“Jules has a cab waiting,” she said, referring to her college roommate.
“You’re going straight back to the hotel, right? No stops?”
“Yes, big brother,” she laughed, giving him a hug.
Tomorrow morning she and her roommate would fly back to Michigan to finish their last semester of college. He couldn’t wait for her to move back to the East Coast after graduation—he missed her like hell.
“You coming with us, Cal?” Liv asked.
Callie shook her head. “No, I’m gonna go back to my dorm. It’s not far.”
Liv stabbed a finger in the center of Noah’s chest. “Make sure she gets in a cab, alright?”
“Scout’s honor.” He held up three fingers.
Liv snorted. “You were never a Scout.”
And then it was just Noah and Callie. He advanced on her, aware that the alcohol had gone to his head—or maybe it was proximity to her making him reckless. Either way, he didn’t care. Callie watched him approach, her lips curving into the barest of smiles. She walked backwards as he came closer, her head tipping up to meet his eyes, until her back hit the brick wall of the bar.
He leaned a hand on the wall beside her, bending close until his lips brushed the shell of her ear. “Did you have fun tonight?”
She nodded, her hair brushing against his face. Like silk.
“Do you want me to get you a cab?”
She shook her head and reached up to untie the strings holding his mask in place. She pulled it away, her fingertips ghosting over his cheek as she did. “That’s better.”
He wasn’t sure who leaned in first, but did it really matter? Their lips collided, a hungry tangle of tongues and teeth as if they’d been kissing for ages instead of this being their first time. He pressed her to himself and swallowed her little gasp when his pelvis rocked against her. She fisted the fabric of his shirt, using that grip to pull him closer, and he took that as permission to let his hands wander down the curve of her waist, hook her thigh and pull it up around his hip. He nipped at her bottom lip, smiling when she moaned in response.
She was glorious—everything he’d imagined she’d be and more. And they fit together so perfectly, like they were two parts of the same whole. Maybe it wasn’t so crazy to think he could do this. Maybe with Callie he could rewrite the rules that had governed his life since his father’s death. Maybe with Callie it could just be this—flirty phone calls, and talking about music, and kissing like they might die if they didn’t get another taste of each other’s lips.
A bell rang somewhere behind them by the bar. The obnoxious, clanging wrested them apart. “Last call!” someone shouted.
He eased her leg back to the floor, his hand tracing up her side until it cupped her jaw. With a final, lingering kiss, he pulled away, panting. He was so hard he was having trouble concentrating on anything but the way her breasts heaved against his chest as she caught her breath.
“Let’s get you that cab,” he said, brushing his nose against hers.
“You could come with me,” she murmured, her voice breathy and hopeful.
He shook his head, pressing his forehead against hers. “Not tonight.”
“Oh.” The disappointed sound falling from her lips made him grin.
“Can I call you tomorrow?”
“Yes, please.”
He put her in a cab, kissing her soundly before closing the door behind her and ignoring the parts of him that wanted to climb in after her. He would make himself new for her—fashion himself into someone who knew how to take things slow, how to build a relationship and not just a one-night stand. Someone who saw the possibilities of the future, not just the devastation of the end.
The next day, when Noah called Callie, she didn’t answer.
Chapter 1
Six Years Later
“So, basically I’m fucked,” Noah said, staring across the impressive mahogany desk at his uncle.
Stuart Van Aller leaned back in his chair and cast an assessing look over his nephew. But he wasn’t acting in the role of uncle at the moment; he was acting in the role of Dean of the College of Performing Arts at Burnett University—Noah’s boss.
