Читать книгу The Dare Collection: August 2018 - Avril Tremayne - Страница 22

CHAPTER TWELVE

Caleb

IT WAS SEVEN o’clock and I’d been up for an hour. I should get up. Draw clear lines by returning to my room.

I didn’t engage in cozy heart-to-hearts. I never fell asleep in a woman’s bed. Or, worse, woke up and...lingered.

Yet I couldn’t move.

Because I had no clue where the line was anymore. I’d given Lily the green light to blur it, and I’d completely obliterated it by sleeping with her.

And hell, I’d barely scratched the surface of my need for her. I couldn’t get enough of Lily. Her silky softness. Her smell. The way her eyelids fluttered as she dreamed.

I breathed out slowly, reluctant to wake her even though my eager dick was raring to go again.

One taste and I was addicted. Enough to remain in her bed, enjoying her slight weight draped over me as I waited for her to wake up so I could indulge all over again.

Despite being more than a little rattled that I’d also experienced the soundest, nightmare-free sleep in years. The jagged, heart-pounding images that usually taunted me with how I failed to save my mother were so inherent I’d accepted their presence.

Last night they didn’t materialize. It was disturbing to even consider that Lily had anything to do with it. That something as simple as sharing bits of our past with each other had achieved this result.

It was absurd, right?

Unbidden, other moments filtered through—her pain during our first lunch in the restaurant. Her tears when she told me about her stepfather. Exposing her vulnerability at the possibility of one of her team sabotaging her work.

After the sort of childhood Lily had experienced, many people would’ve cut their families out of their lives and closed themselves off.

I was surprised she hadn’t.

Stephen Gracen parked himself on his favorite bar stool in his favorite Irish pub most days before noon and stayed till closing, his tab settled courtesy of the money he’d made off his stepdaughter’s talent. The guy I sent to Boston to check him out had reported that while Gracen hadn’t exactly talked trash about Lily, he hadn’t been complimentary, either.

Gracen was either too bitter or too stupid to realize the gem he had in his stepdaughter.

I’d met several Silicon Valley types who thought they were hot shit because they could string code together that baffled the common man.

In the past few days I’d discovered that Lily, despite being a highly intelligent woman who was mostly likely being paid millions for her professional skills, wasn’t in any way a pampered princess.

She was caring and considerate.

And she’d shared her deepest pain with me.

Scattered across several events, they’d seemed minor but put together they were huge. Put-your-trust-in-another-person huge.

When was I remotely okay with being that guy?

I eyed the bedroom door, wondering again why I wasn’t hightailing out of it.

Because you want the same from her.

The sharp ache in my chest answered the inner voice.

I shifted again, uncomfortable at the fresh turmoil churning inside me.

This was why I didn’t do feelings. So far, every encounter between us had come packed with them, even the moments she’d accepted my help to ease her stress sexually. They were all emotional land mines that usually had pushed my eject button.

I gritted my teeth. I liked her. A hell of a lot. But feelings and fucking didn’t mix well. Period.

She stirred against me. I looked down and saw her watching me with contemplative eyes. It was that same look she’d given me before prying secrets from me yesterday in the car.

“You look seriously...serious.” Wary questions lurked in her eyes, traces of unease and all those pitfalls I suspected came with the morning after a night of earth-shattering sex.

“For a genius, I expected more eloquence than seriously serious.” I kept my voice light.

Her hand drifted up my waist to my chest even though her eyes remained dark, searching. “Okay, how about this.” Her thigh brushed my hard-on. “Is that one of my sex toys in your lap or are you just extremely happy to see me?”

Sex. This I could handle.

Talking about my mother and how I would have her back in a heartbeat, if only for a chance to do things differently, push harder, shout louder until my voice was heard, until she got the help she needed, I most definitely couldn’t.

I smiled past my disquiet, willing my emotions to detach again as I rolled her over and slid two fingers beneath the choker we never got round to taking off last night. “In case I need to spell it out, your battery-operated boyfriends have had their privileges revoked for the foreseeable future. I’m taking care of your every need from now on.”

The words echoed with an unnerving sense of permanence, sending another spike of unease up my spine.

Something flitted through her eyes before her lids swept down, cutting me off from her expression. When she looked back up, her eyes contained nothing but hot sexual promise. “If it’s going to be anywhere near as good as last night...”

