Caleb’s Salvation

by Doyle, S

Then she plucked Sam out of my arms and handed him to Zeke who would get him changed into his training clothes…?

  Okay, how comfortable was I with this?

  But seriously, he was only a baby. I knew it was likely that Sam would be content to simply watch his older and more adept friend play.

  “Come with me,” Eve said and we headed upstairs. She walked over to the bag I’d packed and handed it me.

  “I don’t get it. I just got here.”

  “You’re going out to the camp,” she announced.

  I’d never been there. There’d been no reason to go. Certainly, Caleb had never asked me to visit him there.

  “What? Why?”

  “Why?” Eve said like I was asking a stupid question. “There is no why. You’re just pushing buttons. Letting him see you, smell you, touch you. Reminding him what it felt like when he had you naked. All very powerful incentives to make him want to do you again. I’m convinced the more he bangs you, the sooner he’ll get to that place where he realizes he can’t stop banging you. Once that happens, he’s sunk.”

  I didn’t want to sink Caleb.

  I shook my head. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. He doesn’t want anyone at camp to know what’s going on. He says it’s for my protection, but really, I think he doesn’t want me to be object of pity around town when he decides he’s done with me.”

  Eve punched my arm. Hard!

  “Ow! What was that for?

  “Are you a fighter or are you not? First time I met you, I thought, she’s got no shot up here. But you had a stubborn chin and you made some pretty ballsy requests and I thought, maybe, just maybe, she’s got what it takes. He’s sitting there at that camp, most likely going crazy overthinking about you and what he’s going to do with you. So remind him you’re here to fight for him. Or aren’t you?”

  Emboldened by her speech, I considered my alternatives. I could wait until Caleb came to me, and these past few months had proven he couldn’t stop himself from doing that, only to run away again after. Or I could head out to meet him on his territory.

  “You take my truck. Do you know how to drive?” Eve asked.

  I’d made Pop teach me when I got the job at the diner. He’d been reluctant, of course, as driving wasn’t something he thought a woman needed to know how to do. But I’d fought him on it and won.

  Because that’s what I was. A fighter.

  “Yes. I do. Okay, I’m going to do this,” I agreed, and Eve dropped a set of keys into my hand. I started for the door but stopped. “Wait, what excuse do I give him for being there?”

  Again, Eve looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “Vivienne, baby, he’s going to know why you’re there. But if he asks, just tell him you ran out of sugar. That should do the trick. Oh, and take this.”

  She pulled a condom out of her back jeans pocket and handed it to me. With a not at all embarrassed shrug, she said, “I’m off birth control until we decide if we’re going to have another kid and Zeke insists that I always be prepared.”

  Right. I shoved the condom in my back pocket and nodded.

  Sugar. Then it dawned on me. This was me driving out to camp to push Caleb’s buttons so that he would have sex with me. Basically, this was me initiating sex.

  The idea was completely unnerving and, as inexperienced as I was obviously, another first.

  So was getting your butt spanked and you liked that!

  I tried not to blush as I said goodbye to Eve and headed for her truck. I assured myself that I was not a pervert because the spanking thing was not something I would be asking for on a regular basis. For one it smarted, and two, it put him in charge of everything. Wrestling control from Caleb was something else I definitely wanted to try.

  No, it wasn’t the spanking, per se, that had done me in. It was Caleb and the air of pent-up frustration, anger and desire around him. Like he’d been thinking about me all these months, just like I’d been thinking about him, and finally, he could release everything he’d been feeling.

  “On my ass,” I muttered, smiling to myself as I remembered it.

  Eve had given me the basic directions, which meant the navigating wasn’t hard. There was only one road to and from camp. Once I was on it, I stayed on it and that pretty much covered it.

  A little less than an hour later I came upon the cluster of buildings that represented the camp. I was from the Texas Panhandle. I knew what oil rigs looked like, but somehow, this setup seemed so much more diminutive. Sure, there were a few scattered wells that rose above the compound buildings in the distance, but they seemed so much more subtle than those I was used to.

