Chapter Seventeen #2
“Fuck, you’re cute, K. The cutest fucking thing.
” His jaw clenches like he’s trying to hold back, then his expression sobers.
“I really want to, you know? Fuck you. For real. But I only want it when you want it. I want to make it good for you and not rush it.” He shakes his head, laughing.
“I want to take my time with you and not miss a single moment or step along the way. Isn’t that something? ”
My chest overflows with warmth, and my heart can hardly contain the immense joy I feel at his words.
Caleb doesn’t want to miss a single moment with me.
With me. Because… I search his face, his eyes, the familiarity and the newness.
Because… I swallow, allowing my brain to accept what my heart already knows.
Because Caleb is in love with me. I see it.
I don’t know when it happened, but he is.
The way he looks at me, with this combination of excitement and wonder in his eyes.
It’s the way you look at someone when you’re in love with them.
His face is a mirror, throwing my own feelings right back at me.
“I’m falling in love with you,” I say, my voice surprisingly steady. His eyes widen just a tad, his eyebrows lifting. He doesn’t look away, just stares at me. “Say something,” I whisper. I feel no fear. My heart knows him, it knows Caleb, and it knows he is mine.
“I know. I know you are, K.” He smiles carefully, a faint blush creeping across his cheeks. “I’m falling in love with you, too.”
I cup his chin in my hand. “I know. I know you are.”
He moves between my thighs, staring at me like he has a thousand times before, only this time is different.
I will remember how Caleb looks at me right now for the rest of my life.
It will be imprinted on my soul forever.
Something flickers in his eyes, a barely there movement, determination perhaps.
“I love you,” he says, his jaw clenching. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
The air sizzles as we just look into each other’s eyes, letting the words settle between us. Eventually, Caleb leans in and rests his head against my chest, and I wrap myself around him. He sighs against my heart, then mumbles something unintelligible.
“What?” I ease him away from me. Worry pools in his eyes.
He looks at the floor. “Sal is gonna fucking kill me.”
I brush my fingers through his hair. “Probably,” I chuckle half-heartedly, because Caleb is right. Dad won’t like it. He won’t understand it at first. But I’ll make him understand.
“Do you think he’ll hate me?”
“No.” I don’t know.
“Your mom will be okay with it, don’t you think?”
I nod. I know Mom will be. She’s less protective than Dad. It doesn’t mean she won’t fight tooth and nail for me, but she doesn’t see me as her little child who can’t fend for himself. Not like Dad does. “Mom’s cool,” I smile.
“She is,” he agrees. “She’s cool.” Then he pales, groaning. “Oh, God.”
“What?” I lift his face to mine.
“I fucking dated your mom in high school!”
I laugh because, fuck, the look on Caleb’s face right now. Sheer mortification. “I already know that.”
“I swear we only kissed. That’s it. Only a couple of times. Nothing else. She always liked your dad better anyway. Shit, it’s weird, right?” He stares at me helplessly, his hair a mess.
I shrug. “A little. But there are a lot of things between us that could be weird if we let them.”
He bites his lip. “I guess.”
“So we won’t make it weird, will we?” I kiss him softly, and he leans into me. I love this side of Caleb. The side where he needs me and allows me to be there for him.
“No, we won’t,” he smiles against my lips, then squeezes my thighs.
“Because only one thing matters, right?”
“Yes.”
I laugh, my stomach twisting and turning with a mix of emotions. “And what is that?” I ask teasingly, and Caleb blushes even harder.
“That I’m in love with you.”
“And?”
He huffs. “And by some fucking miracle you’re in love with me too.”
“Exactly.” I lean in and kiss him. “Just don’t ever mention kissing my mom again, okay?”
“Okay.”
“So… about those jockstraps,” Caleb smirks, placing his empty plate on the coffee table. Oh God, I was hoping he wouldn’t go there yet. I try to keep my expression as unfazed as possible.
“What about them?” I close my lips around a forkful of only slightly burned scrambled eggs and moan exaggeratedly.
I love getting a rise out of him. Caleb stirs on the couch, adjusting himself, then eyes me through hooded lids.
He’s lying with his back against the armrest, his legs stretched out in front of him, his bare toes brushing up against my shins from time to time.
He looks delicious, and I want to suck his face all over, all the time.
“You only wear them when you’re on the app?” There’s a rare sharpness to his voice, and his jaw is pressed into harsh, defined lines.
