CHAPTER TWELVE
Eden
A couple days later, I awoke bright and early, despite the fact that I had barely slept the night before. I was worried about Calder. We spent all our time together, and yet I felt like he was withdrawing from me. And for the first time since we'd arrived at my mom's house, he hadn't come to my room. The thunderstorm that went on and on all night hadn't helped matters.
When I went downstairs, I heard a male voice in the kitchen and walked in to see Xander sitting at the kitchen table with Molly.
"Hey," I said to both of them.
"Hey," Xander said, standing up and giving me a hug.
"Morning." Molly smiled
"What are you doing here so early?" I asked Xander. I poured myself a cup of coffee from the pot on the counter and returned to the table to sit down with them.
"I work this morning," he said. "I just wanted to stop in and check on Calder. And I was hoping you'd be up first so we could talk."
I smiled a small smile. "Yeah, he's still sleeping," I said, pouring some Half and Half that was sitting on the table into my cup. "Were you worried about him?"
"Yeah. He called me last night," he said. "It sounded like he's having a rough time."
I paused, my cup halfway to my lips. My shoulders sagged and I felt the weight of the situation. I set my cup down. "This is just so hard. I never expected things to be this way. I wasn't prepared for this situation, especially so soon after reuniting with Calder." I paused. "He's not handling it well."
Xander shook his head. "I can't say I blame him. He's trapped again, pent up, feeling worthless."
I let out a breath. "What do I do?"
Xander looked out the window for a minute. "You could get away from here for a while."
"Oh God," Molly interrupted. "Carolyn would freak."
I groaned and put my face in my hands. When I looked up, I said, "I know, she would. But she doesn't want to share me with him either. And she still wants me to be twelve . . . or six . . . or, sometimes I don't even know."
Molly looked sympathetic. "Yeah, I know." She paused. "They both lived without you for a long, long time."
I sighed. "I know. Where is she anyway?" My mom was usually an early riser.
"She left early with her friend Marla. I insisted she get out of this house and go to an antique fair that's a couple hours away, and Marla helped me convince her. I think it will be good for her. She's holed herself up in this house, too."
"Thanks for suggesting that to her, Molly." God, what would I do without Molly?
She smiled warmly at me and winked. "I do what I can. I figured having Calder alone in a quiet house wouldn't go unappreciated." She grinned and stood up. That was for sure. I looked up at her gratefully. "I've gotta get to class. Xander, nice seeing you."
Xander and I called our goodbyes to her as she left the room. Xander looked back at me. "How are you doing?"
I let out a big breath. "I want to tell you I'm great, because how could I not be great with you two back in my life." I paused. "On one hand I feel like I'm living a miracle, and on the other hand, I feel frustrated I'm not able to enjoy the gift I've been given. And I see Calder feeling those same things." I furrowed my brow. "Does that make sense at all?"
"Completely."
I nodded. "And then there's my mom. I love her and I want so badly to have a good relationship with her, and I keep reminding myself that she is not Hector." I grimaced. Comparing anyone to Hector, even saying his name, made my body tense. Xander looked at me, understanding on his face. "She loves me, I know that. But the way she treats Calder makes me want to scream. It's like he's back in the dogs' quarters at the main lodge." I paused, biting my lip, feeling heartbreak at the memory alone. "But I don't know if it would help or make matters worse if I gave her some kind of ultimatum. Shape up or we're moving in with Xander." I laughed softly.
Xander laughed. "Whoa. No Beds of Healing at my apartment. No peaches either." He raised his hands and grinned.
I laughed and it felt good. "You should rethink that."
He laughed. "Also, no pool and no police protection."
"Ugh. I'd forgo amenities for some freedom." But in truth, I knew safety wouldn't be guaranteed, and it would probably end up causing Calder even more anxiety. Worry moved through me. I wrapped my hands around the warm coffee mug in front of me.
“How's your girlfriend?" I raised my brows hopefully, changing the subject.
Xander looked slightly embarrassed and ran his hand through his hair. "She's good," he said, smiling at me.
