Cara could barely believe she’d said it, but it was the truth.
She knew that if she were to survive this encounter with Drake with her dignity intact, she needed to have her wits about her. And seeing him in an advanced state of undress would not be conducive to reasoned conversation.
Even though that’s not what she really wanted.
She wanted to get naked with him.
She wanted to feel his hands, his mouth, his tongue over every inch of her body. She wanted to press herself to him and—
“I’ll go get my shirt on the porch while I’m at it,” she heard him cry through the bedroom door. “Throw me your clothes out, and I’ll toss them in as well.”
She peeled off all her clothes and threw out her capris and top to Drake, keeping her underwear and draping them over the top of a chair.
“Knock when you’re decent,” Cara said, handing him a clean towel through the door.
“I bet you’re not right now, are you?”
“I could ask you the same question.”
“Are you ordering me to answer?” he asked.
“As an attorney, it’s your duty to be candid with the court at all times.”
“But we’re not in court. Pretty far from it.”
“So answer the question anyway.”
After a long pause, Drake laughed.
“Well, I don’t recall you have a dress code for your courtroom, but let’s just say I wouldn’t pass muster.”
“How so?” she continued, wrapping her hand around the edge of the door but not daring to peek.
“I’m pretty sure pants are required courtroom attire.”
She snickered and then felt his hand on the edge of hers along the door and gave hers a quick squeeze. Before she did something she’d regret, Cara told him she was going to take a nap and to knock when their clothes were ready.
After slipping on an old T-shirt and shorts—her version of summertime pajamas—Cara slid between the soft, cool sheets of her bed, hopeful to catch a little sleep despite the very vivid images of the unclothed man on the other side of the door, which kept passing through her addled mind.
11
Drake held the towel tightly around his waist and paced, the activity doing nothing to abate his arousal.
Cara had been on his mind almost constantly since she’d left for Judicial College.
Their interrupted groping in the conference room at Old Garnet hadn’t been nearly enough to satisfy him. Their texts, e-mails, and short telephone calls over the past few days had only stoked his desire to see her.
But that wasn’t the only kind of desire he felt.
He wanted this woman.
He wanted her physically, desperately so, but also he just wanted to be around her. He was falling hard, and he knew it. That’s why he’d driven an hour in the pouring rain to surprise her. He wanted to charm her and make love to her that very night, if she’d only grant him the privilege.
When he’d realized he had the rare opportunity to be alone with her where they could fully surrender to the increasing sexual tension between them, Drake had hopped in his Jeep after a long day in court, grabbed something to eat, and headed to the state park.
It had been quite a while since he’d been with a woman, and damned if it wasn’t the woman Cara had seen him with that very evening—Selena Cormack. Even though there was nothing between them any longer (and in retrospect there never had been much), he had seen Cara’s hard stare when he and Selena had entered the lobby together.
His erection gave him no reprieve, and he began to ache. Taking a seat at the kitchen table, the towel fell away from his groin, freeing his hardness. There he sat, naked, hard, and with Cara just on the other side of an unlocked door. Unable to resist, he gripped himself, pumped a few times and then stopped, breathing heavily and yearning for release. He rose and wrapped the towel around him again, thinking he could just go to the bathroom and get a bit of relief.
But halfway to the bathroom, he stopped in midstride when he heard a noise from Cara’s room. Drake waited for the door to open, but it didn’t, and he realized he had only heard the cabin settling or the wind against the side of the structure.
The noise was a warning, and he heeded it. What if Cara needed to use the bathroom? What if he couldn’t keep quiet—because he knew the name he’d cry when he climaxed. That had been a repeated scene over the past few weeks in the confines of his own home.
He turned toward the front of the cabin, feeling trapped and desperate. Walking to the door, he peered outside and saw that the rain had slackened. Drake found his shoes and crept outside.
Drake knew the grounds of the state park well enough to remember that the cabins were isolated from the lodge and from each other. Holding the towel around his waist, he braved possible poison ivy and mosquitos as he trekked through the undergrowth. He found a stand of pines around the side of the cabin that would provide a sufficient screen for his intimate activity in the unlikely event of any passersby.
With nothing but trees around him, Drake glanced to his left. He was outside the window to Cara’s room, but it was closed, along with the curtains.
Whipping the towel from his waist, he threw it on top a nearby bush as his hand went to his length. Drake leaned back against a pine to steady himself as he surrendered to blended pleasures of flesh and mind. As he moved his hand in increasingly rapid strokes, his thoughts were on the woman in the room just yards away. The wind picked up and the rain returned. He could no longer hear or see as the storm enveloped him, and he closed his eyes to shield against the deluge.
His mind was flooded with visions of the woman with whom he was falling in love.
Images of Cara—that night at the city park, wearing that blue dress at the wedding, and bathed in thin moonlight that night at the nature preserve—floated into his mind, and he came hard, roaring her name into a roll of thunder.
He dropped his hand to his side, panting, satisfied, drenched, his back itching against the roughness of the pine bark.
