Chapter 84 Realism
realism
Cal
Billie hasn’t shoved my hand away, so I assume she’s not totally put off by what I’m saying.
“There’s something I really like about being around you,” I say, swallowing back the strange nervousness I’m feeling.
“I’ve never cared that much about what people think of me.
I know it sounds cocky or whatever, but self-doubt isn’t a thing I deal with all that often.
I know I piss people off and say the wrong things a lot of the time, or offend people without realizing it, whatever…
but I’m just not wired to care about it all that much, for better or worse. ”
Billie lets out a strange sound, a kind of a laugh, I guess. I peer at her, wishing for the first time that I was better at reading people’s emotions.
“It’s not that I don’t care about others,” I say quickly, “I just—”
She puts up her free hand. “Don’t blow a gasket, Cal. I’m not here to judge you. You said it, we are who we are, and we all have our quirks. I just wish I could have fifty percent of your lack of self-doubt.”
“Most people just think I’m an asshole.”
“Sometimes you can be. But I know there is a good heart under all that awkward.”
“How?”
“How do I know, you mean?” Her eyes are so pretty, the way she’s looking at me right now.
I nod once.
“Well, because I’ve seen you with those kids, for one. You are good with them. You care about them, and you’re patient with them.”
“But I really messed things up with your mother.”
“It’s fine,” she says with another squeeze of my hand. “You didn’t know. And honestly, it’s turning out to be a good thing, maybe. My brother offered the band an opportunity to do some work on the soundtrack for his new movie.”
“What? Really?”
“Yup.” She flattens her lips into a line, and I can’t read what it means. Is she happy about it?
“You’re not happy about it?”
Billie lifts a shoulder. “I don’t know. I like my job, you know? I like playing in the band around here. It’s a good life, a life I chose, you know? I left LA for a reason.”
“I think I understand that better than most,” I say with a squeeze of her hand this time.
There’s something about Billie that I can’t describe. Something that draws me to her. I want to kiss her right now, but she seems so far away. She looks at me now like she’s not sure what to say.
I let go of her hand and stand up, feeling awkward. “I guess I should head home.”
She stands up, the blanket falling to the floor as she reaches out, grabbing my hand again. “Why do you feel like you need to leave?”
“I just…I’m not good at this, Billie.”
“At what? Having a human conversation?”
I shrug.
“Look at me.” Then, “Calum.”
Something about the way she says my name makes me feel good. Not Cal. Calum.
Emily only ever said my full name when she was upset with me or scolding me, like my mom might have when I was young. Billie, however, says it differently. On her tongue, it sounds warm and inviting.
“I like the way you say my name,” I blurt out because, for some reason, I want her to know how much I like it. Weirdly.
“For the record, I really like how you say my name too, but what other way is there to say it?” she asks, her head cocked curiously to one side, a flirtatious smile on her face.
“No one really says my full name. They always shorten it to Cal, which is fine and Cal is what I usually prefer to be called rather than Calum, except when you say it.”
“Well, I like it. Calum,” she purrs. “Calum. In the Hebrew faith, it means devotion.”
“I’m not really religious,” I explain. “My parents believed in science, not faith.”
“My parents are very loosely affiliated with organized religion, but I still studied the faith up until my bat mitzvah. Calum was described as a faithful protector of Israel.”
“I’m not very political, either. This is a weird conversation.”
Billie laughs, a surprised hiccup of sound. “You’re right. You said you liked the way I said your name and I made it weird by talking about religion when I should have just asked you to kiss me.”
This request, I understand. I pull her closer, putting my free hand on her cheek, meeting her gaze before touching my lips to hers. She sighs quietly, and I pull her closer, deepening the kiss as she opens her mouth, our tongues finding one another.
My hands roam, running the length of her spine, pushing under her shirt, touching the bare, soft skin there. She sighs again, against my mouth, the sound and feel of it more erotic than anything I’ve ever experienced before.
“I want you to do dirty things to me, Calum,” she whispers against my lips.
