“Anywhere?”
“Yes. Anywhere.”
She wasted no time taking advantage, and as a result, my heart began beating harder than a kick drum. She pressed her mouth against my neck. She licked and teased her tongue against my skin. Then she placed little kisses along my chest and over my nipple with the ring in it. All the while, her fingers traced carefully down my body—lower and lower. I gasped when she wrapped one of her determined hands around my cock.
I breathed in and out, staring down at her. She was fearless. Her touch was soft and light, but bold as fuck. Her hand felt insanely good on me, and when she started to stroke me, I nearly came.
“Emma,” I warned, closing my eyes.
This was absolutely fucking amazing. For one intense moment, I let myself enjoy her touch. But I couldn’t finish first. I’d be mortified. What sort of asshole would that make me? Especially if this was her first time doing anything. I had to show her how much she meant to me.
I stole a kiss from her. “Don’t make me pin your hands again.”
She laughed. The sound was sweet as honey against my mouth. I’d let her have her hands on me. I’d given a lot more than I’d given any woman in years. Now I wanted to hear her scream my name.
Moving to press my lips to her navel, letting the heavy stubble on my face rake against her skin, I started kissing her while pushing away her underwear. I inched them down her legs and tossed them away, down the staircase hole. And if we never found them again, good. I finally had this gorgeous woman fully exposed. And I paused a minute to admire her in the glow of the moonlight. Chill-bumps lit up her skin under my gaze. I eased her legs apart, getting my first glimpse of her pretty, pink pussy. She was wet and swollen, and I wanted nothing more than to shove myself as deep as I could inside.
“Fuck,” I whispered, my cock so hard it was almost painful.
I was no saint.
I couldn’t endure this seventh level of hell kind of torture a minute more.
“Sit on my lap,” I commanded.
I rocked back on my knees, giving her the space to move. She was so fucking willing. She followed my direction. I could have told her to ride my cock, and I think she would have obliged.
She climbed on my lap. I took care to move my dick comfortably in front of her sweet spot. She had her bottom lip caught between her teeth, staring down at us, as I figured this out. This was better. This would give me the vantage point I needed to see her come.
I traced my thumb over her slick opening, teasing as much as I could before I pressed my middle finger deep inside her velvet.
That elicited one cry for me from her pretty lips. “Caleb,” she yelped.
Yes! Hell, yes!
I kissed her as I pumped inside her again. Then again. Then I added a second finger.
She wrapped her arms tight around my shoulders, hanging on, because she was beginning to understand my intent. I didn’t want her to ride my cock, but instead to ride my hand. I kept moving in and out, while she started to move with me.
She grinded into my hand.
“Yes, Emma. That’s it,” I encouraged.
Playing her was like playing a guitar—second nature.
It only took a moment before I had her panting my name, shaking, and convulsing on my hand. Watching her, seeing the look of pure bliss on her face—I nearly came with her, came on her, but I didn’t. At the last second, I held back.
It stung. And I don’t know why I didn’t let myself finish. But I didn’t.
She collapsed beside me on the blanket, out of breath, and giddy. I loved it. I loved seeing her like this—so sated—but I was also caught in my own head a little bit too.
I held her tight as she fell asleep. But it took me a lot longer to drift off that night. I didn’t feel worthy of this girl.
~ CHAPTER 39 ~
EMMA
I woke to the sound of Caleb’s soft inhales and exhales. I sat up, drawing my knees to my chest, and for several minutes I watched him sleep. In the bright morning sun, he had one arm bent above his head and his face resting in the space it created. He was so handsome. Now that I knew him, I wasn’t sure how I ever noticed Ollie before Caleb. Like, mind boggling. I fought the urge to run my hands over his chest and through the light hair that grew across it. I wanted another chance to touch him again like I did last night. But mostly, I just wanted whatever this thing was between us to never end.
I feared it had an expiration date. That fear made my heart ache.
