14. Caleb
Chapter 14
Caleb
R oommates.
I’ve never lived with a woman before. I’ve never let a woman stay over. I love their company, but I love my autonomy even more.
I lived with my brother before, so it’s not like I’m completely inexperienced in having a roommate.
Living with Finn, however, equaled gaming all night, bickering, farting freely, and taking turns to remove takeout containers from the coffee table.
Living with Celeste is not what I expected. Frankly, I had no expectations. In my crusade to help her—and I’m still questioning my sanity there—I didn’t think past the actual formality of getting her a marriage certificate for her visa application.
That was a major oversight on my part. I might be marginally reckless in my private life, but I’m usually reasonably responsible in all my other affairs. Money, career, business—and I would file my arrangement with Celeste under that category.
But somehow it doesn’t fit there because— recklessly —I didn’t think about the perils of cohabiting with the fiery green-eyed swan.
My living room has fresh flowers on a console table. There are women’s magazines forgotten on a sofa—and who the hell buys paper copies anymore?
A pink cozy blanket on my reading armchair.
Red scrunchies on the coffee table.
Fluffy white slippers by the entrance.
The list goes on. And it’s only been a week.
The fucked-up part is, I should mind it. I would expect it to feel like an intrusion. And it bothers me, it’s an adjustment, but—and I won’t admit this to anyone—I’m not as bothered by it as I thought I’d be.
She’s the epitome of a perfect roommate. Half the time, I don’t even know she’s here. She tidies up after herself—and after me. She brings breakfast when she goes for a walk in the morning. Not that I eat croissants.
She keeps to her room and doesn’t sass me as much as before. It’s like she’s surrendered to the three-year sentence and wants to make sure I don’t relent.
If someone suggested last week that I’d be living with a woman, I would have given him a number for the best psychiatrist in New York.
Seven days into the exact living arrangement I’ve refused all my life, I have nothing to complain about.
Unless I’m the asshole who complains about a permanent boner. And I guess I’m that asshole. Because Celeste might be a perfectly respectful and easy roommate, but that doesn’t change the fact that she’s fucking here.
Her scent is infused in my furniture. Fuck, even my towels, and we don’t share the bathroom.
Three times already, I’ve heard her shower running, and I can’t un-imagine her being naked in there.
When music comes from her room, I practically see her moving that lithe body of hers around—stretching, dancing, just being.
I’m already attuned to her whereabouts by her shoes echoing on the floor. The clicking heels mean she’s going to see her friends or to the theater. The slapping flats mean she’s going for a walk.
She spends hours rehearsing in the theater or dancing at home, I’m assuming from the stomping in her room.
She works really hard. I don’t know how her body takes it. What I know is that I’m constantly imagining what I could do to that body .
My schedule is practically narrowed down to a workout or a meeting here and there with acquaintances to secretly test the waters about the Merged promise. That doesn’t take up much time.
All the rest is consumed by trying not to pay so much attention to Celeste. And failing miserably.
And I don’t like to fucking fail.
The amount of porn I’ve watched to think of anything, anyone, other than Celeste while jerking off, would make me a respectable contender for a renewed teenager status.
Riding the elevator to my loft, I check my watch. She won’t be home yet. Thank God. If I was my therapist, I’d see through the insincerity of my relief.
I kind of want her to be home. To stop politely cohabiting with me and finally give in to our attraction.
Because I see her checking me out. I notice the stolen glimpses and eye-fucking when she thinks I’m not watching.
The elevator dings and the door slides open, and I’m met with… fuck my life… an eyeful of a leggings-clad ass. A magnificent, begging to be kneaded and spanked ass.
She’s in a forward bend for a glimpse of a moment. Too short to admire fully, but unfortunately—or luckily?—long enough to sear the vision into my mind. My cock strains against the zipper of my pants .
In a fluid, wavy move, she stands up, her weight supported on her legs. Fuck, she’s strong. And flexible.
“Mon dieu, I didn’t know you were coming home now.”
She spins around, jumping backward and almost falling down the one step that separates the vast entrance hall from the living room.
I leap forward and snake my arms around her waist, jerking her to me. Her soft body molds to mine, and there’s no way she doesn’t feel the steel rod in my pants.
“It’s my home, black swan,” I grit.
Shooting daggers from her eyes, she lifts her chin. “I’m well aware.”
Her arms flailed up in the almost fall and landed on my shoulders. We stand there in the spontaneous embrace with my cock between us.
My cock that is dancing in recognition of its closeness to a woman’s body. Or is it this particular woman?
Celeste swallows.
She blinks.
She licks her lips.
All her motions, even the invisible ones, prime my senses, and make me want to spin her around and bend her over my sofa. Or at least kiss the shit out of her.
But I’m not a caveman. And if I keep repeating that to myself, I might not act like one. Might being the operative word here.
