Tell Me a Story (The Story Series Book 1) (7 page)

S
omehow
, the next week and a half was even more perfect, at least when it came to Caleb. We got to know each other, slowly. We had sex, too. Lots of it. Dirty and sweet and teasing and increasingly rough. But we balanced it by talking and laughing. He took me to lunch and walked with me around Lake Eola, where he kissed me softly under a red Chinese pagoda.

“Did you know this lake is actually a sinkhole?” he asked as I nibbled on his neck.

“Mmm,” I responded, thinking of how I was sinking fast into the unknown, all because of his charms. Too fast.

One day, he even left work and came to my house at lunchtime to assemble a huge cat tree I’d received via UPS.

“There,” he said, positioning the nine-foot-tall, green-carpeted tree in the corner of my guest room. “Higgins will love that. Okay, I need to get back to the office.”

I kissed him, tracing his bottom lip with my tongue, thrilled that he remembered the name of my kitty.

He growled. “Don’t start, doll. I have a meeting in an hour and a half, and you know how I like to be early for things.”

“You are so punctual,” I murmured. “But your office is five minutes away. Relax.”

I sank to my knees and showed him how to relax by unzipping his fly and taking out his cock, sucking and teasing until he was rock hard. Once he got over the surprise and stopped protesting weakly about needing to return to work, he fisted both hands in my hair and pulled, then shoved himself into my mouth. His primitive movements were making me wet, and I groaned.

“You like it when I get rough, don’t you?”

I looked up and nodded while teasing my tongue around the tip of his cock, swirling a fresh drop of his fluid around the head.

“How rough do you want me to be?”

I rose, pulling up his pants and zipping them, then rubbed my body against his. “You want to find out? Chase me, and if you catch me, you’re allowed to fuck me as hard and rough as you want.”

I shot him a come-hither smile, then darted off, giddy that he’d play this game. Of course, I allowed him to capture me, and he seized me roughly and spun me around, slamming me against the hallway wall and pinning me with his broad chest. He was still wearing his white Oxford and charcoal suit pants.

“Is this what you want?” he growled, reaching under my dress and ripping my lace panties into shreds.

“Yes,” I cried. I pretended to struggle, and he parted my legs with his knee. His hand went in between my legs and his fingers roughly claimed the spot where I was throbbing and desperate.

“Look at how wet you are. You wanted this, didn’t you?” he muttered.

He was so much bigger than me that it was a cinch for him to control my body with his, and this made me breathe harder. I whimpered when he stopped stroking me.

“This,” he said, ripping at my yellow dress, sending the buttons in front pinging everywhere, “has to come off.” My bra quickly followed and I dimly realized that my entire outfit was in tatters. I didn’t care because the pleasure eclipsed the destruction.

He pressed his body into mine and roughly slid two fingers inside of me, making me moan loud. I noticed that he was panting. I was, too, and when he took his fingers out of me and rubbed my clit, I exploded, my naked body clinging to his clothed one. He’d made me come so hard that I was unable to stand.

I was still pulsing from my orgasm when he tugged me onto the floor, took a condom out of his pocket, unzipped his pants, and sheathed himself. The wood was hard and cold against my back, and he entered me fast. His cock was huge, practically splitting me, and he clamped my wrists and pressed them to the floor, high above my head. I bit his neck, and he groaned, loud, then took my wrists in one hand and my jaw in another and held my head still. He stared at me at that moment with intense triumph, as if this is what he’d been waiting for.

Normally we bantered and talked and whispered dirty things to each other. Not today. Today we fucked like animals, and the primal, pounding thrust of his hips and cock made me dizzy with pleasure. Our bodies slapped together, and his eyes rolled back into his head. Caleb was totally in the moment. This was what I’d wanted but had never experienced: a man who could be rough at the right moments, who was willing to be carried away by passion because of
me
.

