K-I-S-S-I-N-G

by Dana Pratola

Winsome shook her head. “Not me, I didn’t mean me. I thought...with you just breaking up, and everything.”

  Breaking up? Oh, with Dee, he realized. Right.

  “Plus, we just discussed—”

  He shook his head, stopping her speech. “I know we agreed, just sex, but that doesn’t mean we can’t alter the plan.”

  She definitely looked confused.

  “What I mean is, I don’t have meaningless sex with random women. I want this connection,” he said moving his index finger between her and himself. He stopped himself just short of telling her he was already falling in love with her. She didn’t need that kind of pressure right now. “Even though we’re keeping it…casual, it has to be just me and you. Let’s just wing it. Let things progress naturally and see where they go,” he said, instead.

  She beamed a smile at him, aimed straight at his heart. Man, she was something. And all his. Yeah, he was beginning to believe it. Sullen though he might be, he was just going to have to get used to this feeling of exhilarated contentment when he looked at her.

  “I’m glad,” Winsome said. “I feel the same way.”

  “You do?” he asked. She nodded. “Because I don’t ever want you to say or do something because you think it’s what I want. Do you understand?”

  She met his gaze levelly, and when she spoke, her voice was low, but steady. “It’s what I want, Caleb.”

  Satisfied, he leaned over to kiss her. He meant for it to be a simple acknowledgement, a sealing of the agreement to continue their monogamous sexual relationship, but it didn’t take five seconds for the kiss to progress from gentle to heated, and for hands that had been content to remain stationary, to find their way across Winsome’s thighs, to her hips, dragging her and the chair closer. With better access to feast on her generous lips, ideas that had been quietly subdued in a corner of his mind, now rose and stepped forth as one, demanding attention with full voice, that of a deep, throaty groan.

  Winsome’s own squeaks and purrs were muted in contrast, but served to feed the beast within him now demanding release. Cal stood, scooping her up as he did, and set her feet on the floor. Keeping his mouth to hers, his large fingers groped for the button on her shorts. In the time it took him to regret having her get dressed, he hurried the material down her legs, and off.

  He dropped his own pants, not even bothering to step free of them, before lifting her again, this time to drop her bottom firmly on the tabletop and step between her thighs. He was inside her in the next instant, head thrown back, emitting a growl he didn’t even recognize at first as his.

  Inside, he knew he had to temper this raging desire so he didn’t frighten her, but she looked anything but frightened, nipping at his ear, kissing his neck, his chest. Gripping the table edge, she tossed her hair back and giggled, the low rumble of it stirring his already heated blood. His mouth fused with hers once again as he drove into her, using one hand to keep her from sliding across the table, and the other to grip her chin as he feasted on her.

  She was so amazingly responsive, so intuitive, so hot. He felt his eyes roll back in his head, though they were already closed, as he wallowed in her fervent passion, and as his own overtook him. He could no longer think of being gentle, of being respectful and selfless. Consumed by greed for her, by the drive of impending release and satiation that already seemed to be mere thrusts away, he took no thought of her own gratification. But when release did come, she met him there, wrapping her legs tightly around his waist so that he couldn’t escape if he’d wanted to.

  His breath tore from him in ragged gasps, and on one of them, the words he hadn’t intended to say. He glanced down at her, her eyes closed, head turning from side to side as she tried to regain her breathing in the aftermath of her orgasm. It was possible she hadn’t heard him. If she hadn’t, he wouldn’t mention it, and if she had…well, he couldn’t deny it. It was the truth, and they would both have to face it.

  CHAPTER 15

  “I love you.”

  The words replayed in her ears throughout the next week. He didn’t repeat them, but she couldn’t unhear them. And whether he’d actually meant them in the literal sense, or they were wrenched from him in his lust-induced climax, she thought she saw it when he looked at her. No man had ever looked at her like he did. As if he couldn’t believe his own dumb luck. She knew exactly how that felt. Watching him working on the treehouse, showing off his strength and skill, she couldn’t help wondering if she was caught in a dream.

