Chapter 28
His wording stopped her for a moment. Love? Was that what this was for him? An admission of love? Was that what he thought it was for her?
Her rational brain told her what they had couldn’t possibly be love. They hadn’t known each other long enough. He was only being polite. A gentleman didn’t ask for sex using crude terms, and Cal was kind and thoughtful at his core.
This explanation was enough to quiet the blare of sirens that had been triggered by his phrasing. Not love, then. Just a gentlemanly request for no-strings sex.
So why did framing things that way chafe her at her core? She’d never been a no-strings kinda girl. She was an avoid-all-forms-of-attachment, don’t-risk-any-pain-or-betrayal kind of girl. Didn’t sex imply trust? Didn’t the act mean allowing herself to be at least a little vulnerable?
“Huh.” Cal’s brow furrowed as he sat up, easing her off his lap. “I think your hesitation speaks for itself. Anything you have to think that hard about isn’t—”
“No!” She shook her head, then quickly amended, “I mean, yes. I mean, I always think this hard. I’m a scientist. It comes with the territory. I have to analyze decisions.”
His expression was skeptical, but he didn’t say anything.
She clutched his forearm. “I just want to be sure, you know?”
He held her gaze, his eyes silently asking, And…? His eyes…
Eyes that had teased her and mesmerized her and seduced her from the first time they met. Heat flashed through Jules, a yearning so strong it left her lightheaded. “Yes.”
She answered before she could second-guess herself or question her need.
Now fire shone from those bright blue eyes as he took her lips again, shifted her beneath him and eased her back on the couch.
When items of clothing started being shed, he stooped to lift her into his arms. Once he’d carried her upstairs to the privacy of his bedroom, they were naked in seconds, each helping the other peel off the remaining garments.
Small creases on Cal’s face hinted that the night’s ghosts still haunted him, and she wanted to banish his demons and comfort him the same way he’d cheered and supported her for weeks.
Wait…was it only days? Had it really been less than two weeks? As he yanked off the bedspread and folded back the sheet, she blinked, gobsmacked by the realization she’d only met Cal recently, when he’d come to investigate the dead man near the gift shop.
So much had happened in the last two weeks that she felt like she’d known him for so much longer.
“Come here,” he said, tugging her hand, and she stepped into his embrace. His hands stroked down her back and cupped her bottom, pulling her closer to him. Air stuck in her lungs, a surge of desire stealing her breath when the proof of his arousal nudged her intimately.
When he feathered nibbling kisses along her throat and down to her shoulder, she let her head tip back, her neck arched in invitation. The slow, tender way he explored made her feel cherished, wanted for more than sex, but valued as a woman. His woman.
A shiver chased through her, and she took a step back from Cal, her heart thrashing in panic the way Joy had flailed when she first caught her.
He lowered his eyebrows and gave her a look of concern. “Have you changed your mind? Did I do something wrong?” He stroked his palm along her cheek. “You are safe with me.”
She saw the moment his words, the implied promise, clanged discordantly in his own ears. He was thinking of the shooting, of Matti being exposed to peril. She knew it immediately.
She framed his face with her hands and pinned a hard look on him. “Cal, you are not responsible for the shooting or the danger Matti was exposed to tonight. You said yourself that she was all right, unhurt. Don’t beat yourself up over it.”
A muscle in his jaw twitched as he ground his back teeth.
He drew her with him as he moved to the edge of the bed and sat.
“It’s not as simple as that. Besides being her big brother, I’m the sheriff of this county.
It is on me if there are violent drug gangs and dealers shooting at each other and putting innocent civilians at risk.
I ran for office on a promise to rid this town of the drug crime, and tonight my lack of progress came back to bite me hard on the ass! ”
Sarcastic humor and teasing banter had always been her go-to when she didn’t know what else to say, so now, she said, “What if I were to bite you on your ass? Hmm?”
His chin jerked back, and his cerulean eyes widened. “What?”
She waggled her eyebrows playfully.
A hearty laugh burst from him—rich, deep and enough to waken every cell in her body. She wanted Cal Colton. Now.
Wrapping her body around his, she kissed him thoroughly and clutched him close. When she paused to catch her breath, she whispered against his mouth. “I’m in a mood to be a little reckless, Colton. Don’t blow this opportunity.”
He needed no more invitation. Pulling her with him onto the bed, he took her lips with his and explored her mouth with his tongue.
His hands slid over her, enticing shivers of pleasure from deep in her core.
The touch of his hands on her naked skin made her body hum as if electricity coursed through her.
Jules’s eyes flicked up, searching his face with quiet urgency.
The tension between them was no longer polite—no longer patient. It cracked like thunder.
Cal slid his body down hers, stoking little fires as he moved his lips across her ribs, down to her navel.
His fingers brushed her breasts, and she arched into his hands.
He molded, pinched and tasted her in a way that was both tantalizing and tender, raw and reverent.
Her breath escaped in needy pants as his touch moved downward.
When his hands settled at her hips, lifting her, arranging himself, the heat between them felt almost unbearable.
“You sure?” he murmured, his voice rough as gravel.
Jules nodded, then wrapped her arms around his neck to kiss him.
A gasp slipped from her throat when he entered her, and she inhaled the moan that escaped from his.
Or was it the other way around? She wasn’t sure where she stopped and he started.
Her senses blurred, and the world tilted as they moved as one.
Sensations rose as if from her marrow. Her hands moved to his back, her fingertips mapping out the way his back arched toward her.
He lifted her easily, her legs tightening around him, and the world fell away with each heartbeat.
As skin met skin, their breaths tangled—hot, ragged, real.
Just Cal and Jules, as she learned what it meant to finally feel wanted. Safe.
Much later, when their passion had cooled and their bodies were sated, he held her as sleep stole over them.
Jules studied the fringe of his dark eyelashes on his cheeks as his breathing grew deep and even.
The tension that had lined his countenance had disappeared, his handsome face now relaxed with slumber.
In the aftermath, in the stillness of his dark bedroom, she waited for the recriminations, the doubts to creep over her.
But they never came. If nothing else, she’d been what he wanted, what he needed after the nightmare at the police station.
And being what Cal Colton needed felt pretty damn good.