“Are you watching me sleep?” Caleb peeked one hazel-green eye open at me.
“No,” I breathed.
“Liar.” He smiled. “Come here.”
I curled in against his side. He was nice and warm. He ran his fingers in a pattern over my shoulder. “I don’t want to move,” he muttered. “Not for the rest of the day.”
“I have to work today,” I told him.
He made a grumbling sound. And I never knew one noise could make me feel so happy. “I guess I’ll work on finding us a different house to rent,” he decided.
“I like this one.”
“You like it now?”
“It’s growing on me.”
“Is it?” He squeezed his arms around me. “Then we can keep staying here. Tonight. Tomorrow night. The next night. And so on. Do you have time to shower with me before work?”
What? Yes. Holy shit. He spoke as if there’d never be an expiration date to this thing. It made me feel warm and gooey all over. And, hell yes, I wanted him in the shower. I needed to ask him something, but I was super embarrassed to say the words out loud. I turned to whispered them against his ear. I wasn’t trying to be sexy, I just genuinely wanted to know. “Are you going to fuck me in the shower?”
He chuckled.
I felt my face flush hot.
“No, my sweet Emma.” He brushed my hair away from my eyes, pressing one kiss to my lips. “Do you want me to?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
“We will... soon. I’m trying my damnedest to go slow with you. You seem to be trying your damnedest to make that impossible for me.”
I shrugged. Maybe I was.
“Let’s go shower,” he said, decided.
A shower with Caleb was like heaven. Torturous heaven. I got to see all of him on full display—naked, wet, and hard. But it seemed clear that he wanted me to keep my wandering hands to a minimum. Which was completely unfair since the same rules weren’t being applied in reverse.
At some point he’d gone to the store and had bought tons of bathroom supplies. Soaps and shampoos, both men and women stuff. Either he carried women’s toiletries with him everywhere or he’d planned to have me in his shower all along. I figured the latter. The stuff he bought wasn’t cheap either. I never could have afforded any of it.
He had a loofa, which he’d lathered up with the sweetest smelling body wash, and he took particular care over washing my body. He ran the suds over every inch of my skin.
“Caleb,” I cried when he ran his hand between my legs. “You don’t play fair.”
“I know.” He dropped the loofa and instead he picked me up in his arms, wrapping my legs around his waist, kissing me as the water ran over our bodies.
I was in love with him. Absolutely, one-hundred percent in love. How could I not be? He was kind and passionate, sexy as hell in his own Caleb Mills way. I could tell he had some issues with sex he was trying to work through, which were probably a result of living a wild Rockstar life, but I could be patient for him. I’d wait for as long as he needed me to wait.
I kissed him until the water ran cold. Then we both stepped out of the shower—dizzy and just a little bit more familiar with one another. I waited as he gathered my clothes from last night so I could change back into them. And then sadly, I had to leave him.
***
Work that day was long and slow. I missed Caleb as soon as I had left him. He wanted me to pack a bag to bring back over to his rental. He wanted this to become a regular thing. I w
asn’t opposed to it, just fearful. The more I opened my heart to him, the more I risked having it broken. But this overwhelming feeling settling into my soul?
Maybe I could trust him.
Maybe this was real.
Maybe this had the potential of turning into a forever kind of thing.
“Oh God,” Luce said. We were working the same shift for once. She had her blue eyes intently on me. “You’re in love with him.”
I scuffed. “So what if I am?”
“It’s just hard for me.” She mixed a vodka cranberry for the customer at my one and only table. A pretty woman with a small boy. “I lived with a broken heart for years. And seeing that person everywhere—it makes it that much harder to get over them.”
First of all, what if Caleb didn’t break my heart? Who said he was going to? She just assumed it. And second of all, who broke Luce’s heart? Because the only guy I ever recalled her dating was Rhett. And that was almost ten years ago.
