I pursed my lips, hiding my growing irritation at his sensual torment. I’m sure my eyes flashed with emotion and desire.
“Touch me.”
“Ah…touch you. That is so vague. You’ll have to be more specific. My hands are already on your body and so is my mouth. I thought touching you was what I was doing in this exact moment.”
“Touch,” I spit out on the wings of a ragged breath. Like our interlude had become a torrent of swirling passion unresolved. “Touch me between my legs.”
He brought one hand down to my leg and started crawling his fingers up my inner thigh but stopped short. The punishment had begun. He was going to make me beg. Plead as if my life depended on it. And I’d succumb.
“You’ll have to be even more specific. My hand is now between your legs.”
I opened my eyes to catch him staring at me. His gaze was hungry and unrelenting. “Higher.”
His lips pursed as if I’d perplexed him. I felt his cock dig into my side, searching for its own form of relief as it ground against my heated skin. I stared at his smirking mouth for what seemed like forever, but his hand didn’t move higher as I’d asked. It stayed still, and I continued to want everything he had to give, picturing his hard and straining cock impaling me just as I was about to beg for his fingers to do the same thing.
“Please.”
He arched a sardonic brow. “I don’t think so. Not until you say it. You have a remarkable way with words, Lydia Singleton. Even I’ve read your latest book. Say it.”
My mind raced, thinking of every word I’d written inside of my last release. I couldn’t stop my face from flaming as I thought of a certain scene between the hero and heroine much like this one. Since I couldn’t come up with my own words, I’d steal hers.
“I want you to make me come. With your fingers. Now.”
He walked two fingers up a few inches farther until he reached the apex of my sex. I could feel the wetness and the heat there. Only he could ease the ache. “Very good girl. I think you’ve earned a reward.”
With a low chuckle of triumph, he parted my outer lips with his talented fingers. I clenched at the caress, my opening quivering as he looked at me in the most intimate place possible. I felt exposed but beautiful at the same time, flowering for his eyes and his fingers. I wanted to tempt him and lure him like an ancient siren, causing him to come apart as surely as I was in this moment.
He smoothed a finger along my slit, gathering the moisture as he did it. I lifted against him, demanding with my body what I wanted, begging him to breach my opening with his fingers. My hips stayed lifted as he hesitated, and I speared him with a gaze, trying to convey with my eyes what my mouth struggled to articulate.
“Yes, Lydia. You can have what you want now,” he said, rewarding me by sliding one long finger inside. My body jerked and pulsed around it, the hot suction drawing it in further. I felt as if I couldn’t get him deep enough. Callum pumped it in and out, not giving me everything. Bringing me to the brink and them pulling me back when all I wanted was to fall headlong into the abyss.
My breath quickened, and I turned my flushed cheek against the cool pillow in a desperate attempt to escape the heat. “More.”
The one word was all I could manage. “How much more?”
“Please, Callum. All of it. I want it all.”
He added a second finger, stretching me further. Again, he pumped for blissful seconds, altering his rhythm until he matched the pulsations of my straining pussy as it contracted and released. When I couldn’t stand it another moment and thrashed in response, he glided a third inside. I bit my lip to stifle a cry and moaned instead, the hungry noise falling from my mouth.
“Go ahead and scream, Lydia,” he commanded, leaning down to blow a tornado of warm breath on my clit, right above his fingers. “I want to hear it. I want to hear my name on your lips, and I want to see your face when it happens.”
Holy Mother of God. I saw stars. “Please, Callum. Please make me come.”
He bent his head down and sucked my clit between his lips, stroking me with his tongue until I screamed out his name as requested on a tortured wail, bucking through the most powerful orgasm of my life. My body contorted and squeezed his fingers, the release going on and on until I finally ground to a halt, weak and limp.
Only then did he move away, but only for a moment. There was a rip, and he was rolling on a condom. Then he was back, positioning his cock at my slick entrance. With gentle and exquisite slowness, he pressed inside inch by aching inch. I felt tight, stretched to the maximum under the onslaught of his massive cock, but my body didn’t care, I sucked him deeper, my pussy hungry to know every single inch of him. My body opened and squeezed. Once he’d buried himself inside me to the hilt, he reached forward and ran a gentle finger along my jawline.
