by Maisey Yates
“Well, it’ll hardly seem like a real picnic without the ants,” he said dryly. “But hey, could be fun.” His tone said it most definitely wouldn’t be fun.
And now she just felt like some deluded, romantic idiot. She wanted to melt down into the cracks between the tiles and slither out.
“Let’s just eat at the table,” she said. “Better still, let’s just fuck. That’s what you like.” He put his hand on her arm and gripped it tight, drawing her to him. “What the hell?”
“You could not have made your disapproval of the whole thing more clear if you’d screamed and run from the room. It’s just a picnic. Not a declaration.”
“We’ll eat on the floor then,” he said.
“No. Now I don’t want to eat on the floor.”
“Too bad,” he said, grabbing the blanket from her hands and stalking into the living area. He spread it out, awkwardly, and then sat, his knees drawn up, forearms resting on them.
She let out an exasperated sigh and went and sat down across from him, placing the basket in between them. “I hope you like seared tuna and fine wine.”
“Who doesn’t?”
“The same people who hate picnics indoors. And draw strength from the tears of children.”
“So…me,” he said, opening the basket and pulling out two wine glasses, and the wine bottle.
“I guess so. I hadn’t picked you for that sort of person but, you know…”
He forced a smile and pulled a corkscrew out of the basket, jamming it into the cork. “Sorry,” he said, not sounding any more genuine in his apology than he had in his sudden enthusiasm for the picnic. “It’s not been the best day.”
“Why?”
He paused, his eyebrows locking together. “No big deal.”
“Then why are you acting like that cork has done you wrong and you need to kill it?” She snatched the bottle from him and proceeded to pull out the cork, then poured them two healthy glasses of wine.
Caleb picked his up and took a much healthier first sip than she expected. “Because.”
“Caleb…”
“Do we share now?” he asked, arching a brow.
“I think we share.”
“Do you?” he asked, taking another long drink.
“I’ve confided my darkest most sordid fantasies in you and allowed you to carry them out. You tied my hands together and did dirty things to me, and I liked it. I’d say we share certain confidence, yes.”
He looked down into his glass. “It’s my sister’s birthday.”
“I…did you need to go and see her tonight? Am I interrupting something? Because I didn’t know—”
“I’ve been to see her already. This morning.”
“Oh. That’s…did you go out to breakfast or…”
“No. I went to see her. I went…she’s at Westwood Memorial Park. That’s…” He cleared his throat. “I had a beer with her. I do that sometimes. She doesn’t know, obviously.”
Evie’s heart crumpled up like a sheet of paper in an iron fist, the air pulled from her lungs. “Oh.”
“I should have maybe said something when you asked about her. But…uh…I don’t like to talk about it.” He cleared his throat. “People don’t know what to say. And usually, they can’t say anything right. Whatever they say just kind of makes me mad, actually. Because they don’t really know.”
“I’m an only child,” she said. “So you’re right, I don’t.”
“She’s thirty-six today,” he said. “She was twenty-six when she died. It’s been such a long time. You’d think…I never even plan to go out there. I spend all year not thinking about her. Not thinking about any of it, and then I end up there. Not the anniversary of her death—her birthday. It’s always her birthday. And I just sit there, and I don’t know what I’m waiting for. Or why I’m there. She doesn’t know I’m there, so what’s the point?”
The look on his face, the pain, the confusion, broke something in her. There was no point pretending she didn’t care about him. No point pretending this was just sex. Not when his pain reached straight into her stomach and pulled out her guts.
Such a terrible moment to realize the strength of her connection to him, but it was unavoidable. Because she was seeing him clearly, and that forced her to see herself clearly, too.
She had no advice for him. Nothing to say to dull the hurt, the grief and whatever else it was he was struggling with.
It was big, and she could feel it. Something that she didn’t feel up to. She didn’t deal in real, grown-up emotion. She dealt in unicorn-themed apps, popsicle-fellatio art and a relationship in which “meh” had been preferable to acting like any kind of adult and improving her situation, because…habit, that was why.
She was a giant, immature ball of flail, and Caleb needed something. But she didn’t know how to give it.
She hated that. She hated that she was failing him right now.
She put her hand on his arm, slid her palms up to his biceps, closing the distance between them. She just wanted to touch him. To let him feel like she was there. Like he wasn’t alone. Because she had no insight, no answers, no moment of clarity to offer.
But she had herself. The whole ball of flail. She had it, and she wanted to give it to him. She’d been with Jason for ten years and never wanted to give herself to him. Sleep with him, live with him, say that she loved him, yeah, she’d done all that. But she’d never wanted him to have a piece of her. A connection that couldn’t be compromised or shaken.
She’d never wanted to open herself up like that. Break off a piece of her soul and hand it to another person for safekeeping. She’d never really seen the appeal. She’d never known it was a thing.
But it was all she had to give. So she wanted to give it.
She leaned in and kissed him, and it felt like the first time her lips had touched his, even though she was sure their kisses numbered in the hundreds by now. But this wasn’t about lust, or a list in an app, this was about him. About her. About how much she wanted to make him feel better. Feel something good.
