A Man for Clair: Secret of the Widow Mulvane (Mystery loves Romance Book 2)

by G. S. Bailey

  David’s mind was all-consumed with the sheer beauty of the woman virtually quivering beneath him. Her body was taut yet delicately smooth and tender. Her skin was radiating pure sexual energy and the sweet perfume of the bath-oils she had been soaking in. He wanted to eat her alive and couldn’t contain that notion as he moved to the other breast and sucked and bit on it.

  He had worked his way between her legs, or they had parted and were guiding him as he responded to her hands still in his hair and kissed his way down her belly. He peered up again, but her head was still turned away and had flung back as well. She was pushing him lower, impatiently. He kissed her pubic hair. It was short and neatly trimmed. He kissed his way down as her moist scent overpowered the sweet aroma of her bath and tingled the hair on the back of his neck, lifting it and setting off an instinctive surge of animal passion that made him want to growl when he ate into her.

  She let out a deep, sensual moan and gripped his hair and ground herself against his mouth. He still held her hips, and he parted her from beneath with his thumbs, holding her up off the lounge and feasting on her. The quivering of her flesh had intensified into spasmodic convulsions as she writhed upward, jamming her head into the cushion to support herself, with one hand still pulling David’s hair and the other arm flung back over the arm of the lounge.

  David took his turn. He took it, and didn’t stop taking it until Clair was panting away with an arm over her face and her thighs clamped together, and her hand still in his hair as he kissed her little strip of fur and tasted her belly again.

  He kissed his way up to her satin covered breasts and nuzzled beneath her arm to kiss her face. He met her lips, and she felt for his firmness as she kissed him back. “Do you have something?” she asked, squeezing him in her soft little hand.

  She slid her hand inside his track-pants, closing her fingers around his erection. He had a condom in his pocket. He had that open as she freed him from his pants. He rolled it on while she turned and pressed back against him. She felt for him and guided him as he moved in behind her. She still had hold of his head, and she gripped the back of his neck and ground herself onto the thrust of his pelvis.

  “No strings,” she whispered into his ear, biting it as the animalistic passion surged within his back and thighs, propelling him into her heat and wetness. “No strings,” she uttered again, but her voice ended in a moan, and David was beyond thinking or caring.

  He had one arm lowered and his hand pressed to the floor to support his weight. He held her body with his other arm, her breast in his hand as he slapped his body loudly against her until she cried out, writhing and moaning. He thrust into her one last time and cried out too, bucking and grinding against her.

  He receded from within but kept hold of her, and she relaxed against his chest, swivelling around to fiddle with his t-shirt.

  “Tarzan,” she said, peering up with a smile.

  David did a mock Tarzan cry.

  She giggled.

  “I’m hungry again,” she said.

  He reached for the box of fried rice. They shared a fork and ate while lying there together chatting and laughing. A car pulled up outside.

  “Yes, it’s them,” Clair said, craning her neck to see over the back of the lounge and through the blinds.

  David pulled her down and kissed her. He wrestled his way on top and had her pinned with one of her legs either side of his waist. She had surrendered to his lips, so he ground his pelvis, just rubbing his firmness against her crotch, but as he tried that she laughed and squirmed her way out from beneath him.

  “Get out of it!” she scolded playfully, and she started tidying up.

  David grinned from where he was lying with his hands behind his head. He tried to lift the bottom of her robe with his toe, but she smacked him away.

  “You’re a frigging horn dog,” she said, glaring back as she took the empty boxes and plates to the kitchen.

  She returned and knelt on the lounge, straddling David and peering through the blinds.

  “Wonder what’s going on out there.”

  David held her hips and watched her face. She bent down and kissed him on the lips.

  “What are we doing tomorrow?” she asked.

  “Um… I have to work,” he replied. He hadn’t considered anything beyond the evening of casual sex, and possibly sharing his bed for the night.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ll help, and then we go snooping tomorrow night.”

