“Now that we’ve done this?” he asked.
He began to gently comb his fingers through her hair as he spoke, and she shivered at the sensation. Slowly, she rested her head back on his chest. It was such an odd thing to feel so entirely comfortable with a man and yet still on edge. But he did that.
“Yes,” she murmured.
“We carry on,” he said. “If you’d like to continue. We can do and be whatever you’d like.”
She considered that a moment, then sat up, this time entirely, tucking the sheets around herself as she did so. “You are so blasé about this, Callum. Do you want to carry on?”
His eyes widened. “I’m surprised you have to ask that question. I think I made it very clear what a very good time I had this afternoon.”
She shook her head. “You did. And what we shared was…was perfect. But I am not entirely certain where I stand and I want to understand that before I can know what I’d like to do. Do you want me? Or is it just a warm body in a bed that you desire and you’re just as happy to find that elsewhere?”
“You!” he said, jolting to a seated position as well. “I want you.”
In that moment, so close, so naked, so vulnerable, she saw something flicker across his face. Something…something that both intrigued and terrified her. But then it was gone, and perhaps she had imagined it in her longing to have a man care for her as much as Callum desired her.
“I have wanted you for a very long time,” he continued.
She blinked. “You—you have?”
“It wasn’t something I admitted, not out loud.” He pursed his lips. “When I used to…watch you with him I told myself I was only interested because you were my friend’s wife. That I liked you, but only with an appropriate level of acknowledgment. But I can admit now that I wanted you, even though I tried to hide it, even from myself. It helped that you didn’t notice me.”
“Oh yes, I did.” She snorted without thinking and immediately wished she could take it back. She didn’t want to be closer to this man who would see into her soul. She couldn’t allow herself to be.
But oh, the way his eyes lit up when she said those words. They could make the world glow, they were so bright and captivating.
“You did?” he whispered as he settled back on her pillows once more. He seemed genuinely surprised, as well as delighted by this news. As if he didn’t know he was beautiful and would catch the eye of any person with sense. As if he didn’t know he could make a person want him in ways that were far too deep and far too dangerous.
Even now she extended a hand and drew it along his stomach, across his naked hip and watched as his cock reacted, as he reacted.
“Yes.” She drew her thumb along the place where his thigh met his hip. “I thought most of Silas’s friends were useless, but you…I couldn’t help but notice you.”
“You always avoided me,” he said, his voice now rougher as her fingers slid along the curve of his hardening cock.
“So you wouldn’t know,” she whispered, staring at him, fascinated by what she could do to him. How she could make him react to her. “So he wouldn’t know. He would have—”
She blinked as she heard herself and it was as if some spell was broken. She drew her hand back, lifted it to her chest and held it there like he’d burned her. What the hell was she thinking? Was she so addled by desire or pleasure or some other foolish connection to this man that she would almost say words that couldn’t be taken back?
And he seemed to know, at some level, what those words would have been. His eyes were wide now, his jaw clenched tight. “Valaria,” he said softly.
She cut him off by leaning up into him. By cupping his cheeks and kissing him. She felt his hesitation, but when she traced his lips with her tongue, that faded. His arms came around her waist as the sheets dropped away and he drew her into his lap. She straddled his waist and the kiss slowed. The purpose, to distract him, ceased to exist. Now it was just them.
And she was shocked to find that she wanted him all over again. A novel idea, and one she chose to explore. She rocked against him, feeling the hardness of him right there between her legs. He cupped her backside, tucking her closer, maneuvering her as she reached between them and aligned their bodies until she slid down over him in one wet, smooth thrust.
“Fucking hell,” he murmured against her lips, and ground up as she met him. Their bodies moved together, almost as one. She gripped his shoulders, leaving half-moon shapes in his flesh with her nails. She felt the pressure of his fingers against her backside as he took her. Their breath merged, hot and short between kisses.
When she came, she sucked his tongue, jolting against him, milking him with her release. In response, he swore, a long stream of meaningless curses that ended only when she relaxed against him. He pushed her onto her back, kissing her harder as he took and took and finally groaned as he withdrew and came between them. And once again there was peace.
The kind she’d never hoped for. The kind that could cause as much trouble as it did harmony. She could only hope that she could get her emotions under control and quickly so that if this affair continued, it wouldn’t drag her under and make everything worse in the long run.
CHAPTER 14
It had been three days since the first afternoon he made love to Valaria, and Callum couldn’t concentrate. He sat at his desk in his study, staring out the window with unseeing eyes as he relived every heated moment of that day. And the day after. And the one after that. Because she kept crooking her finger…and he kept coming…in every sense of the word.
But was he entirely satisfied, even though their afternoons together were pure, sensual bliss? He had to admit…no. The sex, of course, was amazing. She was a responsive lover and the more comfortable she got with him, the more active she became in their mutual pleasure. She could look at him with those blue-gray eyes and he was almost undone immediately.
And when she touched him…even more so.
But beyond pleasure, she didn’t allow anything else. In some ways the sex was how she built a wall between them. If he asked questions she didn’t like, she always turned to seduction. And he certainly wasn’t strong enough to deny her when she wrapped herself around him and drove him to the edge of oblivion.
“My God, he lives.”
Callum glanced over to the study door as Theo entered, Morris at his heels. He waved the butler away and forced a smile as he rose to extend a hand to his friend.
“I didn’t think that was in question,” he said.
Theo raised both eyebrows. “I haven’t seen you in half a week. You canceled fencing practice, you didn’t show up to the club—you have been entirely absent, Callum. And it isn’t like you.”
Callum shrugged. “I had things to do.”
“I’m sure.” Theo hurtled himself into a chair across from the desk, crossed one foot over his knee and steepled his fingers against it. “You look like shit. You must be having a great deal of fun.”
Callum laughed at the observation, despite how close it came to the mark of truth. He moved to the sideboard and poured them each a whisky. “How does that track? I look bad, so things must be good?”