He raised his hand and cupped her cheek, his touch gentle, tentative. It was a strange and new connection for them. She found it as exciting, as thrilling, as the others. As the intense, erotic encounters they’d had.
She parted her lips slightly, allowing him entry, giving herself to him.
When they parted he was breathing hard, his forehead resting against hers, his eyes closed. “That’s not the response I expected,” he said, his voice rough.
“Sorry,” she said. “It seemed like the best idea.”
“I’m not complaining.”
“I want to make it better,” she said. “I don’t know how.”
“I don’t either.”
“Can I just be with you? Or should I leave you alone?”
His hands came up and bracketed her face, his eyes snapping open, his dark brown gaze intense. “No,” he said. “I’m always alone. Don’t leave me alone. Please.”
“I won’t,” she said, kissing him again. “I won’t.” She reached down and tugged his shirt up, pulling it over his head, sliding her hands over his perfect chest. Down his abs, down to the button on his jeans. No belt today, but it was just as well. This was about him.
Everything so far had been about her. About her fantasies, her exploration. Her figuring out what she’d missed while she’d settled for blah for all those years.
But this was about him.
Caleb, the man who’d had a lot of sex, the man who could always find a woman to go home with, but still always felt like he was alone.
“Is there something new you wanted to try tonight?” he asked, his voice rough.
She bit her lip and shook her head. “I just want you.”
“You don’t want to get out the app and—” she kissed him again, cutting off his words.
“No,” she said. “No app. No games. Think you can handle it?”
“You think I can’t handle a little sex?”
She wasn’t sure he could. Because she wasn’t sure she could handle this either, whatever the hell it was they were on the edge of. And it was something. Something big. At least it was for her.
“We’ll see if you can handle me,” she said.
“You’ve come a long way, Evie, Evie James,” he whispered, pressing his lips to hers.
She had, but not in the way he meant. If she had to put herself out there with a different guy, she would be as inept as she’d been that night they’d first met in the bar. The thing that had changed was the way she felt about herself.
It wasn’t all false I’m-a-successful-millionaire-so-I-must-be-okay bravado. It was real. A desire to think that she could give something of herself and have it matter. And more, the need to demand more for herself. Better sex, better relationships, a real emotional connection.
She wanted it all, dammit. Because she was worth it.
“I have,” she said. “Want to see how far?”
“Sure.”
“The tuna’s on ice.”
“What?” he asked.
“The tuna. In the basket. So we can go…and it’ll be okay. See? I’m still me.”
“I like you like this,” he said. “I like that you just say the things that pop into your head. I like that you aren’t smooth.”
“You don’t think this is smooth?” she asked, sliding her hands over her breasts and down her stomach.
“Uh…there’s no good answer for me to give here, so I am just going to kiss you. Talking is too hard anyway.”
He leaned in and kissed her, tugging her up against his chest and drawing them both into a standing position without breaking it. Then he pulled her up into his arms, cradling her against his chest.
“Oh,” she said, her hand resting over his heart. She felt slightly dizzy. It was cliché, but it was a cliché she’d never had before. Being carried to bed by her lover. It made her feel small and delicate, made her conscious of his strength.
And more importantly, it made her feel like he couldn’t wait to have her.
Wow, that did things for her. For her ego, her libido…all the things.
He carried her down the hall and into his bedroom, where he laid her down on the bed, lowering himself over her, his arms on either side of her shoulders. “You’re beautiful,” he said.
He wasn’t the one who was supposed to be giving. She was. She was the one who wanted to make him understand what he meant to her. What he did to her. How important he was. That he wasn’t alone.
She’d had sex with Caleb a lot of times. Several times a night over the past two weeks. Honestly, they’d been like horny ferrets on crack. But they’d never made love. She wasn’t sure she’d ever made love with anyone. No, she was sure she hadn’t.
She’d never felt this desperate desire to meld bodies and hearts. To make the man she was with feel what was happening inside her, make him feel her emotion because she couldn’t put words to it. She didn’t know what to call all these feelings. And she was too afraid to try and name them. But maybe he could feel it.
Maybe he’d be able to recite it back to her and explain it in a way she could understand it, because right now it felt too big and tangled for her to ever get it completely.
And it was too scary. Way too scary to examine.
So she would touch him instead. Kiss him. Let him take her clothes off and touch her bare skin, while she gave him her bare soul.
She maneuvered out from under him and pushed his shoulders so that he was lying flat on his back with her over him. “Relax,” she said.
“Impossible.” He said, raising his hand and skimming her nipple with his thumb, his other hand resting on her backside, stroking her slowly, lazily. “With you, naked and perfect like this? Completely impossible.”
“Well,” she said, “you’re going to have to. Because I want to have my way with you.”
His eyes were like a glittering, black flame, his voice a feral growl. “Don’t you know you’ve been having your way with me from the moment we met?”
She thought back. To the demands, to the hair pulling and the way he tied her hands so tight she was at his mercy. To the way he gave her everything she wanted, even when it was obviously something he’d never done, or wanted to do before. The way he got off on it, because she did.
