28. Ruth
Cal aimed his long lens into the trees above us, taking a rapid succession of pictures that clicked through the quiet park trail as a finch fluttered away. I lounged on a park bench, watching him with interest. When he lowered the lens, I cocked my head with a smile. “I honestly thought you were pulling my leg when you said you liked bird photography.”
Cal chuckled ruefully and let the camera dangle from its strap around his torso. He rested it on his hip, and he held out a hand for me. “I wish I was. But it soothes me and gives me a reason to get outside. Plus, it’s like hunting Pokémon. I fucking loved that game as a kid. Some of the birds are more rare than others, and catching them is a total rush.”
I nodded thoughtfully. “I can see how that would be. I don’t know anything about Pokémon, but I think I get it. Although, I find that surprising given that you were a jock and played football.”
“I never said I was a popular jock,” he pointed out.
“Now who’s the nerd?”
Cal tugged me against his other side and wrapped a crushing arm around me as we started back down the trail. “Very droll , doctor.”
I snickered, pushing against his side and causing us to stumble for a moment before he righted us and guided us back to the company picnic. I pressed my glasses back into place, and the serenity of the wooded area gradually gave way to the laughter and collective chatter from the “block party” barbeque. The smell of grilled hamburgers and hot dogs mingled with the tangy bite of the river water as a gentle breeze drifted over everyone’s heads. Cal’s arm, solid and comforting, tightened around my shoulders with a squeeze. “How’s your knee?”
I glanced at the bruised joint. “Fine, I think. I mean, I have an overqualified nurse fussing over it every night, so,” I teased.
“Wow, eight years of med school and residency, and she calls me an overqualified nurse.” Cal pinched my waist, one of the few places that wasn’t covered in bruises or scrapes. “You have some nerve.”
We reached the group of Kiss-Met employees, and I came to stand next to Gemma and Janice. Gemma had her hair in her half-up pigtail buns, and she wore a flouncy white dress that showed off the exaggerated lines of her curves. She held up a drink for me in greeting. “There you are. I was starting to think you were getting boned back there.”
I accepted the glass of wine with a pained groan. “You are so loud when you uncork your crazy. You know that?”
Janice laughed into her own drink, and Gemma sipped hers with dainty grace before saying, “You love it.”
Smiling and rolling my eyes, I turned to Janice. “This is really nice, Janice. Everyone did a great job.”
Janice, brightly colored and impossible to miss with her loud patterns, nodded with a smile. “My pleasure, Dr. Coldwell.”
Somehow, neither of us had been fired. Actually, after I’d shown up on Tuesday banged up and apologizing profusely, Janice had looked strangely unaffected by the whole thing. She’d said something about the issue being a blossom in the wind, whatever that meant. Gemma had been so grateful, she’d burst into tears, and since then, we’d both worked our asses off to prove that we belonged at Kiss-Met. It made enduring social functions like this one almost bearable.
Well, I amended with a glance at Cal where he stood tall and broad-shouldered next to Dr. Rook, a few things make it enjoyable, actually .
Cal turned away from his conversation with Rook and caught me staring. He smiled slow and wide. Then he winked once and returned his attention to whatever Rook was saying. My stomach fluttered like finch wings.
“Ye Gods,” Gemma muttered with her glass of wine hovering near her lips. “You two are disgustingly cute.”
“’Ye Gods?’” I echoed with incredulous amusement.
“My new MMORPG is like a fantasy thing, and one of the characters keeps saying it,” she said like that was the most normal thing ever. I gave her a concerned stare. She clicked her tongue. “What? I’m lonely without sex. Smashing things with a giant battle axe is fucking satisfying. You know, in place of satisfying fucking.”
I hadn’t actually expected Gemma to give up on men, but thus far, she had seemed determined to make it happen. “Okay,” I murmured, smiling to myself.
“I thought we hated Dr. Rook,” Gemma noted under her breath, leaning over and glancing at where Cal spoke to the other doctor.
“I thought so too,” I admitted. “But I think they’re working things out after my incident or whatever.” I took a sip of wine, and a burst of sweet and sour slipped over my tongue before I swallowed.
Gemma made a disgusted sound. “How does an android like that end up with a date to a company picnic, and I end up playing video games alone on the weekend?”
