I cut the engine and stared at him for a moment, really stared at him like I hadn’t been able to when he was fully awake. It was a brief moment so I didn’t feel too creepy, but I almost caught my breath in my throat at his face.
He was turned slightly away from me, but he was perfection in human form. His strong jawline curled up into his thick, shaggy hair. His ear was even beautiful; he was just so bloody gorgeous I felt shabby and awkward around him yet again.
The streetlight of the parking lot lit up the flat plain of his cheek, his five o’clock shadow stubble had grown in over the past week, giving him a rugged feral hotness that made my belly clench and the rest of me turn to liquid energy. His thick dark eyelashes fanned along his high cheekbone and flickered in the dim light as he started to wake up.
God I wanted to kiss him then but managed to knock the steering wheel as I was leaning towards him. The horn beeped loudly in the silence of the night and Caleb jerked fully awake.
“Are we home?” he asked and rubbed sleep from his eyes.
“We are,” I replied and opened the door as hot shame crept over my body. The spell had been broken and I had been exposed as a creepy weirdo peering at Caleb in the van.
He got out of his side and came around as I fumbled with the key fob trying to lock it.
“Here, let me,” he said, taking it from my trembling hand and hitting the button. “Why are you so nervous?”
“I’m not nervous,” I replied, took the keys, straightened my back and shook off my embarrassment.
“There’s nothing wrong with taking a look, you know,” he said with a lopsided grin.
I stopped and whirled around to look at him. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I was half asleep but I could feel you watching me,” he replied. “And I’m telling you there’s nothing wrong with it.”
“There isn’t?” I asked, my breath definitely hitching in my chest. I hated that he’d known I was staring, but I loved that he didn’t mind.
“I stare at you, you know,” he said with a grin. “I’m just better at not getting caught.”
With that he took my hand and led me to my apartment, me in stunned silence.
When did he look at me? And how did he remember where I lived? He’d only been over one time.
As I opened the door to my place I stopped and looked up at him defiantly. “Have you been stalking me?”
He chuckled and bent down for a quick kiss. “You can’t stalk the willing, sweetheart.” He swept past me into my space and left me with my mouth hanging open.
I laughed then, shrugged my shoulders and closed the door. “You’ve got me there,” I said and followed him into my living room, my hands shaking at what might happen now that Caleb had made his way into my house and seemed to be making his way into my heart.
Chapter 17
“What time are you picking Lucy up?” Caleb asked as he sprawled on the couch with a languid look in his eyes.
All I could think was how dusty and dull my place must seem to him. His mansion was incredible and stuffed to the hilt with exquisite furnishings and artwork. I had a second hand couch, chair, a bookshelf with second hand books, a dented TV stand and our only new item, a flat screen TV and disc player for Lucy’s extensive Disney collection.
“Uh, not until the afternoon,” I said with a dry mouth. “You want something to drink? Water? Juice? Coffee?”
“How about you just come and sit over here by me,” he said with a wicked little grin as he patted the couch next to him. “I think we need to get to know each other a little better, hey babe?” He loosened the top button of his jeans and I felt warm all over as I almost took the first step towards him and the sex we were obviously going to have.
But I hesitated. It felt so wrong somehow though, he had just confessed the greatest tragedy he could have possibly lived through and now he seemed to be hitting on me. I felt like Caleb had retreated and I was getting just one facet of his public face. Instead of the grumpy loner, I was getting the charming player…the man I’d seen at the club that night out with Addy.
I didn’t want the player or the grump; I wanted Caleb.
“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,” I said with my arms crossed in front of me, resisting the urge to leap on his body and take him up on the offer even knowing it would most likely ruin any burgeoning romance between us. “How about that coffee?”
He frowned and focused on my face. “You’re no fun.”
“This isn’t a fun night, Caleb.”
“It could be,” he said suggestively and patted the couch next to him again. “You just need to loosen up a little, babe.”
“Think about this,” I told him, “Think about what you just told me in the park. I need you to be real with me or this is never going to go beyond friendship.” I surprised myself by standing up to him. I’d never been allowed to be this in control of a situation around Rolland, but it felt like this circumstance demanded it. I needed Caleb in my life, not just for one cheap superficial night.
He looked shocked, opened his mouth as if to give me some snappy reply, then closed it again. “What the hell, Brooke?” he demanded with equal parts anger and admiration.
I felt my stomach clench, afraid I’d crossed a line, but my stupid stubborn nature kept my mouth moving and I said, “What do you mean what the hell? You spill your guts to me, tell me you want more than friendship, and then you put on your cheesy club act and hit on me like I’m just some slutty college girl you want to bang and leave in the morning. Well that ain’t gonna happen, Caleb Harder. I’m not somebody you can fool with your charming smile and your hot body.”
He drew in a deep breath, ran his hand through his thick hair and smiled slowly. “God dammit, Brooke,” he chuckled. “You’re the first women who’s ever turned me down.”
I arched my brow and stared down at him. “The first?” I asked sarcastically. “I find that hard to believe.”