I brushed my lips over hers, teasing even though I wanted to plunge in and devour. “That better not be a challenge, baby. Or I’ll be forced to give you a demonstration.”

Her breathing picked up, her pulse racing against my fingers. “Yes, please.”

Before the words were out of her mouth, I was sliding my tongue between her lips, giving her a vivid taste of what was coming.

A moan rolled from her throat as her fingers dug into my back. My dick jerked, homing in on that place between her open thighs. When her eager wetness greeted it, my vision blurred.

For the first time in my life, I wondered what it would be like to take a woman bare, to glide skin on skin. To come at the gateway to where a new life could be created—

Christ, what the hell is wrong with you?

I dragged my mouth from hers, scrambling for sanity before I did something unthinkable, like ask if she was on the pill. If another man had ever been with her the way I suddenly craved to be.

Irrational jealousy bubbled up, joining the deranged carnival going on inside me. The hand fondling one gorgeous breast tightened.

She inhaled sharply. “Caleb?” Bewilderment laced her lust-soaked voice.

Get yourself together!

I dropped a contrite kiss on her mouth. “Shower or pool?” In the hour before she woke, before perplexing thoughts ruined my mood, I listed all the places I wanted to fuck her.

She blinked, then murmured, “Shower.”

Thank fuck. I didn’t think I’d make it to the pool.

I scooped her out of bed, grabbed a condom before walking us into the bathroom. Like mine, there was a huge copper roll-top bathtub and a separate shower stall.

I held her against me as I turned on the shower and adjusted the temperature. When my hands slid from her ass to her waist to set her down, the arms around my neck clung, forcing me to look into her face.

“Caleb, are you okay?” she asked, still a little hesitant.

Hell, no, I wasn’t. But I wasn’t going to attempt to explain something that puzzled the shit out of me. “You took your time to wake up. I’ve been rock-hard for you for over an hour,” I deflected, cupping her breasts and mercilessly teasing her nipples.

The tactic worked. Her head dropped back and she whimpered. I continued to fondle her as I nudged her against the wall, watched the spray hit her chest and cascade down her body. I’d never seen anything more beautiful.

She made another innocent, dirty sound and I couldn’t help but press my mouth against her, gliding my tongue against hers to devour the sound.

My hand slid down her belly, through the trimmed thatch of hair to her sweet, soaked pussy, before inserting two fingers inside her.

Her hand fisted my hair as she gasped.

“Good?” I demanded against her mouth.

“So, so good,” she moaned.

I finger-fucked her slow and steady, until her eyes rolled and her thighs shook. Until her cries echoed through the steam.

Only then did I slide on the condom and flip her around. “Brace your hands on the wall and arch your back for me, my dirty little angel.”

A smile laced her arousal. “I see you’ve started with the pet names again.”

“I never promised I would stop. Besides, you could lead a man straight to his doom.”

She sent me a sultry glance over one shoulder. “Just a man?”

Something bit hard inside me. “Fine. You could lead me straight to the gates of hell. Is that what you want to hear?”

Her eyes searched mine. “Maybe.”

I hooked one finger into the choker, using the leverage to bring her head back to align her face with mine. “That back still isn’t arched. Do I need to spank obedience out of you?” I growled against her throat.

Her whole body shook. Then, with a slow sensual stretch that wouldn’t have been amiss on a mermaid, she curved her spine, until her gorgeous twin globes perfectly framed my cock.

I looked down and nearly lost my mind. “God...Lily. You know exactly how to drive me insane, don’t you?”

Her answer was to rise on her tiptoes. “Fuck me, Caleb.”

With a less than gentle touch, I grabbed her hip and yanked her back onto my waiting cock.

She screamed. My insanity tripled. I forgot to breathe, forgot to think. Forgot everything but the need to bury my cock inside her over and over again.

“Yes. Yes! More,” she panted, delirious in her pleasure.

“You’re a greedy little thing, aren’t you? Always demanding more.”

Her fingers clawed the tiles. “Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”

She continued to beg. I gave her everything until we were seconds from imploding. Then she reached up, covered the hand I had on her choker, locked her eyes on mine and croaked, “Tighter.”

A little shocked and a hell of a lot more turned on than I’d ever been in my life, I hooked another finger beneath the tight lace.

