Along Came Trouble: A Loveswept Contemporary Romance

by Ruthie Knox

  “What happened to fast and hard and rough?” Desperation made her edgy and possibly a little whiny.

  “Mmm. We’ll do that next time. We have to get acquainted first.”

  She moaned and laced her fingers behind his neck, pulling his face close so he could see how serious she was. “Clark, I know everything I need to know about you except how you feel inside me.”

  Lifting her knees, she wrapped her legs around his hips and shifted until the tip of him pressed into her. “Now,” she said, wiggling in an attempt to bring him inside. “I’ll tell you anything you want to hear, anything at all, if you do it n—unh.”

  He thrust and met resistance. Thrust again, slow but determined, and then withdrew and sank back inside her. This time, her body yielded, taking him so deep, so deep, she forgot how to talk. She could only arch her back and close her eyes and inhale.

  Everything smelled like Caleb. His soap, the scent of his sweat. They were both slick with it and breathing hard, the room stifling with the doors all closed. It was too hot to be touching, too hot even to hold hands, but she wanted every single inch of him to stay pressed against every single inch of her anyway, and she wanted to breathe him in and look at him and taste him on her tongue.

  This was more than she’d bargained for.

  “Okay?” he asked, brushing his lips over her chin.

  Holy shit.

  “Ellen?” He kissed the space between her eyebrows.

  “Yes?” She managed a breathless whisper.

  “You okay?”

  “I’m …” What was the word she wanted? “Sublime.”

  He smiled, eyes crinkling at the corners, and said, “Yeah, you are. And sexy as hell.” He withdrew slightly, then returned, seating himself even deeper. “And beautiful.” Out, then back in. She would perish from the pleasure of having him inside her. She would expire. Any moment. “Did I say sexy yet?”

  “Yes.” Oh, God, yes.

  “It deserves to be said twice. Sexy Ellen.” Withdrew. Returned. She squeezed, and he stopped moving, a muscle jumping in his jaw. “Honey, you’re going to kill me.”

  He smoothed one hand over her forehead and kissed her, finding a slow, even rhythm with his hips that she did her level best to disrupt, because this was too much for her. He was too much. Too sweet, too considerate, too amazing. She hadn’t anticipated it would be this … much. She hadn’t expected this tight feeling in her chest when he looked down at her, this muzzy certainty in her bones and her skin and her fingertips that there was something right about this experience. Something perfect. Something alarmingly big and important.

  So she closed her eyes and urged him to go faster, digging her nails into his back and letting him hear what he was doing to her with every stroke. She couldn’t linger here with him, couldn’t let him make love to her this way. She needed him selfish and wild. Unimportant. Disposable.

  When he lost control, she felt it, the shudder that racked his body and the way he stopped holding back. He buried his face in her neck and his hands under her ass and spoke in her ear, a low rumble that proved he’d been lying earlier when he’d said he wasn’t much good with words. He was the whole package, driving her toward the cliff with his body, pushing her off it with that bedroom voice telling her she was beautiful, she was sexy, she was smart, she was everything he wanted.

  When she came, she kept her eyes closed and her lips pressed tightly shut, because she was afraid of what she’d feel if she looked at him, and she was afraid that if she opened her mouth, she’d say his name.

  Chapter Fourteen

  When he’d recovered enough to be capable of coherent thought, Caleb noticed the heat first.

  Ellen’s bedroom had become a greenhouse, hot and humid and smelling of sex and cinnamon. One of them needed to turn on the ceiling fan if they were ever going to have a hope of cooling off. Crack a window, get some air moving around in here.

  But her hair spread out over his shoulder in damp ropes. Her hand was on his stomach, and he could see it rise and fall with every breath he took. He slid his palm down her back and over her ass, savoring the dip and curve, the way his hand fit so many different ways against her body.

  Without warning, she sat up and moved to the edge of the bed. “I’ll be right back.” She disappeared into the bathroom.

