Chapter Twenty-Seven
Caleb
She didn’t take it back.
Not in the car. Not walking through the door. Not when the house swallowed us in darkness and Chantel’s absence settled over the silence like permission.
I think I’m ready to face my fear.
Those words had been sitting in my chest since she’d whispered them. Quiet enough that I’d almost missed them. Loud enough to rearrange everything.
The hallway was dark. Her back found the wall and her eyes found mine, and the woman who’d spent months running away from this looked at me like she was finally ready to run toward it. Toward me.
“So what happens now?” she whispered.
I could have let her lead. Could have waited for her to close the gap, let her set the pace the way I’d been doing from the beginning. But I was done waiting too.
My hands found her waist, and I lifted her off the ground, her legs wrapping around me instantly. I walked her down the hall, straight to my bedroom, with her clinging to me the entire way.
The room was dark except for the streetlight filtering through the curtain. I didn’t bother with the lamp. I could see everything I needed to see.
Her. In that red dress. Looking like a fucking meal I couldn’t wait to sink into.
“Now,” I murmured, setting her on her feet beside my bed, “I’m going to peel this dress off you. Find every spot that makes you lose your mind. And listen to you chant my name while you come.”
A sound escaped her that was half moan, half curse, and her fingers dug into my shoulders.
“But first, I need to hear you say it, Zadie.”
Her pretty brow furrowed.
“I won’t fuck you unless I know you’re serious. This won’t be just one night.”
She cupped my face in both hands, her big doe eyes penetrating my goddamn soul. “I’m going to have a baby, Cal. I wouldn’t be here right now if I didn’t know exactly what this means.” Her thumb traced my jaw. “I’m yours. All of me. Even the terrified parts.”
“Good,” I said. “Because once I’m inside you, I’m never letting you go.”
My mouth found hers and the kiss was nothing like the ones that came before. This was hunger unleashed. Weeks of restraint and wanting and holding back, all of it channeled into the way I kissed her and the sound she made when I pulled her body flush against mine.
Her hands were in my hair, gripping, pulling, and the sting of it sent a jolt straight through me. Finding the hem of her dress, I didn’t hesitate. I pulled the fabric up her thighs, over her hips, up her ribs, and over her head in one smooth motion.
The crimson silk hit the floor, and she stood before me in nothing but her underwear and a bra that was straining to do its job.
Fucking devastating.
My hands actually shook as I ran them up her sides, roaming every inch of her. Not from nerves. From the sheer, staggering reality of her.
“Your turn,” she breathed, reaching for my shirt.
I let her pull it over my head. Let her hands explore my chest, my abs, but when her fingers reached my belt, I caught her wrists.
“Not yet.” I backed her the last step to the bed, reaching behind her to unclasp her bra. “Lie down.”
She obeyed, tossing the bra aside as she lay back. The sight of her spread across my sheets nearly ended me before we’d started.
I crawled over her, my mouth finding her neck, her collarbone, the swell of her breast. When my mouth closed over her nipple, the cry that tore out of her was desperate and raw and the most incredible sound I’d ever heard.
I took my time, tasting her skin and learning her gorgeous body. The spot beneath her ear that made her gasp. The curve of her ribs that made her squirm. The soft skin of her inner thigh that made her hips lift off the mattress.
“Cal. Please.”
“Please what?” I pressed my mouth just above the waistband of her underwear. My fingers hooked the elastic and dragged it down her legs.
“Touch me,” she begged.
“I am touching you.”
“You know what I mean.” She was panting, her hands fisting the sheets.
I did know. And I’d been waiting for this moment since the night I carried her out of Zane’s house.
My hand slid between her legs, and she arched into me with a sound that went straight to my cock. I found her rhythm, the same way I had in the bathtub—reading her gasps, following the movement of her hips, giving her more when she begged for it.
But this time I didn’t just use my hands. My mouth followed, trailing down her center until I was tasting her, feasting on her clit. She cried out, her thighs clamping around my head, her fingers buried in my hair.
I was operating on instinct and obsession and every fantasy I’d catalogued since the first time she’d pressed her palm against my chest.
And from the sounds she was making, instinct was enough.
“Cal. Fuck. I’m going to come.”
“Yes,” I growled against her heated flesh. “Give it to me.”
She shattered. Her whole body seized, her back arching off the mattress, my name torn from her throat in a sound that made every second of waiting worth it.
I stayed with her through it, easing her down, pressing kisses to her thigh, her hip, her stomach. When the tremors subsided, I worked my way back up her body until we were face to face.
Her eyes were glassy and her cheeks flushed. She looked destroyed in the best possible way. “Hi,” she whispered.
“Hi.”
My mouth found hers again as I crushed her to me, my cock hard and aching against her thigh.
