Chapter Ten

Crazy. She must be insane. Sneaking out at three in the morning. Darting from shadow to shadow. Risking Mitch’s job, if he hadn’t lost it already.

Claire knew she should turn around, wait until tomorrow to look for him. But if the Hawkeye executives had fired him, he might leave first thing in the morning. She couldn’t let him go without telling him she was sorry, couldn’t risk not having a chance to say goodbye.

Earlier at James’s cabana, Michael Hawkins and his sidekicks had questioned them all separately—her, James, the other cameraman, and finally Mitch. Afterward they apologized to her and James for Mitch’s behavior, then took Mitch away, leaving her worried about his fate.

Claire left James soon after without saying a word to him. Just the sight of him disgusted her. What disgusted her more was the fact that she’d let him manipulate her for years. That she’d let him pull her strings like a spineless puppet, a hunk of wood with no brain, no courage, no life at all. Before meeting Mitch, she’d thought she couldn’t survive without James’s guidance. How could she have been so blind to his weaknesses or to her own strengths?

When she finally reached Mitch’s cabana, she stood beneath a palm tree and breathed in the tangy, sharp scent of the sea to calm her nerves. His lights were on. She closed her eyes, felt the wind on her face, in her hair. What would she say to him? Why was she really here?

Before she could answer those questions or talk herself out of knocking, she walked up the steps and did just that. Is this about caring, or lust? she asked herself. Some of both. A lot of both. Not a bad combination, she guessed.

The door creaked open. Mitch’s brows drew together when he saw her. “You’re up late,” he said.

She ignored the fluttering in her stomach. “You too.”

Stepping aside, Mitch opened the door wider. “Come in.”

Her conscience tried to step on the brakes. If something happened between them tonight, it would only be temporary. Mitch had a bad case of wanderlust; she had a business in Prairie to run. But was temporary so bad? And if not, could she handle it? “You sure it’s okay for me to come in? I don’t want more trouble for you with Hawkins.”

“He can’t do a thing to me now. We’re no longer associated.” He motioned her inside. “Have a seat.”

The tiny spark of hope she’d nurtured snuffed out. He’d been fired. Because of her. She walked past him into the cabana, noting his packed bags on the floor beside the sofa. “I’m sorry, Mitch. I can’t help but feel like this is my fault. If I’d told you about James that first night—”

“Hey, I knew the rules. I chose to break them.”

Glancing down at his bags, she sank onto the sofa. A disc lay on top of a suitcase. Claire picked it up and saw Mitch’s name printed down the spine. “What’s this?”

“Nothing.” He started into the adjoining kitchen. “Can I get you something to drink?”

“It’s some of your work, isn’t it? You brought it hoping Michael Hawkins might take a look.”

He took two glasses out of the cupboard, then faced her and shrugged. “It was a stupid idea. Hawkins hires only the best for his serious projects.”

“And what makes you think you’re not?”

Mitch set the glasses on the counter, then opened the refrigerator, his back to her. “I only have a little lemonade left. You want it?”

Claire put down the disc. She stood. “What makes you think you’re not one of the best?”

He turned, surprise flashing across his face when he found she’d walked up behind him and now stood close. “Maybe I’ve been accused of chasing rainbows for so long that I’ve finally decided to believe that’s what I’m doing.”

“Accused? You mean by your father and your old girlfriends?”

He let the refrigerator door close. Their gazes met slowly and held. “Yeah.”

Claire touched his cheek. “I’ve always wished I had the nerve to chase a rainbow,” she whispered. “To be brave enough to go after something that seems off-limits or out of reach.” She wrapped her arms around him. “You’ll catch yours, Mitch. I know you will.”

She still wore her new skimpy outfit, so she felt his body acutely as he pressed close to her. And then she melted, bone and muscle dissolving against him.

In his eyes, worry clashed with desire like water on rocks. “Claire—”

“You don’t have to promise me anything,” she said softly, sliding her fingers across the laugh lines around his eyes, down to his lips to stop further protests. “I understand how you live. I’m a big girl, Mitch. I’m going after what I want.” Claire brushed her mouth against his. “You’re my rainbow tonight. Let me catch you.”

 

Lust and tenderness flared inside him, twin flames, equally hot. Mitch pulled Claire closer, his hands moving down her body, skimming over her shoulders, down her breasts to her stomach, sliding around to cup her bottom. With his mouth still on hers, he mentally measured the distance to the bedroom. Making his way blindly across the room, he took Claire with him, clinging and kissing, staggering and turning, again and again. At the bedroom door, he pulled back for air.

The prospect of making love with her had been simpler before he’d started to care too much. Now he was terrified of what he saw in her expression, of what it made him feel. They were about to become lovers. He’d always sensed they would…from that very first night, long before he’d had a clue what she looked like. But now that the moment had arrived, he didn’t want regrets later on when he left her, when they said goodbye and resumed their separate lives. He cared about her too much to hurt her. They should set things straight. Decide what this meant—and what it didn’t.

“Let’s slow down, Claire. Talk about it.”

She made quick work of undoing the buttons down the front of his shirt. “I’m not in the mood to talk.”

He laughed, then drew a breath. “I can see that. But I’m trying to be sensible here.” His thoughts weren’t sensible at all, though, when she kissed his bare chest, trailing her tongue along his collarbone to his throat. “How am I supposed to think straight when you’re doing that?”

“You’re not.”

“Claire…as much as I want you…”

Her mouth—those gorgeous full lips that had played a starring role in his recent dreams—touched his neck now, soft and warm and arousing. He closed his eyes. “God knows I want you a lot,” he said, swallowing hard. “I need you.”

