Chapter 26
Caleb touches me the whole way home—his hand on my thigh, cupping my neck, tangled in my hair.
We pass Sonny’s tree house and make a quick turn onto a long gravel driveway, parking in front of a strange little house set in a wide clearing.
It has an arched metal roof and corrugated siding, somehow looking futuristic and as if it could have been transplanted from the Shire in The Hobbit.
“Why do you always drive to my mom’s? You could probably walk there faster.”
“Because I’m usually coming from somewhere or on my way to somewhere else.”
“So what you’re saying is, I’m a detour.”
“More like a layover, if you want to get technical.”
I gasp. “Rude.”
His responding chuckle is a texture I want to drape around myself.
We slide out of the truck as soon as he parks, and he meets me at the hood, lacing his fingers in mine.
There’s a deep porch swing hanging on heavy ropes, with a thick cushion and soft throw pillows.
The breeze activates crystal wind chimes, a calming melody that is immediately followed by the sound of Houdini’s bark.
He greets us with desperate cries and a wagging tail when we step through the front door before he settles in his bed by the fireplace, digging at the padding and circling three times to plop down.
“Okay, give me the tour. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a house like this.”
“A tour?” Caleb asks.
I step back from him, releasing one hand and scanning the open floor plan, which is warm and inviting. “Yes.”
“All right.” There’s a smile in his voice. “Sonny and I built this place with a few of the contractors we use at the camp.”
“You built it?” I cast him a sideways glance.
“Well, with a lot of help. It was a kit.” He pauses, pulling me into the living room area marked by a leather sectional and a few mismatched armchairs in front of a bank of windows.
“Sonny suggested I build something on the edge of his property. And I found this company that makes modular, fire-resistant cottages. I wanted to test them out.”
“Ah,” I say. “I wondered. The design is unusual.”
He chuckles. “It’s an acquired taste.”
But I take in the quaint space. Every design element and furniture piece is intentional, necessary.
The walls are corrugated metal, so there’s an industrial feel to it, made warm by area rugs in fall tones, throw blankets, overstuffed pillows, and a square coffee table surrounded by cushions.
The kitchen is nestled in the back corner with open shelves and hanging copper pots above a stone island, which is flanked by four stools.
A hallway unfurls on the other side of the pantry, and a set of steep stairs is tucked against the opposite wall.
“There’s not much to it,” he says, but I disagree. It’s filled to the brim with character.
“I just want to see where you live.”
He leads me to the stairs and waves me ahead.
I climb the ladderlike steps into a loft with low-slung ceilings and porthole windows on either side. Frayed paperbacks spill from built-in bookcases, and two beanbag chairs rest in the center.
“Abby has taken it over for homework and to get away from me, I think.”
“Can you blame her?”
He shakes his head and leads us back downstairs, turning into the hallway. “The bedrooms are just over here.” It sounds like a suggestion, but I’m committed to this tour despite his impatience.
I peek into Abby’s room on the right—it’s chaos.
She has a full-size bed covered in more multicolored linens and pillows than I can count.
There is a bright-red desk tucked under the window, with a mobile of paper cranes hanging from the ceiling above it.
Clothes spill out from her closet, and dresses are slung over splayed open doors.
Posters, photos, and frames cover every inch of wall space, and a bulletin board is packed with notes, postcards, ticket stubs, and dried flowers.
“This is so Abby,” I say.
“Messy?”
“Joyful.”
He smiles at that before tugging me by the hips and pulling me across the hallway into the other bedroom.
It’s a simple space with a king bed and midnight-blue bedding, two mid-century nightstands, brass sconces, and a walnut dresser.
It would be sterile if it weren’t for the black-and-white wilderness photographs on each wall and the wide window peering over the redwoods.
I want to snoop and investigate, but Caleb has other ideas, and I’m easily redirected. He spins me, trapping me against the wall and kicking the door shut.
His breath is hot on mine, his lips urgent, and his hands slide into my hair, tugging the ponytail free to rake his fingers through the waves. I grip his waist, pulling his hips to mine until the kiss escalates.
Caleb peels off his shirt and tosses it to the floor, and I want to slow time to explore, to memorize every muscle, freckle, and scar.
But then he frees me from my shirt, and we’re skin to skin, and my brain stops working.
His body heat detonates my patience, and I need us to hurry.
We undress in a frantic fight of fingertips against fabric as we tumble toward the bed.
He pivots us before he drags my jeans off my body.
When I’m down to my underwear and bra, Caleb emits a sound from the back of his throat that I wish I could replay in every future insecure moment. It’s a reminder that I wore the lingerie Cassie gave me, a matching barely-there set of black lace and red satin.
“Wait.” He steps back. “Wow.” Caleb drags his hands down my body, over my neck, my chest, his gaze following in rapt attention.
He cups my breasts through my bra, brushing his thumbs over the peaks, until I have to swallow a gasp, and he glides his hands down my torso and over the lace of my underwear.
He traces the pattern so softly that it makes me ache.
“I like these,” he says in a gust of breath as he hooks his thumbs in the elastic at my hip. “But I want to see you.”
He moves closer, finding new patches of me to explore—to touch, to kiss—making goose bumps flare across my flesh.
He unclasps my bra, and it slips to the floor, but he doesn’t stop to look.
Instead, he hooks an arm around my waist and, in one swift motion, lifts and turns me so I fall to his bed.
I scoot back as he yanks the comforter out from under me until I’m lying on crisp, cool sheets with the light playing across my skin.
I see the moment his focus catches on my leg.
The scars have faded over time, but I can still spot the original wounds, the flesh that fought against me, the pain that haunted me for years.
Caleb bends, pressing a kiss to my shin, to my knee, crawling up my body with his hot breath on my inner thigh, whispering praise into my skin.
