Along Came Trouble: A Loveswept Contemporary Romance

by Ruthie Knox

  He had the sexiest body she’d ever touched. Ever been anywhere near. And then there were the sounds he made—the quiet, abrupt inhales when she hit a tender spot, the long, ragged exhales. This wasn’t a prelude to sex. This was sex. And her crotch knew it.

  She massaged over the caps of his shoulders and down his upper arms, flattening her breasts against his back. Her nipples were so hard, they hurt. Turn around, she thought. Turn around and kiss me.

  When she finally got up the nerve to run her hands over his pecs, down his stomach, to brush her fingers over the hard column she found between his thighs, he did turn around—so suddenly and fluidly that she couldn’t imagine how she’d ended up flat on her back with his tongue in her mouth and his hand clutching her hip, his erection pressing hard and perfect between her thighs. But she liked it.

  “You skipped a date or two there,” he said when he broke the kiss. Something had happened to his voice. Something she liked very much.

  “I’m dying.”

  “Me, too.” He kissed her again, deep and desperate, and said, “Bed.”

  Ellen went first. She left her shirt by the front door and kicked her shorts into a corner of the hallway, but when she turned in the doorway to her room, expecting to find Caleb right behind her, he’d disappeared. “Where’d you go?” she called with dismay.

  “Just a sec.” He reappeared from the kitchen, and this time he had the syrup bottle, just like in her fantasy.

  Ellen smiled and beckoned him closer with a crook of her finger.

  She’d barely made it to the bed before he tossed the bottle of syrup onto the mattress and climbed on top of her. Kissing her deeply, he nudged his erection into the damp crotch of her panties, while one capable hand found a nipple and teased it through the cotton of her bra.

  The pressure of his cock against her moist heat made her desperate. He was so close, right there, and all he had to do was push a strip of material out of the way and he’d slide home.

  But wait. She was a liberated woman. She could take care of this problem herself.

  When she reached between them, he captured her wrist and moved both of her hands above her head. Raising his face a few inches, he smiled down at her with that dimple and those friendly, sexy eyes and said, “Hi there.”

  She made a noise that sounded very much like a whale call from some New Age CD.

  “All my careful flirting has paid off,” he said, nuzzling her ear. “And after all that hard work, I don’t think we should be in a hurry, do you?”

  He thrust against her, straining the fabric of her panties as he moved a few teasing centimeters farther into her body, and she wriggled helplessly, totally at his mercy. “Maybe we can hurry now and go slow later,” she suggested.

  Caleb wrinkled up his forehead as if considering her offer, then shook his head slowly. “Nah. My way is going to be a lot more fun.” He released her hands and grabbed the bottle. “We’re going to find out how many times I can make you come in half an hour.”

  The answer turned out to be three. He sucked chocolate syrup off her nipples and gave her an orgasm with his hand between her legs. Then he painted his name down the front of her torso with his finger and licked it off so slowly that by the time he got through with the B, she was wild to have his mouth on her. She applied a rather generous amount of chocolate between her legs, and he brought her to a climax cleaning it up. When he turned his attention back to her breasts, she decided enough was enough. Pushing him onto his back, she hustled a condom into place and impaled herself on him with a cry of delight worthy of a porn star.

  She’d been a very good girl for a very long time, but Caleb made being bad so much fun. She rode him hard until they were both sweaty and sticky, and then she came for the third time, and he followed her.

  Afterward, she laid her head on his chest, wrapped her arm around his naked waist, and waited for the questions, slightly apprehensive because he’d obliterated her defenses so completely. What kind of security guard did that? Three orgasms, and she’d tell him where the Lindbergh baby had gone. What happened to planes that disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle. Whether or not there really was a Bigfoot. She didn’t have the answers to these questions, but she was willing to make something up for his sake. He deserved a prize for making her feel this fantastic.

  When his breathing had settled—long before hers did, naturally—he began tracing patterns on her back with his fingertips, caressing her from shoulder to hip, down her thigh to her knee, then back again. In his arms, she became a precious thing. Cherished. Wanted.

  Her throat tightened with emotion she didn’t want to think about.

  She liked him.

  Okay, actually, she more than liked him. She kind of adored him—how he made her feel, his company, his conversation. But it didn’t have to mean anything. He was an indulgence, like a massage. Temporary. People had these flings. She could have one, too, without getting in over her head.

  Theoretically.

  “What’s Jamie like?” he asked.

  She smiled and kissed the smooth hollow under his collarbone. “You know, I get that question a lot.”

  “No doubt. But I don’t want to know because I have a crush on your brother. I want to know what it’s like for you, being his sister.”

  She had a standard response: Jamie was a very private person. Kind and public-spirited. Talented from the tips of his fingers to his baby toenails. A loving son and generous brother.

  All true. He was also her best friend and her best advocate. It was Jamie who’d always told her how smart she was, Jamie who’d encouraged her to go to law school. Jamie who’d agreed that their mother’s worship of him and neglect of Ellen was completely wacked, and Jamie who’d done what he could to right the balance.

  But he was far from perfect, and for some reason she didn’t feel like singing his praises to Caleb.