He might have assumed a more dominant role in their sexual games, but he was right. It had all been for her.
“This is all for you,” she said, pressing a kiss to the center of his chest. “I want to taste you. All over. I want to suck your cock until you’re shaking with how much you want me.”
His dark brows shot up slightly, his hand freezing on her ass. “Really?”
“Yep. I’m going to tease you until you beg. And then…then I’m going to fuck you. Do you want that?” she asked.
He swallowed hard. “Yes.”
“Say it,” she said, an echo of an earlier time. “Tell me what you want.”
“I want you fuck me, Evie.”
If she hadn’t been so hot for him, she could have laughed. This was their version of making love, but hey, for her it worked. And hearing him say that to her, hearing him on the brink, just from her words? That touched her deep down, way past the physical.
“Anything for you,” she said, and she meant it. She meant it so truthfully it shocked her.
She kissed his stomach, felt his muscles contract beneath her lips. She lapped at his skin, tasting the salt on her tongue, tracing the line of hair that ran down the center of his abs, before gripping the waistband of his jeans and tugging them, and his underwear off.
She put her hand over his length, the heat from his arousal burning her palm. Then she lowered her head and took him in her mouth, keeping her hand firm around the base of his cock.
He grabbed her hair, breath hissing through his teeth, and she took him in deeper, sliding her hand down between his thighs and cupping him, squeezing gently as she continued to pleasure him with her mouth.
She ran her tongue along his length until he shook, until he begged for more, then begged her to stop.
She waited until she felt the muscles in his thighs quivering, until she knew he was close. Then she pulled away and reached for his nightstand drawer. She took out a condom and opened it, slowly, then rolled it onto his shaft, squeezing him tight as she did.
“Tell me you want me,” she said.
“I want you.”
“No, tell me you want me,” she said, straddling him, the blunt head of his cock probing her slick entrance. She teased them both with the near penetration, until she thought she would die.
“Evie,” he said, his voice rough, broken. “I want you, Evie.”
She slid down onto him, filling herself slowly, watching as the tendons in his neck stood out, as he ground his teeth to the breaking point, gripping her hips so tight like he was trying to anchor himself to Earth.
She put her hands on his face, held it steady as she started to move. “Watch,” she said, her tone firm. “See how much I want you?” She lifted one hand and put her hand on her breast, pinched her nipple lightly. “See what you do to me?”
A slash of red ran across his cheekbones, sweat beading on his forehead. He wasn’t the cool, disinterested playboy now. Not the distant order-giver. He was lost, and she could see it.
“Eyes on me,” she said, and he obeyed, a shot of pleasure roaring through her.
She kept her gaze locked on his as she moved, as they both moved higher, closer to the peak.
“Caleb,” she said, his name on her lips. Over and over again. “Caleb.”
“Yes, baby,” he said. “Just like that. Yes, Evie.”
She rocked back and forth, moved faster, harder, her eyes on his face as he gave up control completely, his head falling back, his mouth open, his brows locked together. And it pushed her over.
She didn’t bother to hold back the raw sound of pleasure that climbed her throat and tore its way out of her mouth. She shuddered out her climax, callin
g out his name, digging her nails into the skin on his chest as she was consumed with her release.
Then when it was over she lay down over his chest, her breathing fractured, her whole world fractured.
“Stay,” he said, his arms coming around her waist, his palms warm and heavy on her back.
“Okay.”
Chapter Nine
Caleb woke up with a woman in his arms. That never happened. He never permitted himself that luxury. The intimacy of letting someone sleep with him. After all, they could smother you with a pillow while you slept, so it came back to trust.
He opened his eyes and looked down at the bright streak of red hair that slashed across his chest like a wound. A strange analogy maybe, but not inappropriate, since everything hurt. Since his chest hurt deep inside like she really had cut him open.
He moved away from her, untangled himself from her hold slowly, then sliding to the edge of the bed, sitting there with his feet on the floor and his face in his hands.
He’d told her about Jill. He never talked about Jill.
But it had been her birthday, and that was always the worst day. Because he had so many memories of her birthdays. They’d always spent them together. As a family.
Now, he didn’t even call his parents that day. A day when everyone had gotten together, celebrated and eaten cake, had turned into a day where they never even spoke.
Jill was the brighter of the two of them, the most ambitious. Poised to take over the family business. She’d lived for that stuff. Been so involved in everything. Their dad’s favorite, for obvious reasons, and it might have bothered him if she hadn’t been his favorite, too.
And it just seemed wrong, and cruel, that it had been Jill hit by another driver while cruising down the road they took between the office and home. That she’d been the one. It could have been the person in front of her. The person behind her.
It could have been him. He was in the passenger seat. And he’d been fine. He’d walked away. He’d walked away from an accident that had killed her instantly. His side of the car perfectly preserved, hers completely gone.
And he’d seen it. Seen that she wasn’t there at all. He’d been sitting there, fine, unhurt, and she was just staring straight ahead, unseeing, unmoving.
