“I don’t think this is real silk,” she said, uncrossing her arms to glide her hands downward over her torso and waist to her thighs. Down! Down! “Polyester, probably. It looks and feels like the real thing, but my mom would never buy a nightgown that has to be dry cleaned.”
She lowered the covers on her side and got into bed. Clay turned off the lamp and shifted to get comfortable on the mattress, which was, as Paola had warned, totally lumpy. Closing his eyes, he forced himself to calculate inn his mind various economic formulas they’d grilled into him at Yale in a desperate effort to subdue his erection. It worked, more or less.
He and Izzy had grown more accustomed to sleeping with each other since that first night. At first unnerved by her presence in his bed, Clay had come to like it—the gentle sound of her breathing, the heat emanating from her. And he relished the closeness, the intimacy, of sharing a bed with someone else night after night.
He didn’t want to give that up. He wanted Izzy in his bed, now more than ever. But after that conversation between Teddy and Harry in the back vestibule...
With a sigh, he turned onto his side and propped his head on his hand. “Izz?”
“Yeah?”
“Teddy’s on to us.”
A long pause. “How do you know?”
He told her about the overheard conversation, and how Teddy and Harry had entered into a conspiracy of silence, evidently so that he and Izzy would have to continue sharing a bed.
“Harry’s still playing matchmaker,” Izzy said.
“Yeah, only this time he’s trying to set me up with my own wife. And he’s got help from Teddy.” He hesitated, and then said, “I thought about not telling you.”
He felt her shift as she turned to face him, but all he could see of her was a black form against the darkness. “Why?”
Bite the bullet. “Because I like sleeping with you.”
A long pause. “We won’t have to anymore.”
“I know.”
“And we shouldn’t.”
He moved closer. “Izzy....”
“We’ll have to talk to Teddy,” she said quickly. “Make sure she understands how important it is to keep quiet about this.”
“Izz...”
“I’ll sleep in one of the other guest rooms.”
“Izzy, let’s talk.”
There was silence from her side of the bed. Clay sensed her tension, and decided to approach what he had to say from an oblique angle.
“I’ve been thinking about the baby.” This was true. He’d been thinking a lot about Izzy’s baby lately. “We never really talked about... how it’ll be after the baby comes, and we have—” Tread carefully. “And you have a child. But I’ve been thinking.”
He reached out in the dark until his fingertips touched her hair, then found her cheek and lightly stroked it. “If you want... I mean, if it’s all right with you...” He shook his head. Why was this so damn hard? “If we do stay together, in this marriage, your child will be a part of it. We’ll be a family then. It’s up to you what you want to tell him about... who his father really is. But whatever you tell him, I want you to know that I... I’ll consider him my son. Or daughter. I’ll treat him as if he were my own.”
A drop of something hot trickled onto his fingertips. “Izz?” he said quietly. He trailed his hand down her throat to her shoulder. It was trembling. “Come here.”
He gathered her in his arms and held her tight, running his fingers through her hair and murmuring comforting words in her ear. Her silent tears subsided quickly.
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” he said.
“I’m not upset,” she said against his damp shoulder. “I’m touched.”
He took an edge of the sheet and blotted her face with it. It was then that he became aware of her arm around him, returning his embrace. He felt the sleekness of satin against his naked body, and beneath it, her warmth and softness. His arms tightened reflexively around her. She moved against him slightly, or maybe he just imagined it.
When he lightly stroked the bare skin of her back, she loosened her embrace and drew away from him.
“Izzy....”
“Goodnight, Clay.”
Clay lay still on his side as she moved away from him. His eyes were growing accustomed to the dark, so he could see her, just barely, lying on her back, staring at nothing.
She didn’t want to talk; she’d made that clear. So he wouldn’t talk. Maybe words were the wrong way to approach this, anyway.
Levering himself up on an elbow, he leaned over her, touching his lips gently to her forehead. This was their standard nighttime ritual, his kissing her forehead before they went to sleep. But when the kiss was over, he didn’t retreat to his own side of the bed, as he always had before. Instead, he guided his lips in a warm path across her forehead to her temple, and kissed her there.
Weaving his fingers through her hair, he kissed her smooth cheekbone.
“What are you doing?” she whispered unsteadily.
He pulled back just enough to look into her eyes, wide in the dark. “Trying to work up my courage to kiss you on the mouth.”
Her eyes closed. “Oh, Clay. That wouldn’t be smart.”
“I’m tired of being smart,” he murmured as he lowered his mouth to hers.
“Clay—”
“Shh,” he breathed against her lips. He brushed his mouth gently over hers, feeling the hot whisper of her breath, the hum of flesh against flesh. She lay still beneath this delicate assault, not participating, but not actively resisting him, either.
There was something luxurious about her lips—so full and soft and warm. He caressed them with his own lips, at first softly and then with more pressure, more demand. He tasted them with his tongue, slipped it between them, into her heat. The sensation of penetrating her mouth this way felt so rawly sexual that he pulled away from her, breathless.
She met his gaze, then closed her eyes. “Clay, I... we...”
“Shh...” He kissed first one eyelid and then the other.
“We have an understanding.”
