She imagines never dancing with him again.
Anya moves fast, like she’s got wheels, and manages to get down the hallway and through the foyer just as he’s opening the front door. She crashes into it, shoving it closed and putting herself between him and escape. He stops, frowning at her.
She peers around his broad shoulders and sees Zac catching up, out of breath from more than the brief walk, eyes wide, hopeful. She has the fastest conversation with her husband that she’s ever had, a silent collection of pointed expressions that speak volumes, and he ends by nodding, by nodding hard, and she nods back. She straightens, looks Cal dead in the eyes, seeing his uncertainty, his fear, his longing.
“Do you want me?”
“Yes,” he whispers. “But I can’t—”
“And you want to stay? With us? As long as it isn’t casual, you want it?”
He stands there for the longest time, searching her face, before he gives a jagged nod.
“This is serious. We’re serious,” she promises, and rises up on her toes to kiss him. She means it to be chaste, something warm and affectionate so he knows that he’s safe saying these open, terrifying things that are so difficult for him, but Cal’s mouth is soft and wet and surprisingly receptive, yielding against hers, lips parting, giving, letting her lead. It’s heady, how sweetly he responds, how readily.
He doesn’t touch her until she touches him, and then he mirrors what she does—she cups his face and so he returns the favor; she puts her hands on his hips, and he does likewise. She wants to be held, so she puts her arms around him, digging her fingers into the muscle of his shoulders. He squeezes back, more gently, careful, careful.
He told her once that he wasn’t good at being intimate with people, that he wasn’t the type of man most people wanted when they thought of fucking a rock star.
Most people are stupid. Cal’s cautious and respectful, but not unskilled. In fact, he’s a pretty damn good kisser. She likes Zac’s sloppy enthusiasm, the way he’s so damn pushy because it makes her feel desirable and wanted, but Cal’s smooth as satin. He coaxes instead of pushing, seduces instead of demanding. He kisses the way he waltzes, with grace and control and intense awareness of what she needs.
It’s so good. She likes it so much more than she expected to. Enough that she wants more, wants more of everything. She gets closer, rocks against him, lifts a knee to wrap her foot around his calf, trusting him to balance her, and holy shit, he does one better, lifting her with one arm around her waist and turning and walking her backwards a couple steps until they hit the wall. Gently, of course, he’s always so gentle, but she’s still gasping at the sheer strength it’d taken to do that, as if she weighed nothing at all. He hadn’t even broken the kiss to do it, and that’s before she realizes that he’d also been considerate enough to aim for the wall so she wouldn’t get a doorknob in the back.
What a smooth fucking devil he is.
Now he’s pressing her against the wall, letting his body rest against hers almost politely, if there can be such a thing, and he’s so solid and warm around her that she’s—she’s done waiting, she’s done—
“Fuck, take this off,” she demands, wrenching at his shirt.
He lifts his head. He seems confused for a brief second, like he’s lost all sense of time and place. “Really? I—okay.” He pulls back, stripping out of the T-shirt, and then there’s just muscle and bare skin and a light spattering of hair across his chest that leads down into a thickening line that disappears beneath the waistband of his jeans. He’s strong and masculine and his shoulders are ridiculous and she wants to bite him.
So she does, right on the thick wedge of muscle that joins his shoulder and his throat, and he jolts against her, burying his face in her hair.
“Oh,” he says, low and shocked and breathy, and she grins against his skin, licking at him, viciously pleased at how easy he is. He’s going to give it up so sweet, he’s going to let her do anything, and she wants to take him apart, make him blind and desperate until he’s begging.
“Upstairs,” she says, and when he doesn’t move, only stands there panting into her hair, she adds, “Cal. Come on. Upstairs.”
He heaves a big exhale and straightens. His cheeks are flushed, his eyes kind of glazed and stunned, and she wonders what the hell kind of stupid-ass people he’s been dating that none of them ever thought to throw him down and take a chunk out of him.
Jesus, that’s what you get when you date kindergarten teachers who never smoke or drink or curse. She pictures that polite, nice woman again and smirks in triumph at her imaginary ass. “Upstairs. Bed. I want to fuck you. But first you’re going to go down on me.”
“Yeah,” he breathes, and she’s not sure if the haze in his face is because he likes going down or because he likes that she’s bossing him around, but whatever, they have plenty of time to figure it out.
She glances past him, sees Zac at the threshold of the foyer, his blue eyes slumberous and hungry, his usually lazy body strung tight, one hand clutching his waistband like he wants to touch himself but doesn’t want to jump the gun. He’s hard already, she can see him long and thick in his jeans. She can feel his gaze on her, on them, waiting for more. It makes her arch against Cal, where she can feel him against her, every bit as thick and firm.
“And Zac’s going to watch.”
Cal shudders against her. “God, why?” he asks, soft enough that Zac probably doesn’t hear, a question in his eyes. “Does he—? I don’t understand.”
“He likes it.”
“He won’t feel left out?”
She has to kiss him for that. “You’re so damn sweet.” She kisses him again. “He might join us sometime, but probably not tonight. He won’t feel left out. He wants this. He wants to see you give it to me. He wants to see us come. Don’t worry about him. He’ll say if he needs something.”
Cal smiles faintly. “Well, that’s the truest thing you’ve ever said.”
She laughs and boosts herself up, trusting him to catch her. He does, his big hands cradling her thighs. She digs her fingers into his hair and tips his face up to kiss him again, as filthy and deep as she knows how.
Now he groans, now he squeezes her tightly enough that it’s hard to breathe. He kisses her back, and it’s not the rocket burst of wild arousal that her husband brings out of her, zero-to-sixty in 3.5 seconds. No, Cal is an undertow, a surprising, deceptive pull, taking her under so deftly, so warmly, that she doesn’t realize the danger until her head’s far under water.
He carries her through the living room, breaking the kiss twice to avoid running them into anything, and then pauses at the foot of the stairs. He clearly isn’t interested in putting her down, but he doesn’t want to break the mood by killing them both with a misplaced step either. She laughs at his indecision, murmurs “Put me down” against his mouth, and then decides she’s too impatient to wait any longer and keeps going, all the way to her knees, dragging at his jeans.