by Lily Zante
“Cal-lum,” I cry out, rocking my hips towards him. He pulls down the cup of my bra and laves my breast with his tongue. Bliss such as I’ve never known before crashes over me like a tidal wave.
When he moves down my body, kissing my belly, my waist, my hips, then moves lower and kisses the tops of my thighs, I clench up. He stops and sits up. His lips are red, and wet. My gaze drops to his jeans, to the bulge that is hard to ignore. I moan, then bite my lower lip, desperate for all of him. He is all I need and want. I reach out, to touch his zipper, even though I don’t know how to follow through.
“Don’t go getting ideas, Nina,” he says softly, taking my hand and kissing it as he bends over me. “Our first time, our first proper time together, we’ll make it special.”
“This is special,” I protest, sounding like a two-year old. His finger glides over my clit again, teasing, tweaking, driving me to a frenzy. I lift my hips desperate for more, and he gives it to me. He strums my body even more intensely with his tongue and fingers, making me dance to his tune. Soft, strangled moans escape my mouth as I lie back and bask in the sheer loveliness of it all.
I want to do something for him, only I don’t know how to, and I’m too embarrassed to even try.
Chapter Forty-Six
CALLUM
* * *
“Callum! I’m here. I’ve got your coffee.”
Dottie’s voice makes me bolt upright in bed, and the action wakes Nina. She stayed over last night; she fell asleep in my bed, and I didn’t want to wake her and she had already told me that she was on the late shift at the diner today.
“Where are you?” Dottie cries, her voice getting dangerously closer to the bedroom. Something is off. Dottie would never do this.
And then I hear Rudy’s voice. It’s like shrapnel to my ears.
Shit.
What is he doing here?
I had a nice morning planned for us.
Had.
Nina gasps, then jumps out of bed and puts my T-shirt over her head just as the door flies open. Rudy looks at us and his face crumples in disbelief.
“You’re … busy … “ Dottie appears behind Rudy looking sheepish. They stare at me with twisted faces. I’m sure Dottie would have tried to stop him but she’s obviously failed.
Nina looks horrified as she rushes around trying to find her clothes. I’m naked from the waist up and I can guess what they’re thinking. But this isn’t what it looks like.
I climb out of bed, still with my boxers on. That didn’t happen, but we got pretty close. Still, this is so new for both of us, and we’re not ready to tell anyone about this when we’re not so sure ourselves where this is heading.
Meanwhile Nina’s hunting around for her clothes. “My dress?” she asks, frantically searching all over. “Where is it,” she whispers under her breath.
“In the living room?” I guess. I can’t remember exactly where we took it off. This isn’t good. It’s one thing Dottie knowing, it’s something else Rudy finding out.
“Is this what you’re looking for?” Rudy snarls, returning to the bedroom with Nina’s dress.
“Lose the tone,” I caution him, not liking that he’s talking to Nina as if she’s shit on his shoe. He can get angry at me, but not with Nina. I glance at her, and she’s pale. I grab the dress and hand it over to her. She rushes away to the bathroom.
“What are you doing?” he says, quiet rage simmering under his outwardly controlled demeanor. He walks further into my bedroom as if he’s my parent.
“Butt out,” I warn. “What the hell are you doing here anyway?”
“I have a meeting later with the studio’s marketing people. I came to see if you wanted to get breakfast. I see that breakfast is the last thing on your mind.” He looks around.
“Watch what you say,” I growl.
“Watch what you do. This isn’t what the studio wants to see, Callum. Why can’t you do as you’re told, for once? You and Alyssa—that’s the story they want to see. Not this.” He looks around the room, at the disheveled bed, and draws his own wrong conclusions, I bet. “This better be a fucking one night stand.”
Nina comes out at that moment, her face downcast.
I rush to her side. “Ignore him.” She looks up at me with her big brown eyes. “I should go.”
“Don’t listen to him,” I plead, but I’m not sure that she’s heard me. I grab her hand, but she tugs it out of my clasp. There’s a pleading look in her eyes, so I let her go.
Rudy glares at me, and I am so tempted to smack that stupid look off his face. Just as I’m contemplating on what to do with him, Nina slips past me with a breathless “‘Bye.” I’m tempted to run after her, but I can’t, not with this jackass standing in the way.
“What the hell are you playing at Callum? Are the rumors true?”
“What rumors?”
He snorts. “Don’t jerk me around.”
I hold my breath and try to calm myself down.
“This better be history,” he says, wagging a finger at me.
I bite down on my teeth.
“This is your one chance to be taken seriously. Don’t mess things up. Don’t piss off the big guns.”
He disappears out of sight and I hear Dottie making small talk as their voices peter away.
Chapter Forty-Seven
NINA
* * *
Dottie gave me an apologetic look as I slipped away. I couldn’t get out fast enough. Waking up like that, half undressed and with people walking in on us.
I fell asleep in his bed, what was I thinking? I’ve never done that before. But things are different with Callum. Around him I feel safe; safe enough to fall asleep, safe enough that I can sleep and know that I will be okay. I’ve never done that before. What he did to me last night. I’ve never been pleasured before like that. Even thinking about it makes my cheeks turn red. I remember my hands sinking into his hair, and my legs over his shoulder.