I grinned back. "Yeah?" I prompted.
He chuckled. "Yeah. Her name's Nikki by the way."
"Nikki," I repeated, wondering at the girl that had stolen Xander's heart—such a beautiful heart. She was a lucky, lucky girl. I tilted my head. "When do we get to meet her?"
"Soon. I just want to introduce her to you two once some of this craziness blows over, you know?"
Yeah, I knew, and I didn't blame him.
Xander studied me for a minute. "I'm so damn happy to have you back, Eden." He looked slightly uncomfortable, but went on. "It's been hard, you know? I'd do anything for Calder, and I know he'd do anything for me, but . . . all this time, I didn't want to burden him with so many things." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I was more capable of moving forward in the last few years than he was. But now . . . we've got our team back and things just feel . . . right. Like we're all going to be stronger because of it."
Tears sprung to my eyes. I grasped his hand across the table. I felt stronger, too. I had the two people back who I could be completely myself with. I had a home now because of my mom, but my true home—my heart—that had always belonged to Calder, obviously, but certainly Xander as well.
He smiled. "As far as the hard stuff . . . we've been through worse than this, right?"
I gave him a small laugh. "I guess that'd be the understatement of the decade."
He laughed, too, and we looked up as Calder came into the room, looking tired, but as beautiful as ever.
"Hey, brother," Xander said gently.
"Morning," Calder croaked, sitting down at the table with us. He looked over at me, the expression on his face full of regret. "Sorry," he said quietly.
I figured he was apologizing for not coming to my room, but I didn't say anything, just nodded. I stood up and poured him a cup of coffee and set it in front of him. I kissed his cheek, and sat back down.
"I actually have to be going," Xander said, glancing at the clock on my mom's wall and standing up. "I just wanted to check in on you and Eden real quick," he said, looking over at Calder.
"I appreciate that. I'll text you later?"
"Yeah," Xander smiled and winked at me, looking less worried than he had just twenty minutes before. "By the way, 'Throw Back Thursday' was a big success." He grinned. "I got about a thousand likes."
Calder laughed softly. "It was an incredible painting." He smiled smugly.
"It's the subject that makes that painting great. God, I was even good-looking at ten."
Calder walked Xander to the door as I laughed after them and then he came back and sat down. He took my hand across the table. "I'm sorry. I went to bed while you were watching that movie with your mom last night and I didn't wake up until this morning. I promised we'd never sleep apart one single night again." He looked down, shaking his head. "I just . . . I felt like I was going to melt down . . . so many things swirling through my brain. Sleep seemed like the best option."
I sighed. "I know this is hard, but I want to be able to help."
He sat back in his chair, letting go of my hand. "I know you do. I know that. And that means everything to me. Truthfully, I don't know if there's anything either one of us can do right now."
I got up from the table and went over to him and sat down on his lap and pulled his head in to my chest, stroking his hair. I kissed his forehead. "It'll all be okay."
"When?” he asked.
I sighed. "That's the part I don't know."
We sat in silence for a few minutes.
"Madison called me yesterday," he said.
I froze. "Oh?"
"Yeah, she called to let us both know it was her assistant that leaked the news about you, and about us. She confided in him and . . . anyway, it doesn't even really matter. Like Molly said, it was bound to get out sooner or later. I just wish it had been on our terms, on our timeline. Madison feels badly. She wanted me to apologize to you."
I nodded, continuing stroking his hair. "You're right, what's done is done. I don't blame Madison." Although inside, just thinking about Madison still brought a sharp pang of jealousy. But I needed to move past that.
Calder leaned his forehead on mine just as the doorbell rang.
We both went to answer it, Calder standing a little bit behind me, and when I swung the door open, Detective Lowe was standing there with two other officers. "Eden, hi," he said, his eyes sweeping down my body. I was still only dressed in a small, short bathrobe. I pulled it more tightly around me. Detective Lowe seemed to catch himself and cleared his throat.
"Uh, come in," I said. He did and I looked over at Calder who was staring daggers at the detective.
