by Maisey Yates
It was fun, which she’d been after.
But she was not...into him.
Not like that.
She blinked, smiling to herself. She was a little bit...pleased that it was so easy for her to identify that. That she wasn’t just desperate for any man’s touch.
Of course, it might have been a little bit more convenient if she was.
Easier.
She tried to imagine it, though. Tried to imagine letting him take her back to his place and peel her clothes off her. The red dress that she knew would be a whole project, because getting it on had nearly necessitated the use of Crisco.
She did not feel excited. Not even the slightest bit turned on.
Which meant he wouldn’t fulfill items two and three on her list. Which meant coming here again. And finding a new dress. And trying to find a man she did want to get naked with. Be skin to skin with.
She looked up at Todd again, trying to see if maybe—maybe—she was into the idea of trying one of the other things on her list with him. The idea made her feel... Well, it was not an enjoyable thought. How did you choose a man for a hookup? How could you know it would be good? Or even okay?
She’d known Clint so well before they’d had sex for the first time. And he’d known she was a virgin, so he’d been sweet. As funny as it sounded, he’d made her laugh. He’d made it all okay.
He’d always made it all okay, and she didn’t have him now to make it feel...safe.
But she and Todd could dance. Dancing would be fine. In fact, Todd proved to be a very good dancer, and that made him perfect for the purposes of tonight. The rest of the numbers on her list could wait. And they would have to.
He twirled her, and she laughed, coming to an abrupt halt when she looked up and saw Caleb.
Their eyes collided and she froze, feeling like she was pinned there to the spot.
He was standing a few feet away from the dance floor, and yet, even in the crowd of people, she spotted him unerringly.
He was dressed all in black. Black hat. Black T-shirt. Black jeans. Black boots.
And his eyes were a storm.
This is it.
She didn’t even know what those words meant, not for a moment. And then realized...
It was what she and Vanessa had been talking about earlier.
What it would be like for a man to see you with someone else and look...
Well, just like that.
But it didn’t make sense. She and Caleb weren’t like that.
Her heart thundered hard, and she didn’t know why she felt...like she might be in trouble. A huge adrenaline rush washed through her, leaving her feeling suddenly weak and shaking.
And then he was walking toward her, cutting through the crowd. And he stopped, just behind Todd, who hadn’t seen him yet, and hadn’t noticed Ellie’s distraction.
“Mind if I cut in?”
Todd turned, and his affable manner went slightly cold. “I don’t know,” he said. “I suppose that’s up to the lady. But she and I were having a pretty good time.”
“It’s okay,” Ellie said. “He’s my friend.”
The storm in Caleb’s eyes seemed to get more intense.
“I’ll be over there,” Todd said.
“Okay,” she replied.
And suddenly, she was being pulled into Caleb’s arms. His grip was strong, his hands somehow so much warmer than Todd’s. They were like an inferno. His whole body was. And he did not have the slight build of a man in his early twenties. No. Caleb had always been built like a mountain, but she had never been quite so aware of the intensity of his strength.
Possibly because while he’d certainly hugged her and offered comfort, held her even in those early days while she’d wept a river onto his shirt, he’d never held her quite like this before, and she couldn’t say why it felt different.
“How did you know I was here?”
“Your accomplice,” he said, his voice rough.
“Vanessa ratted me out?”
“No.” He looked over her shoulder for a moment. Then back at her. “Her husband.”
“Right. Who is your brother.” She sighed. “There really isn’t a safe space around here.”
Caleb’s hands shifted, the one on her back drifting lower, and it made her feel...aware.
Caleb was a man.
Caleb was a man who appreciated how she looked in this dress.
She wondered what Caleb would think of her out of the dress.
A sharp pang hit her in the stomach and nearly turned her inside out.
Well, that was a new thought.
The song changed and got slow, and she waited for Caleb to let go of her. But he didn’t.
He tightened his hold on her, his eyes intense on hers. “Your list is successfully fulfilled?”
“No,” she said, the response tumbling out of her mouth before she had a chance to think it through.
“No?”
“No,” she repeated. “There was more on the list.”
And she didn’t want to tell him any of them. Not a single one.
He shifted his hold on her and looked down. And it was like being held safe in the shadow of the mountain. Yes, dancing with Todd had been fun, if absent of spark. But she felt... She felt utterly and completely secure with Caleb holding her. She didn’t feel awkward about her dress. She didn’t feel uncertain.
He was safe.
He was someone she could trust. With anything. With all of herself.
She stumbled, her limbs still a little bit numb from that first appearance of his, from the ensuing adrenaline, and she found herself completely pressed against his chest, inhaling that scent of his that she’d never noticed on quite this level before. Skin. Sweat.
Pine and cedar.
