Darker the Release (8 page)

And that somehow, at some point, it had become something she genuinely wanted.

When he raised his head, she grabbed for his shoulder and gasped, “Oh, God, Caleb, I need you inside me now.”

They fumbled at his clothes until together they’d freed his cock, and then he was positioning himself at her entrance. “Now, Caleb, now,” Kelly murmured raggedly, squirming desperately against the bed and trying to hook her legs around his body “Caleb, please,” she added, her voice almost begging him.

“Oh, baby,” he murmured. “I’ll give you anything you want.”

Kelly felt her eyes burning at the words, at how much he seemed to mean them, and she bucked her hips slightly when she felt his erection nudging at her. She was soaking wet, and it felt like every nerve in her body was firing, sending out random stimulation every time she moved, all jolting down to the swelling ache beneath her belly.

When he slid himself halfway in, Kelly exhaled in relief, the hard substance of his cock satisfying the initial urgency of her need.

Looking back up at his intense face, she discovered that Caleb was studying her expression closely. At first, his scrutiny terrified her—since she thought for a moment he’d figured her out. Figured out all of her lies and all of her secrets and all of her weakness in wanting him so much, no matter what might be true about him.

But then she realized what he was looking for.

He didn’t want this to be like last night.

“It’s good,” she breathed, telling him the absolute truth. “So good.”

He slid the rest of the way inside her, bringing his other arm up until he was resting his upper body on his elbows and forearms. In this position he could tangle his hands in her sprawled hair and cup the back of her head.

Kelly bent her knees up around his hips and then wrapped her legs around him all the way, wanting him as close as she could get him.

Hooking her ankles around his back, she reached her arms down to stroke his strong thighs, which he’d just readjusted to give himself better leverage.

With their shift of position, he sank deeper inside her, and Kelly heard Caleb stifle a grunt in response.

Then he straightened his arms, rearing up enough to give himself more room to thrust.

The tight, full sensation of his cock inside her was becoming agonizing since he hadn’t yet moved it. Pumping her hips beneath his weight even more, Kelly did her best to sustain some kind of motion. She needed them to move. She needed him to make love to her.

Caleb’s face twisted briefly at her attempts to ride him from below. Then, with a rough groan, he eased his pelvis back. Thrust into her in a smooth, clean stroke.

Kelly’s mouth fell open in pleasure, and her fingers tightened on his thighs. “Yes,” she hissed again. “Caleb!”

With a jerk of his head, Caleb pulled back and stroked in again. This time she met his thrust with her hips.

He was deep, but the depth felt good, felt urgent, felt needed. As he kept thrusting into her, she kept bucking up with his rhythm. And she was so wet and aroused that after only a couple of minutes she could feel an orgasm mounting inside her.

“Oh, God,” she gasped, tossing her head and trying not to stare at Caleb’s face above her—his hot eyes, tense jaw, and uncharacteristically unguarded expression.

He loved her. He loved her. And he wanted her for who she really was—not just her body, not just the person she was pretending to be.

She could feel the erotic sensations coalescing, rising, intensifying into a cresting wave.

The friction of his cock as it drove into her rhythmically was lush and overwhelming—deeper and slower than when he’d been massaging her clit. And the primitive motion of their coupling was shaking the bed, causing Kelly’s body to bounce gently, stimulating all of the other parts of her.

She knew she was going to come. Knew it was going to be powerful.

“Oh, God,” she mumbled again, starting to pant and tense up as she felt herself getting closer. Her hands were still clutching at Caleb’s thighs, and something about the feel of his tightening, working muscles beneath her hands felt so intimate that she couldn’t let go.

Caleb was huffing out textured sounds that were halfway between grunts and pants, and his eyes were the hungriest things she’d ever seen.

With a look of concentrated effort, he bent his elbows to lower himself again, his mouth finding hers in a clumsy, urgent kiss.

Kelly’s lips were opened. Her tongue in his mouth. And it felt like he was swallowing her whole as her hips built up their rhythm, frantically seeking her release.