"Sorry to bother you two days in a row, but we just have a couple questions for Eden about Clive."
"Oh," I said, "okay. Let me just go pull on some clothes and I'll be right back."
Calder followed me upstairs. "I'm gonna get in the shower," he said, his face still tense.
"Hey, you okay?" I asked.
Calder spun around, talking in a loud whisper. "I hate the way that guy looks at you," he said. "God, maybe he should just move in here, too. He's here enough."
I relaxed my shoulders and tilted my head. I opened my mouth to speak, but the detective's laugh floated up the stairs, the officers chatting loudly. My eyes moved toward the stairs and then back to Calder.
"Go answer their questions," he said more gently, turning toward the bathroom. I sighed and turned toward my room. I'd answer their questions and get them out of here.
An hour later, when the detective and officers left, I heard splashing sounds coming from the pool outside and looked out the back window to see Calder doing laps in the pool.
I went upstairs and changed into my swimsuit. When I walked out the side door onto the patio, Calder was out of the pool and sitting on one of the deck chairs next to the stone bar. Water was cascading down his bare, smooth, muscled chest in little rivulets and his hair was pushed back away from his face in wet spikes. God he was ridiculously gorgeous. And there was something especially beautiful about him when he was wet. I'd thought it before and I thought it now—it was as if water was his own personal element and he wore it better than anyone else on the face of the earth. "Hey, handsome. I thought you were getting in the shower."
His eyes swept up and down my bikini-clad body and I blushed despite myself. This man had seen me as naked as the day I was born a hundred times over, and from every angle imaginable, and yet I still felt that same modesty I'd been taught to feel when I was showing an "indecent" amount of skin.
"I changed my mind."
I sat down on his lap and ran my thumbs over his chiseled cheekbones and down his strong, masculine jaw, rough with a day's worth of dark stubble. I leaned forward and kissed his lips. He tasted sweet. "Hmm, what have you been drinking?"
"Just Coke," he said, looking embarrassed as if that was some sort of crime. I smiled at him.
"What'd the detective want?" he asked, his jaw tensing.
I studied him. I ran one fingertip over his dark eyebrows, one by one. "Just more questions about Clive's role in the council—what I experienced of him in the main lodge," I said in answer to his question. "You don't have to dislike Detective Lowe. He's actually very nice."
Calder's jaw ticked once, but he didn't deny disliking the detective. He took a deep breath and studied my face. I met his eyes. "I just worry," he started. "Sometimes I think maybe you wonder . . . or maybe you will wonder—"
"Then ask me," I said softly. "All you ever have to do is ask me."
Vulnerability skated over his expression. "Do you ever wonder what it'd be like to be with another man? A man you could start fresh with? A man who could give you more than me? A man who's better than me?"
"No. No man can give me more than you. No man is better than you," I said without hesitation.
He smiled a baffled, crooked smile full of hope and my heart lurched in my chest. A flash of him as a little boy looking up at me after I'd put a butterscotch candy in his hand raced through my mind, and all the love and tenderness I felt for him filled my chest so full I ached with it.
His face went serious. "I don't even have a name, Eden. No one's even come forward to claim me. No one ever even reported me missing."
"Oh, Calder," I said. "Is that why?" He'd seemed so quiet lately, lost in his own head, and he'd leave the room each time the police came by, and now I knew why. The news they were bringing was never about him. "There must be an explanation," I said.
He shrugged.
"The police said they'd help you and Xander get the necessary paperwork to get IDs."
"Yeah, but it won't really be me. It will be who Hector made me. If I'm Calder Raynes, I'll always be a slave, a water bearer." He said the last two words with disgust lacing his voice.
I wasn't sure what to think about that. I had loved him then, and I loved him now. His name—any title someone else gave him—would never, ever change that. It didn't alter who he was under his skin. And we didn't even know for sure that he had been abducted anyway. "Calder," I started hesitantly, "is it possible that Hector was just talking jibberish? At the end you have to admit, he was crazy," I finished quietly.
