by Claire Kent
“I want to say it,” Caleb said in a rough murmur, nuzzling her hair and the crook of her neck. He was holding her so tightly it was almost painful. “I want to tell you, blossom. Is that okay?”
“Yes.” She was almost crying as the emotion spiraled up in consecutive waves of fear and pleasure and grief and joy. “Tell me.”
He made a guttural sound and pulled back so he was looking her in the eyes again. “I love you, Kelly.”
She shook with stifled sobs.
He might be innocent. He had to be innocent. This man could never have killed her father.
He released a little groan and pulled her back into his arms, murmuring against her hair. “I love you, baby. I really do. I’ve never said it before. It’s never been true before.”
She was crying for real now, helpless to stop it. She couldn’t seem to let him go. And she heard herself saying, sobbing, “I love you too. I love you too.”
It couldn’t be true. Not fully.
But the part of herself she was still holding back was so small that it barely even counted. Everything else seemed to be poured out to this man, who was somehow everything she’d ever needed and wanted, who had somehow turned her inside out, who was giving himself to her in a way she’d never experienced before.
She wanted to give herself to him too—for however long she was allowed.
She could feel the emotion shuddering through him, and he held her in a hard embrace until her crying and shaking finally stopped, until she could relax, feel safe, sheltered by his strength.
This was the way she wanted to be with him. The way she’d always wanted to be with a man but had never believed was possible.
It probably wasn’t possible now either, but at the moment it felt like it might be.
He was stroking her hair and back, soothing her tension until it had dissipated and her body had melted against his.
Then he pulled back and met her eyes again.
Caleb smiled—an intimate little smile that belonged to her alone. Then he leaned forward, pushing her back until she was reclining on the bed. Moving over her, he brushed her lips with his. “I’m glad,” he murmured. Then he sank into a deep kiss—one slower, softer, more generous, more tender than anything she’d ever experienced before.
It was beautiful. And terrifying. And the best thing she’d ever felt in her life.
She had to tear her mouth away when the panic started to close in on her, when she stopped being able to breathe.
Caleb looked like he might want to take it farther, but she suddenly knew if she let him make love to her right now, she would lose the last of her defenses.
And her father still mattered to her. The truth still mattered to her. She wasn’t going to sacrifice everything, not even for the way she was feeling right now.
“Our waffles are getting cold,” she managed to say with a teasing smile.
He blinked like he had come back from an intoxicated high. But he gave her a dry half-smile in response. “Right. Breakfast. How could I have forgotten?”
—
Kelly was exhausted all day after the long night and emotional upheaval that morning, so she ended up taking a nap after going to the park with Caleb and Ralph in the morning.
She woke up without a clear sense of time, pulling the throw blanket she was using up over her shoulders. She felt content, comfortable, and kind of fuzzy—like she used to when she’d woken up late on Saturday mornings in high school, with nothing but a lazy morning waiting for her.
She didn’t hear the news, however, which the Watsons had always blared on Saturday mornings, and the ceiling was totally wrong.
Kelly stretched out her arms and legs, feeling relaxed and satisfied and toasty.
Remembered the Watsons were dead.
Then remembered her father was dead.
Then she remembered Caleb. And everything that had happened last night and then this morning.
She still felt warm but not quite so content.
It was the bitterest kind of irony. That Caleb Marshall had fallen in love—with her, with the woman who had set out not so long ago to bring him down.
She reminded herself that Jack was thinking now that Caleb likely wasn’t even guilty. She just had to wait another week or two until Jack’s guys could get into the storage room in Vendella’s headquarters and get the final evidence they needed.
Then she could be done. Then she would know the truth.
Then she would have to leave Caleb for good.
The idea of it hurt so much she turned over on her side and curled into a ball. And it hurt almost as much to imagine how Caleb himself would feel when he found out the truth.
Maybe he wouldn’t have to know. Maybe, if she found out he wasn’t guilty, she could just slip away.
He would be hurt. A lot. But he wouldn’t have to feel so utterly betrayed. He wouldn’t have to know how deeply she’d misused him.
It would be better that way.
Wes had been right at the party, although not for the right reasons. She was exactly like Hamlet, trapped in a quagmire of her conflicting emotions and human weakness. Driven by hatred and vengeance but imprisoned by guilt and reluctance. She only hoped—at the end of all this—she’d be able to pull through more successfully than Hamlet did.
The sound of a door opening roused Kelly from her drowsy reflections. She picked up her head from the pillow and blinked in the direction of the door.
Caleb walked into the bedroom, dressed in a white T-shirt and jeans. He’d been working in his home office, but at least he hadn’t actually gone into the office.
He’d changed in more ways than one.
“Hi,” she mumbled, trying to clear her eyes of sleep.
Caleb smiled with a fondness that made her gut clench. “You’re awake,” he said huskily.
Kelly pushed her hair out of her face and tried to break the tender mood. “Are you laughing at me?” she demanded groggily, reacting to the warm amusement in his eyes.