  “You’ll help?”

  She kissed him again. “It can’t be that difficult—pushing a mower. Weeding some gardens?”

  The idea intrigued David. He liked it.

  “But how am I supposed to get any work done with a hot blond hanging around?” he pointed out.

  “Don’t you garden for any hot women? They probably watch you all the time out their windows.”

  “There’s a couple of hot teachers at the school.”

  “Really? How hot?” she whispered teasingly as she ground down onto him a little more deliberately.

  “Don’t know—can’t remember,” David said, squeezing her hips and pulling her into position.

  “Hey! Not with your sister about to walk in!” Clair said. “Tomorrow—after snooping.”

  “Aw, shit,” he groaned. “Come to bed with me?”

  She shook her head. “No. Let’s not—not like that, okay?”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know… Just—let’s just keep it fun, okay? This was fun!”

  “It was,” David agreed, thinking quickly, remembering his new code.

  The woman sitting on him was the most attractive he had ever been with, and he also liked her. She was someone he could be friends with. He wanted to take her out to the pub, have a few drinks, do some karaoke and have a dance. He wanted to see her dance.

  “My God, what are they doing out there?” she declared, trying to peep through the blinds again. “Do you usually let guys keep your sister in their cars like this? She’s probably trying to fight him off.”

  David sat up, and Clair dismounted and sat beside him. They watched a full episode of Friends before Amanda came in and took Clair by the hand into her room. David then finished tidying up and watched the fire burn out before going to bed. He had his code, but that didn’t stop the feeling of glee that was fluttering in his heart as he lay awake staring at the moon shadows on his bedroom wall. It was a bright moonlit night, and the tree outside his window was swaying gently with its leafy branches making the shadows. He was staring at them but thinking about whether he should get Clair to ride on the mower or maybe do edges with the brush-cutter. Then he was just thinking about her face.

  Chapter 13

  The moonlight was bright and the shadows sharp and defined that night. John Phillips was waiting in the driveway of the Mulvane mansion. He was at the bottom of the front steps, a place he had last parked more than fifteen years ago. The eerily bright night suited the surreal feeling he had leaning there against his truck, waiting for the front door of the mansion to open.

  He had been parked for about twenty minutes. He checked his watch again. It was almost two-thirty. He and Susan had discussed it and decided they would need to be back by four AM, before the fishermen started arriving at the wharf.

  The door cracked open and swung slowly inward. Susan appeared with her daughter gripping her arm. Nell was an attractive young woman with her mother’s narrow face. Her dark hair was beyond shoulder-length and wavy. Her skin looked pale and her lips red. She peered from behind her mother’s shoulder as the two of them approached where John had stiffened upright to greet them.

  “Hi, Nell,” he said, smiling but not offering a hand or anything. He felt as if any sudden movement could send her running back inside.

  “Hi,” she echoed softly. She smiled too.

  “Come on, it’s freezing out here,” Susan said, guiding Nell into the back of John’s wagon.

  He had left the engine running and the heater on. It wa
s toasty inside. He caught Nell’s bright eyes in his rear-view mirror as he sat. She was still smiling, and his heart was tingling with excitement to be so close to her. He glanced across at Susan. She did a mock grit of her teeth and eyebrow raise.

  “Well, let’s go,” she declared. “We’re going to Woolworths.”

  “Woolworths it is!” John echoed jovially.

  Nell didn’t respond, and her smile faded as John rolled slowly down the driveway. Susan swivelled in her seat to look back at her daughter. She reached behind and squeezed Nell’s hand.

  “I’m okay, Mum,” Nell said softly, yet with a deal of conviction. “Thank you for the photos, John,” she directed at the rear-view mirror.

  John met her gaze there. “You’re welcome, Nell. Thanks for all the yummy food… That vanilla slice!”

  They had reached the bottom of the driveway, and John turned onto the road. There were no other cars moving. There were no people and very few lights on in houses.

