Her taste seduced him, climbed inside him and awakened something he didn’t know existed. A place where sex wasn’t just a destination, where you visited and departed, or an escape from a jungle in some hellhole. It felt like an emotional need. She felt like an emotional need.
“Caleb,” Shay whispered against his lips, her fingers pressing into his chest, as if she wanted to push him away but instead absorbed him. His lips brushed hers again, and she breathed, “Wait.”
But he didn’t wait, because he felt her tension, could almost hear her thinking, finding reasons—as they both had a million times before—to pull back. To leave this “thing” between them—whatever it was—untouched.
Caleb deepened the kiss, his hand sliding up her back and molding the lush curves of her breasts against his chest. Holding her, touching her, his body pulsed with need, his cock thick with demand. He wanted inside her, wanted it as much as he wanted his next breath. But not as much as he wanted to take his time, as he wanted to enjoy every last second of this first time with Shay. And he wanted her to enjoy it, wanted to make her forget to worry.
His tongue glided deeply into her mouth, stroked and prodded with the reminder of how good they felt together, with the promise that he could wash away more than her objections, but also her fears. He was rewarded with another of her soft moans—damn, he really loved those moans. He wanted her more than he remembered ever wanting anyone in his life. Hell, he felt like he’d wanted her his entire life.
His hand stroked the silky strands of her floral-scented hair. “Let’s go inside,” he murmured, already opening the door and gently dragging her across the seat with him.
But she didn’t go willingly. “No, wait,” Shay objected again, latching a hand onto the steering wheel to halt her progress. “We can’t go back once we do this.”
“Good,” he said firmly. “I don’t want to go backward.”
“But we—”
He framed her face with his hands, cutting her words off with actions, pinning her in a stare and a firm but gentle demand. “Do you want me?”
“That’s not the—”
“Do you want me?” he repeated softly.
“You know I do,” she whispered.
“And I want you. Very much, Shay.”
A tormented expression touched her face. “Until tomorrow morning.”
“Again tomorrow morning,” he promised. “You can say what you will about temptation and forbidden fruit, but it’s been ten years, and we’re still here, better and hotter than ever. That means something, Shay.” He brushed his thumbs over her cheeks, emotion welling in his chest. “And ten years ago, I walked away because I had to. It wasn’t our time. We were too young. We would have crashed and burned. But it’s our time now, Shay. Here. Tonight.”
One second. Two. Her chin lifted in a familiar, defiant motion. “That’s not what you said this afternoon.”
“I was doing what we’ve both been programmed to do. Run from our attraction. The same way I’m programmed to hear gunfire without flinching. We’re both programmed to see each other and go into avoidance mode.” His hands settled on her legs, his voice deepened into a confession. “The minute I saw you today, I knew I’d stayed away because it was the only way I’d resist you. Then you came in, offering me a kiss. I was trying everything I could to maintain control.” He brushed his knuckles over her cheek. “We both need resolution. We both need to know why we can’t let this go.
“There were times over the past ten years when I was in places as close to hell as it gets. Hurt. Running for my life. Certain I wouldn’t make it. I needed something to cling to that was good. Something that gave me hope. Today, when I was watching you by the pool, helping your mother unwrap gifts, you were smiling and laughing, and I remembered what that good thing was. It was you, Shay. I’d picture your smile…your laugh.” His lips lifted slightly, his hand slid to her cheek. “Your dagger-throwing, angry stare when you wanted to kill me. All that means something, and I want to know what.”
Her hand went to his wrist, her voice crackling with emotion. “Me? You thought of me?”
“More times than you can possibly imagine,” he said. Now that he’d unraveled this web, he wasn’t going to tangle it with unspoken words. He’d spent ten years holding back. No more.
She touched his face, fingers trailing over his jaw. “Let’s go inside.”
Caleb’s lips brushed her neck, and she realized she was doing more than thinking about leaning on him. She
was
leaning on him, her body resting against his bigger, harder one. He’d known she needed a minute, known not to push her.
Caleb turned the doorknob and she darted forward, nerves working a number on her. Awkward without her purse, which she normally dropped on the hall table, she pressed her hand to her face. She’d wanted this—wanted Caleb—for so long. Even when she’d denied wanting him, she realized now, she had, indeed, wanted him. She’d spent so much time feeling guilty for that desire, for driving him away, that this—here, now—felt somehow wrong. Like a bad deed that would be punished.
Shay swung around to face Caleb, finding him close—so tall and broad and gorgeous, she almost forgot what she’d intended to say. He reached for her. Somehow, she retained some logic and stepped backward. If he touched her, she’d forget everything but him. She’d forget that talk they’d never had. They had to have that talk. “What if we regret this?”
He laced the fingers of one of his hands with hers. “What if we don’t?”
Fretful, she rejected that nonanswer. “What if we do, Caleb?”
“The only regret I’ll have is walking away and losing another day pretending we don’t want each other.”
Sending him away would be hard. It would stink. But… “But what if something does go wrong? What if it makes you afraid to come around the family?” She frowned when she noticed he was smiling. “What about this is amusing?”
“The part where you still say ‘what if’ at the beginning of every sentence when you are feeling out of control,” he admitted unashamedly.
“I’m serious, Caleb,” she said, refusing to be drawn into playful banter designed to redirect her questions. “What if it’s not what we thought it would be? Will we act strangely? All this build-up. What if—”
“What if—” he drew her wrist to his lips “—I kiss you here.” His mouth pressed to her pulse point, and she felt it all over her body. “Or here?” He opened her palm and kissed it, as well. “Or even here?” He kissed the bend of her arm, which was really, really sexy, in a way she’d never imagined. No one had ever kissed her there. Shay shuddered with arousal.