When he pulled out, I protested with a whimper. He flipped me onto my stomach and then hauled my hips up so my ass was in the air. He squeezed my cheeks with both hands, then groaned.

“You have the perfect ass, Emma. Jesus.” He smacked me, hard. “I could come just looking at your ass.” I felt him rubbing his cock against my skin.

“I need you inside of me,” I begged. “Please?” He smacked me again on the other cheek, and I trembled and repeated the word
please
in a whisper. My need for him was uncontrollable, and in some tiny corner of my mind, I knew this was getting dangerous. For all sorts of reasons.

Caleb claimed me from behind, sinking himself into me while fisting my hair and holding my head firmly to the floor. I had a second orgasm and cried out as I came and came in waves. Everything fell away for a split second, time and life itself. He climaxed as well, chanting my name like a mantra and gripping the flesh of my hips as if I were a lifeline.

In that moment, I sensed vulnerability in his voice and his touch. But maybe that’s how it is with men, that they’re at their most defenseless in the moments after orgasm.

He rolled off me, and we lay on our backs in my hallway, gasping.

“Emma, you’re making me lose control. I’ve never done anything like that,” he said weakly.

“I haven’t either.”

“Well, it’s also unusual.”

“In what way?”

“You’re making me feel more, I don’t know. Masculine. Primitive.”

“Hm.” My eyelids felt heavy.

He rolled on one side and looked at me, rubbing my hip where he’d grabbed a handful of my body. “But I don’t want to hurt you. Are you okay? I got carried away.”

I opened my eyes and sighed with contentment. “I’m excellent, Caleb. Perfect, in fact.”

He chewed on his cheek and looked worried.

“Please don’t be freaked out. I wanted this. I loved it.”

He stroked my messy hair, arranging it behind my shoulder. “What are you doing to me, Emma Price? You’re making me late in getting back to the office, you made me forget my watch—”

“And I also made you try tofu.” I snuggled up to him, and we lay naked on the hall floor for several minutes, hugging and tenderly kissing, until he was really late and scrambled to return to the office.

And that was the thing: although we were having the hottest sex I’d ever experienced, it wasn’t all physical—at least, I didn’t think so.

But I was still reluctant to reveal too much about myself, too soon, and refrained from anything that felt truly intimate. I didn’t sleep over, even when he asked. Even when he begged. I didn’t invite him over to my house at nighttime, to avoid awkward conversations about whether he should stay. Instead, I hung out at his condo, fucked and sucked and licked and kissed, and then I’d leave.

“You don’t have to go,” he said one night, wrapping his arms around me. “I want you to stay. I’m leaving for Brazil tomorrow.”

I shook my head. “No, I’d better get home, I have—”

“A meeting? Your cat? An emergency at the bookstore?” His mouth turned into an almost-sneer. This was the first time he’d looked annoyed or cross with me. The hurt look in his eyes tore at my heart, but I couldn’t bring myself to acquiesce.

“The bookstore,” I whispered, then put on my clothes and pressed my lips to his cheek. I was probably screwing up this entire relationship by leaving, but I had to protect the one thing I hadn’t yet given him during our whirlwind relationship: my heart.

T
he lawyer twisted
her mouth into a sad smirk. “There’s not a damn thing I can do for you, Emma. Sure, I could take your money and shuffle a lot of paperwork around. But according to what I see in the city’s zoning regulations, the new owner of the building has every right to buy it and knock it down and turn it into condos. There’s no historic designation in that area so they can do whatever they want.”

I sighed. Definitely not the news I had hoped for. “So there’s no option but to wait and get evicted?”

She stacked some papers neatly and put them into a folder, then handed it across her desk to me. “There’s the city council meeting to discuss redevelopment of that block on Monday. That’s three days away. You should go and speak during the public comment section to register your opposition. If the other business owners attend, you might collectively have some sway. But don’t hold your breath. The council is very pro-gentrification.”

