Take Me Home (25 page)

Holly entwined her fingers with Claire’s. “I don’t want Brianna and Kayleigh to know. No matter what he did to me, Frank’s their father. I don’t want to turn him into a monster in their eyes. That’s why I didn’t want the police involved.”

“That’s going to be really difficult.”

“We have to find a way, for the children’s sake.”

Claire nodded a silent promise, but she wasn’t sure how to carry it out.

“Will you be with me when I tell the girls about the divorce?”

“I thought you wanted to—”

Holly interrupted by shaking her head. “They’re going to need your love to help them deal with it. I saw how strong that was this afternoon.”

Claire couldn’t untangle the ball of emotions inside her enough to speak. She nodded again. Then she and Holly were in each other’s arms, crying and saying how they’d missed each other.

“When do you want to tell them?” Claire said, as they sat back and wiped their eyes.

“Tomorrow. I can’t handle any more drama today.”

T
IM WAS RELIEVED
to find patients still waiting for him at the veterinary hospital. The ever-efficient Estelle had rescheduled some and shuffled around others, so for a couple of hours, he was too busy to think about Claire and how he’d felt when Frank grabbed her. Finally, the last patient padded through the exit, and he shrugged out of his soiled white lab jacket and tossed it in the hamper.

“Everything up front is shut down,” Estelle said, appearing in the door to his office. “I’m glad the little girls got home safely.”

“So am I. Thanks for handling the crisis here.”

“Children should not be taken out of school without a very strong reason,” Estelle said.

Tim chuckled at her teacher’s disapproval of playing hooky. “You’re a treasure.”

“Pffft!” she said, giving him a dismissive wave as she pivoted on her heel and left.

He scraped a hand through his hair and realized he was both too tired and too wound up to attempt doing paperwork. However, he judged Claire wouldn’t be done with her duties at her sister’s house for another couple of hours.

That left too much time to remember how he had screwed up and left Claire to face Frank alone. While he was being polite to Judy McElhenny, that slimy bastard had manhandled Claire.

He kicked at the trash can by his desk, making it clatter on the tile floor.

He almost wished Frank had refused to let her go. It would have justified smashing his fist into the man’s face, feeling the crunch of bone as he broke his nose. Of course, the person he was angriest with was himself for putting Claire in danger.

“I’m just going around in circles here.”

He forced himself to sit down at his desk, swiveling the chair around to face the computer. The door to the bathroom caught his eye, reminding him of the shower Dr. Messer had installed there. Evidently, Messer’s wife complained when he came home covered in farm dirt, so the vet had built a roomy stall with a rain showerhead. Tim had never used it since the smellier he was, the more interesting Sprocket found him when he walked in the door.

Right now, a hot shower sounded like just what the doctor would order for himself.

He stripped down to his boxers, draping his shirt and jeans neatly over the desk chair. Then he headed for the bathroom, where he hung his underwear on the back of the door and cranked up the shower as hot as he could stand it. When the steaming water hit his skin, he groaned out loud at the sheer luxury of it, dropping his head forward so the jets pounded the tired, tense muscles in his neck and shoulders.

Once the initial shock of pleasure wore off, his mind wandered. Nothing he did could keep it away from Claire. When he remembered coming out of the barn to see Frank’s fist clamped around her arm, fear slugged him in the gut again. If Frank had hauled off and hit her, she wouldn’t have been able to avoid the blow. She was like a mother bear, drawing the attacker away from her cubs.

Then Claire had called him her hero. He braced his arm against the tile wall as he felt the kick in the gut all over again.

How many times had Anais said that to him?

Yet she hadn’t trusted him to live up to it. He had told her they could win the battle against the disease. He had offered his strength, his medical expertise, and his love, but she had chosen to die instead.

He threw his head back and let the water smash into his face so it would wash away the tears coursing down his cheeks. He’d been battling this anger at his dead wife for so long it felt good to give in to it, to be pissed off that she didn’t believe in him enough to stand and fight. He had been there beside her, and she had chosen to give up without a fight. Not like Claire, who stood and looked fear in the face.

He slammed his fist into the wall, making the glass doors rattle in their stainless steel track. “God damn it, Anais! We could have beaten it!” he shouted. “You should have had more faith in me. I was there!”

As the anger drained away, he slumped against the wet tile. Exhaustion swept over him, and yet he felt lighter. Some pain inside him seemed to loosen its talons.

He grabbed a bar of soap and gave himself a quick wash.

As he was rinsing, the bathroom door opened a crack. “Tim? Are you in there?” Claire’s voice came through the opening. “Holly and the girls went to bed early. You didn’t answer your cell, so I figured I’d just drive over here.”

His exhaustion lifted. He felt a smile tug at the corners of his lips. “Come on in.”

He heard Claire laugh, and then the door opened wide and he saw her wavering outline through the frosted shower doors. “Oh, darn, the view isn’t as good as I hoped,” she said.

“I can fix that.” He slid open the shower door and reached for the towel he’d hung on the nearby hook. It wasn’t there.

“Is this what you’re looking for?” Claire dangled the towel from her fingertip. She had changed out of her riding clothes and
was wearing a denim skirt, a white T-shirt, and little flat sandals. Her face was bare of makeup, and her hair was pulled up into a simple ponytail that swung down her back. She looked different. Younger. Happier. Sexy as hell.