  Maybe that’s just because they did everything bigger in Texas.

  I drove around the compound to where I found the most parked vehicles gathered. Mostly trucks and a few SUVS. I parked but didn’t get out, feeling the butterflies build in my stomach.

  “Calm down, you know most of the guys from Bud’s,” I said even as I took a few calming breaths. “You just want to know if Caleb is around because you have some…questions for him.”

  Was that too vague? Maybe I should be more subtle than that.

  “Hey, guys, I was just so curious about what camp was like I decided to drive up here and look around. Oh, you mean Caleb is in his office? Two doors down to the right? Sure, I’ll just go say hi.”

  Lame.

  “Just do it, Vivienne.”

  They were the same words I’d said to myself when I clicked on the contest link. The same words I’d used when I’d received the email saying I’d been selected for this adventure. The same words I used when I’d gotten on the plane with Sam.

  I hopped out of the truck and made my way along a covered walkway to one of the larger buildings. Surely there had to be some kind of reception area inside where someone might point me in the right direction.

  It was cold, and it smelled like snow coming, (I couldn’t believe I was someone who now knew what snow coming smelled like) but the storm wasn’t here yet. Eve said it wouldn’t start until later tonight. The snow, however, wasn’t the issue. It was the arctic temperatures that would follow that were the real problem.

  Nevertheless, I hustled my way to the door. Once inside I breathed warm air and sighed. Felt like I’d accomplished some major objective. It was only when I looked around that I realized I was in some type of rec room, which was filled with guys.

  All of whom were looking at me.

  Oh shit.

  I lifted my hand and waved. “Hi, guys,” I said awkwardly.

  Most of them started to smile. There were a lot of hey, Vivienne’s, enough that I started to relax when I saw Jackson approaching me.

  “What are you doing here, Vivienne?”

  I might have taken Jackson’s very serious expression as a bad omen, except that, unless he was looking at Kate, this was the way he usually looked.

  I pulled off my gloves and rubbed my hands against my jeans. “I…uh…”

  Jackson sighed. “He’s been in his office for over a day. Hasn’t come out.” He ran his hand over his beard as if he was deciding something, which he must have done because then he said, “Come with me.”

  I didn’t question it. Just followed Jackson through a maze of hallways and doors that connected to other buildings until we were walking down a narrow hallway that felt different than the first building. It was clear to see men busy at their jobs, monitoring what was happening with the various wells.

  Jackson stopped at a door and knocked.

  “Go the fuck away!”

  I winced. That was Caleb? I don’t know that I’d heard him that angry since that time when he’d convinced me my two weeks were up and he had no interest in a girl who wasn’t even a woman.

  I reminded myself that had been a lie. He’d been interested. He just didn’t want to be interested and that was a completely different thing.

  “Jackson, you can go,” I said softly. “I got this.”

  “Vivienne, Cal’s a… I mean, he’s a good guy,
even tempered. I’ve never, well, none of us have ever seen him like this. I don’t know if it’s a good idea to try and…confront him.”

  Smiling at Jackson, I summoned some false courage. “I am from Texas. We don’t scare easy. Trust me. I can do this.”

  Obviously reluctant, he still nodded and left me to fend for myself.

  I just hoped I was right. That I could, in fact, do this.

  16

  Vivienne

  This time I knocked on his office a little more gently, but I did it while I was opening the door, which wasn’t locked. As if by virtue of his authority in this camp, he knew no one would dare enter unless he gave explicit permission.

  I stepped inside and shut the door behind me quietly. His back was to me. He was staring at the shelves behind his desk. Slowly, he spun in his chair and when he did, I could see a glass of something brown in his hand. His face was scruffy, his eyes were red.

  I wasn’t sure if he was drunk or if he just hadn’t slept in over a day. Either way, he was a wreck.

  But he was my wreck.

  “Vivienne?”