I thanked her for her time and walked into the warm winter sun to my bookstore. Crap. But maybe, just maybe, the other storeowners and I could convince the council. It was all we could do. And maybe the local media would be there. My mind spun off in various directions, and when I was a block away from the bookstore, I was jarred into reality by the buzzing of my phone.

It was Caleb. He’d been gone four days, and I was trying to ignore the fact that I missed him terribly.

“Hey!” I said brightly. “How’s Brazil?”

“Meh. I’ll be glad to get home. And that’s why I called. Would you do something for me?”

“Sure. What’s that?”

“I’m about to board the plane, and I expect to be back in Orlando tonight around midnight. I’d love it if you were at my house, waiting for me when I get home.”

I stopped walking and ducked under an awning, wanting to avoid the bright sunshine. I leaned against a shop window. Suddenly, I felt like hiding, and I didn’t respond to him.

I’d have to stay over if I agreed to this. No way could I wait for him, hang out for a few hours, then leave in the middle of the night. He’d be exhausted, he’d want to have sex, then he’d want to sleep…

“Emma? You there?”

I pushed out a breath. “Yes. I’m here.”

My heart sped up because this seemed like a big leap of faith. Was I ready for this? I squinted into the white-bright sunshine bathing the asphalt, then almost squealed when I realized there was a gecko just inches from me on the glass. I stepped back into the sunshine.

“Yes, Caleb, yes, I’ll wait for you at your house. But I don’t have a key.”

“I’ll call the concierge and they’ll let you in. Oh, and Emma doll?”

“Yes, Caleb?”

“You should expect a package from me today at your house. Don’t forget to open it and surprise me.”

T
he package was
from La Perla, and it was a decadently expensive, short cream-colored nightgown that was lacy and nearly see-through and sinfully pretty. I slipped it on after showering at his house, then padded barefoot around his pristine space, feeling whimsical and capricious. Caleb was nothing if not minimalist and tidy, and part of me wanted to leave heaps of clothes or stacks of books in random places.

The thought made me smile, wondering if he’d allow my somewhat chaotic messiness to truly invade his life.

I poked around first in the kitchen, figuring it was safe to check that out. He didn’t have much other than sparkling water and my favorite white wine in the fridge. I opened a drawer, and there was the blueberry yogurt I’d told him I liked.

“Aww,” I said out loud, genuinely touched.

The rest of the condo, I didn’t snoop. Not exactly, anyway. It’s not like I looked in drawers, but I did peek in closets. One of the guest rooms made me pause. There, on a nightstand, was a small, framed photo of Caleb in a tuxedo and a gorgeous, dark-haired woman.

His wife.

It was obviously on their wedding day, because she wore a white dress and a veil, and he looked so young, with a smooth face and jet-black hair. My finger went to the glass and traced the line of his jaw. It didn’t make me jealous to see them together. The Caleb in the photo was a different man. But seeing his wife’s huge, dark eyes and genuine smile made me melancholy. He’d lost the woman he loved, and now I was in his condo, spying. I’d never measure up to that woman he’d wanted to spend his life with.

I briefly pondered whether to leave, if it would be best to end this now. With other men, I could usually guess how the relationship would end. Some annoying detail in his personality, a stupid comment about
trailer trash
or
white trash
, or edgy banter about class issues and privilege would usually surface. And I’d know the end was near.

I hadn’t yet discovered the end in Caleb.

I peered at the photo more and sighed. I
wanted
to be here. I missed him. And he did ask me over. He desired me—sexually, at least. Wasn’t that enough for now?

And why did he keep the photo in the guest room? Had he moved it before I came over that first night? I imagined him with a heavy heart, picking up the photo from his nightstand near his bed and silently apologizing to his dead wife.

“Jesus, you’re so dramatic,” I whispered, then set the photo back on the bureau. “Get over yourself.”

