Chapter 21
CADEN
Remind me again what we’d been doing when we were so brutally interrupted?
Valentina looked up from the lounge chair where she’d gotten comfortable, making use of the last rays of the day. The sun was about to disappear behind the house, then set over the ocean. She had another twenty minutes, tops.
Her lips tipped upward, and the book in her hands landed on the small table next to her without much consideration. Just so we’re clear: when summer’s over and I barely managed to read one book, I’m going to blame you, she said, sitting up, leaning back onto her elbows.
Two braids parted her cherry-red hair in the middle, the sun had left her skin flushed, sweat collecting in her hairline and brows. Her bikini, a little crooked, showed off her tan lines.
I held my hand out to her. I can live with that. Cool down? I asked, and nodded toward the pool beside us. It must’ve still been eighty-six degrees, at least. In the sun, it felt more like ninety or more. So I wasn’t surprised when it didn’t take her long to say, Lead the way.
I took my phone out of my pocket and jumped in head first, only so I could watch her take the ladder.
I had no problem admitting to my selfishness—and seeing Valentina climb into the pool, hips swaying with each step, was high up on my personal hierarchy of needs.
She didn’t hesitate, but those five seconds it took her to get in were still beautiful.
With a relieved sigh, she pushed off the wall, then let herself float toward me on her back.
Her brown eyes opened, sunlight playing in their color, and I was blinking down at her with a smile that had become more common around her.
Hi, she said, and her nose crinkled with a silent laugh.
My heart swelled, then squeezed tightly in my chest. What the fuck was she doing to me?
Unheard of, for my heart to react before my dick did.
Somewhere, very far back in a corner of my mind, alarm sirens went off.
Signaling that if I wasn’t careful with her, I might actually start to like her.
Care for her. Give her the power to destroy me, if she so chose to.
Somehow, Valentina Rhodes didn’t seem like the type of girl that should have that kind of power over me. Her hot-and-cold attitude hardly said Your Heart Is Safe With Me. Quite the opposite, actually.
Unfortunately, something much louder, and much more present in my head, loved to see her smile. Loved making her smile. Loved touching and kissing her. And made sure those sirens were not taken seriously at all. They were forgotten as soon as she wrapped her legs around my waist.
My dick did react, this time. To her face, so close to mine. My hands, which had instinctively found themselves on her ass. And to the fact that this time, no one could stop me from untying her bikini.
Earlier, I started confessing. All I’d wanted was to be alone with you.
So that I could do this. My fingers played with the ribbon tying the bottom half of her bikini together.
A single tug, and it fell open. One side first, then the other.
When I slid them away from under her my finger swiped along her core.
Her eyes widened, and she looked genuinely surprised when she said, Me too.
Arms locked behind my neck, hips pressing against my hard cock.
She must’ve noticed, because she ground against me in anticipation, and her eyes fluttered shut, just for a moment.
When they connected with mine again, hazy and dark, my restraint—barely there to begin with— snapped.
I’d do anything to make her come apart for me.
Right here, right now. I walked us to the edge of the pool, bikini forgotten on the other side.
When her back hit the wall, she moaned. Quietly, but enough to make me lose my mind, regardless.
One hand traced up from her ass, over her hips, all the way between her legs.
Lingering, caressing her thigh as I watched and felt her getting impatient in my arms.
Caden, she complained, and the sound was dangerously close to another moan. Dangerously close to driving me completely and utterly out of my mind. Especially after we’d had to be so quiet here.
I’m so proud of you, I whispered against her neck, leaving one kiss, then another, and trailing all the way up until my face hovered in front of hers.
Look at you, looking out for yourself. Saying no to your friends earlier, now grinding against me.
I’m so proud of you, I repeated, more of a groan than anything else.
She writhed in my arms, searching for more friction, trying to find any part of me underwater to give her what she wanted. When I pressed a kiss to her forehead, my thumb finally finding her clit and two fingers driving into her, she fell apart against me.
Valentina’s head crashed to my shoulders, burying itself in the crook of my neck.
She tried to kiss me, sucked and nibbled my skin whenever her lips didn’t part in moans that became progressively louder.
Never loud, but louder than I’d heard them in a while.
Loud enough to draw encouraging noises out of my mouth, too.
I was honest-to-God going to explode in my shorts just getting her off. Just feeling her clench around my fingers, grinding her hips against mine. Hearing her pant before whispering my name into my skin, like a forbidden prayer.
Over, and over, and over again.
On the chair behind us, my phone rang. The shrill sound echoed through the backyard, but it seemed Valentina didn’t have half a mind to notice, and I didn’t care at all. About anything but the girl in my arms, about to come for me.
Her hips started moving against my fingers, pushing me deeper, increasing my thumb’s friction against her.
Her head fell back, and my lips found themselves on her neck again.
Trailed down to her chest, and pushed the triangle of fabric covering her breasts to one side.
That’s it, I groaned into her skin, seriously struggling to keep myself in check when my mouth puckered around her nipple.
Be a good girl and take what you need from me.
And Valentina rode herself to orgasm on my fingers.
Fuck, she panted, head back on my shoulder, chest rising and falling rapidly against me. Caden—fuck.
I’m going to need a minute, I confessed. I swallowed thickly, my nose buried in her hair, that still smelled like vanilla and salt and her.
I sighed, but it was more of an exhausted, frustrated groan. My fingers slipped out of her, and she breathed a satisfied sound against my shoulder.
When she accidentally moved her hips against me, I feared I might actually just come.
For the sake of every other person still wanting to use this pool, I held back.
Ground my teeth together and prayed for my cock to stop twitching against her core, pressed against me again, now that my hand was gone.
Valentina, of course, grinned triumphantly.