  Caleb raised himself onto his elbows to look at the door that had just swallowed her. It didn’t have any messages written on it, which was a shame, because he could really use a clue. Had that been I’ll be right back as in I want nothing more than to stay here with you but I just have to nip out for a second?

  He’d like to think so. Unfortunately, given the lack of eye contact and the abrupt scuttle, it had come across more like I’ll be right back, but feel free to get dressed and get the hell out of here while I’m gone. Which was a shock, since he’d sort of assumed he would spend the night. He’d sort of assumed he’d just made love to a woman he was starting a relationship with.

  A relationship he’d sort of assumed would turn into something.

  Now that he thought about it, those were a lot of assumptions. He’d brought her a pizza, planted himself on her front porch, and she’d seduced him. Normally, he didn’t get into bed with a woman without having some kind of conversation with her about where they were headed—usually one version or another of Let’s keep this casual, shall we?

  This time, he hadn’t wanted to set that particular parameter. But maybe Ellen had.

  And maybe it was time for him to get dressed.

  As he was zipping up his pants, she emerged from the bathroom wearing an oversized T-shirt. She’d combed her hair and pulled it into a tight knot at the back of her neck. He wasn’t sure what she’d done with the open, sensual, abandoned woman he’d been burning up the sheets with a few minutes ago. Stuffed her in the trash, maybe. This Ellen had tight lips and eyes that skipped right past his face as if she couldn’t bear to look at him. He didn’t need a message written on the door to figure out that this Ellen wanted him to leave.

  Crossing to the windows, he pushed them open several inches. He found the switch for the ceiling fan and flipped it on, then moved a pair of her jeans off the butter-yellow leather chair in the corner of the room and sat down, throwing one leg over the side.

  Ellen watched him with her arms crossed over her stomach, nervy as a fawn about to bolt for the woods.

  He wasn’t going anywhere until he got some answers.

  “Will you go out with me?” he asked.

  “What?” She looked as though he’d smacked her with a wet fish.

  “Will you go out to dinner with me? Tomorrow night?” When she didn’t answer right away, he added, “That’s what I planned to do when I came over here tonight. Other than stand on your porch. The plan was to apologize and to ask you out.” He pointed at the bed. “That wasn’t in the plan. Though I’m certainly not complaining.”

  She didn’t return the smile he gave her. Her expression morphed from wet-fish surprise to something close to out-and-out horror before she got a handle on it and wiped it clean. “No,” she said. “I mean, thanks, but no. I can’t really—I don’t really date. I don’t have the time.”

  “You have to eat. We’ll grab something quick.”

  By now, there was no doubt in his mind she’d say no. What he was trying to figure out was why.

  She flicked her eyes to his face, then stared at the carpet beneath her feet. He’d seen it, though. The fear again. They’d been buck naked together not five minutes ago, as close as two people could get, but the idea of going out to dinner with him scared the pants off her. Or it would have, if she’d been wearing pants.

  “That’s—no. Sorry. I have so much work to do when Henry’s gone, and I don’t really leave the house much. I can’t … date.”

  “Ellen.”

  She didn’t look up.

  “Look at me, Ellen.”

  She could hardly refuse. Her eyes made a slow journey from the floor up his body and settle
d on a point in the vicinity of his left ear.

  He pitched his voice low and soothing. “You said you’d tell me anything I wanted to know. So tell me. Why won’t you go out with me?”

  “That’s not fair,” she protested. When she met his eyes, she asked him silently to drop it. Let her go. Be nice to her.

  He was being nice. He hadn’t asked, What are you afraid of, Ellen? He hadn’t demanded that she tell him why she was trying to get rid of him after what had been the hottest, most intense sexual experience of his life. Those were the questions he really wanted answers to.

  “You didn’t mean it when you said you’d tell me anything?”

  She glanced down at her hands, then wiped her palms on her hips. “I was … coerced.”

  That made him smile, though he couldn’t keep the tension out of his shoulders. He felt strung tight, and not in a good way. Half-cocked. It was a new situation for him, this postcoital vulnerability, and not a comfortable one. “I did not coerce you.”