Trying to forget about the image of a happy Caleb and his stunning wife that had burned into my mind, I went to his bed and nestled under the white duvet and read a book that Caleb had given me. It was a Gabriel Garcia Márquez novel that I’d read years ago, and Caleb had smiled as he’d handed it to me right before he went to Brazil.

“I know it’s stupid, giving the owner of a bookstore a book as a gift,” he’d said. “But it’s one of my favorites. I wanted you to have it.”

I became absorbed in the book, repeatedly reading one phrase: “
There is always something left to love
.” I set the book on my chest, thinking about that phrase, and nodded off.

T
he seductive smell
of vanilla and oak roused me. When I opened my eyes, Caleb was standing in the bedroom, gazing at me and pulling his tie through his shirt collar.

“Hey.” I grinned and blinked lazily a few times. I peeled back the duvet and reached my arms toward him. The book rested on the other pillow.

He sat on the corner of the bed and gently picked up my book and placed it on the nightstand. “This is what I wanted to come home to. You, looking like my sex doll in my bed, reading a book.”

When he kissed me, his tongue tasted like mint. I smiled against his mouth. “Thank you for the nightgown. I love it. What do you think?”

He sat up and sucked in a breath, running his fingers over the little straps. “It’s perfect. As I knew it would be.”

He put his mouth to my shoulder, then kissed slowly downward. His mouth found my breast, capturing the nipple through the lace. When we’d had sex before he left, it had been rough and quick; now, with only a sliver of the bathroom light streaming into the room, his touch and his lips were soft caresses on my skin. My nipples formed points, because, like the rest of my body, they needed him.

Caleb shifted lower. With a whisper-soft touch, he pushed the hem of my nightgown to my hips and softly growled. I wasn’t wearing panties and I had gone to the waxing salon earlier in the day.

“That’s your surprise,” I whispered, and he groaned in response.

With his index finger, he traced my bare labia, then stroked the wet seam and paused at my throbbing clitoris.

“Don’t you want to get undressed?” I whispered.

“After I taste you. I’m hungry and I haven’t eaten in days. Open your legs wider for me.”

Lowering his head, he licked and sucked at my core. He started out slow, then developed a hungry rhythm. It was as if he wanted to consume me, and I wanted that, too. Every so often he’d pause to brush my clit with his thumb or whisper words of need into my flesh. And when he’d toyed and teased enough, after he’d practically devoured me alive, my body tightened more than it ever had.

I bit the side of my cheek, not wanting to scream as I came, but the noise came out, primitive and hard. The release was practically transcendent, it was so incredible.

I was still gasping and laughing out of sheer joy when he moved up my body and kissed me. I tasted myself on his lips—I was sweeter than I thought I’d be—and he looked into my eyes.

“I missed you, Emma.”

Those words slammed my heart with joy.

He rolled on his back. Still in my lacy babydoll, I straddled him and started to unbutton his shirt, then paused. I’d missed him, also. Was it too early to tell him how I felt? Then, the image of him and his wife in the photo popped into my mind and the words stuck in my throat.

“Caleb?”

“Mmhmm?” He stroked my thighs.

“I saw the photo of you and your wife in the other room.”

He stilled and stared at me, unblinking, while I held my breath. Maybe I was out of line. Way out of line. It occurred to me that it was borderline sabotage; after all, he had wanted me to stay over, sent me expensive lingerie, told me he missed me, and given me the most amazing orgasm of my life. Why was I screwing it up by telling him that I’d snooped?

“Emma, sweetheart,” he rasped. He’d never called me that before. “You’re telling me this when I’m exhausted and defenseless.”

God, I was unreasonable. At the least, I should have waited to bring this up. Here he was, calling me
sweetheart
. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have poked around in your guest room.”

“No, don’t be.” He squeezed my legs. “I have nothing to hide with you. I trust you. I wouldn’t have cared if you’d looked through my drawers or closets or wherever. I’m transparent for you.”

I traced his cheekbone, then the side of his face, then his jaw. Why was he so damned
good
?

