Chapter 32
chapter
thirty-two
SHAY
I told myself I stayed only because I’d spent the last few months strung out on this man. That he’d dicknotized me, as Lithie had said.
Once we had sex, that would go away.
I wouldn’t think about him. I wouldn’t want him. I definitely wouldn’t want more.
I waited less than ten minutes after Calder left before I went snooping.
There wasn’t much to find. There were massive, vaulted floor-to-ceiling windows everywhere.
The lights from Salt Lake City didn’t penetrate as deeply.
The stars were crisper. Rawer. The place didn’t look very lived-in.
There was no clutter, no photos. The furniture was like something you’d find in a model home.
I went over to the sparse bookshelf. Calder had a few baking cookbooks, but otherwise the rest were romance. I picked up a hot-pink cover. It was one of my favorites. I set it down and reached for another, and then another.
They were all books I’d read and loved.
And he’d dog-eared and highlighted them.
I swallowed a lump in my throat and walked back into the bedroom, studying it with a keener eye than when I’d woken this morning.
It was aesthetically pleasing and without personality, like the rest of the house.
Though there did seem to be a bit more of Calder in here.
A mess of white papers littered the nightstand, and books were stacked on the dresser.
I went over to the nightstand, curious, and perused the papers—my papers. Research papers that dated back to my PhD days. He’d read them? Graham hadn’t even read them.
It felt like a fist squeezed my heart when I saw lines highlighted, a scientific thesaurus next to them.
Sex, I reminded myself, setting the papers down and heading to the bathroom. This was about sex.
I took a quick, hot shower, then grabbed one of his shirts again. It smelled so good, like midnight and smoke, like Calder—
Wait.
I paused as I shut the dresser, reading the title of the books atop it.
Demystifying Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
And about five other titles of the same. He knew I was sick? How long had he known—
“You stayed.”
I spun around, caught.
Calder stood in the doorway, dressed from head to toe in black.
His gaze dropped to the book. “Shay, I’m…” His brow pinched.
Even though he was just across the room, it felt like miles of space between us. I gripped the dresser at my back with both hands, warring with the nerves flapping big fat beetle wings in my stomach.
“How long have you known?”
He dragged a hand across his mouth, and that was when I noticed that his knuckles were red and abraded.
Bloody.
I had a brief flash of one of the first photos he’d sent. The kind you stay away from. I’d thought he was being hyperbolic. Trying to scare me away.
Was he really some kind of criminal?
My gaze narrowed on the fresh blood. He wasn’t bad. He couldn’t be. He was only scary when I wanted him to be. He read up on my illness. He was just like me, with societally frowned-upon kinks.
“For a while,” he admitted, drawing my attention back.
“Stalker,” I muttered. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because I wasn’t supposed to know.”
Silence passed. This was new territory for me. Usually it was me telling them, and waiting to see if they accepted me. But he was waiting for…me.
My fingernails bit into the wood of the dresser, and I sucked in a breath as Calder closed the distance.
“I shouldn’t have done that, Shay. I’m sorry.”
Maybe I should have been mad. Violated.
The scariest part about telling him was the fear of rejection. He already knew, had known, and still wanted me.
I glanced at the book again, not sure how to feel.
“I’m not mad,” I said.
“You’re not?”
“I’m…” I searched for the right word. “Relieved. I don’t want to lie to people.
I just don’t know how to tell the truth.
It’s bad to trauma dump, but my entire life is trauma.
So I just pretend…” When I spoke next, the words were quiet, ripped from a dark, lonely part of me.
“People won’t want me when they realize how dark it is. ”
Calder snaked a hand through my hair. “I want your darkness.” He angled my head to face him so I could see the truth of his words in his eyes. “On our first date you told me dark is what holds up the light. I want to know those parts of you, Shay, the parts that hold everything up.”
I swallowed, throat thick. I used to dream of someone accepting all of me.
It was perfect.
And somehow too much.
As if sensing my mood, Calder shifted the conversation into lighter territory. “You showered?”
I touched my wet hair. “I borrowed your shampoo. I hope that’s okay.”
Calder stared at me with an inscrutable emotion pinching his brows and drawing his jaw taut.
Then all at once he lifted me onto the dresser, grip lingering on my hips.
“It’s more than okay,” he said. “I just wanted to be the one to clean you up.” He squeezed my hips, bending his head forward, nose pressed deep into my neck.
“Fuck.” He groaned, words vibrating against my flesh, settling deep in my gut. “You smell like me.” Breath disappeared from my lungs as Calder invaded every single one of my senses. His scent dark and refined and powerful. His lips pressed softly to the muscle of my neck as he inhaled me.
I gripped his shoulders, my breath disappearing in my lungs.
Feeling drunk.
Calder’s grip left my waist, hands cradling my face. I felt small. Protected. He said nothing, just stared at me, jaw impossibly tight, thumbs bruising the hollows of my cheeks, gaze locked on my lips.
He was different from this morning.
Darker.
More…unhinged.
I ghosted my touch across his knuckles, the still fresh abrasion. Was this my fault? Had sending all those photos made him go nuts at kickboxing or something?
“Are you mad?” I asked.
His gaze snapped to mine. He arched a brow, urging me to add more context.
