by Casey Diam
“Jesus Christ, Paige! What the fuck? You’re going to hurt yourself. Stop moving.” I hurried out of my chair and scanned the floor for shards of glass as I followed. “What are you doing?”
I grabbed her arm, scanning her for injuries and lowering my head so that I could get a closer look at her feet. “Are you hurt?”
“No. I need a broom,” she said, looking around the apartment.
“I don’t have a broom.” Shit. I’d bought what we needed for dinner and a few other things, but I hadn’t bought any cleaning supplies.
She pulled away. “I can get one from my apartment. I’ll get the mop, too.”
“No, it’s fine. I’ll take care of it tomorrow.”
“It isn’t fine. It’s going to stain. This was a bad idea. I knew I shouldn’t have come here.”
She was starting to piss me off. I knew women could be moody, but this was fucking ridiculous. If she was going to pretend like whatever was happening between us couldn’t happen, there was no way I was going to let her off that easy. No fucking way.
“What was a bad idea?”
“My coming here.” She turned, going back to grab her trusty backpack from the floor.
“Listen,” I said, making sure she was looking me in the eyes, although hers looked empty, like nothing I said would get through to her, “mistakes happen. It’s fine. No one is perfect. I want you to stay.”
She shook her head. “Are you blind? I’m unstable, I’m weird, and I’m fucking crazy.”
I thought about her point. “But something made you this way.”
Something flickered in her eyes. Realization. Regret. Longing. It was all the confirmation I needed. My father’s men had done something to her.
Had they—is that why she’s so closed off and appeared so shy about touching?
“This is who I am, Caleb,” Paige said. “What are you thinking?”
Bile rose from my stomach as I pushed a memory back before it surfaced.
“Is all my craziness finally starting to sink in?”
I shook my head and moved closer to her, cupping her face in my hands. “No. And I’m sorry... for anything that’s ever happened to you.” I pressed my lips to hers and pulled her closer, kissing her until I forgot or until she forgot. Until we both forgot. But I had a feeling neither one of us would ever forget.
“Go. Get the cleaning stuff because I know I won’t be able to stop you.” I curled a few strands of hair behind her ear and felt a smile forming on my lips after everything. “Remind me never to piss you off.”
“Don’t do that,” Paige chastised.
“Do what?”
“You’re teasing me about being crazy.”
“Remind me not to do that either.”
She folded her arms across her chest and tilted her head. “I’m leaving now.”
“As long as you come back.”
“You’re going to regret this.”
I kissed the pout from her lips. “Never.” She opened the door, and I said, “Be careful out there. You never know who’s waiting for a cute blonde to walk by.”
I hadn’t said that to freak her out but to force her back on high alert. Calvin had told me how careless she’d been that morning she’d left my apartment in a haste to go to work at the gym. Due to that, my father’s men knew she worked there. It wouldn’t be long before they figured out the rest. I leaned against the door and let out a breath as I recalled what had happened some years ago.
“C, she isn’t going to fuck herself,” Brad had taunted. “Look at her. She’s practically begging for it.”
I stared at the woman on the mattress, twitching and stirring. She was so drugged up, she might as well have passed out. Then I looked at the camera sitting on the tripod, ready for action, and I shook my head.
“This is fucking disgusting,” I said, turning to walk out. “Fuck all of you. Especially you, Brad.”
“Whatever, pussy. More action for me,” Brad said, pulling his sweats down below his ass.
“You think this shit is normal? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“I wonder if I should fuck her first and then kill her or fuck her and kill her at the same time.” Then the fucker actually grinned.
He had been seventeen; there was no excuse for him. Just like there hadn’t been one for me.
“What? Don’t look at me like that. You said my name, so now, she has to die. Company policy. I mean, I don’t have to fuck her, but look at her. It would be a waste not to. Just kidding. I have to fuck her,” he said, removing a clear plastic baggie that contained a tied condom from his pocket. “How else am I supposed to plant your sperm inside her gaping hole when I’m done murdering that—”
My stomach churned.
