She watched Clay, as by the light of a flashlight he trimmed the wick on a candle, put it in it's old-fashioned holder, and lit it. He did the same with another.
"Can I do anything to help?"
He looked at her then. In the glow of the candle she saw his fatigue. She felt drained, too.
Lightning lit up the kitchen and a moment later, thunder crashed. Wind and rain battered against the back walls.
"Paige, I don't really feel like going out in this again. My spare bedroom's made up for when Trish visits. How about if you just stay overnight?" When she hesitated, he said, "Doc's not home to worry about you."
She didn't know why she was hesitating. She didn't want to go back outside any more than Clay. If she stayed the night, what? Maybe Clay would talk to her? He wasn't in a talking mood and she knew it. It hurt to be this close to him yet not close enough. Maybe in the morning when they were both rested...
He handed her the flashlight. "You'll stay?"
She took it from him. "Yes."
"Trish keeps spare clothes in the dresser. Maybe she left pajamas or something. I'll lead the way with the flashlight if you want to bring one of the candles. I think I have another flashlight in the closet upstairs."
Clay wasn't just keeping his distance emotionally, but physically too.
She followed him up the stairs, her hand cupped around the candle flame so it didn't blow out. He led her into a room a bit smaller than the master bedroom into which she'd peeked before. It was difficult to see the decor in the shadows, but she could see a quilt on the double bed. Colored patches made up large rings that intertwined. She guessed the cannonball headboard was dark pine.
Clay went to the dresser and pulled open the top drawer. The first item he pulled out was a pastel cotton and lace shift. His gaze met hers, and even without electric lights, she could see sparks of desire in his eyes as he looked at it, then looked back at her.
She knew he was imagining her in the short nightdress. He knew she knew.
Clay stuffed it back in the drawer and said gruffly, "Look through everything and find what you want. Trish won't mind. I'll go check on the other flashlight."
He was gone before she could open her mouth.
Paige sifted through the drawer and decided the cotton would be the most practical. As soon as the storm stopped, she'd probably have to open the windows so the room didn't become stifling.
Clay was back in a few moments. He laid a second flashlight on the nightstand.
"Are you going to bed now?" Paige asked tentatively.
"As soon as the thunder dies down, I'll let Shep out. He'll probably make it a quick trip with the rain. So if you want to use the bathroom first, go ahead."
Clay was making it clear they weren't talking about anything tonight. He couldn't wait to get out of the room.
He ran his hand through his hair. "I'll try to find an extra toothbrush and lay it on the sink."
Paige took a few steps closer to him. She had to give him an opening if he wanted it. "Clay, what you did tonight for Ben was important."
He searched her face. "I hope so." Then he headed for the door. "I'll see you in the morning."
Paige nodded.
Clay stepped into the hall and closed her door. He rolled his head and shrugged his shoulders to try to release the tension. The brief stretching didn't work. He was wound tight.
It had taken every ounce of control he possessed to leave that room, not to ask Paige what she thought, not to ask her how she felt, not to take her in his arms. But beyond the beauty of her face glowing in the candlelight, beyond the confusion on her face when she looked at him, one question burned too fiercely for him to ignore.
Had he unleashed a force tonight that could destroy his life again?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Black. Black everywhere. Freezing cold as he'd never known it. Clashing colors colliding--purple, red, orange. Emptiness. In his mind he reached for something, anything, and couldn't find it. He ran and ran and ran. His head pounded, his heart felt as if it would burst. Pain, sharp and stabbing, pulsed from his temples to his toes. But he kept running.
A white jagged wall rose in front of him. He changed direction only to be met by another, and another. Walls in all directions. Walls, steep and treacherous, with no handholds or footholds. But he couldn't stop running.
He put out his hands in front of him. Maybe he could charge through. Maybe the walls were illusions. He had to take the chance. He couldn't keep running, he couldn't keep turning around.
He plunged ahead and the wall moved away from him. He couldn't reach it. The faster he ran, the faster it moved. He turned in another direction. That wall did the same thing. Now he couldn't get close to it.
Icy moisture dripped down his forehead, his arms. Beyond the walls lay release. If he could get past them, he could find peace.
He stopped running and stood as still as the silence. The walls stopped moving. His body pounded with fierce pain, but he couldn't tell where it was coming from. He looked to the left and the right and saw nothing but white ice piercing the black vacuum.
The freezing cold penetrated his fingers, his face, his legs, his chest. It should have brought relief, numbness, but it brought fiery burning instead. Maybe if he could move, maybe if he could run again, he could escape it.
He tried to lift his foot. It was frozen in place. He tried to lift his hand. It was a dead weight. No feeling, no sensation but the cold.
His mouth. He could feel his lips. He called for help. No one answered. He called again. No one came. He was alone.
A fist jabbed at his stomach, pounded at his chest. It created a swirling of fear and panic. The fear and panic spun like a whirlwind inside him until he couldn't catch his breath. The walls, a few minutes before so far out of reach, began moving closer. The wall in front of him inched nearer and nearer, exuding an icy aura. He glanced to his right side. That wall was closing in, too. He looked over his shoulder just as he felt a blast of icy air at his back.
