by Ruthie Knox
Ellen trailed kisses along his jawline, then brushed her lips over his mouth with a soft sigh that completely wrecked him. “Your people know what to do. I watched you whipping them into shape all day. It’s time for you to relax. I can help with that.”
His hands gripped the arms of the chair. Ellen picked them up, one at a time, and placed them directly on her breasts. She wasn’t wearing a bra. Her nipples hardened beneath his palms. A hoarse groan escaped from his chest.
He didn’t stand a chance of resisting her. Never had. Probably never would.
The light clicked off. Black again.
Ellen arched her back, pressing the weight of her breasts into his hands. “I want you, Caleb. Just you. Take me to bed.”
He gave in and kissed her. Another wrong call, but that knowledge didn’t stop him. It was just one more fact among the others—the wrongness of his decision and the rightness of her soft, silky skin when he moved his hands under her shirt. She braced her hands on his shoulders and turned, spreading her legs wide to straddle him. Her shorts were flimsy cotton things, no barrier at all to his fingers when they dropped to her knees and followed the irresistible trail along the inside of both spread thighs and past the loose hem, directly to the hot, wet center of her.
Where he found out she wasn’t wearing panties, either.
When he stroked her with his thumbs, she moaned, and he took a deep breath, fighting the urge to unzip and slide into her right here, right now, with only the darkness to hide them. He shouldn’t be kissing her, shouldn’t be touching her, but he couldn’t stop, and he couldn’t even regret it. She soothed all his jagged edges. The sweet, dark taste of her, like wine and chocolate. The way she moved against him and the way she whimpered when he stroked her core. He needed Ellen like he’d never needed anyone. She made him weak.
He kissed her again, hot and deep and long. Stood up, spotlit with Ellen in his arms, and carried her inside.
In her room, he laid her on the bed and turned on the lamp. She raised her arms above her head, stretching languorously, and said, “This is more like it.”
He kneeled above her, watching. Thinking about what he was going to take off her first, and whether to use his hands or his teeth.
“This is the part where you ravish me, right? Because I’ve been thinking about this part for hours.”
“No.”
“No?”
He unbuttoned his shirt and shrugged it off, eyes on her face as the fabric dropped away. Her appreciation fired him up. Knowing she wanted him, knowing how easily he could make her wet, was an incredible turn-on. But it was nothing compared to what it did to him to make her whimper and moan and beg. To feel her coming apart and know he was the one doing it to her. It captivated him, the way she responded. She was the most passionate woman he’d ever met.
“This is the part where I make love to you. Very slowly, and very thoroughly.”
She bit her lip. “That sounds … intense.”
He brought his lips to her throat. “With my hands …” He brushed the hair off her forehead. “And my mouth …” Kissed her pulse point. “And my tongue …” Ran his tongue around the rim of her ear. “And my teeth.” Drew her earlobe into his mouth and bit gently.
Ellen let out a soft sigh and rocked her hips up off the bed. “I hope that’s not all. You’ve got another part I’d like to visit with.”
“Mmm,” he said. “That one, too. But not for a while yet.”
He took his time removing her clothes, wanting to go slow and appreciate everything she already had on display, then everything he revealed as he peeled off her soft T-shirt and shorts. Ellen had no patience. Her fingers tugged at his hair, nails scraping over his shoulders, trying to pull him up between her legs and inside her.
He refused to be rushed.
He’d get there. Eventually. First he wanted to find out how sensitive the backs of her knees were.
Very.
Whether she liked it when he scraped his stubbled jaw along the insides of her thighs.
Affirmative.
Whether he could make her come with just his mouth on her breasts and her hips rocking up into his thigh.
That took a while, but it was another affirmative, and the sounds she made as she went over the edge nearly carried him along for the ride.
When he finally moved inside her, she was trembling. Or he was. Maybe it was both of them. Her face was flushed and glowing, her pupils huge, lips swollen. He pressed into her slowly, pausing a few times because he had to or he’d lose it. There was nothing like this. Nothing in his life that could have prepared him for what it felt like to be joined to Ellen. Every time, it killed him. Every single time.