Her hand found my belt. This time, I didn’t stop her. She worked the buckle, unzipping me. But I was too fucking eager to wait.
I rolled out of her reach before she could try to get my pants off, and stood at the edge of the bed, facing her. I stripped them down my legs, along with my briefs, kicking them off while her eyes dropped exactly where I wanted them.
She watched me from the bed with her lip caught between her teeth. Then she sat up, wrapped her hand around my cock, and stroked.
The groan that left me came from somewhere primal.
Before I could push her back down, her mouth replaced her hand—hot and deliberate and pure fucking heaven. Her tongue dragged from base to tip, and then she sucked me in.
My vision went black.
I tried to form words. Tried to warn her that this wasn’t going to last, that everything she was doing was too good, too much, too fucking perfect. But the only sounds leaving me were broken groans and her name repeated like a prayer.
She moaned around me, the vibration sending me to the edge, and when her big doe eyes lifted to meet mine, I was done.
I tried to pull her off, but she refused. She took me deeper, swallowing back everything I gave her, and didn’t stop until I was shaking.
“Enough,” I gasped.
She released me and sat back, her fingers running over her lips. I collapsed onto the bed, my heart hammering, my lungs burning. She curled into my side, her mouth warm against my shoulder, and I could feel her smiling.
“What?” I managed.
“You have no idea how much I enjoyed that.”
“You?” I laughed, still catching my breath.
“Yes, me.” Her hand ran over my chest, her nails scoring a light path that made my blood start to heat all over again. “You’ve got a really nice cock, by the way.”
“Jesus, woman.”
I flipped us. She was on her back, pinned beneath me, laughing and gasping and completely at my mercy. And I was already halfway hard again.
“Zadie,” I murmured against her throat. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
I pulled back just enough to look at her. The laughter faded from her face, replaced by something open and trusting.
“What is it?”
This was the moment. The one I’d been waiting for. Not just tonight, not just since I met her. Since I was old enough to understand what it meant to want someone so completely that your own body felt incomplete without them.
I traced the outline of her lips with my finger. “I’ve never done this before.”
Her eyes went wide. “You’re a virgin?”
“Mm-Hmm.” My finger trailed down over jaw her to her collarbone.
“But you’re...” She gestured at me. “How?”
“It was a choice.” I kept my voice steady, even though my pulse was through the roof. “I wanted to wait for the right person. I was waiting for you.”
“Cal.” Her eyes filled, her hands finding the back of my head.
She pulled me down and kissed me. Slower than before. Deeper, more consuming. And something in it shifted. Something I’d been waiting to feel from her for what seemed like forever.
Fuck. I loved this woman. Loved her so completely. But this kiss was the first time it felt like she might be falling with me.
The kiss turned urgent, her hands tight around my neck, my cock aching for her.
When I finally pressed into her, her breath stalled and her fingers dug into my back and the sound she made was something between relief and revelation.
I held still, wanting to memorize this moment. The way she felt around me. The way her mouth dropped open, her eyes wide and wet and locked on mine.
Then I moved and thought became impossible.
Her nails raked my back. My mouth found her neck. She wrapped herself around me and pulled me as deep as I could go.
It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t polished or practiced or anything close to the fantasies I’d built in my head. It was messy, urgent, and so much better.
But fuck, I wasn’t going to last. “I need you to come again,” I groaned in her ear.
Her hand pushed hard against my chest, forcing space between us. “Up on your knees,” she said between breathless pants. “Hands on my hips.”
I moved the way she directed, and the view of her body spread out in front of me, my cock buried deep in her pussy, nearly undid me.
Then her hand moved between her legs, and she circled her fingers over her clit.
“Fuck,” I growled, electricity shooting down my spine as I dragged myself slowly out of her, enraptured by the sight.
“Cal,” she moaned, growing wetter. “Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”
Fuck, I had no intention of stopping. Couldn’t have, even if I wanted to.
Any hope of a steady rhythm was gone. I rutted into her like a goddamn animal, my hips snapping forward as I pulled her onto my cock. She met me thrust for thrust, her heels digging into the mattress, and her whimpered pleas spurring me on.
The need to please her was so hot, so fucking fierce. But I couldn’t hold back. “I’m coming, Zadie. Fuck. Fuck.”
She cried out, her pussy pulsing around me, and I lost it.
We came together. Hard.
I moved back over her, bracing my weight on my forearms. For a long time, neither of us moved. I stayed inside her, the aftershocks of her orgasm fluttering around me, our chests rising and falling together.
Her lips landed on my shoulder and she murmured, “You lied.”
“About what?”
“You said you’d never done this. But that was not a first-time performance.”
I laughed. “I’ve done a hell of a lot of imagining.”
“You must have a vivid imagination.”
She had no idea.