Why Paige? What did they want with her? Suddenly, I wished I could be like Brad, be like my father’s men, because then I wouldn’t be in the dark. Then I would know exactly why they were after her.
Chapter Eighteen
Paige
After I returned with the cleaning supplies, Caleb helped clean the mess I’d created, and then we settled on the living room floor, eating and watching Kim Possible on his laptop. All his idea. I hadn’t realized how much I’d been longing for affection until he was giving it to me.
Is it possible to know someone for years before meeting them in person?
If it was, that was how I felt when I was with Caleb.
Throughout the cartoon, I kept stealing glances his way, wondering why he seemed so at ease, even after he’d witnessed me at my worst or close to my worst. I hadn’t lost control like that in a while, but after it’d happened, I knew what had triggered it. Outside of therapy sessions, which I had stopped attending when I was eighteen, I hadn’t spoken to anyone else about what had happened. I wanted to with Caleb.
But the anger from running all these years and those men still being out there swamped my thoughts, causing me to tumble back into that black hole faster than I could say, My parents are dead.
And, since I’d been expelling my extra energy in the Dungeon, I’d forgotten about being inside that hole, but the feeling it gave me when it surfaced was vile and scared the shit out of me.
“What are you thinking?” Caleb asked, his eyes still on the laptop.
My eyes scanned over his tall frame leaning against the wall, one leg bent with an arm resting on his raised knee. I wanted to see him hard again, and my gaze lingered on his crotch. It was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen.
“That you need a couch,” I said, standing and taking our empty plates to the sink.
“I do. I’ll get some stuff delivered tomorrow.” He closed the laptop and brought it with him to the kitchen. “I hope you aren’t planning on doing the dishes.”
Scraping the remains from the plates into the trash, I turned and set the plates into the sink, twisting the knob on the pipe so that water ran over them. “I mean, it’s only two dishes, and after everything...”
The heat from his body washed over me as he stood behind me. Moving the hair curtaining my face, he kissed my cheek.
“I’ve already forgotten about that. Stop thinking about it and go get ready for bed. I’ve got this.”
I stepped to the side, too distracted by the energy radiating off his powerful physique. “I could put away the leftovers in case you want it for another day.”
As I opened one of the cupboards, he grasped either side of my waist, pulling me backward from the cupboards and out of the kitchen.
“Paige, this is our first, second, or third date, depending on how you look at it, and you’ve already mopped my kitchen. This is not normal at all, and I feel like a douche for even letting you do that. Let me finish cleaning.”
“Fine.” I sighed, leaning my head against his chest. “But you should know that I’m not used to people cleaning up my mess, and I don’t think I like it. It makes me feel... like a douche.”
Caleb chuckled, his body jerking against my back.
Wow, I liked him a lot. Ev
erything about him. His laugh. His smell. The strength in his arms as they wrapped around me and squeezed. At first, I had been scared of guys who looked like Caleb—sculpted and strong. But, being in his arms, I’d never felt safer.
We separated for a few minutes—him in the kitchen and me in the bathroom, then me in the bed and him in the bathroom. When he finally turned the lights off and slipped under the covers next to me, it was the most natural thing in the world.
He smoothed one of his hands down my side until it was resting on my hip, and then he nuzzled my neck, placing little kisses in a line while his beard stubble tickled the sensitive skin in the area. It caused my nipples to pebble beneath my shirt, begging for his attention.
“Thank you for dinner. It was delicious,” he mumbled against my skin. “Thank you for letting me taste you. You were delicious.”
I turned around and traced my hands over his sides until he was lying on his back, giving me access to explore his body. He made me curious, and when my fingers went under his shirt and over the hard dips and rises of his abs, it wasn’t in pure innocence. I wanted to learn his body, figure out what he liked.
Easing my head closer to his face, I kissed him—first, on his jaw and then on his lips. But, as the kiss deepened, my desire for him increased. His hand slipped into the back of my shorts, cupping my butt and pulling me closer.
“You’re still not wearing any underwear. Fucking hell,” he groaned.
