chapter Twelve
He scared her half to death. Ellen was walking through from the kitchen, about to take the stairs up to her office loft, when she spotted Caleb on the front porch, leaning against the siding. He wore his soldier face, presiding over two squished-looking pizza boxes by his feet.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, rather pointlessly. He was doing precisely what he’d said he would do. No doubt he always did.
“Keeping the Huns out of your house. You left the door wide open, and you didn’t even lock the screen. Where have you been?”
“I went for a quick walk in the woods with Carly,” she said, stepping onto the porch. “But we stuck close to home. Zero danger, cross my heart. Except from heat stroke.”
The urge to make excuses annoyed her. She still hadn’t promised not to leave the house; he still hadn’t asked her to promise. The woods were mostly on her property, and she’d never encountered another soul back there.
And this time, she hadn’t even been trying to antagonize Caleb. All she’d wanted to do was to watch her movie. Carly had come over three minutes into it and begged and whined until Ellen gave in and agreed to take another walk with her.
She glanced at the glass of ice water she’d carried through from the kitchen. “You want something to drink?”
He crossed his arms and shook his head. “Did anybody take your picture?”
“Nobody even saw us.”
He made a face, sort of half-amused, half-resigned disgust. Like a guy who fed a stray dog all his best table scraps and pretended to mind. Such a male face.
“What are you smiling at?” he asked.
“Nothing. Do you even own shorts?”
“Sure. But I’m working.”
“This is not in your job description.”
“You might be surprised.”
She mirrored his posture, leaning against the house opposite him. Something in the set of his jaw, the intensity of his mood, made her want to tease him. This wasn’t the Caleb she was used to. He needed lightening up. “Is that your best guard stance, all slumped like that?”
“No, this is my defeated stance. It’s for when I’ve given up hope of protecting the women I’m supposed to be taking care of.”
“Really? You look very relaxed. Not at all defeated.”
“I’m good at pretending. On the inside, I’m a wreck.”
She smiled at him, and after a moment he rewarded her with a reluctant version of his sexy smirk.
“We really were perfectly safe this time.”
“There’s no such thing as perfectly safe.”
Ellen lifted her knee and planted one foot against the siding. “Don’t be such a downer. I can’t handle negativity tonight. I had another death-march day.”
“Me, too.”
“Oh, yours couldn’t possibly have been as bad as mine.”
“No?”
“I snuck out for the first time in my life this morning, and I got caught.”
“The first time in your life?”
“And then I ran into my ex-husband, which I try very hard never to do, and he called me ‘Els’ and told me he wanted to see more of me and Henry, which is nightmarishly bad.”
“‘Els’ is a really terrible nickname,” Caleb said with an agreeable nod, and she was grateful for the levity. There had been so little of it today.
“And then this big, angry man showed up and drilled holes in my house—”
“And played with your kid for an hour.”
“—and gave my son all kinds of ideas about how he should get his own screwdriver, and maybe a drill for his birthday. And this obnoxious guy sent circus-freak workmen over to make even larger holes in my house without my permission—”
Caleb pointed his index finger, a pistol of emphasis, and said, “Because he’s trying to keep you safe, despite your stubbornness.”
Ellen smiled and let her eyes drift to her trail shoes. “And you’re not going to believe this, but he hit on me. It was so weird, and unbelievably badly timed—”
“You loved it, too.”
“It was completely gross. And all I wanted to do tonight was watch The Big Sleep in the dark, in my room, and pretend to be Lauren Bacall, but instead Carly made me go for a walk, and now you’re probably going to give me a lecture.”
“I’d rather give you a spanking.”
The thought made her snort, even as it gave her a naughty thrill. “Just so we know where we stand.”
When she dared to look up, he was grinning at her. “I’m standing right here, trying to figure out why I haven’t kissed you yet.”
“You’re not standing, you’re slouching. And you haven’t kissed me because we just met yesterday, so kissing would be way out of line. Plus, you have a couple employees who are probably watching us right now, so you can’t even afford to look like you want to kiss me, much less actually go through with it.”
“It’s going to be fantastic, though, when we finally do it. Fireworks are going to go off. Pyrotechnic kissing. Your hair will probably catch on fire.”
She laughed, and some internal switch flipped from Maybe to Definitely. It was his confidence. Not egotism, but the optimism of a guy who was accustomed to being competent at everything. “You’re awfully sure of yourself.”
“I am.”
“You think I’m going to walk over there and throw myself at you any second, don’t you?”
