Clay leaned over, placing his face directly in front of hers. “Take. The. Glass.”
Still glaring, she reached up and took the drink in her hand. She held the chilled glass next to her forehead but didn’t take a sip.
“Do you want some aspirin?”
“No, thank you.”
Clay was quiet for a few minutes. While she refused to look at him, she could feel his eyes on her. He shed his jacket, leaving only the white dress shirt, unbuttoned at the neck. He pulled the shirttail out of his jeans and proceeded to roll up the sleeves. She glanced his way in time to see him nod to himself as though he’d determined the problem. Good for him. He took a seat next to her, his right arm going around the seat behind her.
Sophie immediately moved to the next seat down the cabin-length sofa away from him.
“Please leave me alone.”
“I haven’t even started to bother you...yet.” She heard him blow out a sigh. “Sophie, two people came back to the suite with me last night. Scott and Loretta Bennett. Loretta needed some paperwork she’d asked me to bring on the Ludlow case. Her husband came along when she picked it up.”
“I really don’t care.”
“Then why the tears? Your face is as swollen as a marshmallow that’s been roasted over a campfire. Unless you got bad news from home... Did you?”
“No.”
“Then,” he said gently, “why were you crying last night? And why are you so angry with me this morning?”
“I never said I was angry.”
He gave a half laugh. “You didn’t have to.”
Clay moved down to again sit next to her and pulled her into his arms. She struggled against him but he was too strong.
“Sophie, there was no woman in my room last night. The meeting and later at the club was strictly business. I know you must have heard Loretta when she came upstairs with me. Sophie, look at me.”
He was doing it again. It was a contest of wills and she was about to concede defeat. Slowly, she looked over at Clay. He was the most attractive man. A one-day-old shadow of beard stubble on his strong face highlighted the deep grooves on either side of his mouth. His green eyes were lit from within and watched her carefully. There was no laugh, no smirk.
“You are very special to me,” he whispered only inches away from her mouth, his deep voice sending a series of chills across her skin. “I would never do that to you. If either of us should decide to see someone else, I hope we would have the common courtesy to tell the other.”
“Is that what you did with your other women?”
Silence. “I’m not saying I’m not a bad boy or haven’t been in the past. What I’m saying is you are the one person I would never string along while I saw another woman.”
And then his lips touched hers, lightly at first, as though testing to see what she would do. Then his mouth came down on hers, tasting, devouring, over and over. His tongue pushed its way inside and Sophie couldn’t suppress a moan. She opened to him and the more she gave the more he took. His big hand slid under her shirt and cupped her breast over her bra. It wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. Then the bra fell away and his hand was on her, squeezing her nipple. The shirt came over her head and his lips found the other breast. A flare of pure lava rolled down to her core.
“Damn, Sophie.” He picked her up and carried her toward the back of the plane to the bedroom. Laying her on the bed, he quickly stripped them both of their clothing and pressed her down into the soft mattress.
“You make me crazy,” he murmured. “I can’t stand being away from you. Not having you every day, every night, is frustrating as hell.”
With his knee he parted her legs and settled himself onto her. As he rotated his hips, she felt his erection hard against her center. The impossible thought that they were thirty thousand feet above the ground only added to the need running rampant. Her heart gave a thunderous leap as excitement rushed through her, adding to the heat that already flowed through her veins. Her hands trembled as they roamed over his broad chest. Her entire being began to shiver in reaction to the fiercely male focus on his face. He once again lowered his lips to hers. He was hard, demanding. Then his mouth left to blaze a fiery trail over her throat and down to a pink-tipped breast while his hand cupped the other. The line between pain and sheer pleasure was walked perfectly by Clay, who caused flares of growing, intense pleasure from her breast to her core.
Falling to his side, he threw a heavy leg over hers as if preventing her from moving. His free hand drifted downward over the slight curve of her stomach, until his fingers found the curls of her essence. She was unable to move, frozen by the pure male anticipation that was Clay. One finger made a bold insertion and her body shuddered, all her thoughts consumed by what he was doing. By what he was about to do. She was on the edge of total satisfaction and Clay didn’t let the opportunity pass to send her to the heavens. Not caring if anyone might hear, she cried out, her climax consuming all rational thought. Her breath left her lungs when she gazed into his emerald-green eyes, now dark with passion, and saw the look of insatiable arousal. There was no stopping him and she didn’t want to. She wanted more. She had to have him inside her.
As though he knew and understood, he rolled on top of her and pushed inside. The tight, glorious heat filled her to the max. She was on fire for him and couldn’t offer enough of herself to him and the power of his big body. With a few circular moves and one hard thrust, she cried out again as their hot bodies writhed together in one harmonious blending of white-hot passion.
Sophie couldn’t move. As she lay next to Clay, gasping for her next breath, she felt his arms go around her and hold her close, his lips kissing her forehead and temple.
“Did we overcome your fear of flying?” he joked, still gasping for air, his voice deep from the recent emotion.
“Maybe.”
“Then we will have to keep trying until you can tell me you love to fly.”
“Hmm.” She felt rather than saw him smile as he covered her with a soft blanket. The curious hum of the engines and the gentle swaying of the plane lulled her to sleep. She drifted off thinking that maybe flying wasn’t so bad after all.
Eight
Where is the damned blackmail note?
It had been two weeks since the online rumors began and Clay had heard nothing from the person or people who’d instigated the vicious rumors against Everest. Not through any email, no snail mail, no phone call. He would be the first one to admit he was losing it. What in the hell did they want? There had to be a ransom for Everest. More threats. More lies. Something. And what was Maverick’s involvement in all this?
The only part worse than not knowing what the next plan of attack would be was still not knowing the cause of it. Why was someone doing this? What did they hope to gain?
He had managed to hold his temper in front of Sophie, but excusing himself from the office a dozen times a day when he made trips to the barn to mutilate bales of hay in an attempt to work out some of the exasperation had not skipped her notice.
Over those two weeks, Sophie and Clay worked morning till night, manning the phones and talking with clients of Everest located around the world, assuring them the latest publicity was pure fiction, made up by some crazed individual to try to make Everest fail. Everest cybersecurity was solid and uncompromised, as it had been from the beginning.
Their combined efforts began paying off. The number of businesses canceling their accounts had drizzled down to nothing and amazingly new accounts were coming on board. In the last two days Clay had been advised that the sales staff had taken at least a hundred calls from corporate executives wanting more information on Everest. Pamphlets and application forms were promptly sent out.
Still, he didn’t know who was behind the vicious rumors or their reasons for spreading them.
A meeting was arranged with local business owners and CEOs to discuss the Maverick situation. Clay left Sophie and the secretaries to man the incoming calls as he headed for the Texas Cattleman’s Club. To his surprise and delight, the meeting room was full. The hushed banter stopped when Clay stepped up to the microphone.
“I want to thank you all for coming and hope you’re enjoying the refreshments provided. I know most of you have a very busy schedule, so with your permission I’ll get straight to the reason for this meeting. As most of you may know, the reason I asked you here today was because I need your help. Someone, I don’t as yet know who, has engaged in a smear campaign, online and in the local and national media, claiming Everest’s cloud computing has been compromised. They claimed security was breached and highly classified information was open for viewing. For the record, none of that is true. Not in the least.
“I don’t have a clue who’s behind this or what their motivations are. As far as I know, the only real enemies I’ve ever had walked on four feet, had horns and weighed about two thousand pounds. They don’t mess around with computers.”
A general laugh was heard across the room.
“But the name Maverick has come up in our investigations, and I know how other TCC members are putting up with harassment and blackmail from this mysterious source. I’m here to ask for your help and support and share what we’ve found out so far.”