Don’t tell me you’re close, she gasped, scandalized.
Caden Callahan, the same guy who kept me busy for hours.
No way— Her taunts turned into a surprised squeal when I lifted her out of the water, onto the edge of the pool.
I needed to get out of here before I threw my reason and common sense to hell.
My hands slid from her waist down her thighs, drops of water shimmering on her skin in the light of the setting sun. It’s different now, I tried to explain.
Her head tilted. I could get used to seeing her like this, looking down on me with the faintest blush on her cheeks. Her chest was still heaving. She still wasn’t wearing anything, and had just put her bikini top back in place.
Is it? she asked, watched as I climbed the ladder out of the pool right beside us. Without thinking about it, she got up once I was out. Why?
Good fucking question.
I considered it as I walked her backward onto the lounge chair. Watched her cautiously sit, interlace our hands, and pull me down to her, until I hovered over her again.
She’d always been pretty—her lips had been just as kissable, her hair just as pullable, her eyes just as big and beautiful. The dips and curves of her body had always intrigued me, but something was different.
Something that made me want to study her, know her fully inside and out—what made her laugh, what made her cry, what made her a begging mess underneath me. I didn’t just want to enjoy her, I wanted to figure her out.
And that was fucking terrifying, wasn’t it?
Hm? Valentina pushed. Not just her question, but her hips against mine, arching her back, ready for round two, it seemed. Her lids were heavy, the way she blinked up at me slow. What makes this different, Caden?
Delicious, the way she said my name.
Nothing, I said, then reconsidered. Everything. I shook my head. I don’t know. And fortunately, my phone started ringing again, keeping any follow-up questions at bay. It was the third time since we’d gotten into the pool.
My breath shuddered in my throat when I looked from the device back to her. I’m just going to take this, get myself under control, and we can finish what we started. To make it worth your while. Right now, I didn’t think I’d last three minutes inside her.
Valentina grinned knowingly and nodded. I guess anticipation is our thing, huh?
I guess it was.
Leaving her behind—naked and ready—was almost painful. But I grabbed my phone from the next chair and hurried inside, hoping some distance might clear my mind. Right now, she was playing on a loop:
Valentina. Valentina. Valentina. Valentina.
The caller ID on my phone surprised me. Dylan? I said into the device, sliding the door to the yard behind me shut.
The one and only, my former roommate replied dryly, and cut right to the chase. Why the fuck did my uncle just tell me you declined the Anova offer?
The distracted smile on my lips fell. Valentina was no longer on my mind, and I didn’t welcome her replacement.
Dylan had been the one to get me that interview at Anova Inc. a few months ago. He’d actually been excited to get me the interview. You’re gonna rot away at HBU if you keep this up, he’d said. Who needs a master’s degree these days, anyway? All you’re doing is over-qualifying yourself.
He was probably right. I just didn’t really care if he was.
Listen— I tried to justify myself, not because I had to, but because he’d done me a solid, and I owed him that much.
No, man. You listen. He cut me off. My uncle and I are not… great. I told you, if you want the interview, you need to be sure—
And when you said that, I told you to forget about it—
That’s not the point, he snapped, voice low.
The point is you took the interview. Then the next one, and the one after that.
You aced their fucking assessment center bullshit, and I thought, Wow.
Caden is really doing this—getting out of Hall Beck University.
He’s not going to rot away doing a useless grad program.
Easy thing for him to say, with millions at his disposal, and billions at his girlfriend’s.
He liked to think himself a common man, but he really wasn’t.
And now you’re— what?! Turning down a six-figure salary to captain a soccer team that’s already won the championship.
Two years of work experience are worth so much more than a master’s. This is dumb, man. Really, really dumb.
Are you done? I asked roughly, trying to ignore the voice in my head that was calling him reasonable.
Yes.
And you know this isn’t going to change anything, right? It couldn’t. No matter how much I might want it to.
He sighed on the other end of the line, and it lowered my guard—at least a little bit. I assumed as much. There was a strange noise in the background, a screech, then a very distant, very excited, Oh my God! Dolphins!
My brows furrowed. Where the fuck are you?
I could hear the smile on his face when he said, On a boat.
Somewhere in Portugal. It was quiet for a moment; nothing but blurred voices and inaudible pieces of conversation coming out of my speaker, until the line snapped, and he was back.
Athalia says hi. Listen, I just wanted to check in, give you a piece of my mind. That’s what friends are for, right?
I snickered, half-amused, half-annoyed—mostly by the fact I wasn’t as pissed off as I should have been about his ambush. Consider me in possession of a piece of your mind.
Great. I’ve gotta go. Dolphins, apparently. Can you believe it—? Yes, I’m coming, princess! he said, and hung up before I could even reply.
My head still shook in disbelief when I made it back outside, ready to kick that conversation out of my thoughts to make space for Valentina, and her body, her moans, her soft skin, and gentle pleas.
On the chair, she’d curled up under a towel with the book she’d discarded earlier. But instead of finding her reading, her eyes were closed and her breaths even.
I didn’t mean to smile, really. This meant I wouldn’t have her the way I’d desperately wanted her, after all. But I still couldn’t find a shred of disappointment in me. All I could think of was how cute she looked when she slept. How peaceful and content. Just Sex my ass.
Gently, carefully, I carried her upstairs. Scared to wake her, I tucked her into my own bed, then just stood there, like a creep, watching her sleep. My eyes were drawn away from her only when the phone in my pocket vibrated with an email notification.
Dear Mr. Callahan,
As we understand, you have declined our latest offer of employment at Anova Inc. in Boston, MA. Find our follow-up offer attached to this email. Please take your time, and hopefully reconsider. We would love to have you on board.
Best Wishes,
Pete Klein