My cock goes insta-hard, obviously liking that idea very much as I pick her up, hands on her ass, her legs straddling my waist. I shuffle us down the hall, kissing my way up her neck, breathing in the sweet scent of her hair.
I hope I’m heading in the right direction for her bedroom because I’ve never been in her apartment before.
But as soon as a king-sized bed comes into my vision, I make a beeline toward—
“Shower,” she insists, through a kiss. So, I change course and head for the en suite.
I reluctantly set her down, because I really like carrying her in my arms, but I want her naked more.
We fumble with each other’s clothing until the last item drops to the floor with a swish.
Both of us stand completely naked before each other and look.
I take in her body, lightly muscled from her years of drumming.
Her hair is so long down over her shoulders and breasts, the purple ends contrasting sharply against her creamy skin in the soft lighting of her bathroom.
My mouth is dry, and my heart goes slightly crazy as I try to piece together all of the things I want to say to her. I open my mouth. Close it. Open it again. Close it again.
“What?” she asks, her cheeks turning pink.
“You’re so beautiful.” I barely manage to get the words out.
Her blush deepens and she turns away, suddenly bashful.
“I’ve seen you before.” You were beautiful then too.
“I know,” she says before taking a deep breath.
“Well then, why are you being shy?”
“This feels…different. Somehow. Am I wrong?”
The way Billie bites her bottom lip, her deep brown eyes wide and questioning…it makes my cock even harder, if that’s possible. I’m not totally oblivious to what she’s asking, but I’m still not sure how to articulate how I feel. How much I want her.
I step into the oversized shower and start the water, beckoning with one hand for Billie to join me. She takes my hand and steps in, the glass door enclosing us as the space fills with steam.
We’re so close but not yet touching, save for our clasped hands. I look into her eyes, trying to convey…something. She gives me a sweet, soft smile that makes my cock twitch for her touch.
I want to kiss her so badly. But I need to get this out. I blow out a big breath, biting the inside of my cheek because I know what an idiot I must look like.
“Words are hard,” Billie says with a little laugh.
“They can be,” I agree. “For me anyway.”
“Well, let me help you, Calum,” she says. “I know this isn’t supposed to be happening. We’re supposed to be professionals, just working on a project together. But we’ve crossed that line and then some, and I really like you.”
“You do?”
She laughs again. “Of course, I do.”
I let out the breath I didn’t know I was holding. “I’m just…never sure. Of what people think of me.”
“I didn’t think you cared what people think.”
“But I do care sometimes. I care what you think, Billie. Always.”
“Well, be assured that I am firmly in the Calum Lefleur fan club.”
“I like you, too. Very much.”
She smiles widely. I pull her close, wrapping my arms around her, pulling her gorgeous naked body against mine as we embrace.
“This felt so much easier the last time,” I comment with a chuckle. “I feel like such a virgin.”
This makes Billie laugh out loud, a big laugh that has her in tears as she pulls me under the hot spray of water.
We both laugh and sputter, and before I know it, the strange tension is erased as I lean in for a kiss.
My thumbs brush back and forth over her nipples, circling the tight tips as she arches into the attention.
Her hand grips my cock, stroking slowly as our tongues intermingle. I pull away to catch my breath, moving my hands to push my wet hair from my face, then doing the same for Billie.
“You make Las Vegas…so much better.” No, that’s not the right thing. I try again. “I mean, I’m glad I saw you play that night. When I first spotted you up there…I couldn’t look away, Billie. Even though I didn’t know you, it gave me hope for what this could be.”
She smiles slightly, but her eyes are hooded as she continues the rhythmic stroking. Back and forth, her hand on my cock is hot pleasure, but her mouth would be better.
“Keep up the sweet-talking, Shakespeare.” A wry grin adding to the sexy, I-want-you-to-do-dirty-things-to-me-Calum look on her beautiful face. Oh, I plan on it.
“I was stupid to think things would work with Emily. Stuck in my own head about change. And all the while, you were right here. A real friend. A person who accepted me for me. And that means a lot because I think I might be a handful.”