I glanced at the tall, stunning redhead at Rook’s side. Rook himself was just as tall as Cal, and his light blond hair had been swept away from his handsome features with perfect precision. He wore a loose-fitting, vertically striped button-down that stretched tightly across his chest, and as he talked, he casually reached over to drape his hand over his date’s hip. The gesture was undeniably sexy.
I had a pretty good idea about why Rook always had dates to things. To Gemma, I shrugged and said, “He probably brainwashes them.”
“Cyborg tricks,” Gemma agreed gravely.
Cal finished his conversation with Rook and then returned to me. Like magnets, we gravitated to each other, and he bent to drop a kiss on my cheek before waving to Gemma. “I’m stealing her again. Rook said he spotted an owl awake early down that other path.”
Gemma’s eyelashes flared with disbelief, and she buried herself in her wine glass again. “Mercy, you’re both nerds.”
“You love it,” I tossed back to her.
Gemma snuffed out a laugh, and Cal tugged me away from the group again. I gave him a questioning glance, but he just took my wine glass, set it on a picnic table where an IT team was standing, and led me away from the crowd toward another trail that curved back into a heavily wooded area.
Cal tugged at his taupe button-down, fanning it away from his sweat-glistened skin. “We’re all roasting out there in the open.”
I had to agree. I’d put on a lightweight, yellow sundress that fell to my knees, but I was sweating under the fabric anyway. “I’m ready for fall,” I confessed.
Cal’s rich, green eyes traveled down from my frizzy hair to my strappy sandals as we entered the shade of the trail. “Ruth in squishy sweaters and fuzzy socks? Sounds like a dream.”
I laughed, and the sound filled the quiet space. “That’s what you’re looking forward to? My schlumpy outfits? ”
“Taking them off, yes,” he said with a sharp glance.
I sipped in a fast breath. Holding it, I eked out, “Oh.”
“Oh,” he teased with a half-smile.
The truth was, I still hadn’t gotten completely used to having mind-blowing sex with Cal. All the time. Anytime. So far, he hadn’t grown bored of shattering my sanity with his fingers, his mouth, and his obscenely perfect dick. And the way he was looking at me at the moment had me thinking that I wasn’t going to be disappointed here, either.
When we had walked a good thirty feet into the trail, Cal pulled me off the path and into the trees. Through the foliage and densely packed tree trunks, I could just make out the milling party in the distance. Then Cal pressed my back against a tree and leaned his weight on one hand just beside my head.
I tilted my chin up to him, skipping a look from his lips to his eyes. He surrounded me with his presence, palming my lower back and eradicating every fraction of distance between us. His erection pressed into my stomach, and I groaned, grabbing fistfuls of his shirt above his shoulders. Cal brushed his nose against the side of mine. “Speaking of removing clothing.”
I huffed. “We’re not undressing in a public park.”
“Why?” he asked, drawing out the word as he skated his lips up to my cheek.
“Public indecency?” I squeaked out. “Jail?”
“Fines at most,” he drawled.
Much like Vaughn , I thought with a twinge of annoyance. They had caught him at the state line, but the authorities had been pretty forthright that although he could be charged with blackmail if I wanted to do that, it would most likely result in a low sentence or fines. But I didn’t care. I thought I would mind more, but that part of my life was over, and whatever schemes had attempted to draw me back into that misery had failed.
That said, a part of me still replayed that murderous look in Cal’s eyes when he’d been a breath away from pummeling the teeth out of Vaughn’s mouth. I replayed it with a little too much satisfaction, and it was probably a good thing that Cal had been more focused on keeping my spine braced.
Cal brought me back to the present when his lips found that spot under my ear that made my pulse race. Upper jugular to posterior triangle, I remembered with a foggy haze of desire taking over my mind. Might be my favorite.
“You wouldn’t be thinking while I’m trying to seduce you, would you, Shortstop?”
I rolled my lips between my teeth, fighting a smile. “Uhm. No?”
He tsk ed against my skin, scraping his teeth against the sensitive flesh. “We can’t have that.”
I shivered, shifting against him restlessly. “I’m thinking our friends and colleagues are within earshot, and this forest make out session is kind of risky.”
“Make out session?” Cal kissed down my neck toward the dipping neckline of my sundress. “Who said anything about making out?”
“Are we… not?” I got out breathlessly .
