Caleb

by McCarty, Sarah

  He skimmed his hand under her T-shirt. “You fantasized about me?”

  The heat of her blush belied the boldness of her “Yes.”

  He liked even more that she didn’t use that shyness as a barrier. He lowered his head so his mouth brushed her ear. “About my mouth?”

  Her nails dug into the edge of his hand. “Yes.”

  Her nipples bore into his chest in silent demand, her scent increasing in tempting waves, wrapping around him in a welcoming hug. He kept his voice to a whisper, so low she had to strain to hear, increasing the intimacy between them. The want. “Was it good?”

  “Very good.”

  He lowered her feet to the floor. “And where was my mouth that made you feel so good?” He brushed his hand across her cheek. “Here?”

  She shook her head. “No.” Her lower lip slid between the edges of her teeth as he slit the side of her jeans with his nail. He bent his knees, nipping his way down the side of her neck, cutting material as he went, the rasp of tearing fabric a sultry accompaniment to his journey, pressing his mouth to the welcoming curve between her shoulder and neck. “Or maybe here?”

  Again the shake of her head, this time accompanied by a little moan.

  “But you like it here.” He sucked lightly, laving the sensitive flesh, breathing deeply as her body made her pleasure known, accentuating the arch of her body into his, keeping her hands pinned over her head as he nibbled his way down her shirt. “Was it maybe . . . lower?”

  “Yes.”

  He grazed the top of her right breast with his teeth, knowing the thin material was no barrier to the tantalizingly sharp edge. She lurched toward him, swearing when her trapped wrists snapped her back.

  “Let me go, Caleb.”

  He shook his head. “Not yet.”

  He caught her nipple between his incisors, bearing down lightly around the turgid peak. Her gaze flashed to his, telegraphing fear and desire in equal parts. He teased with a shake of his head, keeping her wrists pinned to the wall, feeling her gasp all the way to the soles of his feet. Her hands yanked against his grip. He pressed their backs against the smooth wall. “Keep them there.”

  “There you go, bossing me again.”

  He spread her shirt so her nipple peeked out, admiring the view before dipping his mouth toward the tempting morsel. “Do you really object?”

  She shook her head as each word drew the nipple tighter. The blood coursed closer to the surface of her skin. Embarrassment or excitement?

  A shudder took her from head to toe as he lapped it delicately. She arched her back at the end of the brief caress, her hands firmly pressed to the wall, offering herself for more. Her “Not in the bedroom” was pure breathless anticipation.

  Ah, excitement. He smiled and pressed the flat of his tongue against the eager point, heating it. “You’re such an adventurous little soul.”

  Her hands strained his grip as she angled for more room to maneuver, standing on her tiptoes in an effort to rub her nipple against his lips. “Is that a complaint?”

  “Hell no.” Her head thunked against the wall as he gave her what she wanted, taking the hard nub between his lips, sucking gently, enjoying her response to the simple caress. She was so open and honest when she was with him. He liked that. He pulled back just enough to see the result of his care. Damn! She had pretty breasts. Small, taut, and pert, with nipples just the right size for nibbling or pinching. He cut a glance up at her face. All he could see was the underside of her chin and the way the muscles in her throat worked as she swallowed hard.

  “Do I look a fool?” He blew across her right nipple before kissing it lightly in reward for its immediate response. With a slash of his talon he slit the other side of her jeans from hip to cuff. They slid to the floor, leaving nothing but satiny skin under his fingers. He cupped her hips in his hands.

  Her hands dropped to his shoulders as he lifted. “No, but you still aren’t in the right spot.”

  He angled his left shoulder under her thigh. She blossomed to his touch, thighs spreading, breath catching, bracing her shoulders back against the wall. He slid his right hand down her leg, narrowing his grip until his fingers circled her delicate ankle. He worked it back and up until she took over the chore for him, wrapping those sweet legs around his neck. “How do you do this to me?”

  “I’m not the one with fantasies.” He sifted his fingers through the tight curls, separating the plump outer lips. “Sweet.”

