Mistakes Were Made (Careless in Calabasas Book 1)

by Heidi McVay

  Zarek’s kiss, this time, was urgent and sweet as he whispered words that didn’t quite register. Her own body seemed to go on auto-pilot, and she realized that he was allowing her to touch him freely. When her fingers drifted over his chest, tracing around the dusky nipples, she heard a low intake of breath, and he stilled over her. Her eyes opened, to stare at his face, surprised when she saw that his own eyes were closed.

  His cock rested against her thigh, and she fully understood then that it was her having this effect on him. Not some idea, not some other woman in the back of his mind. But her. Plain little Scarlett Landry, nerd.

  She lifted her head, daring to nuzzle against his nose as he’d done earlier. He shuddered when Scarlett brushed her lips over his jaw and when she finally pressed a light, tentative kiss on the flesh below his earlobe, he moved over her, balancing on his elbows as he tipped his head to give her better access. Zarek’s breath was coming in ragged intakes when she slid one hand around his back, reveling in the play of hard muscles tense beneath velvety soft skin. She felt his pulse as she trailed her tongue over his neck, tasting sweet skin, the salt of rising sweat, and Zarek. She tasted Zarek.

  When her other hand moved over his belly, drifting closer to his cock, she heard that rumble coming from within his chest once more, his voice bordering on a snarl. “Fuck. Scarlett, you’re killing me.” It was clearly a warning, a signal that Zarek’s patience was nearing its end. How many times would she have the chance to do this, though? How many more times would she allow herself to touch him like this, kiss him like this, let go like this before she was torn back to the real world where she was alone in her cabin without him again?

  Scarlett’s fingertips brushed his cock. It was the one part of his body she wasn’t familiar with, that she hadn’t spent years staring at. At the first touch of her fingers, Zarek’s head dropped, and he buried his face in her neck. She felt him shudder and wrapped her fingers around him, realizing fully for the first time that he was not just tall and broad. He was large everywhere. He was hard and tense, his body as bold and unashamed as his personality.

  Another groan ushered forth from deep inside his chest as he shifted, his fingers dragging over her belly and toward her thigh, sweeping downward as he rasped out the words softly. “Open your thighs for me, sweetheart.”

  With those words, the moment was all too real. It was that one small thing that made Scarlett crumble completely. She felt Zarek’s fingers gripping her behind the knee, and her legs fell open. She felt no embarrassment. Not with him. She felt not even the least bit shy. This man knew damn near everything there was to know about her, except that she was in love with him. Her head swam with that knowledge. It might just be fucking to him, but to her, she was going to finally make love to the man she’d wanted her entire adult life. She would have this one night to carry with her back into her solace. There would always be this night to look back on with the same bittersweet taste of the other memories of him. At the very least, she would have no regrets because at least she would know what it was like to give herself over to Zarek completely, at least for one night.

  Zarek’s lips were gentle, tender, and sweet on hers. It was almost heartbreaking, how he kissed her as if he meant it. She knew the truth, but at least she had this much. Boldly she gripped his cock, stroking slowly, wanting to hear more of those sounds that he’d been gifting her with. She wanted to bring this powerful man to his knees so that he would know that even when she was gone, she was a loss. And make those sounds he did. A low, slow groan was her reward as his hips thrust upward into her grasp.

  His fingers slid over her inner thigh, straight to her center, brushing the damp curls that covered the petals of her sex. He released her mouth, his voice coming in stilted breaths against her lips. “You’re wet.” The man had a way about him that was pure wickedness. He was sinful thoughts made flesh, and as his fingers slid between her folds, something in his manner shifted yet again, mercurial and unpredictable in ways Zarek had never been before. His thumb found her clit with expertise that she knew only came from practice and effort, and that first gentle brush over it made her hips buck upward unexpectedly, pulling a startled cry of pleasure from her. She felt his lips curve into a smile against her shoulder as he sank one thick finger inside her. “I imagined this so many times, but those fantasies couldn’t do justice to the real thing. You’re so fucking perfect, Scar.” His words were tempered with bare greed even as he curled that finger inside her, thumb circling her clit, teasing and drawing her closer by degrees to that edge.

