The Accidental Princess Page 12

  He didn’t know exactly what happened after that. C.J. shifted to get a better view and she smelled sweet and she was only an arm’s reach away. And suddenly…

  This mind-blowing kiss that fanned fires he knew he’d never be able to control, no matter how hard he tried.

  Why fight it?

  He’d heard that voice before. It was probably the devil urging him on, throwing fresh kindling on flames that were blazing away on their own.

  Maybe if he eased back a bit, maybe if he put her delectable breasts out of contact with his chest, he could still save both of them.

  From the urgent sounds she was making, Lee County’s dairy princess wasn’t in any mood to be saved. She wanted to wallow in whatever he was offering. And the sooner the better.

  Put that way, Clint decided the only gentlemanly thing to do would be to relieve her sexual distress. And his. If he didn’t get some relief soon he was going to go crazy.

  Fortunately her dress didn’t have much of a top. Lots of skin, barely any material. He lowered his mouth to her long, slender throat and kissed her pulse point until her breath was hitching.

  “Clint, please.”

  Ah, just what he wanted to hear. The soft pleas of a wanting woman.

  Her bodice toppled like the walls of Jericho, and he zoomed in to claim the prize. His mouth closed over a dewy, rosy-tipped breast. Small and pert. Just right for a hungry man who hadn’t even realized he’d been starving until he’d tasted the nectar.

  She tangled her hands in his hair and pulled him closer. “That feels absolutely wonderful.”

  She made him feel like a hero. Cupping her face he kissed her and almost drowned in tenderness.

  C.J. trembled. If that wasn’t enough to give a man a big head, he didn’t know what was. How many women could pull that innocent stuff off and make it seem real? Not many.

  His fingertips brushed against silk, hot, damp silk that inflamed him. As if he needed any further prodding.

  “You’re wearing too many clothes, sweetheart.”

  He slipped the wisp of silk down her long, long legs, and there happened to be enough moonlight so he could see she’d been wearing pink silk panties. Smaller ones this time, but pink, nonetheless.

  Had she done it deliberately? Had she remembered how he’d loved seeing her in innocent pink silk?

  Probably. His ego puffed up another notch. Pretty soon his head would be too big to fit into his motorcycle helmet.

  Small price to pay for paradise. Dangerous thinking for a man determined to make this the kind of brief encounter that’s pleasurable in the moonlight but forgotten as soon as the sun pinks the east.

  He slid his fingers inside her, and she moaned and thrashed about as if he’d not only invented sex but won the Nobel Prize for his discovery. His desire ratcheted up another notch.

  And so did the heat. “It’s hot in this car.”

  “Hmm,” she said, hardly sounding conscious.

  “You don’t mind if I take off my clothes, do you?”

  “Hmm.” Was that a yes or no? He’d take it for a yes, especially since she was helping him with the buttons.

  His shirt went one way, his belt the other. It was when he kicked off his shoes and tried to divest himself of his tight slacks that he discovered the reason cars had steering wheels: to foil lovers.

  He banged his knee, then his elbow, and next his head.

  “Why couldn’t somebody make these things collapsible?” he grumbled. “Or at the very least, removable?”

  She made that sexy sound again halfway between a groan and a plea. It was doing wonders for his libido. He felt as if he’d been dumped in a vat of faultless starch.

  “Why don’t we get in the back seat where we have more room?” She still wasn’t talking, and so he opened the door on his side and sort of hopscotched around the car.

  When he opened the door she tumbled out the way his laundry did after he’d overstuffed the closet. He caught her and proceeded, hero-like, to the back seat of his Corvette convertible.

  Lord, he hadn’t made out in the back seat of a car since he was a teenager. He couldn’t blame that on the moon. He placed the blame squarely on the woman in his arms.

  She must be a witch, otherwise why was he feeling like a sixteen-year-old about to get his first taste of paradise?

