Almost Forever (32 page)

Since tearjerkers turned out to be in short supply, they watched
The Terminator.
Ruth Ann sat on one end of the couch, squealing between handfuls of popcorn, as Arnold Schwarzenegger cut a swathe through Los Angeles.

Andie sat quietly, hardly aware of what she was watching. By the time the terminator entered the police station and announced, “I'll be back,” Andie had made a decision.

She would talk to Clay tomorrow and tell him she was going to be leaving her job.

“C
lose the door.” Clay's voice was deadly calm.

Andie shut the door to Clay's office, though there was really no need. It was six-thirty at night and they were alone in the building.

“Now say that one more time, please.” He was sitting at the big mahogany desk that had been his father's.

She dragged in a deep breath. “I said, this is not working out for me. I'm giving notice. I'll stay two weeks to help you find someone else and then—”

He stood. “It's the middle of March.”

“I know that.”

“This is an accounting firm. You'll be leaving at precisely the busiest two weeks of the year.”

“It can't be helped.”

Clay swore crudely and succinctly. “Oh, yes it can.”

“Time is running out for me, Clay. If I want to find
another position before the baby's born, I have to start looking right away.”

“You're not quitting. You're going nowhere.”

Andie gaped at him. “Pardon me? I don't believe that you said that.”

“Believe it. It's true. You're not quitting.”

“I am.”

“You're not.”

“This is ridiculous.”

“You're damned right it is. What the hell goes through that mind of yours? You
need
this job—and this company needs you.”

“Well, thank you for admitting that I'm needed around here. You could have fooled me the past few days.”

“The past few days have been difficult. For both of us. I warned you that they would be.” Clay spoke very slowly, like someone trying to reason with an insane person.

Andie leaned back against the door she'd just shut, feeling the tiredness in every inch of her body. “I can't do this. I can't
stand
this. It isn't good for me. And it can't be good for my baby.”

“Then marry me.”

Tears filled Andie's eyes. She willed them back. She was not going to be some silly, weepy female over this. She'd made the best choice of a bad lot. And he would not dissuade her from what had to be done.

She straightened, pulling her shoulders up. “No, Clay. It won't work.”

“It will.” Slowly, he came around the desk toward her.

“Clay, don't…”

“Don't what?”

“You know what.”

“No. Tell me.”

She watched him approaching. Her body, so totally ex
hausted just a moment ago, was suddenly humming, pulsing with a restless, hot kind of energy.

“Tell me.” Clay's eyes were green fire. She couldn't stop looking into them.

Andie swallowed. “I…”

And then he was right there. So close that she could feel his body heat.

“This isn't fair.” Her voice held no conviction at all.

“I know.” Clay's tone was gentle now. He cupped her chin in his hand. His skin burned her. All her senses centered down to the touch of his flesh against hers. “It's just the way it is. Maybe the way it's always been. Did you ever think about that?”

Andie's mind had slowed; she couldn't think. “About what?”

Clay lowered his head just enough to brush his lips across hers. Down below, she went liquid. It was crazy. She softly moaned.

“About you and me,” Clay whispered against her mouth. “Fighting. Enemies for all those years. Your dad said something. Love and hate are very close….”

“You don't believe in love.”

“That's right. I don't. I want to kiss you. I want to be inside you.”

Andie gasped, both aroused and shocked at the bluntness of his words. “I don't…”

“Yes, you do. You want it. With me. Just like I want it with you. There's no point in your quitting. This will not go away.”

“It might.”

“It won't. It took too long. Years and years building up. And now it's not something we can get over in a day, or a week, a few months.”

“How do you know this?”

“I just do. It will take a very long time, I think.”

“It will?”

Clay nodded. And then he wrapped his fingers lightly around her neck. “Your skin is so soft. The other night, I remember thinking it was like rose petals.”

“Oh, Clay. This is not how I—”

“Shh. I know. I wasn't going to do this, either. Until I had your agreement to marry me. But here I am. Breaking my promise to myself. I should be ashamed. But I'm not.”

He looked so very vulnerable then that she smiled before she could stop herself.

“Ah,” he sighed. “A smile. I saw that. I've missed your smiles.”

“You have?”

“Absolutely. It's been so grim around here without them.”

“But it's because of you that I've been—”

“Shh, don't argue. Don't talk at all.”

“But I—”

He didn't let her finish. His mouth closed over hers, taking her denials into himself.

Andie sighed, already open for him. She felt his tongue breach the soft barrier of her lips and she didn't even pretend to evade it. She welcomed it, allowing him to explore her in this intimate way, even daring to meet his tongue with a few shy thrusts of her own.

Clay lifted his mouth enough to whisper, “Yes,” and then he slanted his lips the other way and kissed her some more.

His hand strayed downward, to the bow at the collar of her silk blouse. He pulled the ends of the bow and she heard a soft whisking sound as it slithered loose. Then he smoothed the tails open and slipped the collar button from its hole.

Andie's nipples ached, pebbling to attention as he lightly brushed them through her clothing. Her knees could hardly hold her up. She was grateful for the nice solid door to lean against.

Clay slipped the next button free and then the next, his
mouth playing over hers all the while. And then he was pulling the blouse free of her skirt, pushing it gently off her shoulders.

The blouse floated to the floor. He eased down the straps of her slip and then did the same with her bra straps, guiding them off her shoulders. Her bra fell away.

It came to her, distantly, that she was standing in Clay's office naked to the waist. He pulled her close and the tender skin of her breasts was pressed against the wool jacket of his suit. Her nipples, already aching, hardened even more. He rubbed himself against her, imprinting his body onto hers. She felt his desire through all the layers of their clothing.

“Oh, Clay…”

Andie nuzzled her head against the crook of his shoulder, aware of his scent. She put her lips to his strong neck, and parted them just enough that she tasted his skin.

