Catherine jumps out of the car and opens the passenger side, and Caleb dives in as I run around and get in the driver’s side. The dark haired guy is coming down the porch steps when I throw the car into gear and swerve onto the street, knocking over his motorcycle as I speed by.
“Are we going home?” Catherine asks after a few blocks, still sounding panicked.
“No,” I say evenly, “we’re going to the hospital.”
“I-I think I’m fine. They didn’t hurt me. I don’t need to—”
“Look at Caleb!” I snap. He’s slumped against the window, smearing blood across the glass.
“Oh.”
I clench my teeth. Caleb’s told me that she doesn’t respond well to being yelled at, so I need to calm down. I force myself to take several deep breaths, and when I’m finally able to control my voice, I say, “Catherine? Could you do me a favor?”
“What?”
“Please call Amy, and ask her to come to the hospital.” I take another deep breath. “Tell her it’s an emergency.”
I gently squeeze Caleb’s hand and let it go. His knuckles are swollen, and two of them are split. The sight of it makes my chest tight. He’s stripped to the waist. His fingers grip the edges of the exam table and his head is hanging. They gave him some heavy-duty ibuprofen, but it hasn’t kicked in yet. There are bruises across his ribs and back. His ankle is swollen but not broken, thank God. His cheek is a little puffy, but the cut on his cheekbone didn’t need stitches.
“I’ll be right back, okay? Can you get dressed again, or do you need help?”
“I’m fine. I can do it,” he mumbles. Resisting the urge to pull him into my arms and never let go, I walk out of the exam room.
He’s okay.
But I’m not sure I am.
Catherine is in the reception area, curled up and sleeping on one of the vinyl loveseats. I wish I could do the same, seeing as it’s almost five in the morning. My feet are killing me, and I’m still wearing my russet cocktail dress. I must look ridiculous, but I don’t really care.
I only care about one thing right now.
Catherine has a folder with some self-care instructions sticking out of her bag. She spoke to a psychiatry resident as soon as we got here, who interviewed her for an hour and determined she didn’t need to be admitted. Amy got here soon after that and is hunched in a nearby chair. She discards her magazine when she sees me coming.
“How is he?” she asks me. She looks irritable and tired, and I can’t really blame her.
“He doesn’t need to be admitted.”
She sags with relief. “Oh, good.” She picks up her purse. “I’ll go talk to him and then you guys can take Katie and—”
“No, Amy,” I say quietly.
She frowns. “What?”
“I’m taking Caleb, and you’re taking Katie. You guys can come to the apartment and pick up her meds and some clothes, but she needs to stay with you today.”
Her mouth drops open. “No, I-I have kids—”
“I understand that, but here’s the deal: Caleb takes care of Catherine all the time. Every single day. Emotionally, financially, you name it. He doesn’t resent it. He loves her and always puts her first. But it’s a big job, as I’m sure you know.”
“Yes, but—”
“No, not today.” I meet her eyes and don’t look away. There are so many things I could say. So many things I want to say. Stop blaming him. He was abused, too. He needs someone to take care of him because his family has done a shitty job. But instead I focus on the immediate situation, because I suspect that’s all she can handle right now.
“Catherine needs to be supervised, and he can’t do that. He’s going to need to keep his foot up, and he needs to rest. He’ll recover quickly, but only if you help. You can offer him a break, and he needs it so badly right now. You take care of Catherine, and I’ll take care of him. Twenty-four hours is all I want.”
“Twenty-four hours.” She tilts her head. “Why should you get to decide?”
“I don’t—you do. And I know you’ll do the right thing, because you love your brother and sister.”
She nods, and by her tender expression, I can tell that she does love them, but she has no idea how to handle either of their needs. “What do I do if Katie freaks out or something?”
“Call Dr. Prihadi. Call the partial hospitalization program. I’ll make sure you have all those numbers.” I can’t believe she doesn’t have them already. Caleb really has been doing this all by himself. “This is a wonderful thing you’re doing for him, Amy.”