“Since Caleb is famous, you’d literally have to see his face everywhere for years after this. He’d haunt you forever. His songs would come on the radio or over the speakers at the grocery store. Hell, on your wedding day, while dancing at your perfect reception, your asshole DJ might accidentally play one of his songs. The fool wouldn’t know because he’s a crappy DJ. But it would happen.”
I sighed. I didn’t need her lecture. I knew the risk.
“My wedding day. Really?” I laughed without smiling. “Or, how about this, on my wedding day maybe one of Caleb’s songs would play. Except maybe he’d be the one playing it, singing it, on his guitar, just for me.” I caught my breath, imagining a moment like that had left me shaky. And lightheaded. And hopeful. And it told me just how deeply I’d fallen for him.
She rolled her eyes, dropping two stir-straws in the vodka cranberry.
She handed it to me.
Turning, I took it across the restaurant to deliver it to my customer.
I set it down in front of the woman. “Are you ready to order?” I asked her.
“Caleb, sit down,” she begged of her son. The boy, about three years old, was in the midst of a full-on tantrum. He had crayons all over the floor and tears running down his cheeks and was refusing to sit down beside his mother. No wonder she’d needed this drink at eleven in the morning.
“Grandma,” little Caleb cried.
“I’m sorry but Grandma isn’t here. Until we find Daddy we can’t go home.”
What? It had to be purely coincidental that this boy’s name was Caleb, right? Right!? I stood there with my mouth hanging open, staring at the two of them. I had to get out of my head. Of course it was just coincidence. Right?
“I’ll just have the pecan-crusted chicken salad. And he’ll have the kid’s menu mac-n-cheese. Miss?”
I snapped out of it, shaking my head. “Pecan salad. Mac-n-cheese. Coming right up.”
I left her and blindly walked back to Luce.
“Does the boy look like Caleb?” I asked my aunt, my voice coming out shaky as hell. The bar sat far enough away that the woman and her child couldn’t hear us.
She squinted. “I can’t tell from here.”
I grabbed a giant stack of napkins and handed them to her. “Go look.”
For once in her life, Luce dropped all her defenses. She was good at that when it really mattered. “Okay.”
She left the bar with the napkins. In the meantime, I typed the woman’s order into the computer for the cook in the back. A moment later, Luce returned. Her face was ghost white.
“That boy is the spitting image of Caleb. I asked the woman where she was from. She says some town in Tennessee.”
I felt my stomach sink to the floor. Did Caleb have a kid? If he did, Twitter and TMZ did not know about him. But did Caleb know? Because it seemed like one of those things you mention to your new girlfriend. Well, hell. I guess I wasn’t even his girlfriend. Maybe that was why he was hesitant to sleep with me. He didn’t want baby number two entering this world.
I swallowed hard.
I needed a few more answers. I crossed the restaurant to go talk to this woman. Why did she have to be so beautiful? Because really, she was so damn gorgeous. I was intimidated, and shaking in my standard-issue, non-slip, black work sneakers.
~ CHAPTER 40 ~
CALEB
“I miss her. Is that crazy?”
Emma was at work and yet she completely consumed my every thought. This side project I’d started with Dani wasn’t doing much to distract me today.
“That’s because you’ve spent way too many years punishing yourself,” Dani explained, being all philosophical. She ripped the horrible seashell wallpaper off the wall in the bedroom I’d decided had the most potential to become something better.
“Do you think the rental company will even noticed we changed it?” I asked her.
“They’ll probably thank you.” She tore away another giant chunk. “But back to Emma. My point is you’ve spent so much time since Rebecca not letting yourself feel anything. So now that you’ve opened yourself up and let another woman in, it’s hitting you harder than ever.”
Yeah, I’d loved Rebecca and she’d hurt me. So what. This thing with Emma was different. It was deeper. I think Dani was wrong. I think I would have fallen just as hard for Emma no matter when or how or where it happened. Rebecca hurting me in the past had little influence on what I felt for Emma in the present.
