Chapter Eleven
Cal shoved the door open and held it for Willa as they trudged back into the Seaglass, both of them soaked and worn out. A cold rain had blown in hard, slicking their hair and turning their clothes into heavy, miserable layers.
Frustration sat thick in his chest. They had chased Brent all over town, from his office to his house and through every flimsy lead that might have pinned him down. But Brent had vanished. Either by accident or design, the man had made himself scarce.
Willa had tried calling him half a dozen times. Brent never answered.
Cal watched her now, her jaw tight, her hands balled at her sides. She was soaked through, and the wet strands of her hair clung to her neck.
Delia looked up from the bar as they came in. She set down a tray of pint glasses and took them both in with one sharp glance.
“You,” she said, pointing at Willa, “are taking the night off. I don’t want to hear it. You step behind this bar, and all you’re going to get is gossip about that video.”
Willa opened her mouth to argue, but Delia cut her off with a look.
“Go upstairs. Get dry. Get warm. I’ve got the bar,” her mom insisted.
Cal glanced at Willa, waiting to see if she would fight it. She didn’t. She just sighed and dragged a hand through her dripping hair.
“Fine. But I’m not going to bed yet.” She shot him a sideways look. “We’ve still got some figuring out to do.”
Cal smiled, despite the frustration still chewing at him. “Good. I’m not done yet either.”
At the top of the stairs, Cal paused, water dripping from his hair onto his shoulders. Willa stopped beside him, her damp clothes clinging in a way that made it very hard for him to think straight.
She looked at him, something tired but determined in her eyes. “I’m going to shower and change. Maybe afterward we can dig online, see if we can find proof Brent posted the video.”
He nodded. “Yeah. Same here. I need to get out of these wet clothes.”
What he really wanted was to do all that with her. Strip, shower, get clean, get tangled—but right now, she needed answers more than she needed his hands on her.
“Meet you in a bit?” he asked.
“Yeah. Give me twenty.”
She turned and headed for her apartment, and just before he followed suit, he noticed a small brown paper bag sitting on the floor by his door.
A note was taped to the front in Delia’s neat handwriting. Made too many. Figured you’d like some. Enjoy!
Cal peeked inside and couldn’t help the snort that came out. Dick cookies. The sagging, misshapen “cornucopias” Delia had served them earlier. He shook his head, grabbed the bag, and carried it inside.
He stripped out of his wet jeans and shirt, took a quick, hot shower to chase off the chill, then pulled on dry jeans and a soft flannel shirt.
While he toweled his hair, his thoughts kept circling Brent.
There was no way this wasn’t him. The question was why.
And how deep was he planning to drag Willa into it?
He shoved his feet into his boots and grabbed the bag of ridiculous cookies. He figured Willa would either laugh or threaten to throw one at him. Honestly, either reaction worked for him.
Cal didn’t have any cocoa in his grocery stash. He didn’t have wine either. But he did have beer.
He pulled a couple from the mini fridge, set them on the small table, and grabbed a plate for the cookies. He arranged the lopsided, inappropriate cornucopia shapes as if they were some kind of prize-winning dessert.
They were definitely not prize-winning.
It hadn’t been twenty minutes yet. Willa would still be in the shower, probably warming up and maybe wondering why Delia had left the world’s worst-shaped cookies outside his door.
Cal wandered over to the window and looked out across the street at the Driftwood Manor. The curtain was still open, but the camera was gone.
His gaze drifted down to the street just in time to catch a figure leaving the back door of the manor. A woman, bundled in a heavy coat with the hood pulled up high, her face tucked out of sight. She moved quickly, slipping down the narrow side path toward the next block.
Misty?
Possibly.
Cal considered it, his hand tightening around the edge of the window frame. He could go after her. Could ask her straight out what game Brent and she were playing, why the video had been leaked.
But then a knock sounded at his door.
Cal crossed to the door, expecting Willa. Instead, it was Eden, wearing a slinky red dress that left very little to the imagination. No coat. Just heels, bare arms, and a lot of confident strut as she breezed right past him like she had been invited.
Cal sighed, shutting the door behind her. “What are you doing here, Eden?”