Amy looks over her shoulder at her little sister, who snores softly and turns over. “Okay,” she says quietly. “Twenty-four hours. I can do that.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Caleb
I wake to the sound of the shower running. I lie very still, trying to gather my wits, which isn’t easy because pain gnaws at all my edges. I’m in my bed. No shirt, just a pair of sweats. I take a breath and wince, then glance down to see a purple-red bruise the size of a fist on my left side. Everything aches. I feel like I’ve been dropped off a building and splatted on the sidewalk.
The shower switches off. I need to get up and make sure Katie’s taken her meds. Groaning, I push up on an elbow and reach for my phone. What the hell. It’s noon already.
The bathroom door squeaks as it swings open, and then I hear cabinets clacking shut in the kitchen and the tap running. A few seconds later, Romy appears in my doorway, clutching a bag full of ice cubes, a towel, a glass of water, and a bottle of pills. I squint at her, praying that I’m not hallucinating. Her hair is wet and messy. She’s wearing one of my t-shirts, which hangs to her thighs. I pull the sheet over me in an attempt to conceal my growing hard-on.
“We need to ice your ankle again,” she says, “and you can take another of these.” She sets the ice and towel down at the end of the bed and shakes the bottle of pills.
“Katie?” I croak.
“Do you remember?”
I fall back on the pillows. “It’s a little foggy,” I admit.
“She’s at Amy’s for the day. I made sure she had her medications and a change of clothes, and I gave Amy all the emergency numbers in case she goes into crisis.” She hands me the glass of water and gives me one of the pills. “She’ll drop Catherine off tomorrow morning.”
“Is she okay?” I ask after I’ve swallowed it down.
Romy gives me a look that I can’t quite translate. She sits at the edge of the bed and uncovers my feet. “She’s fine, Caleb. She was scared, and I think she knows she messed up, but other than that, she wasn’t hurt.” She bows her head. “Not like you were,” she murmurs.
She carefully lifts my right ankle and slides a pillow beneath my foot. I grit my teeth to keep from groaning again. She wraps the ice in the towel and sets it on my ankle, and then she crawls up and lowers herself next to me. “Amy knows how to reach you if she absolutely needs to. You don’t have to worry.” Her fingers skim along my forehead, smoothing my hair away from my face.
“Thank you,” I whisper, squeezing my eyes shut. It’s happening again. Her tenderness is peeling away all my outer layers, and it’s good, but almost hurts.
“The ibuprofen should kick in soon, and you need to get more sleep.” She kisses a spot above my eyebrow, and I reach for her, my fingers sliding through her wet hair.
“I could go—” she begins.
“You can’t leave unless you want me to go with you,” I say. “Until you have that restraining order, and maybe even after, you need to be really careful, Romy.”
She chuckles. “I was going to say I could go nap on the couch.” Her hand comes to rest on my stomach. The lightest of touches, but it unwinds me quickly.
“That’s too far away,” I mumble, pulling her mouth to mine. She makes a helpless sound as I push my tongue between her teeth, and just like that, the pain in my body, my chest, my ankle, my cheek, all of it is gone, replaced by a desperate craving for her. She
moves closer, carefully, like she’s afraid of hurting me, so I grab her hip and pull her halfway on top of me. I’m not being gentle enough. I know that. But as my hands move across her back and I realize she’s not wearing anything under that t-shirt, my control splinters. I grasp her thighs and spread her legs over me, my fingers following the seam of her body until I find the softest, most vulnerable part of her.
Romy lets out a sharp breath as I stroke her. “Caleb,” she says against my mouth.
Somewhere, in the thick haze of my lust, her voice reaches me, and I know I have to give her a choice. “Tell me to stop,” I force out, right before I wrap my hand around the back of her head and thrust my tongue into her mouth again.
“—hurt you,” she says between kisses. “You need to—”
I pull back a little, and her forehead rests against mine as I try to catch my breath. “Last night didn’t end the way I wanted it to.”
She wriggles a little, because the motion of my fingers hasn’t paused. She’s wet now, more slippery as the seconds pass. I want to push myself deep inside her and never let her get away. “It didn’t end the way I wanted it to, either,” she whispers, her lips brushing mine.
“How did you want it to end?”