“I’ve never seen anything as beautiful as you are right now. You feel so incredible. So tight and perfect. I might never get enough of you.”
I focused my stare on his handsome face and smiled up at him. “Please, let me touch you too. I want to so badly.”
He nodded, and I dropped my arms from above my head and wrapped them around his body in a tight embrace, running my hands up and down his back. I clung to Callum as he began to thrust in slow circles inside of me, grinding our pelvises together as I purred out moans along with breathless little pants of pleasure.
He cupped my hips, digging his fingers into my soft flesh as if he couldn’t get close enough. Deep enough. The second orgasm snuck up on me. Callum hit me deep inside in just the right spot. I surrendered to every nuance of the sensations coursing through my body. He lifted me higher, held me tighter, and in that moment, I felt so safe. So adored.
Loved.
My body rippled around him, milking his cock with my second release within minutes, which pulled his own orgasm from him. He growled his pleasure as I urged him on by stroking his strong back.
After a few moments, Callum gathered me to his side and snuggled us both deep into the soft bedding. He reached for a tissue and disposed of the well–used condom. His breath slowly came down to match mine, and we laid like that for close to an hour, not speaking but basking in the glow of each other. One heartbeat. One body, tangled together in a circle of sated limbs. I wished I could stay like this forever.
But I knew that morning would come, and with it, the shadow of regret.
The mode of your declarations merely spared me any concern I might have had in refusing you had you behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner.
– Elizabeth Bennet
Chapter 12
Lydia
I woke up snuggled in Callum’s strong arms, and a wave of panic spread through my body as I struggled to remember where I was and what had happened the day and night before. I breathed deeply and enjoyed the smell and feel of a masculine man. For a moment, I didn’t want to be released from the warmth of him, but I really needed to go to the bathroom and check my phone. From its place on Callum’s nightstand, I could see that multiple texts and voicemails from Poppy littered the home screen. The digital clock read nearly noon. Geez, I wasn’t a late sleeper, but after I’d drifted off, I’d slept like a log in the safety of Callum’s embrace.
After a trip to the guest bathroom and firing off a quick text to Poppy to let her know I was okay, I crept back under the covers. He shifted in his sleep, and the ripple of muscles called to me. I traced a finger over his shoulder and down his bicep, delighting in the strength and sinew of his body. I still couldn’t believe it. I’d never felt anything like it, really. The stuff of the novels I made my living writing. Suddenly inspired, I couldn’t wait to put pen to paper.
Light flooded into the bedroom, our rumpled clothes leaving a trail from the foot of the bed to outside the door and beyond. I hadn’t taken the opportunity to completely admire the aesthetics of his apartment the day before, but it was beautiful, modestly decorated with the sun bouncing off gleaming white walls. He wasn’t a knick–knack sort of person.
The lines were simple and clean just like the man. No flowery platitudes and bullshit like his brother. With Callum, I knew exactly where I stood.
I liked it. I liked him.
“Hey, Lydia.” Sleep masked his voice, the gravelly sound coating every cell in my body with heat. “Good morning.”
“More like early afternoon. We slept late,” I said, not sure of the appropriate bedroom conversation.
It had been so long for me, and I felt awkward and unsure. Especially since the man next to me looked like a cross between Ryan Reynolds and Dave Franco. I wrung my fingers together, not knowing what to do with my hands to keep them from shaking and giving everything away.
“So we did,” Callum whispered, his eyes trained on my lips. I darted my tongue out to moisten them. I tried to move, but he held on to me, as if this was a dream he didn’t yet want to end. That made two of us. I didn’t know what else to say, so with my rushing feelings, I laid there next to him, his arm around me, and just surrendered to the riot of emotion coursing through me.
It seemed as if we lay there for hours, the silence between us stretching on and on. And for the first time in my life, I didn’t feel the need to fill it with senseless chatter or frantic motion. It felt right to simply relax into the comfort of his arms. The tumultuous world stayed outside the bubble of our contentment.