Caleb was different.
I barely knew him, yet I felt closer to him than any one of the three guys I’d dated in the past. The three who had wanted to change the overly cautious Paige. The three who had helped me form the conclusion that dating would change everything, make me vulnerable. But Caleb was gentle and patient, allowing me to make my own decisions. He didn’t push for answers. Didn’t push for more than I’d be willing to give.
He pulled my thigh farther up his hip, and I gasped when my center made contact with a rock-hard erection. My hand moved down his abdomen to the waistband of his sweats. I needed to feel more of him, needed to touch him.
He wants me to, right?
Leo’s words from prom night came to me like one of the dark voices in my head.
“You need to be more trusting. I promise it’s okay. I love you. It’s only sex, and it’s prom night. Come on.”
And Brian, he’d laughed at me at a college party, my freshman year.
“Paige, baby, you need to have some fun. Have some booze or a smoke. It’ll loosen you up.”
And then there was Taylor, who’d pulled me onto his lap on the couch at his parents’ house a year ago.
“Jesus, Paige, we’ve been going out for two months. A guy can only be so patient. You know how many girls I’ve turned down? Why are you acting like a virgin?”
Caleb kissed a delicate spot on my neck, and I melted.
My hand inched beneath the waistband of his sweatpants, grasping the engorged flesh inside. The smooth, heated length fueled my arousal, and a low moan from his lips revived the silent room. A small bush of hair at the base of his shaft tickled my hand as my grip slid up and down.
Holding him like this, I was amazed at how big and heavy he felt in my fist. His hips thrust, and his breathing grew heavy as he pumped himself in my hand. He cupped my breast, sending a wave of pleasure through me as he rolled a taut nipple between his fingers. Desire formed a knot in my stomach, and my lady bits clenched, needing, wanting.
His lips found mine, and he kissed me so adeptly that the world fell beneath my feet, giving me the power to rule while, at the same time, taking it away so that I felt helpless. And I knew this was it. No one had ever made me feel this way, desperate and deprived of something more potent.
Him.
“Caleb,” I whispered, making my grip firmer around his cock as his hand peeled my shirt up over my breast.
His breath kissed my lips. “Yeah?”
“I want you to be my first.”
“What?”
“I want you to be my first,” I repeated.
It took a few seconds for the words to register, and I knew they had when he pulled away, leaving my hand.
“Paige?” he asked, his breath ragged. “What... what are you saying?”
I swallowed. “I—nothing. I want you.”
The mattress dipped as he got out of the bed, and then the lights came on. Letting out a breath, I stared at the ceiling, knowing I shouldn’t have said that. And, with the lights on, it was harder to push the shyness of my sexual inexperience aside.
“Paige?”
I looked at him as he waited for an answer, my cheeks heating as my eyes landed on the tent pole in his pants.
When I said nothing, he asked, “Are you a virgin?”
“TTM,” I muttered under my breath.
“Not a fucking chance.” He sat on the mattress. “Answer me.”
Pulling the sheet to my chest, I chewed on my lip and stared across the room. “Will my answer change your wanting to sleep with me?”
“No.”
“Then, yes, I am,” I confessed.
“I’m not taking your virginity.”
“What? Why not? You said it wouldn’t matter.”
“No, I said your answer wouldn’t change my wanting to sleep with you. I still do, but those are my needs, which I’m not going to fulfill if it means taking your virginity.”
“Why not?”
“You’ve been waiting all these years for a reason. I’m sorry, but I can’t do that to you. Just no.”
I’d waited so long for this feeling, and it was being minimized by the only man I’d ever felt this attraction to. My heart ached, and I wanted to rub my chest.
“So, the guy I want to be my first doesn’t want to be, but he would be more than happy to sleep with me if I went out and screwed someone else first. What should I do, Caleb? Go screw one of the many guys I work with and then come back to you?”
A muscle moved in his jaw, and he looked to his lap. “No. You’re just horny; that’s all. You are not thinking straight.”