She started to come. Endlessly. Gripping me with muscles that demanded my complete surrender. I clung to sanity just so I could watch her for one more soul-shaking second. And holy hell, Lily Gracen, lost in ecstasy, was beyond magnificent.

In that moment before the bottom fell out of my world, I wished I could freeze time. Wished this transcendental moment would never end.

Transcendental. Soul-shaking. Feelings.

The next shudder that gripped me had nothing to do with my phenomenal orgasm and everything to do with emotions attempting to shift the center of my gravity.

Enough.

The stern warning didn’t stop me from kissing her crown and sliding my hand down her back before I pulled out. We both groaned and subsided into silence, words seeming superfluous in this aftermath. I disposed of the condom, turned her around, then directed the flow of water over both of us.

Her eyes were still glazed, but as I reached for the simple lock that secured her choker, her gaze darted to mine.

I froze, waiting for her to speak.

Her nostrils quivered as she sucked in a breath. “I...want you to know...I’ve never done that before,” she muttered. “I was just...”

I brushed my fingers over her lips, absorbing the electric delight that lit through me. “You don’t need to explain, sweetheart. If it helps, the effect on you was fantastic for me, too.”

A deep blush swept over her cheeks as she caught my hand in hers and kissed my knuckles.

The move was unexpectedly sweet. For a split second, I wanted to succumb.

I returned to my task and undid the choker. Red marks ringed her neck, a perfect imprint of the lace pattern. I trailed my lips over the mark, still caught in the cycle I couldn’t break free from, feeling a little perverse that the sight of it aroused me.

The gel I picked up smelled like Lily. I washed her from head to toe, lingering in places that made her gasp.

Then she held out her hand for the bottle. I handed it over and braced my palms over the wall above her head. I was hard again before she was halfway down my chest.

I didn’t reach for her. I needed a moment to regroup, to make sure I could emerge from whatever was happening between us with my faculties intact. When she sank onto her knees, I squeezed my eyes shut and locked my jaw as her small, wicked fingers washed my cock, my balls, then finally moved lower.

I was so focused on not grabbing her for another mind-blowing fuck, I didn’t realize she’d ducked under my arm to wash my back until she gasped.

Shit. The scar.

Gentle fingers touched my left shoulder blade where the bullet grazed me. “What happened?”

Her soft sympathy reached inside me, further weakening rigid foundations. My shrug didn’t hit the offhand mark as I turned. “Trigger-happy client. Let’s get out of here and I’ll tell you the full story over breakfast.”

She looked disappointed but she didn’t say anything as I rinsed off and grabbed a towel. In the bedroom I gathered my clothes, aware that her gaze grew more guarded with each passing second.

I tightened my gut against the urge to reassure her. It was better this way. I wasn’t about to break open a box of hearts and flowers. Even if I once possessed such a box it had been smashed beneath the reality of repeated promises made and broken with callous indifference. Every single promise made to help my mother had been broken.

Then Kirsten came along and drove the knife in deeper.

I wasn’t about to speak words I didn’t mean or give reassurance that I couldn’t back up. “I’ll see you downstairs in ten?”

She blinked, then jerked out a nod.

I walked out, suspecting that the word bastard was lit up in Lily’s mind right now. I slammed the door in my room, then stood frozen in place. Could I have handled it better?

No. Maybe. Minutes ticked by, then I heard her walk past my door.

Fuck it. I threw on fresh clothes with an urgency I didn’t understand, and rushed downstairs to find Lily hovering by the front door wearing a tight black T-shirt that ended where a pair of leather shorts started. Those shorts ended at the top of her thighs, leaving an indecent amount of leg showing. She wore minimal makeup, but her eyes were darkly outlined, and her lips gleamed a faint pink. The wrist cuffs were back in place, as was a new, broader choker.

God, if she was trying to torture me, it was working. She looked phenomenal.

I swallowed my tongue, spotted the keys in her hand and realized she was dressed for outside.

“Where are you going?”

Her chin lifted. “For breakfast. Where else?”

“Lily—”

“Oh, and I’m driving this time.” She twirled the keys. “You can come with me or you can follow me.”

My jeans and T-shirt were okay to go out but I would’ve followed regardless. She stepped outside and hurried to the garage.

“Lily, let’s talk about this—”

“Let’s not,” she snapped. “And if you even think about physically restraining me, I’ll rip your balls off.”