There was an energy between them now, a thread of sexual possibility that created crackling excitement on the surface of her skin. It was really rather a lot of fun.
Day in and day out, she walked around with all the sexual power of a Twinkie, but here she was somehow making his eyes go all louche and predatory, and it gave her such a heady rush. She imagined herself in dominatrix boots and black leather, tying him to her bedposts. Unbuttoning his shirt to reveal the solid, beautiful body beneath. Dark skin. Dark hair. White teeth smiling up at her, or grimacing as she gave him pleasure so intense, it was almost pain.
He stuck his hands in his pockets, the very picture of casual, but the heat in his eyes . . . whoa. “I think if you did, I’d make sure you weren’t sorry.”
“Oh, but I would be sorry. I’d miss my chance to watch you stand guard out here, and I really want to see that.”
His dimple was so deep, she could have fallen into it. “Do you?”
“Yeah. I do.”
He straightened up, turned slightly to face the driveway, folded his arms, and went blank.
Ellen peeled off the wall to approach, walking in a slow circle and stopping right in front of him. He’d become a monolith, a man-mountain carved from obsidian. His biceps bulged beneath his fingers, and his stern soldier face announced that he didn’t intend to let anyone or anything by.
He was gorgeous and remote, the single finest specimen of maleness she’d ever seen in her life, and she couldn’t help herself. Her hand rose up and traced a path down his neck. She settled her thumb over the pulse at the base of his throat. She wanted to feel that he was real.
The pounding of his heart moved through her, a slow throb. She inhaled an unsteady breath. Caleb didn’t move. He didn’t look at her. His pulse picked up.
She knew what she wanted.
She wanted Caleb. No strings, no consequences, no deeper meanings. Just hot sex with this hard, experienced, fascinating man. Two bodies in the dark.
What would Jamie have said if she’d told him that earlier? He wouldn’t have liked it. Probably he would have given her a lecture about how casual sex wasn’t her style. And, yeah, fair enough. She’d always been a relationship kind of gal, packaging sex up with dating and getting-to-know-you conversations, with walking to class together and meeting the parents.
Since Richard, there’d been none of that. No men. No dates. No sex. And absolutely zero interest on her part in any of it.
Now . . . now she wanted the sex. She wanted Caleb in her bed, skin against skin, those intense eyes looking down at her as he moved deep inside her body. She didn’t want to go to dinner with him or meet his family. She didn’t care if he even had a family. She didn’t want to swap secrets in the afterglow, or to hear about his life before he’d met her or his plans for the future.
She didn’t have the energy for that shit anymore. She was already her son’s loving mother, her brother’s devoted sister, her clients’ fearless champion. And now, it seemed, she was Richard’s long-suffering ex again, too. Playing all those parts exhausted her. The last thing she needed was to be the wind beneath another man’s wings.
Nope. “Lover” she could handle, but nothing heavier than that. Another ounce of weight, and she would buckle.
She wanted to be a Chiclet.
She’d have to seduce him, but she was so out of practice. When it came to this sort of thing, she’d never even really been in practice. The women of magazines licked their lips and unbuttoned their tops and did stripteases to erotic music. She was fairly sure her stereo was cued up to play “The Wheels on the Bus.”
“I’m going to go inside and take a shower,” she said. “Hold down the fort, will you?”
Caleb didn’t reply. He didn’t need to. She knew what she wanted, and she was going to have him.
Caleb stood guard as the light drained out of the overcast sky and listened to the pok-pok-thwack of someone playing tennis on the courts across the street.
Beneath that sound and the crickets, and the occasional car out on the main drag, he heard the muted hiss of running water and tried not to think about Ellen in the shower, soapy and naked. Wet and hot, her hands sliding over her own skin.
He tried, but it was hard. The way she’d smiled before she went inside . . . like she was planning to have him for dessert. How was he supposed to keep his mind on the job?
Distract yourself, a*shole.
It wasn’t as if he lacked for distractions. He knew he must look like a brainless drone out here, standing and staring, but Caleb had a lot to think about, first and foremost his sister.
The more he thought about Katie, the more ashamed he was of how he’d handled their conversation. He hadn’t stopped to think why she was telling him—hadn’t considered what kind of reaction she was looking for from him.
She wanted him to understand, and he didn’t. Not completely. Didn’t she know a good man from a bad one? He was no saint, but if he ever committed an act so unfeeling, he would expect a dawn appointment with the firing squad. Or at least a sound beating.
