by Maisey Yates
It had been one thing to go to Caleb’s new house, a house that had no memories, no baggage, and climb on his lap there, to ride them both into oblivion in a place that carried no weight or sense of their lives.
But here...
Even Caleb had climbed the stairs countless times, but never carrying her. Never with her in his arms, restless and needy.
The destination had never been her bedroom.
This was real.
This change in what they were. This change in her, what she needed and what she was going to accept.
She wanted to pull away from it, because it was so deep, so intense.
And then they were at the threshold of her bedroom.
The edge of the woods.
And he took that step inside, momentous and huge, and yet so easy for him.
As she didn’t want to turn back. Didn’t think they could.
This time he stripped her clothes off her. She wasn’t in control. Not of how fast it went, not of what she revealed. He took her pants first, and then her underwear, her bra still shoved down beneath her breasts, and it seemed a very strange and male order of operations that she couldn’t think about once he had his hand down between her legs, his rough, clever fingers teasing a response from her that rippled from the inside out.
He stood back, pulled his T-shirt over his head, and her throat went dry.
Yes, she had been aware of his body for some time. But looking at it as she did now—as her own personal playground, which she was allowed to climb on—was different. Very different.
She watched as he slowly undid his belt buckle, and she clenched her thighs together, waiting for a sight of him, yet again. It was thrilling to see Caleb naked, and she let herself fully marinate in that.
In the forbidden nature of watching her friend undo his jeans and push them, along with his underwear, down to the floor. Of her friend, intensity lighting up his blue eyes, advancing on her.
Looking more like a predator than he did like the man that she had shared countless dinners with. The man who’d given her the hardest news of her life. The man who’d held her while she’d wept. Who’d held her hand while she’d brought her daughter into the world.
He was nothing like that man at all. And it should scare her, but it didn’t.
She liked it.
She wanted to be hunted by him.
She wanted to surrender to it.
And she didn’t know what that was, those feelings.
She had known desire, but it wasn’t dangerous like this.
Wasn’t all-consuming.
This had taken her and transformed her into a creature she didn’t even recognize. One who was ready to beg for his body.
She scooted to the edge of the bed, reached out and put her hands on his thighs, angling her head and sliding her tongue along his length, reveling in his flavor—salt and musk and Caleb.
It turned her on so much to put her lips on him there, to put her tongue on him.
He gripped her hair, holding her tight. “I said I wanted to taste you,” he said.
“But I want you,” she said. “Indulge me in a fantasy?”
That seemed to undo him. He shuddered, some of the tension going out of his body as he relaxed his hold on her, and she angled her head to swallow him whole.
He was a large man, and she couldn’t quite take all of him, but she used her fist as best she could at his base to hold him steady as she pleasured them both this way.
She felt the muscles in his thighs begin to shake, and then he moved her away from him, lifted her and laid her back on the bed. He came down on the mattress below her, wrapped his arms around her legs and jerked her forward, leaving her completely open to him, spread out, and before she could protest, he lowered his head and began to feast on her with an intensity that rocked her.
She reached up, grabbing hold of her headboard and holding on tight while Caleb, her Caleb, consumed her.
She looked down just as he looked up, and familiar blue eyes collided with hers while he was doing...that.
She shuddered, digging her heels down into the mattress as the beginnings of her release started cresting. And he finished her off when he pressed one finger inside her as he continued to pleasure her with his mouth.
She arched off the bed, her body drawing tight like a bowstring before releasing. Hard.
But he didn’t stop. He pushed her over the edge into some kind of blinding space where she could do nothing but tremble and gasp incoherently. Until she could do nothing but surrender to wave after wave of sensation that she thought might never end. That she thought might destroy her completely.
But it wasn’t done. He kissed her hip bone, kissed his way up her body, pressed himself between her legs and moved his hot, heavy flesh between her slick center.
She moaned, arching into him, not sure how in the world she wanted more when he had just given her a release unlike any she’d ever experienced before.
He cursed, lowering his head against hers, breathing hard. “Please tell me you have condoms.”
“Yes,” she said, wiggling out from underneath him, getting off the bed, her knees buckling. “My legs don’t work.”
“Good.”
She turned around and saw him looking at her, a satisfied smile on his face. Then he got up off the bed. “Point me in the direction of the condoms,” he said.
“There’s a new box sitting on the bathroom counter. I had just grabbed a couple before coming over to your house.”
He went in, and she took a moment to look at the sight of his naked body. That broad, muscular back, his perfect, beautiful ass.
And then he returned, the entire box of condoms in his hand.
And she didn’t question the quantity, because if there was a limit to this thing between them, she wasn’t sure they could find it.
It was like a sickness. Like a desperate hunger.
And at the moment she felt completely lost in it.
Lost in these dark woods with him and why the hell not?
