A Time to Fall (Love by the Seasons Book 1)

by Jess Vonn

  Later that evening, when he’d reached for himself in the shower in a last-ditch effort to quiet the cravings of his body, the only image his mind could form to help him along was of Winnie in there with him—her hair drenched, water catching in her long lashes. Her full lips wet and glistening. A sparkly trail of sudsy soap winding across the full slopes of her breasts and down, down, down to her center where he worked to temp cries of pleasure from her. Where her sex clenched needily around his fingers as she cried out his name.

  Sure, the image had helped him out in the shower, but it wasn’t doing him a damn bit of good when it came to keeping his composure around the woman today.

  He just plain wanted her. There wasn’t any more to it. His body and his psyche clearly agreed on this. It was only his brain that was putting on the breaks. But why?

  Winnie didn’t date. That much he knew, and he respected it, because he didn’t date either. And he sure as hell wasn’t in the market for a girlfriend, let alone a happily ever after. That wasn’t his birth right. Was it because they were work associates? That excuse wore thin, too, when he realized that it would be no less awkward to be her ex-lover one day down the road than to be her wannabe lover right now.

  For every truth he acknowledged about his inability to romance a woman, or to think about long-term monogamy, Cal knew he could please a woman and take pleasure from her, and the only person who seemed qualified to meet his body’s criteria right now was Winnie Briggs. So why fight such a natural instinct? If there was anyone who needed some mindless physical passion more than him, it was that tightly wound woman sitting out at their booth. If they approached this the right way, both of them would walk away with some satisfaction, and some relief from the churning needs of their bodies, without having to deal with the messiness of a failed romance.

  And if they approached it the wrong way? Well, Cal’s brain wouldn’t quite let him process that possibility. He splashed some water on his face, took a few final deep breaths, and made his way back out to the only woman who could give his body peace, determined to find a solution they could both live with.

  ~-~-~-~-~-~-

  Back at the booth, Winnie’s hands returned to the shakiness they experienced at the start of the evening.

  What in the holy hell was she doing here? Why did she think she could handle a casual dinner with a man who exuded such bone-deep sexuality? Her traitorous mind flickered back to moments before, when her hand was on Cal’s leg. God, the sheer muscularity of it unmoored her. She’d never been with a fit man. Never had the urge to run her palms along the contours of a man’s thighs. But Cal’s legs had been a revelation. The thought of the novelties that the rest of his body offered made her want to whimper. Until her hands had pressed into Cal Spencer’s body, it never occurred to her all the things she hadn’t experienced.

  She wanted him at a cellular level. Wanted to stretch him across a bed and spend hours examining the shape of him, his intimate patches of hair, his thick cords of muscle and the places on his body that grew sweaty from exertion.

  Crikey.

  Wanting Cal was no more practical than wanting a forty-room mansion in Los Angeles or a personal chef or a weekly massage. Some things, as nice as they sounded, and for as much bodily pleasure as they offered, simply were not meant for her, and part of being a grown-up was accepting reality.

  Ever aware of the man’s proximity, Winnie noticed Cal returning from the men’s room and, like the mature woman she was, she buried herself behind the dessert menu in an attempt to escape her own mortification.

  He resumed his place in the booth, her every cell heightened with awareness of his proximity. She peered over the large menu toward him.

  “Seriously, if there is permanent damage to that suit, I will buy you another one,” Winnie promised, feeling foolish. “After a few more paychecks, though, because I think your wardrobe reflects a different price point than mine.”

  “Winnie, forget it. I mean, I won’t ever let you completely forget it, because it was too funny,” he teased. “But really, you can forget it. It’s not a big deal at all. It’s just water.”

  He was playful, but sincere and it put Winnie mostly back at ease. Cal was well dressed and criminally sexy, but she was pleasantly surprised to learn how laid back he was, considering. Once Winnie had spilled sweet and sour sauce on one of Anthony’s favorite suit jackets and he hadn’t talked to her for two days after the incident. She didn’t think he ever fully forgave her. She mentally winced, realizing in hindsight just how frequently she chose to overlook those everyday indications of his true nature. It was startling to her just what she had been able to overlook in the name of not rocking the boat.

  “So, now that you’ve completely soaked me, you’ve got to answer some questions for me. It’s only fair.”

  Winnie’s heart beat raced, suddenly feeling like she was back in a middle school game of truth or dare.

  “I’ll try,” she offered, too timid to fully, willingly, submit to Cal’s games.

  “What brought you here?”

  Her heart rate ticked up, up, up.

  “A good job opportunity,” she bluffed.

  He didn’t hesitate a moment before saying, “I call bullshit.”

  Fair enough. The man was sexy, but he wasn’t stupid.

  She took another long sip of her second vodka and tonic, the alcohol soothing the nerves that might otherwise render her spineless. Perhaps it also helped her forget, ever so briefly, that this was only a business meeting. She met his eyes directly, their deep green depths seeming to reverberate between her legs.

  “A man.”

  He nodded. Senselessly, his lack of response urged her to elaborate.

  “A three-year relationship went south. He cheated on me. My world imploded.”

  “How?”