“For, you know, taking all those photos and making those notes.”
Calder’s face collapsed and his head fell forward, our foreheads touching. “No, Shay. I’m not mad at you. Never mad at you. I’m mad at myself.”
He didn’t give me a second to ponder what that meant, let alone respond. Calder crashed his lips against mine. Fervent. Reckless. He gripped my ass, squeezing on a groan when he found me bare, and lifted me off the dresser.
I wrapped my legs around his waist, not breaking the kiss.
I couldn’t get enough of kissing Calder. I didn’t know kisses could be like this. Soft and biting.
Calder gently deposited me to his bed and caged me, our lips still fused. His grip came to my hem, dragging his shirt up my body. I sat up to make it easier, kissing him until I had no choice but to break so he could tear the shirt off.
“Fuck.” Calder let out a ragged exhale, dragging his hand across his mouth. His gaze roamed my body. Ravenous. Black shirt dangling from a white-knuckled grip.
All at once he dropped between my legs, spreading my thighs, dragging me closer to him.
Nerves strangled my throat.
This was real. I hadn’t had sex with anyone save Graham, and he wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about it. What if I was bad? What if he thought, Fuck, what was I thinking—
“Stop thinking, Maniac,” Calder said, and plunged a finger inside me.
My back arched off the bed. Calder’s free hand landed on my stomach, forcing me flat, and a moment later he removed his finger. A pathetic whimper dripped from my lips, only to be silenced as he replaced the digit—
Oh my god.
I gasped.
What is that?
I lifted my head off the bed, meeting a ravenous, black-eyed Calder. It was his thumb. He held my pussy in a vise grip, thumb pressing some deep, needy part of me I didn’t even know existed. I felt it in my cunt, in my stomach, in my teeth.
He dragged me by the grip of my pussy down and off the bed, until I was literally sitting in his hand. Then he fucked up inside me.
“Oh god,” I gasped, clutching his shoulders for support.
I nearly saw stars.
I didn’t know this was an option.
I felt so totally fucking owned.
Calder watched me in a way I could feel in my soul, dark-eyed gaze staring up at me as he fucked me. Locked on any slight movement. When my lips parted after he pressed a particularly cruel and addictive spot, his eyes dilated like I’d pleased him. Like that was what he was looking for.
He did it again.
And again.
His lids hooded, his lip quirked.
I was transfixed by him, by the way he watched me. The hunger.
It was like this wasn’t even about me. Like the orgasm building in my core, the way I could barely think, was all for him. Getting him off. My brain melting in pleasure was just a fortunate side effect.
Calder’s lips landed on the inside of my thigh, trailing upward, and it was like I was doused in ice water.
It’s just a preference, Shay.
A second later, Calder stopped, lifting his head to mine. “Shay?”
“I—” I broke off, trying to come back to the moment.
I’ll do it if you want, but eating you out doesn’t do it for me. You don’t taste very good and you’re always…prickly. I hate getting that in my mouth.
Calder’s eyes narrowed, and he slid out of me, rising until he had me caged on the bed again. Until we were eye to eye.
“What is it, Shay?”
Graham never liked it. I never got off from it. And rationally I knew it wasn’t about me. Some people just didn’t like that. But fuck, I think I’d developed a complex. The idea of him going down on me. That was vulnerability. That was trust.
“You can just, like, stick it in,” I said. “You don’t have to, like, you know.”
“Stick it in?” he repeated, barking an incredulous laugh, head falling forward. I felt the heat of his breath against my thigh. “How little you think of me.”
I was momentarily distracted by Calder. The half smirk still lingering on his lips. His hair falling in messy waves over cobalt eyes.
“I just…” I trailed off again.
Calder resituated, lifting onto his hands to give me space while still keeping me pinned. More dark waves fell messy across his blue eyes. I swallowed at the intensity of his stare. Is this what he’d looked like in the graveyard, under his helmet?
“Tell me what you’re thinking, Shay,” he said. Like the wind weathering a rock, his gaze slid into me, grounding.
“I’ve never come that way,” I said. “So if you’re, like, you know, wanting to get me going first or whatever, you don’t have to. I’m fine.”
He shifted his weight to one side, hand traveling down my stomach, and to my pussy. “Did you like it when I touched you here?”
Oh god, yes.
“Yes, but—”
He slid a finger inside me, cutting me off. “Do you want me to stop?”
“No, but—”
He silenced me with another finger. His hands were so large that even two fingers made me full, stretched. My lips parted, and his eyes did that thing again where they crinkled the edges and burned like hot coals in my gut, as if I’d pleased him.
“That’s it,” he growled. “Your only job is to feel good.”
I went starry-eyed as he curled his fingers inside me, pressing against that perfect spot. A low growl hummed in his chest—like if good girl was a sound.
“Tell me why you don’t want me to eat you out,” he said.
Nerves threatened to steal me away, but then he slid a third finger inside me.
I couldn’t breathe.
Couldn’t think beyond being so full.
“My ex,” I gasped. “He didn’t like it.”
Something dark flickered across his face, but he wiped it away before I could name it.
“Do you like it?” he asked, voice lower, cragged and rough like a cliff face.
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
Calder slowly slid his fingers out of me. “Will you let me try?”