“Well, then, next time he’s back in town we’ll take that challenge.” He winked at me and took another bite of his pulled pork.
I wasn’t done giving him a hard time. “You mean you can’t do it by yourself?”
He sent me a faux scowl and shook his head like he was disappointed in me. “It’s about tradition, Sofia.”
A laugh escaped. He was being cute. And the clear attachment he had to his family made me like him all the more. Family was everything. I couldn’t help myself from kissing a missed drop of sauce from Cal’s lips. It tasted even better mingled with the flavor of him.
After our barbecue, we made our way back toward the harmonica player, holding hands and everything. I was practically floating on air. “You know, Cal, if you want to win my undying devotion, it’s not hard.” I wasn’t through with the teasing.
His brows spiked. “Do tell. This sounds like important info to have.”
I stopped so he’d appreciate the gravity of this revelation. “Deep-fried pickle pimento corn dogs.”
Cal stared, his lips slowly twisting in disgust. “I’m not sure I want to ask.”
My eyes widened. “You haven’t had real street-fair food if you’ve never tried a deep-fried pickle pimento corn dog.”
He nodded unconvincingly. “Yeah, I think I already told you I’m pretty particular about my hot dogs. In a bun, with mustard and relish. Onions are optional, but ketchup is forbidden.”
“That’s only because you’ve never had a pickle pimento corn dog. Believe me.” I grabbed his arm and took him up and down the rows of food vendors, but to my great disappointment, the closest thing they had was plain old regular boring corn dogs. Cal suggested we just add pickles and cheese on top, but he clearly didn’t understand how inadequate that was. So we settled on sharing a greasy funnel cake and I ended up covered in powdered sugar.
“Oh my God. It’s just getting worse!” I laughed as I sucked on my index finger trying to get unsticky. The white powder coated my t-shirt and shorts.
“There’s a simple solution to this problem, Sofia. It involves your shower and us removing all our clothes.” Cal sent me a mischievous grin.
Not that it didn’t sound like a stellar idea, but it didn’t solve the immediate problem. I brushed at my shirt, leaving streaks of white.
“Sofia, hi!” I turned at the sound of my name.
“Shelly! Wow, small world,” I replied before the implications of this chance meeting hit me full force. It took everything I had to keep my smile in place.
“Looks like you’ve been taking advantage of the festival food.” She gestured to my shirt with a friendly smile. “Is that from a funnel cake? I love those things.”
“The barbecue wasn’t half bad either.” Cal shot me a sly grin, putting his hand out to Shelly. “Hi, I’m Cal Evans.”
Shelly took in all that was Cal and I finally found my voice again. “I’m so sorry. Cal, this is Shelly Butler. She teaches first grade at Sunview with me.” Shit, shit, shit!
Completely unbothered by this potentially disastrous news, Cal just smiled his customary hot-man smile and chatted with Shelly. I had to get us out of there. It was only a matter of time before Shelly put two and two together and I got busted.
I put a hand to my stomach and let out my best agonized moan. Thank God I was a teacher because I’d never make it as an actress. Cal’s concerned eyes immediately searched my face.
“Are you okay?”
I sent him my best grimace. “I think I ate too much.”
“Oh, dear.” Shelly put a supporting hand on my arm. “Maybe you should go sit down.”
“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. It was good seeing you, Shelly.” I stepped back.
“You too. Feel better. And nice meeting you, Cal.” Shelly gave a little wave and disappeared into the crowd. Thank Christ!
Cal’s hands held me by my shoulders. “We should get you home.”
“I’m okay, Cal.” I removed my hand from my belly and stood straight again.
“No, really. If you’re feeling sick, we should definitely leave.” The concern in his voice was sweet.
“No, I mean, I’m really okay.” I nodded and pointed to my belly like I’d just performed an awesome trick. Ta-da! “But you’re right. We should go.” It was time for that talk.
“What am I missing here?”
I grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the car, not caring anymore about my sticky hands.
As soon as the car doors closed and the air conditioning hit us, Cal turned in his seat toward me. “Okay, what’s this all about?”
