by Maisey Yates
She swallowed hard, and then drifted away from the door, wandering into the living room and sinking down on the couch. “Why don’t you think you’re a good man, Caleb?”
Because I hated your husband sometimes as much as I loved him. And because I did act on something, not just think it.
But he didn’t say that. He couldn’t.
“I’m fine,” he said. “But like you said. Clint came into your life and he made you laugh. He was the missing piece that you needed right when you needed him, and I am afraid that I might take a whole lot more from you than I can give. Hell, it was you that gave to me, remember?”
“Right. But we just established that you’ve taken care of me for the past few years. And that is something that a good man does.”
“Maybe. But that’s also not all of me. This is me. And you’re not sure if you particularly like it.”
“I’m not sure if I particularly like me. That’s different.”
“You don’t need to compare me to Clint. I already do. I grew up with him. And I loved him like a brother. And my parents loved him like a son. Like a better son than me. It was a different time, and my dad did not understand that I was dyslexic. You know I didn’t understand that until you talked to me about it. Until you gave me some information about it. I didn’t know. And my dad just figured that I wasn’t trying. And I sank right into that. I just... I just quit trying. I did what I could to make those situations mine. I didn’t even make an effort to do schoolwork. Not when I knew I couldn’t get good grades. And then when... When my dad offered Clint all that money to go to school, and he didn’t offer it to me, Clint didn’t take it.”
Ellie looked down at her hands. “He didn’t... He didn’t tell me about this.”
Caleb laughed, but he didn’t feel like anything was funny. “He wouldn’t, would he? My dad offered to pay for Clint to go to school. But he didn’t take it, Ellie. Because he couldn’t do that to me. He sacrificed his whole future because he didn’t like the way that my parents compared us. And I was bitter. I was jealous.”
And he’d acted on it. Then Clint had turned out to be a better man than Caleb had given him credit for. And for what? So he could go on and fight fires and die?
Even with what had happened, his jealousy had not faded over time. When Clint had shown up with the woman that he had suddenly, violently wanted more than anything else.
And even that... Even that, Caleb had questioned.
Had he really wanted Ellie? Or did he just want something that his friend had?
He knew later that he wanted her. That it was about her and not Clint at all. But for a while, he’d wrestled with that. Really and truly.
“Well, then, Clint didn’t want to go to college that much,” Ellie said.
“What?”
“You know him. He was a good guy, but I don’t think he was that self-sacrificial down to his core. If he had really wanted something, he would have gone to you and talked about it. He would have made sure it didn’t hurt you, but if he’d really wanted to go...”
“It doesn’t matter,” Caleb said, cutting her off. “He did that for me. The fact of the matter is that I held him back in life.”
“You didn’t.”
“Ellie, he’s dead because he became a firefighter and not...a lawyer. Or a doctor.”
“Oh, come on,” she said. “Do you think that he ever would have become a lawyer or a doctor? He would have hated that. Clint did not want a desk job. He wanted to be out there with you. And I don’t blame you. I don’t blame Jacob for not taking the call that morning, even though I know for a long damn time he wished that I would. I’m not going to poison my life blaming the most important man in my...”
She cut herself off, her expression softening. “Caleb, I’m not going to blame you for his death. I’m sorry if you want me to. I’m sorry if that would somehow help you come to terms with the fact that you shouldn’t be here, and he should be, or whatever twisted, mixed-up game you’re playing in your head. But I’m not going to help.”
Tension rolled over him, a slow tightening of his muscles, his stomach. He couldn’t breathe through her. Through these feelings she created in him. And he got down on his knees in front of her, cupping the back of her head and drawing her down toward him. She gasped, their mouths a scant inch from each other’s.
“I fantasized about you. Do you know that?”
She blinked, and then she looked away.
“No,” he said. “You look at me. I fantasized about you while you were with him. I knew that he had sacrificed going to college for me. And I wanted you. His woman. I used to think about what you looked like naked. I used to touch myself at night and I thought about you. What do you think that makes me?”
She drew in a shuddering breath. “I don’t know.”
“Did you ever think about me, Ellie?”
She looked stricken and pulled back, and he knew that he had crossed the line. But something in him felt compelled to do that. Because if they could make it through this, if they could make it out the other side, as friends or anything else, then he would know that she could handle him. Otherwise, it was just going to be all this...crashing into each other and retreating, and that he couldn’t bear. Not anymore.
“Caleb,” she protested, “let’s not do this.”
“If we don’t do it now, when will we do it?”
“Never.”
“I can’t do never. So,” he said, “let’s do it. Let’s get it out. That’s me. That’s the ugly inside me, and it’s all for you, El. Do you have any for me?”
She swallowed hard, her throat working. “When you took me riding that time. Up on the ridge... I’m not blind, Caleb. I know that you’re an attractive man. I thought you were good-looking. But I...I didn’t even want to have one relationship, let alone ever get involved with my best friend.”
