Darker the Release (19 page)

Whimpering softly, she fisted her hand in his hair, pulling on it in a way that must have hurt. “God, Caleb! I’ve missed this.”

He gave a hoarse chuckle and then a little buck against her throbbing pussy. “Yeah. Me too.”

But he responded to her unspoken plea, pushing her skirt even more until it was hiked up around her hips.

Instead of cupping her bottom, this time he cupped her groin with one hand.

He would easily feel how wet she was—her desire dampening the fabric of her panties.

“Fuck, baby,” he rasped, arching his back slightly as he applied pressure on her pulsing clit with the heel of his hand.

She gave a little sob of pleasure and rode his hand instinctively, bracing herself with her hands on his broad shoulders.

His fingers dipped under the fabric of her panties so that he could stroke her swollen pussy. “Fuck, you feel good. You’re so wet. Come here.” He gestured with his free hand and then pulled her face back down to kiss her.

Kelly responded to his deep kiss. One of her hands moved to his face, and she rubbed his jaw, loving how masculine, how real he felt beneath her palm.

They’d established a sensual rhythm between their bodies, Caleb giving gentle thrusts as she pushed her pelvis down toward his upward pressure. She was so into it that her pleasure built in urgency until she was just on the edge of coming.

When she started whimpering and huffing against his mouth and her body began to shake, Caleb tore his mouth away with a jerk. “Okay. We better move along. One or both of us is going to lose it pretty soon.”

With a shaking laugh, Kelly fumbled at the top button of his trousers, her hand brushing against the tight bulge of his arousal as she worked. “I could lose it without too much trouble. But I’d be kind of disappointed if you lost it too.”

“Yeah.” Caleb’s voice was dry despite the sexy tension on his face. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

She was about to unzip him when she suddenly remembered something. “Wait. We should use a condom.”

They’d stopped using them before, but it had been two weeks, and she had no way of knowing if he’d fucked anyone in the meantime.

His face twisted—from the effort to control himself, she thought. “Yeah. Do you have one? I think I probably—”

“I’ve got one.” She swung her leg over his lap and stood up, walking over to where she’d left her purse. She pulled out a condom packet and hurried back over to the couch with it.

She looked at him before she moved over him again.

He was a rumpled mess—tousled hair, half-open pants, wrinkled shirt, obvious erection. But the sight of him sent jolts of pleasure down to her pussy, along with a silly kind of pride that she was the one who’d made him look that way.

“Change your mind?” Caleb asked, gazing up at her hotly.

“No.” Frowning, she straddled his lap again. “Why would I have changed my mind?”

He shook his head and unfastened his pants. “I thought maybe after you had a minute to think, you’d decide this wasn’t what you wanted.”

“Shows what you know. Do you not want it anymore?”

“I feel like I’ve wanted you all my life.” His hands slid around the backs of her thighs until he could feel between her legs. “I just never knew it until now.”

With his pants unfastened, all Kelly had to do was pull out his cock. She stared down at his hard flesh in her hands, her fingers fair and small against him.

He sucked in a sharp breath as she gently stroked him with her fingertips. The sound sent a tug of pleasure down to her center. She brushed her palm against the head, mostly to hear him make another sound like that.

“Fuck!” he gasped, stiffening his spine and clamping his fingers down on her bare bottom.

She looked up with an expression of pleased surprise. “That good?”

“Oh, baby. You know it is.”

She felt intense and heavy and deeply aroused as he rolled on a condom, and then Kelly raised herself up on her knees above him, moved aside her panties, and tried to align herself on his cock.

He held himself in place as she lowered herself over him, sheathing his erection with her wet pussy.

She sucked in a breath and arched her back, her mouth falling open as she tried to adjust to the penetration. It had only been a couple of weeks, but he felt incredibly big inside her, her channel stretching around him tightly.

“That doesn’t look like a good face.” Caleb’s voice broke into her consciousness. He was tense beneath her and his hands were still hard on her ass. But his mouth was relaxed and his voice almost natural.

