She's So Over Him (Mills & Boon Modern Tempted)

by Wood, Joss

  ‘Cale, I can’t stay here. I’ve got four lists waiting for me on my desk. There’s a pile of work I’ve got to get through tonight,’ Maddie fretted as he headed for the door.

  ‘Maddie, you are mentally and physically exhausted. If you don’t rest you are going to collapse.’

  ‘Cale!’

  Cale grabbed the edge of the door and looked back at her. He ran a hand over his eyes, and his words, when he spoke, held no heat. ‘Mad, please? Sit. Stay. Shut up.’

  A half-hour later Cale walked back into the bathroom and Maddie forced her eyes open. Steam swirled around the room as Cale looked down at her with enigmatic eyes. She was too tired to protest at his obvious inspection of her body, so Maddie discarded her modesty and rubbed a soapy loofah over her arms, around her neck, over her breasts. Cale followed her movements with his eyes, and Maddie didn’t need to look to gauge his reaction.

  Cale smiled lazily at her, utterly distracted. ‘You’re a tease.’

  Maddie eyed him and licked her lips as her mouth dried up. ‘Come here.’

  ‘Thanks, Maddie, I’ll take a raincheck. Not because I don’t want you… I always want you.’

  Yanking his eyes upwards, he shook his head and in one fluid motion reached for a towel. Opening it up, he motioned for Maddie to stand up. Helping her out of the bath, he wrapped the towel around her chest and gently dropped a kiss on her lips.

  ‘I need you,’ she whispered, stepping forward and planting her hands on his chest, sweeping them down his sides and around to cup his buttocks. How much more of a hint did the man need?

  ‘You need to sleep, Mad,’ Cale said softly, and steered her to the bedroom. Tenderly, he dried her off, before pulling a clean oversized T-shirt over her head. He pulled back the covers on the bed and indicated she should climb in. Maddie swung her legs into the bed and stared up at him, not quite believing his refusal.

  ‘I need you.’

  Cale grinned and tucked—tucked!—the covers around her. ‘You need a decent night’s sleep more. And if I climb into bed with you, you know that we’ll be up all night. I can’t seem to get enough of you. So finish that smoothie. Get some goodness into you.’

  She was trying to seduce him and he was prattling on about health foods?

  ‘Well, then I’ll just have to work.’ Maddie pouted and pushed the covers away.

  ‘Okay, let’s say this slowly. You… need… sleep,’ Cale insisted, pushing her back on the pillows before sitting on the bed next to her. ‘What’s really going on in that crazy head of yours, Mad?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘You are exhausted. I could see that you’d been crying earlier… What’s going on?’

  Maddie flicked her thumb over the embossed feather pattern on her white throw. She felt her breath hitch in her throat and silently cursed the rising tears. She tried to will them away but they slid down her face anyway. Look how well he knew her… He knew that she was using sex as a distraction, as a way to get out of her head for a while.

  ‘Talk to me, Maddie.’

  Maddie bent her knees and wrapped her arms around them, resting her cheek on one knee while Cale played with one of her long curls. ‘I’m just feeling so overwhelmed. So much has happened so quickly, and I feel like I can’t make sense of any of it. Throw my mother into the mix and my stress levels go through the roof.’

  Cale wiped a tear away with his thumb.

  ‘I’m usually a decisive person, Cale. I have to be, doing what I do. I have to decide on a course of action and then I implement it.’

  ‘Easy to do at work but not so easy to do in real life,’ he commented. ‘What decisions are you struggling with?’

  Whether to let myself grow closer to you or whether to pull away now, before my heart gets stomped on. Whether I really, really want to go to New York or just think that I should want to. Whether I’m happy at Mayhew Walsh.

  She couldn’t verbalise those concerns so went with a sweeping statement. ‘Everything is changing and I don’t like it.’ Tears dripped onto her knee.

  ‘Change is good, Maddie, it allows you to grow. But with change comes fear… and when you’re tired it can feel overwhelming.’ Cale’s strong fingers gripped her neck and dug into the tense cords. ‘You’re a mess. Feel how stressed you are.’

  ‘If you keep doing that I’m going to keep crying.’

  ‘I’ve had six-foot-five rugby players bawling on my couch. Tears don’t scare me,’ Cale said softly as he moved behind her to massage her back.