“I like waking up next to you.”
My heart pounded. That one admission could have been the most awesome thing I’d ever heard come from a man’s lips. Not one ounce of insincere flattery or condescension. How did he always know exactly what to say to me? Or was it just because I wanted to hear it? We fit. We fit in the bedroom, and we fit outside of it. I was anxious to learn more about him. I wanted to know everything. I wanted to enjoy the journey that was Callum Markham wherever it might lead. And if it led to heartbreak, I could take it. I’d survive and move on, using my turmoil as an inspiration for my art. But if it didn’t end at all…I tried to hold on to that delicious thought as his hands started to wander. But I couldn’t.
Doubt, the bastard that it was, snuck in between us.
“We should probably get up,” I said, suddenly anxious to get back to my apartment to work and call Poppy so I could talk through everything I was feeling. I mean, seriously, I’d just slept with the brother of the man I’d been so excited to date a few days ago. How fucked up was that? How fucked up was I?
Everything felt new. Unstable.
Raw.
“You’re right,” Callum said with a little chuckle. “I have a feeling you’re right most of the time. Call it a gut instinct, but I’ve been using it in business for years, and I’m rarely wrong. If you asked Nolan Banks, he’d say I’m like a bloodhound on the scent whenever I have a contract in front of me. I can smell a fraud a mile away.”
I gazed deep into his eyes. So, he could spot an imposter? No problem. Lydia Singleton is one hundred percent real and honest woman, mister. A real and honest woman that likes you and hopes this is the start of something special.
I breathed a little laugh and gave him my most charming smile that I reserved for people I cared about. “I usually am. Right, I mean.”
“So modest too,” Callum teased, tipping my chin up so he could seal his verbal torment with a sweet kiss. “What do you have to do today that’s so important? Instead, why don’t I make us some breakfast?” A man offering to make me food for the second time in twenty–four hours? Be still my beating heart. Actions speaking louder than words and all that. After being so wrong about Tristan, it felt prudent to just let my heart hang back an inch or two before jumping into a new fire.
Callum made slow circles with his index finger at the small of my back, sending thrills and chills through me. Oh, I wanted to stay. I wanted to lie next to him all day. I wanted to be fed grapes by hand like Cleopatra. I wanted…
What I wanted wasn’t what I needed.
His lips swooped toward my face, but before he could connect, I moved away from him. Slowing things down felt imperative to my sanity.
“It’s okay. I mean, I’ll find something to eat on my way,” I said.
I pulled myself from the bed, even though it was the last thing I wanted to do. He looked defeated, but I could not capitulate. I was a strong, independent woman. He sat up, gorgeous as he blinked the sleep from his eyes and looked up at me with an impish little smile.
“Why don’t I at least make us some coffee? A little morning motivation to get you through your day as you create your next best seller.”
“It’s fine,” I said, pulling on my clothes. “I can stop on the way.”
He still made coffee, wouldn’t take no for an answer, and it would have been rude for me not to drink it. So I did. I sat across from him at the table while he smiled at me and sipped from a ceramic mug. It all felt very strange and domestic.
It felt real.
“Is everything okay?” he asked. I nodded, not really up to speaking just then. He eyed me, those hypnotic orbs piercing straight through me. Almost as if he could read my mind.
“I just have a lot of work to do today.” It was a half–truth. “On my new book. I’m behind, and my editor is part New York Socialite and part Pitbull.” Every moment I sat in that apartment was one where my pulse beat a little faster, and I fell a few more inches into the Callum Markham lust abyss.
“If this is about last night,” Callum started and then leaned back, appraising me. “I’m not that kind of guy, Lydia.” There was an earnestness in his gaze, an openness. Vulnerability.
Shit.