  She looked lovely lying there with her breasts bare and her skirts tumbling around her like the petals of some exotic flower.

  “You’re so beautiful.”

  She whispered, “Thank you,” then held up her slender arms, and he fell like Ulysses under enchantment. Her lips held the magic potion, and he feasted until he was drunk.

  He wanted to taste every inch of her skin, to explore every silky centimeter.

  He started with her toes, nibbling until she was moaning, then slid his tongue back and forth over the length of her calf, then draped her leg over his shoulder and addressed the sensitive skin at the back of her knee.

  She was making gratifying sounds that spurred him to further feats of derring-do.

  When the tip of his magic sword entered her, she jumped as if she’d been shot.

  “Did I hurt you?”

  “No. No.” She reached for him, touched him, caressed him, and his secret weapon became blue steel. “Please, I want…this.”

  She’d given him plenty of reason to think so. But what an odd way to put it. Based on some of her earlier behavior, especially when she’d been wearing that hot red dress, he’d have expected C.J. Maxey to come forth with a little steamy sex talk at a time like this.

  “So do I.” He’d just become the master of understatement. You’d think a man who made his living with words could do better.

  Considering the circumstances, though, the fact that his mind had imploded and his body was fixing to, he was lucky he could talk at all.

  He kissed her until she was moaning again, and then delved into that sweet little honey pot she was suddenly trying to hide between clenched thighs. All his blood had departed his brain and gone south for the duration, otherwise he might have heard the alarm bells clanging.

  Why didn’t she loosen up? “C.J.?”

  “Hmm.”

  “Could you relax a little bit? I won’t bite.”

  “I know.”

  “Okay, then. Just…” He put one hand on her knee and parted her thighs. “Let me give us both some relief.”

  “Hmm.”

  He’d never seen eyes wider. Or more innocent-looking. A man could drown in eyes like that. As a matter of fact, he was drowning. He was going down, down…

  “What the—?” Now he was the one jumping as if a squad of forty-four Magnums were firing at random.

  “Clint…” She reached for him and he evaded her, which was a spectacular feat for a rather large naked man at full mast in the back seat of a very small car. Some might even say it was a miracle.

  “Where are my damned pants?”

  “Your pants?”

  “Yes, madame. My pants.”

  It was hard to talk through gritted teeth. He figured he’d fractured at least one molar. Served him right for being such an idiot.

  How could he not have known? All the signs were there.

  “You don’t want me?” she asked. Just like a little girl who’d been told she was uninvited to a birthday party.

  Well, hell.

  He stopped his frantic search for cover and kneaded the side of her cheek with his fist.

  “It’s not that I don’t want you, sweetheart.”

  “You don’t like virgins?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never had one…and I don’t intend for you to be the first.”

  “Oh…” She flushed so bright he could see it even though it was dark and the moon had scuttled behind a cloud. “This is so embarrassing.” She pulled up her bodice and clutched it over her breasts like one of those old silent film stars in the movies he often watched late at night when he couldn’t sleep.

  “Nothing to be emb
arrassed about.”

  She unkinked her legs and smoothed down her skirt. “I feel so foolish. Naturally you expected a woman my age…” Her voice got a little hitch, and for a terrifying moment Clint thought she was going to cry.

  Now that would be embarrassing. He was totally helpless in the face of a crying woman. She’d find out that Mr. Seen-it-all-done-it-all wasn’t as tough as he’d seemed.

  Fortunately for him, she pulled herself together. In fact she sat straight up in the back seat and announced, “I wish you’d put your clothes on.”

  How she could go from cringing to bossy in a split second boggled his mind…and cleared his senses.

  “I should have known better than to bring you out here.” He stomped around the car. Actually he paraded, but not before he’d postured and preened.

  “You’re the one who insisted on a drive,” she said.

  He jerked his pants on. One thing he could say about C.J.’s rage: it took the starch out of a man. “Well, you’re the one who suggested a canoodle on your daddy’s farm.”

