Chapter 9 #2
He stills, looking slightly embarrassed. Although shouldn’t I be the uneasy one for enjoying that performance a little too much?
“You heard that?” Cal asks gaping.
“Every high note.” I nod and he swears and rubs a hand over his face and facial hair stubble.
“That … well, was a drunken night with Trina after seeing one another again at the Fall Festival. I guess we had some unfinished business.”
I’d say, but I hold my tongue and he continues. “But we both know we’re not right for one another and it only reminded us later the reasons why we ended it.”
“Why aren’t you right for one another?” Crap, I didn’t mean to ask that question. It just sort of popped out on its own. Was she “not like” other women, too?
He walks forward and sits down at the foot of my bed. He doesn’t have to hop up like I do, either. He releases a slight sigh. “We had nothing in common.”
A pang erupts in the pit of my stomach. Neither do we. This time, though, I manage to keep that remark to myself, and Cal goes on talking. “She’s in college to party, but I have a track scholarship to maintain. Not blowing my chance at a free ride for the best education around.”
Okay, now that surprises me. Didn’t college guys want to be with party girls?
He’s putting his education first? I feel like I’m being sucked into a vortex of uncertainty, my original notions about him swirling around in contradiction to what I’m hearing now and from our recent nightly chats, combined with my friend’s feedback.
“Hmm,” Cal mutters. “What, no classic April comeback?”
I shake my head. “No. That’s really sensible of you to put your future first and to call things off if it felt wrong. I’m sure that wasn’t easy to do.”
“This time, I know what is right for me.” Cal murmurs huskily, leaning closer.
I shoot out my hand, stalling his progress, my palm resting on that hot and hard naked chest of his.
I stare at my fingers, watching them spread open of their own accord, wanting to touch more of him.
He’s so close, I can feel his warm breath on my collarbone and I almost whimper.
“That’s just lust talking,” I return.
“What do you know of it?” he asks with a smirk.
“I might be a virgin, but I understand desire.”
He gives me a panty-melting smile. “And do you desire me, April?”
His deep voice sends a quiver through me, but I shake my head vehemently, unable to speak, knowing the longing in my voice will give me away. Regardless, he doesn’t look convinced at my evasion.
“What about when we were kissing? I know you felt it,” he declares, lifting his hand to cover mine. I can feel his rapid heartbeat, and it matches the frantic pace of mine.
“Felt what?”
“The connection, the sparks,” Cals says passionately, twining his fingers with mine.
“That was a fluke,” I retort shaking my head, and he immediately drops my hand, which falls to my side with a smack.
His brown eyes go wide. “A fluke?”
I nod again, trying to swallow past the lump forming in my throat. “It was just the stars, the cold night, a shared blanket.”
“More like it was our mouths, tongues, and shared bodies!”
“I was half asleep,” I argue.
“You felt very much awake to me,” he defends, his eyes dark with agitation. I lick my lips, and his gaze follows my unconscious action. “Alrighty then, let’s test out this fluke theory of yours.”
Startled, I look around my room. “Now? Here?”
He shrugs. “Sure. I don’t need a meteor shower to prove that our kiss was fucking spectacular.”
“Kiss again?” I repeat aloud, more to myself than to him, but Cal nods anyway.
Maybe a kiss litmus test is just the thing to put an end to whatever butterflies I’ve been feeling fluttering around lately.
I’m sure it was only the magic of the night and if we were to kiss again, it would be awkward and uncomfortable like my previous smooches have been.
Hell, maybe my poor lip locking history is making Cal’s kiss seem better than it was in the first place. One way to find out.
“One more kiss,” I say.
“One more kiss,” he agrees, scooting closer, and I don’t stop him this time. His now familiar, clean scent invades my senses. As if recalling the last time I inhaled him so, my skin breaks out in goose bumps.
Cal leans in, placing a hand on both sides of my hips, trapping me beneath my comforter.
I can see the tension in his ripped arms as he shifts his weight and pulls up closer.
I almost fall back on my pillow, ready to lie under him in submission.
It takes all my willpower to stay upright and to meet his passionate stare, and I’m glad I do.
Cal’s eyes are sparkly and warm, and the enticing sight evaporates the last of my resolve.
I reach up and dig my hand into his bicep, pulling him closer. He kisses me, tilting my chin up with one hand for a second so he can lean in deeper before returning his hand to my waist to touch me or for stability I’m not sure.
Like last time, he brushes, nibbles and tastes my lips before entering, and when he does, my tongue attacks his. If this is supposed to be just one more kiss, then I want it to go on forever. Gripping his neck, I mash our lips closer reaching for something I know he can give me.
I take back everything I ever said about kissing. This … well, this is magical, hot, all the descriptors I once scoffed at.
I’m not sure how much time has passed when I realize I am flat on my back and Cal’s glorious body is on top of me. Still, he’s bracing himself on his elbows so he doesn’t crush me. Not that I’d be opposed to that. No, I want his full weight on me and in me.
