“And… it just got too hot in here.” Tucker ran off before we knew it, breaking Callum into a sexy laugh. God, did I miss that laugh. It was low, content and it rolled over my skin like a sensual massage. That combined with the way his stare traveled so slowly down my body had me flushed with instant, tingling heat. I bit my lip and cocked my head.
“Like it?”
His reply came at once and with ease. “You’re beautiful.” Two words and I was filled to the brim with gratification.
“Then I guess it’s the one.”
“Probably.” Callum unbuttoned his shirt, giving me a peek of that muscled chest. “But that shouldn’t stop you from trying the rest of those on.” He nodded at all the designer pieces hanging around me. I was surrounded by dozens of colors and textiles. Leather, suede and silk. Coral, saffron and sage. There was an array of stilettos and strappy heels that Tucker had picked out and lined up at my feet. I felt spoiled, drowning in luxury and I was thoroughly enjoying every second of it. So it took me by surprise when my chest tightened suddenly with a pang of guilt. I blinked away her face. My mother’s chapped lips and ugly laugh. “Lipstick on a pig, baby girl.” I always found Trish’s voice so odd. It was high-pitched and babyish but at the same time, it sounded elderly, reedy and constantly gasping for breath like someone on her deathbed. It was a thing of nightmares and the memory never failed to freeze me in place for a few seconds. I shuddered when Callum broke me out of it.
“Not a fan?” I heard his smirk before I saw it. When I looked up, he was in a light grey sweater that clung to his long, tapered torso, just tight enough to give a hint of the deep line down the center of his pecs. The sleeves wrapped snug around his broad shoulders and biceps and pushed up nicely above those thick forearms. It was basically the best thing ever.
“Buy it.”
“Done.” Just like that, he whipped it off. Jesus, I breathed. It felt like I was in a museum of the most beautiful specimens on Earth as I just stood there for a bit, watching Callum sift shirtless through his other picks, his jeans hanging an inch lower than usual and his body like a sculptor’s masterpiece at every angle. He was impossibly chiseled and gorgeous and I was getting way too hot in such an expensive dress, so as he pulled on a blue shirt, I picked a thin, flowy piece to try next. He was adjusting shiny cufflinks when I reached for the curtain.
“Leave it.”
He didn’t look up as he said it. I stared at him with a second of surprise until he peered up with a wickedly sexy look in his blue eyes. “Keep it open,” he said, his tone mischievous but firm. It sent a ripple of hot need straight to my core. I knew that being naked in front of him was going to be torture if we were in public and supposed to be behaving. Still, I obliged. I kept the curtain open and he watched me undress, offering no help as I bent, arched and twisted my body to reach zippers, buckle and straps. Callum simply stood there, knotting silk ties at a languorous pace and sliding his eyes with such lust over my body that I could barely tell when I was naked or clothed. The arousal in his eyes never wavered. It was thick, steady, filled with visible appreciation for the three hours we were there, occupying the only two dressing rooms with our back and forth striptease and eye-fucks.
I was practically sweating by the time we got into his car to go back to the apartment. To my disappointment, we showered and got ready in our separate rooms. But like an asshole, he left his door cracked open. So I did the same and we spent the next hour catching half-second peeks of one another in various states of undress. My favorite had to be the glimpse I snuck while he stood completely naked in front of his dresser picking out boxers. One glimpse of his V-shaped back and sculpted ass was enough to keep me writhing the entire car ride over. It was the kind of absolute torture I enjoyed.
At least up until the Times crew swung by The Pike.
There was a lady with a camera and a couple guys with lights. They had just begun setting up when a black-haired woman in a brilliant, white dress pushed through and past me to greet Oz. From the way they spoke, I could tell they’d met before, and it took only a minute of Oz’s booming voice for me to gather that she was the writer from the Times. Ana Hale. Her name sounded like a comic book heroine and her body had the sharp curves to match. I noticed when she pulled Callum aside to talk. I could tell from their body language, the way she spoke, that they’d met at least once before. He sat on a leather chair and nodded for her to take a seat at the one across but she perched herself on the edge of the table. He laughed. Leaning to one side, I watched Callum’s stare drift briefly from her eyes to her pinched waistline right in front of him.
And all at once, my insecurity flared. The day’s foreplay seemed suddenly like a thousand red flags. Callum had had ample opportunity to finally take me and claim me the way he once lived to. Our sexual tension had gone from thick to so rock solid you couldn’t stick a knife in it. But maybe that was a bad thing. Maybe it meant that he had no intentions of resuscitating that part of us. The sex we once shared had a life of its own. It lived and breathed like an animal that wrapped around our brains and numbed out any thoughts that had nothing to do with one another. It overtook us. And Callum had been goal-driven, hungry for independence even before starting a business that thrived at his touch.
So maybe he was done with being consumed. Maybe he was done with me.
The room around me spun even before I took a sip of a drink, and I knew I was losing it to paranoia when I jumped to the conclusion that Callum planned to use me as his human foreplay. We got each other hotter than anyone else could and we both knew that. But maybe he’d take our fun to its furthest limit but then fuck another girl to keep his head straight, his thoughts neat and gathered with which to still complete his work. The theory was farfetched and screwed up but that was exactly what convinced me that it might be right.
I thanked God when Isabel arrived because I needed someone to talk to. And I needed to know I wasn’t imagining the dramatic positions Ana’s body took when Callum came around. “No, that’s borderline pornographic,” Isabel confirmed as Ana arched her back like a cat, bending over a table to write something down for Callum. “He said this writer tracked him down for the piece? I wonder why.”
“Mm-hm.” I watched her take her bun down and shake it out, cooing and rubbed Callum’s cheek when she accidentally smacked his face with her lustrous hair.
“This chick,” Isabel clucked. I turned in search of a lowball.
“I’m gonna go ahead and start the drinking now.”
With help from Logan, Isabel and several of Oz’s lady friends, we killed two bottles of ten-year-old Fine Oak and luckily, by the time we were too drunk to pose, the crew had gotten enough shots to pack up and call it a day. But the more than sufficient buzz was doing little to help my mood. I couldn’t alleviate my own disappointment. I’d been hoping to be the one Callum touched this evening. The one whose knee he put his hand on. I had held out for it all day and for some reason took our flirty looks and flat-out gaping of each other as a sign that tonight was it.
But now he was ignoring me to let Ana Hale stick around longer than everyone else and murmur into his ear. She sidled up next to Callum while Logan cleaned up, crossing her legs so that her skirt slid up her thighs and her foot hooked behind his leg. I could feel my insecurity rise as I watched, leaning over the balcony of the VIP mezzanine, where I’d escaped to indulge my negative thoughts. Callum hadn’t said anything this morning about being exclusive. He had said he’d try to get us back to us but there had never been a name for our relationship so I didn’t even know what that meant.