  “Mutual friends, a small professional network—” she began, her mind flooding with all those suddenly distant Chicago memories. Taking the elevator up to Anthony’s condo to surprise him with a night out on the town for their anniversary. Following the sound of groans and gasps to his bathroom, where he screwed his blonde intern against the side of his glass-walled shower. Her mixed drink wasn’t strong enough to forget all that.

  “No, I meant how did he cheat on you.”

  Winnie searched Cal’s face for a moment—wondering, hoping, yet knowing that his words couldn’t mean what they seemed.

  “Lawyer Anthony, in the stand-up shower, with his impossibly slender blonde intern,” Winnie said drolly, harkening the phrasing from the classic board game. “A tale as old as time.”

  “I’m not talking logistics, though that’s shitty as hell,” Cal relented, his gaze upon her relentless. Hungry.

  Winnie’s heart beat doubled on itself, and nausea rose through her core at the possible implications of Cal’s words.

  “You’d have to ask him that.”

  “I’d like to think I would if given the chance, but to be honest, if I met him, I’d probably just punch him in the face.”

  And then she found herself grinning. She didn’t, as a rule, condone violence, but she might make an exception for her bastard ex.

  “And what about you?” she asked, emboldened by vodka and the man’s blatant flirtation. “What’s your relationship history like?”

  He blinked.

  “I don’t really do relationships,” he said simply, as if that settled it.

  “No?” she asked, yearning to hear more. She wanted the man’s sob stories. His sexy recollections. No man who looked that gorgeous in a royal blue suit could have a simple romantic history.

  “There have been women,” he allowed. Oh, she could only imagine the parade of women who followed in Cal Spencer’s wake.

  “Mmm,” she offered. Vague. Noncommittal.

  “I’m not the slow and steady type. I don’t do romance. I don’t do long-term. But I take my pleasure where I can get it.”

  She bet he did. And with another sip of her vodka and tonic, she l
oosened up enough to imagine what that might look like. His mouth. Those hands.

  Mercifully, the waiter arrived just then, delivering the most delectable meal Winnie had seen since arriving in town.

  She looked up to Cal in disbelief.

  “I told you it’d be good,” he offered, before filling his mouth with a forkful of fried ravioli in rich marinara sauce.

  Winnie had never before envied a pillow of ravioli, but there was a first time for everything.

  And so it went into the evening. Eating. Flirting. Filling her mouth, her body, and her mind with a storm of pleasing sensations—from Cal, from the food, from the charged ambience of the café.

  By the time they finished their meal and settled the bill, the restaurant was all but abandoned. They had shut down the place. Transfixed, Winnie walked out the door of the restaurant, only realizing in the very back recesses of her mind that she and Cal had failed to discuss one single pertinent detail of Bloomsburo Days.

  Lightly buzzed, not so much from her earlier drinks, but from the food and the sexy company, Winnie arrived at Fiona the Ford in something like a daze. She wanted to linger there. Wanted this night with this beautiful man to somehow, impossibly, last.

  The chit chat that had brought them out to the empty parking lot had faded, and there they stood, her body leaning against Fiona, so near to his. Near enough to cause her throat to tighten. For something deep within her to contract with need.

  Her eyes grazed upon him, such an uncommonly attractive figure, suddenly thrust into her life, all because of her random response to an online rental ad.

  Fate had placed him here, an arm’s length away, and she was just content enough not to mind. To not to think that it was a cruel twist of fate. She scanned him once more, not yet able to fathom his beauty, from the honey-gold strands of his wavy hair, to his endless green eyes, to that mouth.

  God, that mouth.

  “You keep doing that,” Cal observed, his deep green eyes alighting with mischief.

  “Doing what?”

  “Watching my mouth.”

  Winnie cleared her throat, suddenly feeling cold sober.

  “I don’t —” she started, but he cut off the lie.

  “Yes, you do.”

  Her eyes widened. In what… annoyance? Guilt? Shock, at the way he seemed to see through her, as if she were made of glass? As if he could see her every accelerated heartbeat. Her throbbing pulse.

  But he’d caught her, and the man wasn’t wrong. And since she was caught, she relented, her gaze falling once more to his lips. Full. Satiny. Bitable. A plush haven amidst the stubble and hardness of his strong jaw. What was the point of denying the magnetic draw she had to them?

  “What are you thinking about when you look at me like that?” he asked, his directness like lightning through her core.

  A blush filled her cheeks and her eyes fell to her feet.

  “Winnie, look at me,” he said gently.

  From beneath her lashes, she peered toward him, but she didn’t dare open her mouth. His directness gutted her and she knew he caught every signal that her traitorous body sent—the quickened pulse, the shallow breath, the shaky hands. This desire she felt in his presence felt bigger than she could handle.

  And surely bigger than she could conceal.

  “I’m not asking what would happen if you acted on it, or about the long-term ramifications, or what I might think about your thoughts. Just, what are you thinking? Can you be honest with me?”

  His candor made her feel five years old. Why couldn’t she just say it? Why was it so hard to acknowledge the overwhelming urge surging through her body? Her every cell knew exactly what she wanted to do to the man, yet she couldn’t force herself to be her body’s own spokeswoman.