  Turning her face to the side, she looked down at the floor again as a slow flush spread over her cheeks. “No.”

  He didn’t know whether she meant no, he hadn’t coerced her, or no, she wouldn’t answer his question. Probably some of both.

  “You like me.” He rose from the chair and slowly closed the distance between them. As he drew near, her nipples hardened under the T-shirt. She couldn’t look at him, but it turned her on to have him in range. He could understand that. She did the same thing to him.

  He reached out and slid both palms up her legs, under the shirt, over her hips. Pulled her close with his hands moving up the smooth plane of her back, the shirt bunching up over his forearms as her bare stomach brushed against his. She didn’t move away. He wanted her naked again. He wanted her to meet his eyes.

  Leaning down, he spoke in her ear. “You like me a lot, Ellen. So why won’t you go out with me?”

  She closed her eyes and whispered. “I don’t want a relationship.”

  He kissed her throat. “With me?”

  “With anyone.”

  That made sense. The last one hadn’t gone so well, and she had a lot of responsibilities to juggle. But it was too late. They already had a relationship, and he wasn’t giving her up easily. He wanted her too much, was already risking too much, to let her brush him off.

  “You want me to touch you.” He palmed her breast, moved his thumb over her nipple, satisfied when she arched her back and sucked in a deep breath. “Say it.”

  “Yes.”

  “You want me to take you back to bed.” He pushed the shirt up and lowered his mouth to her breasts.

  “Yes.” Breathless now.

  Guiding her onto the mattress, he stretched out beside her. Moved his hand between her thighs and dipped his finger into her wet heat. “You want me to be your lover.”

  When he kissed her, she plunged her tongue into his mouth and twined her arms around his neck. Murmured against his lips, “Yes.”

  “And then you want me to go home.”

  She opened her eyes, and he watched her pupils contract as they adjusted to the light. Watched desire do battle with fear. Waited for her to deny it.

  “Yes.”

  Damn it.

  This wasn’t about him. But whatever the asshole had done to her, it was Caleb’s problem to deal with now. He wanted to ask her what had happened. What had made her so stingy with her trust.

  Instead, he pulled the shirt over her head and kissed her. He touched her exactly how she wanted to be touched, exactly where she wanted him to touch her. He kept his eyes on her as he brought her to a wild, hard, beautiful climax.

  If he could, he’d do this for her every day for the rest of his life. But she’d have to let him.

  As she lay there afterward, panting and naked, glowing and gorgeous, he settled down on one elbow next to her and said, “What we’re going to do now, honey, is negotiate.”

  Negotiate?

  Crap.

  She couldn’t even lift her arms, she was so saturated with sex pheromones. Endorphomones. Sexophins. Whatever.

  The way she’d understood it, there were rules. She’d seduce Caleb, they’d roll around on the mattress for a while, and then he’d kiss her on the cheek and say, Thanks, baby, that was hot, and he’d go home. Maybe he’d sext her in a day or two, and they’d do it again.

  Simple.

  But instead he’d given her two toe-curling, soul-scorching orgasms, and then he’d put his arm around her and held her. She’d flipped and flipped through her mental playbook, but damned if she could find the page for that.

  So she’d done the logical thing and fled to the bathroom, and she’d come back out channeling Princess Buttercup, all remote and haughty and go-home-now-Farm-Boy, but wow did that ever not work. He’d had her flat on her back inside of two minutes, and the third royal orgasm served up in five.

  How could she negotiate when her thighs were still quivering?

  You’re a lawyer. You could negotiate on the deck of the sinking Titanic.

  Okay, yes, that was true. She simply needed to approach this as a professional. Preferably not spread-eagled, then.

  She sat up and propped a pillow against the headboard. Clothes would be nice. Caleb had done something with her T-shirt; it was no longer in evidence. Peeling back the comforter, she found the sheet and tugged, trying to pull it up over herself.