Dani tore away the last awful piece of wallpaper. I’d bought paint and brushes, and everything needed to redo this room. Emma said she hated this house but that it was growing on her. Our time together last night had helped foster that. I wanted that feeling to keep growing and for her to feel comfortable here with me. I wanted to change this room for her. I’d gut every room in this house if that would make her happier. I didn’t care that it was a rental.
“Did you hear something?” Dani asked, stopping suddenly.
I paused too, wiping a bead of sweat off my forehead.
It sounded as if someone had just come in the door downstairs on the bottom level. “I’ll go check it out. Maybe it’s Emma.” Even though her shift at Chancy’s Claw wasn’t supposed to end for a few more hours.
Taking the stairs two a time, I passed through the middle level, and then started down another flight of stairs. I nearly ran straight into someone—
Holy fucking blast from the past!
It was Rebecca on the stairs. In this house. In my way. Motherfucker. As if speaking about her with Dani had magically materialized her. My stomach dropped to my toes.
“Shit,” I said aloud.
“Thanks. Nice to see you too.”
She had a boy in her arms. I backtracked up the steps—because we couldn’t all fit on the stairwell.
How the hell had she gotten into this house? How the hell had she even found me in Kill Devil Hills? Not that I even knew she’d been trying to find me. Every swear word and possible scenario started drifting through my head. I guess she had a kid now. Not too surprising. She’d once been one of our groupies. She’d probably moved on to screwing a new lead singer in a new band after leaving me. “What are you doing here?” I said as we came into the kitchen.
“Shhh.” She quieted me. “He’s sleepy.”
The boy had his head against her shoulder. Both of his hands clung to her long, jet-black hair, as his eyes looked seconds away from closing.
“I’ll be right back,” I told her.
I didn’t have a shirt on and needed to get the fuck away from her immediately. I raced up the stairs to the top level.
“Shit, Dani, shit,” I hissed, coming into the room. Dani had cracked open the paint can and had begun painting one of the walls. “You need to tape that off first,” I said to her as an afterthought.
She paused while I grabbed my shirt off the floor and yanked it over my head.
“Is Emma home?”
“No. Rebecca is in this house.”
Dani dropped the paint brush on th
e carpet. “What? Fuck.” She bent down in an attempt to salvage the carpet. It was a little late for that. But I didn’t give a damn about the carpet.
“She has a boy with her.”
“A boy. What? Okay. Just breathe.” Dani raised her arms to mimic the movement of air. “Breathe.”
I didn’t want to breathe. I wanted to scream and break something. Who had let Rebecca into this damn house? She needed a code or a key. Emma was the only one who knew the code. And I had the key. The realization that maybe Emma let her into the house hit me. I left Dani and her paint mess, and I raced back down the stairs all over again. I didn’t pause on the middle level. I only stopped when I was outside the house, my bare feet on pavement, staring at Emma’s mint green car with the for-sale sign still in the window.
Emma sat in the driver’s seat, her hands at ten and two. She had big tears rolling down her cheeks. Any noise coming from her lips was muffled by the song blasting from her car’s radio.
“Emma,” I shouted. “Roll the window down.”
I could tell she heard me because she shook her head ‘no.’
“Roll the window down!” I repeated.
I didn’t mean to snap at her. I was only frightened by what all this might mean. By what Rebecca might have told her and by what she must think of me now.
Emma wiped the heels of her hands under her eyes, and I watched her breathe in deeply. In a single moment she composed herself. Then she rolled down the window.
“What is happening?” I asked as softly as possible. “Why is she here?”
“You need to talk to Rebecca.” Her voice was even. So she knew my ex’s name? What else did she know about her? More than me apparently. “This isn’t between you and me,” Emma said. “This is between you and her.”
“I haven’t seen her in years.”
“I have to go.”
“Emma—” She flipped the car in reverse and started to back up into the street. I had to jump to the side or otherwise she would have run over my foot. “Emma!” I shouted again. “Don’t leave.”
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