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“Why?” Her body stilled the millisecond the question left her lips while her mind raced, trying to find a way to take back the question before he realized just how much his answer meant to her.
Cal looked past her, not saying a thing—which to be honest she wasn’t sure she’d hear over the pounding of her heart and the panic screaming in her head.
“Forget I said that,” she muttered as she let her hands fall to her side. “It doesn’t matter.”
The urge to run won out over her need to stay, and she made a move to step back but stopped the second Cal looked back down at her, his eyes narrowed and his jaw set.
“It sure as hell does matter,” he said, his voice low and tight. “I will always want more because of the way your mouth tilts when you’re just about to smile.” He released his hold on her skirt and smoothed his palms over her hips, the weight of his hands heavy as if he wanted her to feel him touching her even after he’d stopped. “Because of the curve of your hips that defies physics, and my ability to not think about you at inconvenient moments—which is all of them—because I can’t seem to stop thinking about you.” He bit out the words, each one obviously costing him. “Even worse is how it takes everything in me not to touch you—even just to reach out and tuck a stray hair behind your ear or put my palm against the small of your back or kiss that spot right here.” He traced his finger down the side of her neck, his entire body rock hard with tension that pushed against her like a palpable thing. “You fucking consume my thoughts all the damn time.”
He was breathing hard by the time he finished, but she couldn’t breathe at all. Oxygen? Who needed air when there was Cal saying things like that? It was almost enough to make a woman like her believe love could be real again. And that was more frightening than walking a tight wire across the Harbor City bridge without a net.
“You just like the chase,” she said, her words coming out as shaky as her nerves.
Cal’s lips curled in a wicked, cocky smile, and some of the tension ebbed out of his hard muscles. “Yeah, I do.”
Heat flashed in his eyes, the only warning she got before he grabbed her hips and swapped their positions so it was her pressed against the wall. He gripped her wrists in one hand and lifted them above her head and stepped in close so that she was sandwiched between the wall and his hard body.
“But not nearly as much as I like catching you.” He traced the V of her thin sweater with a finger, tugging it lower so he skimmed over the upper swell of her breasts. “And I’ve caught you tonight, Astrid O’Malley.”
“Just tonight?” She didn’t mean to sound so damn hopeful, but it was there, a ribbon of vulnerability winding its way through every syllable.
“When it comes to being with you, I’ll take every second you’ll give me.” He dipped his head and said in a rough whispered promise, “And I’ll still want more.”
Then he was kissing his way down her neck, one hand cupping her breast through her sweater. He swept one thumb across her aching nipple, and even through the layers of clothing, it was enough to make her moan with pleasure. The soft-hard feeling of his hold on her wrists. The sharp rush of desire when he kissed the place where her shoulder met her neck. The way her whole body, every nerve, every sensitive spot, every overheated inch of her, was tuned into him, aching and ready for him. Being with Cal didn’t just make her want to break all of her rules. It made her want to burn them to ash and salt the earth.
Yes, deep down, she knew those had just been pretty words. Cal didn’t really mean it, and after all that had happened five years ago, she couldn’t let herself fall for that again. But for tonight she’d let herself pretend he did, because they were true for her.
Somewhere between watching a hot stranger smush Andy’s face against the bar in some kind of sweet—if unnecessary—act of gallantry and getting the drawing Cal had made of her, Astrid had fallen for him.
There really wasn’t a worse possible outcome for her than that.
But here she was, getting drunk on Cal’s touch and hoping like hell that she’d never sober up.
So when he inched up her skirt and slid his hand underneath, she let her head fall back with a soft thunk against the wall. She spread her legs. She arched her hips. She let out a lusty moan of appreciation when he cupped her through her desire-soaked panties and rotated the heel of his palm against her clit. Pleasure rolled through her, a wave of oh yes as he kept her right on the edge of coming and backing off again and again until he finally yanked her panties down. She stepped out of them, keeping her stance wide. They both let out a groan of appreciation the second he touched her.
“Look at me,” Cal said, the intensity in his tone matched by the determination and lust in his eyes when she did as he told. “That’s my Astrid.”
God, her legs almost gave out at that as desire built inside her, getting tighter and tighter as he circled her clit and slow-fucked her with his thick fingers, but she didn’t look away. Her gaze stayed locked on Cal right up until the moment her orgasm hit and the entire world disappeared under the weight of all that exquisite bliss.
She was still riding that wave hard when he released her wrists and picked her up, carrying her to the couch and bending her over the low back. The sound of him shoving his pants down made her core ache with need. And when he flipped her skirt up and laid his hand on the top of her ass? Her anticipation ratcheted up as if she hadn’t just come hard enough to turn her to jelly.
“Spread your legs so I can look at you.”
The idea of being so exposed to him made her flush with desire, and he didn’t have to ask twice. Her reward was his calloused hand rubbing, stroking, squeezing her ass to the point that passed massage and went straight to the best kind of torment.
“Fuck,” he said, the curse sounding like a prayer. “You are so wet I could be balls-deep in you right now in one stroke.”
Her knees almost buckled from the mental image of that alone.
She pressed her forearms into the back of the couch for balance and looked over her shoulder at him. “So what are you waiting for?”
Chapter Forty
Cal could spend forever appreciating that look in Astrid’s eyes. Everything about it was all wicked promise, sinful suggestion, and sweet seduction.
Damn, he was so screwed.
Sleeping with Astrid was a bad idea all by itself. He knew that. She knew that. Anyone with a pulse and half a brain cell knew that. His career and her hard-won life of anonymous normalcy was on the line if anyone found out.
