Authors: Claire Kent
It might break him more than he was already broken, but he was going to have the truth anyway.
Kelly almost told him the truth. The whole truth. Everything.
She almost stood there in the bedroom and blurted it all out.
She’d never been so out of control in her life, enraged in a way she’d never experienced before. It was so unexpected, so out of the blue, and Caleb seemed so unrestrained—nothing but passion and fierce feeling. She couldn’t play her part. She couldn’t make up a convincing story or tell a believable lie.
She didn’t even want to. She wanted to be real—as real as she could sense Caleb himself was being right now.
But she’d come too far to throw away everything for no good reason, and a tiny thread of sanity held back the deepest part of the truth.
So her answer was true. Absolutely true. But modified slightly from what had originally started to come out.
“To be different,” she burst out. “To be better. And I know you never will be.”
She tried to pull away from him, her heart too exposed even by the altered response, but he wouldn’t let her. His grasp was no longer painful, but it was unbreakable.
So she gave up, slumping against his chest, feeling completely exhausted, completely defeated. She whispered, “I can’t fall for you, Caleb. I just can’t.”
His grip on her arms loosened, and he wrapped his arms around her. He was hard—so hard against her—and shuddering with a tension that felt more emotional than physical.
He was aroused. She could feel it against her. But he was more than that. The tension was also emotion.
Emotion
. Which she’d never felt in him like this before.
“Why can’t you fall for me, Kelly?” he asked, very softly, holding her so tightly she momentarily couldn’t breathe. “What’s so horrifying about that?”
And that was the pivotal question, the pivotal moment. If she ever wanted to continue her plan, or even get out of this room, she would need to give him a believable answer.
Her mind was blank, though. She couldn’t think of anything. She could only feel the protective fervor of his embrace, the vulnerability in his voice that she felt sure no one else had ever heard. She could only feel a pulsing of desire—both physical and more than that—as her body reflected back his own urgent arousal. As if, even in body, they’d always been two pieces of one whole.
She was about to give it up. Give everything up because it was so much easier than trying to hold her crumbling world together.
But she could still see her father’s body, blood soaking into the dirt with the brain matter and bone fragments and hair.
He had been killed—unjustly, without reason—and it couldn’t be for nothing. If she didn’t see this through, then maybe she hadn’t really loved him at all.
She heard herself saying, “Because I can’t fall for a guy like you again.”
She hadn’t planned the words out—they’d just come to her in some sort of flash of inspiration—but they were absolutely perfect. They answered everything.
She could feel the understanding as it eased through Caleb’s body, relaxing some of the unbearable tension. “Kelly.”
Burying her face in his shirt, she mumbled, “I can’t do it again.”
After a moment, he seemed to have controlled whatever he was feeling, and he loosened his arms slightly and lifted her head so he could see her face. “I’m not like him, Kelly. I’m not like that bastard.”
The bastard might be fictional, but everything about this conversation was real. Because Caleb
was
like him—at least in some ways. He could be a dangerous, ruthless bastard too.
“I know,” she said hoarsely, trying to pull herself together. “I know you’re not.”
“But you really think I am. You think I’m that kind of a monster.” It sounded like the idea really bothered him.
“Are you saying you didn’t ask your security to report on my activities? Are you saying you don’t try to control everyone around you? Are you saying you haven’t crossed lines, taken certain shortcuts, even when it meant hurting other people? Are you saying you didn’t extort some poor father by threatening his daughter’s scholarship, just to get a signature on a contract? Are you saying you haven’t done other things you can never admit to, that you hide away in the dark?” Her words got more and more passionate as the questions got increasingly closer to the deepest truth.
Caleb’s face twisted. “Yes. I’ve done all of those things. I’m not a good man. You must have known that from the beginning. But I’m not like him. I’m not. There’s more in me than that. I can change the things you need me to change.” He reached to take her head in both of his hands, holding it like it was precious. “I’m not like him, Kelly, blossom. I promise I’m not. I want to be with you for real. I want to be with you completely. I’m falling for you too.”
