His mouth skimmed along her jaw, down her throat. Nipping and nibbling. He took his time exploring her skin with his lips and tongue and teeth. Tempting and teasing her. Letting her know how much he wanted her; making her want just as much. More.
He nuzzled the hollow between her breasts, the scrape of stubble on his cheeks abrading her tender skin. The delicious friction raised goose bumps on her flesh.
“Cold?” he asked.
She moved her head from side to side on the pillow. “No, I’m not cold.”
In fact, she was so hot for him she felt as if she was burning up inside.
Still, he rolled her gently to the side so that he could yank the top cover down, then he drew it up over her naked body and disappeared beneath it to embark on a leisurely and intimate exploration of her most sensitive places.
She felt a familiar tension coiling in the pit of her belly as he used his hands and his lips and his tongue and—
She cried out when her release came, hot and fast, leaving her gasping and breathless.
He groaned, a sound of pure male satisfaction, as he lapped up her juices and her body continued to shudder.
“Caleb.” His name was a desperate plea from her lips. Because as good as he’d made her feel, it wasn’t enough. She wanted the fulfillment that would come only from feeling him buried deep inside her.
He rose up over her then, answering her plea, pinning her to the mattress. She gloried in the sensation of his naked body pressed against hers and instinctively rocked against him, creating a delicious and dangerous friction.
He groaned again as he positioned himself at the apex of her thighs.
Yes, she thought. Now.
And then she remembered. “Condom.”
He swore and immediately pulled away from her. “I don’t—” He swore again, more fiercely this time. “I’m sorry. I didn’t plan for anything like this to happen.”
“I didn’t, either,” she said. “But Grace believes one should always be prepared, and she tucked a couple in my purse—just in case.”
“Thank you, Grace,” he said, and sprinted to retrieve her purse from where she’d dropped it on the chair beside the door.
She found a little square packet and tore it open eagerly.
When he was finally sheathed, ensuring their mutual protection, she pulled him down onto the bed with her again.
He brushed his lips over hers—a brief and tender kiss. “I missed you, Brie.”
The confession, simple and sincere, filled her heart and made her yearn. Because she’d missed him, too, and being with him now felt so good, so right. But she didn’t—couldn’t—say the words aloud. Instead, she gave him her body, fully and completely.
As always, there was tenderness underlying the passion. Even when they’d been hormonally driven teenagers, Caleb had been careful with her, not just patient but protective. Showing her with every brush of his lips and touch of his hands that he cared about her.
Was it any wonder she’d fallen in love with him then?
Or that her heart yearned to open up for him now?
But she couldn’t go down that path again.
She wouldn’t.
Because the same obstacles that had stood in the way of their relationship seven years earlier were even more insurmountable now.
But she could and would have this one last night with him.
To say goodbye.
* * *
There was a bird outside her window, chirping.
The sound pulled back the curtain of her slumber, forcing her to acknowledge the arrival of a new day.
Not a bird, she realized, but her cell phone. Tucked inside her handbag, which would explain why it sounded as if it was coming from a distance.
She shifted to reach for it, but the sheet was caught on something and refused to move with her.
Not something. Someone.
Caleb.
Which meant that the incredibly vivid and erotic dream she’d had the previous night hadn’t been a dream after all.
She forgot about her phone as the memories flooded her mind, teased her body.
He’d been her first love, her first lover and, for a very short while, her husband. She’d loved him with an intensity that she suspected only a teenage girl could feel, and when their relationship had ended, she’d been certain that her heart was truly and forever shattered.
Of course, with time and maturity came perspective and healing. But she’d been wrong to assume that her feelings for Caleb were completely gone, because just seeing him again had churned up so many emotions.
When she’d lost their baby, she’d felt as if she’d died inside. She was convinced that was the reason she’d never fallen in love—or even into bed—with another man. Certainly it was a more reasonable explanation than that she’d never gotten over her first love.
She had a great job, a fabulous home and terrific friends, but she’d never given her heart to another man. She’d dated—not frequently, though more than her friends had implied—but no one else had ever made her feel the way she felt when she was with Caleb.
For the past seven years, there had been an emptiness inside her that no one and nothing else had ever been able to fill. Until last night.
Last night had proved that her memories hadn’t been exaggerated. Making love with Caleb for the first time in so many years almost felt like their first time all over again, only so much better. But somehow the second time had topped even that. And the third—
She turned to the man sleeping in the bed beside her and put a hand on his shoulder. His skin was warm and taut over hard muscle. She nudged him gently.
He didn’t stir.
“Caleb, wake up.” A harder shove accompanied her command this time.
“What?” His eyes were immediately open, though clouded with sleep. Then they settled on her and cleared, as his lips curved. “Hey.”