Caleb’s smile broadened as he came over and sat on the edge of the bed. “Certainly not,” he murmured, reaching out to stroke the curve of her hip through the throw blanket. “It’s just that your hair is quite…adventurous at the moment.”
Sitting up in bed and putting her hands on her tousled hair, she tried to give him a cool glare. “I thought you liked it that way.”
“I do.” As he drawled the two words, he leaned over to smooth back some of the tangles.
“That’s what I thought.” She slid her leg away from his hand, which was trailing down to caress it. “And just so you know, laughing at my hair is not the best way to convince me to do what’s on your mind right now.”
Caleb chuckled. “How do you know what’s on my mind?”
“You’re pretty easy to read in that regard.” She rolled away from him when he reached out for her again, and then couldn’t help but laugh as they had a teasing scuffle.
Which ended when he was lying on top of her. “I wouldn’t dream of laughing at your hair, especially if it will affect my chances of getting lucky.” He made a move that appeared at first to be adjusting his position, but he ended up lifting her T-shirt to bare her belly.
With a frown, she pulled the shirt back into position. “Are you always this horny?”
“I think we can find a more appropriate word to describe the increase in my libido lately.”
She wanted to giggle at his condescending tone, but she managed to arch her brows haughtily. “You’re saying ‘horny’ is inappropriate?”
His eyes glinted with suppressed amusement. “Sadly, no,” he admitted. “But it sounds so undignified.”
She couldn’t stifle the giggle this time. “You never answered the question,” she prompted at last, straightening her T-shirt once more when Caleb’s hand started exploring again. “Are you always this horny?”
Pulling back his hands as she continued to thwart his attempts to disrobe her, he said blandly, “As it happens, no, I’m not. So y
ou only have yourself to blame.”
Kelly shifted restlessly and tried not to like the idea so much. She’d figured he’d been more interested in sex lately than he typically was. They’d had sex at least twice a day this week. If Caleb were always this horny, he’d never get any work done.
He leaned down to kiss her, but it was slow and gentle and didn’t turn immediately into sex the way his kisses normally did. Then he adjusted their positions so she was tucked in the crook of his arm.
She smiled as he pulled the throw blanket over both of them.
“What is that smile for?” he asked, tilting his head down to look at her face.
“You came in here on the pretense of sex, but you really just wanted to take a nap with me.”
He chuckled and pressed a kiss into her hair. “I don’t take naps.”
“Well, you should. They’re very nice.” She stretched out against him and wrapped one arm around him, suddenly wishing desperately that they didn’t have this immovable obstacle between them.
It would be so nice. To be close to him like this. Just a simple Saturday afternoon.
No more lies or secrets.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, one hand running down the length of her loose hair.
“What do you mean?”
“You got tense.”
“Nothing. Not really. Just…” She didn’t want to lie to him. It felt wrong in a way she couldn’t articulate. She wanted to tell him the truth, so she managed to find the truest thing she could say. “It just feels complicated sometimes.”
“What does?”
“Us. Our relationship.”
He didn’t reply immediately, but she could tell he was thinking about what she’d said. He proved it by eventually murmuring, “I guess it is complicated. We’re not easy people—either one of us.”
“No,” she sighed. “I just sometimes wish…we were.”
“You mean be like other people? Everyone has some sort of complications.”
“I know. But I think we take complicated to a new level. With all our baggage, I mean.”
“Any time you’d like to unload any of that baggage,” he murmured, very softly, “I’m happy to hear what you have to say.”
She sighed, realizing it still bothered him that she was keeping secrets from him, even though he had no idea about the worst of her secrets.
He wanted to hear about the fictional Albanian gangster that she’d supposedly had a relationship with in the past and who had trouble taking no for an answer.
She couldn’t tell him about that, though, because it would be nothing but a lie.
She was so tired of lying. She didn’t want to do it anymore.
And she wanted to know the truth from him. She needed to know he was innocent.
“I saw my dad die,” she heard herself saying.
She felt his body tighten beside her. “What? When?”
“When I was a kid.” She cleared her throat, knowing she couldn’t give him too many details or he could possibly put them together into her identity. But she needed to share something with him, and this was the deepest thing in her life. And maybe she could tell from his expression whether anything in the story hit home with him—not proof of his innocence but at least some clue to give her direction. “It was a…a hunting accident. But I was with him. He was shot, and I saw him die.”
Caleb was silent for a long time, but his arm had tightened around her. “The woods,” he breathed at last. “That’s why you’re scared of the woods.”
“Yeah.” Her voice broke, since it was so hard to talk about, even under the false pretense. “Sometimes I feel like I…I’ve never really gotten past that day, that my whole life just circles around it.”
“That kind of trauma, when you’re young, it’s not surprising. That’s why you’ve not had many close relationships?”
“I don’t think I’ve had any close relationships. Except with Reese, my best friend.”
“And me,” he added, nuzzling her hair.
“And you.” She stroked his chest over his shirt and realized how true this was.