Her heart came alive at the words. She wanted so much to hear them said. She swayed toward him.
He leaned down, like he would kiss her, his face full of feeling and passion and a genuine need she’d never seen there before.
But then he pulled back, a question reflected in his eyes. “So, who was the guy you met this afternoon, and why were you sneaking around to meet him?”
This was Caleb Marshall, and even if he had real feelings, he would never be anyone’s fool.
She cleared her throat and stepped back, wiping a stray tear from her eyes. “He’s a private investigator.”
She didn’t have much time to think it through, but it would be better to tell him the truth. If he somehow found out Jack’s identity on his own, she didn’t want to be caught in such a little lie.
“Why are you working with an investigator?”
“He was helping me with—with my problem.”
Caleb’s face relaxed.
“Did he have any information for you?”
“Not enough to act on.”
“If you wanted a professional investigator, then why didn’t you just ask me? I could have—”
For some reason, his characteristic tone—intelligent, impatient, slightly arrogant—made her so mad her teeth almost snapped. She forgot about strategy and interrupted, “It doesn’t matter what you could have done. This is my thing, and I was dealing with it on my own.”
He frowned in surprise and annoyance. “I don’t care if it’s your thing. You know perfectly well why I want to help, and it’s just silly not to let me—”
“I don’t care if it’s silly or not. If I want your help, I’ll ask for it.”
“Okay then,” he said in a cool, clipped tone. “So why did you have to sneak off to meet with the guy.”
“Because I know how you are. Because I knew you’d do exactly this.”
“Do what exactly?” He was walking toward her as she was backing away, until her back connected to the wall next to the dresser.
“Do this! Be all Caleb Marshall, the boss of everyone. Act like you deserve answers. I don’t care if there are some feelings between us. We’re not in a committed relationship here, and I don’t owe you anything.”
He was angry again now—but coolly so, totally in control. His eyes narrowed as he leaned into her. “What you do or don’t owe me is irrelevant. You’ve got to be crazy if you think I’m just going to let you walk out of here, especially if you’re in danger.”
“Well, you’re going to have to. Because I’m not willing to surrender everything to you yet.”
He leaned even closer, his eyes hot and cool at the same time, utterly mesmerizing. “What if I want you to surrender everything to me?”
“Then you can deal with disappointment.” This argument felt every bit as real as the previous one, even though they were both now more controlled than they’d been before. She was flashing with very real anger as she said, “I’m tired of it. I don’t want to surrender anything more to you.”
His eyes seemed to see all the way into her soul, far deeper than he could ever be allowed. He leaned into her. “I’m not sure that’s true.”
“What?” She was trembling again, for a different reason now.
“I think you want to surrender more to me. You’re just scared.”
She opened her mouth to argue, but the words stuck in her throat. Because he was right. He was brutally right.
“That’s what I thought,” he murmured thickly, stroking her hot cheek with his knuckles. “Tell me the truth.”
“I’m not going to tell you the truth.” But her defenses were already weakened.
He leaned down even more to claim her mouth, starting gently, as gently as his voice, but soon growing deep and urgent when she softened against him and wrapped her arms around his neck.
She couldn’t help it. She wanted him—all of him—so much.
Caleb tore his mouth away—stared at her hotly, tenderly. “I want all of you, Kelly, blossom. I want you to surrender it all.”
“I—can’t.”
His hand fisted in her loose hair. “Yes, you can. I won’t let you down.” He caught her mouth again, stroking and dipping deeply, claiming all of her.
Kelly sucked in air through her nose and tried to think, telling herself she needed to pull away now or she would completely betray herself. But she couldn’t. Erotic sensations shot down from the kiss as Caleb took her upper lip between his teeth—tugging, nibbling, caressing it with his tongue.
She whimpered against his lips.
As she tried to suck his tongue into her mouth, her hands fumbled up to his head, and she tangled her fingers into his thick hair. She felt his hard, urgent body pushing against hers, felt his hardening arousal against her middle.
He pulled away from her lips, just far enough to speak. “This is what you want, isn’t it?” His face was damp and sincere and as handsome as any man’s she’d ever seen.