  Showing off might not be the case, she amended, looking at him now through the front window. His muscles rippled with the movement of lifting planks and tools into place, but it was just him doing what he did, not meant to impress anyone. Though, impressed she was. And turned on.

  Winsome forced her eyes away from his gorgeous body and sipped from the glass of lemonade beside her before diving back into her book. At least the pages weren’t filled with red-hot shirtless heroes. A story about a grandmother trekking through the wilds of Oregon in the eighteen-sixties should be safe enough.

  But her eyes returned to Caleb time and again. And to the amazing structure he had envisioned and produced from his own creative mind. He had three men working with him now, Darryl among them, and it was coming together rapidly. Caleb expected it to be move-in ready “soon,” but he wouldn’t say exactly when.

  The thought excited her, and at the same time left her feeling a little sad. They had been spending their nights entwined in passion, until falling exhausted into sleep. With her treehouse complete, he would expect that to change, but what if she wanted to stay with him in his bed? She couldn’t afford to seem needy just when she felt he was beginning to lose the image of her as vulnerable and reliant. If he wanted her to stay with him, it would have to be his idea. Either way, she was going to enjoy every moment with him.

  The sound of a motor pulled her thoughts from the future, and outside once again, to where a delivery truck crested the top of the hill. She marked her page, set the book down, and stood, already excited. It was here!

  Seeing Caleb was already descending the treehouse ramp, his head cocked toward the truck, she hurried out to the porch, Even as elated as she was by the arrival of her very own wax melting tub, she took a moment to appreciate the way he moved with that determined gait. Like he had somewhere to be and would get there no matter who or what stood in his way.

  As he got closer, however, she noticed something else. He looked tired. But then, what could she expect? After hard days at work, he had been putting in many hours on her treehouse, often in the dark, and sometimes alone, all after making love to her for half the night. She suddenly felt like the biggest jerk in the world. How could she not have noticed the fatigue before now?

  Because he tried not to show it and never complained, she realized. He was stubborn that way. Well, later tonight, as much as it pained her, they wouldn’t be rolling in the sheets. She was going to give him a full-body massage—as well as she could manage with this stupid cast—and put him to bed early.

  He turned to her then, his eyes looking as if he’d somehow intercepted her thoughts, and had others of his own. He called her to him with a head gesture and she eagerly answered his summons, leaping off the third step and jogging to him as the truck came to a stop a few feet away.

  Caleb raised his right arm, for her to nestle under as two men got out and walked around to the back, one checking his electronic clipboard while the driver released the door lock, opened and secured the doors.

  “You’re…Winsome Woodbear?” the man asked her.

  “Woodbead,” she answered, amused.

  “Sorry. This D looks like an R.” He removed the stylus pen from its side slot and scribbled on the plastic surface.

  “That’s okay,” she said. He certainly wasn’t the first to mispronounce the name. She’d gotten Woodhead, Woodshed, and several others, none of which were any worse than her actual name.

  “We’re delivering a J42, P series wax melter tank, is that
right?” he asked, reattaching the stylus.

  Winsome looked to Caleb for confirmation.

  “Yes,” he confirmed.

  The man hung the clipboard on a hook on the door while the driver pushed a handheld button attached on the right side of the truck. The lift gate lowered with a steady whirr of the electronic motor. When it was almost level with the ground, the two men unfolded the platform, stepped onto it and raised it and themselves level with the bed of the trailer.

  Once inside, they loaded her wax tub onto the pallet truck and brought it to the edge. She couldn’t help clasping her fingers together and bouncing a little on the balls of her feet. She felt like a five-year-old child on Christmas morning.

  “This is…amazing,” she said, to no one in particular.

  Caleb’s arm tightened around her. “I’ll show you how to use it once it’s installed,” he said, making it clear she was not to be invited into the treehouse until everything was just the way he wanted it.