I turn away, feeling the color creep into my cheeks. Frankie asks me if I’m okay, and I assure her that I am. I move way from her, scared that she’ll know just by looking at me.
Callum calls me later that evening, to ask if I’m okay. I can hear the worry in his voice, but I’m more worried about him and his career, and the messed up ways his film people will do anything for publicity. I tell him not to worry, and that I’m okay, and that I was glad I fell asleep in his bed.
He’s busy for the next few days, doing post-production stuff, so I make sure to stay well out of his way. He’s becoming an addiction for me, and going to his hotel room in the evening was fast becoming my go-to. Maybe the enforced separation will be good for me.
I run my fingers over my scars, over the hard scabby raised skin—he touched this, and kissed it, and he didn’t flinch. What I feel for him is hard to put into words. I’m scared that when he leaves, I’ll fall back into my black abyss, so I push the thought to the back of my mind, I force myself to dwell on my present happiness instead.
I prepare myself for this being short-lived. Nothing lasts forever. Not the good, or the bad. I’ve braced myself for worse things before. When Callum returns to LA and back to his normal life forever, I will get over it because I’ll have no other choice.
We must make the most of what we have now.
Staying away from Callum for a few days will give me the chance to catch up with Harper and Elias. I’ve been so preoccupied in my own life, for a change, that Elias’s rematch hasn’t been on my radar lately.
I go over later that evening when Elias is at the gym. My brother always kicks up his training to gruelling levels around this time, then takes a few days off just before the fight.
I’m glad that it will be just me and Harper because I am itching to tell her of my time with Callum. Unlike Joni, Harper will appreciate it. She has my back, and she deserves to be the first to know.
“How’s Elias?” I ask her, as I make myself at home on her couch.
“Training super hard. You know w
hat he’s like. I keep out of his way.” Harper offers me a glass of wine.
“I bet he’s moody as hell?” I know from experience just how difficult Elias is to be around before a fight.
Harper rolls her eyes. “He’s getting angry. The rumors are getting to him. People think he was a fluke. That he got lucky with the win over Garrison last time.”
“He knows better than to let other people’s opinions get to him.”
Harper sits down, glass in hand. “This is different. He’s at the top of his game now, being the world heavyweight champion. He dazzled them before when he was an unknown going straight to the top. It’s harder now that he’s at the top. He has to prove himself.”
“But this is Elias. He’s ready.” My brother was born fighting.
Harper takes a sip of her wine. “Tell me about LA.”
“You tell me about the mountains, first.”
She makes a face. “There’s no comparison. I’m sure your news is more exciting.” But she goes on to tell me of how she read and made use of the sauna and the jacuzzi while Elias trained all day long. How they went to a lovely Italian restaurant that they went to last time. How it would have been nicer if I had come, and brought Callum along too. “Maybe next time?” she says, vampishly, raising an eyebrow. “There will be a next time, won’t there?”
“I don’t know where to start,” I say out loud. Do I tell her about the film premiere, and the famous people I saw? About the way those glamorous women were dressed? Or do I talk about the after party, and tell her about that creep Wesley? Or do I move on to news about me and Callum? Excitement charges through me like electricity as I remember that weekend.
“What are you holding back from me?” she asks slowly, reading my expression the way a clairvoyant reads tea leaves.
“So much has happened.”
“Happened? With you? And Callum?” Harper sits forward, her eyes gleaming like dark emeralds. “I’m waiting.”
“Should I start at the weekend in LA?”
“You mean there’s more?”
“Well … yes.”
“You’re seeing him, aren’t you? You’re with Callum Sandersby?” and when I don’t say anything, she shrieks, “You slept with him?” She fans herself, and I thank goodness that my brother isn’t here to witness this. She reaches forward and squeezes my hand. “That’s the best news you’ve ever given me. You got laid! About time too.”
I frown, shaking my head. “Not exactly.”
“Not exactly?” she asks, confused. “Honey, you either did, or you didn’t.”
I tell her, starting from the weekend in LA, when I hung around with Dottie, to getting ready, and then having Callum come over to see if I was okay. Then I tell her the rest, being inside the Chinese Theater, and watching the film, seeing Callum and his co-star, and the after party. Then I tell her that we spent that night and the next day on his balcony, getting to know one another.
“Getting to know one another?” Harper asks, as if she’s missed something. “You’ve had plenty of time to get to know him. You’ve been dropping off lunch to him every day. How much time do you need?”
“I’m not a fast mover,” I say in my defense.
“Clearly. What were you doing on the balcony, admiring the stars?” I can see the million questions circling over her head.
“We kissed.”
“You kissed?” She sounds unimpressed. “You mean you hadn’t until them?”
“No!”
“All those trips to his set, and him taking you to night school, and you guys getting a cab back from Elias’s place that night—all of that and you didn’t even kiss him until you got to LA?”