My eyes darted around the parked vehicles, making sure Shelly was nowhere to be found. I looked back at Cal to see his mouth turned down, so I reached a hand out and squeezed his. “I promise I’ll explain, but can we get out of here first? I don’t want to run into anyone else from school.” His head jerked at that. Shit. I was messing this up. But he resituated himself and pulled out from the spot. About a mile down the road, he turned into an empty bank lot and parked again.
I drew in a breath, hoping I didn’t make a mess of things. “I’m so sorry. Seeing Shelly like that kind of spooked me.” I grabbed Cal’s hand again at the sight of his returning frown. “It’s just that this is my first year at this job and I need to make the best possible impression.”
His frown grew more pronounced. I was fucking this up big-time. “And being seen with me doesn’t make the right impression?”
“Oh my gosh. No! It’s not like that. Believe me, you make the best possible impression.” His lips twitched upward a bit. Phew! “It’s just that there are certain rules since Phoebe is in my class. It’s seen as a conflict of interests at best, a dangerous impropriety at worst—at least where my job is concerned.
“Huh. Really?” He seemed genuinely surprised. To be honest, it wasn’t as if my relationship with Cal would end in me slipping the SAT answer key to a first grader, but again, it was the principle of the thing.
I nodded. “They specifically addressed it at a staff meeting the other day. At the time, I didn’t think anybody knew we’d gone out, but now with Shelly…”
“Ah.” He cringed a bit, the big picture finally hitting him. Considering it for a minute, Cal shifted in his seat and played with my hand, watching our fingers intertwine. “So, just because Phoebe happens to be in your class, we can’t…” He pointed a finger back and forth between us. “That’s kind of nuts, don’t you think?”
“Yes!” I leaned forward and put a hand on his chest. “Not that I don’t love having her in my class, but I wish she had landed in someone else’s room.”
Cal traced my cheek with his finger. “But then we wouldn’t have met.” His eyes were soft and I wanted to melt into him—or kiss the hell out of him. “Well,” Cal pronounced, “there’s only one thing we can do, then.” His voice was all confidence and resolve.
I tilted my head, a smile touching my lips. “What’s that?”
“Isn’t it obvious? We both quit our jobs and sail around the world together. I am a cartographer, after all, so we wouldn’t get lost.”
My smile fully engaged at that. “Sounds like the perfect plan.”
Needless to say, there was no hot sex to be had that night. Cal did give me a kiss goodnight, but there was sadness in it. I hated it. But I loved it too. We hadn’t talked about our dilemma further, except to say we’d both give it some thought and see how we felt in a couple days.
Sleep didn’t come easily, and I tossed and turned trying to come up with a solution. It wasn’t as if I could request Phoebe be moved to another room. Any semblance of professionalism I managed to hold onto would burn up in flames. Talk about career suicide. Then there was still that part of me that thought we may be able to get away with it until the school year ended—if we even lasted that long. But Sunview was not a large city. Surely, we’d be outed at some point. I punched my pillow, letting my frustrations out on the feathers. Mallory was right. This sucked.
Cha
pter 6
Three days later, and still not sleeping for shit, my phone rang as I walked to my car after work. I couldn’t help my smile when I saw it was Cal. We’d texted a bit over the weekend, but this was the first time I’d heard his voice since Friday. I underestimated the power it had over me as the butterflies swarmed. “Hey, Beautiful,” he greeted me.
Resisting the urge to bite my fist, I sighed instead, like some fan-girl. Crap on a cracker! “Hi, Cal.”
“So, I was thinking. What are your feelings about the beach?”
I stopped in my tracks. “Huh?”
“Hear me out. I know we’ve only been out a couple times, but I really like you and I’m not ready to just let this go because of some outdated rule.” I let my chin fall to my chest as I listened to him. “Let’s go away for a weekend where nobody we know will be around. I want to see what this is, don’t you?”
I absolutely did. But what if…
Screw it! I was going on a beach weekend with Cal and I was having hot sex with a hot man with melty eyes and perfect scruff and the ability to reach high shelves and surely kill a few spiders.