“You mean your boyfriend’s best friend?”
“No,” she said. “I mean my best friend. You became my best friend so fast, Caleb, and yes, part of me didn’t quite know what to do with that. That I was dating Clint, and then there was you. And you were beautiful, and I wanted to be around you. But it was different. It was always different. I was with him. And just because I thought about what it might be like to kiss you...”
“Tell me about that,” he said, digging his fingers into her hair and keeping his hold tight. “Tell me about wanting to kiss me.”
“I told you. On the horse ride. We had known each other for a couple of years.”
“Yeah. I remember.”
“I just... I had this crazy thought that... I could live a whole different life. If I kissed you, that things would change, and maybe that would be something that I wanted. And then I realized, that’s probably what my mother did every time she got in a relationship with a different man. For what purpose? To chase someone who might not even want her? Because something felt stagnant with the other one, because it felt a little bit too deep. Because at that point... I knew he was going to ask me to marry him. I knew he was. And I knew that I should marry him. But it scared me. Because it wasn’t what I thought that I wanted for my life.” She met his gaze, obstinate. “I’m glad that I married him. And I didn’t think about kissing you. Not after that.”
“Never?” he pressed.
She looked defiant and then spoke slowly. Softly. “When we used to sit on this couch, and I used to give you lessons, I thought how lucky some woman would be to kiss you. To kiss your mouth. But I knew that it was never going to be me. Because I’d made my choices. I would never, ever have been unfaithful to my husband.”
“And I would never have been with my friend’s wife. Which is why I had to run away from you. But you’re right. You’re not his wife. Not anymore. And this is not what you had with him. And it isn’t going to be. So I guess the question is... Can you handle it? Because I’m not going to to
ne it down, and I’m not going to give you that light fun thing that you thought you were going to get. You were lying to yourself, Ellie, if you ever thought that you were going to control me that way. If you ever thought that you were going to turn me into a replacement for him. I’m not him. I’m a different man. And you know it. You sensed it back then.”
She lowered her face, her cheeks coloring with shame, and he had a moment’s guilt for forcing her to admit that she wanted him before, but that guilt was replaced by a blooming, satisfied heat that flowed all through his body.
“I’m scared,” she said. “I just wanted to fill spots on a list. I just wanted to... I wanted to move forward. I wanted it to be familiar. I wanted it to take me back to who I was before he died. But it isn’t going to happen, is it? I’m never going to be her. Ever again. I’m stuck being this person who feels all these things, so deeply, and I never did before. Before Clint, I just studied. I was going to change my life. Change my future. I was going to do it myself, and I wasn’t going to care about anyone, and then I met him. He showed me this beautiful side to myself. I can’t find it. Not anymore. Everything hurts. Wanting you hurts. Loving Amelia hurts. Thinking about the future hurts. And it’s all so deep. These feelings. And I don’t...”
“It’s too late,” he said, leaning in, his mouth almost touching hers. “It’s too late for us to go back, and you know that.”
She lifted her hand, put it on his chest. “But we have to someday. Because this can’t...”
“I know,” he said. “Right now?” He brushed her hair back, tucking a gold strand behind her ear. “Tell me that you think if I walk away right now you won’t think about kissing me ever again.”
“I can’t do that,” she said.
“So there you have it, Ellie. The box is open. And the dark, ugly things are already spilling out. Like you said. This is not what you thought it would be. But it is what it is. You can’t go around the dark woods, Ellie. You gotta go through them. You can go through with me if you want.”
A tear slid down her cheek, and he expected her to pull away again. And then she closed the distance between them and the flames consumed them.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
AS SOON AS her lips touched his it was as if she had transferred the control. That moment of agreement between them had been her, giving it over to him. Surrendering.
Because he was right. The box was open.
And she didn’t know... She didn’t know if she liked any of the things that were being stirred up inside her. But the fact of the matter was the past few years had been like being frozen. She had done things. She had moved on and forward because that was what you had to do. And she had relentlessly looked at as many good things that she possibly could. Because she had to.
She had Amelia.
And that meant she couldn’t wallow. Not in her grief, not in her misery and not in her uncertainty about her personal future.
That was what this was. Caleb. This was about her. About her being a woman, and while she had luxuriated in that in part right in the beginning, she also realized now that it was one reason it was so difficult.
Because this wasn’t about a greater good, wasn’t about doing something she knew she needed to do—getting back to work, raising her daughter, giving her a happy life.
This was about her. All of the extra things in her own life that went beyond survival.
About filling in the holes that her husband had left behind.
Not about replacing him, but about fully and truly acknowledging that he wasn’t here.
And maybe that was why it was hard.
Except when her eyes connected with Caleb’s glittering blue ones, she knew that it was more complicated than that. And from the blinding moment she was enraged at him for making it more complicated. For forcing her to admit that she’d felt something between them before.
