Chapter Nineteen
Caleb
I’d just finished putting the living room furniture back together when Chantel blew past me. No goodbye, just the front door slamming hard enough to rattle the windows.
Whatever had been eating at her was getting worse, and she was doing a shit job of hiding it. She’d been a tornado for days, and the rest of us were getting tossed in her wake.
This time it was Zadie taking the hit. I couldn’t make out what they’d said from downstairs, but the tone had carried through the floor—sharp, heated, Chantel’s voice cracking on something that sounded more like pain than anger.
Now the house was quiet. Too quiet.
I climbed the stairs and found Zadie standing in the middle of Chantel’s loft, motionless, her back to me.
“Zadie?”
She gave me nothing. Not even a flinch. Her slight frame was rigid as stone.
“Hey.” I closed the distance and placed my hand on her shoulder. “Are you all right?”
She turned, and the sob that came out of her nearly took me to my knees. Her face was streaked with tears, her nose red, her eyes swollen.
I couldn’t stand it. She held herself together with everything she had, but right now her seams were ripping open and there was nothing I could do but watch.
“It’s okay, I got you.” I tightened my grip on her shoulder and pulled her toward me. “I’m sorry.”
She leaned in, but only for a second. Then her hands were on my chest, shoving me back, her face twisting into a scowl even as the tears kept falling. “You should be fucking sorry. I’m so mad at you.”
This woman. This fierce, stubborn, impossible woman. She was bravery wrapped in heartbreak, and she was completely, devastatingly impossible for me to resist.
How the hell could she ever expect me to be just friends?
“You should be mad,” I agreed. “I’m angry at myself. I made everything between us harder than it needed to be. And I ruined our first date.”
“Our first date?” She wiped at her eyes. “You say that like you think there’ll be more. I told you I’m pregnant, Cal. Pregnant.”
The pulse in her throat beat visibly, and I wanted to put my mouth on it. Run my tongue and teeth over her skin and see just how fast I could make her heart race.
If she called me Cal one more time, I was going to lose what was left of my restraint.
“Are you getting back together with Sean?”
She recoiled like I’d slapped her. Her arms folded over her middle. “Why would you ask me that?”
“You’re having his kid. You’ve gotten back together with him before. It’s not an unreasonable question.”
Her eyes narrowed as she stepped back toward me, pointing her finger into my chest. “You think I’m that weak? You think I can’t do this on my own?”
“I think you’re the strongest person I’ve ever met.” I held her glare without blinking. “I know you can do it on your own. But you shouldn’t have to.”
The tears came faster. Her pointed finger curled into a fist, gripping my shirt. She held on like she was trying to decide whether to pull me closer or shove me away again.
“I don’t feel very strong.” Her voice cracked. “Crying is the only thing I seem capable of lately.”
I didn’t wait for permission. I pulled her against me, my arms wrapping around her shoulders, my hand cradling the back of her head. I held her there—firmly enough that she’d have to fight to get free, gently enough that she’d know she didn’t have to.
She didn’t fight. Her body sagged into mine, her forehead pressed to my chest, her hands flattening against my sides.
And then she exhaled.
Fuck, it was so much more than just a breath. It was intricate and penetrating…and goddamn profound. Her sigh feathered up and out, lacing around me. Pulling me in. Splintering the wall between us.
“When I was thirteen,” I murmured against the top of her head. “I broke my arm. Fractured it in three places. Skateboarding, obviously.”
She shifted her cheek against my chest, her hands sliding higher up my sides.
“It was the worst pain I’d ever felt. But I didn’t cry.
I sucked it up, held it in, told myself I was tough enough to handle it.
” I swallowed against the tightness building in my throat.
“Until the doctor examining me picked up on something else. He didn’t say a word, and I had no idea what was wrong.
No reason to cry. But I’ve never sobbed harder in my life. ”
“What was it?” she whispered.
“Cancer.”
Her breath caught, her fingers tightening on my ribs.
