CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Sutton
“And you had no clue they were doing it because of a promise they made to your dad?”
Callahan looks at me across the short distance—he’s on the couch and I’m on the chair across from him—and shakes his head. “No clue.”
He looks lost. That’s the one constant thought I’ve had since he stumbled in here thirty minutes ago.
But here he sits with bloodshot eyes that I’m more than certain are from crying and a quiet posture about him that I can only chalk up to trying to process everything he’s just relayed to me.
If I didn’t know him any better, I’d say he looks like a defeated man, but he’s not. Not after he finally hashed things out with his brother. Maybe it’s that he finally faced his father’s passing tonight. Maybe it’s everything combined that has worn on him for so long finally being put to bed.
“What Ledger said . . . it doesn’t fix everything, I know that, but at least I can walk away from everything now with a clear conscience.”
I nod, not trusting myself to talk because the thought makes my chest ache.
He’s leaving, Sutton. You knew that all along.
And yet there was a small part of me that was relieved tonight when he said he’d patched things up with his brother.
A small part of me believed he might decide to stay if that happened.
“What’s that look for?” he asks me, his head angled to the side, his eyes searching mine across the dark room.
“Nothing.” I offer a soft smile that I hope reaches my eyes. “You keep telling me that you’re glad this happened, that you’ve finally talked this all out, but I know you well enough to know something else is bugging you.”
The shadows play over his features as he finds the words to voice whatever is on his mind.
“I just keep asking myself what kind of man puts his family in the position that he has to be threatened to do his part? What kind of son screws up so much that his father has to put the burden on his other son to fix it?”
The heartbreak in his voice guts me. There is no right answer to his question, but I try to give one anyway. “The type of man who is trying to figure himself out. The type of man trying to find his place.”
“I’ve done so much shit I’m not proud of.” He sighs. “I’m far from perfect, Sutton.”
“No one expected you to be.”
Silence falls, and I stare at a man who could be broken but isn’t. A man who’s been through hell and is questioning his part in it. I want to wrap him in my arms and love him. I want to hold him and let him know.
“You asked me once what’s in it for you. Why should we do this . . .” He looks at the ceiling as his voice fades off.
“No. Tell me, Callahan.”
“There’s only one answer left I can think to give but I don’t think it’s close to what you deserve.”
“What?” I ask, my pulse picking up.
“Me.” He shrugs, his eyes serious but somber.
“I’m a fuck-up who is wrong more than he’s right but will never admit it.
I’m a spoiled rich kid who doesn’t have a clue about the life you lived but wants to know.
I’m a guy who needs space after he tells too much of himself and doesn’t know how to face you the next day.
I’m just a man, Collins. A man who doesn’t deserve you but wants you anyway. ” He shrugs. “The answer is me.”
My heart is in my throat and tears are in my eyes as he gives me the answer I never realized I wanted. The only answer I realize now I would ever accept.
I rise from my chair and move to him, and his eyes don’t leave mine the entire time. Without a word and with a shy smile, I climb on the couch and straddle his thighs.
“Sutton.” He breathes the word out as I run my hands up the plane of his chest to cup his face.
“Callahan,” I whisper back before my lips press ever so softly to his. Almost as if I’m scared to kiss him, scared to accept the power of the emotion that’s reverberating between us.
His hands trace my sides as I deepen the kiss. Whereas earlier there was an urgency to brand and claim and take, there is none of that now. There is just him and me in this darkened room with an unspoken understanding between us—we’re willingly crossing the line we’ve flirted around.
And I’m not talking about the physical one. I’m talking emotional.
We express ourselves in movements. His hand fisting, tongues licking, and hips grinding. In soft moans and quiet pleas. In the silence no longer screaming all around us.
Along the way we lose our shirts. My bra. His pants are shoved down and my skirt is pulled up and over my head.
There is quiet desperation to our movements now. To knowing what is going to happen and anticipating that bliss.
“Christ, you’re beautiful,” Callahan says as he kisses a line down my neck and takes one of my nipples in his mouth. “To touch you. To feel you. To have you . . .”
His last word falls off on a strangled groan when I sink down onto him, inch by inch, until he’s fully seated within me.
“Look at me,” he whispers. My eyes flutter up to meet his. To take in the look on his face. The pained pleasure. The desperate longing. The want that’s now turned into need.
I begin to move. To rock my hips back and forth over his. To keep my eyes locked on his even when I want to close them and give in to the pleasure surging through me.
“Do you know how much I missed this?” he says, leaning forward and slanting his lips over mine once again. “Missed you?”
I want to tell him I’ve been here all along, but I haven’t. He’s right. This is different. Right now is different. We are different and hell if it isn’t the headiest thing I’ve ever experienced.
We move in a slow, luxurious sync. Our hips grinding, our tongues tangling, and our bodies slowly whirling in the eddy of pleasure together.
He lets me control the pace. A deepening of the kiss as I rise and then slowly lower myself back down onto his cock. I grind my hips, letting him feel how wet he’s made me. Letting him know how much he turns me on.
He palms both cheeks of my ass and then guides me back up again. I tighten my muscles almost as if my body is desperate for us not to part. His groan at the sensation is sensual foreplay. It’s a sexy rumble that turns into a growled sigh when I seat myself back down on him once again.
We move like this for some time. There are no words. No whispered promises. Just him needing and me wanting.
I feel like I can’t get enough of his touch. Of his taste. Of his soft groans that wash over me. Of the ecstasy when he slides in and out of me.
I just want him. More of him. All of him. Endless amounts of him.
There is no hurry as our bodies climb and then crash over the edge. His guttural groan as I pulse around him and he empties himself in me.
And when we follow each other to his bed afterwards, we know that without uttering a single word, things have irrevocably changed between us.
Making love a second time only cements that. The way he worships my body and caters to my pleasure leaves me at a further loss for words.
And when I fall asleep, curled up against him in the early hours of the morning, there is only one constant stream of thought.
Regret.
That I waited this long to do this with him.
That our time is limited.
That . . . I’ve fallen for him when I know there’s no future.
That we have an expiration date.