Cal lifted me away from the tree, arching my back into him and baring my breasts to his wandering lips. He hooked his finger under the edge of the V neckline, and I realized then how stretchy the bodice was. As he revealed my skin to my bra cup, he kissed each inch with deliberate softness. “I’m not sure you could call wooded debauchery a make out session.” He slipped the bra aside, exposing my breast, and then his tongue lashed out to flick the pink bud.
I gasped, my legs clenching together as a shockwave of pleasure rolled through me. “This is a bad idea,” I panted. Cal took my nipple between his lips lightly before flicking it with his tongue again. I moaned. “Then again…”
Cal lifted his head just enough to hook me with a dark, impish glance. “Then again?”
I groaned, moving my hips against his. “If… we’re fast.”
Cal blew cold air on my nipple, still damp from his tongue. It sent another twitch of longing between my legs, and I gasped again. “Fast?” he asked.
“Or slow,” I pleaded.
Chuckling, Cal sucked my nipple into his mouth, and I let my head fall back against the tree trunk, moaning loudly and not caring who heard it. Cal’s left hand still held me steady against his strong body, and his right trailed down my waist and to my skirt. He gently nipped and then licked at my nipple, igniting a fire that burned at my core and sizzled away my inhibitions. He lifted the skirt, tickling it up my thigh before trailing his fingers against my heated flesh .
I adjusted my grip, hooking my left arm behind his neck. That freed my right hand, and even as his fingertips pressed against my slit through the cotton of my panties, I coasted up his thigh toward his erection. Cal stilled, and I opened my eyes just long enough to give him a heated gaze. He stared at me, apparently frozen as my knuckles grazed the hard length of him over his pants. “Slow?” I teased.
His expression darkened with amusement. When his fingers pressed against my clit through the fabric, my knees went weak, and he held me hard against his body. “I think you deserve to be fucked fast and hard. What do you think?”
“Yes please,” I gusted out, and my vision crossed as he rubbed my clit in aching circles.
“You asked.” Cal’s fingers left me, but only long enough for him to spin me and gather my wrists in his left hand. He pressed my palms against the rough maple tree, holding them firmly in place while he bent me over. I braced my weight against the tree, arms straight and ass out. Cal smoothed a heated touch up the back of my thigh. “Bend over and keep your eyes on that party, Ruth. I want you to know that you’re getting fucked in earshot of your friends.”
I looked through the leaves and blossoming rhododendrons with the dawning realization that I was actually having sex somewhere in public. Sweat beaded between my breasts, and I swallowed my nerves. But then my pussy ached for Cal’s touch, and I danced on my tiptoes in anticipation, because if Cal said he was going to fuck me fast and hard, then I knew he would make good on that promise. And ye Gods , did I want him to.
Cal flipped my skirt over my hips, and it gathered along my lower back and bared my panties. He wasted no time in shimmying them down my legs, kissing a scorching path down my thigh, the back of my knee, and to my calf before he tapped my ankles so I could lift my feet out of them. He straightened again, dangling my already wet underwear where I could see them. “You don’t need these, do you?”
“You ripped my last pair,” I pointed out. “They’re practically disposable at this point.”
“Perfect.” He tossed them into a bush nearby. I didn’t have a moment to be surprised by that, because his left hand massaged my breast, plucking at my exposed nipple. His right hand reached around the front of my bent body and found my slick core. I jumped, moaning again as he found my clit and rolled over it carefully.
He slid down, following a line to my clenching center. Then he circled the entrance, coating his finger in my arousal and causing me to push back against him desperately. Cal bent over me, covering me in his warmth, in his scent, in his strength. Against the back of my neck, he ordered, “Give me your right hand.”
Leaning my weight on my left hand, I brought my right down, and he took my fingers between his. Deft and sure, he pressed my fingers to my own dripping core. “Play with yourself until I say so.”
I did, rubbing and circling in a familiar pattern that thrummed through me like a harmonic chord in the most satisfying way. Behind me, I was vaguely aware of the sounds of Cal unzipping his pants, and then the crinkle of foil as he ripped open a condom. I brought myself closer to a crescendo, ramping up my arousal to a fevered pitch. I closed my eyes, and the warm summer air gathered sweat at my temples. As a droplet slid down my cheekbone, Cal said, “Stop.”
Reluctantly, I did. “Cal,” I breathed out hard.