She props herself up on an elbow. “I wanted you to have the best night of your life. I wanted you.”
“And do you want me now?”
She gasps as I slide two fingers inside her. My cock is throbbing, wedged between our bodies, each motion of her hips sending jolts of pleasure through my belly all the way up to my chest. “I don’t think I need to answer that,” she says.
I pause, her words hitting me right between the eyes. I withdraw my fingers and lay my hand on her thigh. “Yes, you do.”
She blinks down at me. “What?”
“You remember what he said last night? What Alex said? He said he didn’t care what you wanted.” Pain flashes across her features, and I almost feel bad for reminding her of it, but I have to push this. It’s not right. “I need you to understand something, Romy. What you want, it matters to me. It will always matter to me.”
I can tell by looking at her that she’s sorting through the flurry of her thoughts and feelings, but I have no idea what they are. I want to tell her I’m in love with her, because that’s pretty much the only thought in my head. I want to beg her to love me back, because it’s going to hurt so fucking much if she doesn’t. But I don’t want her to think I’m only saying it because I want her body, and with a raging erection pressed against her belly, it’s going to be hard to convince her otherwise. I want to say it at the right moment, and now is not that moment. Now is about what she wants, and only that.
The corner of her mouth lifts, and her fingers flutter around my face, so tender. “Who said you’re not good with words?” she murmurs, kissing her way from my jaw to my chin to my lips. “You want to know what I want?”
I merely nod, because regardless of what she just said, I’m clean out of words right now.
She sits up and strips off the t-shirt. My heart stutters in my chest. I don’t know which part of her I want to stare at most, so my gaze sort of bounces around to her face, her breasts, her thighs. “I want you to take control, Caleb. I want you to be in control right now.”
My eyes snap to hers. “But I thought you needed to have control, to feel safe—”
“I do feel safe.” She gives me a breathtaking smile. “Because I trust you.”
She sits back and scoots away from me a little, then slowly, inch by inch, spreads her knees. Her expression is raw, vulnerable, and painfully sexy as she offers herself. I have to remind myself to breathe. I roll to the side and the icepack slides off my foot. Inspiration strikes, and I sit up and grab the bag, removing a single ice cube before letting the rest topple off the bed.
Ignoring the pain in my ankle, I move toward her, feeling the tremors of her body through the mattress. “Lie back.”
She does. For some reason, having her do what I say like that is the biggest turn on ever. I hold the ice between my fingers and draw it along her lips, which part to allow her tongue to flick at the little cube. I rise up over her and replace the ice with my mouth, hot over cold. Her hand brushes against my cock and it jerks. But when she starts to close her fingers around it, I shake my head. “Not yet.”
She removes her hand. I plunge my tongue deep into her mouth, and she opens wide, gasping as I slide the ice down her throat and around the swell of her breast, circling slowly. I continue the motion as I kiss and nip my way down the wet trail I’ve left, painting myself a map. She caresses my cheek with her knuckles and sighs. Her hips rise off the bed, and I smile as I draw my tongue across her collarbone. I’ve never felt so powerful, knowing Romy wants me, knowing she’s craving something that only I can give her. There’s something primal inside me, shaking the bars of its cage, screaming for release, but I hold it back. Savoring her is better.
I swirl the taut pink bud of her nipple with my tongue while I blaze a chilling trail down the center of her belly with the rapidly melting ice. Her skin is addictive, goosebumped and sensitive, and beneath it I feel every muscle flexing as I torment her. I scrape my teeth along her stomach before letting a few frigid drops fall into her bellybutton. She cries out and then laughs, the best sound in the world, but one that cuts off abruptly as I suck gently, probing that shallow well as she shivers. Her hands are on my shoulders now, pushing me down.
I sit up a little. I want to see what comes next. My fingers are nearly numb as I move the ice over the hollow of her hipbone and into the little patch of hair at the apex of her thighs. “Spread your legs,” I whisper, and nearly moan as she obeys. So pink, so amazingly beautiful and perfect and mine. “Tell me to stop if it’s too much.”
“Not on your life,” she says, tangling her fingers in my hair. “Don’t you dare stop.”