  Maddie moaned as his strong hands eased into her hard muscles. ‘I hate crying… I feel so weak,’ she admitted.

  ‘Don’t. It’s good to see you letting go, that you can be vulnerable. The more I get to know you, the more I’m realising that your tough-girl image is an act you’ve perfected—but it’s still an act. You’re not half as tough as you think you are.’

  ‘I’m very tough!’ Maddie protested, but without any heat or conviction.

  ‘Yeah, so tough. With your piggy eyes and your red nose and blotchy skin,’ Cale teased.

  Maddie groaned. She knew she didn’t look her best, but did he have to point it out? Her tears carried on flowing.

  ‘Good girl, let it out. No, don’t think, just cry. Let go, sweetheart. You’re safe. I’m here,’ Cale whispered as he rubbed her shoulders.

  So Maddie quietly cried while Cale’s magic hands eased the tension out of her body. He only stopped to pull tissues from the box on the bedside table and shove them into her hand, and he carried on long after her waterworks and snuffles had stopped.

  After many long, bone-melting minutes, Cale’s hands stilled on her back and he leaned forward to look down into her face.

  ‘Better?’

  Maddie nodded, too tired—mentally and physically—to talk. She pushed herself up in the bed and placed her head on her pillow. Cale put his feet on the floor. Maddie stopped him from getting up with a hand on his arm.

  ‘Stay. Please?’ she asked through a huge yawn. ‘Would you just hold me? For a while?’

  Cale lay down next to her, shoved a hand under her shoulder and pulled her close. ‘Sure.’

  Maddie turned and placed her head on his shoulder. Tenderness, she thought, sliding her arm across his chest. So this is what tenderness feels like.

  I like it, Maddie thought as her eyes closed. I really do.

  So, Cale thought as he trudged up the beach below his house, surfboard under his arm, surfing wasn’t as easy as he’d expected it to be. When he’d asked Maddie to teach him to surf he’d thought he’d pick it up in a heartbeat—he’d always had good balance, and how difficult could it really be? Way, way difficult, he’d discovered. He couldn’t even stay balanced on his stomach in two-feet-high waves.

  Cale dumped his surfboard on the sand and picked a towel out of Maddie’s beach basket. Learning to surf in autumn wasn’t one of his brightest ideas either; the water’s temperature came up from Antarctica and the wind had a nasty bite. He turned to look out to the back line, easily picking Maddie out from the surfers, watching as she picked up a wave and flew down it. He couldn’t see her face clearly, but knew that she’d have a massive grin on her face.

  He wanted to share this with her—share her passion for the sea and its many moods. He’d genuinely listened and tried to keep his weight centred in the middle of the board, his chest above the middle point of the rocking piece of plank. He’d also tried very hard to ignore her hands on his waist, her hair swirling down her back, the way the black neoprene of her wetsuit moulded her perfect breasts and fabulous bottom.

  Maybe if he’d concentrated more on the surfing lesson and less on the surfer he would have done a bit better. But it was difficult to grasp the technicalities of lying prone on a board when five-foot-four of sheer lusciousness had one hand on your butt and the other on your thigh. Cale winced in embarrassment. Fifteen-year-olds, he decided, had more sophistication.

  Cale stripped off the top half of his wetsuit,
yanked on a T-shirt and a thick hooded sweatshirt and sat in the sand, rubbing his wet head with the towel.

  He hated not getting something right. While Oliver had been good at sports but brilliant academically, he’d been the opposite. He wasn’t a slouch in the brains department, but sport was what he did… He’d never come across a sport that he couldn’t master. Sport was where he channelled his aggression, and he excelled at whatever he turned his hand to.

  Except surfing, obviously.

  Maddie ran up the beach and dumped her surfboard next to his, a broad grin on her face.

  ‘Hello, grumpy.’

  ‘Stupid sport,’ Cale muttered, his eyes on her torso as she pulled her wetsuit off to reveal a lime-green bikini.

  ‘It’s time to haul out my dry suit. That water is freezing!’

  Cale handed her a towel and she wrapped it around her shoulders.

  ‘There’s hot coffee in the flask,’ Maddie told him, squeezing the water out of her hair.