I’m not trying to impress her, but she’s obviously struggling to see how I can have Callum Sandersby to myself for an entire weekend and still not do much. I tell her that we’ve spent most of this week together, and that I’ve stayed at his suite a few nights. I tell her how I fell asleep last night in his bed. “Then his personal assistant and manager walked in on us. Well, not in on us in bed, but they see me hunting around the room for my dress.”
“You have slept with him!”
“Not exactly. I had my underwear on?”
“Why didn’t that come off?” she cries, surprised.
“It wasn’t like that.” I wonder if I was naïve in thinking I should confide in her.
“You’ve lost me somewhere,” she says, gesticulating with her beautifully manicured nails. “Let me get this straight. You were naked, and in his bed, and you didn’t sleep with him?”
“I didn’t sleep with him.”
Harper’s long eyelashes flutter as she blinks rapidly. It’s almost as if her synapses are having a hard time processing what I’m telling her versus the actions I carried out. She whistles. “Was he naked?”
“He was in his boxers.”
“In his boxers.” She fans herself again. “Well … you’re making progress, I’ll give you that.” She’s still fanning herself, and then she stops and puts both her hands over mine and squeezes them, as if she’s over-the-moon thrilled for me. “I’m so happy for you. I knew he had a thing for you.”
“I wasn’t sure if it was real. I wasn’t sure I could trust him.”
“You’re a hard one to please. But I think this guy is real. He’s nice. I like him.”
“We know you like him. Elias knows you like him too,” I counter with a smile. I underestimated how good it would feel to tell someone, and now I’m glad I did. Harper’s reaction is all that I could have asked for. Joni would not have been as happy for me as Harper is. I’m happy for myself, that I’ve finally met the type of guy I never knew existed; one I could let my guard down enough to have him see the real me. All of me. He might not have seen my emotional scars, he might not know the whole story, but he’s there for me, not rushing, not pushing, not goading, or coaxing. He lets me be.
“I don’t understand what the problem is. Has he got a small dick?” she asks, giving me a look that suggests she is being serious. “Does it not work?”
I open my mouth. “Uh—” is the only thing I can mutter.
“You said you were naked and in his bed. So … what went wrong?” She clears her throat. “Did it not get hard enough?”
I gasp at the shock of her words. I would force a laugh, except the real reason isn’t funny.
“A man like that,” Harper takes a sip of her wine. “I would have thought Callum Sandersby knew exactly how to please a woman in bed.”
“It’s not him.” The words leave my mouth before I have time to stop myself. “It’s not him.”
She looks at me, her mouth still open, and her lips forming into something like “You?” Only, she doesn’t say it.
I look down at the stem of my glass. It feels as if I’m skating on ice. The longer I skate, the thinner the ice becomes. I can try to tiptoe across, pretending the cracks aren’t there, even knowing that I’m in trouble and about to go under.
“Nina?”
“It wasn’t just Elias who was abused at the care home.”
“What?” Her expression signals her disbelief first. I watch as she wonders if she’s heard right, and then it lands, the full impact of my confession. Like a car hitting a wall at two hundred miles an hour.
I can’t bring myself to look at her. The shame of my past has burrowed deep in my bones, settled like grit in my pores so that I have always felt dirty. Yet during the last few weeks, I’ve felt the dirt and grime start to come loose, and the tar like stains of my childhood finally started to shift.
I hear the clink of glass on table as she sets her glass down. Harper shifts closer to me. “Nina?” Her hand is warm and soft over mine. “What do you mean it wasn’t just Elias?”
I glance at her, and strangely, I have no tears. “The man Elias spoke of that day.” I swallow because I still can’t say his name. “He did that to me. He told me that he wouldn’t touch Elias if I … “
Harper squeezes my hand. I see the shock on her fa
ce. “Like he did Elias?”
I nod. “So I would let him. He would play a game with me, and then he would take me to the basement and do things because I always lost the games he made me play.”
“Oh, Nina.” Her arms close around my shoulder.
“I’m okay,” I insist. And I am. It doesn’t feel as difficult as I thought it would, to say this out loud. “I’m …. I’m going to be more than okay.”
“Yes, you are. Of course you are.”
“That man is in my past.”
She nods. “Yes he is.”
“I … I ….” And then the tears fall. “But I can’t stop thinking of him doing to Elias what he did to me. That’s what’s killing me. He was only a young boy.”
She lifts her hand and wipes away my tears. “You were only a child, too.” She puts her arms around me again and we both hold one another for the longest time.
“Swain did that to you?”
I spring apart. Elias’s voice ricochets through me like a bullet. He’s standing at the door, his face is hard, his eyes feral. He walks in with his head cocked, as if he’s spoiling for a fight. His huge body looking bigger, and scarier as he walks towards us. I recall my reaction to his news when I learned it for the first time.
He’s like a walking grenade, getting ready to explode.
“When did you get back?” Harper asks, jumping up. But Elias’s fists are clenched, the skin across his knuckles stretched so tight that I’m scared the bones are going to pop through.
My body feels like its shrinking. “How long have you been listening?” Telling Harper came easy, maybe I did it to practice for when I’d tell Callum. But telling Elias was never on the cards. I know the damage it can do. Finding out about him was the thing that drove me back to the blade.