I believed her. But I still shook my head as I followed her to the garage. “No can do, baby. I catch the smallest sign of danger and I’m getting very physical. Count on it.”

I let her glare at me for a full five seconds before opening the Mini’s door for her. She slid behind the wheel. Going around I said a prayer and contorted myself into the passenger seat.

She drove fast without breaking limits and considerately without being a pushover. Me, she completely ignored. We passed several respectable cafés before she stopped at an upmarket bistro. She surprised me by bypassing the parking lot and heading for the drive-through lane. It wasn’t your average drive-through. Shiny food trucks displayed glorious baked goods, bacon, cheeses and everything in between.

Two guys and a woman manned the trucks. The woman smiled when she spotted Lily. “Hey, girl.” She handed over two big paper bags with the bistro’s logo on it.

“Thanks,” Lily replied.

I deposited the bags on the backseat and reached for my wallet, but she was already driving away.

In between ensuring I wasn’t blocking the blood flow to my legs and trying not to drool over her legs, I decided to maintain silence. Ten minutes later she pulled up to an abandoned lot with a tall wall erected on the south edge. She drove to the center, stopped next to a bench and turned off the engine.

I stepped out with our food and looked around. “What’s this place?” I asked.

“It used to be a drive-in theater.” She reached into the bag and started setting out the food. Bacon. Bagels. Cream cheese. Coffee.

I had zero appetite but I accepted the coffee. She laced hers with cream and sugar, took a sip and set it back down.

“Who owns this place?”

“For now, the original owner. Next month, maybe me.”

I nodded at the food. “Why the drive-through? Why here?”

She stared into her coffee. Then shrugged. “Your guys didn’t have a chance to check out the bistro first. And I knew I could be alone here.”

I. Not we.

I waited a beat. “You’re pissed.”

Her mouth firmed. “Give the man a prize.”

My jaw clenched. “Enough. You’ve made your point with your little tantrum.”

Anger flashed across her face. I watched her rein it in. “Fine. Talk to me, then, Caleb. Convince me I didn’t just sleep with an asshole who couldn’t even be bothered with conversation after he fucked me.”

“Jesus...”

“Leave him out of it. This is between you and me.”

Absurdly, I wanted to smile. But her beautiful face was a picture of hurt she was trying to hide. I dragged a hand down my stubbled face. “Full confession. What we did kinda...blew my mind.”

Shock replaced hurt, and then her expression slowly softened. After a minute she nodded. “Me, too,” she whispered, blushing fiercely.

“Okay. Now that we’ve got that squared away, how can I make you feel...less pissed?”

She grabbed a sliced bagel, tore a piece, but didn’t eat it. “I want to know you, Caleb. Tell me something.”

I took a deep breath. “You know I grew up on the rough streets of LA.”

Her hand trembled as she stared wide-eyed at me. “Yes. Was it after you lost your mom?”

Christ. I weighed the option of evasion against the return of her hurt, and grimaced inwardly. “It was before. And after. She was a manic-depressive. The moments of light in her darkness were very few but for the first nine years of my life she had medical insurance and a decent doctor to prescribe her the right medication.”

“Caleb—”

My fingers brushed her lips, silencing her. “I don’t like telling this story. Let me tell it once and be done. Okay?”

A small nod.

My chest tightened as memories flooded in. “She lost her job and the domino effect of no insurance, losing our house, ending up at a halfway house, then a shelter, sent her into a deeper hole. I was eleven before we were assigned a place in Trenton Gardens.”

Lily winced but I couldn’t let her sympathy affect me.

“But it was too late. She’d lost the will to...” I took a breath. “I was the only thing she fought for. Every time social services tried to take me away, she would fight to keep me. I’ve no idea how she did it, but she won. But then she would spiral back into darkness. I couldn’t help her. I called every helpline I could find, wrote a dozen letters every week to anyone I thought could help. The doctors we managed to see were hopeless. Twice, she tried to end her life. Every time they sent her home from the hospital with a damn leaflet. I even pawned her jewelry to pay for an appointment with a private doctor. The pills he prescribed helped. When she ran out I called my social worker and asked her to help me get her more. She just...laughed at me.” Anger and despair I hadn’t felt in a long time swelled inside me. I withdrew my hand from Lily’s, clenched it in my lap and took another breath. “Anyway, she succeeded on her third attempt.”