  The next thing she knew, Zarek had claimed her mouth again, his fingers playing her body like an instrument. Two fingers sank into her, and she welcomed it, the fast strokes to her clit working perfect rhythm to flare the desire back to full force. The man was ruthless as his lips and tongue somehow worked with those fingers to force her body to attention, driving out any lingering doubt and laying her bare to the full brunt of the knowledge of just what he could do. She couldn’t think, couldn’t see, couldn’t feel anything but Zarek over her, his voice in her ear, coaxing her with words her fogged mind couldn’t fully register. The heat that ricocheted through her body blindsided her in its intensity even as she managed to finally focus on his voice. “That’s it, sweet girl. That’s it. Just like that. Fuck, so beautiful, Scar.”

  She shook, her back arching as she tried in vain to impale herself on his thrusting fingers, doing her damnedest to gain still more contact. Control was a lost cause. Scarlett had been hurtling toward the edge of a cliff, and now she was flying as the exquisite pleasure exploded through her and around her, leaving her bereft of anything to steady herself.

  She barely registered the snarl in her ear as his fingers left her, and he brushed her hand away from his cock almost roughly. Zarek didn’t stop to ask. He’d already asked, and she’d not have changed her mind as she gazed up at him, still struggling to breathe, to recover from the strongest orgasm of her life, when she felt him hook a hand beneath her knee and push her thighs open wider. She watched through the haze of lingering bliss as his face twisted into an expression that looked almost like pain. But the low groan, those full lips peeling back to bare his teeth as he gasped told her otherwise.

  Zarek braced one hand on the bed beside her head, and his eyes captured and held her own as he began to sink into her. One hand slid beneath her bottom, tipping her hips upward as she felt an entirely new level of need rising. He was shaking, steel-gray eyes half-lidded for a moment before they slammed closed, and he gripped her to him suddenly with bruising force as the words touched the air beside her ear. “I’m sorry, Scar. I can’t go slow. I can’t…” He broke off into a groan as she felt his hips move, and he drove into her the rest of the way.

  Scarlett gasped as she felt the entirety of his length as he buried himself in her. Zarek’s gasp was one of raw satisfaction in her ear as he stilled. She wiggled beneath him, too full of his cock for comfort, and still needing more, needing him to move, needing something. Scarlett was helpless against the sensation, the intimacy of that moment only intensified by the words that he ground out against her ear in a tight warning. “Jesus Christ, Scar, stop wiggling like that. I’m already on the brink of fucking humiliating myself here.”

  For some reason, a giggle bubbled up in her, uncontrolled and without warning, erupting from her even as Zarek lifted his head to give her a confused look. “Oh, you think that’s funny?” She nodded and giggled again. In the next moment, a grin broke over his face before he ground his hips against hers, brushing her clit with the sweet, simple movement. Scarlett’s giggle turned into a moan as her head fell back against the pillow, and she heard Zarek’s voice coming again, once more low and serious. “That’s right, baby. Just like that.”

  He began to move then, withdrawing slowly, forcing her to feel every thick, delicious inch of him as her eyes slammed closed again. “Open those beautiful eyes and look at me, sweetheart. I want to know you’re here with me. I want to know that you fe
el me.” His control, which had seemed threadbare and on the brink of rupturing, now seemed to be fully in check. His voice was commanding and gentle as he spoke once more, his fingers brushing her side as he stroked up toward her breast. “Open them, or I stop.”

  That was a threat not to be taken lightly. Scarlett’s eyes fluttered open to find him staring down at her, his gaze darker and more intense. Zarek sank back into her slowly, and once more, she felt her body opening for him, and he felt somehow impossibly larger. His thighs were against hers, his arms moving to enfold her, refusing to allow her to draw away, not that she wanted to. “Zarek.” Scarlett gasped out his name as her fingers came to rest on his hips, tightening as she tried to make him move faster.

  He was stubborn, even now, as he controlled himself and her by extension. It wasn’t until he was fully sheathed inside her once more that he spoke again, his voice thick and strained. “This is how it’s supposed to be, Scarlett. Do you understand?”