“Hey, you’re the one who called me hot, most women think that’s enough,” he said, sitting up on my couch and collecting himself somewhat.
“I said you had a hot body,” I retorted as if that was any better. He laughed out loud and I moved to the kitchen to get him his coffee.
Caleb Harder was confusing the hell out of me and I needed to focus on a simple task to keep myself from crumbling in front of him. He was so overwhelmingly attractive that it was difficult to say no, but he was so wounded that I knew how he’d act if we did have sex tonight.
I knew because I felt like I would act the same way. I would retreat so far into myself that there would be no hope of anything developing between us, and that would crush the little blossom of love that was curling up out of the ground between us.
I finished making the coffee and took a cup back to Caleb. He was standing in front of my one little bookshelf going over the books I had on the shelf. I was happy I left my steamy romance novels on my Kindle and all I had out here were my literary obsessions.
I’d been reading from a young age and could always find my favorites at the thrift shop when I’d pick up clothes for Lucy and I. I wasn’t embarrassed of my weird obsession, in fact I’d always thought about going to college to become an English teacher or a writer but of course things had never worked out that way.
“You surprise me,” he said with an old copy of Middlemarch in his hand. “You didn’t strike me as the George Eliot type.”
I handed him his coffee and he set the book back on the shelf. I tried not to bristle at his words and said, “What type did I seem like to you?”
“Don’t be offended,” he told me and sat back on the couch. I took the chair and watched his perfect lips touch the edge of the mug and felt longing course through me. Oh to be that mug, even the steam of the coffee seemed to rise and curl around his face as if not wanting to leave him so soon.
“I’m not offended,” I replied, shaking it off. “I’m genuinely curious to know what type you thought I was.”
�
�It’s not that I don’t think you’re smart,” he said, glancing down at the coffee. “I know you’re bloody smart, Brooke. But I don’t think you have much time to read anything at all. You’re a hard working mom and seem to dedicate all your spare time to Lucy and I admire the hell out of that. Reading seems secondary in your world, so I would think you’d be more into the kind of cheesy romance my wife used to like. Escapism.”
“Middlemarch is an escape,” I said and relaxed. He hadn’t been insulting my lack of education after all. “What was her name?”
For a moment I thought I’d crossed that line and pushed him too hard. He was sobering up a little now and I didn’t know how freely he would discuss the most painful part of his life with me.
He drew a quavering breath, set the coffee mug on the table next to the couch and leaned towards me. He looked me in the eyes and said, “Her name was Anna. Our son was Trevor.”
“I’m so sorry,” I replied softly. “I know it means nothing for you to hear it from me, but my heart breaks for everything you’ve been through.”
“It does mean something coming from you,” he said and smiled through his pain. “You’re real. You’re the most authentic person I know and when you say something I know you mean it. That’s worth more than a thousand empty platitudes.”
I was quiet and let him reveal himself to me one sentence at a time. It was all we could do, two broken souls growing easier with each other.
My heart lurched at the thought of my turn, telling him about Rolland and everything that had happened, but I knew I could open up to Caleb one day but for now it was his turn.
“It was a car accident…a hit and run. The police still don’t know who did it,” he said, his voice cracking as he spoke. “It was late at night and they were driving up to the cabin for the weekend. I’d gone ahead to set things up earlier that day and didn’t know what had happened until close to midnight. They should have arrived at six, but it took me that long to react and look for them.”
“How could you have known?” I asked and reached out to touch him on the knee.
He flinched when my hand made contact but I kept it there, knowing he needed the human connection. I could feel the warmth of our contact and it made me feel human again, like I was before Rolland had stripped it all away from me and reduced me to something less than who I’d been.
“This is good,” he said, putting his hand on mine. “I don’t think I’ve ever talked about this with anyone.”
“Talking helps,” I said and felt my own walls slowly rise as I thought about the look on Caleb’s face when I detailed the horrible things I’d allowed to happen for all those years. Would he think less of me for not standing up to Rolland for my sake or Lucy’s? What kind of mother could have let her little girl go through that monster’s rage more than one time? And what kind of human being could have allowed herself to be ground down into nothing like that?
Caleb sipped his cooling coffee and seemed increasingly composed as the time went on and we chatted casually about our lives. I finally couldn’t stop yawning and had to make it to bed.
As I stood so did Caleb. “I’m going to come to your bed tonight,” he told me, caressing my cheek with the back of his knuckles, “I’m going to hold you and we are going to sleep.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” I asked.
“I want to touch you, Brooke, but I’m still too buzzed to do exactly what I want to do.”
“What would that be?” I gulped, looking into his intense green eyes.
“I want to take you, make you mine and make this more than friendship,” he said and held his hand on my face, cupping it gently. “I want to ruin you for other men and mark you as my territory, but it needs to happen when we’re ready. I want it to be perfect because you’re perfect. You deserve nothing less.”
I couldn’t breathe, the air fled my body and I couldn’t draw in another breath because of the power behind his words. I felt like he was putting a spell on me and I was powerless to resist. When Caleb Harder wanted me, he would take me and I would be his. That’s just the way the world worked now.