  “Tell me,” he said, his body inching ever so slightly toward her.

  “There’s no sense in talking about things that aren’t possible,” she finally managed, her voice strangled.

  “Sensibility and pleasure are hardly easy companions.”

  It might as well be the man’s motto.

  “Tell me,” he repeated.

  Exasperated, she relented.

  “I want to feel them,” she finally cried. “Your lips look so soft. So tempting. Like they’d know exactly what to do to with a woman beneath them.”

  Desire burned in his eyes. And confidence. No doubt he agreed with her assessment. He knew full well the expertise he had to offer, and what it could do to her.

  “So feel them,” he dared her, moving a half step closer to her, the lack of space between them now overwhelming Winnie with wants and needs.

  She shook her head no.

  “Why not?”

  “I made a promise to myself.”

  “The pledge?”

  “Yes. No dating.”

  “Right. I don’t date either.”

  “Good.”

  “So, let’s not date. That has nothing to do with what’s happening between our bodies.”

  Her heart thudded harder in her chest. She swore he could see it pounding away beneath the thin material of her blouse. His eyes flickered to her breasts and she cursed the attention her own breathlessness drew from his burning gaze.

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I think you do. Do you make it a point to deny your body what it wants?”

  “What?” she laughed, forced. Panicky. “Of course not.”

  “You eat the saddest food imaginable. You work all weekend and most evenings. You avoid men. Where do you find your pleasure, Briggs?”

  “I find plenty of pleasure,” she said too quickly, her defensiveness as evident as her arousal.

  “Where?”

  She thought for a moment, annoyed that an answer didn’t come to her more quickly. Damn the man for short-circuiting her brain.

  “I take pleasure in my work,” she relented, as if career satisfaction held a candle to what his mouth could offer. His fingers.

  “Okay,” he conceded, however mildly. “So do I. It’s a starting place, and important, but not nearly enough. Where else?”

  Why was it suddenly so hard to remember what she did just because it felt good? Random thoughts came to her, but they were too outdated to mention—old memories of weekend trips with girlfriends in college, the crafts she used to create but had long since abandoned. She might as well mention “playing with Barbies.” She hated how everything she thought of might sound silly. Frivolous.

  Mercifully, an idea came to her.

  “I take pleasure in my style,” she said.

  “Your style?”

  “My clothes, my fashion sense. How I accessorize. It makes me feel good. Different. I like it.”

  “I like it, too. I have to force myself to look away from you.”

  Warmth spread through her body at his approval, followed quickly by a tiny spark of annoyance. She didn’t dress how she did for men. In fact, she honed her style in spite of them, as a reclaiming of power.

  But damn if she didn’t want this particular man to like the look of her.

  “What else gives you pleasure?” he persisted.

  His body was closer now. Close enough to reach out for, to grab. She could smell him—the expensive woody tones of his cologne that she breathed in despite its potential to destroy her. Need throbbed through her veins.

  “Naps,” she managed. Though she wouldn’t tell him of the self-pleasure that helped her nod off. That was only for her to know.

  His sweet lips spread into a grin.

  “Hmmm,” he said, the low vibration of his mouth unraveling something within her.

  “Saturdays and Sundays, I usually take one. They’re delicious.”

  The word set off a spark in his endless green eyes.

  “That’s closer. But couldn’t you do with a little more?”

  “More what?”

  “Pleasure in your life. I could help with that.”

  Desire singed every inch of her, each one desperate for this man
’s touch. It decimated her defenses. Her insecurities. For a brief moment, she felt like a different woman, as if she was somehow floating outside of the self-conscious body that carried her around on a day-to-day basis.

  Or maybe she had it all wrong. Maybe this man wasn’t here to destroy her. Maybe he was here to embolden her. To teach her to literally reach out and grab what she wanted out of life.

  To hell with the pledge. Because at the end of the day, wasn’t it just one more way to let men control her life?

  Winnie first.

  “Yes, I could do with a little more pleasure,” she said, surprising them both. She watched his face, searching, as he contemplated his next move. With one more step, he closed the gap between them.

  “Name the parameters,” he ordered, barely containing the need that coiled his muscular body as tight as a rope.

  Her heart thumped in her chest at the thought of the line they were about to cross. She took some solace in the fact the she’d just picked up and moved her entire life hundreds of miles away. If this thing, whatever it was burning between her and Cal, were to go up in flames, if he ignited her entire world and burned it to ashes, she could flee and do it all again.

  A small comfort. Her brain whirled, trying to calculate the conditions that might help to minimize the damage this experiment would surely yield.

  It didn’t help that the man’s fingers brushed her cheek, stroking her jawline tenderly. She wanted those fingers to explore every centimeter of her body. She knew they could make her weep with desire.

  “Uh, no dates,” she managed, closing her eyes in an attempt to focus. “No more sexy business meetings either. We stay professional on the job. Not a whiff of indiscretion.”

  Had her eyes been open, she might have seen what was coming, but as it was, the soft kiss Cal placed exactly where her ear met her neck shot a wave of sensations through her body, every one of which seemed to ultimately settle in a throbbing pool between her legs.