  It was a question. Like maybe I was some kind of illusion.

  “Hey, baby,” I said gently. “I was…missing you a little so I thought I would come visit. I’ve never been to camp. It’s not as big as I thought.”

  “We run a small, tight operation,” he said as if explaining his business to a stranger.

  Cautiously I approached him. He set the glass on the desk and turned his wheeled chair in the direction I was moving. I stepped between his booted feet and stopped.

  “Where’s Sam?” he asked.

  “With Zeke. Who’s teaching him defense maneuvers. Don’t ask.”

  “Vivienne, what are you doing here?” he asked me, his head dropped back, like a man stretched to his breaking point.

  Pushing your buttons, I thought. Jabbing at your sides. Irritating you until you have to deal with me. Or more importantly, until he had to deal with himself and his own emotions.

  Unzipping my coat, I took it off and tossed it on his desk. Same with my wool hat. Then I took a deep breath and pulled off the sweater I was wearing. I didn’t have sexy underwear so I removed the practical, beige, underwire bra as quickly as possible. The boots were trickier, and I understood that the reality of doing a striptease in winter in Alaska was probably not the sexist feat ever done by womankind. But when I was naked and he was still unmoving, still silent, his eyes pinned to mine when they weren’t roving over my body, I slipped the condom out of the pocket of my jeans and handed it to him.

  “Is this what you want?” he said, taking it.

  “This is what you said you could give me.”

  “And if it’s all I can give you? If there is nothing left?”

  “I’ll take my chances,” I whispered as I crawled into his lap, straddling his jean-covered thighs. Because the truth was I didn’t think I was taking a whole lot of chances. Because I knew inside my heart there was more inside his heart. A whole ocean of love he’d bottled and corked. All it took was the right person to uncork it.

  He reached around the back of my neck and brought me to him. His kiss was nearly desperate, and I sensed that what was about to happen in this office was going to be more furious than any storm Alaska could conjure up.

  His mouth consumed me. Never leaving me, never giving more than a breath. I pushed myself against him, from the buttons of his flannel shirt that dug into the skin between my breasts to the feel of the rough denim of his jeans abrading the insides of my thighs.

  I dug my fingers into his hair and whispered in his ear. “It’s okay, baby. I’m not going to hurt you. I promise.”

  He pulled his head back and his eyes were sharp. Intent. As if I’d given him too much with my gentleness. My caring. His arms came underneath mine and with a crazy kind of strength, he deadlifted me off his lap until I was sitting on the edge of his desk.

  He stood then and pushed between my thighs spreading them wide. For balance I had to brace my hands behind me which meant I couldn’t touch him. I watched his nostrils flare, and his eyes grow heavy. He liked this better, I thought. He liked to have the power over me rather than accept my care. My comfort.

  I gasped as he pushed a finger between my lips, deep and thick I had no recourse other than to suck it. He pulled it away then ran it down over my chin, brushing my neck, tracing my collar bone.

  Not my nipples, though. Those he teased around the edges until it was more than the cold making them pebble-hard.

  His head dropped then, sucking one of my nipples deeply into this mouth even as his finger kept making its way down, down, down until he plunged it between my legs.

  “Caleb!”

  “Were you wet driving here?” he asked, lifting his mouth off my breast. “Were you wet thinking that I might fuck you here on my desk?”

  I nodded.

  “No,” he said harshly, pulling his finger from me. Putting it in his own mouth before he said, “Not good enough, Vivienne. I need the words.”

  “I wanted you,” I said. “I hoped this would happen.”

  “You like my dick?”

  “I like you,” I countered. “I also happen to like the dick that comes with you.”

  He chuckled darkly at that. “You ever suck one? A cock in your mouth.”

  I shook my head.

  “Hmm, that will be fun. Teaching you that. And if you don’t get it right, then I might have to spank you for it.”

  My body trembled at the idea. Which was probably really perverted of me. I closed my eyes.

