Page 47 of Wild and Wanted

Stevie’s breath stilled in her lungs at the admission. Maybe he told every woman he slept with – or fooled around with – the same thing. Maybe it was just a smooth line from a very smooth operator.

But the clench in her gut, the skip in her pulse, didn’t care.

Because, the truth was, she felt the same. She’d known Clay Calhoun for less than two weeks but he already occupied every corner of her brain. He was the first thing she thought about in the morning and the last thing she thought about when she went to sleep.

Stevie just hadn’t expected him to admit to the same.

Could that be true? And… gah! How could this be so all-consuming already? How could her chest be so full of this… feeling? God, was it crazy to already label it?

Was this love?

What? No. No way. And yes. It was totally crackers. Stevie had to remember that Clay was a seasoned veteran at this fooling around thing and she was a mere rookie. What can’t stop thinking about you meant to a guy like him might not be the same thing it meant to someone like her. He was talking sex. Physical stuff. And she was conflating it with something else entirely.

She was romanticising this whole thing and she was smarter than that.

Except right now, she’d take it, because she’d already chosen him to be the one and his words were the level of obsession she needed to confirm she’d made the right choice.

‘Same,’ she murmured, which was an insipid response to his admission but she was too overawed by it, by what it might mean, to say much at all so she wound her arms around his neck instead and pulled him down.

Stevie met his mouth halfway, her barely banked desire from earlier flaring to life again as the force of their passion had her head bumping down on the blanket. She opened to him greedily, her pulse a water hammer through her ears as their tongues tangled and their groans intermingled.

And then a phone rang, piercing the heady cocktail of lust, breaking them apart. It had been so quiet in the loft – just him and her, only the sound of their voices and the thud of their hearts disturbing the stillness. The outside world intruding so rudely was temporarily discombobulating.

‘I think that’s you,’ he said, his mouth wet from their kisses, his lungs grabbing air.

Stevie blinked, realising that her butt was vibrating. And that it was her mother’s ring tone. ‘Sorry. That’s my mother. She really does have the worst timing.’

‘I’d say it was perfect timing,’ he said with a smile before he dropped a brief kiss on her mouth, then rolled away, settling onto his back, leaving enough space between them for their arms to rest.

Stevie spoke over the ringing phone. ‘She’s been calling each night to update me on my grandmother. I just…’ In her preoccupation with her rendezvous with Clay, she’d forgotten her mother usually called at this time. ‘I had other things on my mind tonight.’

Clay chuckled, rolling his head to the side, and Stevie did the same. She met his gaze and what she saw there took her breath away. He was so damn sexy, his eyes rich with humour, his lips parted on a smile. ‘I know you did.’

She laughed, seeing the humour in the situation. Here they were, two twenty-somethings making out like teenagers in a haystack being unknowingly cock blocked – she’d read that expression in one of Yolly’s spicy romance novels – by her mother from eighteen hundred miles away.

But she knew she couldn’t ignore it, either.

‘Do you mind if I get it? She’ll just keep calling if I don’t. She…’ Stevie cleared her throat of a sudden bout of huskiness. ‘…worries when I don’t answer.’

The night of Yolanda’s accident, her mother had been trying to get hold of her eldest daughter for a few hours. It wasn’t unusual for Yolly not to pick up but when the police had called at two in the morning Cindy Everhart’s worst motherly fears had been realised. And she’d been hypervigilant about Stevie’s whereabouts ever since.

Was that chafing at times? Sure. But Stevie had lived through the depths of her mother’s grief first hand and understood her need to know that when she wasn’t at home in Boston, her younger daughter was tucked up safe every night.

‘Of course,’ he assured, his fingers sliding into hers and entwining.

It was a simple gesture but a lump rose in Stevie’s throat at Clay somehow knowing that she’d needed the assurance of his touch in that moment.

Lifting her hips, Stevie dug in her back pocket for her phone, which stopped ringing just before she hit the green answer button. She knew in a minute her phone would beep to let her know that her mom had left a message. She also knew that her mom would probably call again in ten minutes.

A squeeze to her hand had her rolling her head to look at him again. ‘Call her back,’ he murmured.

Stevie’s lungs felt too big for her chest at Clay’s understanding. ‘I’ll text her and let her know I’ll call her back shortly.’

Sitting, Stevie pulled the edges of her shirt together just as the notification of her mother’s message chimed. She tapped out a quick text, one handed.

Hey Mom. Just finishing up at the ranch house. I’ll call you in 15.

She could have said thirty or forty-five or an hour. She could have given herself longer with Clay. But he’d already called a halt to the proceedings and now their bubble of bliss had been so rudely ruptured, Stevie felt weirdly exposed and not just because of those undone buttons.