Accidentally His

by Brooks, Sarah J.

  He insisted on putting his boots on himself and then pulled his coat on while I watched. I desperately wanted to help him. I wanted to, but I didn’t. Guys like Caleb were so hard for me to be around. He was bossy and stubborn; he wanted to be in charge of everything, even when he was barely able to stand up straight.

  What was I supposed to do if he collapsed outside because of the loss of blood? How was I going to deal with it if he was unconscious? He’d freeze to death outside; there was no way I could get him back into the house. But, of course, Caleb wasn’t thinking about that; he was probably just thinking about proving how he was capable even when he was ill. I rolled my eyes at him and his ego as we walked outside.

  “I’ll go grab some wood,” I said and hurried over to the pile.

  “Right behind you.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll grab it and bring it up there. You can supervise,” I said with the sweetest smile I could muster.

  He was holding onto the railing near the stairs and stayed there. At least he knew enough not to move from there.

  When I returned with my small pile of wood, Caleb held his hands out for me to hand it to him. I didn’t want to. I wanted to just carry it up the steps myself, but I handed over the wood as he requested.

  “I’ll take it into the house. Go ahead and grab another load.”

  “Okay, just stay by the door, and I’ll bring it to you.”

  “Okay,” he replied which surprised me a lot.

  When I returned to the shed, I noticed the door was slightly opened. It was odd to me since I’d tried to get in there earlier and was unable to open it. With a full armload of wood, I returned to the porch and handed it over to Caleb.

  “Do you want me to close the shed?” I asked.

  “Sure, I must have left it open when I was looking for you.”

  “Yeah, I tried to get in there earlier but couldn’t get the door to budge, then I started wondering off like a maniac.”

  “That’s odd; the door doesn’t lock.”

  “Hmm, maybe I’m just a total weakling.”

  “Not possible. I’ve seen your strength.” He smiled weakly and leaned against the doorframe. “If you don’t mind, I might take you up on that offer to help me to bed. I’m exhausted.”

  “Of course.” I set the wood down and grabbed onto his arm to help support him. “You lost a lot of blood. Sleep, and I’ll bring you some water and food.”

  “Deal.”

  “Thank you.” I chuckled. “I really didn’t want to fight with you about this.”

  He held onto me and let me support him as I walked with him to the bedroom. Caleb was a big guy, at least 6’4” and if he was to fall over, I definitely couldn’t have supported him. But I did the best I could and got him to lie down.

  His pale complexion was worrisome, though. I could clearly not take care of myself very well, so it was unlikely I could handle an emergency medical situation with Caleb. I really hoped he was going to sleep and then be just fine.

  Caleb drifted off to sleep quickly, and I left the bedroom door open just in case he needed me for anything. Every now and again, I’d peek into the room to make sure he was alright. He looked so peaceful sleeping, like a gentle giant with a heart of gold. He even had a slight smile on his face while he slept, and it was adorable.

  For most of the afternoon, I did chores that I thought would need to be done at a cabin like this one. I brought wood into the house and finished lining the porch with more of it. I swept the floors and cleaned the table. I tried to make something for lunch that resembled a pot pie, but it turned into an indescribable mess. Soon I’d finished everything I could imagine that needed to be done and decided to look around the house a little.

  As I browsed the house, it was apparent that Caleb had been in his cabin for a long time, but he didn’t have a lot of personal items. He had books and magazines. There was dust everywhere, except on the bookshelf. I figured he must be an avid reader.

  Most of the books were self-improvement types. He had books on managing teams better, building endurance, finding happiness, and many more topics. Only a few of the hundred or so books were novels.

  The bookshelf was custom made and built into the wall. Everything in the house appeared custom made for the exact location it was in. When Caleb said he had built his whole house himself, it seemed like a bit of an exaggeration, but the longer I looked at the furniture and house, the more I was seeing what an amazing craftsman he was.

  In the bathroom, the cabinet was stained a beautiful shade of deep mahogany. I’d noticed a few weird looking things in there when we were working on Caleb’s wrist, though. The shower had a strange handle that didn’t look like any shower I’d seen before. I fiddled around with it to see if I could figure out how to get it to work and possibly take a shower, but I couldn’t figure it out.

  Before the sun went down, I took a few minutes to walk around the outside of the house and look at Caleb’s handiwork. There was wiring that led up to the roof where his solar panels were, and around the back of the house was a large wooden container that looked like it had water in it. He had literally built a self-sustaining home that didn’t need outside assistance to function; it was extremely impressive.

  I walked through the small shed and saw more of his equipment and supplies that looked newly purchased. Caleb was clearly a very educated man. I could tell by all the technical supplies and how he knew to put them together. His job as an engineer clearly wasn’t a lie, either.

  It was a horrible habit of mine. I always assumed things were a lie when men told me their life stories. Of course, not all men were liars. In my mind, I knew this. I just had a hard time realizing it when I was in the middle of talking to a man. It was just one of my many downsides.

  “Jordan,” I heard Caleb yell from the front door.

