Love in Bloom (25 page)

She felt her woman's center pulse around him, contract, tighten, clasp him with love.  She thought she couldn't know any more pleasure, any more closeness, until Clay shifted, brought his hand between them, and touched her so intimately she almost came off the bed.

The flood of sparkling, glorious sensations washed over her again and again and again.  "Clay, it's so wonderful.  Don't stop!"

He didn't.  With each thrust, she gasped and held him, glorying in the ecstasy.

Clay propped his hands on either side of her shoulders, kissed her with an intensity that took her above the clouds, above the moon, above the stars.  His strokes were slow and rhythmic until neither of them could control the pace turning frenzied and wild.

Then Clay shuddered, stilled, shuddered, and shuddered again.

****

Paige had fallen asleep in Clay's arms.  But Clay didn't sleep, wouldn't sleep.  He couldn't take the chance the nightmare would return.  Not when Paige was with him like this.

Like this.

It never should have happened.  She was a virgin!  Had been a virgin.  He should have known.  He should have guessed.  There'd been signs all along the way.  She wasn't world-wise.  She wasn't man-wise.  He'd mistaken honest passion for experience.

What he regretted most was the way it had happened.  He'd felt panicked, vulnerable, and he was afraid he'd used Paige as an escape.  That wasn't fair to her.  And if he'd known she was a virgin...

The first time should have been special, slow, easy, lingering.  It should have been music and flowers and wine.  He would have been careful with her, arousing her to such a high pitch she wouldn't have noticed the pain.

He should have stopped.  He should have...

Paige stirred against him.  She snuggled deeper into his shoulder, moved her fingers over his chest.  She was breathing deeply and he knew the movements were involuntary.  But they aroused him.  And he wanted her all over again.

Okay, he'd told her about the amnesia and she hadn't run in the opposite direction.  He'd seen the shock on her face, but he wasn't sure what it meant.  He'd felt too raw last night, too emotionally spent to discuss it.  So he didn't know how she really felt.

Just because she'd made love with him...he closed his eyes tight.  He knew better than anyone how compassionate Paige could be.  If that was why she'd come to him, if that was why she'd let him pull her into his bed, he had even more reason to regret last night, to regret Paige becoming an important part of his life.

****

Paige turned over, reached for the warmth she'd known all night, but found only a cool sheet.  She opened her eyes and squinted against the bright sunlight shining in the open window. 

Clay stood there in his gray jogging shorts, looking out.  His hand was propped high on the window frame.  The scars crisscrossed his shoulder.  She remembered the feel of them under her fingers.  She remembered the feel of him inside her.  She smiled.  Making love was much more extraordinary than all her clinical knowledge had led her to expect.

Clay must have felt her gaze on him.  He turned toward her, the sun shimmering in the few strands of gray in his hair.  The expression on his face was studiously neutral.  Much too neutral.

Her smile faded away and she propped on her elbow.  "How long have you been awake?" she asked, not knowing how to act the morning after, suspecting Clay didn't share her fulfillment or happiness.

"All night."

His bare chest, his wide shoulders were a distraction.  "But every time I woke, you were holding me."  She wished he was holding her now.

"I wasn't up.  I was awake."

"Why?"

He faced her squarely then and leaned against the windowsill.  "I didn't want to invite another nightmare."

"How often do you get them?"

"They stopped over a year ago.  They started again the day we took Ben to the lake."  His answer was dispassionate, as if it didn't matter.

"Oh, Clay."

His voice was harsh.  "I don't want your pity."

Suddenly she knew exactly what he was thinking, why he was so removed.  "You think last night was about pity?"  She sat up and crossed her legs Indian fashion under the sheet.

"I was shaken up after the nightmare."

"And you didn't know what you were doing?"

He scowled.  "I knew exactly what I was doing."

She straightened her shoulders.  "Good.  Because so did I.  And pity didn't enter into it."

His green eyes grew darker.  "Don't tell me you didn't feel sorry for me."

"Sorry?  The only thing I'm sorry about is that you couldn't trust me enough to tell me about the amnesia before last night.  How do you think I felt hearing about it at Ben's?  Why couldn't you trust me, Clay?  Why?"  She hadn't intended to throw all that at him now, but she had to know.

He was silent and she thought he might not answer.  But then he said, "Because I've been in this situation before.  People don't look at amnesia like a cold or the flu, Paige.  They don't look at it in the same way as a lost arm or leg.  They see it as a deficiency."

He was generalizing and lumping her in with everyone else.  That hurt.  "We're not talking about some people.  We're talking about me.  Why couldn't you trust me?"

"My father still doesn't accept it."

His father might be part of it, but not all of it.  "And who else?"