  “He’s spoiled rotten.”

  She’d never told anyone that before.

  Right away, she backpedaled. “Don’t get me wrong. I love him to pieces, and he’s basically a great guy.”

  “But …”

  She hesitated. Caleb’s chest rose and fell beneath her cheek while his index finger traced the shape of her shoulder blade. Cocooned against his body, she could say anything. Even the truth.

  With a deep breath, she took the plunge. “But, Jamie’s never been disappointed in his life. He always gets what he wants. He’s accustomed to the universe bending to his whims, and it gives him this protective bubble of entitlement that he’s been floating around in since we were kids.”

  “Sounds hard to live with.”

  “It is and it isn’t. I didn’t really think about it growing up. It was just the way life was. Jamie has this … charisma, I guess, and it wins everyone over to his side. You don’t mind doing things his way, because you feel so special being in his circle. I’ve never met anyone who’s immune to it. Even Richard, actually—Jamie hated Richard, but Richard just rolled over for him. It was unbelievable. He kept a bottle of Jamie’s favorite whiskey around for when he came to visit.” She snorted. “The only bottle of whiskey Richard never cracked, no matter how bad he wanted a drink. If that’s not a testament to his devotion to Jamie, I don’t know what is.”

  “So everything becomes about what Jamie wants.”

  She tilted her head back and met his eyes. Caleb got it. She wanted to kiss him for that, so she did, and his lips were soft and welcoming. Burying her face in his neck, she breathed him in.

  “What do you smell like?”

  “Soap, I hope. I took a shower this afternoon.”

  She inhaled again. “Mint and cedar and … paint?”

  “Probably. I was painting over at my parents’ apartment complex.”

  His parents lived nearby. They had an apartment complex, and Caleb worked there, at least sometimes.

  She knew next to nothing about him.

  You’re not supposed to know about him. He’s supposed to be a warm body.r />
  He was a warm body. A very warm body. And try as she might to pretend otherwise, there was nothing anonymous about lying here pressed against him, talking in her bedroom with the dark pressing against the windows. He was Caleb. She liked him. She wanted to know all there was to know about him. Where was the harm in it?

  “Do you do that often? Help them out?”

  “Yeah, when they let me. My dad used to do all the work, but he had a stroke. He has trouble now with his memory, and he sometimes messes up the jobs. That’s the main reason why I left the service, actually. To be here for them.”

  She stopped herself from asking him another question. What it had been like to leave the army behind. Whether he missed it. If he ever thought about going back. She knew where the line was supposed to be—the line that separated meaningless fling from Way to go, genius, you fell for your bodyguard—and she didn’t intend to cross it.

  He settled his hand on her hip, where it radiated heat across her entire midsection. Awareness began building again, low and tingling, and she wiggled closer to him, throwing her thigh over his. Not exactly initiating another round, but hanging out her shingle, anyway, to announce she wasn’t altogether opposed to the idea.

  “Next question,” Caleb announced. “Did you ever want what your brother has?”

  “Are all your questions going to be about my brother?”

  Caleb slid his hand to her butt and kneaded gently, encouraging her to scoot her hips a little farther over his. She could feel him growing stiff against her belly, and the tingling became an ache.

  “I’m not asking about your brother, babe. I’m asking about you.”

  Had she wanted to be famous? Had she wanted the attention, the adoration, the money, the fans? No, she hadn’t. And yes, of course she had.

  “I tried out for Brigadoon once,” she said. “At my high school. I saw the auditions were running and I filled out the form on a whim, walked onto the stage, and sang ‘Amazing Grace’ for the teachers who were doing the casting. I got the lead.”

  He lifted her hips as if she weighed nothing, placed her squarely on top of him, and made a contented noise as he settled both hands over her butt. “Nice.”

  She didn’t know whether he meant the audition or her butt. “Thank you. So I told Jamie, and he said it was awesome, and then I went home and told my mother. And that was the end of that.”

  “Because …”

  “Don’t think I don’t notice the way you keep getting me to talk without wasting your questions.” She kissed his scratchy chin. “Because my mother hauled out Jamie’s rehearsal and performance schedule and explained at length why it would be impossible for us to compromise his commitments so I could be in this play, and how egotistical I was to even think of auditioning when it was so important for our family to support Jamie’s talent. It took her about an hour to convince me I was a horrible, selfish person.”

  She didn’t regret never having become a star. She regretted that her mother hadn’t believed in her enough to encourage her to try.

  Caleb cupped her face in his hands and kissed her. Rolling her onto her back, he said, “That sucks. I’d have liked to see you do a Scottish accent. I bet you would’ve been awesome.” And then he kissed her again, and she decided he was probably not even human, he was so great.

  My Alien Lover. Fantasy Man from Beyond.

  Caleb sat up, reaching toward the side table for a condom, and she ran her thumb over the scar on his hip. “What’s this from?”

  “Shrapnel. A vehicle-borne IED. I was guarding the convoy, riding maybe four or five trucks back from where it happened.”