She had rationalized it, justified it and not spent a whole hell of a lot of time thinking about it.
Because of course, he was a handsome man. She had never pretended he wasn’t a man. Ever.
And when she had been younger and not married yet, he had been sort of fun and dangerous to be around. Because there was something a little bit exciting about being alone with him, even though she would have never done anything.
There was ample proof that they would never have done anything. Because it had taken them both being single, and years separate from the grief of losing Clint, for them to pursue this simmering attraction between them.
So there was no point marinating in an idea that they might be bad people because of momentary pops of electricity they’d never acted on.
But she didn’t want to think about that. Not anymore. She didn’t want to think about anything but what was happening between her and Caleb, about how much she wanted him, even though she’d had him less than an hour ago.
This was...not at all what she’d wanted it to be. Not at all what she thought it would be, or even could be.
And for a moment, as their kiss sparked between them, like a dangerous fire getting ready to rage out of control, she wondered if that was the real reason she hadn’t kissed him that day they’d gone up riding.
That something in her had sensed it would be this.
And oh...as terrifying as it was for twenty-eight-year-old Ellie, nineteen-year-old Ellie would have died on the spot.
What would he have been like then? A young man, full of all this intensity.
He could have been that obsession.
And the girl she had been... She would have run away screaming.
Caleb had always been handsome. She remembered clearly how handsome he’d been back then, softer-faced, less hair on his body. Those blue eyes had always been mesmerizing, to every woman who had ever come around him.
But the Caleb he was now...
He was lethal.
And she was woman enough to handle it. She’d walked through some fires, through some trials, and come out strong enough to handle this wrought iron man with broad shoulders, deep chest and beard that left scratch marks on her skin. With strong hands that might just leave a trail of bruises from holding her so tight.
She would’ve said she didn’t want it. Back then.
But she might just need it now.
And she knew. Knew this time going in that she wasn’t going to laugh. That it was going to rock her, down to her core. And somehow, it didn’t frighten her.
Somehow, she wanted to press on.
She was so glad it was him.
Because no other man could carry her through this dark forest. None but the man who had to go through it with her. The man whose life was linked to hers, to her pain in such a way.
But suddenly, this wasn’t about pain. It wasn’t about grief. It wasn’t about the past or the future. It all burned away, caught up in the passion that was igniting between them.
He pulled her down off the couch and then stood, lifting her up, and she wrapped her legs around his waist in order to keep from sliding to the ground.
A thrill raced through her as he backed her up, pressing her against the wall, rocking his hips forward.
She could remember feeling jealous when—a few months ago—Vanessa had told her that she and Jacob had lost control and had sex against the wall.
Ellie had never had sex against a wall.
She’d never even been fully able to imagine the kind of insanity that might entice a person to do it.
But oh, she did now.
And it wasn’t comfortable. The wall was hard and a little cold. But Caleb was hot and the delicious, beautiful kind of hard at her front.
It was...all-consuming, intense, insane.
But she wanted to tear his clothes from his body so that she could see him, so that she could touch him. So that she could taste him.
She wanted her mouth on h
im. All over him. But she wanted him in her, maybe even more, and she couldn’t seem to breathe or speak around it.
He kissed her, down her neck, down her collarbone, tugging at her shirt. She helped him, ripping it up over her head, struggling as her shoulder blades pinned the thin fabric to the rough wall behind her. She wiggled, managing to jerk it up over her head, and flung it so that it landed over the banister of the adjacent staircase.
He yanked her bra down, exposing her breasts, the band and underwire digging into her ribs. But she didn’t care. He licked her breast, sucked her nipple into his mouth, a satisfied groan on his lips.
“Take me,” she whispered. “Here. Now.”
She didn’t know who that woman was, making hot, breathy demands of him.
“No,” he refused. She clawed at his back and he grabbed hold of her wrists, gathering them in one hand and pinning them up over her head, his hold bruising, arousing.
And he kissed her, kept on kissing her. Kissed her until she thought she would die. Deep and hot licks against the inside of her mouth that made her shake and shudder. Made her feel hollow and aching, desperate with her need of him.
She rocked forward, trying to bring that hard part of him against the center of her need, but he managed to stay angled just enough that he denied her.
This wasn’t fun.
It could never be considered fun.
Not when it felt like he was denying her basic survival.
Then he bit down on her neck where it was sensitive and raw from how close her blood was flowing to the surface of her skin, from the scrape of his whiskers, and she cried out.
“Please,” she begged.
“I want a bed,” he growled, nuzzling against her jaw. “I want to spread you out in front of me and eat you all up.”
And then he pulled her away from the wall and began to carry her up the stairs. The very same stairs she used to often carry her daughter up to bed, and there was something sharp and real about that. About the invasion of this man in her home, in her life.