His left. Maybe he could escape to the left!
No. Freezing white rocks glided toward him.
Flashing colors again. He was trapped. There was no way out. Fear became the enemy, panic became its twin. He couldn't see, he couldn't hear, he couldn't breathe. With a last-ditch monumental surge of hope, he called out.
"Clay! Clay, it's Paige. Look at me."
He felt the sweat dripping from his brow, the icy numbness fading. No white walls, no rocks. The sheets were tangled around his legs as if he'd been rolling in them. As Paige's concerned blue eyes searched his face, his heaving breaths became more regular. Until he realized Paige was sitting on the side of his bed in a nightgown. As panic and fear ebbed away, something stronger and more potent made his breathing become labored again.
"Go back to your room, Paige."
She didn't move. "Tell me about it, Clay. Tell me what's tearing you up. Let somebody in."
She was seeing him at his most vulnerable. The nightmares always shook his life, and for those dream-filled minutes, he was out of control. He hated the feeling. He hated Paige seeing him like this. "It was a nightmare. A result of the accident. It has nothing to do with you."
She laid the flashlight on the nightstand, reached out, and stroked his jaw. "You don't have to go through this alone."
Her touch was fire. It rushed through him like a brush blaze caught by the wind. He didn't want to fight the passion anymore. He didn't want to fight her.
The soft cotton shift lay gently over her breasts. One shoulder tipped over her arm. Her blue eyes were huge, wide, soft, so inviting. As he stared, she parted her lips slightly, and he realized the small gasp was in response to his perusal. Heavy desire pulsed through him, making his need more insistent than logic. He knew his limits.
He took her hand from his cheek and held it away from him. "If you don't want something to happen you'll regret later, leave now."
She didn't flinch from the raspy desire in his voice or the com
pelling intensity of his gaze. "I won't regret it."
Clay couldn't keep his hands from framing Paige's face. He couldn't keep from leaning toward her, pulling her toward him. He couldn't keep from needing her, wanting her, or hoping this wasn't all wrong. His mouth came down on hers forcefully. He invaded her feminine softness with no attempt at gentleness or finesse. Maybe he wanted to see how she'd react. Maybe he wanted to see if she needed him the same raw way he needed her. If she didn't, he wanted to scare her away.
Paige's moan vibrated through Clay. She didn't shy away from his tongue but met him stroke for stroke as if a dam had burst inside her, too.
He never thought a kiss could be this intimate. He ran his hands over her face, memorizing the exquisite softness, the silk of her brows, the ridge of her cheekbones, the delicate slant of her jaw, her small chin. He splayed his hands through her hair and pulled her toward him as he lay on the pillow.
She curled into him.
He tore his lips from hers to make sure one last time. "Paige, are you certain you want to do this?"
"Yes."
All barriers were gone. Clay was going to accept what she offered and satisfy them both. His passion for her took over. He turned on his side and filled his senses with her. He smelled Paige and roses. He closed her in his embrace until every available inch of his body touched every available inch of hers. He revelled in having Paige this close, and he shook with the intensity of his emotion.
He pulled away from their kiss, but she protested with a small moan. She kissed his chin, his cheek, then returned to his lips. He could feel her body trembling too. She was so damn responsive. The tip of her tongue played with his upper lip.
He yanked her gown up to her waist. He didn't want cotton in his hands, he wanted her. When he caressed her hip, she arched toward him. "Paige, do you know what you're doing to me?"
He thought she shook her head, but he couldn't tell. "Sit up, Paige."
She gazed at him with blue eyes alive with desire. "Why?"
"Because I want to touch you, not this damn gown."
She sat up and he lifted it over her head. She was naked to his gaze, perfect, beautiful. "Looking at you takes my breath away."
She smiled shyly.
He stripped off his jogging shorts and bent to kiss her again. The honest desire between them intoxicated Clay. He kissed her neck, pausing at the base of her throat.
She wove her hands into his hair.
Clay stroked her shoulders and rubbed his chin along the upper moon of her breast. She writhed under him. When he rasped his beard over her nipple, she gave a small cry.
"I want you, Paige. I'm crazy with wanting you."
Her fingers kneaded his scalp. "I want you, too. Make love to me, Clay."
She'd asked him once before and he'd pushed her away. He couldn't push her away now. She was a balm for his heart, the match to his desire, and, right now, an antidote for his dreams. The nightmares made him feel powerless; she made him feel strong.
A surge of desire he couldn't control brought his lips to hers. He bit her lower lip and she arched against him, almost sending him over the edge. She curved into him, her nails raking his shoulders. He ravaged her mouth.
He moved to her breast and flicked his tongue over the aroused nipple. She called his name. It added fuel to the consuming blaze.
Paige couldn't control how she felt, how her body was responding, the love overriding the passion.
She scraped her nails down the curve of Clay's spine. His ministration to her nipple pulled deep inside her. The tingles throughout her body, the tension tightening her womanly center promised something wonderful. She loved the feel of Clay, his heat, every different texture from his chest hair to the velvet softness of his manhood that scorched and throbbed against her thigh.
