Retreat (36 page)

    
“Shhh …” he whispered, lifting her slightly
so she could feel him against her. The thin fabric of her pajama bottoms did
little to disguise the urgency of his throbbing erection. As he rubbed against
her she bit the inside of her lip to stay silent.

    
His breath grew heavier as he sensed her
holding back. He reached down, deftly removing the small amount of fabric
between them, unzipping his jeans and letting them fall to the floor. She
gasped as she felt him maneuver toward her, entering her at an angle that
caused her to open up to him completely.

    
“Shhh …” he repeated, teasing her with his
words, knowing as he throbbed in and out of her, brushing her nub with each
stroke that she might not be able to hold back her screams.

    
“Come for me,” he coaxed wickedly. “Come
for me Clara.”

    
She couldn’t hold back any longer as the
wave of heat tore through her, causing her to shudder uncontrollably against
him. A tiny scream began deep in her throat but she was able to cut if off,
barely, by biting softly into his shoulder.

    
The force of her mouth on his skin and the
freedom of her release pushed him over the edge and he began to pound in
harder, faster, groaning himself as he let go.

    
“Shhh …” she whispered, an exhausted,
satisfied smile creeping across her lips as she remained there, pinned against
the wall by his heaving body, eyes closed.

    
He laughed softly and, after a moment,
gathered her in his arms as he slowly pulled out, placing her gently on the
bed. He quickly grabbed a towel from the rack in the bathroom and placed it
gingerly against her, carefully soaking up what was left of their lovemaking.

    
“That was incredible,” he whispered into
her hair.
    
“Yes,” she murmured, breathing in the
warm scent of his chest, snuggling closely. They dozed off like that, waking
when the air in the cabin grew chilly against their dampened skin.

    
At Clara’s urging, Jon reluctantly got
dressed and headed back to the men’s cabin. As much as she wanted him to stay,
she didn’t want to have to answer any questions in the morning.

    
She felt warm and full as she slipped back
into her pajamas, acutely aware that beyond the lust and incredible feeling of
being held in Jon’s arms, she was falling in love with him again, or perhaps
more accurately, remembering how much she loved him to begin with. She clicked
off the light beside her bed and settled down beneath the sheets, breathing
deeply to capture the last hint of his scent in the room.

    
She was almost asleep when she thought she
heard something by the door. The noise was nearly imperceptible; making her
wonder if she’d heard anything at all. She slipped out of bed and padded over
to the door. She listened but didn’t hear anything more. She pulled aside the
canvas curtain that covered the window in the old wooden door and peered out
into the darkness, half expecting to see that Jon had returned. But there was
no movement beyond the branches swaying lazily in the moonlight.

    
She checked the lock and then crawled back
into bed. As she snuggled in she realized how much she’d hoped to see Jon
standing on her private porch again when she’d peeked outside. Knowing he was
here in the woods with her, trapped a half-mile away at Slippery Falls,
was almost too much to bear. She forced herself to think about something else,
then drifted off to sleep.

CHAPTER 17

    
When Clara woke the next morning her
bedroom was growing uncomfortably warm. She kicked off the covers as the sun
beat down through the window as if summer had decided all at once to make its
appearance. She propped open the cabin windows, but there was barely a breeze,
making the stagnant air in her room feel stifling.

    
Clara took a cool shower and pulled on a
cranberry tank top and denim shorts she’d picked up the first night she went
shopping. It was her last clean outfit for the retreat. She tried to think
about what was waiting for her back home, but she could remember only one other
set of clothes – her college sweats -- that didn’t need to be dry cleaned or
washed.

    
I need to do more shopping, she thought.

    
She strapped on her sneakers and did a
final pass in front of the mirror before she headed out to the kitchen,
sneaking past Marcy, who was sleeping deeply on the couch. She grabbed a bottle
of water and headed for the door.

    
She stepped down off the porch and took a
deep breath of warm air. The birds were squawking in ear-piercing harmony in
the trees above. She could tell already that it was going to be a scorcher.

    
“Hey you,” Jon called, walking down the
trail from the men’s cabin.

    
“Hey yourself,” she replied, starting
toward him, unable to keep the smile from illuminating her lips.

    
“Are you ready?” he asked, grabbing hold of
her hand and gently kissing her fingers.

    
“Sure,” she said.

    
“Okay, come with me.”

    
“We’re not going to the tent?” she asked
when he started down a different trail.

    
“I thought we’d go out for breakfast,” he
said.

    
“Out?” she asked.

    
“To town.”

    
“Really?” she asked. “We’re driving to
town?”

    
“Catch on quick, Clara?” he teased.

    
“Oh shut up,” she said, pushing him gently
with the side of her body. “We’re going to totally miss the first session.”

    
“It’s alright. I already cleared it with
Bill,” Jon said, winking at her.

    
“Karen is ready to string me up as it is,”
Clara said.

    
“Do you care?” he asked.

    
“Not really.”

    
“Then let’s go.”

