A Love So Dangerous (To the Bone #1)

by Lili Valente

  It’s ridiculous, but stunning in its way. Compared to Caitlin’s two-story ranch with the sagging roof and crude, concrete steps standing in for the porch that seems to have been stripped away and never replaced, it’s a palace.

  A palace I would gladly exchange for a seat at the crowded table in the corner of Caitlin’s living room.

  Since I dropped out of school in March, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what really matters in life, and a giant house is nowhere on the list. Money is well and good, but after a certain point it’s an overload of icing that destroys your ability to appreciate the cake. Darby Hill is a monster built by slaves stolen from their country, and maintained by my father’s and grandfather’s less than ethical law practice. It should have been donated to the state years ago, but my parents don’t see anything wrong with clinging to privilege paid for with blood and pain.

  I have more than the average rich boy’s disdain for abundance, but I should know better than to assume Caitlin, or anyone else in her position, can walk away from a paying job without making sure she has a safety net in place.

  “I’m sorry about yesterday.” I pull around the circular drive, parking in my usual spot by the azalea bushes. “I didn’t like the way that man was looking at you, but I should have thought about the trouble I might cause before I spoke.”

  Caitlin’s gaze drops to the console between us before she glances back up, a smile teasing the edges of her mouth. “To be honest, I’m glad you said something. Noel’s been putting his hand up my skirt for years. Now I’ll be able to wear a dress on Fridays without having to watch my back every time I bend over to pick up a plate.”

  “Let me know if he needs a reminder to behave.” The thought of the old fuck’s hands anywhere on Caitlin makes me wish it was acceptable to punch senior citizens. “Until I can convince you it’s safe to quit, I’m happy to help.”

  “I’m not—” Caitlin breaks off with a sigh and a shake of her head.

  “What?” I ask, in no hurry to get out of the car, though I know my mother is probably waiting by the front door. I’m surprised she isn’t out on the veranda, watching the driveway—she was that thrilled when I told her I was bringing my girlfriend to dinner.

  Caitlin’s brow furrows. “Why do you care?”

  “You’re my partner in crime,” I say with a shrug, refusing to think too much about the question, or how much I’m coming to care.

  “That was one night.”

  “There will be more.”

  “No, there won’t,” she says. “I’m not going to do anything else illegal, Gabe. If I get caught, it’s not just my life I’d ruin. I can’t put the kids at risk. There’s nobody left to pick up the pieces if I go to jail.”

  “What if I could promise that you won’t get caught?” I reach out, capturing a lock of her silky soft hair and twining it around my finger.

  “You can’t promise something like that,” she says, but she doesn’t pull away. She leans in and her lips part, and I know she feels the pull I feel.

  It’s the lure of the forbidden, the rush that comes from breaking the rules—not because of any desire to be truly bad, but because the rules are wrong. The rules are lies that deserve to be exposed, shattered, ripped apart and sewn back together in a shape that does the world some good. We could do that, Caitlin and I…do the world a little good, while getting high on breaking the law.

  “And you shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep,” she adds, a tremble in her voice.

  “I don’t.” Before she can say another word, I silence her with a kiss.

  I don’t intend it to be a passionate kiss—we have to go inside soon—but the moment my lips touch Caitlin’s the world catches fire all over again. Our second kiss is even hotter than our first. Within seconds I’m drunk on her smell, her taste, deliciously jarred by the electricity that leaps between us like we were made to complete a circuit. My fingers bury themselves in her hair and my tongue slips inside her mouth and every nerve ending in my body ignites.

  The sensation starts at the base of my spine and spirals out, waves of heat and longing that course through me, making me press closer, kiss deeper, tangling my tongue with hers. Her fingers come to my face and her nails dig into my jaw and I moan, a sound she echoes, vibrating my lips, a buzzing I feel over every inch of my skin.

  By the time I pull away, I’m hard enough to shatter glass and don’t know how I’m going to make it through dinner. The only taste I want in my mouth right now is Caitlin’s.

