by Jess Vonn
“Me neither,” Cal said. She could feel his low voice vibrating where her cheek pressed into his chest. “All we wanted was a confession from Greta.”
“Greta?”
“She was behind the bomb threat. The Howl reviews, too.”
“No shit?”
“Winnie got the lead on the story, and she came up with plan,” Cal explained, looking at Winnie with pride.
“I’m beginning to think I should offer you a position on the force, Winnie.”
She smiled faintly.
“He was the unexpected piece of the puzzle,” Cal said, jerking his head toward the mayor. “Jilted lover of Greta’s.”
“No shit,” Carter repeated.
Mayor Simpson groaned louder from where he still sat on the ground, more out of pride than pain.
“Well, he can tell me his whole sad story down at the station,” Carter said, reaching for his handcuffs just as two more uniformed police officers arrived on the scene.
“Can I take Winnie to the medics?” Cal asked. An ambulance and a few EMTs stood ready all through the weekend just in case any first aid needs arose at a Bloomsburo Days event.
“Yeah. I’ll need to get official statements from you both, but that can wait a few.”
Cal nodded and finally let go of Winnie.
“I’m fine,” she lied. Her head hurt from the impact of the head butt, and dizziness and chills still coursed through her body.
“I don’t care,” Cal said, lacing his fingers through hers and slowly leading her back out into the crowded area of the farm.
“People will see us,” Winnie said, glancing down at their clasped hands.
“I don’t care,” Cal repeated, tightening his grip to make his point. Her heart fluttered. She told it to knock it off.
“You’ve got work to get to, I’m sure of it, Cal. I’ll find the first-aid station. It’s fine.” Her heart ached. She couldn’t do this again. She couldn’t fall back into his arms only to have to wrench herself from them when the intensity of the moment subsided and she remembered the limits of their connection. She’d barely survived it once.
“You and I have a lot to talk about, Winnie Briggs,” he said, his green gaze staring into hers with an intensity that shook her. “But the only thing you need to know for tonight is that I will not leave your side. Is that understood?”
Fear and hope and relief collided through her shocked system at the thought of the very scenario she had not allowed herself to imagine: another night by Cal’s side.
Chapter 25
It was after eleven by the time Cal pulled into his driveway with Winnie in the passenger seat of his car. The medic had checked her over thoroughly. A concussion was unlikely, but he’d said she’d likely experience head pain for a few days. Carter had met them there, taking their statements in the back of the ambulance, and by the time he’d finished, Winnie claimed that the symptoms of shock were mostly gone. Now she just felt dazed and exhausted.
“Cal…your house?” Winnie said hesitantly.
“I said I wasn’t leaving your side tonight. I’ll sleep in the guest room.”
He helped her out of the car, up his front steps and into the peaceful darkness of his living room.
“Are you hungry?” he asked, wanting more than anything to make her comfortable.
She shook her head.
“Just tired. The only thing I really want is the one thing I can’t have. A bath.”
“Why can’t you have a bath?”
“Have you seen the bathroom in my cottage?” He suddenly remembered the harsh plastic lining of the narrowest stand-up shower he’d ever seen.
“Take one here.”
She blinked at him, not following.
“I’ve got a whirlpool tub in the master bathroom.”
And just like that, he watched her anxious face soften with longing. He wished he had inspired it, but if his luxury tub excited the woman, brought her some sort of peace, he’d take it. Visions of Winnie’s buoyant breasts covered in water and soapy bubbles floated through his mind but he quickly regained control. Tonight wasn’t about that.
“I couldn’t possibly…” Winnie whispered unconvincingly.
“Winnie, I brought you here to make sure you were comfortable tonight.”
“It’s just…” she hesitated. He gently pulled her hand and led her upstairs to a part of his house she’d never seen. They made their way to his master bedroom and she paused at the threshold, her eyes widened with an unreadable emotion. They passed the tufted frame of his king-sized bed on their way to the door leading into the bathroom. When she took in the size of the Jacuzzi tub, the gorgeous stone work that surrounded it, and the ambient lighting that Cal had turned on to showcase it, she gasped.
“Oh, my.” For the second time in as many minutes he was envious of his damn bathroom.
“Let me draw it for you, and then I’ll give you some privacy, okay?”
She nodded her consent, leaning against the door frame while he turned on the water.
“My gel soap works pretty well as bubble bath, if you’re into that kind of thing,” he offered. She nodded with a small smile and he added a few squeezes of it into the faucet’s strong stream.
When the tub was full of hot water and fragrant bubbles, he turned off the faucet and showed Winnie the controls on the side—one slider for the front jets, another for the back jets, and a third for the lights.
He set out a fluffy towel and washcloth, some shampoo, and an unopened travel toothbrush and toothpaste.
“Take your time,” he said, walking through the door. “I’m going to go grab a robe you can put on when you’re done.”
She nodded and he closed the door behind him. He tried to keep his thoughts gentlemanly. Tried not to think about her undressing. Tried not to think about the water slipping temptingly over every inch of her body.
He found the robe he was looking for in the guest room closet, made his way back to the door and knocked gently. When he cracked open the door, he saw that her eyes were closed and her face looked peaceful as she rested beneath the bubbles, which was a marked improvement.
