Untouchable

Chapter 38 #3

Caleb was breathing harshly through his nose as he kissed her, and as her motion intensified, he began to make soft, guttural grunts that sounded both primitive and sexy as hell. His response encouraged her to accelerate her movement over him—wanting to hear more of those grunts.

Her motion forced her mouth away from Caleb’s, but she kept her face near his.

She was panting now too, and the mingled texture of their fast breathing formed a connection, a sharing that made her feel even closer to him.

He moved a hand up to curve around the back of her head, his fingers sliding through her loose hair.

For some reason she loved the way his strong hand felt in her hair, against her skull.

Then he pressed her face toward him, so forcefully she couldn’t resist, until he was kissing her again.

She squirmed above him, feeling his cock—hard and substantial—move inside her.

She was still wet. In fact, she was wetter now than ever, the moisture leaking out around his erection so that she could feel it on her inner thighs.

“God, you feel good,” she murmured against his lips.

She didn’t just mean his cock. She meant all of him. She loved how his body felt against hers.

Caleb let out a lingering groan as she began to ride him again—this time hard and fast. His hands had been spanning her rib cage, but now they moved up slightly until he could rub her nipples with his thumbs through her shirt.

Her breasts were bouncing up and down, and that combined with his caress to intensify her building orgasm.

“You feel incredible,” Caleb murmured as he devoured her shaking form with warm brown eyes.

“Fuck, Blossom, there has never been anyone like you.”

The words soothed something broken in her heart and sent her spiraling faster toward climax.

The compulsion was becoming urgent now, so she braced herself more securely with her hands on his shoulders. Then she rode him as fast as she could—her rhythm primitive and needy. She huffed out grunts of effort and pleasure.

“Fuck, yeah,” Caleb rasped, his pelvis bucking up against hers. “Oh yeah.”

Her whole body was jiggling—her hair, her breasts, her clit, the flesh of her ass and her thighs. And the indirect stimulation mingled with the thrusting of his cock to push her at last into orgasm.

She came on a broken cry, her head tilting back and her mouth falling open. Her body shook and spasmed over him as waves of pleasure radiated out with the clenching of her pussy around his cock.

He came too, just a few seconds after her. He swallowed over a few incoherent words as his body froze with coiled tension before it all released in clumsy jerks and hoarse groans.

She fell against him as the contractions started to fade, her pussy having tightened around his cock so dramatically she could feel every tiny move he made. Resting her head on his shoulder, she gasped against his shirt, comforted as his arms went around her all the way, holding her against him.

Caleb panted into her hair as he stroked her back and bottom. His body felt more relaxed now—his muscles softening in a way that thrilled her. She loved that she was the one who’d caused the transformation of his body.

“That was good,” she said at last.

“Yeah. No question.”

He sounded sated but different somehow, like he’d come to some sort of conclusion.

She pulled back and swung her leg over his lap, sliding off him as he helped her move. Her clinging pussy released him with a sound of wet suction.

Kelly curled up in a ball and hugged her knees to her chest. She felt empty and overly sensitive, but her body was relaxed. She squeezed her thighs, feeling anxious and confused and hopeful all at once.

Caleb startled her when he finally spoke. “You regretting it?”

She gasped and jerked her head toward him. “No. I’m not. Are you?”

He shook his head and zipped up his pants. “I don’t know.”

“What don’t you know?”

He stood up. “If this was a good idea or not.”

“We both knew what it was. We both agreed it wasn’t a sappy reunion. If you’re afraid I’m going to throw myself at your feet and beg for a wedding ring, then don’t be.” She managed to sound controlled, but she was feeling sad and kind of sick.

It had felt so good—so right—when she’d been making love to Caleb just now. Even better than it had felt before. Like it was real. Like they knew each other all the way down to the core.

She wanted to be with someone like that. She wanted to be with Caleb like that.

But he didn’t want to be with her that way too.

