Radclyffe - Homestead

“Not so far. There are some ATV tracks coming out of the woods. It looks like we either had some curious visitors recently or that’s how the vandals left. Nothing else appears to be disturbed. All the guys are bedded down already. Once these guys go down for the night they usually don’t even roll over until it’s time to get up again. The work out here is tough and lonely—add physical exhaustion to a couple of drinks and most of them are under well before this time of night. Nobody who’s awake enough to communicate noticed anything.”

“Why would someone do this?” Tess asked.

Clay shrugged and lifted a stack of papers from the pile on the floor onto the small sofa under the windows. “Maybe they think it’ll slow us down. Maybe they think we won’t want to proceed if we’re not wanted here.” Clay shook her head. “Hell, maybe it’s just a message that something more serious will follow if we don’t clear out.”

“You won’t, will you?” Tess ought to be glad Clay might leave. All her problems would be solved. But as soon as she thought it, she knew that was more fantasy. Clay disappearing again wouldn’t solve her problems. She’d still have to find out what Ray had done behind her back with NorthAm. She’d still have to decide what she intended to do when the company returned, because they would. And she still needed to put her feelings for Clay in a place where she wouldn’t be opening herself up to more hurt.

“No,” Clay said, watching Tess carefully. “I’m not leaving.”

A weight lifted from Tess’s chest. “Does this happen often?”

“Often enough. Usually in any given community there’s at least one person who’s opposed to what we’re doing, even when the majority understand the procedure and welcome us.”

“So resistance isn’t that uncommon?”

“I wouldn’t call it resistance as much as hesitation. Naturally, people don’t want to commit to something they don’t really understand or have heard negative opinions about. Our job at this stage is education because without community support, the project becomes much more difficult. We need local labor to build our infrastructure. We bring in our own technicians for the expert work, but we rely on locals for ninety percent of the rest of our needs—and there are plenty—construction, utilities, housing, food, clothes, medical care, entertainment.”

Tess pictured all the empty storefronts on Main Street and the For Sale signs crowding every block. NorthAm’s operation would be like having a huge new factory spring up in town almost overnight. And that didn’t even touch on what landowners would get for drilling rights. She understood why some places would welcome the fracking companies. “That’s got to be great for the local economy.”

“It is. That’s why once we get going, most communities are happy to have us.”

Tess rubbed her eyes. She was so tired. Too tired to make sense of all the conflicting feelings. “Where are Kelly and Ella?”

“We need to file a police report to document what happened for the insurance. Ella’s waiting for the cruiser up at the highway. Kelly is taking a last walk around to make sure we’re all secure.”

“I’m sorry, I wanted to straighten up in here—” Tess held both hands up helplessly.

“Thanks—that’s okay. I’ll sort through everything in the morning and then have the office fax me up whatever I can’t resurrect.” Clay held out her hand. “Come on, I’ll take you home. I want to check your place again too.”

“What about Kelly and Ella?”

“They can ride back to town together whenever they’re done with the sheriff.”

Tess looked around at the disheveled office. “If you’re sure?”

“It’s late, and you’re tired. I’m sure.”

“I’m sorry about this,” Tess said softly.

Clay took her hand. “It’s okay. It’s not your fault.”

“Maybe not,” Tess murmured, letting Clay lead her from the trailer, “but it feels as if I’m part of it somehow.”

“You’re not.”

“It’s my community.”

Clay held the truck door open for Tess while she climbed into the passenger side. “You live here. But you’re not responsible for what everyone does.”

Their faces were only inches apart. Clay’s jaw was a perfect ivory arch that Tess ached to trace with her fingertips. If she leaned out just a fraction, their mouths would meet. Clay’s scent, smoky and dark, swirled in the air, and Tess’s nipples tensed. She was so very tired of always doing what was reasonable. “Do you follow your own advice? About most things?”

Clay swallowed, her gaze riveted to Tess’s mouth. “Not usually.”

“Do you think for one night you could forget about NorthAm?”

“Can you?”

Tess couldn’t see the morning and didn’t care. All she could see was Clay. “Yes.”

