinking all day.”
He blinked a couple of times. He’d thrown out that “lover” line to distract her. Not that it wasn’t true, but he’d never expected her to give it serious consideration. Now he didn’t know what to say.
Claudia stood abruptly. “I need air-conditioning. Meet me at my office in thirty minutes.”
“Thirty… What?”
“Unless you didn’t mean it. About wanting to be lovers.”
“You think I’m bluffing? That I just said that for effect or something?” Um, yeah. That was exactly the case.
“I certainly hope not. My office. Thirty minutes.”
“Why your office?”
“It’s closer than your house or mine. And I have a comfy couch.”
She turned and strode toward her Roadster, aiming for nonchalance. But she couldn’t quite hide the tension in her gait.
Did she actually think he would back down?
Yeah, he got her game. She’d tried to show him some compassion and he’d shut down, closed off his feelings and turned the conversation in a direction that suited him.
He’d expected her to be flustered enough that she would walk away, forgetting all about her oh-so-sensitive desire to force him to spill his guts about his feelings.
But she’d called his bluff.
He damn sure wasn’t going to blink first. When she’d admitted she’d been thinking about sex, with him, his whole body had gone rock hard. She’d planted a picture in his mind, and it was there to stay—her, him, on the therapist’s couch doing a lot more than analyzing dreams or looking at inkblots.
It suddenly occurred to him he didn’t know where her office was. He’d never been there.
Her engine was revving. He hurried to his truck, jumped inside, started it up and followed Claudia out of the parking lot.
She drove like a woman on a mission, darting deftly in and out of freeway traffic. Billy had to run one deeply yellow light and cut off a Hummer to keep her in his sights.
It took nearly the whole thirty minutes to get to her building in a classy neighborhood near West University and Bellaire. When she used a passkey to get into the parking garage, Billy whipped around the corner and found an empty spot at the curb. After feeding some quarters into the meter—would two hours be enough?—he headed for the building’s front door.
Claudia Ellison, PhD, had her office on the fifth floor of the posh medical building. Billy rode the elevator up, questioning his own sanity. Was he really going to make love to Claudia? He was almost positive she had some agenda other than that. It seemed out of character for coolly professional Claudia to want to boff him on her office couch. But he had to know, and she probably knew that about him.
Only an elevator ride separated them now. Guess he’d soon find out her game.
Her outer office was decorated in shades of mossy-green and slate-gray, probably aimed at calming anxious patients as they waited for their appointment times. The chairs were wide and deep and well padded. Tea and coffee were available from a table in the corner. But the room was empty, no patients waiting.
That was good.
He went to the reception window, where a cute redhead manned the phone and a large appointment book. Billy waited until she’d finished a conversation and looked up at him.
“May I help you, sir?” Her metal name tag identified her as Kimmy.
“I’m here to see Claudia. Dr. Ellison,” he amended, because probably Claudia wouldn’t want her office staff to know their appointment was of a personal nature.
Kimmy’s lips made a silent “Oh” as she looked at him with concern and sympathy. “You must be Mr. Cantu.”
“Yeah…”
“Please, sit down. Everything’s going to be fine, I promise. Dr. Ellison is…well, she’s just remarkable. I’ll tell her you’re here.” Kimmy closed the glass partition that separated her area from the waiting room. He could hear her muffled voice as she said something into the phone, but he couldn’t understand her words.
So, Claudia’s receptionist thought she was remarkable. At what? he wondered. What had Claudia told her about him? Kimmy had clearly been expecting him.
He was too antsy to sit, instead pacing slowly around the room, studying the paintings on the wall—innocuous pastoral scenes, also intended to be calming, he imagined.
Frankly, nothing was going to calm him down. His heart was racing, his blood pumping. The suspense was killing him.
Their setback at the D.A.’s office drifted to the back of his mind. He would have to come up with a new plan of action soon, because he wasn’t giving up, not when it meant so much to Claudia. And Mary-Francis, of course. But right now, more urgent matters clamored for his attention.
Before he’d left his truck, he’d dug into his gym bag, which he kept behind the front seat, and plucked out a small, foil packet. He’d put the condom in his jacket pocket—just in case.
“Billy.”
His heart nearly stopped at the sound of her voice. She’d taken a few moments to freshen up. He could tell she’d brushed her hair and put on a fresh coat of pale, frosty-strawberry lip gloss.
“Hey.”
“Come on back.”
He followed her into the inner sanctum. The office was a stark contrast to the generic waiting room. While some professional had probably been responsible for the grays and greens and dull art outside, this room felt much more personal.