  Allie’s hips lifted toward his hand. Her palms dropped to his shoulders. “You’re so not going to let me live this down, are you?”

  Caleb let his finger slide along the path she set, riding the swelling edges of the inner lips, smiling. He cocked an eyebrow at her as he worked his finger in deeper, past the outer folds to the inner moisture. “Not a chance.”

  “Oh God.”

  He wanted to drown in her scent, her desire, bind her to him in a thousand ways—none of them ethical, all of them effective—but he’d promised her a choice and he was a man of his word. “Is this where you dreamed of my mouth, Allie? On this beautiful pussy?”

  “Oh God, yes.”

  He cupped her buttocks in his palms, squeezing and spreading the lush curves as he pulled her to him. His hat brim bumped her stomach. He reached up, only to find her hands there first, keeping it put. A glance revealed her lip between her teeth, a look of uncertainty on her face. And a devilish amount of hope.

  “That was part of the fantasy, too.”

  The smile started deep inside. He settled his thumb on her center and rubbed lightly, calming her with his touch, working her past her embarrassment back into the fire. He definitely wanted her to burn. Allie on fire with desire was every man’s dream. “I can work with that.”

  Her grin caught him on his weak side, sliding under his caution, tapping into the emotions that seemingly seethed at her command. She settled the hat back on his head, scooted her shoulders down, and angled her hips up. “Good.”

  12

  “INTERESTING look.”

  Caleb stood in the doorway, one shoulder leaning against the jamb, his eyes assessing her from head to toe. No doubt looking for an injury. He was obsessed with the thought that something was going to happen to her.

  Allie reached up to her head, fingering the three bright blue feathers she couldn’t get rid of that stuck straight up, the embarrassing aftereffects of her failed attempt to shift into a blue jay. An attempt she’d made because she desperately needed to succeed at something. She forced her lips into a smile as fake as her confidence these days. “I thought so.”

  He pushed off the jamb and came toward her. The narrowing of his eyes belied the lazy roll to his gait. “I thought we agreed—no more experimenting with shifting until Slade figures out what’s going on with you.”

  The closer he got, the more the mark on her finger burned. “Actually I think you were in a snit and laid down some sort of edict.”

  “Which you chose to disobey.”

  “Naturally.” Rather than smiling as she had expected, Caleb’s mouth tightened. She felt a ridiculous need to apologize. She reached up to the feathers, measured Caleb’s frown, and dropped her hand back down. “Besides, you can’t consider a few hair follicles a full shift.”

  He stopped two feet in front of her, his eyes locked on those feathers like they held the secret of life. His fingers twitched. “No, I suppose one can’t.”

  She rubbed the mark on her finger, not buying his easy agreement in the least. “Did you have a good hunt?”

  His gaze flicked to hers as his hands reached up toward her “display.” “I’ve got supper if that’s what you mean.”

  Ouch! The man was not happy if he was opting for bluntness. “I’m thinking it would be easier if you just hooked me up to an IV.”

  With a slight shake of his head, he touched the feathers. “But not nearly so much fun.”

  This close she couldn’t miss the fatigue tightening the skin around his eyes and the slight pall
or underlying the naturally dark color of his skin. He was exhausted. “I think my need has gone way past fun.”

  It was killing him, and Caleb didn’t even have the survival instinct to save himself.

  His hand skimmed the feathers back. It tickled. He took advantage of her flinch to cup his hand around the back of her neck. It rested heavily there for a second before he adjusted the weight, then it became a lingeringly soft caress of heat and security as he pulled her into his chest. His “You’ve got a hearty appetite, for sure” ruffled her bangs.

  She tilted her head back for the descent of his mouth. The man was always touching her, kissing her. And damn—she closed her eyes as his lips moved over hers, brushing, probing, parting for the flick of his tongue that always sent a shot of pure lust through her—he was really good at it.

  His breath puffed into her mouth. “Glad you think so.”

  She didn’t even open her eyes at the comment, just tilted her head a fraction more. “Mmmm, was I projecting again?”

  His tongue teased the corner of her mouth, the shudder that went through her inspired the smile she felt press into her cheek. “Yeah.”