  “I’m in here,” I hollered back quickly so he wouldn’t worry. “I’m coming back inside. Stay there.” I hustled up to the house as the daylight slipped away behind the trees. “You are looking a little better. How do you feel?”

  “Good, I can see I’m going to have to make us some dinner.” He laughed and motioned to the mess I’d made from the food I’d tried to make.

  “It actually tastes better than it looks.” I shrugged.

  “Well, let’s eat it then,” he offered.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, if you went to all the effort to make it, and it tastes alright, there’s no reason to waste it.”

  We made our way into the house, and I served up some of the pot pie I’d made. Suddenly, I was extremely worried whether my meal tasted alright after all. I wasn’t used to making food for anyone else, and the last thing I wanted was for Caleb to hate what I’d made when he was already feeling bad.

  “Is it okay?” I asked nervously as he slipped a bite of the food into his mouth.

  I didn’t have to wait for an answer. He quickly finished off his plate of food and grabbed the serving spoon to pile on more. It was cold, and in a giant mess, but he still kept eating it.

  “This is delicious,” Caleb finally said between bites. “Where did you learn to cook like this? I had all of this here?”

  “Yes, you did.” I laughed. “What do you normally eat? You look like a starving man right now.”

  “I’m great at bread, and I do a lot of meat and potatoes.”

  “I’m not a good cook. I think maybe you’ve been deprived for so long that you think it tastes better than it does.”

  “I’ve been deprived of a lot of things,” he said in a low voice I could barely hear.

  Sex, he had to be talking about sex. Had Caleb really been up in this mountain cabin all this time without sex? Surely he’d gone into town and met up with a lady friend every now and again; I had to imagine that he didn’t just live a celibate life of a mountain man.

  Caleb was young and handsome. His long hair and beard couldn’t hide how good looking he was. I’d bet that there weren’t many women who would turn
him down if he was laying on the charm. I knew damn well I wouldn’t turn him down.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked in an effort to change the subject and not pry into his sex life.

  “Tired. I feel like I got hit by a truck. How about you? You’re the one who fell off a cliff today.”

  “Every muscle in my body hurts. You know what it’s like when you’ve just finished a really hard work out, and you know you are going to be sore in the morning.”

  Caleb nodded his head in agreement. “That’s exactly how I feel right now. I’m sore, but I know by the morning it’s going to be ten times worse. Is it any muscle group in particular? I could give you a massage if that would help.”

  “I don’t want to put you to work after what you’ve already been through.”

  “Nonsense. I slept all day, and I can clearly see you were working hard the whole time. I promise to behave,” he said with a smile.

  Up until that moment, I hadn’t even thought that he wouldn’t behave. What did he mean by that? Was this his way of flirting with me? I was utterly confused. We had spent more time fighting with each other than getting along, and this new dynamic was an adjustment. It was a good adjustment, though. I didn’t like how agitated he’d been with me when he found me on the edge.

  “Okay, how about my shoulders?” I asked.

  “Of course,” he motioned for me to come sit with him on the couch.

  The air became thick as I walked over with him. Dense with a new level of desire that I hadn’t felt for this man up until that moment. My breathing quickened, my body tensed even more than it already had. Somehow, I had to sit there with this delicious man’s hands all over my body and not be turned on by him. It was going to be nearly impossible.

  My body warmed with excitement and anticipation for having him touch me. I sat down in front of him on the floor while he spread his legs and pulled me back toward him. Gently, Caleb moved his hands over the taut muscles of my neck and shoulders. He moved slowly with rhythmic movements that felt sexual to me.

  He was literally just rubbing my shoulders, yet I felt a sexual energy going from his hands to my body that I couldn’t ignore. My center hummed with excitement as he lifted his hands and then put them back on my body. He wasn’t even touching my skin half of the time. His hands were on my shirt, and I still felt the seduction of his movements.

  Chapter 12

  Caleb

  This was a bad idea. I felt it from the moment my hands slipped onto her shoulders. I wasn’t going to be able to control myself. The only thing keeping me from moving this massage further was how tired I still felt from the blood loss.

  Jordan and I were like oil and water; we didn’t mix well at all. I was the alpha male who had been up in the mountains for way too long, and she was the sweet young city girl who had no idea what she was getting herself into when she came into the mountains. I wasn’t going to take advantage of her naivety, no matter how hard my body got thinking about her.

  If not for the small bit of physical restraint I had, I would have devoured her. Somehow, I’d gone from being annoyed by Jordan to feeling like I had to have her. She was looking at me differently too, I felt it. My body reacted to this new feeling with a salute of power as I slid my hands from her soft neck to her shoulders.

  The shift of emotions happened while she was wrapping my wound and caring for me. Her hands were so soft and gentle. She was kind to me even after I’d been less than kind to her. Certainly I could handle this, though, I was simply going to give her a massage, and that was it. Nothing else was going to happen between the two of us.

  Jordan had a big scare already that day. I’d had a big scare too. Neither of us were in any position to be letting this sexual tension between us build up anymore. My fingers slid softly up her neck and back down, the movement building the power between us to the point that I could hardly keep my hands from shaking.