  ‘There is a God,’ Cale replied, pulling the basket to him and digging for the flask and mugs as Maddie pulled on some warm clothes.

  ‘You did well,’ Maddie said as she dropped to the sand, briefly resting her hand on his thigh.

  ‘I’m useless! I’m obviously surfing impaired.’

  Maddie took the cup he held out and took a grateful sip. ‘You’re just making common surfing mistakes—albeit in a foot of water,’ Maddie told him. ‘With surfing, all your action needs to be performed without hesitation. If it isn’t, a wave will pick you up and dump you. As it did. Numerous times.’

  Cale narrowed his eyes at her. ‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’

  Maddie’s grin was crooked. And charming. ‘Hey, you’re cute when there’s snot running from your nose and you’re doing your wet St Bernard dog impression.’

  It was supremely galling to have to accept that her description was deadly accurate. Cale gave her what he hoped was a quelling stare. When her smile deepened he suspected that he’d have to work on his intimidation tactics.

  ‘You’re really hard on yourself,’ Maddie said as she wrapped her hands around the cup.

  ‘I like getting stuff right.’

  ‘No, I think it’s more than that. I’ve been thinking about you, and I think that you—’

  ‘—are amazing in bed?’ Cale quipped, desperate to change the subject.

  Maddie bumped him with her shoulder. ‘I think that you are ridiculously tough on yourself. Why?’

  ‘I’m just a normal guy.’

  Maddie snorted. ‘A normal guy who wants to control everything in the known universe.’

  ‘Just in my universe,’ Cale muttered in his cup.

  ‘I heard that. I think you hang onto control because Oliver was so out of control.’

  Cale mentally reeled back and looked at her, shocked. How did she know that? How could she know that?

  ‘Why…? What?’

  Maddie drew patterns in the sand between them. ‘The other day I was remembering an incident before we even hooked up. We were at that lake, you had borrowed a speedboat, and you spent the whole day trying to keep Oliver from driving it. When you eventually ran out of excuses you tried to convince your friends not to go in the boat with him. You spent the next hour watching Oliver throw that boat around the lake, waiting for a disaster to happen. I thought then that you spent a lot of days like that, because of the look on your face. It was a mixture of fear and resignation. And anger.’

  He remembered that day—remembered thinking that he was responsible if Oliver flipped that boat, if anyone got hurt. Remembered feeling resentful because he’d been so tired of constantly being on alert. ‘I wasn’t angry at him.’

  ‘Cale, you’ve been angry with Oliver in one way or another most of your life.’

  ‘I have not!’ Cale protested. ‘You don’t understand what I went through with my brother.’

  Maddie nodded her agreement. ‘You’re right. I don’t. So explain it to me.’

  He couldn’t—not without sounding intolerably disloyal. How did he explain that Oliver had been different from birth, with the biggest attitude? He hadn’t slept, he’d been demanding, and he’d worn them out. Reading at four, writing at five—he’d simply been brilliant. He’d also been stubborn and proud and, God, so wild. Oliver had had to touch, taste, feel, see…

  He’d had no off button, no sense of responsibility, and no idea of delayed gratification. Cale’s life had been spent keeping him out of trouble, because he’d been the only one he’d listen to and the only one who could get him to toe the line. Reason, bribery, sometimes physical restraint. In order to protect him—from himself, mostly—he’d had to be bigger and tougher,

  Bailing him out of jail at eighteen on assault charges had taken all his savings. Then drugs and gambling. The fact that he’d been too fast with his fists and had expected to be backed up when he ran into trouble.

  ‘He was who he was. He was wild.’ They were the only words Cale could eventually force past his lips. ‘I had to look after him.’

  ‘You should’ve let him bump his head.’

  Cale’s fist punched the sand. ‘You’re not hearing me. I was the only one he’d listen to. Sometimes.’

  ‘You don’t understand, Cale. Oliver could’ve kept himself out of trouble. He was responsible for his own actions, not you.’

  ‘What?’

  Maddie shrugged. ‘He was an adult, but you never allowed him to grow up because you always bailed him out.’

  Cale flopped onto his back and stared up at the sky. He placed his forearm over his eyes. Ouch. Could she be right?