Not that it wasn’t neat and professional, but it also had touches of warmth that made it comforting. An oak roll-top desk stood in one corner, but the rest of the room featured more cozy-looking chairs in brown and dark orange and an old, slightly worn Persian rug underfoot. Everything was softly lit by lamps with stained-glass shades.
There was, indeed, a sofa against one wall. It was at least eight feet long and decorated with several big, soft-looking pillows in silky fabrics, the colors deep and mysterious.
For a few moments, he couldn’t take his eyes off it, but finally he dragged his gaze back to her. She was watching him expectantly.
“Why did you bring me here?” he asked. “The truth.”
Here in her den, she wasn’t going to be easy to fluster. She removed her turquoise suit jacket, kicked off her bronze-colored heels and sat down on the sofa. “In this room, I f
eel safe. Kind of ironic, since I’ve been physically assaulted twice in here by my own patients. But if I could choose any place to be vulnerable, this would be it.”
“So you plan to be vulnerable?”
“When a woman allows a man to have sex with her, it’s about as vulnerable as she can get.”
Billy’s skin tingled. “So you’re serious.”
“You said you wanted to be lovers. Were you serious?”
“Yes. But…don’t get me wrong, I’m not changing my mind. But it was a heat-of-the-moment sort of blurt-out.”
“The sort of impulsive statement that often leads to an initial intimate encounter. It had the desired effect on me, and if I could have allowed myself to be swept away right then and there, I would have.”
He had to laugh at how clinical she made it sound. Maybe that was how she rationalized feelings that couldn’t be pinned down, measured and labeled.
“Why are you laughing? It’s not like we could just do it in the Montgomery County Justice Center parking lot.”
“You’re something else.” He took off his own jacket and sat beside her, still wary of the situation. Wary and really, really hard. Just the sight of her bare feet, with pink-polished toenails, turned him on.
“Billy, not many people know about me. The things I told you about my childhood. I work hard to maintain a certain image. I’ve set myself up as an expert in my field. In order for people to put their lives, and their clients’ lives, in my hands, they have to believe I’m competent, the consummate professional. I can’t show any chinks in my armor.
“But it’s exhausting, being Claudia Ellison, PhD, all the time. I wasn’t always professional. I didn’t always wear designer clothes and sport perfectly manicured fingernails. I learned all these behaviors that helped me in my career. But sometimes I just need to be me. Carol Sue Calhoun from Homer, Texas.
“I feel like I can be that person around you. You won’t judge me harshly for it.”
“That’s your real name? Carol Sue?” She so did not strike him as a Carol Sue. But the name sounded familiar. He searched his memory banks, but nothing popped up right away.
“I legally changed it because I needed to divorce myself from the past,” she said. “But she’s part of me.” Her soft Texas drawl drew him in.
He leaned back and stretched his arms along the back of the sofa. “I need to know what you expect from me, cielito.” The endearment slipped out. It was something his father called his mother, sometimes.
“Right now, I’m hoping for an hour of smutty sex with the first man to excite me and challenge me in years. After that, I don’t know.”
His mouth went dry as a box of saltines. “I could do that.”
He’d said he could do it, but no matter what her background, she still didn’t look like the kind of woman a man had “smutty sex” with. She was so delicate, so feminine. Even the bones of her face, her small, perfectly formed nose and sharp cheekbones, looked fragile.
He touched her hand, then let his fingers slide up her forearm, which was dusted with light blond hair.
She watched the progress of his fingers. When they reached the edge of her short sleeve, she took his hand and placed it against her breast, then covered it with hers.
He inhaled sharply. It was all he could do not to grab her and throw her down on the couch cushions, to tear her clothes off and savor every inch of her skin with his hands, his mouth.
“You’re still not sure I mean it?” Her voice sounded husky. “It’s not a trick, Billy. It really is uncomplicated. I need to forget about things. If you don’t want to, under those circumstances—”
“Querida, I’d want to make love with you under just about any circumstances you could imagine. If there was a live javelina roaming your office, it probably wouldn’t stop me.”
“Then…”
He slid his hand from her breast, across her collarbone, to her slender neck until he finally cupped her chin and leaned in to kiss her. “Just don’t want to rush things, that’s all. Sex is something I like to savor,” he said just before their lips touched.
Kissing Claudia was like diving into a cold, clear pool of water—exciting, bracing, but smooth as satin against his skin. She came alive under his hands. So reserved and controlled in other situations, she appeared to hold nothing back in his arms. She managed to unbutton his shirt with her right hand and her blouse with her left.
