Chapter Fourteen #2
There was fifteen years more to the story.
“You sure you wanna know? It’s a long story, and you look tired.”
The prettiest pink rose on her cheeks. Better than the blush in the kitchen, because this one was all for me.
“Stop stalling, hotshot, and spill.”
“Bossy.”
Calli glared, and I hid my smile.
“The sad tale of my sex life,” I started, unsure why I was willing to share any of this with her.
“It took me a while to get over Emily, lick my wounds, and, now that I was single, figure out sex and what it meant to me. If I’d only been waiting because that was what Emily wanted, or if it was also something I wanted.
“I got over Emily, but I still wasn’t sure about sex.
Eventually I started dating. Met a girl, we hit it off.
Date three, she’s all over me. But I’ve never fucked a woman and I’m not sure, so I slow things down.
Next time I take her out, we end up back at her house, she goes for it again.
This time when I gently let her down, she asks me if I have erectile dysfunction. That relationship ends.”
Calli was pinching her lips into two flat lines.
“Something funny?” I drawled.
“Nope. But erectile dysfunction. That’s where she went with that? Bold on her part. I would’ve thought it was me and I was a shit kisser or had BO or something. I would not have gone straight to ED. Unless . . .” She trailed off and her eyes dropped to my crotch.
Which was unfortunate.
The bastard had yet to fully recover from the top swells of her tits being on display, and now that he had Calli’s undivided attention, he thought it was a good idea to twitch.
Her gaze shot back to mine. But instead of the pink deepening like I thought it would, a sexy smirk tugged at her lips.
“Seems like it’s in working order,” she mumbled.
I could show her how well it worked.
Fuck.
Down, you greedy bastard. Calli is not for you.
And I was talking to my dick like a tool.
Focus.
“A few months later, I met another woman. I’m totally into her, she was sweet and shy and fucking pretty as hell.
We’ve got two months into the relationship, I’m falling for her and committed to seeing where things are headed.
I get to her work earlier than she was expecting, she’s standing outside waiting for me, I approach from behind .
. . and I hear her on the phone with one of her girls, telling her she doesn’t know what’s wrong with me.
We’d fucked around, done everything but have sex, and she tells her friend she thinks I’m secretly gay and haven’t come to terms with it yet. That ends.”
“Gay? Seriously? These women are confident. I would’ve totally gone with I’m a shit kisser and the can’t-give-a-blow-job route before gay.”
The robe, the legs, the tits were torture. Hearing Calli say “blow job” was a new circle of hell.
To stop my mind from thinking about how her pretty lips would look wrapped around my dick, I went back to my tale of woe.
“The next chick lasts a month before I catch her with one of the guys I work with. Her excuse—women have needs and I wasn’t fulfilling them.
Fair enough, I get it, but at that point, I had no interest in mindless fucking.
I’d waited as long as I had, I’d held out for the woman I thought I was going to marry, I could wait until I found the right one.
“It was number five who really taught me to never trust a woman. She played the long game, and she was damn good. I thought I’d found the One.
Turns out all she wanted to do was fuck a Seal.
After she got what she wanted, she dumped my ass.
I gave her my virginity, she got bragging rights that she bagged a Frogman. ”
Calli shot to sitting, her robe spilled open more, a hint of her nipple now visible. And it gapped at the juncture of her thighs, giving away she was wearing pink, lacy panties.
“Are you fucking kidding me? What’s her name?”
“Calli—”
“Seriously, Mase, what’s her name? I promise not to put her down, but the bitch needs to be taught some fucking respect.”
I wanted to process that. I wanted her defense of me and my virtue to feel good, but I couldn’t begin to process it when the more she spoke and gestured with her hands, the wider the opening in the robe became.
I slammed my eyes closed as the word hell took on a new meaning.
“Baby, your robe.”
“Shit. Sorry.”
I heard movement but didn’t open my eyes.
Honest to God, there was only so much a man could take before his self-imposed rules flew out the window. I only had so much control, and the last threads were fraying. Soon I’d be on my knees in front of her, begging for a taste.
“I’m covered. Sorry again, and thanks for . . . you know, being a gentleman.”
That wasn’t gentlemanly, that was self-preservation.
Raw and desperate need to bury my face between her thighs was simmering too close to the surface.
“So, are you going to give me her name so I can kick her ass?” Calli asked, like my dick hadn’t gone from hard to solid and I had actual blood in my brain to think.
“What name?”
“The girl who treated you like a pogo stick instead of a person with feelings.”
I wouldn’t mind Calli treating me like a pogo stick.
“Not worth you risking going back to San Diego when you have a warrant out for your arrest for triple homicide.”
“Shit. I forgot about that.”
Jesus. Only Calli would forget she was wanted for killing three men.
I pushed my head back on the cushion and laughed. When I finally got my hilarity under control and looked back at Calli, she was smiling.
A real smile.
Bright and blinding and so damn beautiful.
“You’re a beautiful woman, Calista, but when you smile, you are downright gorgeous.”
I heard her suck in a breath.
To break the moment we could not share, I went back to the rest of my story.
“The irony is, fucking a Seal isn’t some great feat.”
Calista’s smile fell. I wanted it back so desperately, I gave her more, knowing it would make me sound like a prick.
I didn’t trust myself with her. I didn’t trust that if I had more smiles, more time in our cone of silence, more sharing of stories, I wouldn’t fall for her.