If Katie had given him the chance, he’d have been happy to administer the beating. As it was, he had no outlet for his frustration. He couldn’t fix a wrong done to her a year ago—or closer to a decade ago, if you counted the wedding itself, which he did. All he could do was wish it hadn’t happened.
Next to useless.
Uselessness was his least favorite feeling. Funny how being back in Camelot kept forcing it on him. His mother. This job. Katie and Levi. Ellen’s problems with her ex. He wanted to fix things, to help all of them out, but he couldn’t think of much of anything to do.
The sound of the shower cut off, and there was Ellen in his head again, dripping wet. Bending over to towel off. His hands on her ass, her hips, her breasts.
He was so screwed.
For a little while after lunch, he’d thought he had the Ellen situation sorted, but it had gotten complicated on him all over again. For starters, he’d underestimated how strong his own attraction to her was.
Willpower-flattening strong.
But he’d also misunderstood what he wanted from her. A few hours ago in the driveway, she’d flattened her hand on his chest and asked him not to push her around. Not to manipulate her. Not to mess with her head. She’d phrased it as a demand, but her eyes had been so haunted. Richard had done all of that to Ellen, and worse. When her ex-husband drove up, she’d gone as tense and nervous as a mouse who’d just caught sight of a cat.
It was the first time he’d seen her cowed. It only lasted a second before she shifted into Amazon Ellen mode, but that second was long enough to make him despise Richard Morrow.
No one had the right to make his Ellen feel anything less than amazing. Independent. Strong. Intelligent. Beautiful.
His Ellen.
That was when he understood how far gone he already was. He hadn’t even kissed the woman, and he already thought of her as his.
He needed to slow this thing way down. Give her some space, give her reasons to trust him. Make sure she knew he wasn’t in this to take advantage of her. Because his gut told him Ellen was special. If he played his cards right, the two of them could have something together—something deeper, more important than anything he’d experienced with another woman.
He needed Ellen to know he wasn’t like Richard or Levi or any other variety of schmuck. And as ridiculous as it was, that was why he was out here. Not to fulfill the threat he’d made earlier, but to tell her with his body, with his presence, that he was a solid bet. That he wasn’t going anywhere. That he respected her.
It would probably help him deliver that message if he could stop hitting on her for five f*cking seconds, but she was so much fun to tease. When he’d told her he wanted to spank her, she’d actually blushed, which was insanely hot.
A smart man would apologize for sending Bill and Matthias over and ask her out to dinner. He’d keep his fists balled up in his pockets and stay out here on her porch all night long. He definitely wouldn’t push her up against the siding and kiss her hard and deep, letting his hands do all the exploring they were itching to do.
Caleb wished he were a smart man.
The screen door opened, and Ellen appeared in indecently short shorts, a white V-neck T-shirt, and no bra.
“So what kind of pizza did you bring me, anyway?” she asked, turning her back on him to inspect it. “Pepperoni and . . . ?”
“Hawaiian.” The T-shirt had a few darker spots on the back where her skin had wet the cotton. Her legs were four miles long, and the higher his eyes traveled, the better the view got. “Hope you like ham and pineapple.”
“What if I told you I was a vegetarian? Or I already had dinner?”
“It was a calculated risk.”
She lifted the lid of the box and bent over, inspecting the food. Her shorts got shorter. His dick woke up and came to attention so fast it hurt.
“Ellen,” he choked out. “Could you do me a favor and put some real clothes on?”
She glanced over her shoulder. “You show up on my porch uninvited, and now you’re telling me what to wear?”
He tried closing his eyes. No help. His brain projected an image of Ellen bending over on the back of his eyelids.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” he said. There was. Something important. Though at the moment, he had no idea what it was.
“Hmm.” She bent down again to pick up the pizza boxes. “I guess you’d better come inside.”
“That’s not a good idea.”
She opened the screen door and smiled. “Yes, it is.”
Fighting to keep a clear head, he said, “I’m not leaving this porch until you agree to the floodlights.”
“Yeah, fine, you can have the lights.”
“Tomorrow.”
“Sure, tomorrow.”
She walked into the house, and he followed her. A thoroughly stupid man.
“Have a seat,” Ellen said, pointing him toward the living room as she slipped through the back patio door into the kitchen. “I’m going to put the pizza in the fridge.”
By the time she reemerged, he was sitting on her plush white couch, and he’d remembered what he was supposed to say. But he couldn’t look at her without wanting to rip her clothes off, so he kept his eyes on his clasped hands as he said it.
“I wanted to apologize. For sending Bill and Matthias over here without your permission.”
