When he finally hung up, Shay said, “I can’t believe he just did that.” She pressed her lips together and dared to say what she’d been thinking for a while now. “I think he has a gambling problem. He can’t even control himself in his own family environment.”
“Your dad probably thought Kent lost on purpose,” he said. “To give him money for the trip.”
“He makes a lot of money as a sales rep,” she said, “but he has no savings. Not a dime. I’m worried.”
Caleb drew her hand in his and pulled her to her feet. “I’ll talk to Kent about it,” he promised.
“Thank you,” she said. “I’ve tried, but he won’t listen to me. He respects you. I think you might be able to get through to him.”
Caleb had a feeling he’d better have that talk before Kent found out about Shay and him, but he left that part out. “I’ll do my best,” he said. “But right now…I want you…in my bed. I’ve been thinking about it all morning.”
“To sleep,” she said playfully.
“Of course,” he replied innocently.
A few minutes later, they walked hand in hand across the grassy back field between the office and his trailer. “It’s nothing fancy, like your place.”
“My house isn’t fancy,” she argued.
“I like your place,” he said. “It looks like you, and it smells like you. And I happen to love how you smell.” He kissed her hand. “My trailer, on the other hand, is a hole in the wall that came furnished from the prior Hotzone owners. I haven’t bothered to do anything with it, because, once the Hotzone is past the new-business bumps, I plan to get something else. But I’ve spent more time in this hole the past two months than I’ve spent in one place in ten years. That makes it a castle.” He paused at his door and pulled it open, before waving her forward. “So welcome to my castle.”
Shay walked up the stairs and entered. Caleb shut the door and locked it, thinking they’d had enough surprises for one day. He turned to find Shay standing at the bar that separated the living area from a compact kitchen, holding a photo he had displayed of him and six other Aces in front of a plane.
He walked up beside her, and she glanced up at him. “Tell me about the man in this photo,” she said, looking up at him. “Which one?”
“You,” she said. “I want to know about you. About the man you were then.”
“I was the same man I am now.”
“I want to know who that is,” she said, “because I know you saw things and did things. Hard, horrible things that have to haunt you. Yet you stayed ten years.”
How did he explain the switch he could turn on and off, that allowed him to become a soldier separate from the man? The switch that kept him sane. “Most of my missions were top secret,” he said. “I can’t talk about them. But even if I could tell you, you don’t want to hear about it, any more than I would want to remember.”
“Then why keep doing it for ten years?”
“Someone has to do the ugly stuff,” he said.
“But everyone doesn’t decide it has to be them.”
“I’m not the kind of guy who can go to work and pretend there aren’t horrors worse than you ever imagined in this world,” he said. “I’m the guy who makes sure others can just pretend.”
She set the picture down. “I see.” She turned away.
“Wow, sweetheart,” he said, snagging her arm and turning her to face him. “What just happened?”
“Just promise me when you leave this time, you’ll say goodbye, Caleb,” she said, her voice shaking. “Because not saying goodbye—that was just not right. It hurt. And so did ten years of shutting me out. Don’t do it again.”
He pulled her close, stroked her hair away from her face. “Shay. I’m not going anywhere. I told you. I’m here to stay.”
“No,” she said. “You say that, but you’ll never be satisfied taking amateur jumpers out for entertainment, Caleb. I saw you today. Saving lives is natural to you. You’re one of the good guys, that’s clear. That’s something to be proud of. And I am. But you said so yourself—you didn’t really want to leave the Army. This life will get old, lack purpose, and you’ll reenlist.”
He tried not to smile because her reaction wasn’t just about being tired. She cared about him. Maybe she loved him. He was pretty damn sure he’d always loved her. “Were you aware, my little Shay, that the Hotzone is contracted to train a group of Special Ops candidates once a month? That I am, indeed, still very much involved with the Army?”
She blinked. “You are?”