  “I want to have you for dinner,” I say, fingers tightening in her hair.

  “We agreed,” she says, breath coming faster. “No other stuff.”

  “After we leave my parents’ house.” I press a kiss to her throat, where her pulse leaps beneath her skin. “We didn’t say anything about making out in the guest bathroom.”

  “Stop it, Gabe.”

  “That’s what you said last time, but if I remember correctly, you didn’t really want me to stop.” I kiss the warm skin beneath her ear as I let my fingers trail down her neck, across her chest, down to cup her breast through her dress, drawing a gasp from her lips as I find her pebbled nipple and roll it between my fingers.

  Her fingers dig into my shoulders as her breath rushes back in. “Just when I was starting to think you were a nice guy…”

  “Let’s get inside; I’ll show you how nice I can be.” I release her breast with extreme reluctance, the kind that can only be overcome by knowing I’m going to have more of her—all of her—in a few minutes. “We’ll go in the back door and sneak up the servant stairs. My parents won’t figure out where we are until—”

  A door slams, cutting off my words.

  Caitlin’s eyes fly wide. “Your parents?”

  “My mother, I’m guessing.”

  “Jesus, Gabe!” Caitlin braces her hands on my chest, shoving me back across the car before running a hand through her hair, smoothing her skirt, and wiping the edges of her lips. By the time my mother appears at the passenger’s side door, grinning like she’s just been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Caitlin has pulled herself together and I’ve thrown a casual arm over my rapidly flagging erection.

  Nothing kills a hard on like a guy’s mother. Especially mine.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Caitlin

  The inside of Gabe’s parents’ house is even more stunning than the outside. There are antiques everywhere—big, heavy, wooden furniture covered in intricate carvings, statues on pedestals with names scratched into their bases that make me think they’re originals, delicate lace doilies decorating claw foot couches and chairs, and so many oil paintings there’s hardly a clear place on the walls.

  I feel like I’m in a museum, and I’m pretty sure I would have been too afraid to sit down on any of the furniture if Gabe’s mom hadn’t looped her arm through mine and guided me to a blue velvet couch in the corner of the dining room, overlooking the gardens at the back of the home.

  I barely have time to absorb the fact that a servant—a real servant, in a pale blue uniform dress with a white starched apron—is setting the long, mahogany table, before I am smothered by another hug from Gabe’s mom and peppered with excited questions.

  “So how old are you, Caitlin? Where are you going to school? What do you want to do with the rest of your life? What are your hopes and dreams,” she says, pausing to dazzle me with a very white smile. “Tell me all about yourself.”

  “Oh…okay.” I cast a frantic glance at Gabe’s back as he leaves the room, wondering what I’ve gotten myself into. To say Gabe’s mom isn’t what I was anticipating is like saying a South Carolina summer is a tad warm.

  Instead of the cool reserve I’d expected from an obscenely wealthy woman with a pedigree that stretches back to the Civil War, Deborah is warm, welcoming, and seems thrilled with Gabe’s choice of girlfriend. She doesn’t cast disparaging looks at my cheap sundress, or lift a brow at my nails that haven’t seen a manicure since my sister gave me one at
home for my sixteenth birthday. She doesn’t wrinkle her nose when I tell her I’m working full time to take care of my younger brothers and niece, but that I’m hoping to attend college in the future. She only nods sympathetically, her dark blond bob swinging above her shoulders as her ice blue eyes—like Gabe’s eyes, but without the hard edges—fill with compassion.

  “That’s a lot of responsibility,” she says. “Especially for someone so young.”

  I start to shrug, but stop myself, feeling like the casual gesture would be out of place in these surroundings. “It is, but it’s worth it. I want to keep my family together, and give the kids more stability than I had when I was growing up.”

  She sighs and her eyes begin to glisten. “Gabe is lucky to have you. I’m so glad you came into his life, Caitlin.”

  I swallow, not sure how to respond to her words or the emotion making her voice tremble. Gabe warned me that his mom was eager to see him settled down, but I didn’t think I’d be dealing with tears of gratitude.