“It’s not about that. I know you’re a good guy,” I managed to say, although it felt like I was drowning in this apartment. I couldn’t catch my breath. “I know you’d never intentionally try to hurt me. Unlike…”
The beginnings of a panic attack tugged at my senses. He didn’t seem to notice the way my breath caught, the way my chest tightened when I tried to inhale. It felt as if something had grabbed my torso and had it squeezed in a vice grip, trying to kill me. I couldn’t concentrate on the man and the conversation in front of me.
“Unlike Tristan. I’m glad.” Callum finished for me. “I’m not like my brother. I need you to know that. You do know that, don’t you? Even if you’d never met Tristan. Even if I hadn’t needed to protect you from him, I would still have wanted to get to know you better. Can we go back and pretend we met in the coffee shop? A chance encounter?”
“I can try.” It hurt to speak, and I stared at him studying me. I hoped he couldn’t tell how much I wanted to flee the scene of so much overwhelming emotion. I breathed through my slightly parted lips, by blowing on my mug, pretending the heat kept me from sipping it.
“I’m so sorry he was so awful to you,” Callum said.
“It’s...” I couldn’t think of a way to end the sentence. It wasn’t okay, it wouldn’t be fine. Would it? I smiled instead, effectively stuffing my feelings in regards to Tristan to save Callum’s.
He looked back down at his mug, seemingly comforted over the fact that I didn’t hate him by default. He was so gentlemanly, so polite. I was reminded again that there was a world of difference between him and his younger brother. The difference used to intrigue me. I didn’t know how they could be so different, but it was so clear to me now.
“Let’s go to dinner tonight.” Callum said it so casually, but it was clear he had been thinking about it for a while. “A real date, Lydia. Just you and me. A do–over.” His implication was clear. We both knew why he’d suggested it.
I shook my head. I was sitting there, dying a slow agonizing emotional death across from him all while he made dinner plans.
“I’m meeting Poppy tonight.” Honestly, it wasn’t a real lie. I knew as soon as I texted her, she’d insist on coming over to my place for pie and girl talk, insisting I tell her everything while we guzzled wine and didn’t watch the latest episode of Real Housewives during our carb fest. “Raincheck?”
I honestly needed the time away from him. I wanted to t
hink, and I couldn’t think with him so close to me, being in his apartment. His scent invaded my senses, my body, driving me mad. I knew that I couldn’t stay. I’d do more things I knew I’d regret if I stayed. It felt too soon, and the turmoil of conflicting emotions overwhelmed me, dulling my internal light.
The oppressive seconds ticked by as he regarded me. “I’m serious, Lydia. I’m committed to getting to know you better and see where this might lead. I like you. I’m developing…feelings. I’ve never even had a one–night stand. Not even in college. It’s not me.”
His sincerity shone in the softness of his eyes and the gentle way he regarded me. My heart fluttered. But it had been too long for me. Too damn long, and I just needed some space.
Last night, I knew I’d been flooded with feelings of want and desire, but they’d been chasing my feelings of fear and disgust. I wasn’t sure I could trust the purity of the emotion. I’d needed him so badly, but now those feelings had been replaced by confusion. It had felt so shiny, so new the previous night. I wasn’t too sure what to make of it now. To distract myself, I stared at the last of the coffee, now lukewarm and nearly sour, in my mug.
“I believe you,” I said. It was sweet that he was so committed to making sure I was okay. It was as if he thought all of this was his fault, that he was to blame for his brother’s actions. “It’s just that…I’ve never done anything like this before. I know it sounds trite. Like a cliché from a bad rom–com, but it’s true.” I felt tears prick my eyes, and I blinked in rapid time to erase them away before he noticed. “I’m telling you the truth too. I’ve never just fallen into bed with a man I barely know.”
I forced a smile on my face, finishing the last dregs in my mug. I set the empty cup down and placed my hands under the table so he wouldn’t see how they trembled. He looked concerned, it felt as if he believed me. Here we were, two sensitive people concerned that we’d jumped in too quickly and with both feet. Like most women, when I gave my body, I wanted it to mean something. Now, here I was, regretting the best sex I’d ever had with a man I really did like and wanted to get to know better. Callum was right. What we needed was a do–over. Just not tonight.
Line: Alpha Billionaire Romance Page 13