He shook his head. "Mother Willa—"
"We can't put a whole lot of stock in what she said, either."
Calder pulled that full bottom lip between his teeth and sucked on it for a minute. "Maybe. But my family, Eden, you have to admit, I didn't look anything like any of them, not in coloring, not in features."
I looked behind him, trying to picture his mom and dad. I couldn't create a clear picture of their faces in my mind. But I remembered making note of the fact that he didn't look like his family many times in Temple as I watched him interacting with them. "That's not definitive proof of anything either though," I finally said.
He let out a frustrated breath and it was then I realized he didn't want to believe they were his real parents. He didn't want to believe his own mom and dad could have ever done what they did to him at the end. He was looking for hope. He was picturing someone else out there who loved him and would fight to the death for him. I smoothed my thumbs over his cheekbones again, looking in his hurt-filled eyes. "I love you, Butterscotch," I said, feeling the emotion of the statement well up in my throat.
His eyes met mine and filled with warmth. "I love you, too."
He looked away. "This whole situation, it's making me someone I don't like. I feel like we're trapped, caged again for the second time in our lives." Frustration washed over his expression. "I can't work, I can't take care of you. I haven't painted. I can't even wake up in the same bed as you. And now I don't even have a home to bring you back to once all this clears."
"We'll find a new home together."
His eyes warmed. "I know." He sighed. "I just feel . . . stripped bare, I guess," he said, smiling a smile lacking humor and raising his eyebrows.
I studied him for another minute, my eyes drinking in the striking male beauty of his face, the depth of emotion and sensitivity behind his eyes. I'd never get tired of looking at him. Loving him would never cease being my greatest pleasure in life. "I've always liked you stripped bare," I said, smiling a cheeky smile at him and trying to get him to smile back. It worked. I went serious. "You've always been most beautiful when you're stripped bare," I said, meaning that in every single way. "You, just you, with nothing else, no job, no house, no money, nothing. Stripped bare. You will always be enough for me. You will always be my dream come true, my destiny."
Calder let out a loud exhale, relief filling his expression. He leaned forward and kissed my lips. "I will give you more though."
"I know," I whispered. I tilted my head. "Want to get in the water with me?"
He gazed at me a minute and then nodded. "Yeah, okay."
"No one's here. We could be naughty and strip even more bare." I nodded my head toward all the trees blocking the pool from anyone's sight. "No one can see us."
Calder chuckled, and immediately began removing his swim trunks.
When we were both naked and submersed in the heated water of the large pool, I wrapped my arms around his neck and we bobbed like that for a little while, me sighing out at the delicious feel of the water lapping around my shoulders and Calder's hard, wet, bare body right up against mine.
"Right now, I can imagine we're in the water at our spring," he said, smiling. "I can imagine it's just us and the stars." The look on his face was peaceful, serene.
I nuzzled into his neck, kissing him softly there. I felt him stir against my belly and as if my body was answering, I felt an immediate tingling between my thighs. "This is better," I whispered. "We're free. It's definitely not how we would have wanted it to go, but we're here, we're together."
Calder turned us around in the water and I laughed, leaning my head back. The sky was cloudy and overcast above us.
"Sometimes I miss it," he said. "Is that insane?"
I lifted my head and looked in his eyes, moving a piece of dark hair off his forehead. I shook my head slowly. "No. We both knew ourselves there. Even if we didn't like it, we knew who we were. We knew what we wanted. Out here," I brought one hand from around his neck and waved it to the side of us, "it's not always clear. It's confusing and scary sometimes."
He nodded his head, his expression unreadable to me as he looked in my eyes. "You always get it," he said. "It's a f*cking relief." He closed his eyes briefly and I laughed softly.
Calder's use of a swear word sent a jolt of surprise through me that ended between my legs. "The big society is rubbing off on you. Now you're using dirty words?" I raised one eyebrow, teasing him.
He grinned wickedly and spun us around again. "Only with you. I only get dirty with you." He leaned in and ran his tongue up my neck and I moaned. "Let's get dirty." He grinned against my skin.