Top to toe, she was everything I’d want in a woman. And that was unacceptable.
“The bars around IB are packed with Team Guys who will gladly bang some Frog Hog skank in the bathroom or in the parking lot, and if she holds promise, they’ll take her to their bed.
But for me, I’d given that cunt something that meant something to me.
Never again would I make that mistake. Emily broke my heart.
Jennifer fucked me and left me. After that, I locked down my emotions and became what the women I’d dated wanted—a no-strings, good-time guy.
“I fucked my way through half the beautiful women in San Diego. I spent years having meaningless sex that, after, I showered off as nothing but a distant memory. I didn’t bother with names because I wasn’t going to remember them.
I gave the bare minimum I needed to get a woman naked.
I was known for how quickly I could get a woman off.
My teammates thought it was a talent. What it was, was a necessity.
The faster I got them off, the faster I could get off, then get the fuck out.
“Women are easy. Flash a smile, fuck her mind while promising mind-bending sex, and she’ll drop to her knees. I didn’t need the uniform or the Trident. I’d mastered the art of seduction. Truth be told, it’s boring as fuck.”
Unlike the other three times when I was done speaking, she didn’t immediately provide commentary.
Mission accomplished.
Problem solved.
“I get that,” she whispered.
“Get what?”
“Turning off your emotions and going through the motions. Using something painful as an excuse to be someone you were never meant to be.”
Goddamn, fuck. There was more she needed to know.
“Calli—”
“Are you a football or baseball guy?”
“Sweetness—”
“Answer, hotshot.”
“Football.”
“Movie or book?”
“Book.”
There was a long stretch of silence.
When I looked over, her eyes were closed.
I should’ve woken her up and told her to go to bed. Instead, I gave myself a few minutes to watch her sleep.
Using something painful as an excuse to be someone you were never meant to be.
Maybe I’d done that . . . or maybe I was just an asshole who stopped caring and started doing what I wanted, what felt good, and used the old, tired excuse that as long as both parties were consenting, there was nothing wrong with my behavior.
But Calista’s whole life had been derailed.
This was not who she was supposed to be.
I came awake when I felt the cushion I was on compress.
I kept my eyes closed, wanting to know what Calli would do next.
Her fingers brushing over my lips was not what I was expecting.
My eyes came open and locked with blue. Ever so softly, her fingers glided over my cheek to my temple and back to the corner of my mouth.
“Calli—”
Her thumb pressed over my lips.
“I wish the world was different,” she whispered so softly, I could barely hear her.
She traced my bottom lip with her thumb.
“You’re a good man, Mase.”
I wasn’t, but I didn’t tell her that.
“Calli—”
“Shh.”
She leaned forward, bending deep, until her mouth hovered mere inches over mine.
I didn’t dare move.
Indecision warred. I could feel it, see it in her eyes. She wanted something, was brave enough to come this far, but was now paralyzed by uncertainty.
“I won’t move, sweetness. Take whatever you need.”
It took a moment, but she closed the distance. Her lips touched the corner of my mouth.
My hands fisted at my sides. I held myself rigid while Calli slowly brushed her lips over mine. A barely there touch. I felt her soft tongue tentatively touch my lip. There, then gone.
She jerked back and stared down at me. I didn’t understand the confusion I saw. I didn’t trust myself to ask. If this was what Calli needed, I’d lie still and give it to her. But fuck, was it painful.
The next touch of her tongue was less tentative. I parted my lips and waited. Another touch, this one a sweep. Slowly, I licked the path hers took until our tongues glided against each other.
I swallowed my groan, but not my concern when she pulled away.
“Tell me what you need, Calli.”
“I shouldn’t’ve done that. I’m sorry.”
“I told you to take what you wanted. But I need some guidance.”
She sat all the way upright. “That was . . .”
If she said wrong, I was going to lose my mind.
She didn’t finish her sentence. She stood, putting me eye level with pink panties. There was nothing I could do to hide my erection, so I didn’t bother explaining the tenting in my track pants. But the longer she stood there staring down at me, the harder it became not to reach for her.
“That wasn’t fair. I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry for.”
She swept her hand in the general vicinity of my hard-on.
“It’ll go down,” I told her.
After a cold shower and three jerk-off sessions.
“I should go to bed,” she declared.
Fuck.
I wanted to get up, or at least tell her to stay, but I hadn’t forgotten her telling me that men scared her.
And while she said I didn’t, I wasn’t going to get up off the lounger while she was feeling vulnerable after she sort of kissed me.
It was the softest, hardly there kiss I’d ever had, but it was sweet and sexy and all Calli.
“Night, Calli,” I called to her back, as she made her way to the slider.
She paused before she went in and looked over her shoulder. “I’m not like those other women.”
“What?”
“What happened just now, I wasn’t using you. I just wanted to know.”
Seriously, she was killing me. Calista was nothing like anyone I’d ever met, and she was nothing like some barfly who wanted nothing more than to get off.
“Know what?”
“What you tasted like.”
With that successful parting shot, she disappeared into her room.
No question, this had to be karma.
This was my punishment for being a royal asshole.
Not that Fallon or Pete or any of the guys would ever know about my balcony time with Calista, but if they did, they’d have a field day with my misery.
A barely there touch of tongues had me tied so tight, it was going to be a bitch to get untangled. The fuck of it was, I was beginning to wonder why I wanted to get free.