  She saw the dusty, heat-blasted road with the trucks rolling over it. Saw Caleb in uniform, carrying a gun. Saw the explosion rip his world apart.

  He could have been killed. That time, and probably plenty of others.

  It wasn’t a thought she wanted to dwell on. “Was it dangerous?”

  The lamest sort of question. What she meant was, Tell me what it’s like to be you. What kind of man are you?

  “Yes.”

  She met his eyes, and she knew just how foolish it made her, wanting to know. And how much more foolish that she felt so sure that whatever he told her, she’d like him better for it. She’d just keep liking him better and better until she was in way over her head.

  “Does your mother know? About the scar?”

  Caleb gave her a bemused smile before answering. “Nope. My sister Katie does, though.”

  “Did she cry?”

  “Katie never cries.”

  Ellen thought she probably would have cried.

  “Did anybody die? From the bomb?”

  “Yes.” He didn’t elaborate, but she heard what he wasn’t telling her. That he’d seen diabolical things. He’d lost people he cared about. She wasn’t going to ask him. Not tonight.

  He didn’t need to tell her he was a good man. The best, bravest kind of man. She knew. She just knew.

  “Will you kiss me again?”

  This time, she slid her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck and closed her eyes, imagining herself as the woman this soldier had come home to.

  “You’re not going back.”

  “No. I’m here for good.”

  And as he moved inside her, she wondered for an instant if when he said “here,” he meant here, in her bed, in her body, in her life.

  Strangely, the thought didn’t scare her. Much.

  Later, they took a shower together, and Caleb dried her off and got her dirty again bent over the corner of the bed. He pulled back the covers and spooned her against him, untangling her hair with his fingers.

  After a while, Ellen leaned over to grab the remote and put the movie on. It was way past her bedtime, and she didn’t know if they’d stay awake for it, but it hardly mattered—she just wanted to pile one indulgence on top of another. The Big Sleep on her TV and the hottest guy in the Midwest in her bed. Bacall should be so lucky.

  When Philip Marlowe met General Sternwood among the orchids, she craned around to admire Caleb’s face. Such an absurdly gorgeous man. “Did they tease you in the army for being so good-looking?”

  Caleb smiled. “You think I’m good-looking?”

  “Don’t be smug. It’s unbecoming.”

  He kissed her forehead. “You never said I was good-looking. I thought you were just putting up with my ugly face so you could get your hands on my body.”

  She smoothed one hand over his back. “I’ve never really been a beefcake kind of girl.” Her fingers slipped down his side to trail over his hard stomach.

  He chuckled and trapped her hands. “No? You like your men short and flabby?”

  “Yep,” she agreed, resting her head on his shoulder. “And pale, with pimples on their backs. That way, I know they’ll never throw me over for somebody more exciting.”

  He went taut, and then he took a deep breath and let it out slowly, his muscles relaxing again.

  “You heard,” she said. “About Richard.”

  “Yeah.”

  It was inevitable, she supposed. In the early days after the divorce, she’d gone around town feeling like she had a big “S” for “Sucker” written on her forehead. As soon as she’d kicked Richard out, everyone from her hairstylist to the guy behind the counter at the deli had begun offering her evidence of her husband’s bad behavior, as if she’d be anxious now to store up knowledge of every awful thing he’d ever done behind her back.

  There were rather a lot of them. Some were even over twenty-one.

  “Can I ask you about him?”

  She owed Caleb two more questions. It would have been three, since he’d had one left over from the chocolate-sauce round, but it had expired. Or it was about to, anyway. She was willing to fudge the timeline if it meant she didn’t have to answer three questions about Richard.

  “Maybe,” she said.

  “What’s up with the leather vest?”

  Surprised, she looked up, and the mischief in
Caleb’s eyes made her smile despite her nerves.

  “I mean, it looked pretty broken in. Does he wear it all the time?”

  She laughed. Caleb tickled her ribs, turning her laughter into helpless giggles.

  “Do chicks go for that woebegone poet crap? Huh? Because if that’s what you want in a man, honey, I don’t stand a chance.”

  He pushed her onto her back and tickled her armpits and the backs of her knees, smiling down at her as she batted ineffectually at his hands. She laughed until she got a stitch in her side and had to curl into a fetal ball and beg him in the weak, happy voice of a little girl to stop, stop, please stop.

  When she finally caught her breath, she said, “I need a drink of water.” She’d go get one. Just as soon as she worked up the energy to move her legs.

  “I’ll get it.” He popped up and headed for the kitchen, scooping up his briefs and pants at the threshold and pulling them on.

  “If you had blinds out there, I wouldn’t have to get dressed,” he said casually.

  “I’m not buying blinds, Clark.”

  “I’m not buying a leather vest.”

  She smiled as she watched him disappear down the hall, admiring the shape of him. Admiring him.

  To think she’d considered him little more than eye candy when he first showed up in her yard. She’d underestimated him. He was smart. A clever warrior, honorable and brave. Frighteningly perceptive. He already understood her well enough to know when to press and when to back off. He’d known she didn’t want to talk about Richard, so he’d played it safe and got her laughing, and now he was giving her a few minutes alone to think.