Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
CALEB
The last thing I wanted to do was hurt her.
I didn't pull out, because she felt too damn good, but I stopped.
Bracing my weight on my forearms, I kissed her brow and her cheeks before I kissed her lips.
I knew this was a gift she was giving me.
I wanted her first time to be special and good, but I also knew the pain was inevitable and didn't last. My dick pulsed and throbbed, wanting to be deeper inside her.
Damn I wanted her bad, but I refused to pressure her.
“Do you want to stop?” I asked softly, caressing her cheek. I didn’t want her to be in pain.
The silence stretched on as she stared up at me, her small hands were still on my chest. Her gaze darted around looking everywhere, but at me as she thought it over. When Georgia looked up at me again, she shook her head.
“If I push in fast, instead of going slow it won't hurt so long. Like ripping off a band aid.” I hoped my reassurance would calm her.
“Okay.”
She cradled my hips and used my biceps to brace herself.
I kissed the corner of her mouth and then thrust home, wanting it to be swift. Even still, the cry that tore from her throat wounded me. Despite the way my heart ached at the pain I caused her I couldn’t stifle the groan that was dragged from my body at finally being lodged fully inside her.
Pleasure rippled up my back.
My balls lay heavy against her ass and all I wanted to do was move. A shudder went through my body, and I buried my face in her neck.
“You feel so fucking good.” The words came out in a rasp.
Georgia whimpered. She had a death grip on my arms, but it was no match for the euphoria that encased me.
I leaned up to look at her, planting my knees in the mattress to take some of my weight off her. Her teeth were sunk into her body lip and tears spilled from her eyes.
“Baby…” I kissed her eyelids trying to soothe her. My muscles strained from the pressure of not allowing my body to do what felt natural.
I swiped her tears away.
She panted, unable to control her breathing.
“Breathe, baby. Breathe.” I stroked her hair and kissed her mouth.
I was starting to lose the battle with my own body at the same time I could feel her grip on me relax.
Slowly, I pulled out only halfway and then pushed back in at the same speed. I shut my eyes and moaned at how good it felt. I felt her breathing even out, and the pain that twisted up her face gradually gave way to a look of pure pleasure as her jaw went slack and dropped open.
I picked up the pace as she wound her legs around my waist and wrapped her hands around my back. I wanted to make her feel so damn good she forgot all about the pain.
“Caleb,” she said on a sigh, followed by a breathy moan.
Rapture was written all over her face as she clawed my back with every pump of my hips.
“Yes,” she purred.
A lecherous grin curled my lip as I pushed my tongue inside her mouth and kissed her. I knew her orgasm was close the way her pussy gripped my dick.
The sounds she was making egged me on. I couldn’t get enough of her delectable body and the way she was undulating beneath me.
“You feel so fucking good.” Each word punctuated by me ramming my dick inside her deeper and harder each time.
Georgia came on a scream. Her body spasmed and her legs shook as she climaxed. Her pussy contracting around me like a vise.
“Fuck.” With a grunt I came, spilling my seed inside her.
Her hands slipped to my ass, holding me to her as my hips slowed. The quake in her body milking every drop of cum from me like she couldn’t get enough. I held her head and tongued a spot on her neck that made her whimper.
After several minutes, I slowly pulled out of her.
She let out a small gasp. I felt the loss of our bodies no longer being joined as well. When I rolled off her onto my back, I took her with me, so she half lay on me. She put her left leg between mine and curled into me, resting her head on my chest.
We lay tangled in the sheets. Neither of us said a word. Both of us enjoying the afterglow.
She broke the silence first.
“Tell me something.” Georgia said as she sat up, taking the sheet with her to cover her chest.
“Hmm?” My mind was still stuck on sex. I already missed the warmth of her body.
I reached for the sheet with a lopsided grin and playfully tried to tug it away from her.
“Stop,” Georgia giggled, “I’m serious.” She smacked my hand away.
“Okay. I’ll be good. I’m listening.” I sat up too, using a pillow to recline against the headboard.
“Earlier you said you didn’t think you were good enough for me. Why would you think I felt that way? What have I ever done to make you think that?”
That question sobered me from my lust drunk stupor.
My gaze fell to my lap reluctant to relive that day. I pinched the bridge of my nose and squeezed my eyes shut. The feel of her hand on my thigh prompted me to open my eyes. When I looked at her again, an earnestness filled her eyes, pleading with me to trust her. I sighed.
“You never got to meet my mama. She was a real sweet woman. She was already dead when you moved here to live with your grandma.” I could feel the emotion wedge itself in my windpipe. I cleared my throat, so I could continue.
“When she was sick and getting treatments at the hospital, I would go with her sometimes to keep her company. I was just a boy, but one day she shared with me about how her father physically abused her and her mother growing up.”