  She loved him for it, but she was dying to get up there! He’d allowed her up only once, the day after the first platform was finished, just to give her a preview of the astounding view from that height. The entire pond was visible!

  “What do you know about wax melters?” she asked.

  “Not a thing, beyond the research I did on the internet to order it.”

  She giggled. “Then you know more than me.” She looked at the perfect, shiny receptacle, now at ground level. “I’ve never had anything like this.”

  “I think most people can say the same thing,” he answered.

  And it was because of Caleb that she had one now. She turned in his arms and placed a long, tender kiss on his mouth.

  “Thank you.”

  “It’s a gift from Aunt Ruth, not me,” he said, then gave her a quick kiss of his own.

  “True, but I wouldn’t have it without you. I wouldn’t even have known what to look for.”

  “Sign here, please,” one of the men said, tapping the signature line of the clipboard with the stylus, oblivious to having interrupted a romantic moment.

  Caleb took the clipboard and handed it to Winsome. As excited as she was, she didn’t even sign her full name, letting the end of the first d flatline across the paper. Even before the men had finished removing the pallet truck from beneath the tub, Caleb signaled Darryl to come and help move it toward the treehouse. She would have thought moving and installing the tub the delivery guys’ job, but no doubt Caleb preferred to do it himself.

  “How much does it weigh?” she asked.

  “About one seventy-five,” Caleb said.

  “Wow, as much as that? Are you sure it will be okay up there?”

  Caleb chuckled. “It’ll be fine. Your house can hold over ten thousand pounds.”

  She felt her eyes widen even more, making it easier to see herself reflected in his eyes. He leaned closer, and might have kissed her then, but Darryl interrupted.

  “Later, Cal, we have work to do,” he teased.

  Caleb pulled back and tilted his head. “You heard the man.”

  Winsome nodded, following along as they lifted the melter and walked to the trees supporting the new structure, but she stopped at the long, curving ramp and ran her hands along the smooth sanded handrail, atop the hand-carved balusters. She couldn’t understand how someone put a price on such artistic vision and ability, or why they would use that ability doing something so incredible for her.

  “Excuse me.”

  Winsome quickly stepped out of the way so one of the workers—Paul, she believed his name was—could pass with a box of wood shingles. They had started putting them on in back, but were quickly making their way around to the front.

  Just one glance up and she was amazed all over again. The building was so much larger than anything she ever imagined a treehouse could be. Fortunately, it didn’t rely wholly on nature to keep it aloft, but was also supported by metal posts cemented into the ground. It had front and rear facing decks and the left side, which faced the mountains, had two levels and a small deck perched outside what was to be her bedroom—she’d gotten that much out of Caleb, at least. She couldn’t even fathom what it would be like to see it from the inside.

  Before she started to hyperventilate from enthusiasm, she refocused her attention on Caleb, his black T-shirt pulled taut across his well-developed chest, biceps flexing, his thigh muscles straining against his jeans, as he eased his end of the tank through the doorway. All that strength, yet he was so gentle when he wanted to be, never using his strength against her, even in the heat of passion.

  He caught her staring and sent her a wink, which sent a tiny wave of joy skittering through her stomach. She couldn’t explain the feelings he incited in her, but they were becoming stronger by the day.

  ****

  He could see in her face how happy she was that the treehouse was almost finished. He’d told her a few more days, but in truth, they were planning to finish it today. Tomorrow she would be getting the cast removed, and could move in and start her life of independence, living and working in her own space with no worries, no stress. Great.

  Cal instantly chided himself for the selfish reflex. She didn’t have to be snugged up tight to him every night in order for him to feel complete, that was ridiculous. He shot a glance at the loft stairs, already planning to help her break in the new bed as soon as possible, but it would be different, that’s all. She had her own room in the house, so sleeping with him was easy since they were under the same roof. Now, she would have to make a conscious choice to be with him. He wouldn’t make it for her and feel like he was intruding on her space. The whole point of this project was to get her to stand on her own feet, wasn’t it?