  Then his fingers cupped my chin and he lifted my face so I was forced to look at him. “Get that shit out of your head, Vivienne. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why the punishment is a turn-on for you. Your whole life has been a carrot with a stick. Makes sense your sex life should be the same way. Makes it easier for you to enjoy the pleasure, revel in it, because you already believe you have to suffer for it. You just didn’t understand the suffering would be so much fun, did you?”

  I shook my head. Helpless against admitting what was true.

  “You liked that sting on your ass, didn’t you?”

  I nodded.

  “You like knowing you’re going to have to learn to blow me really well because if you don’t, you’ll feel it again, don’t you?”

  Helplessly, I nodded.

  “Not today. Today, I’m going to fuck you hard on this desk, because that’s what you came here for. You’re going to take my cock deep and I’ll decide whether or not you get off. That’s your punishment today for being so fucking bold. For coming all the way out here and demanding that I fuck you.”

  I wanted to object. I wanted to refute everything that he was saying. I hadn’t demanded anything. I was here for him. To comfort him and soothe him and maybe heal him. But I couldn’t escape how his words made me feel. Like I’d pushed him too hard, wanted too much and because I’d angered him, he would only give me what he deigned to give me.

  Why was I so freaking turned on by that?

  He dropped his hands to his jeans, undid them and pulled his cock out. I wanted to touch it but didn’t know if I could brace myself with just one hand. I made a feeble effort to try and he swatted it away.

  Sheathing the condom I’d given him, he pulled my thighs forward a little until I was at the very edge of the desk. Then spread them until the pressure was nearly painful. I watched as he fed his penis into me. Watched and felt as he pushed inside by slow degrees. I was still tight, and he was still big, but I was so wet I had no problem taking him deep.

  There was no waiting this time. He just started to roll his hips in this steady rhythm that I could feel throughout my body. Like I was made to take him inside me, and he was made to push deep. Leaning forward, he put his hands next to mine, the buttons on his flannel shirt still scraping along my skin. I shimmied my shoulders so that sometimes a button would flick against my nipple in a delicious scrape.

  “That
’s it, Vivienne. You can try to reach for your pleasure. I’m not going to promise anything, but I never said you couldn’t try.”

  He sounded like some dark, evil villain who was currently spearing the helpless virginal victim against his desk and it was SO. FUCKING. HOT.

  “Caleb,” I panted, snapping my hips toward his. Meeting his heavier thrusts. I was going to come, and I wasn’t sure if that was going to get me in some kind of trouble, but I really hoped it did.

  “Are you coming?” he growled.

  I whimpered, wondering if I had any control over this.

  “Are you coming?” he barked.

  “Yes!” And then it happened. That all-over body explosion of mind-numbing pleasure that I hadn’t known existed on this planet until Caleb.

  His thrusts stopped then, and he dipped his head, his lips sucking on my ear until he said softly, “You bad little girl.”

  Again, I felt this all-over body tremble.

  “Arms around my neck, legs around my waist and hold on!”

  There was no way I had the strength to hold on to anything, but he wasn’t giving me a choice. With his crazy strength, he lifted me until he was holding me, then he spun me around and pinned me to the shelves behind his desk, so he could fuck me without having to bend over. I could feel my back scraping along the painted shelves. Could feel his cock thrusting fast and heavy. I squeezed my thighs around his waist and held on for dear life while he fucked me out of my mind, my skin, my body.

  The shelves shook, I could hear things falling, crashing, but nothing mattered except his cock inside me.

  “Fuck, fuck!” he shouted. “I’m going to come so hard inside you I swear to fuck you’re going to feel it condom or not!”

  I might have believed him except now I was scratching at the flannel material covering his back, as I arched my head back and came for a second time. He pounded into me once more, then two more times so deep, so fully, he was right. It was almost like I could feel him coming.

  When it was over, we were both breathing harshly, but he didn’t put me down. Instead, he swung me around and set me on the desk. Gently he slid from me, then discarded the condom in the trash can under his desk.