Whimpering into his mouth, she felt her fingernails clawing at his thighs, digging into his skin so hard she knew they’d leave marks. Her legs were getting stiff, and her feet were becoming a little numb as her heels dug into his lower back.

But the only thing she cared about was the climax her body desperately needed and the closeness she could feel to Caleb right now.

Finally the urgency of their motion broke the kiss, but it felt like it was continuing as they gazed at each other through every thrust.

When Kelly opened her mouth, a helpless mewling sound came out instead of any words. She was so close. And the building pressure had become as torturous as it was pleasurable.

Caleb reared up again on straightened arms. Drove into her with choppy, primal strokes. “Kelly,” he muttered thickly.

Almost sobbing in need and frustration, Kelly jerked frantically beneath him. “I love you, Caleb,” she gasped, speaking the truth.

“Yes,” Caleb grunted, a sheen of sweat visible on his face. “Come, Kelly. Come.”

Her last word was almost a scream. “Caleb!”

Then her body arched back like a bow. Froze for one more excruciating moment.

Then she was coming. In deep, intense spasms that almost ripped her apart. Her body convulsed helplessly as the waves of pleasure pulsed through her, and she couldn’t help but release a sound that was almost a howl of exquisite relief.

“Fuck,” Caleb ground out, jerking his hips into the ruthless clasp of her inner muscles. “Oh, fuck, Kelly!”

“Yeah,” she was gasping. Had no idea why or how. “Yeah, yeah.” The lingering ripples from her orgasm were delicious, and she kept squirming her hips into his thrusts to ride them out.

With a final spasmodic jerk of his pelvis, Caleb came too, with a muted roar, his face contorting with pleasure before it was washed with a transforming look of satisfaction.

Kelly’s body was so sensitive and precisely attuned that she was sure she could feel each contraction as Caleb released himself in rhythmic pulses of his cock.

Then he collapsed on her, his elbows buckling and his upper body falling down.

She grunted at the sudden weight but managed to move her arms up until she was holding on to his shoulders. Her body was becoming wonderfully relaxed, and she loved the feeling of having a hot, sweaty, gasping man on top of her.

His head had fallen down into the crook between her head and shoulder, and he was pressing kisses against her skin.

She loved that too. She loved everything about the way they’d just been together.

And she desperately prayed he was someone she was allowed to love.

If Caleb was innocent, then all of her lies would eventually come to light, and it would be too much to ever get over. She couldn’t imagine Caleb wanting to stay with her once he found out the truth, but at least she would know that it wasn’t the ultimate betrayal of her father to love him.

If he was guilty…

She couldn’t bear to even think about that, even though she consciously knew it was a possibility. If he was guilty, she and her mother would seek justice—if not in the legal system, then at least through the press, exposing what he had done to the world. Maybe there would be closure in that, but it would also mean that she had betrayed everything she’d ever believed in by letting herself fall for him.

That knowledge was enough to allow her to find the coordination to poke him in the side. “Caleb. You’re getting a little heavy.”

With another lingering groan, he managed to pull himself up.

She felt raw and empty between her legs, so she rubbed her thighs together and curled herself up, but he stretched her out again as he pulled her against him, spooning her from behind.

He didn’t say anything, but it felt like he was waiting for something. So she followed her instinct.

She looked at him over her shoulder and admitted, “I want so much more than your body too.”

Kelly’s hot cheek was pressed down against a flattened pillow, and her bottom was high in the air.

Her naked body shook from the intensity of her pleasure and from the force of Caleb’s thrusting behind her. His cock was buried in her deeply, and his pelvis pistoned against her ass with increasing urgency.

“Oh, God!” she cried, trying desperately to keep her voice down as consecutive waves of heat and cold slammed into her. “Oh, God, Caleb!”

“You gonna come, baby?” He’d spent a long time on foreplay before positioning her body so he could fuck her hard from behind. She thought he was pretty far gone.