She dropped her gaze to his feet and let it travel upward with a long stop at about groin level.

“I guess you’re glad to see me,” she said.

He stepped out of the shower and walked toward her, dripping a trail of water as he went.

“You’ll get me all wet,” she said, backing up until she bumped against the wall.

“You read my mind.”

She thrust the towel out in front of her, her face alight with disbelieving laughter. He closed his fingers around her wrist and moved her arm out of the way so he could sandwich her between his wet skin and the plasterboard.

She gasped as his erection came in contact with her stomach. He bit back a groan as the water soaked through the cotton of her shirt and bra so he could feel her nipples harden against his bare chest.

When she dropped the towel and slid her hands over his buttocks, her palms warm and slick with the droplets from his shower, her nails feathering over his taut muscles, he gave up on self-control and moaned her name out loud.

Claire couldn’t believe it when Tim came stalking out of the shower stark naked, streaming water all over the floor. Whatever dark mood had possessed him the night before seemed to have been burned away by the light of day. Now he looked like some elemental mer-god, his body glistening, his hair slicked back over his skull. She thought he was coming to take the towel from her, but it got so much better than that.

As he pressed against her, she felt the water soak through her clothes to her skin, transferring his heat to her. She ran her hands over his buttocks, up his back, across his shoulders, and down again, gliding along the gorgeous arcs and angles of his muscles and tendons.

Where drops of water beaded on his skin, she licked them off, savoring the taste of clean male. As her tongue touched his nipple, his hips rocked against her and he groaned.

“This was supposed to be your punishment, not mine,” he rasped.

“You consider this punishment?” She licked his other nipple.

He took her head in both hands and tilted it up and away from his chest. “How wet are you?” he asked with a wicked undertone.

“Soaking,” she purred back.

He kissed her, teasing her lips with his tongue. Then, without warning, he scooped her up and carried her out of the bathroom and into his office. It was the second time he’d picked her up, and she was starting to enjoy these casual demonstrations of his strength.

He rounded the metal desk and sank into the leather executive chair behind it, cradling her on his lap. Her skirt had hiked up, so all that separated her from his erection was the sheer cotton of her panties. The contact sent a shock of electric pleasure sizzling through her body. She arched backward in his arms, gasping.

He slid one hand up the inside of her thigh and pushed aside her panty with his thumb, slipping one finger inside her. She opened her thighs and pushed against his hand, needing motion and pressure. “More!”

“Whatever you say.” He withdrew and then thrust two fingers inside her, while finding her most sensitive spot with his thumb.

She sprawled across his thighs, bucking with the motion of his fingers, feeling the delicious heat building deep inside her. She let her gaze travel up the beautiful contours of his torso to revel in his expression of total focus. He changed the angle of his hand, and suddenly, the pleasure tightened and exploded. “Oh yes! Yes! Yes!” she gasped with each contraction, her muscles clenching so hard her back bowed upward off his lap.

“Easy, sweetheart,” he said, shifting one hand to protect her head from the wooden frame of the chair arm.

As the spasms weakened to mere shudders, she sank back down and curled into him. She loved the fact that he put his arms around her and nestled her closer, even though she could feel his own unsatisfied arousal against the back of her thighs. “Give me a couple of minutes,” she said. “I think I pulled some internal muscles with that one.”

“Take your time.” She felt the brush of his lips on the top of her head and heard a smile in his voice. “I’m basking in your afterglow.”

“It was the sight of you stepping out of the shower. Like a Michelangelo sculpture come to life. In fact, you’re almost the same size as
David
.”

“Now there’s a comparison I don’t mind at all.”

She pressed her ear closer against his skin, loving the vibration of his deep voice. “I was talking about your height.”

“So was I.”

“Liar!” She lifted her head to meet his eyes. A dancing imp of mischief lit their gray depths. That was all it took to set desire stirring in her again.

She squirmed out of his arms, deliberately rocking against his erection for both their benefits. Hooking her fingers into her panties, she pulled them down to her ankles and kicked them off. Then she planted her knees on either side of his thighs, letting his cock spring up between them.

He seized the hem of her damp shirt and stripped it off over her head as she raised her arms. Before she could unhook her bra, he wrapped his hands around her rib cage and pulled her toward him so he could suck on her nipple through the sheer lace. The inner muscles she thought were completely drained of energy revived and tightened at the sensations of heat and moisture and pressure.

She reached down and circled the tip of his erection, making him growl against her breast. She stroked down his length and back up again. He shifted his grip so one hand was splayed across her back to hold her against his mouth while the other pushed her denim skirt up to bunch around her waist. Then his cock was between her legs, and she held her breath, waiting for the thrust that would fill the craving inside her.

“Damn it! I need a condom,” he said.

She collapsed against him, stifling laughter, as he reached behind his back to scrabble at the clothes hanging over the chair.

“L-l-let me help,” she gasped through her fits of giggling. “I have a better angle.”

“In the pocket of my jeans,” he said through gritted teeth.

She stretched her arms past him and slipped her hands into various pockets, finally locating two foil packets and pulling them out.