She closed her eyes, and he asked her to open them.
I love you.
He didn’t mean to tell her. Not really. But he was already telling her with his body, and she must have seen it in his expression—something vulnerable he didn’t intend her to catch sight of—because her eyes went wide and alarmed. Pushing at his shoulders with both hands, she shoved his face away as her legs wrapped tighter around his hips, holding him in place. “Don’t,” she said, turning her face to the side. “Don’t look at me like that.”
With his hand on her cheek, he brought her head back around and waited for her to open her eyes again. When she did, he started to move, and she cried out, panicked and aroused.
He kissed her temple. “Relax. You don’t have to do anything about it. Just let me.”
She closed her eyes again, but she allowed him to kiss her, parting her lips and accepting his tongue. She brought her hips up to meet his, matching his speed. He worried her nipple with his teeth, and she gasped and wrapped her arms around him again, pulling him close. “This wasn’t part of the deal,” she whispered. The fear in her voice tore him up.
“No. Sorry. This is all me.”
As their breath came short and each stroke came faster and deeper and harder than the one before, he moved his arms beneath her and braced his hands over her shoulders. When she started to tighten around him, she said his name and clung to him so tight, he thought she might never let go.
He wished she never would. Heat rushed through him, and he came inside her with that wish ringing like a bell in his head. Don’t let go.
But she did. Afterward, she turned her back to him, curling up into a little ball. He curved his body around her and held her as her breathing settled and she fell asleep.
He lay there awake for a long time, knowing he needed to head back outside. Get back to work.
He couldn’t bring himself to leave.
Chapter Twenty-six
Caleb awoke to the sound of shouting. Blinking, he shook his head, trying to clear it. He’d been dreaming of the Green Zone, some minor altercation between a crowd of Iraqi civilians and Jefferson, a hot-headed southerner who’d never been able to resist an argument.
Jefferson was dead. Someone was outside yelling Ellen’s name, pounding on her front door.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed, his body ready to move before his head caught up. Ellen was gone. Gray light seeped at the edges of the blinds, which meant it was dawn, maybe five or five thirty in the morning. He’d fallen asleep naked in Ellen’s bed, with his phone turned off and sitting on the flagstones out back.
Not good. Not remotely good.
The deadbolt turned on the front door, and then Ellen must have opened it, because the man got a lot louder. “Ellen! Let me in my house, Ellen! I want to—oh. Hey, Els.”
Richard. Drunk. Fuck.
Caleb found his pants, pulling them on as he listened to Ellen exchange greetings with Richard as if it weren’t practically the middle of the night, and he weren’t totally out of line.
By the time he got to the door, she’d managed to quiet Richard down some. He was telling her earnestly about how he’d realized for the first time tonight what had gone wrong with their marriage. Wearing nothing but Caleb’s shirt, she stood in the doorway with her hands on
her hips. Her mouth was stern, but she tilted her head in a way that suggested she was receptive to whatever line of bullshit Richard was feeding her.
“… and I see it clearly now, Els, the way I kept a wall between us emotionally, because I always feared you would leave one day. I think it must have been because of my father—you know he never thought much of me. But I’m ready to live without walls. I want us to be together, so much closer than before, and I’ll move back in here and you can cook for us again, and help me relax when I get tense, and—”
He caught sight of Caleb standing behind Ellen and stopped talking. For several seconds, it was silent, and Caleb surveyed the scene: Richard at the door with bloodshot eyes, smelling like a still. A few paces behind him, Cassie, horrified, either to see Caleb or because she was only just now realizing what a major lapse in judgment it had been to allow Richard onto the property. At the base of the steps, Eric and two other members of his security crew clustered together, Eric with his phone out, probably to call Caleb.
He put a hand at the small of Ellen’s back and watched a muscle jump in Richard’s jaw as he added up Caleb’s bare chest with Ellen’s bare legs and got a sum he didn’t like.