He took the condom out and took care of the practicalities himself. The sight of his masculine hand holding tightly to his arousal kicked her own up several notches.
She was overcome then by the desire to watch him touch himself.
He said he’d done that while he thought of her.
Just the idea felt unspeakably dirty. Wrong.
She’d never been attracted to that kind of thing. To the forbidden.
If she’d wanted anything, it had been ease. Sweetness. Something nice.
He made her crave this deep, dark thing that she didn’t even have words for.
But maybe, maybe part of that was that where she was out in her life, experiencing all the things she had, with the freedom she had, and the responsibilities, it was just thrilling to know that something could still feel that way. Illicit. Exciting.
And somewhere, in all the intensity, buried in the glittering, broken fragments of their desire for each other, was something bright and sparkly and wonderful. An oasis in the middle of the darkened woods.
He came back to her, positioning himself between her legs again as he sank into her slowly. And when he was fully seated inside her, she locked her ankles around his, clung to his shoulders. And she didn’t look away from those burning blue eyes. No, she looked right into them. It was amazing. He was amazing. Every single thing about this was amazing.
Caleb, buried deep inside her, for the second time in such a short space, making her need like it had been years and not hours.
It was as sharp and hard as the last time, but now, when it broke over her, when her release took her and he pulsed inside her, when the walls came down and he shook with his release, she gave herself to it. To him.
And it was like someone had turned the key inside her and opened the door to a
piece of herself she had never known existed.
And it was scary, not knowing what was on the other side.
But she was ready to walk in.
And so she clung to his shoulders and followed where he led.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
SHE WAS ASLEEP. Her blond hair a tangle over her face.
He couldn’t look away.
This was a moment that Caleb had never, ever let himself fantasize about.
What it would be like to lie in bed with Ellie when the passion had faded. Because this was something other than sex. But maybe... Maybe this was the friendship still.
He didn’t know. This kind of blissful contentedness that made him want to sleep, but also made him want to fight against the loss of consciousness, because he never wanted the moment to end.
It was a strange thing. This deepening, shifting relationship he had with Ellie.
He’d seen her naked years ago, in the hospital when she’d been in labor, but of course he hadn’t looked at her body in a sexual sense, not then. He’d seen her strength. He’d seen her as a warrior. And he’d been there to hold her hand when she’d needed it.
It had been another moment that had tightened the thread around them.
Holding her in her grief.
When she gave birth.
When she was sleep deprived and sad because she was being a mother to a newborn, and doing it all alone.
He’d cared for her needs.
And now he’d seen her naked in a whole new way. Seen her as a strong, beautiful woman. Not in sadness or pain, but in pleasure.
This was something else.
Something quiet and...content. And he and Ellie hadn’t gotten a lot of content.
She shifted, and her hair tangled tighter across her face. He brushed it away, untangling her. And her blue eyes fluttered open.
“Good morning,” she mumbled.
“It’s not morning,” he responded, looking at the sky outside.
“Oh,” she said, her throat scratchy. “I thought it had to be.”
“No. We’ve still got some time.”
The corners of her lips turned up. “I don’t think it’s physically possible to have sex this many times in the space of a few hours.”
“That sounds a lot like a challenge, Ellie.”
“I mean, maybe it is,” she said, her smile turning impish.
He kissed it. That smile.
“See? I’m fun,” he said.
The smile turned sad. “You are. Caleb... I don’t know what was going on with me. It’s not you. It’s me.”
It felt like someone had reached inside and taken all that desire in his gut and twisted it around. And he realized that a little bit, he wanted it to be him, and not just her.
Wanted whatever the hell this was, whatever the hell her reaction was, to be way more about him than it was about her. He wanted her to want him, but somehow, this, even on the heels of the admission that she had wanted him before, made everything feel a little bit hollow.
“Well. Good.”
She sat up and kissed his shoulder, the gentle, erotic gesture breaking through some of his thoughts.
He was just a man. And it was difficult to think with all of his blood rushing down south.
“Do you want me to make food for the Christmas tree–harvesting day?”
He blinked. “What?”
“I was just thinking.” She lifted her arms up, stretching, her breasts rising with the motion, and for a moment he lost every thought he’d had in his head. And his world was only her.
“We’re going to be harvesting the trees so that we can get the lot set up.”
“Yeah,” he said slowly, dragging his gaze up to her eyes.
“Well, I can make food.” She looked impish. Like she knew exactly what he’d been looking at a moment ago.
“Sure,” he said slowly. “But you know, I’m bringing in a whole crew to handle the trees that are going out into other parts of the state.”
“Well, I didn’t figure we would be harvesting thousands of trees. But it can be our own little party for the local lot trees.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’d like that.”