  Unfortunately, she’d tucked it in under the mattress when she made the bed, and it wouldn’t budge. Stupid sheet. She yanked at it ineffectually for a moment, and then Caleb helped her out, gathering the fabric in his fist and liberating it with one rapid jerk that made his biceps bunch and his pecs flex and his stomach tighten and oh boy howdy, did she ever want to get those pants back off him.

  It wasn’t a good position from which to begin negotiating.

  She tucked the sheet under her arms and closed her eyes briefly, willing herself into lawyer mode. Caleb was rustling around, distracting her, and when she opened her eyes he’d positioned himself cross-legged at the far end of the bed. He still wasn’t wearing a shirt, and he still had a rather impressive hard-on, and she still wanted to ravish him. Plus, he was smiling at her. You weren’t supposed to smile at the enemy. Negotiation 101.

  “All right, Clark. What do you want?”

  “You,” he said. As if this were the sort of thing people declared all the time. Combined with the smile, it made her blood fizzy and her head ditsy.

  Reset. Reboot. Lawyer mode. “Can you define what you mean by that?”

  The smile widened so she could see his dimple, and this time it hit her between the thighs. Would he have the same effect if you put the dimple in a suit and tie and met with it across a couple briefcases and a tray of litigation pastries?

  Yes, damn it, he would.

  He counted on his fingers. “I want to take you out on dates. I want to get to know you better. I want to get to know your son better. I want to make love to you repeatedly, in every position I can think of. And I want to spend the night.”

  Holy hell, Caleb wanted to be her boyfriend. How had she gotten herself into this mess? She needed a boyfriend like she needed an emergency appendectomy.

  She often counseled clients who were having trouble keeping a cool head to take five deep breaths before responding to a difficult statement. She tried it, but it didn’t work at all. Not at all.

  “We’re not doing that,” she snapped after two and a half.

  He spread his hands wide, palms up. Innocent as a baby bunny. “I’m just saying what I want. Isn’t that how you open a negotiation? Now it’s your turn to tell me what you want.”

  I want to be a Chiclet.

  Well, she couldn’t very well say that. She needed to think of a more appropriate way to express what she was looking for. Which was, essentially … “Sex.”

  Maybe that had been a little blunt, but lawyer Ellen was all about honesty in negotiation.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Can you define what
you mean by that?”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake. Sex. Physical intimacy. Penetration of the woman’s—”

  “I know what sex is, sweetheart. How much? When? Where? Who initiates?”

  She glared at him, but he simply shrugged. “I’m trying to figure out what kind of lover you’re in the market for.”

  Two could play at this game. She counted on her fingers. “I want lots of sex. After hours, when I’m not working. Or in the morning would be okay, too, but not after eight o’clock Pacific time, because that’s when I have to make calls. We do it at my house. Either one of us can initiate, but not when Henry’s here and awake. Oh, and no sleepovers. No dates, no deep conversations, no getting-to-know-you-better.”

  Caleb smiled. He wasn’t supposed to be smiling. He was supposed to be surprised, or disappointed, or outraged, or something other than smiling.

  “What?”

  “This is good,” he said. “We can work with this.”

  “It’s good?”

  “Mmm-hmm. We have something in common. We both want to have lots of sex. The rest is going to be easy.”

  “I very much doubt that.”

  “Let’s start with the timing issue. You want sex at night and early in the morning, so logically it makes sense for me to sleep over.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  I’m afraid I’ll like it too much. “You’ll snore.”

  “I don’t snore.”

  “You’ll take up the whole bed.”

  “It’s a big bed, and you’re a small woman. There’s plenty of room.”

  “I’m not small.”

  “Compared to me, you are.”

  “Compared to you, Big Bird is small.”

  He smiled. “So I can sleep over.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  She imagined sleeping in Caleb’s arms. Rousing to consciousness surrounded by the smell of him, and snuggling against his warm body in the night. And then heard Henry screaming awake. Maaaaa-ma!

  The cognitive dissonance made her dizzy. Or maybe that was Caleb. He was kind of stubbly this late in the day, like a very hot pirate.