“Yes,” she gasped, her body straining toward his, her heart straining toward his too. “I want it. I want you.”
“I want you too. You know how much. Why do you keep holding back?”
He grabbed her in his arms and tilted her backward a little, pressing a few kisses into her lips, and then mouthing his way down her neck. He settled on a spot just above her neckline. Sucked on it until she gasped.
It wasn’t just her body responding. Her heart wanted it too. It
wanted
him.
Then, as if prompted by her private thought, he gathered her up in his arms and carried her over to the bed. He laid her down and moved over her, his eyes searching her face. “Don’t hold back anymore,” he said. “Just tell me the truth.”
Kelly bit her lip as he lowered his face to her neck, terrified of what she might say if she were to let go as she wanted.
He reached her breast and teased the nipple through the fabric of her top. “Tell me, Kelly.”
“God,” she gasped, pressing her chest up toward his mouth, so overwhelmed with sensation and emotion she couldn’t lie still. “I want you so much.”
He gently pulled her top up over her head, and she raised her body to let him. “What else do you want?”
He was cupping her breasts, fondling her nipples with both thumbs, and she couldn’t seem to look away from his face. She forced her eyes to close, trying to hold on to who she was, who she’d always been, what she’d always believed about the world.
“Stop holding back,” he murmured, his voice like rough velvet against her heart. “Surrender, Kelly. I want you to surrender it all. What else do you want?”
She suddenly realized she was clutching his shoulders, gripping the strong, warm substance of who he was. “I want more,” she admitted, unable not to say it. “I want all of you.”
He made a low sound in his throat and moved down to kiss her breasts again, taking off her bra as he did. “Yes,” he murmured over her skin. “Say it again.”
He was all hot tension—something far deeper than lust. He felt real to her and needy and fully, completely
here
with her.
The bitterest kind of irony. That Caleb was trying to be human for the first time in years—with the woman who was supposed to destroy him.
She couldn’t think through that reality, though. All she could do was feel. “I want all of you,” she gasped, letting her heels drop to the floor as the ripples of pleasure spiraled out from his touch.
He released another low groan and slowly slid her skirt down over her hips and legs, until she was naked except for her underwear. His gaze devoured her, and she wanted it. She wanted the hot possession in his gaze, the awe, the tenderness—all mingled together in the way he looked at her now. “You don’t have to be afraid,” he murmured. “You can surrender it all to me.”
She couldn’t. And yet she couldn’t help it. She tangled her fingers in his hair as he kissed his way down her belly.
Adjusting his body lower on the bed, Caleb spread her legs open a little bit. “All of it,” he said again. He lifted one of her legs and started trailing kisses down the sensitive inside of one of her calves.
Making a choked sound, Kelly suddenly realized what he wanted to do. “Caleb?” Her heart started to pound erratically, even as her pussy tightened in excitement.
His eyes were focused on her face, as his head descended toward her thighs. When his mouth had passed her knees, the fear intensified, what it would mean if she let him follow through with the promise on his face. “Caleb, I don’t know.”
He raised his head to meet her eyes. “You can trust me, blossom. You can surrender. I’m not going to let you down. Let me prove it to you.”
She didn’t want him to prove it. She was so afraid of what would happen once he had. But she also desperately needed what he was offering her. And the impossible clash between the two feelings seemed to embody the whole of who she was.
“I’m more than the man you think I am,” Caleb said after a moment. “Let me show you.”
He wasn’t touching her now, wasn’t seducing her into changing her mind. If he had been, she could have resisted—in heart, if not in body. He was waiting for her, asking a real question, for the moment, completely vulnerable.
And it broke down the last of her defenses.
She nodded, tried to speak over the lump in her throat. “Show me.”
Caleb moved up to kiss her mouth—slowly and deeply—and his hand slid down between her thighs.
When he finally pulled out of the kiss, he met her eyes and said, “I don’t want you to hold anything of yourself back anymore.”
He kissed her again, and then moved down over her throat and to her breasts, flicked his tongue over her nipple.