But like seemed an anemic word. He wasn’t particularly sure he even liked it very much. Because the whole thing sounded domestic, her helping him with the ranch, cooking for him. Ellie had cooked for him a lot in the past. Then he’d cooked for her. But it hadn’t been all tangled up in sex. And now it was.
“I should probably get going soon,” he said.
She frowned. “You said we were going to have sex again. I was looking forward to you rising to the challenge.”
That impish expression was back, her brow raised. She had her palms resting on the mattress, slightly behind her back, her breasts thrust toward him. The blanket was down around her waist.
Ellie never could tell what she was playing with. She seemed to trust him, no matter how dark the mood. But she probably wouldn’t trust him if she really knew him. If she knew what he had done to Clint, and what Clint had done in response. If she understood that he was a jealous, petty asshole who would never be able to quit regretting the way that he had acted toward his friend.
Because Caleb had known. That Clint’s parents didn’t give a damn about him. That if his father ever did pay attention to him he had better duck and cover because he was probably swinging fists at him.
That Hank and Tammy Dalton were all the parental love he’d ever known and still Caleb had been so consumed by jealousy he’d tried to sabotage that for his friend.
Truly, the only good thing he had ever done was not take Ellie even when he’d wanted her. And the fact of the matter was, that wasn’t about his strength, but about what Ellie wanted.
If he could have seduced her then, she would have never forgiven either of them.
He couldn’t have done that to her.
Even feeling compelled to force her to admit that she had felt some attraction to him before had been petty. Had been wrong. Had put her in a bad position, and he’d done it anyway. To satisfy his own self, his own ego.
“I’ll stay,” he said.
Because he already knew what a prick he was and nothing was going to change that, so he might as well go with it.
“Vanessa and Jacob are coming here in the morning with Amelia.”
“Does my brother know that we’re sleeping together?”
“Well, there was no way to be all that smooth about it. I’m sure that they have guessed by now. I said that I was going over to talk to you... And that I wouldn’t be by until morning. So...”
“So there’s no point pretending it didn’t happen.”
“Well,” she said. “I’m going to need to not be parading my sex life in front of my daughter.” She got quiet. “Amelia loves you, Caleb. And I do, too. And more than anything else, I need to know that on the other side we are going to be okay. I think that’s actually part of what scared me. I expected a certain thing when it came to sex. Because of the experiences that I’ve had. And because of that I thought...we’ll be fine. Whatever happens between us, sex is only going to add to it, and we’ll come out on the other side just fine. I mean...as friends we’ve weathered the death of a man we both loved dearly. And I thought if we could get through that...we can get through anything. But... I don’t know what to call this thing between us. I didn’t expect it to be like this. I’ve never felt like this. This... I don’t know. Maybe it’s being older...”
Suddenly, anger welled up inside him and he growled, pushing her back onto the bed, covering her.
“Maybe it’s me,” he said.
She looked up at him, stunned. And then she nodded slowly. “Maybe. Maybe it’s you and me.”
She bit her lip. “Caleb...this would have terrified me at eighteen. I could never have handled
it.”
He ignored the unspoken truth between them. That neither of them was certain they could handle it now.
“I can’t lose you,” she said, putting her fingertips against his lips. “Amelia can’t lose you. We lost so much. And I just don’t think...”
He kissed those fingertips, lowered her hand so it was resting on his chest. “You’re not going to lose me,” he said, the vow coming from inside him. Because maybe he wasn’t the best, but he knew how to be there for her. “Sex is sex. And when we’re finished...”
The idea of her being with another man made him want to destroy things, but he wasn’t going to dwell on that, wasn’t going to make an issue out of it. Because there were a couple of troops at play here. The fact she needed him—in the capacity she’d always had him, or as everything, husband, a lover, a father—was undeniable.
And he knew he couldn’t do one, so he had to do the other. When she did settle down again, it would be with a man like what she’d had. Because she’d made it abundantly clear that it was a life she missed, that the person she was with Clint was a person she missed.
And this... This for them was the beginning of a separation, whether she knew it or not. Because he was the Band-Aid. As much as he was trying to pretend that he wasn’t.
Once she did have another man in her life...he couldn’t be around the way that he was now. And she might think that she never wanted that, but she clearly did. Because she didn’t like sleeping alone, and she didn’t like being alone. But he would tell her exactly what she wanted to hear. That nothing would change, even though it already had, and it was too late for it to be anything but forever shifted.
“I’ll be here for you as long as you want me,” he said. “I promise.”
He had promised Clint.
Oh, not while his friend lay dying, because he’d been gone instantly, which was a blessing in many ways. But at the crash site, with tears streaming down his face and rage and grief burning in his gut like coals, he had promised.
Promised to take care of Clint’s wife, whom he hadn’t spoken to in two months because everything he felt for her was wrong. And he had told himself that he would put it all away, that he would be everything she needed.