His lips lifted with satisfaction as he asked, “At what point will I convince you…it’s going to be good?” He folded her in his arms, his body cradling hers, his lips near her ear. “Because it’s already good for me.”
Shay buried her face in his neck, inhaling the scent of him. “I’m just—” she hesitated and decided to be honest—this was Caleb after all “—nervous.” She laughed. “Yeah. I’m really nervous.”
He pulled back, his hand sliding down her hair. “I’m still me,” he said, his eyes warm with comfort. “The same guy you once pushed into the swimming pool, ruining my boots.”
A sudden spell of laughter bubbled from her lips. She should have known he’d come up with the perfect thing to calm her nerves. “You were so mad. I’d venture to say you were furious.”
“And you never told me why you did it,” he reminded her.
“I don’t remember,” she said coyly, but of course, she did. She’d worn a dress to get his attention, and he’d told her it was too old for her, treated her like a kid sister. Not fifteen minutes later, she had the opportunity and took it. Caleb went into the pool, fully clothed. Seeing him sopping wet had done a lot to ease the bite of his reprimand.
“Liar,” he purred, nibbling at her neck and picking her up, his hands sliding around her backside. Shay wrapped her legs around his waist, her arms wrapping around his neck. “Why’d you push me into that pool?”
“I was sixteen and hormonal, and you were in the way,” she said, which was the truth—just not the whole truth. She intended to keep her youthful pettiness to herself.
Caleb headed down the stairs toward the living room, rather than toward the bedroom, and she knew it was because she’d told him she was nervous. The man was full of all kinds of awesomeness. Big, brawny and manly, yet he could be so darn sensitive.
“Liar,” he accused, sitting down on the couch and taking her with him.
Shay automatically leaned into him, her hands leveraging her weight on his shoulders, the
V
of her body intimately spread across his cock. He was hard, his eyes hot, his hands gentle as they caressed her back. Thin layers of clothing separated them, but nothing more. Clothes that would soon be removed. And she knew he was thinking the same thing. She could see it in the heaviness of his eyelids, the tightness around his mouth.
“You were mad at me over the dress,” he said softly, sliding his hands under her T-shirt, his calloused fingers brushing the skin of her midsection with delicious friction. “I wanted to turn you over my knee and spank you for strutting around half-naked, inviting that kind of attention. You were asking for trouble.”
“Spank me?” she repeated. Something about her bare butt across his lap was so erotic. Maybe because she knew he would never really hurt her. But what he might do was please her, and that intrigued her. A slow smile slid onto her lips, and the familiar teasing between them banished her nerves. “Might have been fun.”
He didn’t laugh. Heat flared in his expression, arousal etched in his face. He molded her closer, pressing her body tight against his, bringing his lips a warm breath from hers. “Watch out,” he warned softly, “or you might get more than you asked for.”
Had any other man said that to her, she would have probably run for the hills. She certainly wouldn’t have volleyed the seductive challenge back at him. But this was Caleb, and they not only volleyed, they volleyed well together. “Or maybe
you
will,” she warned softly.
He studied her, his eyes hungry and a bit primal, before he smiled and nipped her lips with his teeth, soothing the bite with his tongue. “I thought you were nervous?”
“I changed my mind.” Her fingers went to his face, her mouth to his, where she whispered, “I’ve wanted you too long to waste our time being nervous.”
A low growl escaped his lips, the intensity matching that look he’d given her—masculine and rough, in a way that stroked a path down her nerve endings and right to her core. A second later, and not soon enough, Caleb’s tongue parted her lips, tasting her with hot, wet demand. And she loved it—loved that after all those years of wanting him, of trying to push him over the edge, he was falling and taking her with him.
And finally, finally, he was touching her, and doing so with confidence and skill, without trepidation. He’d made up his mind this was happening. There was no turning back.
Thank God,
she thought. He touched her back, her hair and—
yes, please
—her breasts. Shay moaned into his mouth as he filled his palms and kneaded. Moaned again as his mouth traveled to her neck, her shoulder.
His fingers splayed wider on her bare skin and then began inching her shirt upward, pausing as his eyes found hers, searching, a silent question in the air—
do you want to stop?
She pressed her lips to his and let them linger, before murmuring, “I want you so very much, Caleb Martin.” Shay leaned back and pulled her shirt over her head and tossed it aside, leaving her sexy Victoria’s Secret pink bra in place, thankful now that she hadn’t been able to find her plain T-shirt bra when she’d left this morning.
“You’re beautiful,” he said, his fingers trailing over the curve of one breast, a light, barely there touch with the effect of a mist over the ocean, splaying tingling eroticism through her entire body. His arm wrapped around her waist, and he lowered his head, mouth pressed hotly to the center of her chest. His hand and mouth traveling, mouth exploring the delicate line of her breastbone. Somehow he unhooked her bra without her knowing.
Shay caught it before it fell. Caleb arched a brow at her action, his hands stilling at her waist. “Second thoughts?”
It was her turn to give him a slow smile. She’d been teasing Caleb unmercifully for ten years—a dress here, a sexy top there. An accidental-on-purpose touch. Tonight somehow wouldn’t be right if she broke her pattern.
“Why don’t I show you how nervous I am?” she suggested. She pushed out of his lap and stood before him. Out of reach—that was key. He’d touch when she said he could touch. And she was planning on giving him a reason to want to touch. Shay let the bra drop to the ground.