Chapter Twenty
“Is this okay?” Calli whispered.
Was it okay she’d rolled into me as soon as we got into bed and rested her cheek on my chest?
Ten years ago and with any other woman, I would’ve stopped the progress before she’d made it to my side of the bed.
But Calista wasn’t any other woman. The reason still escaped me, but it couldn’t be denied there was something there.
I curled my arm tighter and answered in the same soft tone she’d used. “Yeah, baby.”
Calli relaxed into me before I could get a lock on exactly why the feel of her pressed close calmed my mind, while at the same made my heart rate kick up.
I couldn’t shake the feeling something was about to happen, something big, something I wasn’t ready for. Something that would make it difficult to allow Calli to walk away from me.
“Are you happy?”
The way she asked, like she genuinely cared and my answer would either break her heart or fill her with joy, made my gut clench.
“In general, yeah, I’m happy. I’ve got good friends, work that I can’t say I like because the nature of what we do isn’t likable, but it saves lives.
I have a bar that gives me headaches, but that has to do with trivial shit, nothing life or death, so it’s easy, most days enjoyable.
I live in paradise and drink my coffee on my deck with a view of the ocean. ”
Now that the words had left my mouth, was that happy or was that content? Was I missing out on the kind of happiness Jack had found because I’d closed myself off to the possibility of love, or was I playing it smart, choosing a bachelor life over potential heartbreak and a messy end?
I didn’t bother asking Calli if she was happy. I knew the answer to that.
But I was curious . . .
“Right now, are you happy, baby?”
“Yes.”
Straight out, no hesitation. Fuck me, I liked that.
“Good.”
The silence stretched, neither of us filling it.
I tried to shove my wandering thoughts back into the box where they belonged, musings of what life would be like with Calli by my side.
The fights we’d undoubtedly have because that was us.
The woman would drive me crazy. She’d go head-to-head with me and not back down.
And why did I find that so appealing? Why did I suddenly want to know what it would be like to wake up and find Calli out on my deck, soaking in the peace of the early-morning rays?
What if she didn’t walk away? What if I could give her the peace she needed?
What if we ended in a disaster, where would that leave me? Emily had destroyed me. Calista betraying me would annihilate me.
“Can I tell you a secret?” Calista’s voice wobbled, causing me to brace for the worst.
I tried to inject calmness I was no longer feeling into my tone, but my answer sounded rough to my own ears. “Sure.”
She didn’t immediately tell me her secret. She cuddled closer, like she was attempting to transfer whatever she wanted to tell me telepathically.
“Calli,” I prompted.
“I’m a virgin.”
Her words were a barely there whisper. So faint they were almost inaudible. There was no way I’d heard her correctly.
“I didn’t hear you, sweetness. What’d you say?”
“I’m a virgin,” she repeated. Then added, “At forty.”
The impossibility of that hit me in the gut, but before I could muster the anger over her lying to me, I remembered her shy, tentative touching. Her barely there tongue touch.
What you tasted like.
I’ve never had a man.
Never had a man, not in a relationship way like we’d been talking about, but physically.
What. The. Fuck.
How was that possible?
“Say something,” she pleaded.
Calli was a virgin, and I’d finger-fucked her twice and eaten her out.
I had so many questions, but I settled on “Why?”
“Why am I telling you, or why am I still a virgin?”
“Both.”
I felt her draw in a breath, then felt her exhale.
“I was a virgin when Lili was taken. After, with everything going on, sex was the last thing on my mind. Then we found out she’d been trafficked, and sex became evil.
It was the reason she’d been taken from me.
The thought of someone touching me made me sick.
My sister was kidnapped, sold, and her body used.
She had no control over hers, but I had control over mine.
“I wasn’t going to tell you.” Her admission was coupled with another deep breath, this one shaky. “But not telling you first felt wrong. It would make me worse than all those women who screwed you over in the past combined.”
I could understand how Calista would equate sex with being evil. Extreme grief had a way of twisting shit up. But Calli was right, her sister had been taken so that disgusting, vile men could use her for sex. Though the act wasn’t evil, the men who used her were.