She'd never done this before, but she suspected what would give him as much pleasure as he was giving her. She reached down and curled her hand around him. He took sharp breaths, then plunged his tongue into her mouth again and again, deeper and deeper.
She'd never experienced the coiling passion that could draw her body toward one erotic sensation. She'd never experienced this need to have her body completed by a man. But not just any man--Clay.
She caressed him until he tore his mouth from hers and rose above her. She felt his hand between her thighs and realized even in the throes of passion that he was thinking of her, making sure she was ready for him. She should tell him...
But she didn't have a chance.
He thrust into her with a strong, slick stroke. She didn't cry out, but clenched his arms with the sudden sharp pain.
He stilled and stared down at her with the recognition of what had just happened. "Dammit, Paige, why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you stop me?"
He began to withdraw.
She wrapped her legs around him, knowing she needed him inside her more than she needed petting, gentleness, or Clay changing his mind. For this moment, he was hers and she was his. Nothing...absolutely nothing would change that.
She arched up, taking him deeper.
His voice was thick, torn from his throat. "Paige, I won't be able to stop."
"Don't stop. Show me. Take me with you. I want this, Clay. I want you."
She felt his shudder of acceptance, the tension in his corded muscles that told her he was going to make this good for her if it killed him.
She took him as deep as she could, forgetting about the slash of pain as soon as he began moving inside her. He was hot and hard, and strong, and filled with life. She needed all of that. Soon, the wonderful, novel sensations overtook conscious thought. Each stroke excited her, lifted her, joined her with Clay in a way nothing else could. She shimmered with the excitement, shivered from the power, shook from the pleasure, and held on for dear life.
She felt her woman's center pulse around him, contract, tighten, clasp him with love. She thought she couldn't know any more pleasure, any more closeness, until Clay shifted, brought his hand between them, and touched her so intimately she almost came off the bed.
The flood of sparkling, glorious sensations washed over her again and again and again. "Clay, it's so wonderful. Don't stop!"
He didn't. With each thrust, she gasped and held him, glorying in the ecstasy.
Clay propped his hands on either side of her shoulders, kissed her with an intensity that took her above the clouds, above the moon, above the stars. His strokes were slow and rhythmic until neither of them could control the pace turning frenzied and wild.
Then Clay shuddered, stilled, shuddered, and shuddered again.
****
Paige had fallen asleep in Clay's arms. But Clay didn't sleep, wouldn't sleep. He couldn't take the chance the nightmare would return. Not when Paige was with him like this.
Like this.
It never should have happened. She was a virgin! Had been a virgin. He should have known. He should have guessed. There'd been signs all along the way. She wasn't world-wise. She wasn't man-wise. He'd mistaken honest passion for experience.
What he regretted most was the way it had happened. He'd felt panicked, vulnerable, and he was afraid he'd used Paige as an escape. That wasn't fair to her. And if he'd known she was a virgin...
The first time should have been special, slow, easy, lingering. It should have been music and flowers and wine. He would have been careful with her, arousing her to such a high pitch she wouldn't have noticed the pain.
He should have stopped. He should have...
Paige stirred against him. She snuggled deeper into his shoulder, moved her fingers over his chest. She was breathing deeply and he knew the movements were involuntary. But they aroused him. And he wanted her all over again.
Okay, he'd told her about the amnesia and she hadn't run in the opposite direction. He'd seen the shock on her face, but he wasn't sure what it meant. He'd felt too raw last night, too emotionally spent to discuss it. So he didn't know how she really felt.
Just because she'd m
ade love with him...he closed his eyes tight. He knew better than anyone how compassionate Paige could be. If that was why she'd come to him, if that was why she'd let him pull her into his bed, he had even more reason to regret last night, to regret Paige becoming an important part of his life.
****
Paige turned over, reached for the warmth she'd known all night, but found only a cool sheet. She opened her eyes and squinted against the bright sunlight shining in the open window.
Clay stood there in his gray jogging shorts, looking out. His hand was propped high on the window frame. The scars crisscrossed his shoulder. She remembered the feel of them under her fingers. She remembered the feel of him inside her. She smiled. Making love was much more extraordinary than all her clinical knowledge had led her to expect.
Clay must have felt her gaze on him. He turned toward her, the sun shimmering in the few strands of gray in his hair. The expression on his face was studiously neutral. Much too neutral.
Her smile faded away and she propped on her elbow. "How long have you been awake?" she asked, not knowing how to act the morning after, suspecting Clay didn't share her fulfillment or happiness.
"All night."
His bare chest, his wide shoulders were a distraction. "But every time I woke, you were holding me." She wished he was holding her now.
"I wasn't up. I was awake."
"Why?"
He faced her squarely then and leaned against the windowsill. "I didn't want to invite another nightmare."
"How often do you get them?"
"They stopped over a year ago. They started again the day we took Ben to the lake." His answer was dispassionate, as if it didn't matter.
"Oh, Clay."
His voice was harsh. "I don't want your pity."
Suddenly she knew exactly what he was thinking, why he was so removed. "You think last night was about pity?" She sat up and crossed her legs Indian fashion under the sheet.
"I was shaken up after the nightmare."
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