She nibbled his earlobe. “How much?” she asked, her voice teasing, seductive. “More than food? More than water?”

“More than air. More than…” Forcing his eyes open, he looked down. He threaded his fingers through her hair, then tilted Claire’s head back. “I don’t want to rush into this and have you end up sorry about it. I want you to be sure.”

“Do you see any uncertainty here?”

Something clutched in his chest at the sight of the pink-tinted, freckled face staring up at him. Her clear, true eyes, the flaming hair. The last of Mitch’s resistance slipped away.

Claire clung to him as he turned down the sheets on the bed, then lowered her onto it. She nodded toward the doors that led to a back patio. “Open them,” she said. “I want to hear the ocean.”

The breathy hiss of the wind mingled with the sea’s distant whisper as Mitch threw the doors wide, then returned to the bed. With restless hands she tugged at his shirt. Just as impatiently he shrugged out of it and tossed it behind him. Reaching for the nightstand, he slid open the top drawer and found a condom packet. He placed it within close reach before pulling the bikini top string at the back of her neck, freeing the tie between her shoulder blades at the same time. Her top fell to the bed, baring her breasts. They were smooth and firm and high, pink and pearly white as the center of a shell. “You really are a goddess.” He touched her. “Aphrodite…goddess of love and beauty.”

Her smile made the blood drum in his head in a primitive, steady beat. He lifted his gaze to hers and saw a hint of something that stunned and frightened him before she quickly glanced away. Behind the provocative teasing, behind the laughter, lived something vulnerable. Something hopeful but afraid.

Needs he’d never known existed sprang up in him. Needs deeper than lust or longing. Needs that brought with them a desperation all his own, an intensity and fear that equaled what he saw in her eyes.

So, though he’d intended to be tender, had ached, at the sight of her naked body, for slow, drawn-out pleasure, he didn’t stop her when she took the lead at a wild, frantic pace. Instead he responded in kind, tugging her bikini bottom down her legs as she did his shorts. Learning the contours of her body as she did his—not with gentle sharing, an intimate give and take, but with a raw lustiness as emotionally painful as it was exciting. Every nerve ending he possessed felt exposed. Bare. Excruciatingly sensitive.

As if Claire sensed this first time might be their last, she held nothing back physically, gave everything she had to give without inhibition. But emotionally Mitch sensed she held back…and so did he. She’d uncovered needs and wants he’d just as soon stay hidden. And he was afraid.

For the first time Mitch acknowledged and examined those unearthed emotions, admitted they were more powerful than his fear of what they meant. His instincts urged him to drive himself into her until they both found the release they yearned for. But with Claire, he realized he wanted more than sex. He wanted it all. Emotion. Vulnerability. Everything.

“Look at me, Claire,” he said, rolling on top of her, propping his elbows on either side of her head. “I need you to look at me.”

Her eyes opened slowly, and he stared into them for the longest time, his heart exploding in his chest. “I think…” He took a shaky breath as the truth spread through him with a force so sweet he thought his heart would break. “I—”

 

“Don’t,” she whispered, cupping his face in her palms, searching his face for a hint that the words she knew he’d planned to speak were born of a passion that would pass with the night. But nothing less than sincerity stared back at her, and she realized she was more stunned by his attempted admission than by the truth of it. Maybe she’d known the truth all along, from that very first night, but feared it would slip away like the wispy remnants of a dream if she tried to hold on to it. So she’d run back to safety, to what was familiar, rather than reaching for something that seemed too good to be real. She was still afraid it would slip away, but she wouldn’t run this time.

“Don’t say anything,” she whispered. “Just be with me.” Tears dampened the hair at her temples as their lips brushed together, then parted and met again. Her hands drifted over his torso, discovering every rise of muscle, each dip and hollow. The jut of his hipbones, the flat plane of his stomach. The skin covering his rib cage was smooth. A small, thick scar stood out on one shoulder blade. Coarse hair filled the hollow beneath his throat.

Earlier, she’d told herself she could bear it if he left her and never looked back, that the little bit of himself he shared would be better than nothing at all. But when he’d turned away from the patio doors to join her on the bed, her flimsily built confidence crumbled and washed away like a sand castle on a wave. What if he saw how much he meant to her? If he realized the pain he could cause? Taking this beyond the physical would expose her heart, and he’d be scared away before the night ended.

He would still leave her, she thought as his mouth found the pulse at her throat, then moved lower. But it wouldn’t be so easy for him now. And she’d always know he had cared about her, what it had cost him to turn away.

So she joined him in the slow ebb and flow, the gradual climbing of sensation and emotion, Throwing caution aside, she gave her heart and soul along with her body, knowing there’d be no regrets when she looked back on this memory. For them, it had happened fast…too fast. But she’d never felt more beautiful, more wanted or loved. No matter what happened tomorrow, she’d remember this night, this moment, as perfect.

Claire closed her eyes, anticipating, as he reached for the packet on the nightstand. A moment later, she murmured her pleasure as he ran his fingers upward along her inner thigh to her most sensitive spot. Her breath caught when he touched her and her stomach muscles tightened. She thought nothing could possibly feel any more wonderful, but then he entered her and her breath caught again. She closed her arms and legs around him, arched against him, the pressure inside of her growing stronger with each stroke and caress, with every whispered word.

The muscles in Mitch’s back trembled beneath her fingertips as they moved together on the rumpled bed, slowly at first, then gradually faster and faster. And then Claire cried out, her body quivering uncontrollably as they both let go.

Much later, when their heartbeats had returned to a more normal pace and their breathing slowed, they continued to hold one another, each only vaguely aware of the gentle rain starting outside the window or the lazy passing of time.