“You apologize? I didn’t know men actually did that.” Her bare feet came into view. Those sexy red toenails. When he looked up, dark nipples greeted him through white fabric, hardening to peaks as he stared for far longer than was polite.
He lowered his eyes, but it was too late. His hands reached out and found her waist, and his head fell forward until it rested against her stomach.
“It’s not very manly of you,” she said.
“I’ve got sisters. I understand the value of a sincere apology.”
“Fair enough. Apology accepted. Can I ask you something?”
“What’s that?”
“Did you mean it earlier, when you said you’re attracted to me? You weren’t just teasing me, or trying to get me to do what you wanted?”
He found the bottom of her shirt and lifted it to expose the dark indentation of her navel. She’d turned the kitchen light on, but the living room was dim, and the sideways illumination caught the fine, downy hair on her arms and made it glow. He brushed his lips over her stomach. So f*cking soft. Her flesh pebbled with goose bumps when he breathed against it.
“I want you, Ellen.” His hands slid up her bare back to cup the delicate wings of her shoulder blades and draw her closer, while his mouth found a path that led north from her belly button. “So bad.”
He should have said something different, something more considerate of her feelings or his honor. Told her he wasn’t the kind of person who’d use sex to manipulate a woman. But all he could think about was getting his hands and his mouth on more of her skin, which made it hard to see the point.
“Show me,” she whispered.
“Don’t you think we’d better slow this down?” He lifted her shirt a little higher and kissed the underside of her breasts, his own answer to the question. As he straightened to standing, his hands moved to the caps of her shoulders, and when she lifted her arms, he started pulling the shirt off over her head. “I was hoping to ask you—”
But then he got a good look at her, her breasts full and lush, nipples bunched. Her damp hair spread out over her shoulders and plastered against her neck. Whatever he’d been about to say evaporated, and he kissed her so hard their teeth collided. She did something with her breath, a happy exhale that was like a laugh, fanning out over his face. Caleb cupped her head in his hands, held her still, and went after her with no finesse and no control whatsoever.
The kiss was pure, distilled sex. Greedy. Hungry. When he slid his tongue into her mouth, she met it, a slick, explicit welcome that tasted like the best kind of homecoming, sweet and spicy as the cinnamon in her hair. Softer than he’d even hoped, her breasts, her stomach pliant and sweet pressing up against him. Her hands on his shoulders. On his neck. Slipping over his biceps.
He moved a leg between her thighs. His hands found her ass, fingers toying with the hem of her ridiculous shorts and his palms full of denim.
His dick made impatient demands. Take her on the couch. Take her against that wall. Take her on the f*cking floor, just get those clothes off her and get inside her NOW.
Greedy bastard. Caleb backed off, needing to breathe and slow the hell down, but Ellen made a mewling noise and pulled his head back to hers. She kissed him this time, bit his lip, just as aggressive as he’d been. The small amount of blood he needed to operate his brain got reassigned to the raging hard-on pressing against her hip.
He gave up and let his hands roam over every part of her they could reach. She was perfect. Everything about her. Perfect.
Still gripping his head, Ellen pushed him away and looked him in the eye. “Right now, Caleb. No messing around. I want you inside me, taking me so hard I can’t see straight, and if you don’t—”
He covered her mouth with his palm to shut her up. “I will. Jesus. Hold that thought.”
Leaving her there, he crossed to the back of the room, where he closed and locked the French doors. He passed swiftly into the kitchen and closed and locked the side door. Back through to the entryway. She hadn’t moved. He closed and locked the front door.
He was as capable of resisting temptation as the next guy. Maybe more so. But this wasn’t temptation. This was Ellen, talking dirty and begging him to have sex with her, and how could anyone resist that? No man could. He sure as hell couldn’t.
Straight down the hall to her bedroom, he lowered the damn blinds.
And then he went back to the living room, hauled her into his arms, and kissed her again. Slower this time. Thoroughly. If he was going to have her—and he was—he’d do it properly.
Smooth, silky skin. Warm, willing woman. She moaned encouragement, sliding her tongue into his mouth and sending a jolt of lust straight to his cock that felt like pure joy.
“Bed,” he said after a minute. “The floor would be a crime.”
“That way.” She pointed over his shoulder.
Fastest way to get there was to carry her. He lifted her by the hips and kissed her again as she wrapped her legs around him. They bumped hard into the wall in the hallway when she ground against his cock with a breathy little moan. He toed off his shoes on her bedroom carpet and kneeled on the wine-red comforter with Ellen plastered to his chest, her face tipped back to kiss him.