“No. I wear them around my place too sometimes.”
He rubs along his hardening length. “Fuuuck, that’s so fucking hot, sweetheart. You wear your packer, too?”
I gulp down the rest of the eggs. “Sometimes, but mostly I just wear them without. I like how it feels.”
He wipes his hands across his face. “I bet you do. How many colors do you have?”
I laugh, surprised at his question. “What?”
“How. Many. Colors. Do. You. Have?” he grits, his eyes darkening. I squirm under his gaze.
“I don’t know. Many.”
“I wanna see them all. I wanna see you in all of them.”
“That can be arranged.”
“Good. Now finish your bacon, baby. I wanna kiss the fuck out of you.” He smiles cheekily, and my stomach does a weird flip.
I finish my bacon, and then Caleb crawls up my body, covering me like a soft blanket, and does, in fact, kiss the fuck out of me until I’m a panting, shivering mess.
“You’re so beautiful, K.” I don’t think I’ll ever tire of hearing those words. I cradle his face, feeling his raspy scruff against my palms. I brush my nose back and forth against his, and his eyelashes flutter against me like small moths batting their wings.
“I love you,” I say, then kiss him, pouring everything that I am into the firm press of my lips against his. It feels so good to tell him how I feel. He hums against me, his weight on top of me just the right amount of perfect.
“I love you,” he mouths, his eyes still closed. “So much.”
I can’t stop the smile from spreading across my face, and Caleb bites at my lips, like he’s trying to catch it and swallow it down.
“I love your smiles, Kayden. They’re just about my favorite thing in the world.
And your lips. They’re so soft. Like ripe peaches.
” I close my eyes, letting his voice and his words carry me away.
“And your long, slender nose with that cute tilt at the end.” He presses a light kiss against the tip and laughs when I wiggle it.
“It’s like this tiny slope I just want to trace with my finger again and again.
” And then he does it, traces my nose with his finger, again and again.
“And your blush. I want to eat it right off your cheeks, suck it right down, tasting it. I bet it tastes better than summer berries.” And just like that, the blush I’ve always hated because it gives too much away explodes on my skin.
He laughs low in his throat, his chest rumbling.
“There it is, my pretty pink blush.” He dabs at my cheek with his thumb, then leans in and sucks it into his mouth, laving at it with his tongue.
I squirm underneath him, pressing my hardness against his stomach.
“I was right. Summer berries.” My front hole throbs, but somehow it doesn’t bother me as much as it usually does.
It’s just my body. It’s just my body showing me how much I want another man.
How much I want Caleb. It’s just me and him.
He pulls away, and my skin tingles deliciously.
When he opens his eyes, he stares back at me like I’m the world’s eighth wonder or something.
“And your eyes. So blue. Like the vast blue ocean and the endless sky. I could just drown in them, get lost, only to be found in a way I’ve never been found before. ”
“Caleb,” I cry out, pressing my lips against his. He sighs against me, whispering sweet nothings, and I swallow them all down.
He suddenly sobers. “I’ve been a selfish man all my life.
I only thought of myself and what I wanted from life, what I could get.
The business, women, men. Seeking pleasure where I found it, temporary and shallow.
I never thought I’d find someone like you, K.
Someone who makes me want to be a better version of myself. ”
“You’re already good!” I blurt, because it hurts my heart hearing Caleb say these things about himself.
“I can be better. I will be a better man. Not just for you, because you fucking deserve it, but for myself too.” He pauses, brushing my bangs out of my face.
“I will never hurt you. Not intentionally. I will always have your back and fight for you. Fight with you. I’ll be yours and only yours for as long as you’ll have me. ”
“I want that too. So much. And I believe you because I know you. I know your heart, Caleb.” I blink away the tears that have gathered in my eyes.
I don’t want to cry, even if they’re good tears, because they obscure my vision of him.
I never want to forget how he looks right now, blanketing my body with his, offering me his heart.
I never want to forget how Caleb looks when he’s just realized he’s in love, something I suspect he’s never been before.
Something I haven’t either. “Thank you,” I say, and he frowns adorably.
“For what?”
“For letting me see you. All of you.”
“It was easy because you let me see all of you, too.”
“It was easy, too.”
He kisses me again, then rests on top of me until he grows too heavy, and I squirm underneath him. He holds himself up on his elbows, grinning down at me, his hair all mussed. “What do you wanna do today?”