A thrill shot through my body and a pulsing throb started between my legs. It was somewhat shameful how little Calder needed to do before I was practically panting for him. But, hadn't it always been the case? I figured it always would be.
Calder gazed at me, his eyes moving over my face. "You're painfully beautiful," he whispered.
I breathed out a small laugh. "It's not supposed to be painful."
"It is." He pushed my bangs to the side. "Yours is the type of beauty that makes a man want to fight wars and pillage villages full of other men who might dare to look at you."
I laughed softly, my heart skipping a beat. "No pillaging necessary. I'm yours. I've been yours since the beginning of time."
Calder's eyes flared and I leaned forward and kissed his lips gently. He walked us over to the wall of the shallow end of the pool and sat me on the edge. He leaned into me and took my mouth, at the perfect height so that our faces met as he rested his hands on the cement next to my hips. He moved in between my thighs and I wrapped my legs around his hips.
He broke from our kiss and gazed at me with heated eyes. The throb between my legs intensified and my breaths grew quicker. Calder's eyes moved down to my pebbled nipples and his eyes darkened with lust. That look . . . Oh God, that look. "Please," I murmured, bringing my hands up to his head and pulling him forward. I needed his mouth on my breasts right that second. He obliged and when his warm, wet mouth closed over one nipple, I moaned loudly. It felt so good. I always felt like I was at risk of climaxing just from what Calder did with his mouth on my nipples. It was bliss. With one hand braced on the cement behind me, I used my other hand to hold the breast Calder was licking and sucking and watched him as he pleasured me that way. The sight of him along with the delicious feel of his mouth was almost my undoing. "Calder, I need you inside of me. Now," I groaned out. He smiled against my skin and then glanced up at me with heated eyes before he moved to my other nipple. I panted out in time with his tongue flicks, pressing into his erection that was right at my core.
"I'll never stop wanting you," I said, my voice barely a whisper. Calder's mouth paused for just a brief second, but then his tongue lashed out again, harder this time. I gasped out, my body pressing into his more forcefully.
He reached down and took his erection in his hand. I watched him stroke himself a couple times, my breath catching in my own throat.
"Scoot forward a little," he said, sounding strained, that beautiful smoky voice even more gravelly.
I swallowed and did as he asked, moving from side to side until I was at the very edge of the pool. I brought one fingertip to a vein that started at his abdomen and ran downward, imagining the blood pulsing to his shaft below. Something about that had lust shooting through my veins.
Calder let out a strained groan and lined the tip of his erection up with my entrance. I groaned out, too, half in frustration, half in relief. His eyes met mine and they were dark and unfocused.
He pushed into me inch by slow inch, looking into my eyes the whole time. I wanted to close my eyes and relish the sensation of his body filling mine, but I couldn't look away. There was something dark and deep and powerful in the way he was watching me.
He pushed in until our bodies connected and I gasped and he moaned, his eyes falling shut and his lips parting. I wrapped my legs around his hips as he began to move slowly, so excruciatingly slowly. He wrapped his arms around me and brought his mouth to my ear, tickling it with his breath and causing my body to unconsciously buck into him. The sensations he was causing were almost too much. I didn't know whether I was going to have an orgasm or self-combust. Possibly both.
"The things you do to me, Eden," he whispered, his voice low and raspy. The things I do to him?
I just moaned, raking my fingernails over his back as he started another slow slide out.
"I love you so much it makes my guts ache." He slid in slowly, pressing firmly against the part of me that felt swollen and achy with need. Sparks of pleasure burst through my body and my legs tightened around his hips. "I want to f*ck you and worship you." He slid out and I made a gurgled sound of loss in my throat, excitement shooting through my body at his dirty talk. He pushed in again more quickly, brushing his thumbs over my nipples and causing more sparkles of pleasure to dance around the perimeter of my foggy vision. "I want to worship you while I f*ck you. I want to f*ck you until you feel how much I worship you." He slid out and then pushed in in several quick thrusts, bumping his pelvis against my body in a delicious tease that was too much and not enough at all. "I hate it and I love it because I know it will never change. It's been this way from the moment I laid eyes on you and it'll be this way until the day I die."