“I’m tired of our understanding.” He kissed the tip of her nose, then brought his mouth to hers again. “I’m tired of wanting to kiss you and not being able to,” he murmured, his lips grazing hers. “Of wanting you so much, all the time, so I can’t even think about anything else, and not being able to let you know.” A quick, soft kiss. “So I’m letting you know what I want.”
“Clay...”
“And I think you want it, too. At least a little.”
She bit her lower lip. “More than just a little. But—”
He silenced her qualifications with another kiss—soft but slow this time, as he moved over her, half covering her body with his. He settled on top of her, one leg resting between hers, his hands cupping her face.
He shifted to deepen the kiss, felt her body against his through the liquid-smooth layer of satin. It slid between them like warm oil. He felt her breasts, crushed against his chest, move with every rapid breath, felt her hips against his, her heat beneath the satin. He pressed himself against that heat, aching to be a part of it, to be a part of her.
He smoothed one hand down along her throat and chest until he felt the slippery fabric beneath his palm, the roundness of her breast filling his hand.
She sighed into his mouth, then turned her head to the side, breaking the kiss, her chest heaving. “Clay, this is crazy.”
“Absolutely.” He glided the hand from breast to waist to hip, which he caressed through the satin. “Your point?”
Her chest shook with an exasperated chuckle. With his other hand he found the narrow strap of her gown and slid it over her shoulder. Nudging the satin aside, he closed his hand over her bare breast, savoring its fullness, its heat, the stiff little nipple tickling his palm.
She sucked in a breath, letting it out as a soft little cry that completely undid him.
It was too much. His faculties were on overload; he felt as if he’d been
drugged with something that heightened his senses and stripped him of self-control.
His mouth plundered hers, taking more than she offered and not caring, because his need was so great. It was a hungry kiss, a kiss of violent longing. The sudden force of it rocked him. He’d never kissed with such desperation.
He thrust against her as desire took command. All the desperate wanting that he’d held in check for so long came rushing to the surface. He couldn’t stop moving—naked flesh against satin, his rigid need against her slippery softness, the heat beneath the surface.
Her mouth, hot and wet, her trembling hips, her hands in his hair...
In the midst of his sensual haze, he realized something, something astonishing and wonderful...
She was kissing him back.
DON’T DO THIS, Izzy thought as she threaded her fingers through Clay’s hair to cup the back of his head, sealing his mouth to hers. This is crazy.
Your point?
There was a point. This was Clay Granger. She shouldn’t let this happen. But she was. She shouldn’t want this. But she did, with her entire being.
His hips moved against her in an erotic cadence that she matched instinctively. How could she not want this? She wanted it with every cell in her body. His own desire was plainly evident. She felt his erection, smooth and hot, slide against her, again and again, massaging her most sensitive flesh through the satin gown.
His gentle fondling of her breast, full and tender from pregnancy, completely electrified her. The skin there felt as if it were stretched tight, quivering with sensation, and he knew just how to caress it.
How could she not want this?
If we do stay together, in this marriage, your child will be a part of it. We’ll be a family then. He cared for her... didn’t he? Maybe even more...
I fall in love two or three times a week, he’d told her. It usually lasts for about half an hour. Yes, he cared. From all indications, very deeply... right now. He didn’t know the meaning of commitment.
But... Judith changed him, Harry had told her. You’re changing him, too.
Clay’s fingertips brushed her ultrasensitive nipple, and she gasped from the sudden charge of pleasure. He moaned into her mouth, tightening his fingers around the little nub—a soft pinch that sent currents of arousal shooting through her.
Swept away by sensation, she arched beneath him, her hands skimming down his back to press him to her. Needing no more invitation than that, Clay gathered up the skirt of her gown and began raising it.
You’re changing him, too... He did seem sincere. He acted as if she were the center of his universe.
So had Prez. And the others.
She shook her head, breaking the kiss. “I can’t... I can’t make love to you, Clay.”
He stilled, the nightgown halfway up her thighs. “No one will hear. We’ll be quiet.”
“No, it’s not that.”
“Cooper still hasn’t given you the go-ahead? That’s all right.” He slid his hand beneath the satin, up along her thigh. “We can still...”
“Clay—”
“I can touch you.” He glided his hand, warm and slightly rough, toward her inner thigh. “Let me touch you. Just that.”
“No, you don’t understand. Dr. Cooper said... he said that I could... that we could—”
“Make love?” She nodded. His hand paused an inch from where she was aching most for him. One touch there, where she was so wet and ready, and she knew she’d give in. “Then let’s make love, Izzy.”
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”
Clay moved his hand again. Izzy held her breath, but he veered from his original path. He guided his warm palm diagonally up over her hipbone and across her still flat stomach to rest it protectively over the very spot where her baby lay curled up inside her. Whenever Izzy thought of her baby, it was always the same: an infant girl in a cocoon of tissue, nestled deep within her, just as in her dream the night of her wedding.
“I’ll be careful,” he whispered against her lips, caressing her belly with a featherlight touch, as if it were a newborn. “I’ll be very gentle, I swear to God.”
Izzy’s throat grew tight; tears stung her eyes for the second time that evening.