    
His rental car was parked in the main lot.
The back seat was full of gear from the tent site, which he’d apparently
dismantled earlier that morning. He explained that the trunk was half-full,
too. He was saving the other half for Marcy’s luggage.

    
It was funny to see him driving something
other than his black four-by-four. He may have been ruthless in business, but
he was still a Texan, born and bred and driving something other than a big
pick-up truck went against his nature.

    
“What?” he asked when he saw her smiling at
him out of the corner of his eye as they drove along the two-lane road toward
Valleyview.

    
“I’m just not used to seeing you drive a
car, that’s all.”

    
“It’s killing me. This was the best the
rental place could do,” he said, tapping the dashboard. “You didn’t realize how
much I was willing to sacrifice for you now did you?”

    
She laughed. “I wonder what your father would
say.”

    
Jon’s father was a cattle rancher who owned
a large farm west of Fort Worth.
Clara doubted he’d ever driven anything other than a pick-up truck in his life.
He was a big man, who wore a big hat. Clara had only met him once, when he came
up to Fort Worth to visit Jon, but it was enough to know that he’d give Jon
hell for driving a small white sedan.

    
“My father would laugh his ass off,” Jon
said, reaching across the seat and grabbing her hand. “And then my mother would
probably give him hell.”

    
Clara had never met Jon’s mother, but she’d
seen a picture of her with his dad at Jon’s condo. She was tall and slender and
had a becoming smile. Jon had planned a trip out to the ranch, wanting to show
Clara where he grew up and introduce her to his family, but the
Corville-Morlock deal had gone bad a few weeks before they were scheduled to
go.

    
Clara wondered how different things would
be right now if that night had never happened.

    
They drove on until they came to the small
town. They passed the library where Marcy did all her work and the grocery
store where Jon bought their lunch the morning before. Another block down was a
neon-edged diner with cars and trucks tumbling out of the parking lot.

    
“This looks like the place to be,” Clara
said, stepping out of the car after they parked.

    
“That’s what I thought yesterday,” he said.
“Believe it or not there were even more people here then.”

    
They went inside and waited nearly twenty
minutes for a table. As they slid into the booth Clara held her legs up to avoid
the cold red pleather. She grimaced as she slowly lowered them, making Jon
laugh.

    
A young waitress came over to take their
order. Clara guessed she was still in high school and just counting the days
until college took her from this small town to something greater.

    
After barely eating dinner and getting a
hell of workout over night, Clara ordered two eggs, toast, home fries and ham
and Jon ordered a western omelet. They’d barely finished their first cup of
coffee before the food arrived.

    
“So, I’m surprised you and Marcy are still
here,” Clara said as she cut into her ham steak.

    
He looked perplexed. “Where else would we
be?” he asked, pouring a creamer into his second cup of coffee.

    
“At work?” Clara said.

    
“It’s Sunday, remember?” he said. “Not that
it matters.” He held up his cell phone. It said he had 25 messages.

    
“You need to call Freedman back,” Clara
laughed. “He’s probably gone ballistic by now.”

    
“Marcy needed a vacation,” Jon said as he
poured salsa over his omelet. “He’s been working her too hard.”

    
“A likely story.”

    
“Seriously, he has been.”

    
“I know, she told me. And you haven’t been
helping from what I gather,” Clara said. “You should put your foot down about
that.”

    
“I will when I get back.”

    
“When will that be?” she asked, glancing up
at him.

    
He stopped eating and looked at her across
the table. “We have tickets to fly back tonight, after the retreat is over.” He
paused.
 
“I was hoping you might consider
coming back with us.”

    
“I can’t do that,” she said quickly,
shaking her head. “There’s too much going on here and I can’t just bail on my
dad after I told him I’d help him.”

    
“That’s what I thought you’d say,” Jon
said, digging back into his breakfast. “So I have a proposition for you.”

    
She raised her eyebrows at him. “Now what?”
she asked.

    
“I told you I’m planning on going out on my
own,” he said, cutting a swath of his omelet with the side of his fork.

    
“Yes, you did.”

    
“What if I set up shop in Brighton?”
he asked. “That way you could stay on with your dad and we’d still be able to
see where this all leads.”

    
“You can’t do that,” she said. “Leave Texas? That would be
like cutting off your left leg.”

    
“I want to make this work,” he said. “Trust
me, not being with you would be worse.”

    
“You can’t leave Texas. Your family is there. Your life is
there, Jon. And, honestly, you would hate it in Brighton,”
Clara said. “It’s so small, nothing like what you’re used to. There isn’t even
a decent mall.”

    
“I’m not much of the mall type,” he said,
sitting back in the booth.

    
“You know what I mean.”

    
“I don’t really care. I’m going to go back
down to Fort Worth,
tie up some loose ends and be back in a week,” he said confidently.

    
“Where will you live?” she asked, suddenly
concerned that he might think he could move in with her. She wasn’t ready to
move that fast. She hadn’t even gotten herself settled into the bungalow yet.

    
“I’ll get an apartment,” he shrugged.