“I’ll just set this here,” he said, looking at the hamper where he placed the soft, white terrycloth robe. He closed the door quickly behind himself and willed himself to get a grip. Winnie had a lot of needs tonight, and his body needed to remember that right now, they had little to do with him. As for tomorrow, or next week, or next month? Only time would tell.
He paced the house, emptying the dishwasher, changing into a soft T-shirt and flannel pants, checking his emails on his phone to make sure there were no Bloomsburo Days-related emergencies to address, though anything that came up at this point would be pittance compared to what the day had already brought.
He could hear through the ceiling that Winnie was draining the tub, and he slowly made his way back to the bedroom where he found her standing near the edge of his bed wrapped up in the robe he’d provided. Her cheeks were flushed a healthy pink, and her hair fell down her chest, heavier and longer and darker from its wetness.
“Better?” he asked, shoving his hands in the pockets of his flannel pants.
“Much.”
“Is there anything else you need?”
She shook her head no, the sadness—her quietness—nearly killing him.
“Okay, well you can just crash in here,” he said, turning down the duvet for her and clicking on the lamp on the bedside table.
“I’ll be in the guest room just down the hall if you need me,” he continued, forcing himself to walk away from this woman in his bed. The woman he wanted to hold more than anything in the world.
“You sure you aren’t hungry?” he asked, turning back to her once more in a last-ditch effort to delay the inevitable. Not to mention that his need to feed the woman was damn near pathological.
She shook her head once more and he slowly walked out of the room, turning out the overhead light and half closing the door behind him. He st
ood in the hall for minutes, unsure what to do with himself. He couldn’t go to sleep. Not like this. Not with his mind reeling from the events of the day. Not with the woman he needed like oxygen just a few feet away, tucked into the bed he’d never shared with another.
The memory of the evening’s events suddenly hit him like a bullet train. He’d been so busy making sure Winnie was okay that he hadn’t even fully processed what had happened. Suddenly the image of that gun pointed at Winnie’s throat burned into his mind, and panic gripped his chest once more.
He’d never known such fear. Any lingering doubts about what he felt for Winnie had disappeared in an instant. That minute, the longest of his life, when his mind considered the possibility of a world without Winnie, had been devastating. He didn’t want to know a tomorrow without her light in his life.
With her courage and quick thinking, she may have saved his life. Had he even thanked her?
He walked quietly back toward his bedroom door, debating whether or not to knock, when the sound of her soft sobs floated from his bed.
“Winnie,” he called, opening the door and seeing her crumpled in her robe in a pile on top of the sheets. He crawled up onto his bed in record time, pulling her into his arms.
“Shhh,” he comforted her, hating the feel of her body shaking with distress in his arms. “Winnie, what is it?”
“You’re not even mine to lose,” she cried, hugging him tighter as her warm tears wetted his T-shirt.
“What are you talking about?”
She sniffled and her face looked up at his, looking splotchy and vulnerable in the soft light from the night stand.
“Everyone’s okay now, Winn,” he whispered, rubbing his hands in circles on her back and instinctively rocking her in his arms.
“He was going to shoot you, Cal. He pointed his gun at you, and he threatened you, and I’ve never been more terrified in my life,” she said between sobs. “I couldn’t survive it if something happened to you…”
She grasped at his shoulders.
“The most ridiculous part is that you’re not even mine to lose.”
Desire and defensiveness shot through his chest with startling force.
“Like hell I’m not.”
Her sobbing stopped in an instant, replaced by a look of shock in her deep brown eyes.
“What?”
He wiped her tears away with the back of his hand before putting his fingers to her lips. Tracing them down the smooth line of her neck. Pressing them under her robe to where he could feel her heart pulse.
“I’m absolutely yours.”
She shook her head no. He dared her to challenge him on this front. She might reject him, but she wouldn’t deny what he felt and neither would he. Not for another minute.
“This was just supposed to be physical,” he continued. “And my God, what a start that was. The pleasures you can draw from my body have haunted me from the beginning.” He leaned in and kissed her lightly on the lips, coaxing a soft whimper from deep in her throat.
“You’re so gorgeous, Winnie. But you turned out to be so much more,” he said, brushing his hand against her cheek. “You are so determined. Considerate. Talented. So damn goofy that I can’t help but laugh every time I’m with you. Each time you leave my side, I feel like you take half of me with you. It’s only when you’re right next to me that I feel whole again.”
His lips met hers in a deep, sensual connection. The earth suddenly felt as if it was back on its axis as their tongues glided together. As if every wrong had been righted and things were back to the natural, beautiful order that this woman had revealed to him.
He felt her breath hitch in her gorgeous neck.
“I can’t…” she whispered.
“What, love?”
“I can’t lose myself to you. I’m not in your league, Cal. I know it.”
“Don’t,” he said in warning. He wouldn’t accept this from her. Not now. His entire life had been spent listening to this kind of nonsense. Women suggesting that his handsomeness rendered him incapable of commitment. Of mutual attraction. Of basic decency. Hell, he’d told himself the same stories at times. But he wouldn’t stand for it now, though. Not with Winnie.