  Mercifully, Gabe and his father enter the dining room a moment later, sparing me the stress of formulating a reply. As soon as I see the two men together, it’s obvious where Gabe gets his striking good looks. He has his mother’s eyes, but he has his father’s chiseled cheekbones, broad shoulders, and lean, athletic build. Mr. Alexander looks pretty amazing for a guy pushing sixty—attractive, fit, with a full head of graying brown hair, and clear, intelligent, blue eyes a shade darker than his wife’s and son’s.

  The contrast between Gabe’s dad and mine is even more striking than the difference between our houses. I know Chuck is a few years younger than Mr. Alexander, but he looks a decade his senior. Chuck’s body bears testimony to every bad choice he’s ever made, while Mr. Alexander oozes health and wealth in a way even his wife doesn’t quite manage.

  Deborah’s clothes are clearly expensive and her hair intricately highlighted, but there’s something fragile about her, something delicate and breakable that makes me want to punch Gabe for rolling his eyes when he sees his mother wiping tears from her cheeks.

  “Mother, please,” he says, a hard note in his voice. “You promised.”

  “I know, I know,” she says, sniffing as she forces a smile. “I’m just so excited for you, honey. Caitlin is adorable. Inside and out.”

  “She is. She’s too good for me.” Gabe glances down at me with a look that banishes the urge to punch him, a look that says he means it, and that he wants more from our relationship than someone who will steal things with him.

  I know it’s just pretend, but the look, combined with the lingering effects of the kiss we shared in the car, make it easy to smile up at him and say, “That’s ridiculous. You’re exactly as good as I want you to be.”

  “But no better,” Gabe says with a wink that makes my skin tingle, despite the fact that his parents are watching us.

  I can’t help it, and I can’t quit replaying our kiss, over and over again. All through the introduction to his father, and the small talk the four of us exchange while we wait for the first course to be brought out, I’m thinking about Gabe’s lips on my neck and the way he touched me through my dress.

  Once we get to the table, things are even worse. Gabe sits next to me, close enough for him to rest his hand on my leg under the tablecloth, teasing his fingers up and down the inside of my thigh, sending agonizing currents of longing coursing through my body. I have to fight to concentrate on the dinner conversation, struggle to get my salad to my mouth without dropping lettuce on the tablecloth.

  I don’t know what’s happening to me, only that I have never wanted anyone the way I want Gabe. I want him to touch me the way he did before, to feel his fingers sliding beneath the waistband of my panties, pushing inside where I’m already wet and aching for him. I should be ashamed of myself for wishing Gabe would finger me during a family dinner, but I’m not. The strength of my wanting leaves no room for shame, only desire and determination.

  By the time dessert arrives—a chocolate mousse with fresh raspberries—my mind is made up. Screw the promise I forced from Gabe and all the reasons why it’s a bad idea to get in any deeper with a boy who is a walking, talking contradiction. A boy with secrets, bad habits, a wicked way with words, and a confident touch that leaves no doubt he’s way more experienced than I am.

  I want him, and I’m going to have him.

  I’ve spent my life putting aside my own needs and cleaning up after other people’s mistakes. I want to make a mistake of my own. I know I’m playing with fire, but right now, I don’t care.

  Right now, I’m ready to beg to be burned.

  The moment dinner is over, and Gabe and I have wished his parents a good night and stepped outside, I reach for his hand, squeezing his fingers tight as we walk to his car.

  “I don’t want to go home,” I say, heart racing. “I want to be alone with you.”

  “I’ve already thought of a place,” he says, proving we’re of like minds as he pulls me in to whisper his next words against my throat. “All I could think about the entire dinner is how much I want to taste you. I want my mouth between your legs as much as I want to keep breathing. I’m going to make you come so hard you see stars.”

  I shiver, despite the hot, humid night, but before I can think of what to say, Gabe opens the passenger’s door and guides me inside the Beamer, his hand firm on my arm. Even that innocent touch is enough to make my pulse race faster.