Wait.
What?
“First?” I questioned.
Without warning, Calli moved. A long leg slid over my thigh, and she hoisted herself over me to straddle my hips, and thank fuck it was dark in the room and the eyeful of her breasts was shadowed when her robe parted.
Fuck me, not the best position for a newly discovered virgin like Calista to be in. Not when my cock had a mind of its own around her.
“Another reason I never let anyone touch me is because there’s trust involved in allowing someone close, at least for me there is. A vulnerability I was never comfortable giving anyone. Until you.”
Until me.
Jesus, fuck me.
“Calli, baby, I can’t—”
“You can’t or you won’t fuck me, now that you know I’m a pathetic virgin?”
Pathetic?
Hell no.
“There’s nothing pathetic about you. There’s strength in your decision. The gift you have to give should be given to someone special.”
“And you’re not special?”
My throat got tight. Emotion clogged my airway. I didn’t know what to say to that, but if I had, I still wouldn’t’ve been able to speak.
Special?
Me?
“And you’re right,” she went on. “It’s mine to give.
My choice. And I want to give it to you.
I want you to be my first. I trust your honesty.
I can be me with you. I know I’m being selfish, asking you to break a promise you made to yourself.
But I’m still asking because, if I don’t, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life. ”
The promise I’d made to myself didn’t apply to Calista. She could never be an empty orgasm. But the gravity of what she was asking gave me pause. It wasn’t the gift of her giving me her virginity, it was what receiving it would do to me.
I was already having a hard time reconciling her leaving. Watching her walk away from me, knowing I’d forever carry a piece of her with me, made my stomach roil. We’d be tied together in an unforgettable way.
A few hours ago, if Pete hadn’t interrupted, I was ready to slide inside of her, vows and promises and consequences be damned. But this felt different.
She misread my indecision and mumbled dejectedly, “I get it. It’s too weird.”
I halted her swinging off of me by grabbing two handfuls of her sweet, round ass.
“You don’t get it, Calli. This is cliché as fuck, but it’s not you, it’s me. Nothing about you is weird. It’s about what I’m feeling. How much I’m feeling. And truthfully, it scares the fuck out of me.”
“I get that.”
I wasn’t sure she understood the enormity of my feelings, and I didn’t miss she felt something for me. I just didn’t think it was on the same level.
Yet, I couldn’t fucking deny her, even knowing in the end she’d break me.
“You need to tell me exactly what it is you want.”
Her hands hit my chest, she leaned forward, the robe split wider, and her breasts were now dangerously close to snapping my sanity. Not that I already hadn’t lost my mind.
“You. I just want you.”
An unhealthy need exploded in my chest. My stiff cock hardened painfully, ready to take what she so beautifully offered.
But, fuck.
“I don’t have a condom.”
I wasn’t sure if that was my saving grace to stop my recklessness or if this was the true meaning of hell on earth. Having something I wanted more than my next breath so close but not being able to take it.
Torture.
“Well, since I’ve never . . . and you haven’t for a long time . . . and I have the birth control implant, we’re covered.”
I didn’t ask why she had birth control covered. I knew. And the thought of why she’d cover herself against pregnancy—just in case she was violated—made me murderous. Burn-cities-to-the-ground homicidal.
“I’ve never had sex without a condom,” I admitted.
“Neither have I,” she teased.
Her body shook in silent laughter above me, doing a number on my self-control. There was only so much I could take with her pussy shuddering over my rock-hard, ready-to-go erection.
But she had to guide this. All of it.
“Kiss me, Calli.”
Without delay, her palms glided from my stomach up to my pecs as she brought her mouth closer. By the time her lips touched mine, every muscle in my body was strung tight in anticipation. When our tongues met, my hands on her ass gave an encouraging squeeze.
She was in control.
Her pace.
Even if every soft slide of her tongue killed me, I wouldn’t rush her. When she started rocking her hips, I knew death was a real possibility.