“Emma, I didn’t tell you the whole story about my wife.”

Now my eyes were wide open.

He let out a long sigh. “After nine years of marriage, Tara and I had grown apart. We were both thirty-two. She wanted children—I wasn’t sure. We’d started living apart and we each had lawyers. It was amicable, though, there was no bitterness. And then she was diagnosed with invasive breast cancer.”

“Oh my God,” I whispered, a chill going through me. That poor woman. “That’s horrible.”

Caleb pushed out another breath. “Yep. It was. I couldn’t sign the divorce papers. Although we didn’t want to be married, we were friends, good friends. And I couldn’t let her fight alone. Couldn’t let her die alone. I wasn’t that kind of man. So I stayed with her until the end. She was gone within a year.”

My stomach felt like it had been kicked, hard and swift. Caleb was not only a good man, he was practically a damned saint. I folded myself on top of him, my body soft and boneless.

“So you see, Emma, I haven’t spent all of this time pining after my dead wife like you thought. It’s true that I loved her and will always love her, but she was like a sister. I keep her photo in the guest room because sometimes her brother comes to visit. That’s why it’s still here.”

I nodded and kissed his chest, not knowing what to say.

“I wanted to tell you the truth.”

I scowled, trying to will away tears. I wasn’t even sure why I was ready to cry. “Thank you.”

“And you can do the same with me. About whatever you want. I want us to be honest with each other. I sense you’ve been hesitant about some things, like sleeping over. You seem to hold back from me. I barely know anything about your childhood, other than that you grew up west of here. You know all about my upbringing. Hell, I even told you about that time in third grade when I brought a snake to school, got into a fight, and was suspended all in the same day.”

I smiled, recalling the story. He had told me a lot about himself, probably because I’d asked him lots of questions to derail him from asking about me.

“Emma, you don’t need to be so closed off. I’d like to…”

“Like to what?”

His hand went to the back of my neck and massaged my tense muscles. “See where this goes.”

I sat up. “You would? This isn’t just a fling?”

He shook his head. “We have more than a sexual connection. I can find sex anywhere. Don’t get me wrong—our sex is incredible.” He paused. “You’re the best I’ve ever had.”

I reared back as if a blast of cold air had swept into the room. He was the best
I’d
ever had, but for some reason, his revelation shocked me. “Really?”

“Why do you look so skeptical? Yes. It’s not like I slept around a lot before you. I was married and faithful for ten years, and then I didn’t date for a while after that. Sure, I’ve been with some women, but nothing serious. I guess I shut myself off emotionally. I don’t know. But I also haven’t had time for a relationship. I do work.”

“You work too much,” I murmured and pressed my lips to his cheek.

He sighed. “That’s what Tara used to say. It was one of the reasons why we grew apart. I think I’ve gotten better, though. I’m trying to be better about it. For you.”

“Me?”

He touched my nose with his fingertip and rubbed in a circular motion. “Yeah. You, silly. I’d like to explore with you.”

I liked his words so much that I growled and bit his neck lightly. “Explore?”

“Yeah, you know, go on dates, trips, get to know each other, have meaningful conversations? You’re special, you know that?”

I kissed the spot where I’d bitten him. I’d learned to not fully trust men when they were that effusive. But I wanted to believe what Caleb was saying. God, how, I wanted to believe him. “Mmm,” I hummed against his skin. He’d given me no reason not to trust him…

He wrapped his hand around the back of my head and pulled me to his lips, seizing my mouth with a scorching, languid kiss. “I’d also like to explore other things with you,” he murmured.

“Other things?”

“Mmm. Yeah. Like sexual things. You make me want to do things I’ve never done.”

I sat up, grinning. “You’re full of surprises tonight. Like what?”

He traced a line up my thigh with his finger, leaving sparks in its wake. “I’d like to tie you up. Blindfold you. Spank you. Garden-variety kink. Have you try those things with me. Explore together.”