“That’s right,” he said, and picked her up. “I don’t have to go anywhere but here to make a difference.” He carried her past the worn leather couch and chair, down the short hallway to the bedroom—just big enough for a bed and nothing else—and laid her down. He went down on the mattress. “Sleep. You’re going to be nervous enough facing your family. Some rest will help.” He brushed his lips over her forehead. “Unlike you, I never showered this morning. I’m going to take a quick one and I’ll join you.”
She sat up. “Don’t go. Shower before we leave.”
“If I don’t go shower now,” he said and winked, “you won’t get any sleep.”
SHAY HAD JUST HEARD the shower turn on when the sound of Caleb’s cell phone ringing from the living room caught her attention. She slid off the bed and rushed down the hall, afraid it might be her service, or George, calling.
She found the phone lying on the counter by the photo she’d been looking at, and quickly checked caller ID, hitting Answer when she recognized the number. “George? Are you okay? I’ve been worried sick.” The man was predictable to the second, and he’d been off radar fifteen plus hours. “You didn’t show up for your appointment. I spent last night, and this morning, worrying something had happened to you.”
“Sorry about that, Doc. Something urgent came up, as in I fell in love. I met someone. I haven’t been so happy in years.”
A red light flashed in her mind. “You suddenly fell in love and that made you miss an emergency appointment?”
“We’d had a fight,” he said. “But she showed up at my house and all is well. I can’t wait to tell you all about her when I get back from Mexico.”
“Mexico?!” she sputtered. The man barely ever left his house. “You’re going to Mexico?”
“Yes,” he said. “And they just called our boarding group. I’ll call you when I get home. Thanks for everything, Doc. I remember all those times you told me, loving someone means you could lose them, but it’s better than never knowing them.” He hung up.
Shay set the phone down and rushed to the bathroom to tell Caleb about George. He’d left the door open and she could hear the shower running. “My client called,” Shay said, sitting down on the lid of the toilet.
He looked around the shower curtain. “And?”
“He said he met a woman and he’s really happy.”
He snorted. “He stood you up for a woman. Nothing we didn’t know. Typical man. Always thinking with the wrong head.”
“Coming from a man,” she said.
He grinned. “I’m a soldier,” he said. “Respect comes before all base needs.” He disappeared behind the curtain.
She opened her mouth to crack a joke, but stopped. This wasn’t typical behavior for George. And that fancy house of his screamed some sort of money source. That would make him a target for the wrong woman. Shay thought of George’s pain over the loss of his wife. She thought of her fears that she and Caleb couldn’t and shouldn’t be together. That their family situation would end their relationship before it really got started, that he’d leave again, no matter how much he said he wouldn’t. The truth was, the only thing for certain was the moment.
She eyed the curtain, his naked silhouette behind the semitransparent material. She might not ever get the chance to make love to Caleb in the shower ever again. Shay stood up and undressed.
Before she could talk herself out of it, Shay pulled back the curtain and stepped insi
de. The minute she took in the sight of his sinewy muscles dripping wet, Shay was glad she did.
“You do know this isn’t the way to get any sleep,” Caleb said softly.
“I can’t sleep when you’re wet and naked,” she replied, letting him pull her close.
He smiled and moved so that his back took the brunt of the water, and she felt his erection press against her hip. “I’d be disappointed if you could.”
She reached down and stroked his shaft, already impressively ready for her. “There’s something I’ve always wanted to do to you,” she confessed.
“There’s a lot of things I’ve always wanted to do to you,” he said. “I’d offer a demonstration, but it’s going to take a whole lot longer than we have today.”
“I’d rather focus on my ‘to do to Caleb’ list,” she said, smiling. She kissed his chest and then slid down his body until she’d wrapped his cock in her hand and looked up at him. “If that’s okay with you?”
“I’d say that ranks as not ‘yes,’ but ‘hell, yes,’” he said, his hand settling on the wall, as if he suddenly needed support.