  ‘I know you don’t tolerate anyone criticising your twin but… tough. Your brother was a selfish, feckless, charming jerk. He used women, he squandered his education and he had the maturity and sense of responsibility of a five-year-old.’

  Cale heard the kindness in her tough tone and wondered why it was such a relief to hear his frequent thoughts about his twin so eloquently verbalised.

  ‘He played you all your life, and because you always looked out for him why did he need to step up to the plate?’ Maddie pushed his hair back from his forehead. ‘You paid his bills, literally and metaphorically, and you’re still paying the price.’

  Maddie crawled onto him and lifted his arm off his eyes. ‘Maybe you should think about changing that?’

  ‘Mad…’

  Maddie lowered her lips to his in a kiss that was as sensual as it was comforting. Her lips soothed and reassured, comforted and caressed. Her kiss suggested that he could, just for a moment, stop being brave and tough and just mourn his brother. That he was allowed to feel vulnerable and insecure and unhappy, and that she’d be there to catch him if he fell.

  Then her tongue slid into his mouth and grief and sadness were vanquished in the heat of her mouth, in the way she wiggled her crotch over his, in the way her fingers tightened in his. This was life, he thought. This girl and this time and this beach and this sunset.

  ‘Enough heavy stuff,’ Maddie whispered against his lips. ‘Take me to bed.’

  Cale patted her bottom. ‘That would mean you getting off me and us climbing those steps back to my house.’

  Maddie squinted up at his house and back at him. ‘Can’t we just do it here?’

  Cale knew that he was far gone when he actually seriously considered her playful, jokey suggestion. Then his old friend common sense reared its ugly head. ‘Too cold, too many people. We might get arrested.’

  Maddie bit his ear and reluctantly rolled off him. ‘Oh, well, I tried.’ She glanced at the ocean and was instantly on her feet. ‘Grief, look at those waves! Five, six feet… Where did they come from? They’re breaking perfectly…’

  Cale grabbed her around the waist as she reached for her board. ‘Sweetheart, the only thing you are going to ride in the near future is me.’

  Maddie wiggled out of his arms, yanked her sweatshirt off and pulled the top half of her wetsuit back over her arms. She
grabbed her board and jogged to the sea. ‘Maybe later. If you’re very, very lucky.’

  Cale threw up his hands and had to smile at the cheeky grin she tossed him over her shoulder.

  At the water’s edge she turned and walked backwards into the waves. ‘But I’m warning you—if you don’t come close to giving me the same thrill as a barrel roll, I’m kicking you into touch.’

  ‘I’ve never been one to resist a challenge,’ Cale shouted as she paddled to the back line.

  Maddie’s faint laughter drifted back to the beach as Cale trudged back to their spot. With every step he could sense his mood changing, and soon he felt the familiar but less frequent feelings of guilt and despair slide over him. He couldn’t argue with what Maddie had said but the outcome was still the same. Oliver was dead. It was wrong that he was having this much fun with Maddie, unfair that he was living and laughing when his bigger-than-life brother was gone. Oliver hadn’t had the chance to turn his life around because he hadn’t been strong enough to say no. If they hadn’t gone for that paddle in the kayak, if he’d stayed in hospital, he might have lived longer. They might have had more time to find a bone marrow donor.

  Cale sank to the sand and dropped his head between his knees, fighting the rising panic. He felt his throat constrict and forced himself to breathe. Why now?

  Because he was happy, having fun. He had little right, actually no right, to be either.

  There were good days, there were bad days, and then there were days that were marked ‘From Hell—Special Delivery’. At three o’clock on a Thursday afternoon, Maddie was thinking that such a day would be nothing compared to the last six hours. She was categorically exhausted, running on fresh air and chocolate and little sleep. The race was taking far more time than she’d allocated, and she was finding she had to work long hours to compensate.

  And Cale had dropped off the face of the earth.

  While he’d always been emotionally unavailable, since that day on the beach a week ago he hadn’t called or e-mailed her, let alone anything else. Cale, she realised, ran away when he felt emotionally threatened, and he’d obviously been hurt or upset or angry—probably all three—at her comments about Oliver. He’d been quiet the rest of the day, and when they had made it into the bedroom making love had been more perfunctory than she was used to, and she’d seen a flicker of relief on his face when she’d said she should go.