29. The Incredible Ache
TWENTY-NINE
The Incredible Ache
SHANNON
Shannon glanced around the hotel suite, laughing at the empty minibar. “I like your mom already. Her idea of recovery with room service is all right with me.”
“She went into full mother hen mode when I told her my roommate would be out of town this weekend,” Caleb said, dropping their bags by the couch. “I thought she’d be pleased I’d have peace and quiet to get caught up on my work, but she thought it meant I’d have no one to babysit me or call for emergency help I don’t need. While I was on the way back, she called and made a reservation. I thought you and I could have a little privacy if you accepted my apology, so I went along with it.”
“And if I hadn’t?” She poked his chest and grinned.
“Then I could cry alone in my hot tub and eat a steady stream of room service cheeseburgers to pack on some weight.”
She stood on her toes and kissed his neck. “I don’t suppose you told her you have someone looking after you here. I’m not so good at peace and quiet. ”
Caleb blushed, thinking of his mother’s prediction that Shannon would tell her their story on summer vacation. “She knows I wanted to get back here to see someone special to me,” he said as he nudged her to the bed. “And that’s the understatement of the year.”
She straddled him as he sat on the edge of the mattress, cupping his face in her hands as she pulled him in for a kiss. “I love sitting with you like this,” she whispered against his lips. She folded her legs around him, pressing close in his embrace. “It’s so easy to kiss you this way.”
“I’ll bend over backwards to kiss you. I’ve missed too many chances already.”
“Tell me when,” she teased, poking his chest.
“While we were in jail and I was telling you everything broken about me,” he said, snuggling her close. “You’re going to think I’m crazy, but I wanted you so badly right then. I wanted at least to kiss you, but I couldn’t even touch you because I thought I’d lose my mind.”
“We can be crazy together, then,” she said. “I told Elouise later I felt like a terrible person for wanting to jump you when you were so upset. She said it was because vulnerability is sexy.”
“Elouise is wise.”
“She didn’t approve of our library activities.”
“Her wisdom has its limits.”
Shannon nuzzled into his neck, breathing in his skin and the crisp cotton of his shirt. “I wanted you. And I missed you. I was worried about you.”
“I love you.”
“And I love you.”
The words warmed her, rising to flush her skin like a sunburn. Caleb tipped her face up to kiss her lips again, cupping her chin in his hands as she wrapped her arms around his back. He jerked upright.
“Oh my gosh,” Shannon said, pulling back. “I’m so sorry, I forgot. What’s off-limits?”
He guided her hand lightly over his lower back, barely touching his shirt, until he reached the almost-healed surgical site and traced a circle around it. “It’s not bad, just a little tender.”
“I won’t squeeze you too tight there.”
“I can think of a better place.” He untangled her legs from his waist and pushed her back onto the bed, then reached for the button of her jeans. “Several better places, actually.”
“A selection.”
Caleb tapped her lips. He slipped her jeans and panties off, then slid one finger lightly between her legs. While his finger tickled and teased, she closed her eyes and squirmed.
“You said you’d make sure I returned the favor,” he said, kneeling in front of her. “My turn.” He slid his hands up and over her legs, smiling as he ran his hands across her knees. They were smooth. She’d known he would come for her.
Shannon opened her eyes in time to watch him lower his head and tugged at his hair when the first flicks of his tongue approached. Nerves tightening, she drew in a sharp breath and arched her back, pressing into him when she felt his lips.
Frantic couplings with Caleb left her heart and mind racing to take him in, hunger in every touch that penetrated the energy around him and allowed her inside. Their first night was a rush to discover one another before sunrise. Their second was brightened by lightning and hurried by the threat of power restored at any moment. In every dream, when she thought of their bodies entangled, leisure rarely registered in a race against the light.
Pressing his hand to her stomach, he urged her to breathe slowly. He took his time and forced her to do the same, inhaling and exhaling together, his palm to her ribs to quiet her heart while he explored her with his tongue. The clench of her thighs on his cheeks when he began to use his fingers sent a triumphant smile across his face.
“There’s one squeeze I wanted,” he said, tickling her navel to make her squirm.
“Caleb,” she breathed. “That feels so good. You feel so good.”
Her tension melted in his hands as he lifted her—a better angle to taste and touch and probe while she shivered. When she clenched handfuls of the sheets to keep herself still, he reached back up and anchored her hips with his hands, stroking the soft curves of her bones while he pressed his lips against her thigh and told her to relax before slipping back in.
“How am I supposed to relax when you’re doing that?” she panted. “God, Caleb, I want…”
The warmth in his eyes tingled her hands and she reached for his hair, desperate to catch it in her fingers and control him somehow—she didn’t know why. He plunged deeper with his tongue and she writhed under the heat of his palms.
“You want what?” he murmured. “What are you hunting, Shannon?”
She dropped the covers and clapped her hands to her mouth, swallowing her laughter until her face flushed bright pink. “You did not just say that while you’re going down on me,” she squeaked, barely audible.
He looked up, and his satisfied smile imprinted itself on her heart.
All air left her lungs as she sank into the sheets, and her eyes fluttered closed as she giggled. “Oh, I should hate you for that,” she whispered. “Now I really can’t relax.”
“You love me for it.”
“I love you.”
“I love you,” he said, drawing back as he began to unbutton his shirt. “I told you that first night I want to keep you laughing.”
He shrugged out of his shirt and her memory whisked to every curve of muscle and sinew in the light of the street lamp, her fingers tracing his chest, his arms, his shoulders as he drove deep inside her in a stranger’s bed.
Did you ever feel that? Where your body is just screaming at you and it feels so raw and intense you don’t want it to stop?