The warm timbre in his voice and obvious appreciation in his gaze might have made her belly quiver if it hadn’t been so tied up in knots. “We had unprotected sex, Caleb.”
Not the first time.
The first time, they’d used one of the condoms that Grace had tucked into her purse. Then they’d used the second. And then they’d awakened in the night and turned to one another, forgetting—or maybe not caring—that there were no more condoms.
He closed his eyes again and swore softly.
She nodded, wordlessly confirming his assessment of their reckless behavior.
Fully awake now, he pushed himself up into a seated position. The sheet dropped to his waist, exposing the upper part of his torso, marked by faint lines where her nails had scored his skin, a visible reminder of their passionate lovemaking.
She looked away and spotted her dress in a heap on the floor. Slipping out of bed, she began gathering up her clothes.
“Are you on any other form of birth control?” he asked her.
Brie shook her head as she fastened her bra.
“And now you’re worried that you might get pregnant,” he guessed.
Actually, the possibility that their actions might result in a baby hadn’t crossed her mind until that very moment. And thinking about it now—
No, she couldn’t think about it now.
“My more immediate concern—” she wriggled into her panties “—is that I have no idea who else has shared your bed in the past seven years.”
“Are you looking for names or numbers?” he asked.
“Neither,” she immediately replied.
Because she absolutely did not want to think about him with any other women. She knew there had been other women, she just didn’t want to think about them. She definitely didn’t want to know their names, because if she ever ran into any of them in Haven, she’d be stuck with the knowledge that they’d seen him nake
d.
She tugged her dress over her head. “I just want to know that you’re not in the habit of having unprotected sex,” she told him.
“I’m not,” he promised. “In fact, the only time I’ve ever forgotten about protection is with you.”
“Is that true? Or are you just trying to make me feel better?”
He crossed a finger over his heart.
She exhaled, an obviously relieved sigh, and reached behind her for the zipper of her dress.
“How about you?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Never.”
His brows rose.
“Except with you, too, obviously,” she clarified.
“Okay then, so that brings us back to the possibility that you could get pregnant,” he said.
She swallowed and picked up her handbag then, to retrieve her phone and read the message she’d almost forgotten about. “I have to believe we couldn’t be that unlucky again.”
He leaned back against the headboard, his gaze fixed on hers. “Did you really think it was unlucky the first time?”
“It certainly wasn’t what either of us planned,” she reminded him.
“Not at that time, anyway,” he agreed. “But I liked the idea of spending my life with you, raising a family with you.”
Simple dreams from a simpler time.
She slipped her feet into her shoes. “That same idea put my grandfather in the hospital.”
“I don’t believe there was a connection between our wedding and your grandfather’s heart attack,” he said, pulling on his boxer briefs. “Though I have no doubt he took advantage of the timing—and your vulnerability—to drive a wedge between us.”
“He wasn’t the only one,” she remarked. “Everyone thought our marriage was a mistake.”
“Not everyone,” he said quietly, and stepped up behind her to zip her dress the rest of the way.
“I really have to go,” she said. “Already this morning I’ve had half a dozen messages from Grace and Lily, both eager to know how and why I spent the night with my ex-husband.”
“Actually, that’s what I’ve been wanting to clear up since I ran into you at the pool yesterday,” he told her. “When I said that you were my wife, I didn’t forget the ‘ex’ part. The truth is, we’re still married.”
Chapter Five
Still married?
Brie immediately shook her head in response to the ridiculous suggestion. “That’s not possible.”
“It’s not only possible, it’s true,” Caleb assured her.
“It can’t be,” she protested.
“Did you ever get a certificate of divorce from the court?” he asked now.
“No,” she admitted. “I mean, I don’t think so.”
But she hadn’t worried about it, because she’d assumed the final paperwork had been sent to her address in Haven and her parents had put it away somewhere.
“Because there wasn’t one,” he said. “Because I never signed the papers.”
She sank down onto the edge of the chair beside the door and stared at him. “Are you freaking kidding me?”
He took a tentative step back, as if to distance himself from the shock and fury that underscored her words. “I wouldn’t joke about something like that.”
His assurance did nothing to appease her. “Why didn’t you sign the papers?” And then, without pausing long enough for him to answer, she said, “All you had to do was scribble your name on the line. There was even a little sticky note that indicated ‘sign here’ with an arrow.”
He remained silent, as if giving her a chance to finish her rant.
And dammit, she was ranting. She couldn’t seem to help herself. Because she was stunned and angry and hurt and, underneath all of that, there was a whole other layer of emotions that she wasn’t ready to acknowledge never mind attempt to decipher. “Dammit, Caleb—why?”
“Because I didn’t want a divorce,” he admitted. “Because I wanted to give our marriage a chance.”
“A chance for what?” she demanded.