A new, much more important thought occurred to me then, giving me pause. “You’re not spending the weekend with Phoebe?” I figured standard custody probably meant he had her every other weekend. Since he’d been with me last Friday…
“Her mom has her. I only have her when Lisa’s on shift.” I knew Lisa worked long shifts as a nurse, so I supposed that made sense. From our few e-mail interactions, Lisa Evans seemed like a perfectly nice woman and a great mom. Like Cal had said, they’d probably just been young and stupid. What happened now with Phoebe was nobody’s business but theirs.
I could hear the smile in Cal’s voice. “Does this mean you’re saying yes to the beach?”
“It means I’m saying hell yes to the beach!”
“I’ve decided your sailing-around-the-world idea is the best thing for everyone,” I declared as I sipped my mojito and lounged on the rickety beach chair.
Settled in on his own chair beside mine, looking stupidly hot, Cal took a pull on his beer. “I’m so glad you agree. We’ll go buy a boat tomorrow.”
I grinned at him, shielding my eyes from the sun as it sat low in the sky. This trip had been fabulous thus far, and it was only Saturday. “There might be a few people who’ll miss you, though, so there’s that to consider.”
Cal nodded, pretending to think it over. “You do have a point.”
As far as I was concerned, Phoebe could come with us wherever we went. The girl was an absolute sweetheart. But I was thinking her mom might miss her just a little. Oh well, it was fun to daydream.
“And I’m pretty sure your brother would have the Coast Guard chasing us down before we hit international waters.”
I bit my lip. “Um, Cal. There’s something I need to tell you.”
The smile dropped from his face and he set his beer down in the sand.
Keeping a straight face was nearly impossible. “I actually have three brothers. All of whom would be lining the rail of the Coast Guard boat with harpoons.” A smile finally broke over my face and I snickered.
Cal put a hand to his chest and shook his head. “While that’s a terrifying mental image, it’s not at all what I thought you were going to say.”
“What did you think I was going to say?”
“I don’t really know. But, damn, you’ve got that poker face down pat. It could have been anything from ‘There’s a scorpion on your shoulder’ to ‘I’m pregnant with Luke Bryan’s triplets.’”
I laughed and pointed down to my bikini-clad body. “Now where in the hell would I hide triplets in this outfit?” This, of course, brought Cal’s eyes down to my exposed stomach, making me sort of regret my words. No woman I knew wanted to draw attention to that specific area, but as Cal’s predatory gaze swept up my body, any regretful thoughts took a hike. Hoo. It was getting hot. I took another sip of my mojito, but Cal had other ideas. And if they were anything like the previous night’s ideas, he could sign me up!
I’d been beyond excited when Cal picked me up on Friday for our weekend getaway. Of course, I’d made a playlist of beach-themed music, and he was more than a little amused by my passenger-seat dance moves. Conversation during the car ride was a mixed bag of funny and serious. I learned that Cal’s parents were no longer living, the result of a car crash three years earlier, which made his close relationship with his siblings even sweeter. He talked about his younger sister, citing not for the first time that he thought we’d get along famously if she ever decided to, in his words, “move her stubborn ass” back to Sunview.
Apart from a few comments here and there, though, Cal seemed to avoid the subject of Phoebe, something I found a bit odd at first. But given the sensitivity surrounding both of our relationships with her, I chalked it up as an attempt at thoughtfulness on his part. The goal of this weekend was to see if this thing between us had legs, and worrying about the challenges facing us at home would only dampen what was supposed to be a carefree getaway.
But I wanted to know more about her and their relationship. I needed adorable mental images of the two of them doing sweet daddy/daughter stuff—the stories of her as a baby and the wonder of a child growing up into a first-grader. However, the fact that we’d felt the need to actually leave town to spend time together kept me from pressing Cal.