“Caleb, don’t talk to me like I’m a child. I could have had sex if I wanted to a long time ago. I wasn’t ready then, but I am now. I know what I’m doing.”
His gaze lifted. “Not tonight.”
“But I want to. I know we just met, and I don’t know much about you—or you, me—but it feels right with you.”
He sighed, looking defeated. “Tomorrow.”
I frowned dejectedly.
Taylor or Brian would have slipped a condom on so fast, I wouldn’t have had time to change my mind. Yet, Caleb was here, giving me an out and also not looking too happy about the prospect of sleeping with me.
“You don’t have to look so happy about it.” My throat constricted, and I turned onto my side, away from him.
The bed dipped behind me before Caleb’s body spooned mine. “I’m just worried about you because you’re right. We don’t know each other, and I don’t want you to regret it.”
“I won’t.”
“Okay. Then I’d be honored.”
When I turned my face to his, he gazed into my eyes with so much intensity, my skin warmed, and butterflies flapped around my belly.
“I’ll still satisfy you tonight and prep you a little.” Gliding his hand under my shirt, he fondled my breast and pressed a soft kiss to my mouth. “You’ll have all day tomorrow to think about it, and if you still want me to do it, I’ll be here.” He moved my shirt out of the way and sucked a nipple into his mouth, his tongue as tantalizing as I remembered. “But, if you want to wait for another day or two or week, I’ll still be here.”
I let out a longing breath as he rose onto his knees and removed my T-shirt and then my shorts, leaving me completely naked in his sheets. He inhaled and looked to be in pain as his dreamy eyes scanned my body.
“You’re so beautiful.” His hand went to his crotch, seizing the towering equipment there, and his breathing wavered. “Fuck.”
I leaned
up on an elbow. “Can I see?”
His gaze was so heavy, I could see only a slit of his darkened irises. He bit his lip and nodded, pulling the waistband beneath his cock, and as he released it from its confines, it bobbed up and down. The crown was huge and an angry red with a glistening tip. A few veins ran down the thick length of him, and I licked my lips, swallowing. He looked delicious and much bigger than either Brian or Taylor, but it turned me on even more.
I’d loved giving Taylor blow jobs because it distracted him from touching me, but as Caleb knelt on the bed before me, his cock throbbing, my mouth watered with an eagerness. I could almost feel the smooth skin of him sliding between my lips.
I need him in my mouth, on my tongue...
Chapter Nineteen
Caleb
Paige circled her hand around my cock, and with the overwhelming desire rolling through me, I found myself on the verge of passing out. Swooping her legs beneath her bottom, she rose onto her knees and moved closer.
I cupped her face, kissing her as she worked her hand up and down my aching length. Her lips left mine, and she lowered herself.
Holy shit.
Her lips brushed against the swollen crown, and as my cock pulsed, the head slid between her lips and into the soft warmth of her mouth. My eyes closed at the same time I let out a breath. It wasn’t going to take me long.
I pulled my cock from her mouth with a sigh, knowing this position had to be awkward for her. “One second.”
Lying on my back, I spread my legs, inviting her between my thighs. I didn’t know how much experience she had besides not having gone all the way, but this would make it easier for her, and as she sat on her legs between my thighs, she looked more relaxed. She peered at me for a second, her face so innocent, before she leaned forward, and inch by inch, my cock disappeared into her mouth.
Oh my God!
One of her hands cupped my balls as if they were delicate china as her tongue moved up my shaft. It could have been a hundred degrees in here and my cock could have been her favorite Popsicle. Maybe she had had some practice.
In all fairness, it did feel like a hundred fucking degrees, and I was beyond horny after being stuck in the midst of a pleasure-and-pain fusion from the number of hours my cock had been hard. I covered her hand with mine and squeezed, forcing her to give me a tighter grip. I was too fucking turned on to play sweet. She took note and double-fisted my cock, pumping me harder as she sucked and fluttered her tongue over the head with an expertise I hadn’t expected. My cock swelled, and the muscles in my body tightened as I rode on the edge of my release.