  He glanced out the window and watched her walking back to the house with that carefree, loose-limbed grace she exuded naturally. It was so markedly different from the tense hesitation he’d seen in her at first. Only a month ago, she’d been scared of everything, including him, and now she was returning to the confident, enthusiastic woman she was meant to be. He believed he had something to do with that. It was the thing he was most proud of. She was her own person, as was he, complete individuals who didn’t need to be under the other’s nose to be in love.

  Cal huffed out a breath. Love. There was no other word for it. He’d tried to convince himself it was passion, or desperation, or loneliness, and some of that was in there, yeah, but it was love. He didn’t look for it, hadn’t planned on it, yet there it was, wrapped around his heart like one of those spiked dog chokers that dug in further the more the animal resisted. Oddly, he didn’t feel trapped. He felt free.

  Either she hadn’t heard him say he loved her, or pretended not to, assuming it was only said in the heat of the moment. Maybe it was. Maybe he hadn’t loved her a week ago, and it had all been pure lust. Or maybe he had, and his tongue let slip what his heart already knew. Either way, that was then. He loved her now, and when she looked at him, there was no hiding she felt the same way.

  “Carla’s on her way,” Darryl told him, slipping his cell phone back in his pocket.

  “Of course she is,” Cal answered, with a chuckle, almost relieved to be pulled from his romantic fantasy.

  As the most sought after interior designer in the area, and one of Aunt Ruth’s closest friends from one club or another, Carla knew of the project, and that it was for a girl Ruth had taken under her wing. She insisted upon donating her time, as well as organizing other friends and club members to donate items, all of which had to pass her approval. She told Cal she wasn’t about to have her reputation tarnished by having Winsome’s place looking like “an explosion at a garage sale,” he believed were the words she’d used. She was intent on making it a showplace and was chomping at the bit to get in here. But he had to keep Winsome busy so she didn’t see what was coming into the treehouse. He wanted that part, at least, to be a surprise.

  When they’d finished hooking up and testing the wax melter tank, Darryl hung around, skimming
the toe of his work boot over the tile floor Josh had installed yesterday. Seemed like he had something to say, but didn’t know how.

  “What’s up?” Cal asked.

  Darryl shrugged. “Been thinking. You know I’ve been in construction my whole life.”

  “I know.”

  “Since I was fourteen,” Darryl said.

  Cal waited for him to continue.

  “I don’t mind hard work, never have. And in any type of weather, too. I helped build a community center up in Fairbanks in November a few years back. You have any idea what the temperatures are like up there in November?”

  “Cold,” Cal said.

  “Cold…yeah,” Darryl wagged his head in a half-shaking, half-nodding motion that sent his head around in a loop. “Plus, I’m good at what I do, I don’t just putter around. Josh would never have kept me on if I wasn’t good, you know that. I can do it all, from framing to drywall, to electrical when I have to.”

  Cal couldn’t argue with that, Darryl was a jack of all trades and master of some. But why did he sound like an oral resume?

  “So, I was thinking when you start your own business I want to come aboard.”

  “Are you kidding?” Cal asked.

  Darryl frowned. “No, I’m totally serious.”

  “I’m already counting on you,” Cal finished, giving Darryl’s back a slap.

  Darryl’s eyes lit up. “Oh, man, that’s great.”

  Cal laughed. “I was trying to figure out a way to lure you without asking you to abandon Josh. I don’t want to take his guys, and treehouses aren’t for everyone, but you seemed to take to it.”

  Darryl gave him another one of those nod/head shakes. “Yeah, I’m tellin’ you, bein’ in on this,” he paused, opening his arms and looking around at the completed structure, “it’s the same, but different. I mean, it can be harder cause the spaces are tighter, and up in the air, but you get to see what you’ve accomplished in days, not months. It’s so cool.”

  Yes, Cal had often thought that. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. It could be a while before I have the money to start my own company.”