  “I did not suggest we canoodle. I said, Let’s look at the moon over the lake.”

  “Same damned thing.”

  “You have a one-track mind.”

  He buttoned his shirt crooked and had to start all over again. “I didn’t hear you complaining.”

  “No. You’re the one complaining.”

  “I wasn’t complaining. I was merely pointing out the facts.”

  “That you don’t do virgins.”

  “Damned straight.”

  “Ha.” She flounced out of the back seat and slammed the door.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means just what it sounds like. Ha!”

  “You’re the damnedest woman I’ve ever met.” He put his belt on and climbed behind the wheel. The sooner he got out of this godforsaken town, the better.

  Until then, he was going to keep his distance from C.J. Maxey, pageant or no pageant.

  “What are you waiting for?” he said. “Get in the car.”

  “Gentlemen open car doors for ladies.”

  “Hell.” He went around the car and jerked open her door. “Be my guest, your royal majesty.”

  “I wouldn’t get in the car with you if you were the last man on earth.”

  “Well, you’re sure as hell not going to walk. Get in the car, C.J.”

  “I am going to walk.”

  She struck out across the pasture with her nose lifted so high she’d drown if it started to rain. He thought about letting her go her stubborn way. After all, it was her farm. She’d know the way back home.

  In the dark?

  “Come back here,” he roared.

  “Make me.”

  That did it. He prided himself on his skill as a runner. Shoot, he’d run track in high school and college. Came close to setting a few records, then his mother died and all the competitive fire went out of him.

  He’d have Miss C.J. Maxey cornered in no time flat. And then, heaven help her, that’s all he could say.

  “You asked for it.”

  He sprinted off and was gaining rapidly when a dastardly pothole jumped into his path and sent him sprawling. Clint crashed like a felled redwood.

  That stopped the runaway princess. She turned, looked over her shoulder and came running back to him.

  “Are you hurt?”

  “Never better.”

  He hurt like hell, but he wouldn’t have admitted it if eighteen elephants were stomping on his chest.

  “Here,” she said, offering her hand, “let me help you up.”

  “I don’t need your assistance.”

  “Are you sure you’re okay? You don’t sound too good.”

  “That’s my usual stud-bites-the-dust voice.”

  She laughed. Darn her pretty hide, she had to go and laugh, which spoiled his bad mood. When you thought about it, there was something pretty funny about a hundred-and-eighty-pound man sprawled in a cow pasture all because he’d been chasing a woman he had no business bringing out there in the first place.

  Some would call it comeuppance.

  “I guess you think that’s pretty funny, huh?”

  “Yes.” She could hardly speak between great wheezes of laughter.

  “Maybe you’ll think this is even funnier.”

  Clint grabbed her hand and tugged her down right on top of him. Then they both laughed so hard they had to hang on to each other. And he’d guarantee that proximity was going nowhere, not after the lesson he’d learned.

  “Oh, my.” She wiped her eyes. “What a way to end an evening.”

  “Laughter’s the best medicine.” He grinned. “I made that up.”

  “It’s the most original thought I’ve ever heard.”

  She was laughing again, great peals of full-bodied mirth with her head thrown back and her slender neck bared to the moon. Just right for kissing. If you were dumb enough to make the same mistake twice.

  “As much as I enjoy sitting in this cow pasture with a frustrated, angry princess on my knee, I think it’s time to go home. What do you say?”

  “I say, what took you so long? A girl could fall in a pothole out here and break her neck.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Ellie, you’re wearing a dress!”

  “Don’t you think it’s high time? Most folks around here don’t even know I have legs.”

  Ellie stood on C.J.’s front porch for the first time since she’d left. It wasn’t the dress that stood out, though, it was Ellie herself. She positively glowed.

  C.J. didn’t have to guess the reason. She heard him coming down the hall saying, “Is that Ellie?”

  “Yes, Dad, it’s Ellie.”