Having no other covering, he retrieved his sodden towel from the bush, wrung it out, and wrapped it around his waist before reentering the cabin. After kicking off his shoes, Drake padded across the hardwood floor and saw to his relief that the door to the bedroom was still closed. The dryer still had a few more minutes, and he needed a new towel or something to cover himself until his clothes were ready.
He went to the bathroom in search of another towel but only found items suitable for use as a loincloth—hand towels and washcloths—and didn’t think Cara would necessarily appreciate that look (although it might be fun to test those boundaries). Closing the door, he discovered a pink terry cloth robe hanging on a hook on the back.
His dignity having gone out the proverbial window in light of what he’d just done outside Cara’s actual window, Drake draped his wet towel over the shower rod and put on the robe although it was decidedly too small for his sturdy frame. Nevertheless, the delicate thing was just enough to cover himself, hitting a few inches above his knees.
Feeling like a giant in drag, he took a hand towel and dried his face and body as best he could, happy at the moment his hair was so short that he could simply run the washcloth over it and have it decently dry. He heard the clothes dryer stop and, with one last smirk in the mirror at his ridiculous reflection, opened the bathroom door.
And just in time to see Cara emerging from the bedroom door at that same moment just a few yards away.
“And might I ask why you’re wearing my robe?”
“And might I ask why you didn’t let me know you were coming out of the bedroom?”
His face was as pink as the robe, and he pulled the cinch tighter around his waist. Cara had never seen him so flustered.
“I heard you moving around out here and thought the dryer was finished,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. She hadn’t put her bra back on; it was draped over a chair in the bedroom, still drying, a condition it would not likely ach
ieve for several more hours.
“No, I—well—I went outside to—ah—check something and got drenched again. Hung that towel in the bathroom to dry and couldn’t find another towel, so I resorted to this,” he said, grabbing the lapel of the robe.
Cara nodded, wondering what could’ve been so important that he needed to go outside, but she didn’t ask. She pressed her lips together, trying not to laugh.
“Well,” she said, a snicker in her voice, “pink does become you.” She put a hand over her mouth.
“Shut it,” he said playfully and turned to the dryer.
Drake first extracted Cara’s clothes, then his own.
“These seem dry enough to wear. I’ll slip back into the bathroom to change.”
“And into something more comfortable?” she asked, smiling.
“If this thing were just a little bigger,” he said, touching the lapel of the robe, “it would be very comfortable. As it is, it barely covers me. And it’s tight across the shoulders.”
“I’ll make a note to get one for you in the proper size, because you do look adorable.”
Drake disappeared into the bathroom as Cara laughed. As the door shut, she moved to the kitchen to get a glass of water.
Now what? She wanted to tell Drake about her conversation with Garner. But she wasn’t stupid either. Cara understood why he’d sought her out that rainy night.
It wasn’t for mere stimulating conversation.
The stupid thing was that if she hadn’t seen him standing there with Selena, a gut-wrenching reminder of the past smack in front of her, Cara knew exactly where their evening would’ve been headed.
The sound of the bathroom door scraping against the hardwood startled her, and she dropped the glass into the kitchen sink. It shattered, sending water and glass flying everywhere. The front of her T-shirt was soaked, but she was otherwise unharmed.
Drake appeared, barefoot but clothed, and Cara held out her hand to forestall his progress.
“Just dropped a glass, don’t move,” she said.
“You’re in more danger than me,” he said. “Where are your shoes?”
She pointed to the porch, and Drake, watching every step he took, crept to the front door. He retrieved her sandals and tossed them to her before grabbing his own soggy athletic shoes and slipping them on. He then went to a closet in the laundry area, pulled out a broom and dustpan, and went back to the kitchen to help clean up.
“I need a new shirt,” she said, looking down. “I’m tired of wet clothes.”
Squatting on the floor to brush the broken glass into the dustpan, Drake glanced at her.
“I thought I was tired of wet clothes too,” he said, standing with the dustpan and eyeing her chest. “But I think I just changed my mind.”
“Says the man who’s wearing dry clothes.”
Wordlessly, Drake dumped the glass into the garbage can, placed the dustpan on the floor, and propped the broom against the wall. He turned to her, not smiling, but with those crystalline blue eyes blazing.
“Says the man who thinks you’re beautiful.”
This was why he had come here that night.
Drake was there to claim her, to ask her to completely surrender to him. And she had no idea whether that was the right thing to do. She knew she wanted him, but her fears, doubts, memories, washed over her.
Her rational mind conjured up a thousand excuses why she shouldn’t make love to this man. Thoughts of Nate, her late husband, her mother, Selena, and even the thought of her budding judicial campaign taunted her, telling her it wasn’t wise to get involved with Drake.
Brain against body, head against heart.
The classic battle raged within her as the storm continued to rage outside the cabin, and the lights flickered ominously, momentarily plunging the cabin’s interior into near darkness.
She froze, and Drake placed his hands on her hips, making her shiver. Cara saw the shadow of unease pass over his face as he sensed her fear. He dropped his hands from her hips and stepped back.
“I didn’t come here to seduce you, Cara.”
“Then why did you come here tonight? Besides just wanting to see me, I hope?”