Calli broke the kiss long enough to issue a demand. “Touch me.”
I lifted her ass up enough I could slide a hand between us, shoving the robe out of my way as I went. Fuck me. No panties. My knuckles grazed my eager cock as my fingers went in search of heaven.
“Christ,” I groaned, finding her sex drenched.
“Yes,” she purred, and nudged herself against my finger toying with her opening.
Using every ounce of restraint I could muster, I slowly pushed a finger inside. Calli had other ideas when she immediately started rocking.
“More.”
I ignored her request and gently built her excitement until she was panting. I pulled my finger free and pushed back in with two.
“Mason.”
Jesus, fuck me, her breathy whimper hit me square in the chest—the left side to be exact.
With each choppy exhale against my lips, the barbed wire around my heart started to loosen.
Every shudder, every agitated jerk of her hips, felt like a defibrillator shocking my heart back into a rhythm that was as painful as it was impeccable.
“More, Mase.”
With my pulse pounding, my dick aching, I needed clarification. “You want my cock, baby?”
“Yes.”
I pulled my fingers free, slid them through her wet, toying with her opening. I tried again. “You sure you want this, Calli?”
“Yes. Now.”
The need to claim, to get inside of her, to feel her wet heat take my cock was overpowering.
“Robe off.”
Calista easily complied. My hands went to her hips, gliding up her silhouette, moving in to cup her breasts. She immediately arched.
I swept my thumb over her nipple and invited, “Lean forward.”
As soon as she was in reach, I pulled a nipple into my mouth. Calli arched deeper, groaning her approval.
I released the taut bud and, on my way to the other side, I ordered, “Pull me out, baby.”
As consuming as my desire was, I needed her to take this next step.
Her movements were clumsy and frenzied when she reached between us to free my weeping dick in the limited space she had.
Her hand wrapping around my shaft had my hips thrusting into her fist, nudging her clit and pulling a groan from both of us.
I went back to her abandoned nipple, and with each drag of my tongue, Calli circled her hips, bringing the crown of my cock precariously close to her center until she had the tip lined up.
Her thighs tensed as she started to lower herself down.
“Slow,” I gritted out, as I felt the head of my cock glide through her excitement.
“I need—”
“Slow, Calli,” I interrupted her. Needing her to go easy for both of our sakes.
“I need . . .” She trailed off, wheezing out a breath.
I knew what she needed. That same need was coursing through my veins.
“Calli.” I growled her name as a warning.
One she didn’t heed when she dropped down on my cock, taking half of my length.
“Jesus,” I grunted, clamping down on my back teeth tight.
“God!” Her oath was nothing more than a gasp as she pulled up to the tip.
On her second attempt, she slammed down, taking all of me.
Calista’s reaction was borderline violent. She half screamed, half moaned. Her tight-as-hell pussy clamped around my cock and her body shuddered.
Home.
Time stood still.
And in that moment, I finally experienced what it meant to physically feel beauty.
I used my free hand to cup her face, forcing her to look at me.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes,” she rasped.
Her thighs clenched my hips, and her nails dug into my shoulder.
“Relax, Calli, and breathe.”
“I need to move.”
I needed her to move, but not before I knew she wasn’t in pain.
She’s a virgin, asshole, of course she’s in pain.
Or was one until she’d impaled herself on my cock.
Christ.
“Please don’t make me stop,” she pleaded.
She squeezed her thighs tighter, her cunt clamped around my cock painfully as she inched up and slid back down.
“Take what you need, baby,” I groaned.
“I want you on top.”
“I want you in control. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t hurt me, Mason. I want you, all of you. I trust you.”
Jesus. Fuck me. Fuck me. Fuck me.
“You promise to tell me—”
“Yes.”
The word had barely left her mouth when I flipped us over.
I closed my eyes and dropped my head to her forehead.
Good Christ, this woman owned me.
I’d dig to the deepest depths of my control to give her what she needed, to make this good for her even if I died in the process.
And while she was at it, she could have my heart and soul if it meant she wouldn’t walk away.