“You were dancing.” I state the obvious because apparently blood to my lower regions means no oxygen to my brain.
She widens her eyes, stifling a smile. “You’re a genius.”
“I’d call it observant,” I deadpan. “But call me a genius if those are your standards.”
She snorts and then swallows the laughter, stepping back, shocked that she showed me her genuine amusement.
Only she miscalculates how close we are to the stairs and almost tumbles down. Again.
And again, I pull her to me, and this time I scoop her up.
“Stop it. What are you doing?”
That’s what I’m wondering as well.
She kicks her legs, but wraps her hands around my neck.
“I’m going to place you on the sofa, because clearly you are a danger to yourself. The last thing I need is to take care of you when you break your leg.”
“But I’m heavy. You’ll throw your back.”
I stop, scowling at her. Heavy? My problem is she feels too good in my arms. “Hush, woman, and let me make sure you’re safe. ”
I’m about to lower her to the sofa, but my cock still commands my brain, and instead, I plop down and settle her on my lap.
And now that perfect ass is rubbing my already interested member that grows harder still.
“What are you doing, Caleb?” Celeste squeals, but doesn’t move. She freezes.
“Relax, black swan, you won’t get pregnant from sitting in my lap.”
“But you might get a black eye from it,” she snarls, and attempts to wriggle away. She fails, but I grunt from the friction.
Why did I think it was okay to sit her in my lap? As if that one dance move I interrupted qualified for a lap dance, and I paid for the right to have her rubbing against me.
Fuck. It’s official, I can’t keep my dick in my pants around this woman. Even if said woman is perfectly correct in drawing the line, and assuming bumping uglies would only complicate our arrangement.
Because I have never had a woman sleep over—or in my bed—so living with one after having sex could only be a recipe for disaster. I’d rather become celibate. I wince internally at the thought.
“This is ridiculous, Caleb. Let go of me.” Since she failed to push off, this time she slides backward.
Only the sofa isn’t that long, so now her heels are in my crotch. And at her softened d, my cock twitches again. Nobody says ridiculous with such sexy diction.
I grab her ankle, and by this point, I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. I’m just accepting that sometime between this morning when I had a coherent, adult conversation with my brother and now, I lost my marbles.
“Isn’t it hard to dance in these?” I take one stiletto off and then the other, dropping them to the floor.
“Not all of us are meant to wear ballet slippers.”
Her quip ends in a moan as I push my fingers into the balls of her feet.
I expect her to kick me and run, but she relaxes and drops her head back, her lips apart. And now, just like in her apartment, I need to know if that’s her just-fucked face.
“Did you want to be a ballerina?” I continue rubbing her feet, trying to avoid the blisters. Fuck, her feet are this battered, and she still walks around in heels all the time.
“Doesn’t every girl want that?” She lowers her head to the armrest behind her, looking at me through hooded eyes.
“I think Saar wanted to be a princess.”
She chuckles, but it turns into another moan as I hit a tense spot on her foot. “What did you want to be growing up? ”
“A hotel owner.”
“Really?” Genuine surprise is etched on her face. “And you became one. Not many kids are that lucky.”
“I think they’re luckier. I wanted to be a hotel owner because my father was one, and I really wanted him to like me.”
“I only met your father once, and I can say with certainty he doesn’t like anyone.”
I snort. “And still, I used to take it personally.”
“The fact he doesn’t like anyone is his loss, but that doesn’t make your loss easier. We want our parents to love us.”
“I’m pretty sure I’m better off without them in the picture.”
“And not being a hotel owner.”
“I’m still a hotel owner. I only left the executive position. So why aren’t you a ballerina?”
She snorts. “Have you seen me? I’ve always been too big to dance on my tiptoes. I can do it, but there wouldn’t be a career for me in it. My mom was a very talented ballerina.”
“So you wanted to appease your parents with your chosen career as well?”
“God, no. My mom would have supported me in anything, but when I’d cried about how I couldn’t be like her, she did everything in her power to encourage my dancing. She’d taken me to different performances and clubs since I was six, so I learned that ballet isn’t the only form of dancing.”
“She must be an amazing woman.”
Her silence draws my gaze to her face. Celeste is looking at the ceiling with a solemn expression while she plays with the golden watch on her wrist. “She was,” she croaks.
“Shit. I’m sorry—”
“Thank you, but I had to learn to live without her a long time ago. I’m fine.”
“What about your father?”
Now her jaw ticks as she searches for a response, her eyes darting around the room. “He loved my mom, but not in a healthy way. He was chronically jealous, and we had to leave.”
“You don’t have contact with him?”
She shakes her head, lost in memories or regrets, I’m not sure. She doesn’t say anything else, and I don’t think she will. Not yet, anyway.