Georgia hadn’t stopped rubbing soothing circles on my thigh. I was grateful for her touch.
“One of the things she made me promise before she passed is that I would never lay my hand on a woman, and that I would not only protect my brothers, but any woman that needed my help.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat and took a stuttering breath.
“End of junior year, it was summer, and you and Fletcher wanted to earn some money, but were a year shy of being able to get a work permit, so Pop let you guys work at the distillery doing menial tasks.”
Georgia chuckled. “I remember that.”
My lips quirked into a cheerless grin at the memory. “One afternoon a woman showed up. Face all busted up,” My eyes had taken on a faraway look as I touched my throat, “she had bruising on her neck from where someone had choked her.”
I could still feel Georgia’s hand on my leg.
“Dad wasn’t there, so I took her in the office to talk to her. She tells me that one of our workers is her husband and he’s been beating the shit out of her. She’s afraid he’ll kill her.”
My hands tightened into fists in my lap remembering the swelling and bruising on that woman’s face.
“I got in a lot of stupid, senseless fights after my mom died. But that fight, that’s the one that landed me in jail…
I don’t remember wailing on the guy when he showed up.
It was like I was outside my own body. I do remember coming out of that red haze, that rage that had consumed me in that moment after the cops pulled me off him and slammed me on the hood of their squad car. ”
When I glanced at Georgia, she had tears in her eyes, and I knew she remembered the incident.
“It wasn’t until I lay there pinned to the hood of that car and I saw your face that I fully came back to myself.
The look on your face… the raw fear and anguish.
It tore my guts out. The last thing I ever wanted was for you to think of me as some animal.
I thought I’d killed any chance of ever being worthy of you. ”
Georgia let the sheet she’d been gripping over her breasts, pool at her waist as she came into my arms, wrapping herself around me.
“Caleb…” she cradled my face when I tried to hide from her.
“I wasn’t scared of you. I was scared for you.”
I shut my eyes at her admission, letting out a breath, and felt her feather kisses across my brows and cheeks. I wrapped my arms around her.
“Baby, I was never afraid of you. I never thought you were a monster. That you would fight that fiercely for someone who couldn’t defend themself made me love you even more. I hated I couldn’t protect you.”
I squeezed her tighter and buried my face in her neck.
I wished we could spend the night together and wake up in each other’s arms. I groaned and ran my fingers up and down her back. “I want to make love to you all night, until the sun comes up, but I know Big Momma will whoop your ass and mine if you don’t walk in that door tonight.”
Georgia snuggled into me and grumbled. “I know.”
I kissed her forehead.
“I love you, Georgia Butler,” I whispered the words into her hair. “I always have, and I always will.”
I now knew what her hair smelled like: vanilla and coconut. I inhaled deeply to get another whiff.
When her hold on me tightened in response, I wished again I could stay in this room with her, learning all the ways she liked to be touched, learning all the things about her I didn’t already know.
I groaned. “I better get you home.”
We’d pulled up in front of her house twenty minutes ago, and each time she went to get out of my truck I’d pull her back for one more kiss. I couldn’t get enough.
Georgia pulled away breathless and licked her bottom lip. “I really gotta go.”
I gave her my best puppy dog face. “Just one more.”
She giggled and slid closer to me. “You said that ten minutes ago.”
After a quick peck, she opened the car door and got out.
I watched her walk toward the house. The sway of her hips had me hypnotized and I remembered how her luscious ass felt in my hands.
She turned and gave me a little wave, before she headed inside and turned off the porch light.
On the drive home, elation coursed through every cell in my body as I replayed the night. Not because Georgia and I slept together, but because she loved me. Having love be returned was a powerful thing. It was like a drug, and I was riding high.
When I walked in the door of the house after dropping her off, I was surprised to find Pop awake. He sat at the table in the kitchen with a stack of paperwork and ledgers surrounding him.
“What are you still doing up?” I asked, opening the refrigerator to grab a bottle of water. I wasn’t ready to share the news about Georgia with anyone else yet. I wanted to keep it to myself a while longer.
He took off his reading glasses and sat back in his chair. “Just catching up on some work. Where are you coming from?” Although he tried to make it sound casual, I could hear the suspicion and concern concealed within.
“Nowhere.” I looked away and guzzled my water. My joy quickly turning to agitation.
When he didn’t immediately respond I was sure he was trying to decide whether to probe or leave it alone. I knew he worried I would screw up again or that he’d have to clean up another mess, but I wished he’d put a little more faith in me.
“Night. I’m going to bed.” I said, walking away, not giving him the opportunity to grill me some more.
I was still living in the little paradise Georgia and I created, and nothing was going to ruin it.