She turned, giving him a slow smile that probably worked on plenty of people. “I popped into the Seaglass. Figured I’d have a drink, maybe catch you before you disappeared again.”
He crossed his arms, already done with this conversation. “If you’re here to ask about dinner, the answer’s no.”
Her smile flickered. “No?”
“No.”
Her eyebrows lifted, and for a second, she genuinely seemed thrown. “You came to Wild Rose Point for me, Cal. You said so yourself.”
“I did,” he admitted. And he needed to make this next part crystal clear. “But I’m not staying for you. I’m staying for Willa.”
The anger in Eden’s eyes flared so fast it was almost a jolt, sharp and ugly.
For half a second, she looked like she might tear into him, might let all that bitterness come flying out.
But then she reeled it back, fast, like flipping a switch.
She slipped on that cool, dismissive mask like the rejection hadn’t just hit her square in the chest.
She gave a soft, forced laugh. “I can’t believe you fell for that soulmate bullshit.”
Cal shrugged. He hadn’t fallen for the legend stuff. He’d fallen for Willa. It was just sort of a weird footnote that they’d been branded as soulmates because of a chugged lager.
“Willa’s a terrible bet, you know,” Eden went on. “She’s impulsive. She gets bored. She’ll walk away the second you make the mistake of needing her.”
Cal didn’t rise to it. He just waited Eden out.
Eden’s chin lifted as she brushed invisible lint off her dress, smoothing it as if the fabric might salvage her pride. “Well,” she said finally, that fake sweetness sliding back into place, “good luck with that.”
Then she turned and walked out, her heels clicking down the hall without a single glance back.
Cal shut the door with a soft thud and blew out a long breath. He had no regrets. None. But the weight of it still landed square on his shoulders because it was something he should have done weeks ago.
Less than a minute later, there was another knock. This time, he smiled as he went to answer it, already knowing who he wanted it to be.
And it was.
Willa stepped inside, her hair damp and curling slightly at the ends, her sweater loose but somehow still managing to drive him out of his mind.
Judging from her expression, she hadn’t seen Eden’s exit, and he considered that a good thing.
He didn’t want even the memory of Eden playing into this tonight.
She glanced at the plate on the table and smiled, amusement flashing in her eyes. “Please don’t think I’ll be eating those,” she said, pointing at the sagging cookies. “But I’m pretty sure they could be used in a porn kind of way.”
It was a joke. He knew it. She knew it.
But the lust hit him like a freight train anyway.
And from the way her breath caught and her gaze slid to his mouth, he figured it slammed into her just as hard.
They lunged at each other at the same time, crashing together, mouths colliding, hands everywhere, fast and desperate and electric.
Her fingers fisted in his shirt, tugging him closer as his hands found her waist, her back, needing to touch as much of her as he could. The heat exploded between them, no hesitation this time, no thinking, just all in, all fire.
The kissing escalated fast, like they had both been holding back way too long and neither of them had any patience left. His hands slid under her sweater, finding warm skin, and her fingers tugged his flannel shirt loose from his jeans.
They stumbled backward toward the table, bumping into it hard enough to send the plate teetering. Willa’s hand flew out to steady it, but not before the cookies slid right off the edge.
Sugary dicks scattered across the floor like some weird, inappropriate hailstorm.
Willa’s laugh was breathless against his mouth. “Oh no. We’ve just committed dessert homicide.”
“Not sure they qualified as dessert,” he managed, pulling her closer, pressing her against him. “And I don’t think they’ll be missed.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck, dragging him back into another kiss, this one messier, deeper, both of them burning now.
When her foot accidentally crunched one of the cookies under her heel, they both laughed, but neither of them slowed down.
“Guess we’re not saving those for later,” she whispered, her voice rough and teasing.
“Don’t need cookies,” he murmured, kissing a trail down her jaw.
She made a low sound in her throat that absolutely wrecked him.
The cookies could wait. The mess could wait.
Right now, she was everything.
“Your knee,” she blurted, obviously remembering his injury.
“Is fine,” he filled in for her. Even if it wasn’t, he had no intention of letting it get in the way. This kind of heat had a way of dulling pain and filling his mind with nothing other than Willa.