“I do accept you as you are. I can be difficult, too.”
“I’m just glad I found your band that ni—”
“But now you need to stop talking.”
“Okay.”
Our mouths meet again, this time devouring.
Consuming. My fingers play at her clit, two slipping down to part her and push deep up inside the tight heat.
She flexes into my hand, my palm hard against her most sensitive spot, her moans spurring me to finger her harder, faster, until she’s coming in my arms. That’s happening.
She arches her back, pulling her mouth from mine, shaking her head like she can’t take this friction. Falling to her knees, she takes my cock in her mouth as she looks up at me with those dark, magical eyes of hers. With her mouth and tongue, she continues a slow, sexy rhythm of sucking me.
I brace myself, my hands on the wall behind her, my hips moving to meet her lips, my eyes never leaving her face. Before I lose it completely, I pull her back up, my fingers finding her slippery clit again, my lips and teeth grazing along her nipples as she lets out a gasp of pleasure.
“I want you,” she breathes. “Cal, please.”
“Say Calum,” I growl, giving one of her nipples a gentle bite.
“Ahhh…Calum.” A sexy, low whisper. The sound of her saying my name like that with her naked and desperate in my arms makes a shudder roll through my body.
“Again.”
“Calum.” She says it again. Pleading and desperate now. “Please. Please, Calum.”
I lift her, bracing her back against the tiles, and spread her wide.
She’s ready to take my cock, and I’m past ready to give it to her.
When I push deep inside her on a rough slide and start to fuck, she cries out my name again, moving her hips to meet every thrust, our bodies in total sync.
My mouth on her jaw, her neck, the hollow of her throat, every place my lips can reach.
Her nails digging into my back, urging me along with her.
Our bodies are slick, moving together, water sluicing over us, getting in our eyes, wetting our lips and tongues.
Like a hazy, drugged dream I don’t want to ever end, endorphins crash through my system, the tingle of energy rippling through my veins as my release builds.
Fuck. I don’t know if it’s okay for me to come—
“Is this okay? No…condom…” I barely get the words out before Billie’s moans grow intense and feral, her cunt tightening around my cock, her orgasms following one after another, a parade of ecstasy that spurs me to go faster, harder until I know I’m hurtling over the edge to join her any second.
“Yes…s’okaaaaay,” she chokes out through the haze of her pleasure.
The sight of her in my arms, my cock pulsing deep inside her, our names on each other’s lips, my forehead against hers, eyes closed, flips my go-switch. I start to come, the experience like nothing I’ve ever felt before, riding out the wave of intense feeling, of emptying myself, my soul…into hers.
It’s so hard for me to express emotion, to show how I feel, and I hope that this shows her that she can feel it.
We stay connected for a long while, catching our breath, holding each other. When I pull away, it’s only to grab the soap. I wash her, her soft, creamy breasts and pebbled nipples. I wash the sensitive space between her legs, and she moans sexily, leaning into me, making my cock hard again.
“How can I want you this much?” I marvel, mostly to myself.
Billie looks up to meet my gaze, her expression open and vulnerable, as if she’s asking me to say it again, to assure her it’s real.
“It is, Billie.”
“What is, Calum?”
“What you said before. That this feels different now between us. You’re right. It is different now. It’s real. So fucking real.”
She takes my face in her hands and kisses me sweetly while I bring her flush against my body. We stay like that for a long time, holding each other under the falling spray of warm water floating down around us like a cleansing rain.
Moments pass, maybe hours, who knows. But eventually, we turn off the shower.
The last drops of water falling onto the tiles below sound garishly loud in the quiet of what we just did together as we pull oversized, purple towels around ourselves.
Purple must be her favorite color. She goes to the sink to brush her long hair and I watch her in the mirror.
When she turns, her cheeks and chest are flushed with pink.
I hold out my hand, and she takes it, her towel falling to the floor as she steps into me.
Together, we find her bed, and that realism I’ve never felt with anyone else before today…once more.