  “I guess I’ll have to work harder on getting that under control.”

  “Don’t bother on my account.” Shivers joined the shudder as he traced his way across the supple terrain of her lip, using the sensitive inner lining of her lower one as a guide, not stopping until he reached the other corner. He announced his arrival with another taunting flick of his tongue. Her knees buckled. He held her up with a hand at the back of her neck, keeping their lips in play with nothing more than the hunger for more. She kissed him back, standing on tiptoe to increase the pressure.

  “Okay.” She caught his lower lip between her teeth, let his shudder blend into her desire as she bit down gently, and spoke around it. “I’ll keep my motivations strictly selfish.”

  Another laugh, another airy caress, and then the warmth of his hand down low on her back, sliding lower. “You do that.”

  Her body softened at the play while her mind sharpened, building to that point of hyperfocus that reduced her world to only him. After two weeks, she was getting used to this aspect of their interaction. She leaned her hips into his.

  “Oh for Pete’s sake!”

  Allie jumped at the interruption. Caleb steadied her, pulling her close with the hand at the base of her spine, turning them so his big body shielded her from view as the brothers entered the room. Another set of footsteps heralded someone entering behind the Johnsons. Derek?

  “They need to get a room,” Jace added to Slade’s exclamation.

  “They’ve got a room, and if they don’t start using it, I’m going to start thinking these displays are an invite,” Derek drawled.

  Caleb growled—a deep rumble that reverberated against her cheek. She shook her head, which in her current position resulted in little more than rubbing her cheek against his chest. Keeping her voice low, she said, “He’s just yanking your chain again.”

  Her feathers ruffled as he bent his head and whispered back, “Then he can enjoy the consequences.”

  From the set of his jaw, consequences translated to a fistfight. Men were so predictable.

  “Actually,” Jared interjected, “I don’t think he is.”

  Allie closed her eyes. Damn vampire hearing. No matter where she turned or what she did, someone was always watching or hearing her. It was getting on her nerves. “You shouldn’t eavesdrop.”

  The stroke of Caleb’s hand down her back didn’t soothe her irritation.

  “Let it go, Allie.”

  “No.”

  “I don’t think any of us can afford to,” Slade said, an abnormal tightness in his drawl.

  Against her, Caleb stiffened. He lifted his head. Cool air wafted over her forehead where his cheek had rested. She sighed. The moment of intimacy was gone. She stepped back. As always there was that moment of resistance before Caleb let her go.

  “What’s on your mind?”

  Jace’s eyebrows went up, echoing the surprise on all the men’s faces as her feathers came into view. “Feathers on your head?”

  She had no reason to feel defensive. But she did. She also felt inadequate and the biggest burden a person could be. She folded her arms across her chest. “I was bored.”

  “And you thought feathers would liven up the day?” said Slade, whose keen eyes probably saw more than she wanted.

  No way was she admitting she’d tried to shift and gotten stuck. “It was a start.”

  “Blue feathers?”

  “They reflected my mood.”

  Caleb’s gaze homed in on her, setting the mark to burning again. “You were blue?”

  She rubbed her thumb over the irritation. “Why would I be depressed? I have a whole compound of men waiting at my beck and call, ready to fulfill my every need if I but deign to communicate it.”

  Derek closed his eyes for a second, his mouth settling in a decidedly sensual grin as he rocked his chair back on two legs. “Now there’s a picture to carry a man.”

  The temptation to tip his chair the rest of the way back tugged at her foot. Caleb had no such reservations. With a heft of his boot, the were went back and over. Derek landed with a crash that made her jump but didn’t even earn a glance from the other men. As one they stared at her, reading her face, probing at her mind, searching for the truth. Pain bloomed in her head. She pressed her fingers to her temple. “Stop it!”

  Immediately, the probes backed off, but the brothers still stared. She glared at them. “What is it with you all? I can understand Caleb worrying, it’s his nature, but the rest of you need to get lives. You’re way too involved in our relationship.”

  “She’s right.”

  Jared was the last one Allie would have thought would take her side.