  “I like vanilla slice too,” Nell said, but she was then looking out her window at the shops they were rolling slowly past. “No, wait!” she cried.

  John stopped in the middle of the road. It was an intersection and he was halfway across.

  “Can we go past my school, please?” Nell asked.

  John checked with Susan. She agreed with a tentative nod. He turned and rolled along slowly with Nell looking from one side of the vehicle to the other. She hadn’t buckled up and was sliding across the seat to press up to the windows. John slowed even more at each intersection.

  “That’s where John lives,” Susan said as they stopped at his street. “See there, sweetheart—the fifth house.”

  “It’s my sister’s house. I live around the back in an apartment,” John added.

  Nell had moved across the back seat to be right behind him. Her hand was touching his shoulder. He looked to Susan and she smiled, acknowledging what John was feeling, which was the nicest sensation of acceptance and trust.

  They stopped at the school, which had not changed much since Nell had last attended years ago. She apparently had no recollection of the death of her father. She was in the room when her mother attacked him and would have seen the blows, but Susan had swept her up and carried her away upstairs immediately. Nell was nine years old at the time. She had been excused from the final three months of school that year and returned after the Christmas break. She had attended until the leaving age of fifteen, and within a year of that, she had become house-bound, suffering acute agoraphobia.

  They left the school and drove along past the playing fields to the street with the Woolworths shopping centre. John pulled up in front. Nell sat quietly for a while.

  “Are you okay, darling?” her mother asked. She was back on the passenger side of the vehicle. Susan stroked her hair.

  “I’m fine, Mum… I feel fine.”

  “Okay. What would you like to do now?”

  Nell looked at John. “Can we go somewhere else, please?”

  John checked with Susan. “Yes, of course!”

  “Where do you want to go?” Susan asked. “John needs to get home to sleep.”

  John shook his head. “No, I’m fine. I’m good to go—wherever!”

  “Can we go to the lighthouse?” Nell asked tentatively.

  “The lighthouse?” her mother responded, aghast.

  Nell nodded. “Yes—can we?”

  “But, darling, there’s nothing there! It’s a ruin.”

  John was staying out of any decision making. He checked the time. “We’ve still got half an hour or so,” he said to Susan. He didn’t see a problem taking the girl to the lighthouse if that’s where she wanted to go after all these years.

  Nell was waiting.

  “The lighthouse!” her mother repeated incredulously. “Alright, I suppose so.”

  “The lighthouse it is, then,” John declared with a chuckle as he drove on.

  Nell was back on his side as they turned onto the main street and rolled on past the marina and fish market. There were a few men active out along the wharfs. John saw three figures in the distance. The eastern sky was still in nightfall. The sunrise would be another three hours, after six AM at that time of year.

  They passed the last of the buildings on the way up the headland, with Nell watching out the back window and her mother talking with her as John drove quietly. He took the gravel road and pulled up at the wonky gates. The lighthouse was silhouetted against the night sky.

  Nell was in the middle of her seat leaning forward between John and Susan. “I remember being here before,” she said. “I remember this, Mum.”

  “You do, sweetheart?” there was hope and surprise in Susan’s tone. John understood that Nell had only vague memories of her childhood and that she made up a lot of what she thought she remembered.

  “I remember Princess Veil, and I was Princess Song. We used to play here. It wasn’t only a fantasy, was it?”

  “No, it wasn’t,” her mother assured her. “We used to come here often to visit Granddad.”

  Susan stroked her daughter’s hair. “Do you remember Princess Veil, sweetheart? She was real. Do you remember?”

  “Sort of,” Nell replied. “I’m not sure,” she said, looking around. “Can we go back now, please?”

  John swung his wagon around and motored on down the headland and through town. Nell had changed. Her face was blank, and she was hunched in the corner of the seat behind her mother. She was hugging her bent-up legs to her body. Her eyes were staring out the window. John had her home in short order. He swung around to the front steps where he had been parked an hour ago.