Caleb kneeled between her legs again and pulled them over his shoulders, and she moved without thinking to caress his bare back with her calves. He rubbed his face along her thighs, nuzzling one side and then the other before slipping his tongue back between her legs. He pressed his hands to her hips, attempting to still her against the cool cotton twisted around them.
Reaching for him, she barely mustered a whisper. “I want you. I can’t wait this time.”
“Shan.”
“I can’t relax now,” she said, stifling a laugh. “Take off your clothes and get up here. Let me squeeze you a little more.”
“I’ll never turn that down. ”
Shannon pulled her shirt over her head and waited, leaning back on her elbows as he stepped out of his pants. Her breath sped and deepened as she spread her hair over her shoulders to disguise her trembling hands. Caleb held her gaze as he knelt on the bed next to her.
“We haven’t—” They both spoke at once.
He nodded for her to continue.
“We haven’t done it like this before.” Her touches traced feather-light on his shoulder and down his chest. “Lights on. No rush.”
His lips met hers as she arched against him, pressing into his hand where her nipple hardened at his touch. She spread her fingers over his upper back and lazily followed the paths of his shoulders and neck while she relished the softness of his kiss. Down his chest to the ridges of his abs, she slipped one leg over his to draw him closer.
“Aren’t you supposed to be out of shape and rehabbing?” she asked. “You feel ready for game day.”
He kissed her again. “Isometrics and my mom’s cooking. But I’ll tell everyone it’s the magical healing powers of the protein bars.”
She giggled. “You look delicious.”
“You are delicious.” He lowered his lips to her neck. “Here, and here, and every place I can taste you.”
She slipped a hand between his legs, dragging one fingernail up his inner thigh as he shivered. Another time with two fingers, and his skin prickled with goosebumps beneath her touch. He released a tortured groan when she took him in her hand and squeezed around his base with every stroke. The pressure in his hands on her back became urgent, digging fingers into hips and thighs as he tried to hold tighter without drawing her so close he’d disrupt the incredible ache she sent rising from his knees to his neck.
“I need you, Shan,” he croaked. “Please.”
She kissed him before shifting off her side onto her back, nudging his shoulder to show she wanted him to slide on top of her.
He kissed her again, then hesitated.
“Caleb?”
Without speaking, he rolled her onto her side and curled himself behind her. “Like this,” he said, wriggling an arm between her neck and the pillow, and another around her waist to pull her back to his chest. “I want to try it like this.”
Still wet from his fingers and mouth, her body warmed him when he pressed between her legs. A quick hitch in her breath told him when he found the right spot, and he pulsed at her entrance, waiting.
She tugged his hand.
He pushed inward just enough to make her gasp.
“Do you want me this way?” he asked, fighting to keep his voice steady. “I brought protection, though, if you want.”
Shannon nodded and snuggled back into his chest. “I’ve been tested and I have my pills. Yes. If you want to.”
Caleb plunged inside and sent her arching away from him, stopped by his arms across her body so she couldn’t escape the mounting pressure. He cupped her breast in his hand and squeezed, stroking with his thumb, and his groan began deep in his chest and reverberated through her as he released it. She melded against him, tangling their legs tighter every time they rocked together, fingers twined with his or reaching back, twisting in his hair.
“Oh my God, just stay… stay right there,” she said, sq ueezing his hands to pause him. “Yes. Go slow there for a minute.”
“Anything for you,” he whispered. “I like when you tell me what you want. How to touch you.”
“I like how you spoil me,” she said, her breaths high and quick. “Oh my goodness, don’t stop that.” She grabbed his hip to hold herself steady as he drove in and out, deeper and touching places he hadn’t before with a delicious, unfamiliar friction. Caleb cradled her close, matching his breathing to hers as she relaxed around him.
He loosened his forearm across her chest so she could lean forward, then bent his head down to kiss her ear. “I love you,” he said. “Fuck, I love being this close to you. Holding you. Being inside you.”
“I love you, too.” From the inside out, she trembled as she squeezed him and slid her shaking hand from his hip up his torso into his hair. “Hey, chaos.”
He pulled away from her and sat up, then eased her up to his lap as she’d been before. “That was so perfect, except I couldn’t see you,” he said as she wrapped her legs around his waist.
Shannon slid over him, drawing him back inside with a quick sigh as she wriggled close and smiled. “This is my favorite.”
“This is what you want?” He slid his hands roughly over her breasts and down to rock her hips hard against his.
“Yes.” She knew exactly what he was doing.
“And this?”
Writhing against the light flicks of his finger between her legs, she pressed closer. “Mmm. Yes.”
He raised a hand to her chin and tipped her head up to kiss him. “One more time for me,” he murmured, moving his lips against hers as he teased her. She was so open, so sensitive she felt every ridge of his fingerprint on her, and his gentlest touches hummed with energy.
“Yes. God, yes.” She buried her face against his neck, and his loose hair caressed her cheek like a kiss. The trembling that built in her core and washed over her clenched around him as she cried out and went limp against his chest. She floated in his arms, as heavy and unhurried as water, while every last nerve absorbed the intensity, then quieted.
“Caleb?”
He couldn’t wait much longer. He didn’t answer, but squeezed her tighter as his pulse skyrocketed, digging hard into her skin to keep her close.
Shannon pressed her head to his chest and listened to the rasp of his lungs while every muscle in his body responded to his release: contracting, holding, expanding in shudders and waves while she found the strength to tighten around him once more in response, just before his arms went slack.
She pulled her legs from behind his waist and shifted him to lie flat so she could stay on top of him, warm and close on the cool white sheets.
“You okay in there?” She tapped his forehead.
He opened his eyes and blinked at her, then stared at the ceiling and smiled in a daze. “I love the way you say my name.”