“This guy again, Els? Is he why you were so pissy with me earlier?” His tone had turned bitter, on its way to vicious. “I come to you with my heart in my hand, trying to make this grand gesture with Henry to show you what a family looks like—our family, Els, you and me and Henry—and you act all holier than thou. But the whole time you’re banging the help behind my back.”
“Watch your mouth,” Caleb said.
Ellen turned slightly toward him. “Stay out of this.”
“I’m not going to stand here and listen to him insult you.” He kept his voice low, but it didn’t do anything to tamp down the fury. That Richard should be here. That Ellen should be listening to this shit. Defending him. Jesus Christ.
“Then stand somewhere else,” Ellen said, just as quietly. “I can take care of myself.”
“That’s right,” Richard said, taking a step forward and tripping against the threshold so he nearly fell into the house. He recovered by grabbing the doorjamb with one rubbery arm. “My wife doesn’t need your help, Romeo. You’re just a pretty face to her. Probably haven’t got the brains the Lord gave an ant, but I bet you’re hung like a horse, aren’t you? S’okay, Els, I get it. I haven’t been around in a while, and you have needs. God, do you ever have needs.”
A salacious smile stretched across his face as he surveyed her body, lingering over her legs and her breasts. She hadn’t buttoned the shirt up properly. There was a lot of Ellen on display.
“I remember how to please you, darlin’. Let me.”
A choked cry came from behind Richard, and all heads turned to look at Cassie. “You lying bastard.”
Richard flapped a hand in her direction, dismissing the woman he’d no doubt been romancing all evening long.
“You brought him here?” Caleb asked Cassie. “Let him past the checkpoint?”
“Yes, but only because he said—”
“Go home.”
“But I—”
“You’re fired. Go home.”
Cassie opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again as tears filled her eyes. She turned and walked quickly down the driveway, heading for her car.
Later, he would care that she was upset. She’d been the wrong person for the job, another in a series of bad calls. His fault. This whole sorry mess was his fault.
Richard jerked his head in Caleb’s direction. “You can send the meathead packing now, darlin’. I want to come in so we can … talk. Get reacquainted. We can spend the whole day getting to know each other again.” He smiled, and Caleb’s hands curled into fists.
“Henry’s coming home this morning.” There was something about the way she spoke to him. No-nonsense, but not nearly as forbidding as she’d been at Maureen’s yesterday. It made the hair on the back of Caleb’s neck stand on end. She was coddling Richard. Humoring him. Caleb wanted to roar like an animal. “And I have a lot of work to catch up on. I think we’ll have to save getting reacquainted for another day.”
“We can leave the kid with my mom.” He reached for Ellen’s wrist and ran his fingers up beneath the unbuttoned cuff of Caleb’s shirt. Caleb’s stomach clenched hard, and he wondered for a heartbeat if he would throw up. Ellen took a step to the side and gently tugged her arm from Richard’s grip.
“No, we can’t. I miss him when he’s gone. Plus, you really look like you could use some sleep. Why don’t you go home and rest? Later on, you can give me a call. We’ll talk.”
Caleb snapped. “Christ, Ellen, what’s the matter with you? He treats Henry like a toy, and now he shows up at dawn with another woman and insults you. Why are you even talking to him?” She turned on him, eyes blazing, but Caleb didn’t care. He couldn’t take it. “Get the fuck out of here,” he told Richard. “Go home. Leave her alone.”
Richard squinted at Caleb, offended in a bleary sort of way, but when he turned to look at Ellen his eyes came into focus. “This is my home,” he told her. “I want back in my house, and I want this imbecile out of it. I’m going to fuck you six ways from Sunday, Els. If you still want to talk after, it’s—”
Then he shut up, but only because Caleb had walked him backward and pinned him to the side of the house by the throat. “You’re the one who’s leaving,” he said. It was such an immeasurable relief to finally be able to sound exactly as mad as he was, to grip Richard’s neck exactly as hard as he wanted to. “On foot or in an ambulance. Your choice.”