Tess held her breath the entire way from the job site back to the farm. The two-minute ride felt like an hour while she deliberately kept her mind blank, denying the nagging voice in her head the chance to tell her she was being foolish, self-destructive, and outright insane—denying reason the opportunity to make her change her mind. She didn’t want to change her mind. She wanted Clay.

Clay pulled up in front of the farmhouse and took her hand. “I can walk you to the door and say good night.”

“Can you?” Tess had never heard Clay quite so subdued.

Clay’s chest heaved. Her hand trembled in Tess’s. “I don’t know—I’ll try if that’s what you want.”

The only light in the yard came from the big security light over the barn, but it was enough to illuminate Clay’s features. The strong bones in her bold face stood out sharply, the fine muscles along her jaw were sculpted steel, her eyes reflected starlight like sword points. Her body was completely still, but Tess felt the tension spiraling down Clay’s arm and into her hand. Clay was anything but subdued—she was a live wire waiting to electrify the unsuspecting. But Tess wasn’t stumbling into a force field unawares. She was walking in with her eyes open and her step steady.

“I already told you what I wanted,” Tess said. “I don’t change my mind easily.”

The corner of Clay’s mouth twitched and she slowly turned her head, meeting Tess’s gaze. “But you think I do.”

“Prove me wrong.” Tess knew she was playing a dangerous game. Clay might have a leash on her temper, and her desire, right this instant, but she was a jungle cat with nothing more than a thin veneer of domestication keeping her in check. Push her a little, and she’d take what she wanted. Tess had been on the receiving end of that hunger and she liked it, but tonight she wanted something else. She wanted to be the one to bite.

“Just give me the chance and I will.” Clay, fixing Tess with that predatory stare, clasped the back of Tess’s neck and drew her across the space between them, one slow inch at a time.

Tess resisted letting their bodies touch, but she couldn’t fight the pull of Clay’s eyes. When their lips touched, Clay kissed her, as softly and slowly and sweetly as her mouth had been hard and fast and rough earlier that night. The fire was no less hot for having banked all evening. The breath in Tess’s lungs scorched. She gripped Clay’s shirt as she had earlier, in no danger of falling, but every bit as likely to lose herself in the swirling blaze. She whimpered softly and nipped at Clay’s lip, as hungry as Clay. When Clay’s hand skimmed the underside of her breast, Tess pulled back.

“I don’t want to do this here,” Tess whispered. “I want you properly.”

Clay laughed, her fingers trailing over Tess’s nipple as her hand dropped away. “What is properly?”

“In bed. Naked. At my bidding.”

Clay shuddered and bowed her head for a long second. When she looked up, even the veneer of civilization had fallen away, leaving nothing but raw need. “Tell me what you want, and it’s yours.”

“I will,” Tess said, because tonight she was taking what she wanted with no worries about tomorrow, and no regrets. She opened the truck door, jumped down, and started for the house without looking back. By the time she reached the front steps, Clay was there. Without saying more, Tess grabbed her hand and led her across the wide front porch, through the door that opened into the parlor, and up the central stairs to her bedroom. She didn’t stop at the threshold, didn’t pause until she reached the side of the big four-poster bed that had been her mother’s, and her grandmother’s before that. The wide-open window next to the bed admitted a fitful breeze that did nothing to cool the fire in her blood. “Stand still.”

Somehow knowing she shouldn’t speak, Clay watched, her hands at her sides, determined to let Tess set the pace. Tess’s play, Tess’s rules. Besides, if she touched Tess now, she was likely to break and go too fast, too hard, too far. The pounding in her head matched the pounding in her groin and obliterated whatever reason and restraint made her human. Right now, she was nothing but hunger and want and the wild raging need to take and claim and own. She shivered in the heat.

In a pool of moonlight, Tess unbuttoned her shirt, let it fall to the floor, and slowly unclasped her bra. She dropped it on top of the crumpled shirt and cupped her breasts—offering them to Clay like a gift she would never deserve.

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” Clay groaned, her nails digging into her palms. Tess’s breasts were firm and upright, her pale nipples tight in the moonlight. Clay wanted her lips on them, her hands on them, her mouth filled with them. Her belly and thighs and ass tightened, and the pressure in her groin had her pelvis rocking forward. She ached to fuck and be fucked. Her chest heaved, her breath barely more than a sob, and still Tess kept away. “I want you so much.”