by Nicole Fox
My fingers barely brush the silky length of him before Caleb’s free hand clamps down on my wrist.
“Not yet,” he says, echoing his response from earlier when I asked about changing training methods.
“Why not?”
Breathless, I try to pull myself away from his fingers—I can’t think when I’m this close to the edge—but Caleb is relentless.
He pins my arm to the wall once again and adds a third finger, stretching me around his digits.
I moan, both in protest and pleasure.
I open my mouth to repeat the question, to demand an answer, but the first waves of my orgasm shiver through me, and I lose the ability to speak.
Instead, I squeeze my eyes closed and tip my head back against the wall. I’m riding his hand with abandon now, my hips rolling over his knuckles, seeking the delicious pressure of his thumb.
No room to be self-conscious or ashamed. The need for satisfaction has pushed everything aside. Turned me into an animal.
I reach out with my free hand to explore him—his chiseled face, his silky hair, his muscled arms—but Caleb quickly releases my other arm only long enough to collect both of my wrists.
He pins my arms against the wall above my head and forces me to surrender entirely to his touch.
It’s frustrating and erotic and too much for me to contain.
A powerful release rocks through me. It’s not a steady, unrelenting rumble like an earthquake, but a sudden fissure in the bedrock of my body. It feels as though I’m being split wide and swallowed by warmth and pleasure.
I’m grateful Finn’s house is set far away from the road on a hill because otherwise, the neighbors might make noise complaints.
The sounds coming out of my mouth are unrecognizable and uncontrollable.
I’ve never come like this before.
It’s more than a clenching of abdominal muscles and a wave of warmth. I’m drowning in the release.
Pleasure ripples through my muscles, sending jolts to my extremities until the only thing keeping me from collapsing in a puddle of useless bones is Caleb’s fingers inside of me.
Distantly, I realize Caleb is using me like a puppet, literally controlling my movements from the inside.
But I can’t bring myself to care when it feels so. Damn. Good.
Caleb strokes me from the inside out as the pleasure recedes. When it slips away entirely, leaving me sated and lazy, he pulls his fingers out, adjusts himself inside of his jeans, and steps away.
I reach towards him with spaghetti arms. “Don’t you want—”
He shakes his head. “Not tonight.”
I want to argue with him—it isn’t fair that he has torn down my defenses while keeping his firmly in place.
But before I can, he walks away and begins gathering his things.
“Are you free this weekend?” he asks as he switches off the single lamp in the room, plunging the house into darkness.
I swallow past the cotton in my throat. “Yeah. My mom thinks I’m training for a marathon, so I can work in an hour or two Saturday and Sunday.”
He turns to face me, but my eyes haven’t adjusted to the gloom, so I can only see the broad outline of him.
“What about overnight?”
My heart jumps in my chest. “Overnight?”
Is that what he meant by not tonight? That he wants me for an entire night? Endless hours of that? I’m not sure I’d survive it.
Before today, I would have told anyone I was sexually experienced, but now I’m not so sure. It has never felt like that before, and Caleb only used one hand.
I can just make out the curve of his mouth as he pulls his lips to one side and shrugs casually. “There is a camping trip this weekend with Noah and J.C., and I want you to come.”
I blink at him, stunned.
I hope his vision is as obscured as mine because I don’t want him to see how much this offer has thrown me.
I clear my throat and do my best to match his easy tone. “You want me to come with you on a camping trip?”
“For practice,” Caleb adds a bit too quickly. “I don’t want to lose an entire weekend and have to keep up this arrangement any longer than necessary. Besides, Noah and J.C. will be drunk and high most of the time anyway, so we’ll have plenty of time to practice training on uneven terrain and someplace aside from a flat living room. Plus, it will keep up our cover.”
I frown in confusion, and Caleb answers my unspoken question, letting me know he can see much more of my face than I’d like him to. “We’re fuck buddies, remember?”
His words feel like a cup of cold water in my face.
Of course, that’s what we are. My face flushes red with embarrassment at my own naivete. I went into this arrangement knowing exactly who Caleb was, yet I still allowed myself to be swept in. I hadn’t even realized it was happening.
Rather than a conscious decision, the hope that I could be the girl who would change Caleb and soften him settled over me slowly like a sunset.
The light slipped away without my noticing.
Until, suddenly, I’m standing with him in the dark with the ghost of an ache between my legs and shame curled in my chest.
I want to spit at him and storm away. I want to tell him that he can fuck himself from now on.
Except, if I do, doesn’t that mean he has won?
At this point, the only thing I’ve yielded is one glorious orgasm.
While my loss of control is damning, Caleb doesn’t need to know exactly how much of myself I gave him in that moment. He doesn’t need to know that the act was anything more than physical, even for a second.
“Well, considering I’m the only one who has benefitted from our arrangement so far, it seems like you’re my fuck buddy,” I say, calmly reaching down to pull my zipper up and adjust my shorts, shimmying my hips back and forth.
