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Calder had looked at me back then. Like this. He’d wanted me back then.It was wrong.But now, nothing had ever felt more right.
“Lara.” My name sounded different this time. Worn and ragged and undone.
“You wanted me back then,” I said between scattered breaths.
It was the hard pulse of his jaw that confessed his answer and tipped me off to the truth—one the gentleman in him wanted to deny but themanin him couldn’t.
A wicked, wild look swept through his eyes, and he reached for my clit, rolling and pinching the thrumming bud until I bucked, crying out desperately for release. And then his thrusts picked up. Faster. Harder. His hips slammed into mine, the force blinding with pleasure and shaking my entire body.
But the entire time, his eyes never left mine.Thiswas his reply. His admission.That he’d always been looking at me.
And I spiraled from that look. Higher and higher. Pleasure spooled my body tighter to the brink of insanity or destruction, whichever came first. Calder fucked me until I couldn’t see straight. Until my insides were rearranged and my heart learned a new beat. Until I wasn’t begging or cursing, but praying to his name like the god I’d always envisioned him to be.
“I want you to come for me now.” His deep, drawn direction was my undoing. I came apart with a scream and convulsed around him. Under him. For him.
And he watched. He fucked and watched as I unraveled to his command, and then he finally drove fast and buried deep, a rough groan dislodging from his lips as he came. Without the rain and the storm and the onslaught to my senses, I could feel everything. The swell of his cock before he climaxed. The hard pump of his length. The hot rush of his cum.
And then I felt more. I felt the warmth of his breath on my cheek. The soft brush of his lips on mine. The tender way he turned my limbs so I lay on top of him. And finally, the thump of his heart under my cheek and the strong press of his fingers as they slid through mine.
For the first time in far too long, my eyes drifted shut, and there were no nightmares waiting to chase away my sleep.
Chapter 28
Lara
I’d slept soundly. A victory that was short-lived when I opened my eyes to a loss. The bed was empty beside me and the bedroom door open. I could smell the hot coffee steaming from the kitchen counter and hear every thump of my heart in the silence of the empty Airstream.
Calder hadn’t just left the bed—he’d left the Airstream entirely.
I hated the way my heart plummeted, not even bothering to pull a parachute before crashing into my stomach.
There could be a million good reasons for why he wasn’t here. A million good reasons anchored not only by how he’d worshipped me in a deliciously brutal way last night, but how he’d tenderly cared for me afterward. But of course, none of those million were the first that came to mind.
The first thought that took root was that Calder regretted what had happened. Why wouldn’t it be? For eighteen years, I’d watched a string of men leave my mom’s heart high and dry, and I followed that with another decade in the front row seat to my sister’s stack of heartbreak.A stack including the man who’d just fucked my brains out last night.Okay, maybe not my brains, but definitely my insides, I thought as instant soreness slowed my slide out from the covers.
I didn’t have examples of relationships, only cautionary tales.
Scooting to the end of the bed, I found a pile of clothes for me waiting there.Only Calder Stone could turn disappearing the morning after into a gentlemanly feat.
As I dressed, I cataloged the bites and bruises he’d left scattered on my skin. They were nothing compared to the invisible mark he’d left inside my chest.
Was it because of Rachel? Because of what I’d demanded he tell me? Or was it something else?
Was it the same thing that made him pull away from my sister?
While I’d learned a lot about their past last night, Calder hadn’t done more than gloss over why he’d broken up with Rachel. And he definitely hadn’t explained what he’d done to make her lie to me about it.
“Because she wasn’t the only guilty one in our relationship.”
I tensed. Those words had gone in and out last night, my head overflowing with too many other massive bombshells to latch on to them, but now, they sank their teeth into my mind.
Calder wasn’t the reason why my sister’s world had shattered. Dr. Julia’s notes, shaded in by Calder’s knowledge, made that clear. But just because he wasn’t the reason she’d broken didn’t mean he hadn’t contributed to her cracks.
And he’d admitted it to me.
“He was so distant, Lara. The harder I pulled, the more he pushed. The more I needed him, the less he cared.” Rachel’s sobs plagued my memory. Was she talking about Calder or Allen? And if she was talking about Calder, should I have known better?Should I have known this was coming?
A noise outside pulled me from my spiraling thoughts. The sound of Calder’s truck starting outside. If my heart hadn’t already fallen to my stomach, it would’ve buried itself there now. Right under a nice thick blanket of hot fury.