Catching her breath, Kelly felt herself adjusting around the penetration of his cock. The slight discomfort eased to a deliciously snug, clingy feeling. And she smiled down at his sharp scrutiny. “Oh, no. It’s definitely good.”

He released a long breath that sounded like relief. “That’s good. Because it’s sure as hell good for me.” He gave a little thrust up—causing a jolt of pleasure to shoot through her.

He seemed a little different than he had before—not quite so in control, not quite so inhumanly powerful. She couldn’t help but notice the difference, and it somehow turned her on even more. She leaned down into another kiss.

Caleb returned her kiss with skill and leisurely attention—stroking her lips, her tongue, and the inside of her mouth with his tongue. With her arms twined around his neck, Kelly couldn’t suppress the silly whimpers and groans in the back of her throat. It felt good and her guard was down. Her vocal responses were inevitable.

Caleb’s hands tightened on the flesh of her ass, and his grip began to urge her into motion. He guided her hips in a steady rhythm, which she sustained by levering up and down with her thighs.

The motion caused his cock to slide deliciously inside her, the stimulation exactly what she needed. An orgasm gathered at her center, the pressure deep and powerful and real.

Caleb was breathing harshly through his nose as he kissed her, and as her motion intensified he began to make soft, guttural grunts that sounded both primitive and sexy as hell. His response encouraged her to accelerate her movement over him—wanting to hear more of those grunts.

Her motion forced her mouth away from Caleb’s, but she kept her face near his. She was panting now too, and the mingled texture of their fast breathing formed a connection, a sharing that made her feel even closer to him. He moved a hand up to curve around the back of her head, his fingers sliding through her loose hair.

For some reason she loved the way his strong hand felt in her hair, against her skull. Then he pressed her face toward him, so forcefully she couldn’t resist, until he was kissing her again. She squirmed above him, feeling his cock—hard and substantial—move inside her. She was still wet. In fact, she was wetter now than ever, the moisture leaking out around his erection so that she could feel it on her inner thighs. “God, you feel good,” she murmured against his lips.

She didn’t just mean his cock. She meant all of him. She loved how his body felt against hers.

Caleb let out a lingering groan as she began to ride him again—this time hard and fast. His hands had been spanning her rib cage but now they moved up slightly until he could rub her nipples with his thumbs through her shirt. Her breasts were bouncing up and down, and that combined with his caress to intensify her building orgasm. “You feel incredible,” Caleb murmured as he devoured her shaking form with warm brown eyes. “Fuck, blossom, there has never been anyone like you.”

The words soothed something broken in her heart and sent her spiraling faster toward climax.

The compulsion was becoming urgent now, so she braced herself more securely with her hands on his shoulders. Then she rode him as fast as she could—her rhythm primitive and needy. She huffed out grunts of effort and pleasure.

“Fuck, yeah,” Caleb rasped, his pelvis bucking up against hers. “Oh, yeah.”

Her whole body was jiggling—her hair, her breasts, her clit, the flesh of her ass and her thighs. And the indirect stimulation mingled with the thrusting of his cock to push her at last into orgasm.

She came on a broken cry, her head tilting back and her mouth falling open. Her body shook and spasmed over him as waves of pleasure radiated out with the clenching of her pussy around his cock.

He came too, just a few seconds after her. He swallowed over a few incoherent words as his body froze with coiled tension before it all released in clumsy jerks and hoarse groans.

She fell against him as the contractions started to fade, her pussy having tightened around his cock so dramatically she could feel every tiny move he made. Resting her head on his shoulder, she gasped against his shirt, comforted as his arms went around her all the way, holding her against him.

Caleb panted into her hair as he stroked her back and bottom. His body felt more relaxed now—his muscles softening in a way that thrilled her. She loved that she was the one who’d caused the transformation of his body.

“That was good,” she said at last.

“Yeah. No question.”

He sounded sated but different somehow, like he’d come to some sort of conclusion.

She pulled back and swung her leg over his lap, sliding off him as he helped her move. Her clinging pussy released him with a sound of wet suction.