“Cal, don’t you think you might get bored with me before long?” she offered, vulnerability radiating through her. “You could have any woman you want.”
He grabbed her chin, and oriented her face to focus her directly into his eyes, lest there be any doubt. He wouldn’t stand for it.
“Winnie, I’m not going to lie. A fair number of women have had access to my body, and no, I didn’t have to twist any arms in the process. But they only had my body. None of them had my heart. I didn’t know I was capable of giving it to someone until you literally crashed into my life.”
She snorted, a sobby sort of snort. Still adorable.
“When I thought I’d lost you after our first night together, that was gutting,” he said, his lips pressing against her temple. Her cheek. Her neck, where her pulse throbbed. “But at least you weren’t in danger then. Not like tonight. That prospect, of any harm coming to you, even for a second? That’s when I knew I was ready to stop pretending like you don’t mean the world to me.”
She hugged him close.
“I’m sorry I ran out on you,” she confessed into his shoulder, her voice shaky. “The time with your family, followed by a night with you. It overwhelmed me. It let me start to imagine it.”
“Imagine what?” he asked, gently massaging her scalp with his clever fingers.
“Our life together. Being a part of your family.”
“It was that horrifying of a prospect, huh? Being stuck with me and my family? I know my mom is meddling, but…”
She laughed, sending a fresh set of tears down her cheeks and onto his t-shirt.
“I didn’t run because I was scared of it. I was scared by how much I wanted it. How good it could be. How easily I could get lost in it. How awful it would be to have it taken away from me,” she said, a sob catching in her throat at all of those deep memories of loss. “Losing you would be one thing. But losing your family, after I’d fallen even more in love with them, that was just too much to imagine.”
He rocked her gently in his embrace as the tears worked their way out.
“You make me a better man, Winnie,” he said into her hair. “The aftermath of what my dad did messed with my mind for a long time. I couldn’t ever let myself be like him, and the surest way to do that was to keep women away. To never even toy with a serious relationship.”
“Hence, our deal.”
“Hence, our deal,” he repeated. “I chalk that deal up as one of the biggest failures of my life.”
Her head snapped up in surprise.
“I had one job, and that was to give you physical pleasure while keeping my heart out of it. But the truth was, you’d stolen it before we’d even negotiated the terms of our agreement. Your hand’s been on it since that first afternoon on your porch, in those damned adorable unicorn leggings.”
She laughed, a beautiful sound.
“Winnie, I will never be perfect, but I want to be your lover,” he said, his soft words electric. He kissed her forehead. “I want to be your best friend.”
Cal’s gaze locked into hers with a newfound intensity.
“I want you to be your home, Winnie. And I want you to be mine. So the only question left is—will you have me?”
Her body answered swiftly. She climbed up on top of him, straddling him while she hugged his head into her chest where her robe gaped open.
“Yes,” she said, his new favorite word. The only word he wanted to hear from Winnie Briggs’s lips from this day forward. “God, Cal, how is this real?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll fight for us as hard as I’ve fought for anything in my life. For your happiness.”
“Deal,” she said with a small laugh, but her wet eyes showed the depth of her joy at their reconnection.
He kissed her slower then,
sensuously. He tried to convey the depth of his convictions through his mouth.
Her hands busied themselves around her waist and then suddenly, mercifully, her robe fell in a heap around her knees where she straddled him.
“My happiness starts like this,” she ordered, grabbing his hands and pressing them against her breasts—soft and fragrant from her bath.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, feasting on the full slopes before him. His tongue found her nipple and the pressure he yielded there made her moan breathlessly.
“Cal,” she said breathlessly.
“Mmm,” he said, moving his attention to the other breast. Another suckle. Another moan.
“Do we need new ground rules?” she managed between her gasps of pleasure.
His eyes made their way up to hers.
“I suppose we do,” he said, his hands rubbing down her ribs and around her back until her perfect ass filled them. He squeezed her hungrily. A naked, writhing Winnie on top of him made it very difficult to think, but he tried his best.
“I get to wine and dine you whenever the hell I want,” he said. “I’m tired of not dating you.”
She smiled in agreement, running her hands tentatively across the tops her own bare breasts. He watched her hands hungrily, with complete approval.
Jesus.
“Terms of endearment are back on the table,” she insisted, plucking at her own nipples. His cock rose that much harder, which didn’t go unnoticed by her. She rocked her hips in slow circles, beckoning his throbbing arousal through the thin material of his pajama bottoms. “Is that okay with you, babe?” she asked, her eyes like fire.
“That’s more than okay,” he said. Jesus, no one could combine affectionate and sexy like Winnie Briggs. No one. He’d be her baby. Her honey. Her sweetie. She could call him whatever the hell she wanted as long as he got to keep touching her and watching her touch herself.
“Anything else?” she asked, her hips working more intentionally now as she continued to cup her own breasts in her hands. It was evident on her face that his hardness tormented her sweet spot.
“Sleepovers?” he asked. He knew where he stood on the matter, but he wanted to hear her thoughts first. His thumb made its way to her clit and his heart thrilled, watching her face absorb the pleasure of his stroke.