And it hurt. It just hurt.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” He sighed and rubbed his jaw with his hands.

She thought of something and decided she might as well say it. “I reread Hamlet last week.”

He looked surprised and arched his eyebrows. “Did you?”

“Yeah. And I realized I’d always been interpreting it wrong.

” He didn’t answer, but she saw he was listening, so she continued.

“Shakespeare wasn’t writing a Greek tragedy, where fate or the gods determine the course of a man’s life.

Hamlet was lying to himself when he said so.

Shakespeare goes out of his way to show that the final outcome could have been different—could have been so much better—if any of the characters at any given moment had made a different choice. ”

Caleb’s eyes had narrowed as he thought through what she’d said. “So that’s your answer? Just choose to make all of what happened go away?”

She sighed, feeling suddenly heavy and exhausted. “No. That’s not really what I meant. Just that there’s always more than one choice.”

It evidently didn’t matter what she meant since Caleb seemed to have already made his choice.

He said at last, “I guess it’s better to end it like this than like before.”

“Yeah.” She nodded since his decision was now clear and she was going to respect it. But as she stood up and smoothed down her skirt, she couldn’t help but add, “Are you sure it has to end? I’m not saying we should plan a honeymoon, but… isn’t there something in between?”

Caleb stared at her a long time. “Not for us. I don’t think so.”

“But it seemed like…” She shook her head, wondering why she was even pressing it.

It was clear that he didn’t want to make an effort toward a relationship, and she should just accept it and leave him alone.

“It seemed like you wanted something more. It seemed like trying for something more than casual sex… made you happier.”

“It was a lie that made me happy. It wasn’t you.”

And that hurt so much she sucked in a sharp breath and stared down at the floor. He was being honest with her. Maybe he’d intended it to hurt, but he wasn’t saying it only to hurt her.

“I don’t think it was the lie that made you happy.

I think the lie only made it safe for you to take the chance.

I think it was the relationship that made you happy.

” Her heart was racing and it felt like the blood had drained out of her face, but she made herself say all of it.

All of what she’d been thinking through for the past two weeks.

“I think being that man made you happy. The man who was you—but also a little better than the you you’d been before.

Just like I was happier being the me that I never thought I could be.

The me who is…” She cleared her throat as her voice cracked. “The me who is better with you.”

Something in the words must have affected Caleb because he gave the slightest wince.

But he got control of it almost immediately and shook his head again.

“What a lovely little fairy tale it’s turned out to be then.

” There was a bitterness in his voice now that she didn’t like, that hadn’t been there before.

“I guess all the lies and betrayal have been for the best then,” he continued, “since the ending is so sweet and romantic.”

“Nothing can excuse what I did,” Kelly said softly after a moment of processing his irony. “But I do think we’re better off now.”

Caleb stared at her, evidently speechless at what she’d just said.

Kelly felt the same way. Had to make herself think back over the words she’d just spoken. Wondered where they’d come from, after the life she’d led, after everything she’d done.

Then she suddenly realized something.

It was true. What she’d just said was true. It was a real revelation, the kind she’d rarely experienced before. The knowledge had come down on her like a gift or a benediction.

A final, poignant benediction to the past seventeen years of her life.

“I am better off now,” she breathed when she could shape words again. She wasn’t hopeful, wasn’t optimistic, didn’t think this realization would change anything but her with its harsh, inexorable grace. “I can’t speak for you, but I know I am.”

Caleb was still staring at her, and his defenses seemed to be lowered enough to reveal an agonizing confusion.

She reached out to put her hand on his arm. “I am better off now. I’m a better person. And loving you is one of the things that has made me so.”

Saying she loved him was evidently a mistake, although she wouldn’t have been able to predict it. As soon as she spoke the word, his face contorted with an intensity she didn’t immediately recognize.

With a violent tug, he pulled his arm out of her grip, and the momentum of his arm caused her to stumble backward. She didn’t fall, but she was shaken and disoriented by the sudden move.