“I missed you. And I guess I wanted to see if you’d seduce me.”
“You’re the one who came and found me. I think you have the roles reversed.”
“I didn’t find you alone here. I went to the lodge.”
“But you knew I had a cabin,” she countered, pointing at him. “I told you I did.”
“And you let me drive you back to this cabin in the pouring rain.”
“Yes, I did,” she acknowledged. “How very chivalrous of you, kind sir,” she said with a curtsy.
“And I’ll leave you in peace, m’lady, if that is your heart’s desire,” he mocked and bowed.
“I don’t want you to go, at least yet. I haven’t even had the chance to tell you about my terrible date with Garner Robson. If you drove all the way here to see me, you’re going to have to listen to me unload on that man.”
Cara knew she’d only delay the conversation—or the seduction—by bringing up Garner, but she wasn’t ready to show Drake the front door or the bedroom door just yet.
She took him by the hand and led him to the couch, where she told of Garner’s tactlessness imperfectly hidden beneath a veneer of mostly polite conversation. She gleefully recounted the moment when she’d dropped CiCi’s name and Garner’s reaction to it.
“I told you what he was like,” Drake said.
“Yes, I was well warned. And I think I managed to escape without revealing too much about myself. It did strike me odd that he didn’t know I was a widow. Seems like the kind of tidbit someone like him could easily dig up on a political opponent.”
“Maybe he’s losing his connections,” suggested Drake.
“I’m not counting on that. Nonetheless, I feel like I mostly extricated myself from the situation without giving the enemy too much information. Well, at least until you showed up.”
Drake looked insulted. “What does that mean?”
“That I hadn’t told him about my private life. He quickly cottoned to the fact that we’re a couple.”
“Why hadn’t you told him?”
“It hadn’t come up, and I wasn’t eager to give him information. Did you think he had changed since you last saw him?”
“It’s been a while, but he did seem a bit more relaxed. Maybe marriage and family has had that effect. But from what you’ve said, the core of his personality remains unchanged. Ambitious and self-absorbed. Your instincts were likely right to be guarded around a political animal like Garner Robson. Sorry I gave us away.”
“I guess it would’ve gotten back to him one way or another. It’s not like us being together is a secret in Bourbon Springs.”
Drake took her hand, and an uncomfortable silence fell over them. This was something more than simple sexual tension.
“I think I have a confession to make.” He stroked the top of her hand with his thumb, not looking her in the eye. “I’m feeling insecure.”
She blinked, unsure whether she’d heard him correctly. “Insecure? You? About what?”
“Us.”
“Drake, this sounds like a we-have-to-talk talk.”
“I guess it is,” he said with a laugh. “Maybe I’m overreacting, but I saw how you looked at Selena tonight. You wanted the woman to disappear from your sight. The stupid thing is I got that same vibe from Selena. She wanted nothing to do with you and wanted to get away from us. And when I first mentioned Selena’s name to you as someone I’d dated, I also felt something from you that went beyond mild animosity because Selena happened to be a former girlfriend.”
Damn.
He’d picked up on that shiver of hatred. She should’ve remembered Drake was attuned to the ripples of feeling between people. He was an excellent, intuitive lawyer, and she had seen him completely deconstruct people on the witness stand when he sensed something was just not right w
ith their story. When he knew the real story was there to be uncovered.
This was not a conversation Cara wanted to have with him at this point. In fact, she’d thought she might be able to completely avoid this sensitive discussion with Drake. He was walking into a delicate area, toward a truth that only her mother, Selena, and one other person knew.
“I was surprised to see you, that’s all.”
“No, it’s not.” He dropped her hands and leaned away from her. “I can tell. And you’re not being honest with me.”
“I’m not lying to you.” Offended and angry that he was pressing the issue, she stood and glared at him.
“Then admit that seeing her bothered you.”
“Why? To feed your ego?”
“So it did bother you?”
“This isn’t cross-examination,” she said between clenched teeth, “and you will not treat me like some police officer you’ve got on the stand.”
Drake stood and squarely faced her. “I know you’re not being straight with me because I know how it feels to be deceived by someone I’m falling for. And can you guess who did that to me? Not Pepper—she was upfront and honest. So who does that leave?”
“Drake, I—”
“Selena,” he said, interrupting her. “She lied to me for months about how she was over her secret former lover or whoever the hell it was. You know what that was like? Trying to compete with a ghost? I’m not sure I can say I loved Selena, but I sure as hell tried to get to know her, to understand her, to develop something with her. But I couldn’t, and it was because of the lie she kept telling me or the truth she refused acknowledge. So I wasted my time, the most precious thing anyone possesses. I lost those months, I lost my hope, all because she couldn’t simply admit to me that someone else was more important to her.
“So when I tell you I know you’re not being open with me, don’t just think it’s because I’ve got my lawyer hat on. While those skills serve me well in life, I’ve also learned hard lessons in my personal life. So what’s the problem? Because it’s killing me.”
12
Bourbon Springs Box Set: Volume III, Books 7-9 (Bourbon Springs Box Sets Book 3) Page 67