I was a marked woman, and truth be told, I was already his; we just didn’t fully know it yet.
“Let’s get to bed,” I said and pulled him behind me as we walked down the hall to my room. The air practically crackled with that crazy electric intensity between us, but we got into my little bed fully clothed and I felt his breath on the back of my neck until I closed my eyes and slipped into sleep with Caleb’s body keeping me warm and safe.
Chapter 18
Of course throwing us into a bed with that kind of animal attraction, Caleb’s drinking and both of us feeling raw and vulnerable was not exactly a good idea.
Of course we had good intentions, but of course our body heat multiplied until I awoke some time in the pre dawn with the light just starting to lighten the horizon with Caleb’s hands all over me.
“I don’t think–“
“Shhhhhh,” he said in my ear, his voice thick and hot with desire. I melted before a second protest reached my lips and I let him touch me.
“You are so beautiful, Brooke,” he whispered in a harsh tone from behind me. He slid his hands up under the front of my shirt and I nearly jumped out of my skin at his touch. He was so sensual the way he moved them over my body I felt like I was drowning in everything Caleb Harder.
“We shouldn’t do this…” I sighed and closed my eyes. I turned my head towards him and felt him rise up over me, his mouth seeking mine.
He found it and kissed me, his tongue slipping between my lips and tackling my own, swirling and sliding against me endlessly.
I tried to turn fully and embrace him but he stopped me dead with a single slip of his hand down the front of my pants.
I gasped and my eyelids snapped open. I saw his eyes blazing with need and I felt it rise up inside of me like a thirst that could only be quenched by his touch.
“I don’t know…” I exhaled against his mouth as his fingers sought my secret flesh. He prodded against me and slipped between my folds into my wetness, my soaked heat. I didn’t have time to tell him how frightened he made me feel just then, not from any threat of physical violence but simply the threat of being exposed to him. I felt raw and wounded as he stroked me, I felt nakedly vulnerable and almost on the verge of tears as he touched me.
I wanted him to touch me, god I wanted all of him, but I was so damned scared.
“Brooke,” he growled against my mouth. “Beautiful Brooke…”
His thumb slipped against my quivering cleft and found my clit, my center of desire and need and want and he touched it gently at first but sped up as I began to pant and moan.
He pulled back, lifted his other hand to cup my face and stared into my eyes. His thumb skated across my swollen lips and he slid it inside my mouth as his other one slipped across my sensitive nerves.
I instinctively sucked his thumb and groaned as his ministrations brought me higher and higher to the point of nearly bursting.
“I want you to come for me, Brooke…my beauty. I want to feel you come and see your beautiful face as you break loose and explode on me.”
I was wordless as I obeyed his order and let myself go, loosened my limbs and felt liquid and fiery as I blazed through my body to the center of my existence just then…Caleb’s eyes.
“Look at me when you come, beautiful Brooke,” he demanded and I obeyed again wordlessly. I watched his face as he mastered my body with a few simple motions of his hand and fingers. “Come for me.”
I groaned and writhed against him, arched my back and felt it all stream through my body and leave me as I exhaled one long moaning cry.
“Caleb,” I panted and was almost surprised at the pleasure making my voice so lusty and low.
“Yes, Brooke?” he asked and I twisted, trying to see him better, to slide against him, to touch him.
“I need you so bad…but I can’t…we can’t do this…” My voice trailed of
f and became so small I could no longer use it. I needed to tell him why, how the orgasm he’d just given me had brought up feelings I’d though long dead. The feelings that Rolland had beaten to nothingness…that I needed for us to go slow because I was so damned scared of him that I was shaking because of it.
How could I articulate all of this to him when my voice became stuck inside my throat and my tongue could no longer form the words I needed?
“I understand,” he growled in a deep, low voice, pulled his hands back from my body and let me fall forward away from his embrace.
He didn’t understand though, how could he when he didn’t know even twenty percent of my story. He held me again though and fell asleep again behind me, but I was restless and nervous that I had just broken something between the two of us because of my inability to let him in, to open myself up to him.
I fell asleep after him, tears threatening to fall from my eyes but I stubbornly kept them inside. I wasn’t going to show that pathetic weeping side of myself to Caleb. I didn’t want to drive him away with my weakness.
If only it had been that simple.
* * *
He was gone when I woke with the bright sunlight streaming in. At first I thought maybe he was in the bathroom or kitchen but the silence in my apartment was like somebody had wrapped my head in cotton batting. The world felt muffled and distant.
I rolled onto my back into the spot Caleb had laid and I let the tears come then.
My stupid frightened little mouse side had scared him off. I should never have let him see that part of me, that was the part that had driven Rolland into rages that got worse and worse as time went on.
Any time I shut down and pulled away, Rolland would hammer at me with physical violence or the cruelest of words. I hadn’t realized how deeply they’d wormed their way inside of me until last night when Caleb had opened me up like that.
How could I expect to be an equal to a man like Caleb Harder though? I was nothing next to him, a scared little rabbit with nothing to offer but a tormented past and a dull life.
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