He moves one hand into my short hair and tugs it slightly.
I moan when his mouth leaves mine but am repaid with his tongue trailing across my jaw and down into the crook of my neck where he sucks my tender flesh into his mouth.
Yes! Oh, God yes! I do freakin’ love neck kisses, thanks to Cal, and I move my face so I can deliver the same shivering torture.
The smooth flesh of my cheek brushes against the stubble of his facial hair and sends a teasing, electric current through me.
I like the feeling so much that I brush back and forth a couple of times like a cat before sucking just below his chin where his beard stops and reveals smooth skin for my feasting.
Rolling to his side, Cal pulls me toward him.
With both of us resting on our sides now, his hands are free to roam over me, and do they ever.
I can’t keep track of mine either as I knead and squeeze whatever flesh I can get at of his.
My sheet and comforter separate our lower bodies, and I’m wiggling to free myself of the restrictions so I can be on top of the covers, like he is.
I manage to recover one leg and drape it over his hip, scooting forward so I can properly mold myself against him.
He groans at the intimate embrace. Smiling, I nip and suck at his shoulder.
His skin tastes salty and so yummy. For the first time, I want more.
Evidently, so does he. His hand is running up and down my roving, bare leg, finally curving over my hip to grip my ass tightly, dragging me up firmly against his erection. Hot damn!
Instinctively, I undulate, feeling the long, hard length of him between my thighs.
His groan this time is more like a growl as he grinds back into my hips, and although my eyes are closed, everything sort of lights up.
It’s like a fireworks show behind my eyelids, and then our mouthes are kissing again.
I’m surprised when he pulls back a while later.
“Jesus, it’s not a sprint, but a marathon, Cal,” he murmurs aloud to himself, and I grin, knowing he’s just as affected as I am. But that was also more than just a measly, do-over kiss. We were just dry humping one another and I wasn’t ready to stop. His breathing is hard and so is mine.
Lying now on his back, Cal is looking up at the ceiling, where I have plastic, glow-in-the-dark stars like a freakin’ child, and I curse myself for putting them up there in the first place.
I flop over on my back, too, our heads resting side by side on my pillow.
We continue to stare up at the ceiling, our chests rising and falling as we collect ourselves.
The bed squeaks when he turns to me. “Well?” he asks, and even with my eyes closed I can tell he is smirking.
“Well …” I repeat, slowly opening my eyes and taking him in. Smirk, check! Gorgeously rumpled hair, check! Tanned, sexy chest, check! I look farther down the length of him. A semi still present, check! “I think—”
“Yeah?” he prods with a goofy smile, his lips still swollen from our kissing. Mine probably are, too.
“I think I need to kiss someone else.”
“What the hell?” He bolts upright, causing me to roll toward the space he just vacated. Scrambling, I rise, too, scooting my other leg out from under the covers so I can sit in child pose.
“I don’t know,” I say, spitballing and wishing I’d thought this out first. “Obviously, I was wrong about kissing. It’s not meh, okay?
You were right. That was amazing, but I don’t want my lack of experience to cloud my judgement, either.
The only way for me to be absolutely sure is to kiss some more. ”
Cal’s fallen smile returns. “Happy to oblige.”
“With another guy,” I add, and Cal goes ramrod straight. “This way, I’ll know if it’s a you thing or a me thing.”
Or, oh my God, maybe it’s a we thing? I’ve spent the last three years avoiding players, and I refuse to be another casualty of his—or anyone’s—charm just because I’m horny and caught up in lust. Or maybe this is more? Exactly why I need to find out.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” His livid expression makes me think he’d like to strangle me, and I don’t blame him. My feelings and emotions, when it comes to Cal, are all over the place these last two weeks.
Shaking his head and mumbling to himself, Cal springs up from my bed.
The leap is impressive, like I am one of the hurdles he jumps during his practices.
“Roland said he’s fixing your door tomorrow and will lock this one.
You can leave the extra set of keys in my room on your way out.
Goodnight,” he says, slamming the door between us, which only inches back open from the impact.
I hear another door bang shut a minute later. His front door.
Arghh!! I cover my face with my pillow and scream into it.
Shitty, fuck, fuck. Why the hell did I just say all that?
Why am I afraid to be intimate? Not just with Cal, but anyone?
Why can’t I be a go-with-the-flow girl? Because things were definitely flowing, literally.
I should have smiled, said thanks for the steamy, good night kiss, and maybe we should do it again sometime, or something breezy like that. Ugh!
Is this what kissing does to people? Smooches your brain to insecure, romantic mush.
Therefore, my kiss test isn’t without merit, just like his ‘one more kiss’ challenge had made sense, too.
Yup, I do believe I should smack lips with someone else because maybe it is a me thing.
A stupid, self-sabotaging, me thing. A kiss with another guy will prove it one way or another, or possibly what I’ve been so afraid of from the beginning … that I do have feelings for Cal Chase.