Clay’s eyes opened.
George was there, strong and soft and decent and the only person he’d ever wanted with such intensity.
“Come here,” he scraped out, needing her.
“I think you should be the one to get up,” she said, although she had to see how mixed up he was right now—she had to.
But he did it anyway. He stood, his leg miraculously holding him, and limped the few steps to where she sat, enveloped in her bewitching brand of night music.
“Why’d you put this song on?” he asked.
Her brows lifted. “‘Hallelujah’?”
“Yeah.”
“I love this song.”
“You love a lot of songs.”
Her smile looked confused. “I do.”
“You seem to…” He cleared his throat, started over again. “To love a lot of things.”
“Love?” She shrugged. “There’s no reason not to. It’s not like we’re given a finite amount of love at birth.”
“Oh yeah? You got enough to spare?” Clay didn’t realize until he’d said the words quite how they’d sound, but once they were out, their meaning spun dangerously in the air between them.
“You just going to stand there?” George asked, looking up at him through her lashes. It occurred to him that she was toying with him. He was dying inside, or coming awake, or something equally painful, and this woman was flirting.
“May I have this dance?” he asked, holding out his hand to the strains of heavenly guitar.
George stood. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“What?” Clay asked. “You think this is more dangerous than what we did on the steps? In the shower? Your bed? Your goddamn office? It’s just a dance,” he lied.
She looked at him, her eyes big and liquid. “It’s never just anything with us, Clay, is it?”
God, he loved the sound of his name on her lips.
He pulled her into his arms, probably too warm for this heat, but so elemental that temperature didn’t matter. Your own skin is always just right, after all. Slowly, he moved, and their bodies shifted together to the sad, sad music, with nobody but a cat and bats and a million little insects to witness them.
Her head felt perfect on his chest, over his collarbone, and he danced—something he’d never thought to do again.
Finally, finally, the song came to its mournful end, and they stilled, standing together, breathing—just breathing. And, through the deafening white noise, he could feel one thing perfectly: the beating of this woman’s heart against his.
“Jesus, lady,” Clay whispered into the top of her head. “What the hell are you doing to me?”
* * *
Clay kissed her on the porch, in the kitchen, and by the front door, leaving her waiting, dazed, when he ran out to his truck for something. Then, again on the stairs, a shivering flashback to two nights before. He filled her with wonder, this big man with his rough hands and hard eyes, whose lips were plush and tender, too soft to make sense, but perfect, perfect against hers.
He urged her up the last few steps, then into her room, where clothes started coming off, and they landed on her bed in a messy, moaning heap, nothing but underwear separating them.
“I can’t…” his gruff voice started, and she knew, she knew exactly what he meant, but she couldn’t either. She couldn’t get enough, wanted to consume him, eat him, pour him inside her, meld and melt and come apart with him. Her hands on him made him groan until he moved them off.
“You know I can’t. Can’t last if you touch me like that.”
“Like what?”
