“Yes, of course,” said Lord Sterling, his voice still a little choked. I was shocked when I glanced at him to see a slight sheen of wet over his eyes. I didn’t think it was possible to find the man any more attractive. But seeing how much it meant to him to have this connection with his son restored almost made me melt into the sofa.
And then Ozzie raced off to the snug, and it was just me and Lord Sterling sitting on the sofa together. I was about to get up and mumble an excuse, but when I glanced up at him, I couldn’t look away. Our eyes held for a long moment, and I felt that intense connection flare again. It was like there was an invisible force flowing between us, anchoring us to each other somehow.
“Clara,” he murmured in a low voice. I watched as his pupils dilated, leaving only a thin circle of blue fire around them. His hand reached up and slid across my jawline into my hair at the nape of my neck, and he tilted my head back. My heart was hammering in my chest, my breathing choppy, but I didn’t pull away. When his lips brushed mine, I jolted slightly and he pulled back.
“Shit, I’m sorry, Clara,” he said, his voice still hoarse but now with an edge of regret. “I shouldn’t have?—”
I didn’t want to hear the brush-off that was coming. This was the culmination of all my fantasies, and I wasn’t letting anything stand in my way. So, both my hands flew up into his gorgeous, thick hair to pull his head down so that I could seal my mouth over his in an inexpert, clumsy, overly enthusiastic kiss.
When my mouth opened under his and his tongue slid inside, it felt as though I left my body for a moment. I was burning up from the inside out as I scrambled to move so that I was flush with his hard torso. My glasses got in the way, so I snatched them off my head and threw them onto the floor, not caring what happened to them, which was crazy for me – I always,alwayswanted to know where my glasses were.
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered against my mouth as I rocked against him. One of my hands went under his suit jacket to feel his hard, muscular warmth under his shirt.
“Rafe,” I breathed, using his first name for the first time ever, but I was too caught up in my lust-induced haze to notice.
He lowered me back onto the sofa, and my head rested on the cushions as he kissed down my throat to my collarbone. His hand slid up under my jumper onto the skin of my stomach above my leggings. I shivered. I could feel him everywhere: his warmth, his strength, his dynamic energy. I was drowning in him.
And then suddenly he was gone…
I blinked in confusion, trying to get my bearings as Lord Sterling jumped up from the sofa. But everything was blurry.
“Were you guys wrestling?” I heard Ozzie say from a few feet away as I scrambled up to sitting, then started to search the floor for my glasses. I knew I should have been horrified, but I was still on a massive high from kissing the man I’d had a crush on for the last six months, and I felt safe in this house. So safe that once I found my glasses and sat back on the sofa to look over at father and son, I almost burst out laughing.
Lord Sterling cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortablyon his feet as his son looked at me and then his father expectantly.
“Clara lost her glasses,” said Lord Sterling in a hoarse voice. “I was trying to help her find them.”
“By lying on top of her?” Ozzie asked.
Chapter 15
Elaborate fantasies
Rafe
I’d hadmany adversaries in my life and, not to be too arrogant, I’d bested them all. Whether it was the fierce competition within my profession to rise to the top, or the dangerous criminals that I routinely prosecuted, I always came out the winner. With my career, I would stop at nothing to get what I wanted. Iwouldbe one of the youngest judges ever to be appointed in the UK. Nothing was going to stop me.
So why, then, was a five-foot-nothing, shy little schoolteacher managing to best me now?
After the horror of my seven-year-old son interrupting the best kiss of my life, I’d taken Ozzie upstairs to get him ready for bed. This involved an extremely uncomfortable conversation about how I’d tripped and fallen onto Miss Clara, and how she was moaning because of how heavy I was. When that fresh hell was finally over, I came back down to the kitchen, but Clara was gone.
I went to her bedroom feeling like a fucking stalker, butthe door was locked and she didn’t respond to my gentle knock. Seeing as her bedroom was right next to Ozzie’s, I did not think it appropriate to start banging on the thick oak like a caveman.
After a while I started to feel like a piece of shit for both coming on to an employee and possibly scarring my son. I did want to apologise to Clara, but, really, I just wanted to see her again. Inappropriate as it was, I simply couldn’t stay away from this woman any longer. And there were things to be said. I needed to make sure that she knew her job with me was not at risk, whatever happened between us. That I respected her and her bond with my son, that I would never do anything to jeopardise that. That I knew I was in a position of power, and I did not want to be the kind of lowlife who exploited that.
But I’d never be able to say any of this if I couldn’t speak to the woman.
The next morning, Clara only emerged just before it was time to take Ozzie to school, and I had to leave for court, so I barely saw her. That evening I got caught up in those two cases that had been dumped on me, both of which were proving to be a fucking nightmare since I’d taken them on, and by the time I was home, Clara was gone, and Martha was babysitting.
“Where’s Clara?” I snapped at Martha. “She should be here.”
Martha, who didn’t take any of my shit, raised her eyebrows at me. “Watch yourself, young man,” she said. “That girl is not your indentured servant, you realise. She’s gone out.”
“Gone out?” I said in surprise.
Clara never went out. She liked my house. I could tell she did, and it gave me a huge sense of satisfaction. Herfeatures always relaxed when she arrived home. Even if she’d just popped out to the corner shop, she was always happy to have come back. And she never went out willingly.
“Yes, she went with her friend Lily,” Martha told me. “The girl’s allowed to have a social life, Rafe.”