  “Are you okay, sweetheart?” Susan asked, turning to check on Nell.

  Nell took a breath and expelled it. She nodded. “Yes, I’m okay,” she said, lifting out of a trance. “Thank you, John.”

  John shifted around in his seat. “You’re welcome, Nell—anytime.” He had decided, after hearing Nell wanted to meet him, to play it cool. He reasoned that keeping his distance and not pressuring her with questions was the way to go.

  The two women got out of the wagon. Susan took her daughter to the door, and John waited for her to return. There was a short discussion before Nell disappeared inside and Susan came back to John’s window with folded arms and a look of consternation on her face.

  “Um… Would you like to come in for a cup of tea?” she asked haltingly.

  John was taken aback. “Shit, yeah! Are you serious?”

  “Nell’s making tea. She asked me to invite you to join us,” Susan explained.

  A knot formed in John’s throat. He looked at Susan. He could feel his eyes watering up.

  She smiled. She was tearing up too. “I know,” she said. “I don’t get it, but she wants you to come in.”

  Chapter 14

  Clair ran. She ran as fast as she could, but her legs were heavy and the ground beneath her feet was soft, like dry sand. She was in the city, though. It was night, and she was alone in a narrow street between towering buildings. She didn’t know why, but she had to get the hell out of there. She ran harder, the sand getting deeper and the black of night flooding into the narrow street. It was filling the void between the buildings and claiming her. It was like a wave of hot tar, and as it swamped her she screamed.

  She awoke, gripped in fear and panting for breath. She looked anxiously around the room, the realization of where she was slowly breaking down the panic.

  The door opened and Amanda poked her head in. “Are you alright?”

  “I’m alright.” Clair collected her thoughts.

  Amanda sat on the bed. “Bad dream?”

  Clair’s eyes rolled. “The worst!”

  “Is everything alright?” David asked from the open door.

  “Just me freaking out,” Clair explained. “Sorry I woke you guys.”

  “What—mouse or spider?” David was grinning.

  Clair flung one of her spare pillows.

  “Hey, Mandy, is Brent w
orking tonight?” David asked.

  “No.”

  “Want to go to the Grill?”

  “Yeah!”

  “It’s karaoke Saturday nights,” he directed at Clair. “Want to go?”

  “Are you going to sing?”

  “Yeah—if you do!”

  “Deal,” Clair said.

  “Are you going to ask Brent?” Amanda requested of her brother.

  “Or you can. Or I’ll just go grab him.”

  David left, and Clair told Amanda to go back to bed. It was only five o’clock, and she wrapped herself in the doona and went back to sleep. She woke hours later to a sunny morning and the smell of bacon. She pulled on an old pair of jeans but didn’t have any tops suitable for gardening, nothing she could ruin without caring. She was asking Amanda for something when David stepped around from the stove where he was cooking to pull a rugby jumper from the clean wash in the laundry.

  Clair put it on over her t-shirt. It was huge, but once she rolled up the sleeves a bit it was okay.

  “So, what are you cooking there, Tarzan?” she asked.

  “You hungry again?” David shot back.

  She frowned at him, pouting a little. His sister clipped him across the back of the head.

  “How rude!” she scolded.

  He took hold of her in a head-lock and mussed her hair. “You hungry too?”

  “Yes,” Amanda said defiantly. She was smoothing her hair. “And how come you’re cooking, anyway—trying to impress Clair, are you?

  “He never cooks,” she told Clair.

  Amanda ducked and squealed as her brother tried to grab her again. But she kept teasing, and Clair’s face ached with her smile, just watching the pair of them. She was impressed alright. It wasn’t something she had reasoned consciously, though. She was feeling so warm and happy to be there with a brother and sister who quite simply loved and cared about each other. Clair was deeply impressed by their relationship, and she was thrilled to be getting looked at the way David was looking at her.