“And I thought you’d come back for Christmas, after a few months away, having realized that you wanted the same thing,” he continued, not actually answering her question.
“And when I didn’t come back for Christmas?” she prompted.
“Yeah, that was a tough blow to my theory,” he acknowledged. “But still...if not Christmas, I was sure you’d be home for the summer.”
But she hadn’t gone home for the summer—or the next Christmas or the summer after that. In fact, four years had passed before she’d returned to Haven, and even then, her return had not been by choice.
“I’d loved you for so long, I couldn’t believe that it was over,” he confided to her now.
“I didn’t want it to be over, either,” she said quietly. “But I knew that if we stayed together, after everything that had happened, it would tear our families apart.”
“Instead, you let them tear us apart.”
“I didn’t let anything happen,” she denied. “But when we lost our baby...”
“I was heartbroken, too,” he told her.
“I was heartbroken,” she agreed. “But...there was also a part of me that was relieved.” She looked at him then, desperate for him to understand. “I was only eighteen, Caleb. Too young to be a wife and a mother. And then I felt so guilty about feeling relieved, and there wasn’t anyone I could talk to—”
“You could have talked to me,” he said. “We always promised we could talk to each other about anything.”
“That was before I lost our baby.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Brie.”
The logical part of her brain knew he was right, but the emotional part still struggled with both grief and guilt. She’d wanted a family with Caleb, and she’d loved their baby, but at eighteen, she’d been unprepared for everything that marriage and motherhood entailed.
But she wasn’t eighteen anymore, and rehashing their history wasn’t going to serve any purpose. “I think we’ve gotten a little off topic,” she said.
“Have we?” he challenged.
“We need to put the past in the past.”
Caleb remained stubbornly silent.
“Do you still have the divorce papers?” she asked.
He responded with a slow nod.
“Then when you get back to Haven, you can sign and file them,” she told him.
“But last night—”
She shook her head, her heart heavy. “I don’t want to hurt you anymore, Caleb. And that’s what’s going to happen if we try to make this into something more than what it was.”
“Just a tawdry one-night stand during a girls’ weekend in Vegas?” he challenged, in a bitter tone.
Though she suspected he was lashing out because he was hurt by her response, she winced as his words hit their mark. “It wasn’t tawdry,” she said. “And you know that what happened between us last night wouldn’t have happened with anyone but you.”
“So why do you still want me to sign the divorce papers?”
“Because you should have signed them seven years ago,” she said. “And if you had no intention of signing them, you should have told me why.”
“You’re right,” he acknowledged.
“But you never came to New York to see me—or even called to talk to me about it.”
“I was waiting for you to come home,” he said again.
The sincere admission tugged at her heart—but only for a moment, until she reminded herself that he’d lied to her. Or at least misled her. Because for the past seven years, she’d believed that their divorce was final.
Discovering that they were still married—well, that revelation had admittedly thrown her for a loop. But now that she’d had a (very) few minutes to wrap her head around it, she k
new it didn’t change anything.
Their marriage had effectively ended when she left Haven. That they were still husband and wife on paper was just a legal technicality—nothing more.
“It’s what I want,” she said. “For both of us.”
“Okay, then,” he agreed. “I’ll sign the papers—”
“Thank you,” she said, sincerely grateful.
“You didn’t let me finish,” he chided. “I’ll sign the papers after we know for sure that there are no repercussions from last night.”
The possibility that their lovemaking might have created a baby filled her with a sweet and intense longing. But she immediately quashed the feeling, unwilling to go down that road again.
“You don’t have to worry about repercussions,” she assured him.
“We had unprotected sex. And since you’re not on any other form of birth control, a baby isn’t outside the realm of possibility.”
She could alleviate that concern by asking for the morning-after pill at her local pharmacy, but she knew that she wouldn’t. Because as unlikely as it was that one night with her cowboy might result in another unplanned pregnancy, she couldn’t bring herself to eliminate the possibility.
“It’s not the right time of the month for me to get pregnant.” Though she had no idea if that was really true, she didn’t want him to worry—or hope.
“Don’t you remember the joke that went around in high school? The one that asked, ‘What do you call a woman who uses the rhythm method of birth control?’”
She nodded and responded with the punch line: “‘Mommy.’”
“So you should understand why I want you to call me—one way or the other.”
“You want to know when I get my period?” she asked, her tone dubious.
“Or if you don’t,” he confirmed.
“Okay,” she agreed, because it wasn’t an unreasonable request and she didn’t believe lightning would strike them twice. “I’ll call you.”
He held out his hand. “Give me your phone.”
“Why?”
“Because you can’t call me if you don’t have my number,” he said reasonably.
She tapped to add a new contact, typed in his name and handed him the phone.
One Night with the Cowboy Page 5