There was that look again, as if Clay wanted to pull her close and push her away at the same time.  "I dated a woman a couple of years ago."

"You told her about the amnesia?"

Clay didn't look at Paige, but at the wall behind her.  "One night she stayed,  I had a nightmare.  I'd gone a few months without one, so I thought it would be all right if she spent the night.  But it wasn't.  The nightmare was a bad one.  I don't know how long it went on.  She was scared out of her wits.  I can't blame her.  If that happened to a woman when I was with her..."

"You would hold her in your arms until the nightmare passed."

Her sureness brought his gaze back to hers.  "It's different for men and women."

Paige arched her brows.  "I don't see why."

He let that basis for argument pass.  "After I came out of it, I explained about the amnesia."

"And?"

He sighed.  "She tried to accept it."

"What do you mean she tried?"  If the woman loved Clay, accepting his past or a lack of one shouldn't have mattered.

"She pretended it didn't matter."

"How do you know it didn't?"

He thought about it for a moment.  "She'd give me these odd looks when she thought I didn't notice.  And she treated me differently."

"Like?"

"Like I wasn't all there.  Like I was less than I was before.  It was a...solicitous attitude, as you'd have with a child.  And she wouldn't stay overnight.  She told me outright she couldn't contend with the nightmares.  So the relationship crumbled.  We weren't equals anymore.  Everything was different.  Neither of us wanted it to be, but we couldn't help it."

"What was her name?"

He seemed surprised that she asked.  "Clare."

Paige sat up straighter in the bed.  "I'm not Clare."

He studied her carefully.  She could feel his eyes on her face, her bare shoulders.  "No, you're not.  But this time its worse.  Can't you see I used you last night for an escape?  I needed to feel strong, in control of something."  He gave a bitter laugh.  "Some kind of control.  I hadn't been with a woman in two years.  Just how do you think I feel this morning, Paige, knowing I took advantage of you?"

All of the emotion inside her, her love for Clay, her frustration with him, exploded.  "You're absolutely impossible!"  She threw her legs over the side of the bed and hopped up.  "If you think Ben Hockensmith is stubborn and can't see the forest for the trees, go look in your mirror.  I may have been a virgin, Clay, but I'm not stupid and I have a will of my own.  I climbed into bed with you last night, I kissed you, I made love with you because that's what I wanted."  She crossed to the door.  "When you clear your head of misguided chivalry, maybe we can talk as equals."

****

Until she met Clay, Paige had never realized just how angry she could get with a person.  She'd always gotten angry at circumstances, governments, man's inability to help his fellow man.  Maybe she'd never gotten this angry with anyone because she'd never cared about anyone the way she cared about Clay.  She wasn't sure who he was trying to protect, himself or her.

She dressed.  As she went down the hall, she saw Clay's bedroom door standing open.  Going downstairs, she wasn't surprised when she peered out the kitchen window and saw him in the backyard with Shep.  She took a long look.  He'd put on a pale blue T-shirt, but she remembered the powerful shoulders underneath.  His jogging shorts emphasized the strength of his thighs, the length of his legs.  She remembered them intertwined with hers.  She would not regret last night even if Clay did.

She pulled a pitcher of orange juice from the refrigerator and was pouring herself a glass when Clay came back in.  Shep trotted over to her, waited for her to scratch between his ears, then went to his food dish.

Paige was afraid to look at Clay, to have him deny again what last night had meant.  So she concentrated on her glass of juice.  "I didn't know if you wanted me to start breakfast or if you'd want to take me back to Doc's right away."

"I don't want to take you back to Doc's."

His gravelly tone made her meet his gaze.

He approached her slowly.  "I'm sorry I didn't tell you about the amnesia before we went to Ben's.  I thought it would be easier on both of us to let it come out the way it did, but I can see now that it wasn't."

Clay was close enough to touch.  But she didn't want to regret whatever happened next.  "If it hadn't been for Ben, would you have told me?"

"I was coming to that decision.  Ben's situation just pushed it a little."

She believed him, not just because she wanted to but because she knew Clay wouldn't lie to her.  "I want to understand, Clay.  About everything."

He reached out and caressed her cheek.  "I know you do.  But that might take some time--time we don't have if you go back to Africa."

She was purposely not thinking about Africa.  She'd have to do that soon enough.  "We can use the time we do have."

He rubbed his thumb across her chin.  "I'm sorry about last night, too."  When she opened her mouth to protest, he laid his fingers over her lips.  "It should have been special for you.  Not so...fast."

"It was special.  For me."

He must have seen the misgiving in her eyes, her worry that last night, had been just a release for him, nothing more.

He pulled her into his chest, against his heart.  "I've never known anything like last night, Paige, and I guess because of that, I tried to make it less than it was."