  “Which brings me to my previous point.”

  A glance at Slade’s face told her more clearly than words that she wasn’t going to like what he had to say. She reached out and Caleb caught her hand. She let him bring her into his side. From the look on the brothers’ faces, she was going to need some bracing.

  “Spit it out,” Caleb ordered.

  “Your relationship is affecting everyone.”

  “How so?”

  “I wasn’t sure at first, but as time goes on, it can’t be ignored.”

  Caleb’s deep breath pressed his ribs against her shoulder. “What can’t be ignored?”

  Slade, Derek, Jared, and Jace exchanged a look. The silence stretched to a tense thread and then Jace sighed and said something so ugly, Allie had to ask him to repeat it. His green eyes, two shades lighter than Caleb’s, met hers.

  “We want you.”

  Caleb snarled and shoved her behind him, her stumbling compliance just part of the recoil from the announcement that left her reeling. They wanted her? The whisper just slipped out. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “No it doesn’t,” Jared pronounced flatly.

  “No one wants to want her,” Jace added.

  The room suddenly felt too small. “Gee thanks.” She took another step back, staring at Jace, feeling as though she’d never seen him before.

  Caleb went with her, pinning her between the wall and his broad back. She didn’t think he was aware of what he was doing. He was completely focused on the other men, the tension in his body signaling his readiness to fight.

  “Speak for yourself,” Derek interjected over her sarcasm. “I’m more than happy to want her. What I don’t like is this building need to do something about it.” He raised a brow at Caleb. “If I’d known sharing blood with you would have this kind of side effect, I would have passed.”

  For a second there was no sound in the room except the sound of controlled breathing and the creak of wood as men shifted in chairs. Finally, Caleb asked, “Are you all feeling this way?”

  Allie buried her face between his shoulder blades, not wanting to know the answer to his question but helpless to resist the opportuni
ty. She bunched Caleb’s shirt in her fingers. “Don’t tell me—they’re all nodding, aren’t they?”

  “You just told me not to tell you.”

  “You know darn well that was a figure of speech.”

  “You’ve got a fancy way to dress up everything.”

  “Just answer the question.”

  “Yes.”

  She pressed her head into his spine. “This can’t be good.”

  “No,” Slade agreed. “It’s not.”

  “Does this have anything to do with my increasing need to protect her?” Caleb asked.

  “I think so.”

  “Any idea why?”

  “I know it’s tied into the mental energy we can all share at will, and it’s obviously tied to instinct, but why it’s spreading like fever, and why it’s increasing proportionally to her blood intake, I can’t say.”

  It just figured that the first time Slade had a theory on her difference it had to be one that scared her spitless. Allie stepped back against the wall. “The more I want blood, the more you all want me?”

  A disconcerting emotion tickled her spine. She looked around the room, taking in the faces of the men, their hard expressions, feeling like she’d never seen them before. It took her a moment to figure out what it was. Fear. She was afraid of them. The shadows from their hat brims deepened the glitter in their eyes to a sinister cast. The width of their shoulders took on more meaning, the strength of their hands more threat.

  She folded her arms across her chest. She wanted to take another step back, to run, but there was nowhere to go. Nowhere she could hide from this—from them. Nowhere she could hide from herself.

  “Why is everything so different with me?”

  Slade sighed. “You’ve tossed a stick in the spokes of what we know for sure.”

  Not a settling observation. Then again, nothing during the last month had been settling. She touched Caleb’s back, needing him to move so she could leave. Beneath her fingertips, his muscles were stiff cuts of aggression. Pain and determination rolled off him in waves. If the brothers’ statements felt like a betrayal to her, what must he be feeling? He’d cared for his brothers his entire life. With them, he shared a bond so close he had brought them with him into immortality rather than lose it. With Derek he shared a friendship close enough to make him all but a brother. Bonds like that had to work both ways. The Johnsons and Derek might doubt that, but she didn’t, and someone had to do something to bring that fact to the fore before everything went to hell in a handbasket. Since they were in this predicament because of her, it was up to her to get them out.