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Her Naughty Holiday(33)



Val and David didn’t answer. They looked at each other, both of them seemingly daring each other to say something, but they had nothing.

“Thought so,” Erick said. “A gift is a gift. You all seem to think you gave her a fifty-thousand-dollar car and she got drunk and crashed it into your house, flipped you both off and ran away laughing into the night. She didn’t waste the education you gave her. She just found a different way to use it.”

“You don’t understand anything,” Val said. “Nothing at all about our daughter.”

“I understand that when she told me about the buyout offer on her business and I said, ‘I’m proud of you,’ she burst into tears because that’s all she ever wanted to hear from her family. You busted your ass to get a PhD. She busted her ass to build a business from the ground up. Clover makes good money, she’s a good person, she’s a smart businesswoman, and instead of saying, ‘Proud of you, Clo,’ I hear you all mocking her for not being married, not having kids and not having a college degree. Are you all so insecure about your lives that you’re threatened that Clover’s happy without doing what you all did? Is that it? Kind of sounds like it. Could you maybe look at what Clover has instead of what she doesn’t have? I don’t have a college degree, either. I framed houses after high school, then got my girlfriend pregnant when I was twenty. I started my own company so my family could have a roof over their heads. Not a promising start, either, but now I have a job I like and a kid I adore and a girlfriend I’m madly in love with. You don’t hear my parents telling me to get married and have more kids. They’re just happy I’m happy. And with Clover, I’m happy.”

“Erick?”

Erick turned around and saw Clover standing on the staircase.

“Oh, hey,” he said. “Sorry. I’m trying to get everyone to leave, I swear.”

“You’re madly in love with me?” she asked in a small voice.

“Yes, ma’am.” Erick grinned. God, it was good to see her.

She walked down the steps and he met her at the bottom. She threw her arms around him and he held her close and tight.

“I heard everything you said,” she whispered in his ear. “All of it.”

“Good.”

“I heard everything they said, too.”

“Don’t apologize. Not yet,” he said. “You can later if you need to but not yet. Let them stew.”

“Excuse me,” Hunter said. “We’re still here.”

Erick looked over his shoulder at Hunter.

“I see that. Why are you all still here?” Erick asked.

“I know how to get rid of them,” Clover said.

“Brew coffee?”

“Not coffee.”

Clover kissed him hard on the mouth. So hard and it felt so good. He kissed her back just as hard. They made a show of kissing passionately, almost cartoonishly.

“Clover Elizabeth Greene!” Val said in a horrified huff.

Erick sighed and let Clover go.

“Ladies and gentlemen of Clover’s family,” Erick said, “we’re about to have makeup sex. Probably on that couch. Maybe on the floor. I’d leave if I were you, but even if you don’t, it’s not going to stop us. Bye-bye.”

He gave a little wave, then grabbed Clover around the waist and pulled her against him dramatically as any hero in any old Hollywood movie. He kissed her and kissed her and kissed her, not dramatically this time, not putting on a show to send her family scurrying. He kissed her as hard as he loved her and he loved her as hard as he kissed her, so it was no surprise they were both breathless by the time they looked up and saw Clover’s family was long gone.

“Finally,” he said. “Thought they’d never leave.”

“Was I too hard on them?” she asked.

“You were incredible. Give them a few days to lick their wounds, then you all can talk it out calmly. But damn, you weren’t kidding. They are awful.”

“I wish I was kidding. I guess it didn’t bother me that much when it was me, you know. But hearing them go after you, and after Ruthie especially... I couldn’t stay quiet anymore. I erupted.”

“Mount Hood’s got nothing on you. And just so you know, standing up to your family to defend my daughter is the sexiest thing any woman has ever done. If I wasn’t in love with you before, I fell in love with you right then and there.”

“I thought I was in love with you before. And I was. But now...thank you for saying what you said, for defending me even after I kicked you out of the house. Sorry about that. I went a little scorched earth there.”

“That’s right, you did kick me out. I better go before you call the cops on me.” He started to pull away from her and she grabbed him by the shoulders.

“Don’t you dare leave me. We’re supposed to be having makeup sex, remember? I’ve never had makeup sex.”

“I have a better idea,” Erick said as he picked her up in his arms and carried her up the stairs.

“Better? How better?”

“Much better. Makeup sex is good but there’s one kind of sex that’s better.”

“Which is?”

He sat her on the edge of the bed and knelt on the floor between her knees.

“There’s a kind of sex I haven’t even had and I’ve done everything. It’s the sex you have with the person you want to be with through everything—good and bad. I got married because I got my girlfriend pregnant, not because I wanted to get married. My other relationships never went anywhere. I haven’t dated since Ruthie’s arrest. What I’m saying is... I can imagine spending the rest of my life with you and I’ve never felt that about a woman before. I hope you feel the same.”

Clover put her hands on his face and kissed him.

“Yes,” she said. “I want to have that kind of sex with you. I’ve never been able to imagine spending the rest of my life with someone, either, but if my family disowns me and it’s just you and me and Ruthie for the rest of my life, then that’s not only enough for me, that’s all anyone could ever want.”

Erick kissed her again and started to push her back onto the bed. She stopped him with her hands on his chest.

“Just one thing,” she said.

“Anything.”

“Let’s not get married for a very long time. It would make my parents too happy if we did.”

“You’re wicked,” Erick said. “I love wicked.”

He pushed her onto her back and pulled her shirt up to take it off. They froze when Clover’s cell phone started ringing and beeping from the bedside table.

Erick picked it up and glanced at it.

“It’s your mom,” he said. “And a text message from your sister.” The phone vibrated in his hand again. “And Lisa. What do you want to do?”

“You,” she said.

Erick turned the phone off and jumped onto the bed.

“They can wait.”





14

CLOVER FELT IMPOSSIBLY light even with Erick on top of her. She felt clothed in happiness even as he undressed her. She felt joy even as tears slid down her face. More than anything she felt relief as Erick entered her and she lifted her hips to take all of him. He’d seen her at her worst, seen her family at their worst, and he loved her in spite of it all. And maybe even loved her a little because of it.

Erick moved in her with an almost unbearable tenderness, and Clover wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders, clamped her legs around his lower back and tucked her head against his neck. She’d liked him the day she met him when he came with Ruthie begging for nothing more than a job interview for his teenage daughter. He’d been so humble that day, almost scared, scared for his girl, who was facing real trouble. “Please, Ms. Greene,” he’d said. “She’s a good kid and smart. She’s a real nature lover, and she’ll work hard for you if you give her the chance.” Clover had asked him about Ruthie’s arrest and what he felt about it. When he’d answered by saying, “I don’t believe in using arson or violence to solve your problems, but when I was her age, I spent my Friday nights getting drunk with my friends in someone’s barn, not burning down barns to protest animal abuse. She made a bad choice, but she has guts and a good heart. When I don’t want to kill her, I have to admit I’m proud of her.”

I’m proud of her, Erick had said, and maybe that was the day Clover started to fall in love with him. About a year ago. But she’d loved Ruthie, too, which is why she’d hidden those feelings she had for Erick so well. It took Ruthie to bring them together, Ruthie to put them together, Ruthie to make them deal with their crushes on each other and get on with it.

“What are you laughing at?” Erick said as he braced himself over her and looked down into her eyes.

“Nothing,” she said. “Sorry.”

“You’re not supposed to laugh while I’m inside you. It’s hard on the hard-on.”

“I wasn’t laughing at you or your hard-on, I swear.”

“Then what?”

“I was just thinking about Ruthie.”

He raised his eyebrow so high Clover laughed again.

“That is a weird thing to do while we’re having sex.”