“What about your mom?”
“I was never really close to her, and it got worse after my dad died. She couldn’t get over his death.”
“When did she die?”
She was about to correct him but caught herself just in time. He knew she was adopted, so naturally he assumed both her parents were dead. Knowing her mom was alive would be one clue too many. “Less than a year after my dad.”
“Was it…was it suicide?”
It made perfect sense—would explain two deaths in a short amount of time. So she just nodded.
Her mom might as well have died the year after her father had.
Caleb didn’t say anything, didn’t offer any superficial platitudes. It was a relief, since anything he said wouldn’t have come close to answering the way she was feeling.
Naked. Vulnerable. But still safe somehow, as if she could trust Caleb with what she’d offered him.
“Sometimes I feel like I’m living in a Shakespeare play,” she said after a minute, remembering her reflections earlier.
“Romeo and Juliet?” There was a little smile in his eyes, a dry humor that could never be fully stamped out.
She loved that about him.
She gave a little laugh. “No. They were so young—and barely knew each other. That doesn’t feel like me at all. I was thinking one of his more mature tragedies. Hamlet or something. Where one act sets off this whole downward spiral of events, and no matter how hard you try, you just can’t pull yourself out of them. Sometimes my life feels that way. Since my father’s death, I’ve never been able to pull out of the downward spiral.”
Caleb let out a long breath. “I know how that feels.” He was silent for a while, and then he began, “Did you ever want to…” Caleb trailed off and restarted his question. “If that had happened to me, and I knew who was responsible, I would have wanted to make the person pay.” He sounded serious, reflective, like he was genuinely thinking it through, feeling with and for her.
It hurt in so many ways. “It was an accident,” she managed to say.
“But someone did it.”
“Yes.”
“What happened to the person?”
She swallowed hard. “Nothing.”
He let out his breath. “Yeah. You’re a better person than I am. Because I would have done anything in my power to make them pay for it.”
The irony was so exquisitely bitter that she froze for a few seconds. Then she reached up to take his face in one of her hands, making him meet her eyes. “I’m not any better than you are, Caleb. Don’t tell that lie to yourself. We are just the same.”
She saw the words process in his eyes, and his expression twisted very briefly with emotion. “Okay.” He pulled her into a tight hug and murmured against her ear, “Although I think you might be a little better than me.”
She shook with bone-dry amusement and a different kind of feeling and let herself enjoy his embrace.
He held her against him for a long time until he adjusted their bodies enough for him to press his lips against hers. “Thank you for telling me. About your father.”
She nodded, knowing he’d realized how hard it was for her to say. “I don’t tell anyone.”
“You can tell me, though.”
“Yeah.” After a moment she added, “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Do you have anything you want to tell me?” She looked up at him and was surprised to see an expression of uncertainty on his face.
Like he was torn, like there might be something he wanted to unburden on her too.
She wanted it. Wanted to know more about him, wanted to know the contours of his soul. Wanted so much to know if she was allowed to feel for him this way.
She waited, but then she saw his face relax and knew he’d made his decision.
He wasn’t going to open up all the way with her yet.
“I love you,” he said, turning on his side and smiling at her. “Is that what you wanted me to say?”
She accepted the new mood his word and smile had shaped, since it was safer, easier. She smiled back. “You said that this morning.”
“I haven’t changed my mind yet.”
“Good. Me either. I love you too.”
His smile widened and he leaned forward, kissing her gently at first until he wrapped one arm around her and the kiss deepened dramatically. “Do you know what?” he murmured against her mouth, his voice throaty and erotic when they finally broke the kiss.
“What?”
“This is the first time in my life when I’ve ever wanted a woman for more than her body. Is that strange?”
He was definitely getting into sex mode, but she could tell that his last question had been a serious one. He wanted an answer.
“I don’t know. Maybe a little. Forty years is a long time to want nothing but sex from women.”
Her mind felt rather blurred and overly warm as he kissed her again, deeply and leisurely. She pressed her body against him, wound her arms around his neck, opened her mouth to his tongue, felt all of him giving to her, taking from her, both at the same time.
When he finally pulled back from the kiss, he was smiling. “Well, truth be known, I didn’t start pursuing women when I was four, so it’s been a little less than forty years.”
It took a minute to register the words through the cloud of lust and feeling in her mind, but when she did, she couldn’t help but giggle. “Thirty years, then. It’s still a long time. You’ve really only thought about women’s bodies in all that time?”
“In work contexts, it’s different. I can respect them as much as men. But beyond that…” He shook his head. “You’re the first woman I’ve ever wanted beyond just the physical.”
She couldn’t help but like that idea, no matter what it said about Caleb’s sexual history. She liked that he’d never felt for any woman anything close to what he felt for her.
She knew those kinds of feelings were dangerous, knew the more she entertained them, the harder it would be to ever do what she was here to do. She knew the smartest thing for her to do right now would be to change the mood between them to something simpler—something hot and sexy and not filled with this kind of soft emotion.