While I found freedom when my parents cut contact, I can sense that Celeste is on the opposite spectrum of feelings about not having them in her life.
Or at least her mom, because it feels like her relationship with her father is about as complicated as mine, if not more so.
I don’t know when my hands’ movement slowed down, or when I stopped massaging her soles. I’m now tracing through the soft fabric of her leggings, up and down to her knee.
It probably started as a mindless move, but somehow the contact penetrated into my awareness, like everything about this woman.
And now I’m so hyperaware of the feel of her under my fingertips that I can’t stop. She closes her eyes, and I take that as encouragement. Drawing circles up her legs until my thumbs graze between the thighs.
She grips my wrist. “Caleb.” Her warning is tentative. Or maybe that’s what I want it to be.
“Yes, black swan?”
She swats me away, pushes up to her elbows, and swings her legs over the edge to sit beside me. With a gap for two more people between us.
Fuck. I better go take a cold shower and paint the tiles with my cum, yet again, to prevent a severe case of blue balls.
How is it I can seduce any woman with my smile, and here I am, rubbing my cock against her like a horny adolescent, and she’s immune?
The woman has some amazing willpower. It would be rewarding to break it.
But behaving like a desperate idiot?
“Sorry, your ass greeted me today and—”
“No need to explain. I’m sorry I submitted you to that. I needed to practice one part of the choreography, and there’s carpet in my room. It’s not a good practice surface. Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. For the record, it was a welcome sight.”
I wink at her as our gazes collide. There’s a softness there, and a lingering smile on her face. Heat colors her cheeks, and in the light coming from the window, she looks angelic.
We stare at each other, suspended in an intimate moment that feels significant. Deep. Almost tender.
The world ceases to exist, fading into the background, while Celeste is the focus of all my senses. Her subtle flowery scent infuses the air. Her chest rises and falls in the rhythm of her faintly audible breathing.
We are frozen in this moment of attraction and restraint. Of connection and distance. Of desire and reluctance.
And then she looks away, and the spell is broken. “Look, Caleb, I’m not saying you’re not attractive—”
“Why do I feel like this is a consolation speech? You won’t believe it, but I’ve never gotten one.”
She laughs. “Oh, I believe that. But you and I… it’s not a good idea. I’m sure you agree.”
“Well—”
“Caleb,” she warns. “You really want to be living with a woman you bang once? ”
“Why once?”
“Be serious about this. We might be trapped together for three years. If we shag now, it will be a very long three years.”
“Or we would get it out of our systems.”
“I don’t think I would be able to pretend like nothing happened. Besides, I’m friends with your sister, and it feels weird. I wouldn’t be able to tell her, and I don’t know how I feel about that.”
Fuck. The last thing I want is Saar discussing my sex life with her friends. “I’m sure she’d be okay not knowing. Nobody needs to know.”
She puffs out a breath, blowing away the hair that has fallen into her face. “Clearly, we’re both experiencing sexual frustration. Why don’t we come up with a system that will allow you to bring women home?”
“I don’t bring women here.”
She snaps her head to me, her eyebrows shooting up. “What do you mean?”
“You’re the first woman, besides Saar, who’s been to this apartment.”
She stares at me like I’ve just presented an irrefutable argument that the Earth is indeed flat. “Where do you take your hookups?”
“One of my hotels, or Finn and I have a place for that. ”
Her eyes almost pop out. “You have an apartment for fornication?”
Every time she’s flustered, her accent is more dominant, and I have to restrain myself from grabbing her throat and pulling those leggings down to her knees. “Fornication? Have you just arrived from the eighteenth century?”
“Forget my vocabulary. It still doesn’t make your admission about a fuck pad any less ridiculous.”
“I’m not judging your lifestyle.” How does every conversation we have end up completely derailed?
“I don’t have an apartment dedicated to…” Her eyes widen like she’s had an a-ha moment. She smiles at me. “We can share it.”
“So you don’t want to fuck me here, but you don’t mind doing it there?”
She rolls her eyes. “Don’t be silly. Bringing someone here would be awkward, but we can use your apartment to take care of our needs. I’m sure you had a system figured out with your brother.”
She’s pulling my leg. She must be. The corner of my mouth curls up, but she’s looking at me with an expectation that doesn’t resemble mockery. “You’re serious?”
She stands up and walks to the stairs. Taking each step with her usual grace, she smiles at me, leaning over the banister. “It’s a perfect solution. You can even have the place for more days a week. I’m generous.”
Dumbfounded, I plop down to lie on the sofa, watching her ascend. Is she for real? I don’t want to know she’s fucking some loser. I’m not enabling that.
That’s preposterous. She must be teasing me, the little wench.
But what if she wasn’t?
Why am I concerned about her sex life?
Because as much as I hate to admit it, I envision Celeste’s sex life to be intricately entangled with mine.
Now I have to get her on board.