The desperate sound of her voice sends a bolt of frenzied desire through me. How about if it’s too much for me? I sink my teeth into the soft flesh of her inner thigh, not even close to breaking skin, but hard enough to remind her she needs to have a say. She cries out, and even past the roaring in my ears, I register the pleasure. I see it in the rise of her hips, how her toes curl, how she bares herself to me. That primal thing inside me roars. No. Not yet.
I slide what remains of the cube down and down and down, and she whimpers, her thighs tensing. There’s only a tiny shard of ice left; it’s no match for the heat of her body. I watch the rest of it melt as I trace it over the delicate petals of skin around her opening. And then I slide my wet, freezing fingers into all that heat.
“Oh my God,” she gasps, but that’s the last thing she says for a while. My mouth closes around the swollen nub of her clit and she arches, making gorgeous, pleading, animal noises. I move my hand to the small of her back and pull her to me, replacing my fingers with my tongue. Her taste makes me crazy, sweet and hot, mixed with the honeyed tang of her sweat, and I can’t get enough. Romy’s movements become rhythmic as she spirals higher, in search of what she needs. Her fingers tug at my hair, and her thighs press against my cheeks, making the spot where I got punched last night ache, but fuck if I even care.
She comes with a scream, a broken, beautiful sound that snaps my wire. She’s still crying out as I crawl up her body. I’m shoving my pants down my legs when it occurs to me I’m missing something. But then—“I’m on the Pill,” she says breathlessly.
I’ve never done this without a raincoat. “I—are you sure?”
“I’m sure. I want you like this. Just you. Right now.”
Just me. Just her. Skin to skin. My heart thundering, I kick off my sweats so quickly that my twisted ankle kicks back, blazing streaks of pain up my calf. I tense up for a second, but Romy’s fingers close around my cock and everything else goes away. She strokes me from balls to tip, her palm skimming over the incredibly sensitive strip of skin along my length. It’s a light touch, but the build-up it causes is intense. My hips jerk helplessly as t
he primal thing inside me rattles its cage, straining the hinges and bending the bars. I grasp her knee and push her legs apart, settling my body between them. Her breaths are blasting in my ear, and I raise my head and look into her eyes. I don’t want her to be able to forget this. Ever. I want her to remember. I know I will.
I guide myself to her wet, slick center, grinding my teeth at the sensation. My lower back tingles as I slide in a few inches and pull out. Even if it kills me—and it feels like it might—I have to make this last. I don’t ever want it to end. I do it again, pushing into that tight, slippery heat and withdrawing just as quickly. Romy whimpers every time I do, whispering incoherently. I lean closer, trying to translate her desperate words. I promised her that her wants mattered to me. I force myself to concentrate, sorting out the halting syllables … fuck me … Is that what she’s saying or am I imagining that?
“Fuck me, Caleb,” she whispers. Holy shit. That is what she’s saying. “Come inside me.”
The primal creature breaks loose. I thrust into her and my vision goes dark. My hips piston against her as I bury myself deep again and again and again. For a moment I wonder if I’m hurting her, but then her fingernails start to dig into my ass, urging me on. Our collision is so fucking fierce that I completely lose track of myself. Everything is Romy, her scent, her taste, her cries ringing in my head, her fingernails in my skin, the incredible pressure of her, the heat, the friction. My body against hers, nothing between us. The tension knots in my stomach, in my legs, everything drawing impossibly tight. Her body trembles under mine, my fingers digging into her thigh as I slam into her.
I come hard, everything inside me clenching and bursting free. Romy says my name as I disintegrate. She grips my hips and wraps her legs around me as she feels me shudder inside her. Her body is my anchor; her arms catch me as I fall to earth. I sink onto her, holding her tight, wanting to stay inside her forever. An irresistible heaviness seeps through my limbs, and I can’t move, can’t speak, can’t think. Not wanting to suffocate her, I awkwardly roll to the side but don’t let go, still needing her against me. The sensation of her hair tickling my neck is the only thing I’m aware of for a long time.
Heat Up the Fall: New Adult Boxed Set (6 Book Bundle) Page 59
