I cleared my throat.
“I don’t know why she didn’t fight back. He was a bastard and we didn’t need him. She should have put him out or beat the hell out of him one good time. She should have …”
My words drifted and my lips clamped down tight. I closed my eyes but opened them quickly. Seeing the nothingness of the dark room was better than seeing images from that time—Mama’s black eyes, her broken arm, her busted lip.
In my mind, I wanted to pull away when Caleb’s hand touched my shoulder, but my body wouldn’t cooperate. The warmth of his body coming closer to mine was comforting and alarming all at the same time. While an hour ago I may have welcomed his touch, now, after the memories his questions had stirred, I didn’t know how to feel. A part of me wanted to get away, to find my own space once again and stay there until my shields were in place and I was ready to face the world.
Another part wanted to let go, to relax the tense muscles in my body against Caleb’s embrace and let all that had worried and scared me over the years, be washed away by the sound of his voice, the understanding in his tone.
“You fought back,” he whispered, his lips right up against my ear now.
He’d spooned himself against my back, his hand moving from my shoulder to around my waist where it rested on top of my own.
“I swore I’d never be in that place, never be with a guy that would abuse me.” I heard my voice, listened to the admissions I was making and couldn’t believe it. Why was I telling him all this?
“And you’re not in that place. You are no longer with that … that guy.”
Caleb’s hesitation had me smiling fleetingly. I didn’t want to consider Dex a guy either, more like an asshole. I put my hand over Caleb’s and let the warmth of his closeness lull me.
“Thank you for being there and for being so understanding even when I was acting like such a bitch toward you,” I told him honestly. “Maybe if I’d listened to you sooner it wouldn’t have come to this.”
“Then you wouldn’t be here with me now,” was his reply. “I wouldn’t be able to hold you close and promise to keep you safe. I wouldn’t be able to do this.”
His lips were warm against my ear, his tongue damp as it traced a line along my lobe. Desire was like a switch inside me and Caleb had his hand firmly on it, making me want him with the simplest of motions. No, kissing my ear didn’t seem that simple but that wasn’t the only thing he’d done to make me want him, almost need him, I’d venture to admit to myself.
I leaned back into his embrace, closed my eyes with the wonderful sensations of his tongue against my skin. Warmth escalated to full-blown heat as he pressed into me and all I could do was sigh.
“I don’t know why but I’ve been drawn to you from the first day I saw you,” he whispered between kisses.
His words drifted in the darkness of the room, falling to wrap around me as securely as his arms were. To hear him say what I’d been feeling for weeks was a relief that I wasn’t in this alone, at least not on the attraction end.
“Mmm, I don’t know why either, but I looked for you each night I came in to work,” I said since it seemed like tonight was for true confessions.
“You did?”
He seemed surprised and the kissing stopped so I opened my eyes. Rolling onto my back I looked up into Caleb’s eyes. Of course it was dark and really the only thing I could manage to see was the outline of his body leaning over mine, but there was something else. There was a spark of light, a glimmer of something golden. I blinked, believing I’d finally romanticized this moment enough that I was seeing things. With my eyes fully open again I reached up to touch his cheek.
My heart hammered in my chest and a small voice way in the back of my mind warned me not to say what I was thinking, not to put myself out there with this guy in this way. I didn’t listen. I couldn’t.
“I looked for you, Caleb. Every night I wanted to see you, even if I didn’t wait on your table and we didn’t speak, I still wanted to see you.”
“Why?”
Gone was the contained anger, the blatant candor of his voice, and now there was only this questioning and disbelief. Caleb was a great-looking guy, from his chiseled face and brooding dark looks to his perfect body and unruly hair. No way he didn’t believe that I’d wanted him; girls probably wanted him everywhere he went.
“Because you’re different,” I admitted, emotion clogging my throat so that I had to stop and swallow. “I don’t know how I knew from the start or in what ways exactly, I just know and I guess you could say I’m intrigued. I know that it was probably wrong to want you when I was with someone else, but I did. I mean, I do.”
Tears filled my eyes once more and I tried to figure out why. I wasn’t thinking of anything sad, wasn’t recalling what had happened with Dex. I was feeling a storm of sensations, venturing into unchartered waters and I was both anxious and afraid.
“You have no idea,” were his final words before his lips came crashing down over mine, taking me for a glorious ride of intense desire, barely restrained passion, pure and simple lust that had me panting in his arms.
CHAPTER 11
Caleb
This was wrong on so many levels, warning bells sounded loudly in my ears. I ignored them all and focused only on what I wanted, what I needed more than air itself.
I’d touched her hair, her face, her ears, her neck, but hadn’t touched anything else and the need burned deep inside me. So deep the cat stretched, chuffing inside impatiently. With as much gentleness as I could muster I moved so that one of my legs was between hers and my body was flush on top of her. Propping myself up on my elbows to keep from completely crushing her, I took the kiss deeper, loving the feel of her tongue brushing against mine, the hunger that was obviously inside her as well. Her hands were flat on my back, moving up and down, leaving paths of heat in their wake.
Out of breath and struggling for calm I pulled my lips away from hers, the task much harder than anything I’d ever done in my life. Her little gasp and the way her fingers clenched, grabbing my shirt, said she didn’t want me to leave any more than I wanted to. But I needed something else. With trembling fingers—they’d never done that before—I touched his fingerprints on her neck.
I had night vision, courtesy of my shifter heritage. I could see those prints as plainly as if all the lights in this room were on. A little growl rumbled in my chest. She turned her head so that she wasn’t looking at me, wasn’t watching me remember what he’d done to her. She thought I blamed her, but she was wrong. There was only one person here to blame, one bastard that would never get the opportunity to put his hands on her again.
Leaning forward I kissed each mark, lips closed, barely brushing over the softest skin I’d ever felt. My hands moved down, pushing the thin straps of the tank top she wore over her shoulders. I’d touched and I’d had a little taste and it wasn’t enough. Would anything where Zoe was concerned ever be enough?
I swear I wanted it to end, this deep pressing desire that had hung over me since the first day I saw her. It was like a plague, like a demon, chasing me with the intention of running me completely down to the ground. I felt it right between my shoulder blades even as I pushed the top of the tank top down and over her breasts. Tight nipples stared up at me as if they’d been waiting for me all their life. I blinked, tried to refocus but all that did was push the cat closer to the brink. I held my hand back, praying for no sharp claws. I wanted to touch her again, to hold those breasts in the palm of my hand. Instead I lowered my head once more and touched my tongue to her nipple. She hissed and arched her back. I continued, feeling the warmth of her skin against my tongue, loving the sweet taste of her, the sound of her, the scent that was all Zoe.