She put her hand on his chest and pushed herself backward. But left her hand right where it was. He was solid like a rock. But she could feel his heart. Could feel it thundering beneath her palm like he’d just run a marathon.
She looked up at him and found herself completely lost in that blue storm.
And she felt like maybe she was going crazy. Because suddenly everything seemed to make sense, and nothing in her life should make sense. Absolutely nothing. So something had to be wrong with her if it seemed right.
The very idea of taking the next step on the list with Todd seemed... The very idea terrified her. And not just because she didn’t feel a spark of electricity with him. But the idea of getting naked with another man... She didn’t think she could do it. Who could she trust her body with? Who could she even trust her...her lips with?
Suddenly, in Caleb’s arms, the answer seemed clear, if only because the word trust seemed to impress itself upon her entire body and warm her completely.
And it hit her then, that if she did come to this bar every night for the next...well, every weekend until Christmas, she wasn’t going to find anyone that she felt safer with.
This was her first.
And after this it would be... Well, maybe she would be able to just go out and find a fun hookup. Maybe.
But not the first time.
Not the first man after Clint.
She thought of getting naked with Caleb. Of seeing him without his shirt. Without...everything.
Her heart rate sped up and she didn’t know what to do. Should she let go of him? Hold on to him?
He would be...he would be appalled if he knew what she was thinking. If he knew she was thinking about him being naked. And her being naked. And them being naked together.
They had never, ever had anything more than a platonic friendship.
And yes, he had appreciated her in the dress last night, but he was a man. And he was just being the way men were. Men liked women’s bodies. They liked boobs and were often not very discriminating about who t
he boobs were attached to.
She found she was discriminating, really, and that was the problem here.
She didn’t want a relationship.
She wanted sex.
But she also hated the idea of being with a man she didn’t know. Felt horribly vulnerable just thinking about it.
Caleb never made her feel vulnerable. He never made her feel unsure.
He made her feel safe.
Protected.
And right now he was making her a little warm.
“Caleb,” she said, swallowing hard. “Can I...? Can you help me with my list?”
* * *
THE MURDER IN Caleb’s blood had cooled slightly. But only slightly.
When he had walked in and seen Ellie in the arms of another man...
He had seen Ellie in the arms of another man for a decade. A man he cared about. A man he loved like a brother. Who deserved her. Her beauty, her grace, her smiles.
That random-ass weedy cowboy did not deserve her.
Clint had been the best man in the world. The best man Caleb had ever known. Hank Dalton had offered Clint money to go to college, and he hadn’t taken it. Not knowing how Hank made Caleb feel. He’d rejected the money. He’d stuck with Caleb.
She’d had the best man. And now she was dancing with this...
This douchebag.
When Jacob had told him where Ellie and Vanessa had gone, Caleb started walking out the door almost before Jacob had finished his sentence. Because he remembered, clear as day, the dress she’d had on the night he’d come over.
That dress had fired up a hell of a lot of feelings he’d rather not have. Rather not remember. But he had. It had hit him like a punch to the jaw. That body...a body he’d fantasized about late at night.
Until she’d gotten married. Then he’d put a stop to it.
And if things had gotten tense inside him again during their reading lessons, well...
He’d put a stop to that, too.
But God almighty, then she’d been dancing with this...this boy.
And when he’d walked in...
There she had been. On the dance floor. A wide grin on her face, and that red dress wrapped around her curves.
Now she was in Caleb’s arms, his arms and not someone else’s. She had stumbled against him, that delicate hand on his chest, and he’d been certain that he was going to explode. That his heart was going to burst straight through his chest.
And she looked up at him, her eyes blue, fathomless.
And had asked him about her list.
His brain was having an impossible time sorting through everything because his body was caught in the jaws of an intense adrenaline rush. Desire that he’d fought against for so long warring with that cooling rage, the desperate urge to hide all that need he was feeling.
But they’d never touched like this before. They’d never danced.
It felt right. The way she fit in his arms.
That rightness scared him down to his soul.
“Your list?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. She swallowed hard, and he could tell that her mouth was dry. He could also see her pulse drumming softly at the base of her throat.
He was so attuned to everything about her. A slight change in her breath, every shift of her body against his. If she was even half as aware of him, she would know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he wanted her.
Good thing she wasn’t. Because no one was as aware of another human being as Caleb Dalton was of Ellie Bell.
“What would that entail?” he asked.
“I can’t... I don’t want to talk about it here,” she said.
“Okay,” he said slowly.
“So...can we...take a walk?”
“Sure,” he said, looking back at the table where Vanessa was sitting, tapping on her phone. But when she looked up at the two of them, her gaze was laser focused, and he had a feeling that she was either reporting the exact goings-on to Jacob, or was only pretending to be on her phone so that she wasn’t just staring at them.