They kissed their way across the room, bumping into the table again, then stumbling into the back of a chair. Willa giggled against his mouth, her hands tugging at the buttons on his shirt like she could not get them undone fast enough.
Cal nearly tripped over the corner of the rug as they shuffled toward the bed.
“Careful,” she breathed, laughter bubbling up even as her pulse thundered against him.
“I’m trying,” he muttered, catching his balance and swooping back in for another kiss. “You’re a little distracting.”
“A little?” She pulled his shirt open, finally, pushing it off his shoulders like she had been working on that victory her whole life. His hands slid up under her sweater, bunching the soft fabric until he pulled it over her head and tossed it somewhere behind him.
Her hair tumbled around her shoulders, wild and perfect, and he could not stop kissing her, could not stop drinking her in.
They hit the edge of the bed and Willa cursed when her knee knocked into the frame. It obviously didn’t slow her down one little bit because she grabbed a handful of his shirt and dragged him down with her as they tumbled onto the mattress.
They shifted, adjusting limbs, laughing between kisses as they worked their way into something a little less awkward and a whole lot hotter.
“Smooth,” she repeated, breathless and flushed beneath him.
“I have my moments,” he said, kissing her again, longer this time, savoring it, feeling the spark turn into a wildfire.
And right then, Cal knew.
This was one of those moments. One he did not want to rush. One he absolutely did not want to forget.
Willa’s hands were everywhere, tugging at his clothes, skimming his skin, sending heat through him like nothing else could. Cal kissed her like he had not had enough oxygen in days, like he had been waiting for this longer than he could admit.
They fumbled out of shirts, jeans, and socks, laughing quietly every time they bumped into each other or got tangled up in the process.
She hooked her foot around his leg, pulling him closer as she teased, “You’re kind of terrible at the whole coordinated cowboy thing.”
He grinned and kissed her neck, feeling her shiver under his lips. “I can be coordinated when I need to be.”
Her fingers slid through his hair, tugging gently. “This isn’t the time for a demonstration?”
Cal brushed his nose against hers, his hand gliding along her bare waist. “Oh, it is definitely the time.”
The mood hovered between them, light and electric, like they had stumbled into something that was just as much laughter as it was heat.
As his hand traced up her ribs and over her breast, she whispered, “Pretty sure your mom’s cookie curse is scattered all over the floor.”
“Good,” he murmured, kissing her again. “Let it stay there.”
Their naked bodies pressed together, skin sliding against skin, every touch sparking something hotter, something deeper. Cal kissed her like he could never get enough, his hands roaming, exploring, memorizing the feel of her.
Willa arched against him, her breath ragged, her voice rough with urgency. “Now, Cal. I need you now.”
Somehow, despite the pounding of his heart and the rush of heat clouding his brain, he managed to grab a condom from his wallet and open it with surprising skill. He rolled it on quickly, grateful that for once, he had hit that rare sweet spot where coordination actually cooperated with him.
“Smooth after all,” Willa whispered, her lips brushing his.
He grinned against her mouth. “Told you.”
Then he thrust inside her, sinking deep, and they both gasped like the moment had hit harder than either of them expected.
They moved together, finding a rhythm that was easy and natural, a perfect mix of breathless urgency and playful heat. The world outside slipped away, and for a while, there was nothing but the sound of their breathing, the quiet hum of the room, and the undeniable pull between them.
Willa met him thrust for thrust, her fingers sliding over his back, clutching him closer like she wanted to pull him inside out.
Her soft gasps turned to needy moans, her head tipping back, her body tightening beneath his. Cal kissed the hollow of her throat, dragging his lips along her collarbone, tasting her skin, feeling her pulse fluttering under his mouth.
“Cal,” she whispered, the word catching, shaking.
He loved the way she said his name. Loved the way she unraveled in his arms.
He picked up the pace, their bodies fitting so perfectly it felt like the kind of thing you couldn’t fake, couldn’t force. It was just there. Easy. Right.
When she shattered around him, crying out his name as she clung to him, he followed, his own release crashing over him, stealing his breath and taking every last ounce of control.
They stayed tangled up together, chests rising and falling, hearts racing.
Cal buried his face in her hair, breathing her in. “Okay,” he said between breaths, his voice low and a little wrecked. “That… was better than cookies.”