Chapter 4 #2
Callie had stopped fondling the headboard, thank goodness, but she was eyeing him closely, her thick brows drawn.
“You’ve been very quiet.” She took a step toward him. “Are you okay?”
“Just a bit tired,” he said.
The truth. He hadn’t had much sleep the night before, and he didn’t anticipate much more rest that night. Especially given what he’d just read about the contents of the nightstands.
Her scrutiny didn’t waver, and he fought a shudder at how that steady, concentrated perusal burned through his clothing like a shower of embers. How her mere proximity made him weak, made him hard, in the dim hush of a room designed for pleasure.
She waved a hand, encompassing their surroundings in a single graceful sweep. “Does all this make you uncomfortable?”
Definitely. But perhaps not for the reasons she might imagine, and not for reasons he was willing to discuss with her at that moment.
He countered the question with its echo. “Does it make you uncomfortable?”
When she blinked and glanced away, he could finally draw oxygen into his lungs again.
“Not really.” Her voice sounded steady. Definite.
“With anyone else, I would be super-anxious right now. Worried about what HATV might want us to do on this island. Worried about what my…” She cleared her throat.
“Worried about what my partner would want from me, and how much of it would end up on camera.”
The idea of her pressured into situations that made her anxious, ones she didn’t choose or want, made his gut clench.
Callie’s voice interrupted his thoughts.
“But I know you would speak up if the crew requested something that made me uncomfortable, because you did that already, during our first photo shoot.” Her brows compressed again, and her lips pinched a tad.
“And you were a total gentleman last night. This morning, too. It felt like we were hardly in the same room together, much less in the same bed.”
Her gaze landed on the huge slab of mattress dominating their suite. She reached out to caress the slick wine-colored silk of their comforter, and all the blessed oxygen departed his lungs once more in a silent whoosh.
“So no, I’m not uncomfortable.” Another step toward him.
Another. Until she was within arm’s reach, her chin tipped up to him and her glossy lips parted.
“But I still don’t know whether you’re uncomfortable.
Some people might find all this”—she gestured to their surroundings again—“shocking or off-putting, and if you’re one of them, I want you to know that’s totally okay.
If you’d like, we can talk to Gladys about finding a different place to stay tonight. ”
He exhaled through his nose.
Really, he shouldn’t be surprised. Not by her thoughtfulness, nor by her concern.
From the beginning, their coworkers had assumed his absentmindedness, his academic bent, the way he didn’t seem to notice the world around him while he sorted through his thoughts, his research, his ideas, meant he must be an innocent or a prude.
Possibly someone entirely uninterested in sex.
He hadn’t dated anyone since starting at CMRL, which had only confirmed that mistaken belief. A belief that, apparently, Callie might share.
There was nothing wrong with being innocent or uninterested in sex.
But he wasn’t either, and he wanted her to know that.
“Callie…” When he moved a step closer, her breath feathered across his neck in a ticklish rush. Carefully, he lifted a hand and traced the silken heat of her cheek with his knuckles, and her eyes flew to his, dark and wide. “I’m no monk.”
Her teeth sank into her lower lip. “You’re not?”
“No.” He stroked the line of her jaw, the tempting length of her vulnerable neck. Her flesh rippled into goosebumps beneath the light drag of his knuckles. “Definitely not.”
He really wasn’t.
And if they didn’t leave the room soon, he was going to beg her to let him prove it.
He allowed himself one last gift. A slow sweep of his thumb across that distracting, plump lower lip, which lowered in a shuddering breath.
Then he forced himself to step away, even though the carpet beneath his feet had dissolved into quicksand. “We should get ready for dinner.”
She stood there for a moment, her expression dazed and her eyes cloudy, as he hustled to his suitcase. But when he whacked his knee against the room’s desk—waist-height and very sturdy, he’d unwillingly noted—she startled and gave him a sympathetic wince.
“That looked like it hurt.” She dropped onto the mattress in a sudden descent, as if her own knees had given way. “Are you all right?”
He carefully kept his back to her as he unzipped his bag. “I’m fine.”
In fact, the pain was distracting him from discomfort in other areas of his anatomy, which was a welcome development.
After that, they each took a turn changing in the absurdly lavish bathroom, which boasted heated floors. Marble sinks. An enormous, sybaritic shower. A sunken bathtub big enough for a crowd.
His gaze caught on one of the shower’s adjustable body jets, which would hit at about his upper thighs. But for Callie, if she was facing the jet and he was behind her, spreading her open for the spray—
He gripped the marble countertop with both hands, bracing himself there as he dropped his chin to his chest and got himself under control.
It was going to be a long, steamy night.
And not just because he and Callie had traveled to a tropical paradise.