He supposed they did make a little bit of a spectacle.
The man dancing with his best friend’s widow.
She let out a breath and suddenly peeled herself away from him, walking back over to her table and grabbing her purse. He just stood there watching her, frozen for a moment as she spoke some hasty words to Vanessa.
He walked across the space slowly, watching as her movements became more and more tense.
And for some reason, he walked even more slowly. He didn’t know what was going on with her, but his being away from her seemed to be creating a small amount of torture, and he was...
Well, he was kind of enjoying that.
Given that the past twenty-four hours had been a study in torture for him.
“Hi,” Caleb said as he approached the table, addressing Vanessa.
“Oh,” she said, almost as if she was surprised by his presence. “Hi. Just going for a walk?” she asked, her dark eyes very keen.
“Apparently,” Caleb said.
“Yes,” Ellie said, grabbing hold of his arm, the casual touch sending a streak of lightning through his body.
She tried, with her very petite frame, to propel him out the door. But since he had no reason to resist her, he just went.
A moment later they were outside in the cold air. And Ellie had her arms wrapped around her slim frame.
“Didn’t you bring a jacket?”
“No,” she said, her teeth starting to chatter as they walked down the sidewalk.
“Here,” he said, taking his coat off and draping it over her shoulders, because he couldn’t stand for her to be uncomfortable. Not even for a moment.
She stopped walking, touched the edge of the coat and let her fingertips drift along the zipper.
He felt that as if she had touched him. As if she had run her fingers along his skin.
Her eyes met his. “Thank you. I mean...really, thank you. I don’t think I have fully appreciated everything you’ve done for me. The kind of man you are. I... You’re always there for me. Things like this. Anything. You’re always there.”
It was his turn to freeze; any words he might want to speak freezing in his throat like a knot.
“I need you to...” She fumbled for her purse, which was now underneath her jacket, and pulled out a small, folded square of paper. With shaking hands, she gave it to him.
He unfolded it and saw her very familiar handwriting, along with the doodles that she often put on any paper she had been tasked with writing on.
She even put little doodles on her whiteboard in her classroom. It was just what she did. On this particular piece of paper were holly, presents and what looked like a string of lights wrapped around some of the letters.
He wasn’t going to shame himself by asking her to read it to him. But he hated having people watch him read, too, since it always took twice as long as it did anyone else. Though Ellie knew that.
She was the one who knew why. And he’d actually read out loud in front of her, so there was no reason to get uptight about it now.
He let his eyes drift back to the page, and he pressed his thumb beneath the first line, using it to help him keep focus.
His vision started to blur.
Well, he had no trouble at all reading that last word especially, but he was having a hell of a time comprehending.
He looked up at her. “This is your list?”
“Yes,” she said. “And I thought... I thought maybe he—Todd—could help me. I mean, he did dance with me. But then I thought about... I thought about the rest... And I...I didn’t want him.”
That was the biggest damn relief Caleb had ever experienced. She didn’t want that guy. But on the heels of that came a rush of blood, roaring through his ears, roaring through
the rest of his body.
She’d asked him for help with this list.
He stared at it, then looked back up at her, the rock in his gut glowing hot and red and evil. “Are you...? Are you asking me to help you find a guy to fuck?”
He didn’t talk to Ellie like that. Not ever. He was careful with her. Chose his words cautiously. But he could not...
The very idea of her finding a guy, some random guy to sleep with...
He couldn’t breathe around it.
“No,” she said. “I’m not asking you to do that. I’m not asking you to...”
She took a deep, miserable-sounding breath, rubbing her hand over her forehead. “You. I think that...it should be you.”
It was like tipping over the edge of a cliff. One he’d been teetering on for over a decade. And once he’d taken the plunge... It was taking every ounce of his self-control not to grab her and propel her down the side street, push her up against the brick wall and show her everything he’d tried not to fantasize about for the past ten years.
It should be you.
The murder had burned itself out of his blood completely. Replaced by a roar that was drowning out thought. Drowning out reason.
The roar of a beast that had broken free of its chains.
For one blinding moment, he didn’t care what her reasons were. Didn’t care what had changed to make her want this.
He just wanted to have her.
So many years spent pretending he didn’t. Pushing it down. Protecting her. Honoring Clint.
But he’d forgotten himself one other time.
During those reading lessons. A year of them, at her house, in secret, while Clint was on shift at the fire department in town.
It was fine because they were friends.
So their sharing a secret was okay.
He’d never do anything.
Neither would she.
And then... And then she’d told him she was pregnant. Her eyes shining bright with joy. Pregnant with Clint’s baby. And his first reaction hadn’t been happiness for them, no.
He’d been enraged. On some animal, biological level that he couldn’t begin to think around.
It was then he’d realized what he’d been doing.