“Sometimes there’s no choice, Zadie. Sometimes the strength just finds you.”
We stood in silence. Her clutching me. Me breathing her in. And for the first time since she’d told me about the baby, the space between us didn’t feel like a battlefield.
It felt like ground we’d reclaimed.
She lifted her head. Those big, dark eyes found mine—wet, uncertain, and burning with a need she refused to admit.
Fuck, that look lit me up. Turned me inside out. Narrowed the whole damn world to her and this moment.
“I think you need to decompress.” My thumb traced her jaw. “Let me run you a hot bath. You can close your eyes and let go.”
“Yeah, okay.” She sniffled. “That actually sounds nice.”
She went to her room for candles while I started the water. Her bubble bath was on the edge of the tub, and I poured a generous amount under the tap.
The room filled with steam and the familiar scent of Zadie. Foam climbed toward the rim, threatening to spill over, just as she appeared in the doorway with a lit candle.
“Umm.” She stared at the mountain of bubbles. “I think you may have overdone it.”
“All the better to relax you with.” I took the candle from her and set it on the counter. “I’ll go put some music on. Preference?”
“Something mellow. I trust you.”
I trust you.
Two words. Probably just about the playlist. But they settled into my chest like a promise, warm and expanding, and I held onto them.
My phone was already on the audio dock in my room. I scrolled through my library and landed on a song that said everything. I set Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You” on repeat and turned the volume up enough to carry through the walls.
When I came back to the bathroom, the door was closed. It didn’t stop me.
I opened it and walked straight in.
She was naked from the waist up, and her hands flew to grab her shirt, pressing it against her chest. “Cal! What are you doing?”
But not before I got an eyeful.
Full breasts, round and fucking perfect in the flickering candlelight. Freckled skin glowing warm and golden. All of her, so goddamn radiant.
“Helping. I told you I would.” My voice was a hell of a lot steadier than the rest of me. “Turn around. I won’t look.”
She hesitated. Then, with her shirt still clutched to her chest, she turned her bare back to me.
The messy tumble of her dark curls shifted against her skin. So much skin. The curve of her waist, the swell of her hip, the dimples at the base of her spine.
Forcing myself to focus, I gathered her hair and started to pile it on top of her head the way I’d watched her do it. But I got distracted.
The long, graceful line of her neck was exposed and vulnerable. And I couldn’t fucking resist. I bent down and pressed my lips to her nape.
For a second, she stiffened. But then her shoulders dropped and her head tilted, giving me room to explore.
So I took it.
I trailed my mouth over her skin, from her hairline to her shoulder. Her breathing hitched, each exhale shorter than the last, telling me everything I needed to know.
My lips sucked gently at the curve of her neck, then I dragged my tongue up the length of it to the spot behind her ear.
She tasted like sugar and salt, and I wanted to consume her. Every fucking inch. When I bit her earlobe, she moaned. Low and helpless and so beautiful it nearly broke me.
I pulled her back against me, her bare skin warm through my shirt, and reached around to pop the button on her jeans.
Her inhale was sharp, almost panicked.
“Take off your clothes and get in the tub,” I murmured against her ear. “I’ll close my eyes.”
“What?”
“I promise I won’t look. Get under the bubbles and tell me when you’re covered.”
I kissed the shell of her ear and forced myself to step back. Every nerve in my body protested. And my aching cock had some very specific opinions about my self-control.
I turned around. Behind me, I heard the whisper of denim hitting tile, the squeak of her foot on the tub, and the soft splashing of water. My imagination filled in every detail I couldn’t see. Explicitly.
“Okay,” she said. “It’s safe.”
When I turned back, she was buried in foam up to her chin. Crouching beside the tub, I rested my arms on the rim. “Guess it’s a good thing I went heavy on the bubbles. I can barely see your face in there.”
Liar. The bubbles weren’t as opaque as she probably hoped, and more of them were popping by the second. I could see plenty. But she didn’t need to know that.