“Hands up.” Groaning, I brought my right hand back up to my left. Cal grasped my bare hips, and then the tip of his cock was at my soaked, throbbing entrance. As he slid into me, I shuddered out a breath of relief. My God , he felt like heaven. Like Hell. Like a symphony of perfectly coordinated notes that strummed through me with maddening perfection.
He reached around me again, and this time when he began a rhythm, slick and with perfect pressure, I hummed in pleasure, pressing my ass against him and silently begging him to pull out and slam his cock deep inside of me. Cal obliged, easing out and then thrusting back inside me. I stretched around him, too full and somehow not enough. Releasing a tortured sound, I pushed against him and rose up higher on my toes as his fingers and cock brought me to my breaking point.
Cal found a rhythm, quicker and harder with each passing second, and I barely managed to keep myself braced against the trunk as he fucked me into such delicious oblivion, I wouldn’t have known if someone had walked past us on the path or not. I wouldn’t have cared. I was riding a high and chasing a release that I knew would sing through my body and soul with a deafening crescendo.
My orgasm built just as fast and suddenly as Cal’s tempo, and I cried out, almost in pain as my core spasmed around him, clenching hard and then releasing into waves of knee-buckling ecstasy. I lost my grip on the tree, but Cal held me up with his left arm around my torso. He slowed and then stopped, burying himself in me deeply as he found his own release. I leaned against him, breathing hard and basking in aftershocks of pleasure that squeezed around his length still inside me.
The chitter of insects and the rush of a sudden breeze through the trees pricked at my awareness. I lifted my head, looking through my disheveled locks and over my askew glasses to peer around the still forest. “Oh,” I panted.
Cal’s chest rumbled as he chuckled behind me. He dropped a soft kiss on my exposed shoulder where my dress had fallen down. “Oh.”
I put my weight back on my feet, and with a furtive glance around the deserted area, I replaced my skirt back over my bare ass and fixed my top. As I adjusted my glasses, I looked down at the moisture between my legs. Even though Cal had used a condom, I had made plenty of a mess down the insides of my thighs. I pulled a face.
Cal snorted and held out a handful of tissues to me when I turned to face him. “Fluids, right?”
I bit my lip, smiling. “How’d you guess?”
“It’s like I know you,” he mused. He’d already fixed himself, and he tucked my tissues and his in his pocket. “I came prepared for sex in the woods, thankfully.”
“That’s specific of you.”
Cal pulled me up against his lean body again, kissing my lips languorously. “I might have fantasized about fucking you in the fresh outdoors… a couple of times.”
I frowned, pulling away an inch. “I’ve known you for like three weeks tops.”
“I have a very active imagination,” he said seriously.
Twigs cracked behind us. I jumped, whirling toward the sound, only to find another couple making their way from the party to our path. Cal shifted me to the right, pressing me against the wide trunk of the maple tree again. It put us mostly out of sight as the couple passed on the trail.
“I think they have a rhododendron garden up this way,” the man was saying.
“Oh, nice,” the girl replied noncommittally, giving away the fact that they clearly hadn’t been together long. Their feet crunched over gravel and twigs as they slowly walked the path at my back. Cal could see them better, and he peered around the tree to track their progress silently.
I ran my eyes over the buttons on Cal’s chest, up the column up his throat, across his bronze-tinted lips, and then up to his gaze. Forest green eyes watched me with shimmering mirth. I’d been caught ogling.
Silently, Cal mouthed, “You like me?”
I cracked a grin, shaking my head. “Love you,” I mouthed back.
His features melted into a contented kind of joy, and he brought his hands up to cup my face on either side. He bent down to kiss my forehead, inhaling softly. “Love you, too,” he whispered.
I leaned into him, which got easier to do every time we exchanged those words. It was a learned skill, trusting. We humans might be born with the inherent need to trust and rely on others, but it was so easily broken and replaced with self-doubts. The more I relied on Cal, and the more I opened myself up to the possibility of belonging, the easier it became.
When we made our way home later that night, it was to a door that opened readily and a house on a hill that welcomed me just as surely as the man who had invited me into it. Before Cal, somewhere along the way, I’d managed to convince myself that I only deserved locked doors and dashed dreams. Cal had rewritten that, and he’d done it in careful, swirling script over my heart. Just as steady and sure as a finely crafted silverpoint manuscript, he had taken care to bring his words to life at the very center of my being.
Because he loved me for me. I loved him for him.
Our love just was.