Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
CALDER
I’m still sleeping on the couch. Bowen’s adjusting to being home while also being a guest. The privacy will help him.
The guest room doesn’t have sheets that smell like goddamn wildflowers either.
He balked when I retrieved the floral-scented ones from the closet in Dad’s room, but I wasn’t letting him sleep in sheets that had touched Meredith’s body.
My thoughts have continued turning to her since the night of the kiss.
How’s she doing? She hasn’t stopped working from sunup to sundown since I’ve been home.
Thanks to the security system, I saw she and Sawyer were going in and out of the house all night.
The garage is ready for a party. A shindig none of us wanted to throw.
Is the thought of enduring tomorrow preventing her from getting any sleep? I’ve been staring at a dark ceiling for hours, with my thoughts bouncing from her to tomorrow, then to Bowen’s arrival, returning to her, and finally to the financials, only to start all over again. And again.
The floor faintly creaks above. Water rushes through the pipes.
Another squeak resonates as she returns to her room.
Has she been awake this entire time? Has she been eating?
Is she drinking enough water? Maybe since she fled the brewery earlier than ever, she was able to have a real meal. But what if she didn’t eat at all?
Why do I care?
Yet I’m out of my makeshift bed before I can ask myself what the hell I think I’m doing. Not stopping to put on a shirt, I pad up the stairs, thankfully avoiding the squeaky step. I take it as a sign I’m not making an epically bad decision in checking on her.
Her door is cracked open. I push it open farther, and the rustle of her sheets fills the silence.
“I can’t sleep.”
Am I asking her, or telling her about me?
“Me either.”
She doesn’t tell me to fuck off, so I enter. It’s dark, but I imagine the bright, happy colors surrounding me. There’s more vibrancy in this room than anywhere else in my life.
“I didn’t mean the Tanner comment.”
She shifts again, sitting up. I stand next to the bed. I want her to pull me down, to tell me to crawl in with her, so I can smell not just her sheets, but her hair.
“It’s so unlike a Cross to lash out and say horrible shit that really hurts.”
“Touché.” A soft chuckle leaves me. I sit on the edge of the mattress, and a sigh leaves me. “I know I’m responsible. With Dad and the no contact. He’s at fault, but so am I. I didn’t encourage my brothers to mend a single fence.” I was too busy trying to keep us all afloat.
“Both your brothers are adults. They were then too.”
She’s right. But Landry was barely nineteen, Bowen was almost twenty-one, and I was a fresh twenty-two.
“He’s our dad. I expected more of him, in so many ways.
I looked up to him. I wanted to be like him, and I wanted what he and Mama had.
And then he shattered it. All of it. And he wasn’t sorry.
It was like he was relieved he could finally let the secret out and couldn’t understand why we wouldn’t be happy for him. ”
Her touch lands on my shoulders, tentative at first. She scoots closer, and I lean toward her. “I’m sorry.”
“He never even said that.”
The bed jiggles as she changes positions to wrap her arms around me and rest her face against my back.
“Tomorrow…” I shake my head. “Fuck.”
“I know.” Her mouth moves against my skin.
I turn in her hold, planting a knee on the mattress. Her arms fall away, and I continue pushing her back until she has me cradled between her bare legs. “Between the funeral and you, I haven’t gotten a blip of peace. I can’t quit thinking about you, Meredith Winslow.”
She stuffs her hands through my hair, and my eyelids shut from the pleasure of her touch. “It’s being here that’s messing with your head. All these feelings. It’s doing the same to me.”
That must be it. I don’t get distracted, especially not by women, but these are extenuating circumstances.
I press a light kiss on the corner of her lips. “I just need to forget.”
She traces my jaw with her fingers. Her touch is drugging. “I’d like to do the same. Get out of my head.”
In this moment, we both want the same thing. I nibble along her neck. “I can get you off.”
“It’s not a good idea,” she whispers, widening her legs to make room for me.
“It’s a terrible one.” Now I’m firmly settled between her legs, my erection pulsing against her pussy.
I’m still in my sweats, and she’s got underwear on, but for once, I don’t want this to be quick.
Taking my time sounds like a damn fine idea.
I’m not seeking pleasure while hoping I’ll be left the hell alone right after.
I run my hand up her leg, over the thin fabric of her panties, and push her shirt up as I go.
I continue rolling it up until I can draw it off.
No lights are on, but in the shadows, her tits greet me, her nipples straining upward.
I scoot down, missing her heat cradling my cock, but I need to get my mouth on more of her.
“Calder.” She arches into me.
I lick across a nipple, and bumps erupt over her skin. She gives me another soft tug on my scalp, and fuck, it feels good.
Yes, this is making me forget everything but the way she’s responding.
“What do you need, rosy?” Sucking her nipple into my mouth, I flick the tip with my tongue.
“More.” She groans and digs her heels into the mattress.
Her reactions are addictive. The underwear has to go. I hook my fingers on the waistband and lift myself to make room, then I drag them down.
“I’m not—I don’t have…”
Her hands are gone from my head, and I nearly growl at the loss. I stop with her garment halfway down her thighs.
“What’s wrong?” I’m not mistaken. Each of us needs the other right now. It’s inconvenient as hell, but leaving her bed would disappoint me as much as her. Yet if she has any question about what we’re doing, I’m done. I can grit through the night alone on the couch with a painful erection.
“Protection. I don’t have any, and I’m not on the pill.”