Kelly curled up in a ball and hugged her knees to her chest. She felt empty and overly sensitive, but her body was relaxed. She squeezed her thighs, feeling anxious and confused and hopeful all at once.

Caleb startled her when he finally spoke. “You regretting it?”

She gasped and jerked her head toward him. “No. I’m not. Are you?”

He shook his head and zipped up his pants. “I don’t know.”

“What don’t you know?”

He stood up. “If this was a good idea or not.”

“We both knew what it was. We both agreed it wasn’t a sappy reunion. If you’re afraid I’m going to throw myself at your feet and beg you for a wedding ring, then don’t be.” She managed to sound controlled, but she was feeling sad and kind of sick.

It had felt so good—so right—when she’d been making love to Caleb just now. Even better than it had felt before. Like it was real. Like they knew each other all the way down to the core.

She wanted to be with someone like that. She wanted to be with
Caleb
like that.

But he didn’t seem to want to be with her that way too.

And it hurt. It just hurt.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” He sighed and rubbed his jaw with his hands.

She thought of something and decided she might as well say it. “I reread
Hamlet
last week.”

He looked surprised and arched his eyebrows. “Did you?”

“Yeah. And I realized I’d always been interpreting it wrong.” He didn’t answer, but she saw he was listening, so she continued. “Shakespeare wasn’t writing a Greek tragedy, where fate or the gods determine the course of a man’s life. Hamlet was lying to himself when he said so. Shakespeare seemed to be going out of his way to show that the final outcome could have been different—could have been so much better—if any of the characters at any given moment had made a different choice.”

Caleb’s eyes had narrowed as he thought through what she’d said. “So that’s your answer? Just choose to make all of what happened go away?”

She sighed, feeling suddenly heavy and exhausted. “No. That’s not really what I meant. Just that there’s always more than one choice.”

It evidently didn’t matter what she meant, since Caleb seemed to have already made his choice.

He said at last, “I guess it’s better to end it like this than like before.”

“Yeah.” She nodded, since his decision was now clear and she was going to respect it. But as she stood up and smoothed down her skirt, she couldn’t help but add, “Are you sure it has to end? I’m not saying we should plan a honeymoon, but…isn’t there something in between?”

Caleb stared at her a long time. “Not for us. I don’t think so.”

“But it seemed like…” She shook her head, wondering why she was even pressing it. It was clear that he didn’t want to make an effort toward a relationship, and she should just accept it and leave him alone. “It seemed like you wanted something more. It seemed like trying for something more than casual sex…made you happier.”

“It was a lie that made me happy. It wasn’t you.”

And that hurt so much she sucked in a sharp breath and stared down at the floor. He was being honest with her. Maybe he’d intended it to hurt, but he wasn’t saying it only to hurt her.

“I don’t think it was the lie that made you happy. I think the lie only made it safe for you to take the chance. I think it was the relationship that made you happy.” Her heart was racing and it felt like the blood had drained out of her face, but she made herself say all of it. All of what she’d been thinking through for the last two weeks. “I think being that man made you happy. The man who was you—but also a little better than the you you’d been before. Just like I was happier being the me that I never thought I could be. The me who is…” She cleared her throat as her voice cracked. “The me who is better with you.”

Something in the words must have affected Caleb because he gave the slightest wince. But he got control of it almost immediately and shook his head again. “What a lovely little fairy tale it’s turned out to be, then.” There was a bitterness in his voice now that she didn’t like, that hadn’t been there before. “I guess all the lies and betrayal have been for the best, then,” he continued, “since the ending is so sweet and romantic.”

“Nothing can excuse what I did,” Kelly said softly after a moment of processing his irony. “But I do think we’re better off now.”

Caleb stared at her, evidently speechless at what she’d just said.

Kelly felt the same way. Had to make herself think back over the words she’d just spoken. Wondered where they’d come from, after the life she’d led, after everything she’d done.

Then she suddenly realized something.

It was true. What she’d just said was true. It was a real revelation, the kind she’d rarely experienced before. The knowledge had come down on her like a gift or a benediction.

A final, poignant benediction to the last seventeen years of her life.