Page 81 of I Do, I Do, I Do
“If you don’t feel a respectable woman could see anything admirable in you, then how do you explain me being here?” Clara asked softly.
He frowned. “You didn’t know how I grew up.”
“Whatever else your mother was, I applaud her for raising a fine son. You’re ambitious, successful, honest, generous, and you have a zest for life. You try to be the best at everything you do, and you don’t do anything halfway. You could be a bully, but you’re not. With your background, you could have ended with a lot of unsavory qualities, but you didn’t.”
“You’re different,” he said finally. “You don’t see things the way most other women do. I didn’t know that at first, so I tried to stay away from you. I figured there was no sense setting us both up for disappointment. But I couldn’t stop coming around you, and you gave those little woman signs that said you didn’t mind seeing me.”
“I’m not different, Bear.”
“Yes, you are. Everyone who meets you knows you’re a respectable woman who’s had a gentle upbringing.” He smiled. “And then you show up at the tournament and win it. And you’re right there in the middle of a brawl, laying men out all around you. You have amazing flashes of behaving like a real person.”
She laughed. “A real person? Just what do you think a respectable lady is?”
He answered promptly. “She’s led a sheltered, protected life. She’s modest to a fault. She’s always feminine and dainty. Her reputation is impeccable, and she doesn’t associate with disreputable folks. She doesn’t swear. Her morals are the highest in the land. She’s a refined person with cultural tastes. She—”
“Bear, respectable women swear, sweat, work, argue, and lose their tempers just like anyone else. Just like your mother and her friends. There are good-natured respectable women and mean-spirited respectable women. Respectable women in business. Respectable women who drink straight from a bottle, who wouldn’t know a fish fork if it stabbed them in the hand. Respectable women who wouldn’t turn up their noses at a man like you.”
“Clara…”
“Let me finish. Respectable women live by a code of conduct that is often constraining, restrictive, and artificial. Parts of the code are exemplary, good for the woman and good for society. But parts of the code are just plain silly. I mean, why should it be scandalous for an adult woman to travel unaccompanied? Why must we sew weights in our hems to prevent a glimpse of ankle? An ankle! Why should it be shocking for a woman to arm wrestle if she wants to? Or to own a business? Why should it be more respectable to marry a polished man who is a liar, a thief, and a womanizer than to marry a man who grew up in a brothel?”
He stared at her, listening to every word.
“I’m not different from other respectable women, Bear. Maybe it only seems so because you haven’t known that many respectable women. We’re just people with the same thoughts and feelings that everyone has. And Bear…” She leaned forward and gazed deeply into his eyes. “Respectable women have needs just like the women you grew up with.”
He sucked in a quiet breath and the empty ale bottle slipped from his fingers. His gaze dropped like a rock to her impressive cleavage. Then he swallowed hard and jumped to his feet.
“I’ll get us another bottle of ale.”
Sighing, she watched him flee. Maybe he had accepted what she had said. More likely she’d put only a small dent in an idealistic way of thinking that had formed in his childhood.
She would have to take matters into her own hands.
Standing, she began to take off her clothes.
Chapter 19
Bear walked out of the kitchen carrying two bottles. “I think I know what you’re saying, but—” Sucking in a sharp breath, he stopped in his tracks. The bottles dropped from his hands and spun on the planks, spewing foam and dark ale. “Oh, my God!”
She stood before the fire wearing nothing but dark stockings, white flannel drawers, and a lace-edged corset that propped up her generous breasts. Brilliants sparkled in her hair and at her ears. And she wore a sultry expression that no man alive could have mistaken.
Bear took another step into the room and then stopped as if his knees were too wobbly to proceed. “Oh, my God,” he said again, his voice as ragged as sandpaper. Without taking his eyes off her, he slowly removed his jacket, exposing a white shirt that pulled tight across his large shoulders.
“I don’t think you’ve really listened to what I’ve been saying, Bear Barrett. So it seems I’ll have to show you that respectable women are made of flesh and blood.”
His gaze traveled up her legs, curved around her hips, dipped to her waist, then rose to her breasts and stayed there. He cleared his throat with a hoarse sound. “Honey—show me.”
“Get ready, because here I come. Brace yourself.”
If he thought he was going to give her a kiss that she’d remember all her born days…well,shewas going to givehima night he’d never forget if he lived three lives. In for a penny, in for a pound. Clara had made up her mind that if she was going after Bear while married to the weasel, she wasn’t going to let guilt inhibit her. If she cried in her pillow about this later, it wouldn’t be because she had any regrets or because she hadn’t given all she had.
She drew a deep, deliberate breath, letting her breasts swell. Then she focused on his mouth and raced across the room. At the last second she gathered herself, jumped up on him, wrapped her legs around his waist, and wound her arms around his neck.
Her momentum carried him backward, and he crashed against one of the small tables. The table splintered and shattered to the floor in pieces, and one of the photographs popped off the hook when Bear bumped the wall. Dimly, Clara was aware of breaking glass as the photograph hit the planks.
His big hands cupped her buttocks, the heat scorching her flesh through her flannel drawers. He swung her around and pressed her between his body and the wall, then his mouth came down on hers, hot and hungry and possessive. He kissed her like there was no tomorrow, and Clara dug her fingers into his hair and kissed him back like a sinner seeking salvation.
To her joy, her desire was intense and instantaneous, and so was his. She could feel her immediate future pressing against her drawers, and she almost swooned. She gripped him harder and kissed him again and again, nipping at his lips, sliding her tongue across his mouth, pulling his hair, stroking his jaw, unable to get enough of him.
