Along Came Trouble(101)

Every time he thought about it, his stomach soured. It could have been so much worse, and if it had been, there would have been no one to blame but himself.

But his bad judgment wasn’t the whole problem. It was worse than that, because he was falling for her, he wanted to build a life with her, and she hadn’t given him a single sign that she felt the same way.

“I want a chance to start over with you,” he said at last. “I want to take you out to dinner and do this thing in the right order. Not—” He faltered. He didn’t know how to describe what they’d been doing.

“Not play hide the bone with me the day after we met?”

“Yeah.” Exactly.

She set her glass down on the flagstones and leaned toward him. Their knees brushed, and she splayed her hands over his thighs, high up. “What if I say I want to play hide the bone?”

Ah, hell. Just her playful tone of voice was enough to turn him on. Just the light pressure of her fingers on him. The smell of her hair.

“I’d say I want that too. But we need to wait.”

Ellen cocked her head to the side and studied him. “When do you expect the job to be done?”

He had no idea. Days? Weeks? Months? Maybe not until after Carly had her baby. Maybe longer. It depended on whether Jamie Callahan decided to stick around and whether Carly decided to let him. Whether Breckenridge fired Caleb for letting the concert go on. Dozens of things would make a difference, and all of them were out of his control.

“I don’t know.”

She stood, and the floodlight clicked on, backlighting her so that Caleb couldn’t see her face, only her shape. She took his wine out of his hand, placed it on the ground, and lowered herself onto his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck.

“I don’t want to wait,” she said. “We have a contract. I’m pretty sure it obligates you to take me to bed now.”

“I can’t, sweetheart. I shouldn’t, and I really can’t. I have to work.”

She tucked her head against his neck, making his throat thicken. She was so beautiful, and he wanted her so much. Right now. All the time. He didn’t really have much hope of holding out against her. But what did that say about him, if he sucked this much at doing the right thing?

The night lapped at the edges of their pool of light, humid and thick with the sound of crickets chirping. There were no other sounds. No other activities to manage just now. “You haven’t slept or stopped working in two days,” she murmured, kissing his throat. He shifted beneath her, pushing his erection into her hip. Unable to help himself. “Jamie is at Carly’s now, and he’s not coming back out. She won’t see him yet, but Nana’s going to let him sleep on the couch.”

Ellen trailed kisses along his jawline, then brushed her lips over his mouth with a soft sigh that completely wrecked him. “Your people know what to do. I watched you whipping them into shape all day. It’s time for you to relax. I can help with that.”

His hands gripped the arms of the chair. Ellen picked them up, one at a time, and placed them directly on her breasts. She wasn’t wearing a bra. Her nipples hardened beneath his palms. A hoarse groan escaped from his chest.

He didn’t stand a chance of resisting her. Never had. Probably never would.

The light clicked off. Black again.

Ellen arched her back, pressing the weight of her breasts into his hands. “I want you, Caleb. Just you. Take me to bed.”

He gave in and kissed her. Another wrong call, but that knowledge didn’t stop him. It was just one more fact among the others—the wrongness of his decision and the rightness of her soft, silky skin when he moved his hands under her shirt. She braced her hands on his shoulders and turned, spreading her legs wide to straddle him. Her shorts were flimsy cotton things, no barrier at all to his fingers when they dropped to her knees and followed the irresistible trail along the inside of both spread thighs and past the loose hem, directly to the hot, wet center of her.

Where he found out she wasn’t wearing panties, either.

When he stroked her with his thumbs, she moaned, and he took a deep breath, fighting the urge to unzip and slide into her right here, right now, with only the darkness to hide them. He shouldn’t be kissing her, shouldn’t be touching her, but he couldn’t stop, and he couldn’t even regret it. She soothed all his jagged edges. The sweet, dark taste of her, like wine and chocolate. The way she moved against him and the way she whimpered when he stroked her core. He needed Ellen like he’d never needed anyone. She made him weak.