Shit. I have nothing either. The last thing I thought I’d do in Scandal was sleep with someone. Even after I walked into the brewery and the sight of her punched me in the gut, I didn’t think I’d end up here. I knew I shouldn’t. Now I am here, nothing’s going to stop me unless she says so.
Thankfully, I have plenty of ideas when it comes to Meredith Winslow. Much as I’d love to bury myself hilt-deep in that wet heat of hers, the night is far from ruined. Already, it’s the best one I can remember in a long damn time.
“There’s a lot we can do.” I slide her panties all the way off, gently grasp her wrists, and twine the fabric around them. Planting her hands above her head, I grind into her. My sweats are still in place, but her heat seeps into me. She’s nice and wet. “There’s plenty I’m going to do to you.”
“Calder,” she breathes.
I capture her mouth, pressing her wrists against the bedding. She opens for me. Does she know how much that little move turns me on? It’s not for show—a pure reaction, allowing me in.
I devour her.
So much of my life is about image. What can I do for my clients?
How much can I make them? Expectations are high.
My dates want fast and hard, or they want the life they think I live.
Wealth and prestige. They don’t see me working all damn day, going to bed for a short night’s sleep, and then repeating it all the next day.
I leave Meredith gasping as I work my way down her lush body, shoving her knees wide as I go. “You’ve given me so many ideas about what I can do with my mouth.”
I finally reach her lower abdomen. I’m almost to heaven, but I slow down even more. Her legs are trembling.
Finally, I’m right where I want to be. “You’re glistening for me.”
Her breath shudders. “Yes.”
I slick a finger through her wet seam. She bucks her hips off the mattress, and I smile.
“Have you needed this?” I ask as I gently push a finger inside.
I have to close my eyes against the swell of desire inside me.
My cock throbs against the bedding, demanding release.
It’ll wait. Her pleasure is too important.
I might not survive her orgasm, but what a way to die.
I thrust in and out, her tight walls gripping me.
“Yes,” she hisses.
Triumph only fuels my arousal. “Is this what you’ve been missing?” I pump into her, my finger slick. “Or this?” I lower my head and swirl my tongue around her clit.
“Oh god!” She presses her hands against her mouth. “Shit. Sorry,” she whispers.
Right. My brother is right below us. He’d have opinions, but I’m not worrying about that now. She’s my focus. She’s run herself hard since I arrived and was probably going full speed before that. It’s her turn to relax, and I know the best way to ease tension.
“Get a pillow ready, rosy. I’m gonna make you scream.”
She yanks a pillow to her chest and presses her mouth into the top. Those moments when she does exactly as I ask? My drug of choice.
Need overrides patience. I push her knees up, opening her completely to me, and attack her swollen nub.
A moan resonates through her, and I growl in response.
Finally, I can taste her and feel her. Pleasure pounds through my blood at the way she writhes, alternating between gripping my hair and sliding her hands over my scalp.
I find a rhythm that drives her wild, pairing it with a thrust of my finger. If I had a condom, I would’ve ripped it in my frenzy to get inside her anyway. But I don’t, and the pressure is off.
“Calder,” she pants. “I can’t… It’s going to be…” She groans. “So good.”
I’ll give her the strongest orgasm she’s ever fucking had. She’s not going to cry Tanner’s name, nor any other fucker who got to see her perky tits or feel her wet pussy before me.
I lift my head, putting my thumb where my mouth was. “You’re close, aren’t you?”
“Yes.” Her movements grow more erratic, her pants muffled by the pillow.
“You’re going to come for me, nice and hard, like a good girl.”
She whimpers, her heels sliding on the bedding.
“Put your feet on my shoulders and get ready.”
She does as I order, and when I graze her sensitive bundle with my teeth, I send her over the edge.
She smashes the pillow over her face, a long cry ripping out of her.
The way her body clamps on my finger, her heels gouging my shoulders, strokes my ego more than the dollar signs in my bank account.
I keep working her, sending her higher, and she doesn’t move away. She grinds her pussy against my mouth, taking everything she wants and needs. When she sags against the bed, her chest heaving, I finally pull away.
I wipe my mouth before prowling up her languid body and unwind the underwear from her wrists. “That was fucking amazing, Meredith Winslow.”
I deliberately say her last name. It’s for me as much as it’s for her. I know who the fuck I got off, and she can’t tell herself I was delusional. This is us. Calder Cross and Meredith Winslow.
She lightly scores my bare chest with her freed hands. “Of course you’re good at everything.”
I grip her hands before she reaches my waistband. I interrupted her night, and she needs rest for tomorrow. “This isn’t quid pro quo.”
“But—”
I silence her with a kiss. She doesn’t flinch from her salty, sweet taste on my lips. My new favorite flavor.
“I got what I needed.”
“What’s that?”
A connection. No. An escape. Now I want only to roll us to the side and drift off with her in my arms. But my brother might wake before me and see I’m not on the couch and my car’s outside. He’d figure it out after what he walked in on.
Would that be a problem?
Yes, but I can’t explain why. Tomorrow, there’ll be enough speculation—about Dad and Holly, the accident, the way the funerals are set up, what the will might say, me, my brothers, and Meredith. This is for quiet. A time I don’t have to come up with the answers.
“Get some rest.” I kiss the top of her head and maneuver us until we’re under the blankets and she’s tucked into my side like she was made to be there.
She lays her hand on my chest, tracing lazy circles with her fingers. “I thought you were going to leave.”
I will. Eventually. “Not tonight.”