  I wanted her. I wanted to grab her T-shirt and pull it up over her head. I wanted to feel her breasts in my hands, wrap my teeth around her nipples. She smelled so good. How was it even possible that another human could smell this good after all the terror and trauma she had been through?

  “You scared me to death today,” I said softly as I pressed into her muscles. My breathing was controlled as I tried to hide the sexual tension I felt growing inside me. And it was growing. Harder and harder the more intimate the time I was having with Jordan.

  Women were my weakness; they always had been. There was something about the soft touch of a woman’s hands and the gentle smile of her lips that could make me forget anything and everything I had on my mind.

  If I hadn’t come out to the mountains, I would have likely lost myself in women. I would have gone down a rabbit hole of sex and one-night stands in an effort to get over my lost love. I knew this about myself. I knew the destruction I would have caused in those women’s lives, and I just couldn’t do it to them. I knew myself enough to know that a broken heart and a ton of money wasn’t going to end well for me if I didn’t make a change.

  “I know, I’m sorry,” Jordan said softly.

  “We hardly know each other, but I was freaking out. Please don’t do that again. I know you want to go home, and I’m going to do my best to get you there, but it’s too dangerous right now. We need to wait a couple of days.”

  “Okay,” Jordan replied with that killer sweet smile of hers.

  “You’re not going to argue with me?”

  “No, I was scared today too. I could have died. If you hadn’t come looking for me, I would have died on that ledge. Or if I had been moving a little faster when I fell I would have fallen right off that cliff. Trust me; I’m not going anywhere, Caleb.”

  Jordan turned around as she sat on the floor in front of me. She was on her knees, between my legs, and all I could think about was how hot it would be if she reached for me and put me into her mouth. What sort of craziness was I even considering? This girl didn’t know me, and she certainly wasn’t going to have sex with me after I’d screamed at her like I did.

  My desires were taking over, though. I felt the burning as it grew inside me. The boiling of my lust wasn’t going to stay hidden for long. Somehow, I had to defuse this situation. The tension between us was powerful, and I found myself purposely trying to slow my breathing and calm my heart rate down.

  “I think that’s best,” I managed to say.

  The problem was I couldn’t stop thinking about her lips wrapped around me. Even as she talked, I was oblivious because I just saw her beautiful perky lips and how fantastic they were. She stared into my soul with her blue eyes, and I was lost. Utterly and completely lost. I knew I was lost, and yet I couldn’t pull myself back to listen to her talking.

  “Caleb, can you help me, or should I just try to figure it out alone?” Jordan said as she shook my shoulder and stood in front of me.

  I snapped out of it and came back to the present moment. It was hazy; I was a little shaky, and I had no idea what on earth she was talking about. “Sorry, I must have been spacing out. Still pretty out of it. What do you need help with?”

  “The shower. I was going to try to manage it while you were sleeping but couldn’t figure it out. Can you show me how to work it so I can shower?”

  “Oh, sure.” I jumped up and followed her into the bathroom. “It’s pretty easy. You turn this knob and then hold this button for the warm water. If the water turns cold while you’re in here, just rotate this knob over here and push the button again.”

  She looked dazed for a minute, so I turned the water on to show her. I’d worked extremely hard on building this innovative shower and was pretty damn excited to have someone using it besides me. I couldn’t wait to hear what Jordan had to say about it when she was done with her shower.

  “Um, I push this for hot water?” she asked. “I’m sorry. I think you’ll need to show me one more time. Slowly, though. I’m a city girl. I have no idea what is going on here.”

  “Yes, but
only the first time. When the hot water runs out, you need to do this, and then push the button again,” I said as I showed her what to do with the water running. “Okay, you better jump in; there’s only about five minutes of hot water.” I hurried out of the bathroom and shut the door behind me. “You will have to restart it after that, but there is probably only enough power in that solar panel to heat up the water one more time.”

  “But it’s running hot water right now,” she said. “Holy heck, okay.”

  “Yep, get going. Probably down to four minutes about now.” I laughed.

  “Caleb I can’t take a shower in four minutes,” she yelled.

  I couldn’t stop laughing as I heard her tearing her clothes off and jumping into the shower. Most people could manage a shower in five minutes if they were motivated enough although if she actually followed my directions and turned the knob and pushed the button she would get another five minutes of hot water, so she should have plenty.

  “The black bottle is shampoo,” I said through the door as I waited just outside. “The white one is conditioner.”

  “You have conditioner?” She laughed.

  “This hair doesn’t stay long and luscious without it.”

  “Wow, very true. I’ve never showered in a man’s bathroom that had conditioner. This is a treat.” She laughed, and I heard her opening the shampoo bottle. “How many minutes left? I’m never going to make it.”

  “I don’t know, maybe two minutes,” I said with a smile.

  My eyes were glued to my watch as Jordan’s five minutes of warm water was starting to run out. I felt the tension building and was waiting to help guide her through the process so she could restart it when she yelled out.

  “Oh, heavens this is the coldest water on earth! Caleb! Help!”