"Calder, Calder," I moaned out. There was so much I wanted to say, but none of it would organize itself in my brain. He was holding me hostage on the edge of orgasm and it was glorious and torturous. I was rendered completely useless when it came to any words other than his name.
Calder stroked into me again several times, his thumbs still rubbing over my sensitive nipples. "Yes," I moaned.
"I'm tormented by you, and I'm the luckiest man in the world," he rasped, finally, finally moving faster, bumping the juncture between my thighs at the absolutely wonderful speed I needed it. I panted to his rhythm, my hands grasping at his back.
"I want everyone on earth to know you're mine. And I," he took two quick thrusts, "can't even marry you because I don't even have a name."
My eyes widened right at the same moment my body tightened and pleasure exploded through me, causing me to cry out his name again and again. I came back down woozily as Calder pumped into me fast and hard twice more and then pressed into me, groaning his own climax into my neck.
I stroked my fingernails down his skin softly as he breathed harshly against me, circling his hips very slowly to draw out his pleasure.
After a minute he pulled back and looked up into my face, his expression half tormented and half blissful. I took his face in my hands, kissing his lips softly. "You want to marry me?" I whispered.
"God, yes," he rasped.
I smiled against his lips and brought my arms around his neck. "Then let's figure this out," I said, joy blooming in my chest. "Because if there is one thing I am absolutely sure about in this world, it's that I want to be married to you."
Calder kissed my lips again, smiling against my mouth, and pulled his body from mine. He was silent for a minute as his eyes moved over my face. "I've been thinking, Eden," he paused, running his hand through his hair.
"What?" I probed, putting my fingers on his chin and tilting his face back to mine.
He met my eyes. "What would you say about taking a road trip to Indiana?"
I nodded immediately. "Road trip? Yes." I tilted my head. "But are you sure about Indiana? Why?"
He shrugged. "For the reasons you mentioned it before. Partly to see if you recognize anything, I guess. I know it's a long shot in the dark. But . . . mostly, just to get away from the craziness here, but still be close by. To walk around without being hounded, to be together, to sleep in a bed that doesn't announce my every move to your mother," he smiled, but then went serious again. "To get some freedom."
I bit my lip, warming to the idea immediately. It would be a wonderful relief not to worry about who was outside our door for at least a short while. And maybe by the time we returned, things would have died off. "Yes."
Calder looked relieved. "Thank you."
I shook my head. "No, this is for both of us. Xander mentioned us getting away this morning, too."
He nodded. "We need it. Do we have to tell the police?"
"I don't think so. They didn't say we couldn't leave town." I shrugged. "I mean, we could anyway, just to be considerate, I guess, but I don't think we're required to. And I don't necessarily want them to know where we're going."
"You already told them about recognizing the Indiana sign though."
I nodded. "I know, but I don't want them to think we're going on some vigilante information-gathering mission. Chances are good that nothing at all will come of it anyway."
Calder nodded. "And that's okay. It just seemed like it made sense as far as a location."
"It does." I smiled. "Now go gather my bathing suit before my mom comes home and finds me undressed.”
Calder chuckled and then swam to the other side of the pool where my suit sat right on the edge.
I grinned and then squinted upward as the sun broke through the clouds, casting the gloomy day in sudden light. It felt appropriate, because while before it had seemed as though a cloud was over us, surrounding us, now, everything seemed clearer, brighter. The man of my dreams wanted to marry me, had more hope in his eyes, and light had begun to shine in my heart once more.
**********
Later in bed as I stroked Calder's hair, cocooned in his warm arms, drifting toward sleep, he suddenly said, "That day, Hector kept calling me Satan's spawn. He said it over and over. What do you think he meant by that?"
I shivered, even though I was far from cold. "I don't know," I said. "Who knows what was going through his sick brain?" Something inside me told me I didn't want to know. I snuggled more deeply into Calder's embrace.