Take Me Home (17 page)

This was a Tim she had glimpsed before but never quite believed. No longer a big shaggy dog, he had transformed into a hunting tiger. The revelation turned her low flicker of awareness into a roaring bonfire. But bonfires could flare out of control easily, consuming everything in their path. Claire tried to tamp down the flames.

Tim lost the game 8–6. Despite watching carefully, Claire had not caught him in any more intentional errors.

“The man deserves a reward,” someone shouted. “He came from behind and nearly beat the king of foos.”

Claire felt like a deer in headlights as the crowd’s gaze swung toward her, and she realized they were expecting her to do the rewarding. Grabbing two bottles of beer and pasting a smile on her lips, she slid off the barstool and sauntered over to Tim with a little extra swing in her hips.

“How about a couple of nice cold ones for that great game?” she said, offering him the Budweisers.

“Hell no! He deserves a kiss from the pretty lady.”

Claire looked at Paul with a silent plea for help, but he just shrugged and spread his hands in a
What can you do?
gesture.
When she turned back to Tim, he gave her an apologetic grin, but didn’t make a move to stop the situation.

So he was enjoying this. Well, so could she.

She reached her hands up to his shoulders and stood on her toes, tilting her chin up and pursing her lips as though for a kiss. She was careful not to touch any more of him than she had to, and she avoided his eyes. Then she dropped back to flat feet and shook her head in mock disgust. “The man’s too damned tall to reward.”

Laughter rose from the spectators. The barstool was passed over and set in front of her. She made a show of climbing up two rungs before she lifted her face and offered her mouth to Tim with an exaggerated pursing of her lips.

It was a tactical error. Her shoulders were seized with an iron grip, and her eyes flew open to find Tim’s face filling her vision. His breath fanned her cheek as he angled his head to take her mouth in a very real kiss. She thought she heard applause, but it was quickly drowned out by the explosion of sensation Tim’s mouth set off. She wanted his big hands to move down and cup her breasts. She wanted to crush herself against his large, warm body. She wanted—

His mouth lifted from hers.

Tim held her steady on her perch and pitched his voice so only she could hear. “I was afraid there’d be a riot if they thought I wasn’t getting rewarded adequately.”

Claire sucked in a breath and gave him a shaky smile, trying not to let him see how deeply his performance had affected her. “You deserved it. Paul’s a pro, and you nearly beat him.”

“I was inspired,” Tim said. He shifted his grip to help her off the stool.

His words seemed to dance across her skin, flicking little sparks wherever they touched. Her body roiled with arousal.

It made her jump when Paul appeared beside her and wound his left arm around her shoulders in a protective gesture. She wanted to squirm away from a touch that felt all wrong, but he kept his grip on her as he offered his right hand to Tim. “Good game, Doc. We’ll have to arrange a rematch. You’re a tough competitor.”

Tim’s hand dwarfed Paul’s. “Claire tired you out for me.”

“I’m not buying that,” Paul said. “You used some damned smart strategy. We’ll meet again.”

“All I know is I could use a beer about now,” Claire said. “I’m wrung out by all the exercise and all the tension.”

“How about you, Doc?” Paul asked. “It’s on me.”

“I wouldn’t turn it down.”

In the flurry of activity, Claire slipped out of Paul’s grasp and turned to Tim. “Where did you learn to play so well? I thought you didn’t hang out in bars in your youth.”

“In Manhattan. I went through a bar phase once I was legal and out of grad school. Those weren’t my finest days, but I learned a few life skills like foosball.”

Huge mugs of beer were thrust into their hands, and the crowd surged around them, congratulating all three players. Paul once again circled his arm around Claire’s waist to keep the more inebriated well-wishers at bay. She kept wishing it was Tim’s big body pressed against her side.

When the press of people finally thinned, Claire looked around for Tim, but he was nowhere to be found. Exhilaration drained from her like the air from a deflated balloon. He hadn’t bothered to say good-bye.

“Now that was one fine foosball match,” Paul said as he escorted her out to the parking lot. “You played just like the old days. And that Dr. Tim has been hiding his light underneath a bushel basket. I’d never have guessed he was that good.”

“Me either. I was lucky he came along to rescue me from abject defeat.”

Paul laughed and then sobered. “Hey, I’m sorry about that whole public kissing scene. I tried to think of a way to stop it, but it’s the Sportsman. Sometimes you have to let the rowdies have a little leeway so things don’t get ugly.”

“Oh, it was no problem,” Claire lied. “Dr. Tim put on a good show without doing anything ungentlemanly.”

Except for making her want to drag him over to the pool table to have her way with him
.

“Yeah, but I remember PDAs were not something you enjoyed.”

“Oh, I’m not as shy now as I was back then.”

“Good to know.”

After getting her settled, he slid into the driver’s seat and turned to scan her face in the weak light of the car’s interior lamp. “Claire, I’d...” he began, then shook his head and turned the key in the ignition.

“What?”

“Some other time.”

“Okay.” She sank back into the haze of arousal Tim’s kiss had thrown around her and was oblivious to Paul’s suddenly white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel.

T
IM BANGED OPEN
the back door of the veterinary clinic, setting off a chorus of barking that shattered the deep silence of the closed building.

“Damn, didn’t mean to do that,” he muttered, flicking on the light switch to bathe the hallway in a fluorescent glare.