They fell onto the mattress together, a graceless dead weight, though he managed to get his elbows under him so he didn’t crush her.
This wasn’t what he was supposed to be doing, but it felt right. Ellen felt right. Sometimes, that was all you had to go by. Caleb stared down at her, her face shadowed in the dim room, her eyes liquid and luminous, and made his peace with it.
She tugged his shirt out of his slacks. “Get this off.”
“That sounded suspiciously like an order.”
She tipped her hips up, rubbing hard against him and making a low, needy noise in her throat that pretty much did him in. Her nipples brushed against his chest through his shirt, and he had to taste them. To watch her move, naked, underneath him.
It was possible she’d come to her senses later and hate him for this. It was even possible he’d get fired for it. Unlikely, but possible.
It didn’t matter. Only a very stupid man would turn down what she was offering him, and he was not very stupid. Out of his head with lust, yeah, and maybe only moderately intelligent on a good day, but not altogether stupid.
He had enough brain cells left to unbutton a shirt.
As he sat up, still straddling her, she smiled her show-stopping smile and asked, “So you still take orders?”
“From you, apparently I do.” He leaned way out and fumbled with her bedside lamp until he found the switch. Light spilled over her hair, which spilled over her pillow. Gorgeous.
“Did they call you ‘Sarge,’ like on TV?”
That she knew his rank made him smile. She must have asked Carly. “They say it more like ‘Sar’nt.’”
“And if I order you to make it fast, and hard, and rough, Sergeant Clark . . . ?”
She slid her hands up underneath his shirttail to splay across his stomach. With a shudder, he closed his eyes and fought to tamp down his response. She was so provocative, so freaking hot, but there was an innocence to her, too. He wanted to f*ck her silly and shelter her at the same time.
Probably better pick one.
“Is that how you like it?” he asked, though he fully intended to find out for himself. He was going to figure out everything Ellen liked, and then he was going to do it to her as many times as possible. “You want me rough?”
Something flickered in her eyes then, so unexpected and gone so fast he nearly missed it. But he couldn’t miss it. He knew what fear looked like. He’d seen every variety of fear. Felt most of them, too.
“Hey,” he said, capturing her wrists underneath his shirt. He removed her hands and rolled off to one side, interlacing their fingers. “Hey, Ellen. Look at me.”
She didn’t seem to want to, but eventually she met his eyes. “You afraid of me?” he asked.
“No.” And she meant it, he could tell. But she was worried about something. She’d gone too quiet, too enclosed all of a sudden, where before she’d been brash and playful.
“I was just teasing, you know. I would never hurt you, or do anything you didn’t want me to do. Never.” He traced the outline of her face with one finger. “I promise.”
She nodded, accepting his statement. “I know that.”
“You want me to leave?” He didn’t know what else to say. In his mind, he was already walking out of the room, already trying to figure out what had gone wrong. Other than the obvious—that he was bigger and stronger than her, and damn near a stranger. Of course she was having second thoughts. He was an ass.
She shook her head and said, “I want you to take off that shirt.”
Not the answer he’d expected. And he couldn’t have kept the slow smile from spreading over his face if he’d tried.
He kissed her, softer this time. Testing the waters. “You’re sure?”
Her mouth opened, her tongue accepting his. They kissed for a long time, and whatever tension had gripped her let go. Their bodies nudged closer together, his thigh parting her legs and her hand finding his hip to tug him closer. He memorized the weight of her breast with his free hand, the way her breath caught when he thumbed her nipple.
“I’m sure,” she said against his lips.
He believed her.
Unbuttoning a shirt one-handed wasn’t easy, but he could take an M9 apart, clean it, and put it back together blindfolded. He had talented fingers—always had. And he didn’t want to let go of her hand yet.
He rolled onto his back, sat up, and shrugged out of the shirt, releasing her grip for a second so he could pull the sleeve off and toss the whole thing on the floor. When he looked over at her again, she was staring at his torso and breathing through her mouth, her eyes unfocused.
Maybe there had been a point to all those sit-ups and push-ups and ten-mile runs at five a.m. after all.
“Want me to take off anything else?”
She blinked. Shook her head sharply once as if to clear it. Blinked again. And smiled.
Something about that smile knocked him flat. This woman. He couldn’t wrap his head around it, but he felt it just the same. This woman was his. She was for him, in a way no other woman had ever been. She cut the legs out from under him.
He wanted her, and he was going to have her, and he was going to keep her.
“Take it all off, soldier.” Her smile turned sassy. “Make it snappy.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he answered, and kissed her again.