When I look up, Caleb’s eyes have widened, the whites visible in the faint glow coming from the windows behind me. “But I can probably make an overnight work. I won’t be able to leave my house with a tent without my parents pitching a fit, though. So, we’ll have to share. Is that okay with you?”
Caleb is silent for a few beats before he lightly shakes his head and nods. “Yeah, whatever.”
Is it my imagination, or does his voice sound strained? He might be regretting his rejection of my offer to return the favor, but I certainly won’t be offering again.
I leave the house with my resolve set.
Yes, I just lost a battle, but there is still a war to be won.
I intend to be the one who wins it.
22
Haley
What kind of idiot was I to suggest sharing a tent with Caleb?
The world’s biggest.
I blame it on postorgasmic confidence. I was riding the waves of serotonin, and I wasn’t thinking clearly.
Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that until after I’d already convinced my parents to let me go on the trip in the first place.
I lie to them, of course. My parents have no idea that my relationship with Estefania is in the toilet, so I tell them it is going to be a girls’ night at her house.
In middle school, my mom would call Estefania’s mom to check on my plans and make sure everything was arranged. But now that I’m eighteen, she trusts me.
Her trust makes me feel like shit since I’m lying, but it’s convenient, and I mentally pat myself on the back as I load my stuff into my car and drive away.
By the time I loop back around a few minutes later and pull into Finn’s open garage where Caleb is waiting for me, I feel nauseous.
Twenty-four entire hours with Caleb.
Before this, we’ve spent no more than an hour, maybe an hour and a half, together, and even that has had a spotty success rate.
We’ll kill each other.
Or … not. There is a very different option on the table, as well, that I do my best not to think about as Caleb transfers my duffel bag from my car to his truc
k.
He’s wearing a white short-sleeved Henley shirt, khaki shorts that cut off a few inches above his knees, and tall socks with hiking boots, and he looks like he just jumped out of the pages of an outdoor lifestyle magazine.
I’ve never had a thing for the Boy Scout type, but the look is lighting my fire for sure.
“You look like you’re about to be sick.”
I blink and realize Caleb is looking at me. The tent, a cooler, and two sleeping bags are now in the back of the truck, and his hands are resting on his tapered hips.
“What?”
He circles a hand around his face, brows lowered in concern. “You’re paler than normal. I don’t want you to barf in my truck.”
The spell lifts suddenly, and I roll my eyes and brush past him to get to the passenger side door. “Then you better stop talking. The sound of your voice is making me queasy.”
Nothing could be further from the truth, but I need some quiet to get my thoughts in order.
Luckily, Caleb actually listens. Aside from telling me where we’re going, we don’t talk. The cab is filled with his warm scent and the sound of the local classic rock station.
“If you need to call or text anyone, I’d recommend you do it now.”
We are just north of town, farmhouses scattered along the stretch of country road, and his voice sounds loud after such a long stretch of silence.
“The service out here isn’t great.”
I angle out of my seat so I can grab my phone from my back pocket. “That sounds like the beginning of a bad horror movie. You do realize we are going to be murdered in our sleep now, right?”
I glance over just in time to catch Caleb’s mouth tilt into a smirk. “Don’t worry, Haley. No one will touch you but me.”
He is being facetious, but my body still warms at the thought.
It goes immediately cold, however, when I check my phone and realize I have a missed text. From Estefania.
Where are you?
I haven’t heard from her until now. So, the sudden appearance of her name on my screen leads me to the obvious conclusion that my mom decided to call her mom after all.
My mom must’ve called Estefania’s mom to check on my story, realized I was lying, and Estefania is calling to warn me.
“Shit,” I mumble without realizing it.
Caleb looks over. “What?”
I ignore him and fire back a text.
Going camping. Did my mom talk to you?
My leg shakes as I wait for her response. After everything I’ve had to deal with over the last few years, being grounded should be the least of my worries, but I don’t want to disappoint my parents.
Luckily, a reply comes within thirty seconds.
I haven’t heard from her. What’s going on? I just wanted to know where you are. Thought we could meet up. To talk.
Relief fills my chest, and I ease back in the leather seat with a sigh.
“What is up with you?” Caleb asks, a tinge of annoyance in his voice.
“I thought my mom knew I lied, but it’s fine.” I chuckle softly at my own paranoia. “Everything’s fine.”
Caleb shakes his head like he isn’t quite sure what to do with me and turns his attention back to the road.
He probably thinks it’s childish of me to be so concerned with what my mom thinks.
From what I can tell, he has free rein to do what he wants, when he wants. I’m sure he can’t relate.
Shoot. I want to talk to you, but I’m going camping with some people and cell service is bad. Call tomorrow?
The three dots showing Estefania is responding appear and disappear three times, and I keep checking the bars in the top corner of my phone to make sure I haven’t lost service. It would figure that the first time my best friend messages me in months, I’m in the middle of nowhere.
I lift my phone towards the ceiling of the car just in case there is slightly better coverage up there.
You’re camping? You are friends with people who camp now?
I know what Estefania is thinking, and I want to explain everything. I want to tell her that I haven’t replaced her with new friends, and I have definitely not morphed into the kind of person who likes to camp.
