Chapter 39
Rae
Caleb didn’t answerwith words. He lifted my hand to his lips and kissed it, then leaned in and found my lips. It was a kiss that felt like a promise. The kiss began soft and searching, then deepened until the rest of the world fell away.
Caleb spoke first when we stopped kissing. “I need you to know, if you decide to stop, then we stop. I won’t care—I just want to be with you no matter what we’re doing. Okay, Sunshine?”
“I want this,” I whispered. “I want you.” I really did want to be with him. Forever.
He drew back just far enough to look at me, his thumb brushing my cheek. “I’m already yours, Rae.”
My mind was spinning. From kissing him like that, to thinking about the possibility of forever with him, to him saying “I'm yours,” I felt...Breathless. I loved the idea of being with him forever, and I know he said he wouldn’t be going anywhere, and that he was already mine. Did he mean forever, though?
There was so much kindness in his blue eyes. Caleb truly cared about me, and I loved him for that.
“One thing, if I can make a request. Let me take care of you. No pressure, no expectations. Just us.”
I nodded. A cool breeze lifted around us, smelling faintly like spring flowers. The sun was slowly sinking in the sky behind us, but all I saw was him. I tried to hold on to that thought—just us—as he guided me down to the blanket. Every movement was deliberate, as if he were giving me time to decide with each touch.
He eased my shirt upward, fingers grazing the small of my back, his palms steady and warm. When the fabric was gone, he traced the lines of my shoulders. The slow rhythm of his touch was intoxicating. I felt tension leaving my body a little more with every breath.
His hands traced along my back, fingers brushing over the line of my bra. When he went to unhook it, he paused, brows pulling together. “There’s... no clasp?”
A breathy laugh slipped out of me. “Front clasp,” I said, fingers trembling just a little as I reached between us. “Here. I’ve got it.”
I took a slow breath and unhooked it. The cups fell away, the straps sliding down my shoulders. Caleb didn’t rush. He eased the straps the rest of the way down my arms and helped me out of my bra, gentle like always.
He’d seen me before—but this was different. This time, I was letting him have me. All of me.
Nerves fluttered in my stomach, but I didn’t hide, didn’t cover myself or look away. I met his gaze and let him see what I couldn’t seem to say out loud:I trust you. I choose you.
He looked at me for a long moment, and instead of shrinking from it, I let him see me. The tenderness and heat in his eyes steadied me more than words ever could. Caleb always saw the real me—the messy, healing, imperfect me—and loved me as I was, not as who I thought I needed to be.
He eased me back onto the soft blanket and kissed a path down my neck, to the peak of my breast. Tongue tracing over it, my body responding to his gentle touch. When he moved to show the other side the same attention, I didn’t have time to react because of the memories it brought up. Caleb kissed and touched me with such featherlight movements, like he was trying to show me how gentleness could rewrite what pain once taught me.
An involuntary sound escaped my lips, and Caleb paused to look at me—the setting sun causing his blue eyes to look like they were glowing. “I could stay here for hours, just learning you—listening to every sound you make,” he said with a smile that made me giggle.
He worshipped me with his mouth—slow, patient—taking his time as if he wanted to learn me. Each slow pass of his tongue pulled quiet sounds from me I didn’t know I could make, and when my hips lifted toward him, he kissed lower, down my stomach, his hands warm where they held my sides. His lips teased over my skin, sending heat through me I couldn’t ignore. It had been so long since anyone touched me with this kind of care, and every unhurried slide of his hands drew a deep, aching response from me, like my body was finally remembering what safety felt like.
His mouth brushed along my hip, pausing as he breathed against my skin. “You’re beautiful,” he murmured, voice rough. His hands continued their slow exploration, skimming over the curve of my hip and the faint tremor of my stomach. His touch wasn’t a demand; it was a language all its own, a conversation that my heart understood.