Clay brought his hands between them, feeling for her breasts. He cupped them and rubbed the nipples between his fingers. She let her head fall back as she moaned.

But then, for no reason she could comprehend, he was gripping her shoulders, pushing her away, holding her at arm's length.

“What?” Andie murmured, confused, forcing herself to open her eyes and see what he wanted.

Clay's expression was unreadable. He looked at her face, her neck, her shoulders, her breasts. And then he muttered something so low that she couldn't make out the words.

Andie was dazed, yearning. She reached for him, wondering vaguely what was happening, wanting him close again, wanting his wonderful caresses never to stop.

Clay gripped her shoulders harder, holding her even farther away from him. “Andie.”

She blinked. “What?”

“Come home with me tonight.”

She blinked again. It was all too fast for her. She had to get away from him, get a moment to collect herself. But there was nowhere to go, so she pressed her body harder against the door. And then she slowly bent to retrieve her blouse and bra.

Clay took a step back, picking up her signal for space and acquiescing to it. He waited while she straightened her clothing and buttoned her blouse.

When she was covered, she met his eyes. “I came in here to tell you I quit. And then, all of a sudden, you were kissing me.” Chagrin washed over her. “I let you kiss me.”

“You did more than that. You kissed me back. Come home with me.”

She looked at him, wanting him. Knowing that what he had said earlier was right. There was a very good chance she would
always
want him. From now on.

What was between them was so powerful. It seemed, in this moment of piercing desire, to have always been. Her battles with Clay were so much a part of who she was that she would not be herself had she not known him, fought him, envied him, raged at him.

“Come home with me. We'll make love. It will diffuse some of the tension, at the very least. And afterward, we'll talk.”

“There's nothing to talk about.”

“We'll see. But in any case, we'll have tonight.”

“I don't see how going home with you could make things anything but worse.”

“Who's the cautious one now?” He closed the distance between them again. He put his hands on her shoulders once more and gently rubbed through the silk of her blouse. “It would have happened right here. On the rug. Or against the door. I stopped it. You know I did. Show me the guts I know you have. Make it a conscious choice to come with me now.
Otherwise, next time I won't stop it. I'll let it happen all the way, wherever we are.”

Andie started to say, I won't let it happen again. But that would have been such a blatant lie, she couldn't quite get it out of her mouth.

He was right. It
would
happen again. She was absolutely starved for him. All he'd have to do was what he'd done tonight. Get her alone. Approach her slowly and deliberately. She would beg him to kiss her, to touch her, to take her yearning full circle to total fulfillment.

Oh, sweet Lord, it was so strange. So bewildering. Andie had waited all of her life, turned away every man but Jeff Kirkland. She'd
known
that just what was happening now would happen someday, that there would be a man who could set her on fire with just a touch. It was one of the most basic of her girlhood dreams.

She'd never given up that dream. Not until a few months ago, when it had begun to seem somehow childish and unreal. A romantic fantasy that was never going to come true.

It had made her sad, the death of that dream. She had mourned it. She'd even told Jeff Kirkland about it, on New Year's Eve.

Clay demanded, “What are you thinking about?”

Andie sighed. “This is impossible. All of it.”

“So forget it. Forget thinking. For now. Come home with me.”

Andie searched his green eyes. “Oh, Clay. Please tell me this is not another stupid move I'm making, another one of my crazy mistakes.”

“That's easy.” His voice was firm. “This is not a stupid move. This is what we both want and what will happen eventually, anyway. Come home with me.”

Andie thought about her dream again. That at last, the man in her dream had a face: Clay's face. But in her dream, the
man said he loved her. Clay didn't love her, not in the way that she longed to be loved. Clay wanted her and would marry her and would take her baby as his own.

And really, shouldn't that be enough?

Maybe he was right. Maybe it was enough. But why did it feel as if there was some great big hole in the center of all of it, then?

And what about her own heart? Was she in love with Clay?

Oh, sweet heaven, she feared that perhaps she was. Yet something inside her held back from that—from admitting to a woman's love for him.

In her life, he'd always been so powerful. It had seemed to Andie that her cousin always got his way. If she gave him her heart, he'd have everything. She'd be completely at his mercy then, far below him, looking up.

And he was so self-contained. Aunt Della always said that Clay never revealed his heart. Aunt Della thought it was because of the difficulties of his early years, because he'd been hurt and alone and had to turn into himself to survive.

Andie could sympathize with that. But could she live with a man who was like that? How would she ever talk to him about the things that mattered, about the things that hurt?

Like Jeff.

“What are you thinking?”

She veered away from the ugly truth to a more general answer. “A thousand things. You. Me. The family. The family wants us to get together. You know that, don't you?”

He shrugged. “Yes.”

“You'd do anything for them, wouldn't you?” She tried not to sound bitter.

Clay was unfazed. “Yes, I would, to a point. But I wouldn't marry a woman I didn't want. Not even for the family's sake.”

“For some strange reason, I believe you.”

“Because I'm telling the truth. Now, give me your answer. Say you'll come home with me.”

“You are relentless.”

“No argument. Come home with me.”

“Nothing can come of it.”

“Think that if you want to. But come home with me.”

Andie hovered on the edge of a decision for one more moment, wondering how Clay could be so totally focused, so utterly unswerving in the pursuit of his goal. He simply would not give up.

And she was so tired. She wanted to surrender, to go with him to his house and know what it was at last, to share the greatest intimacy with the man from her dream.

If it all fell apart after tonight—which it was bound to do—at least she would have had that much.

She was slumped rather pitifully against the door. She made herself stand straight.

“Well?”

She gave him what he wanted. “All right, Clay. I'll go home with you.”

She watched the heat of triumph flare in his eyes. “Good. Let's get out of here.”