But the story of how I came to be sitting in Caleb Wilson’s truck on my way to an outdoor freaking slumber party with him and his friends is way too complicated to fit into a text.
Especially when I have spotty coverage and might not be able to get it all out.
It will have to wait.
Just an overnight thing. It’s a LONG story. As soon as I’m back in civilization, I’ll call you. And don’t worry, I will not get in the lake.
Estefania has had a longstanding vendetta against lakes ever since she fell in one at a middle-school cookout and got an ear infection from the dirty water.
I want her to laugh at the inside joke. To confirm, in even a small way, that we are still friends. I want her to know that I haven’t forgotten her or abandoned her.
But before she can respond, the bars in the corner of my phone disappear. “No Service” appears in its place.
I drop my now-useless phone in the cupholder. “What are we supposed to do if there’s an emergency? What if you burn your face off trying to start a fire, and we can’t call 911 to come save you?”
“That’s part of the fun,” Caleb says smoothly. Then, he glances over at me and lifts one brow. “Plus, it’s late August in Texas. I doubt we’ll be cold. Even if we are, I have better ways of keeping warm.”
My entire body flushes and a weight presses down at my center, impossible to ignore. I shift my hips in the seat to dispel the discomfort. Caleb’s eyes are on me the entire time.
“Alcohol.” He points a thumb over his shoulder towards the cooler in the back of the truck. “If I get desperate enough, I’ll get drunk.”
I turn towards him in surprise just in time to see him hide his smirk. It has only been thirty minutes, and he is already messing with me. I better prepare for a very long night.
23
Haley
When Caleb pulls his truck through the campgrounds, I’m surprised by how few people are around.
“Now that school has started back up, this part of the campground stays pretty empty,” he explains. “The diehard outdoorsmen have trailers down by the water.”
“How far away is the lake?”
Caleb pulls off the dirt road and towards a line of trees where I finally see another car pulled into the shade and two guys hauling camping gear out of the back.
“Are you actually worried we’re going to be murdered?” Caleb asks, throwing the car into park. “Are you worried no one will hear you if you scream?”
I know he is teasing me, but it doesn’t stop goose bumps from forming on the backs of my arms. “I am now.”
Caleb chuckles, the sound deep and low. “You’ll be fine. If you do scream, it will be clear to everyone that you like it. Trust me.”
He would know. When Caleb’s fingers were inside of me, I sounded like an overzealous porn star.
Embarrassment flashes through me.
Caleb smirks again and moves to get out of the car, but I reach across the console and grab his arm.
When he turns back, his eyes land on where our skin is touching before he looks me in the eyes. “What did you tell your friends about why I’m here?”
I don’t want to blow our cover story and ruin my chance at learning to defend myself, but I also don’t want to look stupid.
Whatever the story is—whether I’m a girlfriend of sorts or just a fuck buddy—I want to look confident and in control of my role in the relationship.
I don’t want to be a mumbling, embarrassed idiot in front of the Golden Boys.
I already know J.C. likes me. He has sought me out at Ravenlake Prep enough times between classes that I know he doesn’t mind my company.
But I’m still working on winning Noah over.
I don’t know why it really matters to m
e what they think, but it does. As sad as it is, the Golden Boys are the closest thing I have to friends at the moment, and I don’t want to blow my chance.
Even though it likely won’t matter in a month or two when my deal with Caleb is done, I still want to make the most of the time I have to be a “normal” teenager. Whatever that means.
“Nothing.” Caleb pulls his arm away and opens his door. When his feet hit the ground, he turns around and winks at me, his smirk returning. “They don’t know you’re coming. Surprise.”
I wonder for a second whether Caleb is lying, but when I get out of the car and J.C. and Noah look at me like I have a second head and three boobs, I guess Caleb was telling the truth.
“Hi.” I lift my hand in a weak wave.
“To what do we owe the pleasure of your luxurious company?” J.C. asks warmly, though his eyes narrow as he turns towards Caleb. “We didn’t know to expect you.”
“I told you I’d bring along my own good time.” Caleb sidles up next to me and drops his arm over my shoulders, forcing me to sag against his side. “Couldn’t find anyone who matches that description, so I brought Haley instead.”
Fuck buddy it is, then.
I want to grind my teeth and dig an elbow in his ribs, but that would make it clear I’m not in on the joke.
So, instead, I wrap my arm around Caleb’s waist and hug him.
The solidness of him is still surprising to me. The tapering of his waist looks delicate, but there is nothing delicate about the muscles rippling across his midsection.
My reaction makes him tense so his abs feel even harder under my arm. I want to let him go simply to stop the chemical reaction happening in my own body, but I keep a tight hold.
I have to prove my point: I won’t be the butt of his jokes.
“That’s why we’re all here, right?” I ask with a smile. “A good time?”
J.C. and Noah hesitate, glancing at one another. I can’t help but notice neither of them brought a plus-one. But before I can become too self-conscious about my status as the only non-Golden Boy at the campsite, Noah gives me a half smile and shrugs, and J.C. rushes forward to press a cold can of beer into my hand.