But not as far gone as she was.

“Yeah, yeah, gonna come!” Her hands fisted in the sheet as she squirmed her hips desperately against Caleb’s fast thrusts.

A scream was lodged tightly in her throat, but she held it back—out of instinct, if nothing else.

When the crash of her orgasm hit, she turned her head so she could bury her face in the pillow. Unable to suppress her scream of pleasure and relief, she let it out, muffled by the pillow. Her body convulsed awkwardly in her undignified position, but that only intensified the sensations.

Breathless and weak from her climax, she turned her head to the side as she finally came down. Panting wetly against the pillow, she let her body relax. She was still supported on her folded knees, her bottom in the air and her chest and shoulders against the mattress. Caleb held fistfuls of her ass, and his cock was still deep inside her clinging channel. But he wasn’t thrusting at the moment.

“That sounded like a good one,” he said, his voice hoarse but controlled. With one hand, he released her and reached down to stroke her damp hair away from her heated face.

The caress felt good and Kelly sighed in pleasure. “It was. Amazing. I wasn’t too loud, was I?”

“No. Just loud enough.”

She snorted. “Why do I suspect you’re getting a caveman thrill out of the doggie style?”

Caleb chuckled briefly, his palm stroking with luscious pressure down the length of her spine. “Why do I suspect you are too?”

She was. She was sopping wet, her moisture leaking out around his cock and trickling down her inner thighs. Her walls still clung to his hard length, occasionally clenching with a lingering contraction. “Not me. This position was your idea.”

With another soft laugh, Caleb started to rock his hips against her bottom, moving his cock very slightly. Then he reached around her body and stroked her open, his fingers finally pressing into her clit.

He rubbed her swollen flesh with firm pressure as his hips established a new rhythm.

“Oh, God!” she cried sharply, too loudly, as an unexpected force of pressure surged through her.

“Yes,” Caleb hissed, rhythmically pleasuring her with his hand and his cock. “Good, baby.”

She was already shaking again as a second climax swelled up thick and fast. “Oh, oh, Caleb!” Since her voice was becoming shrill, she started to hide her face in the pillow.

“No,” he rasped. “Let me see.”

She didn’t argue, feeling another thrill of power and pleasure at his desire to watch her come. But, still conscious of there being other people in the house, she bit her lip hard to keep from screaming.

“Fuck, Kelly. You’re so good, so good. Come for me, baby.”

She came hard, trapped between the sensations from his cock and his massage of her clit. She sobbed and wheezed through the pleasure as her hips rode out the contractions. And when he kept thrusting and rubbing her clit, she came again, crying out his name.

She was nearly drained from her climaxes, and her body was deliciously limp with sensuous satisfaction. So she didn’t resist as Caleb pulled out, his cock still hard, and gently turned her over onto her back.

She was so wet that his slide back inside her pussy caused a sloppy sound of suction. She arched up, moaning at the penetration against her tight, sensitive inner walls.

“Caleb,” she breathed, wrapping her arms around him as he lowered his upper body close to hers. “Caleb.”

He met her eyes deeply and kissed her hard. As the kiss progressed, his pelvis began to rock against hers again.

She wrapped her legs around his waist and felt an ache in her chest as he paused to position them even higher. She loved how intensely he wanted to feel her, how close he wanted to be, how deep he wanted to get.

In the last week, ever since he’d admitted that he loved her, she’d had no choice but to see how much Caleb had meant the words. How much he needed her.

“Is this all right, baby?” he asked thickly, his face pressed against the crook of her neck.

“Yeah, it’s good. Caleb, it’s so good.”

As he began to fuck her with more urgency, he lifted his face to look down at hers. “Can you come again?”

Her head tossed as the sensations overwhelmed her from his cock working in her overly sensitized pussy. “Don’t know. But don’t stop. Caleb, don’t stop!”

He didn’t. And she watched through half-closed eyes as he let himself go, unleashing his control and taking primal pleasure in her body.

