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“Thank you,” I said, as I looked at Cal and clutched the book against my chest.
“You’re welcome.” He trailed the back of his fingers along my jaw and I closed my eyes and leaned into the touch. When I opened them, he hadn’t moved. Hadn’t closed the small gap between our mouths.
“Cal,” I said his name and those blue eyes lit up with hope. I couldn’t deny the addiction I had for this man. I pressed my lips against his and fell apart at the instant warmth of his soft kiss.
Gently touching, stroking those fingers down my neck, he licked the seam of my lips and I opened to take a taste of him. The slightest touch of his tongue was enough to make me moan. I missed him. So badly that my heart was beating in sections. One broken piece thumped, followed by a second broken piece. It hurt so much. The sting of the wound pulsing with…
Hope.
I pulled back. “I can’t.”
I was sad. Confused. And I didn’t know where to start with healing, or if it was even possible. Jack was back, the arrangement he and Cal had made was out, and I was sitting there, clutching to the idea of a future, of family, that Cal literally put in my hands. I didn’t want to let it go, but it wasn’t mine to embrace.
Not anymore.
“Will you take me home?” I asked. As soon as the words left my mouth I realized that I didn’t have a home. But Cal answered anyway.
“Yes.”
With that, he rose to stand and helped me up. I clung tightly to my book, terrified to my core that it would only ever be filled with the memories of what could have been.
Chapter 4
Cal had gotten the rest of the night off and drove me back to his place in silence. My body was humming, my mind was in chaos, and the hot shower did little to ease any of it.
I rested my head against the shower wall and exhaled. The “wall” was made of dark gray stones and looked more like a walk-in exotic cave than a shower stall. It suited Cal’s taste, since this was his master suite. From the furniture to the décor, everything was rugged and masculine.
I was surrounded by the man I’d just pulled away from. I couldn’t get that blue gaze out of my mind. Worse, I didn’t know what lay behind it.
After washing my hair and body, I now smelled like Cal and the familiar soap I’d come to know so well. I couldn’t escape him, even if that was my goal.
I closed my eyes and let the water continue to hit my back, yet nothing eased the tension or guilt.
The sound of bare feet hitting the smooth stones of the shower floor smacked my ears. The one man I was terrified to look at came in behind me.
“Cal,” I whispered, keeping my head against my forearm and forcing tears away. I should tell him to leave. To try to cover myself. Both were pointless. A large part of me didn’t want him to leave. I wanted him to stay. I wanted to yell at him. Get all the hurt out.
We are already done I reminded myself, yet nothing felt further from the truth.
The real world was a bitch and came with a past, and that was something we’d have to get back to. Forgiveness was one thing. Moving away from the pain another. And I was willing to do both. Was trying to do both. But it didn’t change the future. And the fact that it was waiting for me right outside this house, and I couldn’t take Cal with me to it.
Yet, in that moment, all I felt was stuck and horrible and I just wanted to run.
I felt Cal’s big body against my back. His tee shirt and jeans scratched against my bare bottom. He’d walked in clothed? He wasn’t looking for sex then, just to hold me?
The thought sucked me further into the need to feel him. Get lost in him. But I couldn’t even look at him.
“I’ll always chase you,” he whispered in my ear, then kissed the back of my neck. He either read my mind or acknowledged what had just happened, because that’s what I’d done. I’d run away and Cal had come after me.
“I’m lost,” I admitted.
“Never, Kitten.” He gently cupped my shoulders in his hands and turned me to face him. “I’ll find you.”
A tear pricked my eyes as I looked up at him. His white T-shirt was getting soaked and his jeans were no better, but he stood there, looking down at me with blue eyes full of understanding and determination.
“There’s so much I want to say,” I admitted. Even with the world and all its problems, like my house burning down and my father’s death, there was only one thing I needed to wrap my brain around right then. And that was Cal. “I’m sad. So unbearably sad. And I love you. I love Jack too…I never stopped. And I hate this.”
It was a mess. A loss either way I spun it.