“You can be on top,” he said. Before she could stop him, he wrapped his arms around her and rolled her gracefully on top of him. “This way, you’re in control. You can take it as slow as you want.” He eased her legs to either side of his, then skimmed his hands up the backs of her thighs and over her bottom, drawing the nightgown up as he went.
She sat up, straddling him. “Clay...”
Closing his strong hands around her hips, he shifted beneath her. She felt the silken length of his erection, hard and insistent against her damp heat.
“Oh, Clay...”
“Izzy...” He seized her nightgown and pulled it up.
She closed her hands over his, halting his progress. “No.”
He paused. She heard his labored breathing in the dark, sensed him struggling for control.
“I’m sorry,” she said, guiding his hands, and the nightgown with them, back down. Rising off him, she sat next to him on the bed. She could just make him out in the dark, lying on his back with one arm over his face. He had the most extraordinary body she’d ever seen, his state of arousal both magnifying his masculinity and imparting an aura of vulnerability. “I shouldn’t have let myself get so carried away,” she said. “I never should have let things get this far, but—”
“Shh.” Clay sat up and tucked the blankets around his waist, then reached for her; she sank into his arms. “If this is anyone’s fault, it’s mine. Completely.” He rubbed her back in soothing circles. “I rushed things. I knew you weren’t ready for this, but I wanted you so much, I just...” She felt him shake his head, then felt his mouth against her hair. “I guess I blew it, huh?”
“Nothing that bad has happened,” Izzy said, looking up to meet his gaze. “We didn’t... Nothing happened, not really. Nothing has changed between us.”
“You really believe that?” he asked quietly, drawing back so he could look at her.
She couldn’t meet his gaze. “No. Things have changed.”
“Izz...” He tightened his arms around her.
She pushed against his chest and looked him in the eye. “But if we’re smart, we can go back to where things were before. We can go back to being just friends.”
“Smart?”
“If we don’t...”
“Have sex.”
She nodded.
He hesitated for a long moment, his eyes inexplicably sad. “I used to think being smart was a good thing.” Releasing her, he turned and sat on the edge of the bed, then grabbed her father s robe from the chair and put it on.
“Where are you going?” she asked as he stood and tied the sash.
“Upstairs. I’m going to take a shower.”
“But you already took one.”
He let out a long, unsteady sigh and headed for the stairs. “I’m going to take another one.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SEE YOU IN MYRTLE BEACH, bright and early.” Clay pushed the End Call button on his steering wheel as he turned into his driveway. Izzy’s not gonna like this...
He looked for her in the brightly lit parlor window, where they’d set up her worktable and computer equipment, but she wasn’t there. She must have finished for the day, which was good. She shouldn’t push herself.
Guiding the Porsche to the little detached garage in back, he found Harry’s Jeep already parked within. He’d expected that, Harry having left work early to come here and help Izzy with a particularly tricky layout.
Clay parked on the driveway where he wouldn’t be blocking Harry in, turned off the ignition, unbuckled his shoulder harness, and stared at the snowflakes drifting out of the dusky sky to melt on the windshield. He hoped this would be the last snow of the season. He was tired of winter, tired of the cold days and long nights.
The nights had gotten longer since Izzy had stopped sharing his bed. As soon as they’d gotten home from his birthday party two weeks ago, she’d moved her things to the blue guest room. He’d tried to change her mind—even sworn to keep his hands off her—but she’d asserted, quite rightly, that they weren’t fooling Teddy anymore, so there was no longer any point to her sleeping with him.
Except that he liked it. A lot.
The windshield was beginning to fog up on the inside. Clay pulled the glove off his right hand and drew a pair of eyes on the misty glass while he thought about why he liked sleeping with Izzy so much.
Intimacy.
There was an intimacy to sleeping with someone that he’d never really grasped. Or maybe he had, and that’s why he’d always balked at the idea of spending the night with his dates. Getting into bed with someone and becoming unconscious was an act of trust, an acknowledgment of a certain level of affection and familiarity. Sex, on the other hand—the kind of sex he was used to—was just... recreation. Two people entertaining themselves with an act of simulated intimacy.
Clay drew a pair of brows above the eyes, and then, starting between them and curving elegantly downward, the distinctive Fabrioni nose.
The intimacy wouldn’t be simulated with Izzy. Making love to her would be the Real Thing, not just play-acting. It would have less to do with entertainment than with... discovery. He wanted to explore her, to unearth her secrets, to see the expression on her face as he entered her body for the very first time.
He drew full, lush lips curved in a billion-watt smile.
But most of all, he wanted her to want these things. He wanted her to want him—not just in her bed, but in her life.
And she didn’t.
Yanking the glove back on, Clay grabbed his briefcase off the passenger seat, jerked on the door handle, and stepped out into the chilly evening air. A thin layer of old, icy snow crunched underfoot as he walked across the yard to the back door.
He’d spent the past couple of weeks trying to win Izzy over, a delicate procedure, given her reluctance to let down her guard with him. Her skittishness was understandable; she was still licking the wounds inflicted by that bastard Prez. And there’d been other bastards before him. Izzy had had lousy luck with men.
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