She came again as he did and they both muffled their cries of climax in an urgent, clumsy kiss.

He collapsed on top of her, both of them utterly wiped out. They clung to each other until Caleb’s body started to feel too heavy and Kelly became uncomfortably aware of how wet the sheet was beneath her from the mingling of their fluids.

“Caleb,” she croaked, her voice barely working.

With a groan, he rolled them over on their sides, obviously unwilling yet to end the embrace. She lay in his arms for a few more minutes, their hot, damp skin sticking together.

He’d pulled her into his arms as soon as she’d gotten to his house at around six, and then he’d started to kiss her urgently, without any more of a greeting. She’d responded immediately, and they’d ended up in the bedroom.

Now it was almost time for them to go out to dinner with his friend Wes, and Kelly could hardly move.

She was exhausted and sore and emotionally drained, and she didn’t want to have dinner with Wes. She didn’t want to deal with his possible suspicions of her.

All she wanted to do was lie with Caleb like this.

But it would look far more suspicious if she didn’t go, so she didn’t really have a choice.

“We need to get going soon,” she said at last, her voice hoarse and tired.

He made a little groan and released his arms, which had been holding her tightly. “Maybe we could cancel.”

She felt a little jump of relief. “Sounds good to me.”

She felt his body release a long breath. “We can’t. Wes is going back to Paris tomorrow.”

Her heart dropped back to the normal position. She should have known it was too much to hope for. But she just had to make it through this one dinner, and then she’d be rid of Wes for good. “Yeah. Then we better get ready, or we’ll be late.”

She didn’t immediately make a move to get going, though. She didn’t really care if they were late.

“Is there some reason you don’t like Wes?” Caleb asked forty minutes later, as his chauffeured car drove them into the city to the restaurant where they were meeting Wes and his date.

She kept her eyes wide and innocent. “What do you mean?” She had a sinking feeling, though, like she’d made a strategic mistake.

“You tell me. Is there some reason you don’t like Wes?” His dark eyes scanned her face closely, in a way that threatened to expose her completely.

“Of course not. I barely know him. I’m just tired this evening—after our round of sex before we left—so I don’t want to stay too late. I didn’t mean we have to cut it short.”

“What did he say to you last weekend at the party?”

She stifled a groan, realizing that she’d messed up with her casual suggestion that they not stay very long at dinner tonight. “I told you before—he didn’t say anything. Just that it was nice to meet me.”

“It looked like he was saying more than that.”

“Well, he wasn’t. Ask him yourself, if you don’t believe me.”

“I did ask him.”

Her breath hitched in her throat. “And what did he say?”

“That he said it was nice to meet you.”

“So why are you all obsessed about it, then?”

Caleb sighed and leaned his head back against the seat of the car, looking suddenly tired. “I don’t know. I just thought I picked up a vibe. And he’s been asking about you a lot.”

“What do you mean he’s been asking about me?” She let herself sound a little defensive, since that was how anyone would have felt.

“About your background. About how we met. It’s…it’s strange.”

Kelly knew exactly why Wes had been asking about her. He was definitely suspicious, and it made her even more nervous about dinner this evening. But she wasn’t sure how to handle it. If she sounded too defensive, then it might make Caleb suspicious too, and that was something she couldn’t allow.

She scooted a little closer to him and lifted a hand to stroke his face. She told herself it was because physical touch might distract him, but it wasn’t really. Mostly just she just wanted to touch him. Be close to him. Assure herself that, for the moment, they were safe. “Maybe he has a secret thing for you. Are you sure he’s straight?”

Caleb gave a huff of amusement. “Yes, he’s straight.”

Pleased that his focus had shifted, she smiled up at him teasingly. “Well, he seems to have quite an interest in your love life.”

“I don’t really know what that’s about. But his mom is really sick, you know. I guess maybe he’s using it as a distraction.”