  Faster and faster, until I can hear my heart beating in my ears as we pull away from Darby Hill.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Caitlin

  It is a long road that has no turning. -Irish proverb

  The ride to Mr. Alexander’s office seems to take forever, an eternity in which I can think of nothing but the hunger in Gabe’s voice when he said he was going to make me come so hard I’d see stars.

  I can’t keep my eyes off where his hands grip the wheel—his big hands, with the wide palms and those elegant fingers. I bite my lip, remembering the way it felt to have those fingers moving inside me, belly fluttering as I wonder what it will feel like to have his mouth take their place.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to take you home?” Gabe asks, turning left toward downtown. “I don’t want to be accused of breaking my promises.”

  “Do you want to take me home?”

  “Hell, no,” he says, voice husky. “I want you to put your hand down your panties.”

  My breath hitches. “What?”

  “I want you to touch yourself,” he says, glancing my way, the heat in his eyes enough to make me feel flushed all over. “You’ve done that before, right?”

  I swallow. “I’m twenty years old. What do you think?”

  “Show me how you do it,” he says, slowing the car a few miles per hour, making something inside me send up a wail of frustration, angry that he’s costing us precious seconds. “Touch yourself for me, Caitlin.”

  My heart lurches, and my hand trembles as I reach for the hem of my dress. I’m shocked by how turned on I am, and even more shocked that I want to obey Gabe’s order. That I want to lift my skirt up around my waist with one hand as I slip the other—slowly, slowly, knowing Gabe’s watching out of the corner of his eye as he drives—down the front of my white satin panties.

  My throat tightens and my eyes slide closed as I ease my fingers through my swollen folds, feeling the molten slickness of my own arousal, trembling as one knuckle brushes over my clit, sending a ripple of excitement sweeping through me, making my nipples tighten inside my bra. A part of me is mortified that I’m doing this in front of Gabe—especially while he’s still fully dressed—but another part of me is already flying, loving the rush that sweeps through me as he curses beneath his breath. The desire in his voice makes me feel powerful, beautiful, fierce and lovely, and in touch with the most primal part of myself—like dancing, only better.

  So much better.

  “I can’t wait to taste you,” he says, his voice ragged.

&
nbsp; My eyes squeeze more tightly closed, my breath coming faster as I dip my hand lower, dipping into the well of heat between my legs.

  “Fuck it,” he says. “I don’t want to wait.”

  His fingers close around my wrist and my eyes fly open. He tugs my hand from my panties, bringing it to his mouth, slipping my index finger between his lips and suckling, moaning as his tongue sweeps up and down, licking my arousal from my skin. The firm pressure of his tongue and the light suction of his mouth send a jolt of excitement speeding through me.

  I’ve never thought of a finger as an erogenous zone, but in Gabe’s mouth, it is. It feels like every nerve-ending in my body has relocated to my finger and every one of them is celebrating being closer to Gabe’s lips, his tongue, his teeth that drag lightly over my skin as he pulls one finger from his mouth only to insert the next.

  He licks me clean with a thoroughness that makes it clear he loves the way I taste before threading his fingers through mine and squeezing tight.

  “This is it.” He swings the car into a deserted parking lot, into a space marked “Reserved for the Law Offices of Aaron Alexander.”

  He brakes hard; my pulse leaps in my throat.

  This is it. We’re here.

  We slam out of the car and Gabe takes my hand, leading the way toward a white door with red trim. He punches a code into a number panel beside the door before jerking it open and half dragging me up a long, narrow flight of stairs. Our feet pound on the polished wood, mimicking the thudding of my heart against my ribs, and all of sudden, everything feels so much more real than it did in the soft darkness of the car.

  I’m really here with a boy I barely know—a boy I’m not even sure I like, at least not completely—and I’m really going to let him do things to me that I’ve never let anyone do. After only a few kisses and a fake date, I’m going to tear down walls I’ve kept firmly in place for years. It’s crazy, out of character, and, if I’m not careful, I just might prove to be more like my big sister than I ever dreamed.