Richard tried to kick him in the balls, which gave Caleb a reason to let go. He waited for Richard to come at him, and then he punched him in the mouth as hard as he could.
Richard dropped to his knees. The satisfaction reverberated up Caleb’s arm, a clean physical pain he welcomed.
He wanted nothing more than to pick Richard up, pin him to the wall, and hit him again. Hit him until he wasn’t even a man anymore, until he was just meat. Obliterate him from the face of the earth so Caleb wouldn’t have to deal with the fact that Ellen had loved this asshole once, that she’d married him and still cared enough to be civil to him even when he treated her like shit, but she wouldn’t let Caleb take her out to dinner. She wouldn’t love him. She wouldn’t even pretend to.
But when he raised his fist again, he couldn’t do it. Richard was helpless. Worthless. A satisfying man to hate, but not legitimately threatening. There would be no honor in hurting him.
Worse, the useless piece of shit was Henry’s father.
“Eric,” he said. “Get him out of here.”
Eric and another of the guards stepped forward and pulled Richard to his feet. “What do you want us to do with him?” Eric asked.
“Take him home.”
It was only as Caleb turned back toward Ellen’s house that he noticed camera flashes going off in his peripheral vision and understood he was going to get fired for this.
And if the look on Ellen’s face was anything to go by, that wasn’t the worst of his problems.
Ellen watched as Caleb locked the door on the Richard debacle and disappeared out the back. When he returned to the kitchen, he had his phone in one hand, and he was shaking the other and flexing his fingers.
“Do you have any frozen peas? Or corn?”
A coherent response eluded her.
“Never mind, I’ll look.” He started rummaging in her freezer.
After dropping a bag of mixed vegetables on the counter, he turned on his phone and swore quietly at whatever he saw on the screen. He slid it into his pocket.
The vegetables became an ice pack for his left hand, which was already swelling. He wet a dish towel, wrapped it around the bag, and tried to tie it on, but it was an awkward job. He’d split a couple of knuckles; they made crimson streaks on the damp cloth.
She didn’t move to help him. Let him dress his own stupid wounds. She wasn’t Florence Nightingal
e. After the Cro-Magnon shit he’d just pulled, he deserved sore knuckles and a whole lot worse.
He got the makeshift ice pack tied on. Caleb and his capable fingers. Figured.
Without a word, she walked to her room and yanked on some clothes, pulling her hair into a ponytail and wishing the roiling in the pit of her stomach would settle down and her heart would stop racing.
She was so tired of feeling things all the time. She’d thought her life was hard enough—taking care of Henry by herself, burning the candle on both ends for work—but emotionally, it had been the Wide Sargasso Sea. Until recently, most days she’d felt nothing stronger than mild displeasure when her son dumped a cup of grape juice on the floor.
This, on the other hand. This was ridiculous. She’d only been awake twenty minutes, and she felt as if her adrenal glands had been squeezed flat in a cider press. When she’d smelled the alcohol fumes coming off Richard, a sharp, shocking stab of disappointment had killed off the hope she hadn’t even known she was nourishing—hope that he might stay sober and figure out how to redeem himself someday. Figure out how to be a decent person and build a relationship with their son.
A stupid, foolish, babyish hope, given who he was and everything he’d done in the last twenty-four hours. But it had kicked and screamed as it died.
Then there was the mix of relief and anger that had pricked her skin when Caleb came up behind her and tried to step in, defending her from Richard’s drunken outburst. The way her pulse had sounded in her ears again. The sick dismay that had gripped her when Richard reduced Caleb to a piece of ass she was using to scratch an itch. He’d said outrageous things, degrading Caleb and cheapening her, sullying everything the two of them had shared.
Outrageous things she hadn’t denied, because she was still heartsick and confused over what had happened between them last night. The way he’d looked at her. Fear had squeezed her lungs so hard, she could hardly breathe. Caleb wasn’t supposed to look at her that way. She hadn’t signed up for it. But when he did, her panicked reaction had been mixed with happiness she couldn’t ignore or deny, and a raw need for him that left her shaky and horribly confused.