After he’d left the Sportsman, he realized there was no chance he would be able to sleep. Adrenaline and arousal were still surging through his body.

Walking quietly, he made his way to the extra room he had converted into a small laboratory, thinking he might do some mindless chores to help his body come down from its high.

As immature as it was, he felt a fierce sense of triumph over the fact that he could have beaten Paul Taggart, the town’s famous foosball champion, had he chosen to. In truth, he knew that eight times out of ten, Paul would win, but for that one moment, Tim had been the top dog, the unsurpassed player in the bar, even if only he had known it.

A grin spread over his face, and he did a silent fist pump to avoid disturbing the now quiet dogs.

How ridiculous that he took satisfaction in that all these years later. It just showed how deeply your childhood marked you; being too tall, too skinny, and too brainy had doomed him to eternal dorkdom in his school years. Never would he have
been invited to compete with someone as cool as Paul Taggart, let alone be able to best him at his own game.

Yet when the moment had come to fire that shot into his opponent’s goal, Tim had decided against it. Taggart had a certain image and reputation as a player in Sanctuary. One defeat at the foosball table probably wouldn’t ruin it, but Tim wasn’t going to be the spoiler. Maybe he’d challenge Taggart again sometime in a more private venue.

Or maybe not. He’d learned that proving something to yourself was enough.

There had been a few minutes there when he’d regretted his restraint. Seeing Taggart’s arm resting around Claire’s waist in such a casual, familiar way had put a twist in Tim’s gut. The two of them seemed to have such an easy relationship. The memory of it put a damper on Tim’s pleasure, especially when he remembered that Claire had looked like she was going to the guillotine when the crowd forced her to kiss him.

Claire’s little comedy act about kissing him after the foosball match reminded him of something his wife would have done, and he didn’t like the echoes it created in his mind. So he had put a stop to it by taking over the leading role. In one way, it had worked: once his lips touched hers, he knew Claire was the living, breathing woman whose body he wanted to explore from head to toe.

In another way, it had backfired: his own body went right back to the state of frustrated arousal he had fought down after their interlude at the stable. He had done his damnedest not to go to the Sportsman, but his mind couldn’t convince the rest of him it was a bad idea.

He hadn’t been in a state this volatile since Anais had died. The thought pulled him up short.

He realized he was standing in the middle of the lab, frowning at the toes of his boots.

He had been sleepwalking since her death, and now he was awake.

Was being awake a good thing?

He considered the scuffed leather a few more seconds before he slipped his cell phone out of his jeans pocket.

Claire jumped when the phone rang. It was midnight, and she was alone in her house. She checked the caller ID and saw that it was Tim. Heat sizzled through her as she picked up the phone.

“Claire, it’s Tim. Are you alone?”

Claire dropped the phone. “Oh God, I’m so sorry,” she said as she scooped it up off the braided rug and put it back to her ear. “I...Well, the phone fell on the floor.”

“That would explain the thud.” Tim’s voice was amused, but an undercurrent of something dark and beckoning ran through it.

She knew what he wanted. A man didn’t call at this hour to ask if you were alone for any reason but one.

“I...” She swallowed and sat down in the pool of light the table lamp threw on the sofa. She had made the decision to talk to him. Wasn’t that her answer right there?

“Claire?”

“Yes, I’m alone.”

“I’d like to come over.”

“All right.” She couldn’t manage any more words than that.

“I’m at my office, so I’ll be there soon,” he said and disconnected.

She sat with the phone in her lap, frozen by the push and pull inside her. She could feel her nerves starting to hum with pleasure at the knowledge that Tim would be touching her in all the places she craved. Yet she shrank from opening herself to this
man she knew just well enough to understand she knew nothing about him.

She should get up and do something—put on different clothes, light a fire or a candle, open a bottle of wine, turn down the bed.
Something
.

Instead, she relived her encounter in the barn and Tim’s appearance at the Sportsman. Twice today he had sought her out. What had he said when they were discussing her painting? That if you want something you just keep after it. The thought sent a shiver of nerves and anticipation rippling through her.

A knock sounded on the door. She jumped and cursed softly as she realized she hadn’t done anything on her list to prepare for his presence. He was here, and she wasn’t ready in any way.

She padded to the door as he knocked again.

“Claire?” His voice was loud enough to penetrate the wood, but quiet enough not to carry to a neighbor’s house.

She swung open the door. He stood on the porch, his silhouette outlined by the light of the outdoor sconces.

“Come in.”

He came into her house with the same power and certainty he had shown at the foosball table. As the door swung shut behind him, his arms were around her, and she was pinned against the wall with his mouth on hers.

Then sensation swept away all thought: the silky heat of his mouth, the pressure of his chest against her peaking nipples, the hard curve of his erection against her belly. And his hands, the feel of his hands skimming over her shoulders and her ribs and her hips and her thighs. She couldn’t keep track of where his hands were, because they seemed to be everywhere while his mouth pulled at her attention.

He slid one hand up her back under her T-shirt and flicked the hook of her bra loose. Pushing shirt and bra upward, he lowered his head to her breasts.

“Oh yes,” she breathed, her head falling back to knock against the wall as he licked one aching nipple. Her whole body jerked as his teeth grazed her skin and sent a rope of electric heat spinning down between her legs.