He realized he was still wearing his shoulder holster; he pulled away from her long enough to yank it over his head and lay it on the rug. Even when he was with a woman, he always had a gun within easy reach. Locked doors were no match for…
No. He swept those disturbing memories from his mind and focused his full attention on Claudia, who was busy taking his shirt off as fast as she could manage the buttons.
“What if your office help decides to check on you?”
“Kimmy thinks you’re a suicidal patient and we’re having an intense one-on-one session. She wouldn’t interrupt me unless the building was on fire or the president was on line one. Or if I scream, of course. I’ll try to control that.” She rose from the sofa and stood before him in her snug, bottom-cupping skirt and a bra made of pale peach silk and trimmed in lace—superhot but with a Victorian feel. Like that slip she was wearing the other day.
The combination of naughty and nice made his insides quiver with anticipation. “Have I ever told you you’re the sexiest woman to walk the earth?”
She smiled faintly. “Nice, but pretty words aren’t necessary.”
“I didn’t say them because I thought I had to.” Just the same, he took the hint and shut up. For the next little while, the beautiful woman was his.
He pulled her back down to the sofa and kissed her again, harder this time, testing the softness of her skin where her breasts bulged above the cup of her bra. Her breasts were small, but rounded like ripe mangos. They fit perfectly in his hands, and he wanted—no, needed—to feel them without the barrier of fabric blocking access.
It had been a while since he’d removed a woman’s bra with one hand—high school, maybe. The women he’d dated—and there had been a fair number—had mostly been eager and sophisticated enough about sex to strip the second foreplay started. Claudia was obviously eager, but it was a turn-on that she left some undressing for him to do.
Some skills a man never lost. He flicked open the front closure of her bra and her breasts sprang free.
With a low groan he dipped his head and closed his lips around one taut nipple.
“Oh, yeah,” she whispered. “Feels so…feels so…”
Right, no words could describe it. She actually tasted sweet, as if she perspired honey. He swirled his tongue around her nipple and she squirmed beneath him. As her spine softened she fell slowly onto the cushions.
Her skirt fastened on the side, and she reached down and unzipped it slowly, the sound reverberating in the quiet, restful office.
Billy had never realized how erotic the rustle of clothing could be. He helped her wiggle out of the skirt and slip and watched as they whispered down her silky bare legs. He pulled away from her long enough that he could admire how pretty she looked in those barely there panties—peach silk, just like the bra—then hooked his fingers on either side of the elastic at the top and dragged them down, feasting his eyes on each inch of skin revealed. The curls that protected her femininity were dark brown, a stark contrast to the pale golden-blond hair on her head. He’d wanted to know, and now he did.
He skimmed his hands over her slender hips, his thumbs softly brushing the sides of her pubis and she gasped again and reached for his belt.
“C’mon, Billy.” She said it as a plea.
Not one to argue at a time like this, he let go of her long enough to flick his tooled leather belt open, unzip his jeans and yank them down. Then he ran into the problem of boots. Damn, cowboy boots could be a pain, and these were tight. He sat down near Claudia’s feet and started to tug, but she came to his rescue, jum
ping up and cupping his heel in her hand. She watched him with passion-glazed eyes and a naughty smile as she gave a mighty yank, nearly pulling him off the couch. The boot came off—and his spare gun spilled out onto the carpet.
“Oh, my.” Claudia reached for it.
“Leave it,” he all but growled.
For the second boot, she turned around and put his foot between her thighs, giving him a breathtaking view of her shapely bottom. Another tug, and the boot let go.
“That is the most fun I’ve ever had taking my boots off.” His voice was rough.
She turned back around, her lips parted slightly. He didn’t need to be an expert face reader to see that hers reflected blatant appreciation for the scenery.
“The best is yet to come,” he said with a wink, unable to stop his cocky side from asserting itself, though he wasn’t half as sure of himself with Claudia as he normally was with a woman.
She helped him take off his jeans and shorts, then sat on his lap and wrapped her naked body around him like a clinging vine. “Bring it on.”
Enough of this play. He pulled Claudia close until they couldn’t have slid a piece of paper between them. Her skin felt incredible, like she must lotion it ten times a day. The mental image of her slathering oils over every inch of her body inflamed him even more. Though he didn’t want to rush her, he was hard as a steel pipe, half-afraid he would explode if she even touched him.
They stretched out on the couch, and then she did touch him, wrapping her surprisingly strong hand around him, testing his length and width, pausing to cup his balls for a few moments, then returning her attention to his shaft.
He liked watching her stroke him, liked the image of her pale, delicate hand with its manicured nails gripping his darker erection.
“I’m not gonna last long if you keep that up, cielito.” He gently pulled her hand away and pushed her back onto the sofa. From there he could reach his jeans and the protection he’d stashed there.