  No. She didn’t. But she found herself nodding even as he began to move again. It was agonizingly slow, but Zarek refused to give her more, to take his eyes off her face as he watched her. Scarlett felt suddenly raw and open as if he’d ripped something away from the last of her defenses. Whatever he was looking for, he seemed to suddenly find it as he drove into her suddenly, sharply. Still, when his head dropped, and his voice was suddenly a too-hot, too-real whisper against her ear, something inside Scarlett broke. “Me and you, no one else. You have to understand. Say you understand, Scarlett. Please.”

  The pleading tone made her heart want to break, even as understanding began to edge in. Zarek was looking for his own connection, whatever form that took. He needed her right now; she understood that. He needed something that only she seemed to be able to give him. And though she wasn’t fully capable of wrapping her mind around it, she was more than willing to give him what he wanted, what he demanded. “I understand.”

  Zarek’s gasp was harsh and raw, and his body was spurred into motion by those words. Before Scarlett knew what was happening, he was moving within her hard and fast. She cried out at the unexpected movement, the exquisite sensation of his cock driving into her. Scarlett couldn’t think anymore as she heard him groaning in her ear as if he were suddenly lost. Whatever he’d needed, wanted, she seemed to have given to him, and in return, Zarek poured out his greed into her. A match striking tinder, it lit off a fire inside her, and she couldn’t hold back. Scarlett wrapped her legs around him, letting him take the control that he seemed to cravenly want. His fingers tightened on her body, and his own larger frame bent over her, and the power with which he redoubled his efforts was blinding. He said her name, whispered it in a strained moan, murmured it against her neck, grunted it like a carnal god of old. It was as if her name were his mantra, and as he gifted it to her with every breath, over and over, Scarlett heard her own name as she’d never heard it before.

  Scarlett’s eyes were closed, her body tense and straining as she urged Zarek onward, fingers grappling for more contact as she felt his arms around her, suddenly crushing her to him. Every powerful thrust ended with a grinding of his hips before he withdrew again only to drag her down further into that place where there was only need, only Zarek. Scarlett’s back arched as she tried in vain to hold her own against the sheer force of her own growing frenzy. It was as if Zarek had been holding back for years and was finally free to take what he wanted, and in taking, he gave back ten-fold. He knew exactly what he was doing, and he made no effort to hide it from her, that he was taking what he wanted. She was doing the same, and when she felt him lift his head, heard his voice coming once more, thick and harsh, she couldn’t do anything but do as he asked. “Look at me. I want to see your face.”

  One hand slipped from beneath her, cupping her cheek as his thumb dragged over her lips. For Scarlett, it was that touch, the sight of his eyes on her, with unabashed greed laid bare in his silver eyes that broke her, shattered her, and sent her world spinning out of control all over again. She came with the strangled sound of his name on her lips, lacking full form, as his movements lost any semblance of elegance. She could feel every hard inch of the thick length that drove into her, with enough force to steal her breath as Zarek fucked her through that orgasm and right into the next. Tears stung at her eyes, unbidden in a mortifying moment as she realized she was crying even as the intensity of the pleasure that washed over her left her shaking and gripping at him.

  She felt his thrusts suddenly shortened, the sound of skin on skin as he groaned. “Fuck, Scarlett.” His head dropped, his forehead coming to rest against hers as she felt him stiffen, felt his hips jerking against hers as his cock suddenly seemed even larger within her as he drove himself inside her one final time, as deeply as he could. The searing heat of him inside her as he came was unexpected, as was the sensation of his breath against her lips as he folded her body beneath his, his hips moving in reflexive thrusts with every pulse of his cock inside her. “Scarlett.” He whispered her name again, a broken sound that made her pounding heart stop for a moment. “My Scarlett.” It was as if he didn’t even realize he said it, and as the words washed over her, so did the realization that he was, in his way, as lost as she was.

