Page 23 of Clayton (Bourbon & Blood #2)

Thirteen

ANNALEE

T hey finally discharged us both and I feel like we’ve been there for hours. I glance up at the clock as we’re making our way outside and I realize we have actually been there for hours. Three of them, to be precise.

I look at Clayton over my shoulder. He looks exhausted and I know I don’t look much better. “This day has been endless.”

“Let’s just go home. I want a shower…preferably with you and then I want to sleep for about twelve hours,” he replies.

Heaven couldn’t be better than that sounds. “No funny business in the shower. Neither one of us is allowed to get our stitches wet or do that much lifting.”

“I’m probably too tired anyway,” he says, and opens the car door for me.

He kisses me and while it was intended to be a quick kiss, it doesn’t stay that way.

His lips move over mine and his tongue glides over the curve of my bottom lip.

Resisting that is impossible. By the time he pulls back, we’re both breathless and I can feel the heat pooling between my thighs.

With nothing but a kiss, he makes me crazy.

“So much for sleeping,” he says. “I’ve missed you. Every goddamn day, I’ve missed you.”

“Just get me home and take me to bed. You can prove it.”

The drive home is fast. Mia is sitting in the living room and Emma Grace is long since passed out in her bed. Mia looks from Clayton to me and then just shakes her head. “You both look like the walking dead.”

I smile even though I don’t really want to. I really want to yell at her to get the hell on out so he can rip my clothes off. Instead, I say, “We both kind of feel like it too.”

Mia gets up off the couch and grabs her purse. “I can take a hint. I’ll see you at Emma Grace’s recital.”

When she’s gone, the door locked behind her, Clayton is on me instantly. His mouth is on my neck, his hands are stripping my clothes off.

“Emma Grace is upstairs,” I protest.

“The office,” he whispers. “The door locks.”

It’s also ten feet away. I move quickly and he’s right behind me. The door closes softly and the clicking of the lock is impossibly loud. I’m already stripping.

I’m exhausted beyond belief. The events of the day have left me raw, like an exposed nerve. All the emotions are running hot and close to the surface, but I need this. I need him. To forget. To feel. To just escape into something blissful for a few minutes.

He’s behind me, and I can feel his naked chest at my back as he guides me forward until I can lean over on the desk.

His hands are on my back, stroking down over the curve of my hips, then cupping my ass.

He pulls me up until I’m on my toes, my legs spread just a little.

His hand slides between my thighs. I’m so wet for him already.

I don’t need any foreplay. Just him. Sinking into me. Filling me up.

“I need you,” I whisper, and the sound is so broken I can barely recognize my voice.

“Tell me what you need, baby,” he says softly and slips two fingers inside me. I arch my hips back against him, wanting more.

“Just fuck me…please. Don’t make me wait. Don’t make me beg.”

I hear his zipper and then I feel him pressing against me, the velvety soft head brushing against my thighs. I press my forehead against the cool desktop and part my thighs just a bit wider. His breath hisses out, the sound so loud in the room. Then he’s pushing into me, sinking in slowly.

I can feel every inch of him and I can’t hold back the moan or the shiver.

His fingers are gripping my hips tightly, digging into my flesh.

He begins to move, withdrawing in long, slow strokes only to plunge in again, more forcefully, deeper.

My whole body tenses in anticipation of that thrust, of the power and the heat of him.

One of his skilled and oh-so wicked hands moves from my hip, sliding over my belly, then lower until he’s lightly strumming my clit in time with each thrust. I’ve got a death grip on the edge of the desk now and I can’t hold back the shattered moans as he plays my body like an instrument.

My legs are trembling, the muscles of my thighs quivering as he strokes into me again and again.

Everything inside me is coiled tight, the tension building to that razor edge between pleasure and pain.

When his other hand moves up to my hair, gripping it tightly and pulling my head back, it simply snaps, the climax pulsing through me in time to the beat of my heart.

Clayton’s movements become faster, rougher, and then he stiffens against, his hand clenching my hair even tighter. The flood of warmth as he comes inside me only heightens the tiny aftershocks of my own release, making me shiver beneath him.

When he leans forward and presses a kiss between my shoulder blades, I can’t help but smile. There’s always a contradiction in him, equal parts demanding and tender, gentle but with a firm touch. He is simply everything I have ever needed and more.

“We need a bed,” he whispers. “Before we both fall over.”

“You started it,” I point out. He’s moved away from me, and I immediately miss the warmth of him as I’m gathering my discarded clothes.

“You’re kind of irresistible…and we’ve got some lost time to make up for,” he says softly.

We do, but for now, all I want is to go to sleep with his arms wrapped around me.

I want to wake up with his leg draped over, pinning me to the bed while I desperately try to figure out how to manage going to pee and not waking him up.

It’s funny the things you miss. The smell of his cologne, the fact that my side of the bed looked like a tornado had come through while his was barely disturbed, his often smart-ass remarks—all of those things have been missing from my life for a year, and now I get them back.

It’s overwhelming and I’m alternately grateful and terrified.

I don’t want to need him again, I don’t want to be afraid of losing him again, but it’s there, an incessant whisper in the back of my mind.

“Stop thinking,” he says.

“Easy for you to say. I’m worried,” I admit.

He’s adjusted his clothes and looks moderately put together.

I look like I’ve just been bent over a desk.

“I’m worried—” It’s a hard thing to confess, to put into words.

“Worried this won’t work. That somehow we’re going to end up right back where we started…

you’ll be keeping secrets and I’ll be jealous and insecure, wondering if it’s another woman, or worse, and you just don’t care anymore. ”

He pulls me into his arms, holding on to me tightly.

I resent how right it feels. Yes, he’s moving back in.

Yes, the divorce has been called to a screaming halt.

But we’re not who we were a year ago, two years ago.

This thing is still between us, a wall of solid ice over the parts of us that hurt the most. The only thing that will melt it is time, but if I can’t get a handle on my fear and if I can’t stop looking for all the ways it won’t work, that’s a chance we’ll never get.

“Let’s go to bed,” I whisper. “I just can’t think anymore tonight.”

“It’s going to be okay,” he says softly.

“How do you know that?”

“Because I’ll do whatever it takes to make it okay.” His tone is firm despite the gentleness of his voice. It’s so typical of him, but it makes me hopeful and I need that.