Beautiful Mistake(53)

“I read about your friend when I Googled you after we first met. I’m so sorry.”

Caine was quiet for a long time. He shut his eyes, and when they opened, I could see them glistening, even in the dark.

I stroked his cheek. “You can’t control someone with addiction.”

“No. But I didn’t have to pile on the stress. We shouldn’t have taken the deal and put that on Liam.”

“Was Liam happy about the deal?”

“We all were. We were twenty-one with a record deal from a major label.”

“What happened wasn’t your fault. Addicts look for reasons to justify what they’re doing. If it wasn’t that, it would have been something else.”

Caine sighed. “I don’t have a good track record, Rachel. Even when I try to do the right thing, I fuck it up somehow. I haven’t told you about even half the bad choices I’ve made. About Liam’s girlfriend, who was too damn young to be on the road with a band, but I let it happen anyway. About when I was sixteen and met this girl—”

I’d heard enough. Just like he’d done to me earlier, I silenced him by pressing two fingers to his lips. “Shut the fuck up, Caine.”

He smiled through his sadness. “You wanted me to talk to you.”

I climbed up his body and straddled his hips. I’d been holding the sheet around me and let it fall to my sides. “Thank you for sharing with me.”

He gripped my waist and surprised me by lifting me up to my knees. Reaching down, he grabbed his cock and held it up, positioning it at my opening. “I’m not done sharing yet.”





Rachel



Things between Caine and me changed last night. The struggle that had been ever-present in his demeanor toward me seemed to have ended. The dawn of a new day brought a lighter—even happy—version of Caine.

After kicking him out of the shower so parts other than my breasts and between my legs could get cleaned, I took a few minutes to reflect on everything that had transpired. The pulsating stream of water massaged my neck as I closed my eyes.

Caine had opened up to me. He carried around a lot of guilt and weight on his shoulders, much of it seemingly unearned. Yet I hadn’t shared much of my past with him. I didn’t know if I’d ever be ready to talk about some of it.

After I dragged myself from the shower, I rummaged in Caine’s closet to find a T-shirt. His walk-in was bigger than my kitchen. Grabbing an old, worn Brooklyn College shirt, I pulled it on and ran my fingers through my wet hair.

I found Caine sitting at the dining room table with a pile of papers and his laptop open. He was wearing those glasses I loved so much on him and looked up to watch me walk down the hall.

“What?”

“My T-shirt. It looks better on you.”

When I reached the table, he immediately slipped a hand underneath it and grabbed my ass.

I wagged my finger at him. “Uh-uh-uh, Professor. Looks like you have work to do.”

“My TA should be grading these papers.”

“You didn’t ask. I would have.”

He pulled me down onto his lap and buried his face in my hair. “Why don’t you grade them now? I’ll finger you while you read through the essay on the art of rhythm.”

“You’re so crass.”

He looked up at me. “What’s crass? Fingering you? You like my fingers inside of you. And my tongue. And my cock. I wish I had more parts to put in there. I’d never come out.”

I shoved at his chest and laughed. “I’m starving. You need to feed me.”

“What? That’s what I was trying to do. Warm you up to feed you.”

“How about you make us something to eat, and I’ll finish grading?”

“Deal. I fucking hate grading papers.”

I finished marking the tests while Caine whipped us up some breakfast. Pancakes with a side of sausage.

“This is really good. But it’s the same thing you made at my house.” I pointed my fork at him. “Do you only know how to cook pancakes?”

“No, wiseass. I know how to cook a lot of different things. I just don’t do it often because it’s easier to grab something on the way home.”

“I’m not that great with meals, but I can make a hell of a cake and pastry.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Rose, my aunt who raised us, was a pastry chef. She liked to try to bond with me and my sister by baking together all the time when we first moved in.”

Caine seemed contemplative. “Did your aunt and uncle have kids of their own?”

“No. Rose couldn’t have kids. They were actually foster parents for a long time. After they adopted my sister and me, they stopped taking in fosters. They had their hands full enough with me and Riley.”

“You’ve mentioned that you had some wild years. I would’ve liked to see that.”

“No, you wouldn’t. We put poor Rose through hell. Teenage girls are bad enough without an excuse to raise hell. I was no angel, but my sister was downright awful.”

Finishing my breakfast gave me the perfect excuse to get up and try to change the subject. I wasn’t a good liar, and it was only a matter of time before Caine would stumble onto a question I wasn’t ready to answer. I took our plates to the sink and decided to wash them by hand rather than load the dishwasher.