“I think you better leave,” he said.

He’d made his choice long before she’d come to his office like this. And the sex—however good it had been, however real it had been—hadn’t changed anything at all.

She nodded in resignation. “Okay. I will.”

Her mother died the next week, and Kelly buried her next to her father’s grave.

It was the first time she’d been to visit her father since she’d gone to the Watsons, and after the simple burial ceremony, she stood alone for a long time, looking down at both the graves.

Her mother hadn’t been happy, but she’d seemed to come to terms at least a little at the end.

It was better than nothing.

Justice would never be done for her father, but now Kelly knew the truth and her mother had known before she died.

It was better than nothing.

She focused on the simple grave marker over her father’s grave, etched with only his name, the years of his life, and two words: Husband. Father.

It was when she reread the word father that Kelly started to cry for real.

“I’m so sorry, Dad,” she choked out, kneeling on the grass beside the grave. She’d brought a small bunch of pink tulips, and she readjusted them next to the stone. “I’m so sorry I haven’t been what you always wanted me to be.”

She sniffed and rubbed her eyes, getting herself together enough to say what she needed to say.

There was no one else around anymore, and she wanted to hear the words spoken aloud.

Felt like her father could actually hear her.

She didn’t care if she sounded like a fool.

“You worked so hard to make a good life for me, and I ruined it all as soon as you died. But I’m going to try to do better now. I’m going to try to… to live.”

She impatiently wiped away a couple more tears that slipped out. “You were always proud of me, whether I deserved it or not, and I want to feel that way again.”

Randomly, Kelly wondered if Caleb would ever have been proud of her if they’d been together long enough for her to do something worthwhile. It wasn’t likely to happen now, but Kelly was finally coming to the recognition that there was more to her life than just Caleb.

He was important. Incredibly important. But he wasn’t all there was.

Kelly wasn’t going to taint her memories of her father again. Not with vengeance and not with the consuming loss of Caleb in her life.

“I miss you, Daddy. I still miss you so much.”

She stayed a few more minutes, saying goodbye. To both him and her mother. Until she finally found the strength to pull herself up to her feet.

“I’ll be back,” she whispered before she turned to leave. “I love you. I won’t stay away so long again.”

She felt a rising wave of emotion when she heard her phone ring. Her heart leaped even though she knew there was almost no chance of it being Caleb.

Glancing at the screen, she felt a sinking disappointment at the same time she experienced a tiny flare of warmth.

It wasn’t Caleb. But the screen read, “Jack Martin.”

She hadn’t heard from Jack for several days, and she’d been afraid he was tired of putting up with her. Despite everything else she was going through, Kelly was glad that Jack hadn’t decided to cut her out of his life for good.

She didn’t answer the phone. She was still too emotional to appropriately deal with a friendly conversation. But she liked Jack and would like to be his friend.

Then she would have two. Reese and Jack.

It was a start.

She turned around and took her first step back toward her car.

Came to an abrupt, jerky halt.

There was a familiar black chauffeured car parked on the drive behind her car. And there was a familiar man standing beside it, wearing black clothes, his dark hair burnished by the sun.

She wasn’t close enough to see the expression in his eyes, but she could clearly tell that he was staring at her.

Feeling a lurching in her heart, Kelly took an instinctive step toward him, but something about his stiff stance made her stop again.

Whatever he was doing here, it wasn’t to sweep her up in his arms and take her home.

Kelly stared back at him, memorizing the proud lines of his lean form and slightly arrogant tilt of his chin.

They stared at each other for a full minute. Then Caleb got back into the car.

It immediately pulled out and drove away.

When she got back into her own car, Kelly sat behind the steering wheel for a few minutes before leaving.

She’d been planning to say goodbye to her parents this afternoon.

She hadn’t been planning to say goodbye to Caleb.

And it felt like that had just happened.