  ****

  The force of the orgasm was as heady as the knowledge that he was buried inside Scarlett as he came. Zarek held himself as still as he could even as he wished he could do it all over again, even as the sensations of his release hit him full force. It was Scarlett beneath him, around him, her still trembling body holding him tightly. It was Scarlett who was clinging to him as she whimpered out his name as he filled her. It was his Scarlett who gifted him with her body, her heart, and the sweetness of finally having what he’d needed for so long, And it was his sweet Scarlett whose face was wet with unexpected tears when he opened his eyes and stared at her through the haze of relief that followed the most intense orgasm he’d ever experienced in his life. For a moment, panic threatened to edge in at the sight of those tears. He fought for air only to realize a moment later that Scarlett had to be experiencing the same onslaught force of emotion that he was.

  Zarek forced himself to be still, even as his arms trembled from the effort of holding himself up. He was suddenly weak, heart pounding, his body still shaking from the lingering effects of the intensity of the act they’d shared. Without speaking, he tightened his arms around her and brushed a kiss over her cheek, acknowledging that he knew those tears were there, tracking over her face. She was still trembling ever so slightly, aftershocks in the wake of the earthquake that had just ripped apart both their definitions of what they meant to each other. He closed his eyes and reluctantly withdrew from her, reaching for the blankets that had somehow been shifted. He rolled to his side, taking her with him and flipping the covers up over them. Outside, the storm had begun to abate, and the thunder that had always scared his Scarlett was little more than a rumble.

  Neither of them spoke for long minutes. It was only when his heart had finally slowed, and Zarek could breathe again that he finally moved, bowing his head to take Scarlett’s lips in a kiss. She gave it as freely as she’d given herself over to him. For the first time in years, Zarek was utterly content. Everything was right in his world. He touched her face reverently as he pulled away, tipping his head to watch her. She was staring at him, her expression no longer open but unreadable, as was her way. Zarek dragged his thumb over her kiss-swollen lips and finally broke the silence. “I won’t hurt you again, Scar. I promise.”

  Her beautiful green eyes suddenly reflected fear, a depth of apprehension that he’d never seen in them before. As ever, the need to comfort her, to protect her, rose in him. Zarek draped an arm over her hip and brushed his lips over hers lightly. “Don’t overthink. Just be here with me right now. Okay?”

  Scarlett’s eyes fluttered closed for a moment, and he felt her little frame relax as she edged closer, pressing her body to his. As she slid an arm around him, Zarek exhaled a breath he hadn’t realized he’
d been holding. His heart was pounding again, but this time not from arousal. The contentment he felt was so utterly complete that he knew genuine joy for the first time since Evie’s birth. He buried his face in Scarlett’s hair and tightened his arm around her as he finally murmured the words he’d been so terrified to say for so long. “I love you, Scar. I can’t lose you again. It would end me.”

  The only answer Zarek received to his words was the gentle brush of her lips over his chest. He wasn’t sure how long they laid quietly, without speaking. But as his eyelids grew heavy and sleep began to claim him, everything was exactly as it should be.

  Chapter Ten

  The scent of coffee dragged Scarlett from the deepest sleep she’d had in years. She rolled to her back, groaning as the light hit her eyes. She threw a hand over her face and realized the spot she’d rolled into was still warm. She was naked. Naked and sore, as if she’d run a marathon. Parts of her body ached deliciously, and as she stretched, Scarlett winced ever so slightly.

  The memory of the night before hit her right in the face with the force of a fist to the jaw. Her eyes flew open, and she sat straight up in the bed, clutching the sheet against herself as she stared around the room in a moment of pure panic.

  She’d slept with Zarek. No. She hadn’t just slept with him. She’d let him fuck her to within an inch of her life. Fear, dread, apprehension all tumbled around inside her for a moment like marbles skittering across a hardwood floor. Scarlett hadn’t even been drunk. Neither had he. She didn’t even have a headache.

  A moment later, she heard footsteps heading toward the back of the boat once more, then Zarek’s shadow fell across the doorway. He was smiling at her, his expression lighter than she’d seen it since her arrival in Calabasas. Scarlett scrubbed a hand over her face, grateful that he at least wore pants, though his chest was delightfully bare. As he leaned across the bed to pass her a cup of coffee, she caught sight of his back. Long, angry pink scratches along the length of his back, by his hips, over his spine. Had she done that?