Kelly saw his expression sober at the thought of Wes’s mother, and she didn’t pursue the teasing. It was hard to work through the fact that the man was set against her somehow, and yet it was hard to hate him completely because he was about to lose a parent—something she knew very well. “I’m sorry about his mom.”

Caleb wrapped an arm around her. “Yeah. I’m not sure being older really makes it easier.”

“I can’t imagine that it does.”

They didn’t say much else until they reached the restaurant. When they arrived, they discovered that Wes and his date—a pretty redhead named Micaela—were already at the table.

Dinner wasn’t as bad as Kelly had been fearing.

Discussion was mostly light—about old school friends of Wes and Caleb, about their jobs, about the play that Micaela was going to be acting in at a community theater, about Paris. Wes seemed friendly enough with her, and Micaela was very nice.

As they were eating dessert, Kelly finally relaxed, convinced she was going to make it through the evening without any sort of catastrophe.

She glanced over at Caleb and saw he was watching her with a smile in his eyes, like he was thinking soft, fond thoughts about her.

Ridiculously, the expression made her blush, but she gave him a laughing, ironic look in response.

His smile broadened, and they just gazed at each other, sharing a moment that didn’t need any words.

“I never thought I’d see it,” Wes said, interrupting their look.

Caleb gave his friend a cool glance, but Kelly thought he looked a little self-conscious. “The list of things you’ve never thought of could fill a freight train.”

“That’s probably true. But it makes me wonder about all the things that you don’t know.” Wes shifted his eyes over to Kelly with a speculative expression that made her gut clench.

It was some sort of hint. To her. That he suspected she was hiding things from Caleb.

It didn’t matter that he was returning to Paris tomorrow. This man was still a danger to her.

She managed to give him an innocent smile. “Well, one thing Caleb doesn’t know is how to send a girl flowers.”

“Hey,” Caleb said, giving her a mock offended look. Micaela laughed, and even Wes relaxed into a smile. “I never knew you wanted any.”

“I don’t. I’m just saying it wouldn’t kill you to be more romantic.” She made sure her expression conveyed that she was just teasing and not really complaining. If she’d been in a real relationship with Caleb, she wouldn’t have wanted flowers. She wouldn’t have needed anything more than he’d given her.

A girl who couldn’t tell that his feelings for her were real must be blind.

Micaela giggled and gave Wes a little punch on the arm. “I think romance is a lost art. The most we can hope for is that they silence their phones.”

“I’ll always silence my phone for you,” Wes told his date in mock adoration. “But I’d never send you flowers. Flowers are for hospitals.”

For some reason, the thought evidently made him think of something because his eyes shifted over to Caleb.

Caleb met his gaze without flinching, without revealing anything.

Then he turned to look at Kelly. “I’ll give you all the flowers you want.”

He probably would. She’d probably get some tomorrow, when all she’d wanted to do was change the subject from what was dangerous.

She couldn’t help but be touched by the sincerity she saw in Caleb’s eyes. She’d managed the tricky moment just fine, but it didn’t mean everything was okay. The longer she stretched this out, the more time she was giving Wes to uncover something about her.

She needed to hurry this up, to find out the truth before it was too late. Staring at a last uneaten bite of her cheesecake, she was overwhelmed with a kind of panic.

Maybe it wasn’t rational. Maybe she wasn’t really in more danger now than she’d been before.

But she had the sudden, irresistible urge to get this finished. Now.

She excused herself to go to the bathroom, and while she was in the stall, she texted a message to Jack.
Any plans made yet?

After a minute there was a reply.
One more week. Sit tight.

She didn’t want to sit tight. Things felt like they could come unraveled at any moment.

She needed to do something now. As soon as possible. She needed to get into those corporate records and get the personnel files they needed.

Another week might be too long, and she just couldn’t take that risk.

She and Caleb were both quiet as they rode home in the back of the car.

She felt nervous and exhausted both, and she was still a little sore between the legs from the way he’d fucked her before dinner.