Shay smiled and ran her tongue along the base of his erection. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “Definitely a ‘hell, yes.’”
Hearing the gruff, aroused tone of his voice, Shay felt herself respond. Felt the ache between her thighs, the pinch of her nipples, the need to take him in her mouth. She enjoyed control, she knew she did. To control a man like Caleb, as powerfully hot as he was—that was as big a rush as she could imagine. Aside from maybe him controlling her, as contradictory as that might seem.
She lapped at the head and twirled her tongue around the ridge. He moaned and she sucked a few inches into her mouth, then a few more, slowly, deeply. Caleb’s hand came down on her head, and Shay reveled in the thrust of his hips. In the proof that she was driving him to the edge, pleasuring him. She caressed his powerful legs, the flex of his nice tight backside, could feel his balls tighten, feel the desperation in his thrusts. Taste the salty promise that she would soon bring him to satisfaction, when he murmured her name, and pulled back.
She opened her mouth to ask him why he’d stopped her, but he lifted her to her feet and kissed her. He tasted of a man on the edge—of wild, untamed passion. Of desire barely contained. And she knew what it had cost him, not to let her finish him.
He pressed her against the wall, his hand sliding up her body, over her breast. Water, no longer hot, but warm, sprayed over their bodies, as he lifted her leg and pressed inside her, thrusting hard and deep.
Shay gasped as pleasure flooded her senses, and she clung to him, finding herself pinned in his hot stare as he said, “We’re going to come together, just like we’re going to face the family together this afternoon.” He thrust again, stroking her into a whimper, before he demanded agreement. “Okay?”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, okay. Together.” And before she could start thinking about what might go wrong with that plan, he took her away, to a place where together felt really good and sleep didn’t matter.
13
CALEB PARKED HIS TRUCK in front of Shay’s parents’ place with Shay sitting uncomfortably on the opposite side of the truck, instead of by his side. He’d made her ride by his side until a few blocks away, not ready to play this game of not being together. But he didn’t have a choice, and he knew that.
He wanted it over. And he wanted this to be it—the last time. By the time Shay’s parents were back from Italy, he wanted their relationship to be public, and he intended to do everything he could to convince Shay of the same. If—and it was a big “if” as far as he was concerned—they decided this relationship didn’t work, then at least they could stop dancing around each other. Either way, they would have resolution.
“I feel like they’re going to know,” Shay admitted, as he killed the engine.
“If they didn’t know yesterday, when we were about to explode with sexual tension, they won’t know today,” he said, and then pointed. Her mother was coming out the front door directing her father, as he rolled a bag toward Kent’s truck. “They’re excited and nervous. They aren’t going to be paying us any attention.” He discreetly reached across the seat and squeezed her hand. “Let’s get this behind us.”
She nodded, drew a deep breath and exhaled before reaching for her door handle. Shay immediately rushed toward her parents, and he tried not to notice the way the light denim of her jeans hugged the sweet curve of her backside, the same one his hand had hugged less than an hour before. The slight expansion around his zipper region had Caleb slowing his pace, in no rush to join the chaos of pretravel jitters.
Kent shoved the screen door open and sauntered in Caleb’s direction, trying to act nonchalant, but the stiff set of his jaw said he was far from relaxed. Kent’s early obsessions with the racetrack had apparently been foreshadowing the future, a fear Caleb had begun to nurse on a visit several years back. This wasn’t the first time Kent had asked him for money, and he still hadn’t seen the return of the first loan. Not that he was biting at the bit to get it back. He had money. He was more concerned over the fact that Kent didn’t have the money to return, and what that said about their suspicions of a gambling problem.
Kent stopped beside him, placing his back to the family. “Mom’s making Dad crazy, she’s so afraid of forgetting something,” he laughed, but the sound was strained.
“They’ll be fine once they get on the plane,” Caleb said, and motioned to the house. “Let’s go inside.”