When we arrived at our little beach motel, every feeling of excitement, nosiness, or amusement flew to the wind as nervousness set up shop in my gut. This was it! I’d surely be seeing Cal naked by the end of the night, and we’d be doing terribly naughty things to each other—at least, I hoped so. Eeek!
The place was a classic nautical-themed motel with doors opening to the central parking lot, offering rooms with views of the sandy beach and cresting waves. It was a step up from college spring break, yet nothing fancy. In other words, it was perfect. Since we hadn’t stopped for food along the way, we were both starving and agreed to take advantage of our location by choosing a beachside seafood restaurant.
Bellies full of crab cakes and scallops, we returned to the motel and went for an impromptu walk on the beach. The sun had set, so the only light came from the various hotels and inns lining the beach. My sandals occupied one hand while Cal’s smooth palm and fingers took the other. Sighs of contentment kept escaping my lips, making Cal’s eyes crinkle in amusement and his hand give mine an extra squeeze every time. Most of the walk was quiet, each of us left to our own thoughts, yet still connected. His hand in mine, combined with the rhythm of the waves lapping at the sand created a pulse in the air, making me want to pull Cal close and feel that same cadence run through our bodies. In other words, I was getting super horny.
Cal’s thumb began stroking gently along mine, and without a word, we switched direction back toward the motel. The sexual tension was a cord ready to snap by the time we reached our room. It took approximately one-point-three seconds for my sundress to hit the floor and Cal’s t-shirt to land on top of it. There was a lot of skin connecting right from the first embrace. As our mouths engaged in wet, seeking kisses, my hands explored the topography of his shoulders and back, moving up and down over mountains and valleys of muscle and sun-kissed skin. I had this mapmaking shit down to a science.
My fingers continued skating across his skin as Cal broke our kiss to nuzzle down my neck, trailing his lips over my pulse-point and making me shiver. He had to practically crouch to reach my neck, so it was no real surprise when his arms came around my thighs and he picked me up off the floor, our chests aligning as they pressed together. Wanting to afford his hands a little freedom to roam, I quickly circled his waist with my legs and locked them behind his back. This brought a groan from Cal’s throat and his hands immediately found my ass, squeezing firmly. I would have laughed had I not been so damn turned on. It was all so primal.
Next thing I knew, my back hit the bed and the straps of my bra were down my arms, the cups coming with them to expose m
y aching breasts to the air. Cal couldn’t have gotten more than a brief glimpse of them before his heated mouth covered one peak, drawing my nipple in and swirling his tongue around it. My back arched off the bed and I grasped his hair as my moan filled the air. A wildfire spread through my lower belly and down my thighs, causing me to tighten them around him, putting my heels to his perfect butt in this new position. He let out a ragged growl in response and moved to the other nipple.
I needed to feel the hardness of his arousal against me, to rub my hot center over him. Not that I wasn’t thrilled with the whole nipple thing we had going on, but I was becoming a panting mess in need of more.
“Cal. I need you.” My voice was unrecognizable to my ears.
His mouth made a popping sound as it released my breast and his eyes came up to meet mine. If I’d thought them melty before, that was nothing compared to the liquid heat they held right then. It was like a superpower. Superman may have had the whole heat-laser thing, but it had nothing on Cal and his eyes’ ability to turn my entire body into an exposed live wire, incinerating my panties and tightening every muscle at a glance. All signs indicated I was about to be devoured, and I had zero problems with that.
Everything happened in the blink of a melty eye after that. Gone were my panties, either by the force of Cal’s stare or the usual method, I didn’t know—or care. All that mattered was our two naked bodies sliding against one another, his firm against my soft, fingers whispering over hot skin and finding wonderful new places to explore. And then Cal’s scruffy chin was tickling my inner thighs and my moans reached new heights as his fingers and tongue delved, twisted, and worshipped my center. I would have felt bad for the people in the adjacent rooms if I’d had two brain cells to rub together at that point. My cry of release was not shy, and it melded perfectly with Cal’s groans of satisfaction as I shuddered and pulsed while pulling his sweat-dampened hair. It was so freaking hot.
About That...: A Small Town Romantic Comedy Page 4