This thing with Clara hadn’t been right from the beginning, because he hadn’t managed to put her in her place for their affair. He hadn’t separated their friendship from it. That was why he’d shared with her, held her while she slept. That was why he’d started feeling things.
But he knew it now. He knew what he had to do. He could still have her. He could get a handle on everything, and then he could have her. He touched the necklace between her breasts, fingers sliding over the gem. A reminder of exactly what they had between them.
She tried to turn and he held her so she was facing the window, away from him. He reached over and picked up a condom sheathing himself and turning her to the side so that she was standing in front of the couch.
“Hold on to the back of it,” he said. She obeyed, bending at the waist, gripping the back of the couch. She looked back at him, her eyes round, questioning. Familiar.
He chose not to focus on her face. He gripped her hips, looked at the curve of her hips, how her body dipped in beautifully, perfectly, at her waist.
He positioned himself at the entrance to her body.
She made a short, low sound that vibrated through her. “Okay?” he asked, his teeth gritted tight, every ounce of control spent on moving slowly, on not thrusting in to her the rest of the way and satisfying the need that was roaring inside of him.
“Yes,” she said.
He pushed into her the rest of the way, her body so hot and tight it took every ounce of his willpower to keep from coming the moment he was inside.
“Oh, Zack,” she breathed. “Zack.”
His name on her lips, her voice, so utterly Clara. So familiar and still so exciting.
Clara. Her name was in his head on his lips, with each and every thrust, with each sweet pulse of her internal muscles around his shaft.
And suddenly there was no denying it. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t see her face. Her smell, the feel of her skin beneath his fingertips, the way it felt to be in her body, all of it was pure, undeniable Clara Davis.
The woman who baked orange cupcakes and had a pink wreath on the door. The woman knew about his past, about the darkest moments of his life. The woman who smiled at him every morning. Who could always make him smile, no matter what. Who put powdered creamer in his coffee when he made her angry.
The woman who lit him on fire, body and soul.
He couldn’t pretend she was someone else, or that it didn’t matter who she was. There was no way. No one had ever been like her before, no one ever would be.
He had no control. He had nothing. He was at her mercy. If he’d had to get on his knees and beg her for a kiss tonight he would have done it, because he needed her.
Not just in a purely sexual sense. He needed her.
His climax built, hard and fast, the pitch too steep, too unexpected for him to control. He put his hand between her thighs and stroked her, trying to bring her with him. Her body tightened around him, her orgasm hitting hard and fast. When she cried out her pleasure, then he let go.
“Clara,” he whispered, resting his forehead on her back as he gave in. As he let the release crash through him, devastating everything in its path.
He released his hold on her hips, his body shaking, spent as though he’d just battled his way through a storm. Sweat made his skin slick all over. His hands were trembling, his breathing sharp and jagged.
He looked at her. At Clara. There were red marks on her hips where his fingers had pressed into her flesh. Where he had lost all control. He brushed his fingers along the part where he’d marked her, his chest tightening, regret forming, a knot he couldn’t breathe around.
She turned to look at him, a smile on her lips. She straightened, naked and completely unconcerned about it. Nothing like she’d been at first. Her confidence, the fact that she felt beautiful, shone from her face.
Her beautiful face. Unique. Essential. So damn important.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She blushed, looking away from him. “Didn’t I tell you not to apologize to me all the time?”
“What about when I need to?” he asked, moving toward where she was standing, brushing his fingertips over her hips. “I was holding on to you too tightly,” he whispered.
She met his eyes and they held. He saw deep, intense emotion there. A connection, affection. Something real. It wasn’t part of a facade, or a game. It was the way she always looked at him, whether they were in his office, in her living room or in bed. She was the same woman. She cared for him. She looked at him like he mattered to her.
The realization rocked him, filled him. Every piece and fiber of his being absorbing it. It made it easier to breathe, as though he hadn’t truly been drawing in breath for years and now he was again.
For the first time in fourteen years. Since he’d lost his reason for breath, his desire to give any sort of emotion, to give of himself. He felt like he’d found it again. In Clara’s eyes.
“I didn’t mind,” she said.
The moment, the tiny sliver of freedom he felt evaporated, chased away by a biting, clawing panic that was working from his stomach up through his chest. He had felt this way before and it had ended in utter destruction.
He knew what this was. And he knew he couldn’t have it. Wouldn’t allow himself to have it. Not ever. Not ever again.
He took a step away from her and bent down, picking her dress up from the floor, rubbing his fingers over the sequins. He felt choked, like his throat was closing in on itself, like his chest was too full for his lungs to expand.
He could do it. He could have her still, keep her where she belonged in his life. In his bed.
He had been careless again. He had lost control. He could find it again. He had to.
“Get dressed,” he said, handing her the gown.
“What?”
“I’ll drive you home.”
“What?” she said again.
He didn’t look at her face. He couldn’t.
“You and I are having an affair, Clara, I made that clear the other day. I don’t cuddle up with the women I’m having sex with at night, and I damn sure don’t have their toothbrush on my sink. That’s just how it works.”
“And I think I told you, I am not just one of your mistresses.”
“When you’re in my bed … or my couch, you are.”
“I am your friend,” she said, her voice ringing in the room.
“Not when we’re here, like this. Now, you’re just the woman I’m sleeping with. We aren’t going to curl up and watch a chick flick after what just happened.”
She jerked back, pulling her dress over her breasts. “I’m going to go get dressed. Send the car. I’m not riding back with you, and I’m not staying, not now so I think the decent thing to do, if you still remember decency, would be to arrange me a ride.”
“Clara …”
“We’ll talk tomorrow. I can’t now.”
She turned and walked away, her steps clumsy. She ducked into his downstairs bathroom and closed the door. He heard the click of the lock.
And he didn’t blame her. But he had to define the relationship, as much for her benefit as for his. Yes, he had lied. She was different. But she couldn’t be. It couldn’t happen.
He