“You’re gorgeous, Eden. Every part of you. ”
I lift onto my elbow and tug on his shoulder.
I want him over me, shielding me from all the big feelings I don’t know how to process.
I want him to press me down, absorb me, and push aside all the unanswerable questions.
But he stays where he is, his arms banded around my thighs, his shoulders nudging my legs open.
For the first time since I climbed into his lap in his truck, I grow self-conscious.
“You don’t have to do that,” I blurt.
He presses a kiss to my inner thigh and then the other, dragging his warm breath across the most sensitive part of me before tilting his head. “You don’t want me to?” The grit of his voice makes me squirm under him, my body rebelling against my verbal protest.
“I don’t want you to feel obligated.”
He grins a wolfish smile. “I’m not doing anything I don’t want to do. And I wouldn’t want you to either.” He presses another kiss on my thigh, so close to where I want him, before he lifts his head again. “Just tell me if you want me to stop.”
He hovers there, teasing me from an inch away, and asking permission.
With a shaky breath, I slide my hand into his hair and watch when he closes his eyes, slides his mouth over me, and hums into my skin.
My head falls onto the pillow, and my hips tilt reflexively, angling for more.
And I wonder how this man knows what I want before I ask, before I know myself.
I’m lost to the warmth, the soft friction, the subtle way he moves his tongue over my tangle of nerves, how he teases me until I’m whimpering, begging.
He answers my desperation with his mouth open on me, his fingers filling me, until there’s nothing but him.
Until there’s nothing but now. And now. And now.
I come apart by degrees, ready for release even as my body climbs higher. He stays with me, ascends with me until I’m pleading and calling his name, until I fall back on the bed and shiver from the aftermath.
As I open my eyes, I see the rise and fall of my chest, slick with sweat, my nipples pebbled, my skin flushed. Caleb is watching me, still settled between my legs. His breathing is labored, and his eyes are steady as he studies me through the filtered light.
Trees dance in the breeze outside, and shadows waltz across the room, casting him in an uneven glow. I brush his hair from his forehead, and he chases the touch, crawling up my body until he’s settled on his elbows above me.
“Just so we’re clear,” he whispers. “I really enjoyed that.”
If I weren’t convinced by how eagerly he ruined me, he’s pressing the proof against my thigh.
“I’m glad,” I say through a shaky sigh. “Because I might want you to do that again soon.”
His grin in return is blinding. I rake my nails across his shoulders and over his chest. He’s deliciously warm, with corded muscles working as he holds himself steady.
His abdominals are all bunched and stacked like masonry.
I’ve never felt a body like his, and I want to get my hands on every hard inch.
He lets me explore, biting his lip and holding himself up for access.
When I take him in my hand, he sucks in a breath, and the cage he’s created over me bows. He’s hot and glorious, moving with me, his temple pressed to mine. He reaches for the nightstand, fumbling in the drawer to retrieve a condom. He pushes my hand away, covers himself, and hovers above me.
“I’ve been going crazy all week,” he says, but I can’t answer or tell him me too, because it’s then that he pushes inside me, stretching me so perfectly that I have to grip his hip, slowing him and holding my breath. “Longer, actually.” His voice is tight.
“Since you kept me warm in that cabin.”
He exhales, still restraining himself. “Since you showed up on the porch and refused to put up with my shit.”
I grab his hip, trying to coax him deep. “Since you saved me from that creeper.”
“Since I saw you across the bar,” he confesses as he finally sinks to the hilt, trapping my wrists in his fists.
I catch his mouth in mine, sucking on his lip until he takes control, his tongue sweeping into my mouth, his kiss stealing my thoughts.
There’s only sensation—the delicious weight of him on top of me, the slide of his body, the scratch of his beard, the grip of his hands.
He’s greedy in this position, keeping me where he wants me, enticing me to meet him with each thrust. He swallows my whimper until it becomes a wail, and then he’s everywhere—his mouth on my throat, his hands on my breasts—and I’m lost. Or found.
Because I’m shedding who I was, the woman who settled for less than this.
The woman afraid to climb to the summit.
The woman willing to accept fine forever instead of bliss for now.
“I want to feel you come,” Caleb murmurs into my neck before scraping his teeth against my earlobe, sucking a mark into the skin just below it.
He presses closer, grinding exactly where I need him, how I need him.
And it doesn’t take long for me to dissolve under him again, my nails leaving marks on his back, my words lost to the sound of his pleasure.
I bite down on his collarbone, and he rewards me with a delicious groan as he buries himself and stills, all the powerful muscles of his torso strung taut.
Time is suspended, and I’m afraid I’ll remember this snapshot forever—Caleb caught between a sunbeam and shadow, lost to the world for the length of a halted heartbeat.
When he opens his eyes, he searches my gaze.
His pulse is a riot in his throat, his mouth is slack, and he offers a lazy smile.
He hums, his entire body softening as he kisses me and shifts until we’re propped on our hips facing each other, tangled in limbs and sheets.
He tastes like me, and him, and this blissful us. And it makes me hungry again.
“I don’t want you to leave,” he says as our mouths pull together and apart.
“We have all afternoon.”
Caleb’s lids and limbs are heavy. He’s beautiful in the fragmented light, surrounded by a halo of gold, his skin coated in a sheen of sweat, his dark hair a wild mess.
“I meant I don’t want you to leave, leave,” he mumbles.
Neither do I, I realize. I can’t fathom leaving the comfort of his bed today, let alone losing the relief of him when my time is up.
I want to drink in more of him and learn all the ways I can drive him wild.
I want my mouth on him, his hands on me, his body in mine until I shatter.
But if I think about then, it will ruin the now.
If I worry about the crash landing, I’ll never trust myself to jump.