  “Well, well.” He took both Ellie’s hands. “Don’t you look gorgeous!”

  “You make me feel young and beautiful.”

  “You are.”

  What Sam did next astonished C.J., though having seen the same behavior when her mother was alive, she shouldn’t have been surprised. He kissed Ellie softly on the mouth, then whirled her around the front porch in an impromptu waltz as if a twenty-piece orchestra were playing in three-four time.

  The thing that surprised C.J. was the jealousy she felt. It was merely a twinge, but still it was there. Oh, she wasn’t afraid of being usurped in her father’s affections. Nothing like that. And she was very happy for them, truly she was. But still she couldn’t help recall the recent debacle in the cow pasture. Though both she and Clint had laughed the whole thing off, which was about the best you could ask for under the circumstances, still C.J. felt that some important connection had been broken.

  He didn’t call anymore, didn’t drop by. Though he was supposed to cover the state pageant, she had no idea whether he’d be there.

  “Are you ready to go, C.J.?” Ellie was looking at her with a wise and knowing expression.

  Don’t say anything, C.J. silently pleaded, and Ellie picked up her signals.

  “As ready as I’ll ever be,” she said.

  “I’ll load the bags.” Sam trotted off whistling, and after he’d stowed her bags he kissed C.J. on the cheek. “Knock ’em dead this week, sweetheart. Sandi and I will be down Friday to see you in the finals.”

  C.J. didn’t say, “I probably won’t make the finals.” She simply said, “Okay, Dad. Have a good week. We’ll see you Friday.”

  The minute they got in the car, Ellie asked, “What was that all about back there on the porch?”

  “Nothing I can talk about right now.”

  “Fine. If you want to talk, just let me know.”

  “Let’s talk about you and Dad.”

  Ellie grinned. “I hope you’re as happy with developments as I am.”

  “Nothing could make me happier than to see you and Dad married.”

  “Sam’s not ready for that. I don’t know if he ever will be.”

  “Oh, I think he will.”

  Ellie glanced at her, then changed the subject. “It’s a long ride
to Jackson, C.J. Plenty of time for you to back out if you don’t want to do this.”

  “I’ve come this far. I might as well go all the way…for once in my life.”

  “That’s a strange way of putting it.”

  “It has been a strange summer.”

  “Strange but wonderful.” Ellie turned onto the Natchez Trace Parkway and cruised toward the site of the long-awaited state dairy princess pageant.

  “What’s the matter with your leg?”

  Clint had been sitting at his desk waiting for Wayne to come along and ask that question. “Took a little tumble.” He said it offhand as if he’d spilled down the steps drunk instead of landing in a hole while making a total jerk of himself over C.J.

  “My trick ankle went out.”

  “You need all that for a sprained ankle?”

  Wayne surveyed the thick Ace bandage, the crutches leaning against the desk, the footstool Clint had propped his foot on.

  “With this type of injury, you can’t be too careful.”

  Wayne rubbed the beard stubble which Clint suspected he kept for exactly that purpose. Nothing more dramatically portrays puzzlement than a thinking man worrying two-day-old beard stubble.

  “I seem to recall this is the first day of the state’s dairy princess competition.” Clint decided to let that remark ride. “I guess you’re going to tell me the trick ankle is why you’re not there.”

  “I figured it would hamper my ability to move around and get the stories. I figured you’d send Charlie while I stayed here to cover sports.”

  Wayne laughed until tears rolled down his cheeks. Even though it was at his expense, Clint endured his boss’s bout of hilarity with good grace. He was an easygoing man. He could take whatever Wayne dished out…as long as he didn’t send him to Jackson.

  Clint didn’t relish the idea of facing C.J. Maxey again. Not that he was cowardly, mind you. He knew an exit scene when he saw one. Not only had he seen it, he’d been the star.

  “The good citizens of Hot Coffee would laugh me out of business if I let you cover sports.”