“Oh, God...”

Tears spilled down her cheeks. I opened my mouth to tell her not to cry for me. Then stopped. I wanted her soft sympathy. It was a salve to a wound that had never healed. Shedding tears for my mother was one of the many things I hadn’t been able to do for her. Maybe Lily’s tears would be enough to let her know how sorry I was for failing.

Lily got up, walked round and slid into my lap. “I’m so sorry.” Her arms circled my neck. I hugged her close, breathed in her goodness. And just like in the bathroom, I never wanted this moment to end.

I never wanted to let her go.

Which was crazy. We’d only known each other for a week. And...dammit, I didn’t do feelings!

I looked around and grimaced. “Can we continue this at home?” I said, raising my eyebrow.

For some reason my cocked eyebrow made her smile. “Too wide-open-spaces for you?”

“Something like that,” I said, looking down at the table. “Breakfast is ruined, though.”

She shrugged. “I wasn’t that hungry anyway.”

I scowled. “A woeful waste of good bacon.”

Her smile widened as she stood up. “We have bacon at home,” she suggested.

Unable to keep my hands off her, I grabbed her and trailed my hands up her thighs. “Is there an offer in there?”

Her fingers tunneled through my hair, gently massaging my scalp. “If you want. But I don’t break out my culinary skills for just anyone.”

I caught a trace of pain through the flippant words. “Why not?”

Green eyes darted away, then came back. “Stepdaddy issues. In return for him...tolerating me, I had to cook for him. It made me hate cooking.”

I caressed her damp cheek. “He doesn’t deserve your love. Or your pain.”

Her eyes misted. “It’s not easy to brush it off.”

True. I’d lived with guilt and anger for so long it was fused into my DNA. “I get it.”

“Caleb?”

“Yeah.”

“I was thinking...maybe your presence has achieved the opposite of what we hoped. Maybe instead of bringing my stalker out into the open, he’s given up?”

“Sorry to disappoint you, but assholes like that don’t go away easily. I’m close to catching him. Trust me. Okay?”

Small, soft hands framed my face. “Okay.”

My hands coasted higher, brushed the underside of her breasts. Her breathing altered. “Let’s go home.”

She nodded.

We threw the uneaten breakfast in the trash. I winced as I folded myself back into the car. “This is the second thing I’m punishing you for when we get back.”

Her eyes widened. “What’s the first thing?”

“Driving me insane with those fucking shorts,” I griped, reaching down to adjust my hard-on. “That was the intention, wasn’t it?”

Pink flared in her cheeks. “Maybe.”

“Well, you are definitely getting your ass spanked for it.”

Hot anticipation washed away the last of the sadness and pain in her eyes.

When she pulled up at a stop sign, I dragged my gaze from her slim thighs to her face, then her hair. “Has your hair always been this color?”

She shook her head. “It used to be dark blond.” She grabbed a lock at her right temple. “This part started turning whiter when I was twelve. It was cool at first. Then I got tired of it. So I went white all over.”

“I like it. A lot.”

Her gaze latched on to mine. We stared at one another, pure electricity zinging between us. The driver behind us honked impatiently. She jumped, then laughed. Her laughter triggered mine, easing the tension of the past hour. The lightness stayed as we drove through the gates. As I threw her over my shoulder and rushed through the front door into the living room.

Maybe this...unburdening thing wasn’t catastrophic after all.

Maybe breaking my rule for her wasn’t the end of the world.

Maybe—

We froze as the TV flicked to life of its own accord. Except that was impossible. Not without electronic intervention.

That intervention arrived in the form of neon green bits of code raining down the screen, then a masked face framed by a black hoodie. I pushed Lily behind me as if it would protect her from the loud, distorted voice that filled the room.

“Hello, Lily Gracen. First of all, congratulations. You’re very close to achieving perfection with your code. Don’t be frightened. I represent interested parties wishing to form a partnership. Apologies if I’ve made you a little...uncomfortable lately. But I urge you not to give the code to SDM or I’ll have no choice but to stay in your life a while longer. Think about it. I’ll be in touch. Oh, and tell that fixer to go home to LA. He won’t be of much use to you.”

The strangled sound Lily made cut to the heart of me. I took a step toward the TV just as it went blank.

A loud pop shot through the house, then an eerie silence echoed in its wake.