Kent nodded, and they walked in silence until they stood in the kitchen. Caleb tossed an envelope of cash on the island counter and then leaned on the counter, hands behind him. Kent snatched it up and stuffed it in his pocket, as if he feared it would be seen.
“Thanks, man,” he said. “I know I owe you, and I’ll pay you back. I have a bonus coming at the end of the year.”
Caleb noted the smudges under Kent’s eyes, the jerkiness of his movements. “You got the gambling bug pretty bad, don’t you?”
Kent shoved his hands in his pockets and laughed. “I was gambling with Dad, Caleb.”
“Last night,” he said. “And still you lost your backside instead of walking away.”
“It was Dad! He egged me on, and I didn’t want to say no.”
“You got a bookie?”
“Caleb, man,” he said.
“Do you have a bookie, Kent?”
“I’m a single guy with no responsibility.”
“So, you do.”
Kent scrubbed his jaw. “I don’t have a problem if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“You don’t have a dime to your name, Kent.”
“I’m in a slump,” he said. “My end-of-the-year bonus will fix that.”
“Gambling’s like drinking,” Caleb said. “It’s addictive. If you need help—”
“I don’t,” Kent said sharply, his voice lifting. He shook his head and lowered his voice. “Look, Caleb. I appreciate the help and the concern, but I’m fine. And I’ll get this favor returned.”
“I still can’t believe I’m going to Italy,” Sharon exclaimed as she rushed into the room. “Italy!” She hugged Caleb. “I love you, son, and not because of Italy. Because you’re you.” She patted his cheeks. “And you’re so darn handsome.” Before he could respond, she’d let him go and was talking. “I looked up the hotel online, and they have cooking classes. I’m going to come back and cook you all kinds of wonderful meals.”
Caleb’s gaze lifted to Shay, where she now stood in the kitchen doorway, looking awkward and downright upset. He patted his stomach. “I can’t wait.”
“Please tell me we’re ready to leave,” Bob grumbled as he slid into the doorway next to Shay. “If I don’t get your mother on the plane with a glass of wine in her hand soon, I’m going to blow my top.” He eyed Shay. “What’s this about you locking your keys in your car?”
Shay glared at Kent. “You blabbed that fast.”
“Didn’t I?” Kent ask
ed with a grin.
“That patient of yours must have had you flustered,” her father added. “You normally don’t do things like that.”
“I was flustered,” she agreed. “At Caleb acting like a bodyguard I didn’t need.”
“Oh, now,” Caleb said, “that’s where I have to object. Your building was dark and deserted. You shouldn’t have been there alone.”
“I’ve done just fine on my own for the last ten years, Caleb,” she countered, clearly trying to maintain their normal siblinglike banter. “You’ve been home two months, and I’ve barely seen you, but suddenly, you’re all over me and my business.”
Caleb arched a brow, barely containing a laugh, because she was right. He was all over her and liking every minute. Shay’s eyes registered what she’d said, and she paled.
“You’re too independent sometimes,” Bob said. “I’m glad Caleb is here to look after you while we’re gone.”
Shay crossed her arms in front of her body. “Oh, good grief,” she said. “You’d think I wasn’t a grown woman with a medical practice.”
“The great thing about family,” Bob said, “is no matter how grown up you are, you still get love and protection. And a good kick in the ass when you need it. And for the record, daughter of mine, going to an office building alone, in the dark, deserves a kick in the ass.” He grabbed her and kissed her cheek, then eyed his wife. “Come, woman. We have a flight to catch. Kent—chauffeur and baggage handler—get that bag by the door and take it to the truck.”
Fifteen minutes later, Kent was off on his business trip and her parents were off on their adventure. Shay fell against the door after watching Kent’s truck pull out of the driveway, packed with baggage and family, leaving Caleb and Shay alone. “Oh, my God, Caleb. I practically announced we were sleeping together when I said you’ve been all over me and my business.” She hit her forehead. “What was I thinking?”
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