“Were you planning on getting in?” A tremor ran through her voice.
Fuck, this woman was pure goddamn temptation. “This isn’t about me.”
“I wasn’t sure what you were expecting.”
“All I want is for you to feel good.” I dipped my hand into the water and braced it on the bottom of the tub, leaning close enough to put my mouth at her ear. “And this is where you get a choice on how that goes. No judgment. No rules. No consequences.”
Her breathing quickened, the water rippling with every rise and fall of her chest.
“You can tell me to fuck off and enjoy your bath alone. Or you can let me touch you.”
“God.” The word was strangled. “This is such a bad idea.”
“No worries.” I kissed her cheek and started to pull my hand from the water.
“Wait.” Her fingers locked around my forearm.
The grin that spread across my face had nothing gentle in it.
My hand eased off the bottom of the tub. I held her wide-eyed stare as I stroked up her hip, down the outside of her thigh, and back up over the other, learning the shape of her under the water.
Her eyes darted between mine, the crease between her brows deepening. Anticipation and fear battling across her features.
I bit my lip and moved my hand between her legs, cupping her gently. She sighed, her eyes falling shut, her head tipping back against the rim.
I followed her, my mouth back at her ear. “Still think this is a bad idea?”
She groaned.
“You want it anyway, don’t you,” I growled, pressing the heel of my palm to her clit.
“Yes.” The word was like a prayer.
And that’s all it fucking took.
I wanted to go slow. Treat her like something precious and fragile. But the adrenaline flooding my system wouldn’t let me.
There was no holding back when her hips were already moving against my hand. When her breath was coming in ragged gasps. When every sound she made went straight to my cock, filling me with need and greed and raw fucking possession.
“Open up,” I murmured, urging her legs apart.
She obeyed instantly. And the trust in that nearly undid me.
My fingers explored her, circling her clit, finding the rhythm that made her gasp the loudest. When I slipped one finger inside her, then two, she cried out—a sound so desperate it took every ounce of discipline I had not to climb into that tub and take her completely.
I gave her what she needed. My fingers moving inside her, my thumb working in a way that made her hips buck and the water slosh against the porcelain. Her reactions guided me. Every moan, every gasp, every desperate cry was like a goddamn treasure map.
Water splashed up my arm and over the rim. The bathroom floor was soaked. And I didn’t give one single fuck.
“Cal.” She grabbed my forearm with both hands, her nails biting in. “Please. I’m so close.”
“Yeah, you fucking are,” I growled. “Just let go, Zadie. Come for me.”
She shattered.
Her whole body seized—back arched, face flushed, mouth open on a cry that echoed off the tile.
It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever witnessed. It was a moment of pure honesty, and it cracked something in my chest that would never close again.
She was still pulsing around my fingers, her nails still digging into my arm, her thighs still clamping around my hand.
And then she started to cry.
“Zadie.” I kissed her cheek, easing my fingers out of her to stroke her thigh beneath the cooling water. “I’ve got you.”
“I’m sorry.” She was shaking. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
Shaking her head, she pulled away from my touch, drawing her knees to her chest, and squeezing her eyes shut.
The wall went back up. Right in front of me. Brick by stubborn brick.
“Can you leave? Please.” Her voice was broken by the muffled sobs against her knees. “I need to be alone.”
“Don’t do this. If you’re scared—”
“Please go,” she begged, quiet but final.
The candle flickered on the counter. Ed Sheeran was still playing from down the hall, his voice drifting through the steam like a cruel joke.
I pulled my hand from the water, not bothering to dry it, stood up, walked out, and closed the door behind me. Her sobs carried through the wall, echoing inside that goddamn gaping hole in my chest.
The way she’d opened up for me. Begged me to take her apart. That wasn’t a lapse in judgment, or just the need to get off.
That was real.
So I’d give her this moment. But I wasn’t fucking letting her go.
Whatever wall she rebuilt, I’d find my way through it.