Too Good to Be True(81)
We turned onto Maple Street, and the lights of my house glowed. I glanced down. Cal and I were covered in mud from our feet to our knees, and soaked to the skin. Angus resembled a mop more than a dog, his fur soaked and matted.
Cal noticed my glance. “Why don’t you come over to my house?” he suggested. “We can get washed up there.
Your house is kind of a museum, isn’t it?”
“Well, not really a museum,” I said. “It’s just tidy.”
“Tidy. Sure. Well, want to come over? It won’t matter if we get my kitchen dirty. I’m still working on it.”
“Sure. Thanks,” I said. I had been wondering about the house, what it was like inside, what Callahan had been doing. “How’s that been going, anyway? You flipping the house and all?”
“It’s going fine. Come in. I’ll give you a tour,” he offered, reading my mind.
CAL LET ME IN the back door.
“I’ll get a couple towels,” he said, taking off his work boots and disappearing into another room. Angus, still on my shoulder, gave a little snore, making me smile. I slipped off my filthy gardening clogs, pushed my hair out of my face with one hand and took a look around.
Cal’s kitchen was nearly done. A trestle table with three mismatched chairs overlooked a new bay window. The kitchen cabinets were maple with glass panes, and the counters were made from gray soapstone. Spaces gapped where the appliances would go, though there was a two-burner stove and a dorm-size fridge. I should definitely invite him over for dinner, I thought. Seeing as he was so nice to me. Seeing as he’d held my hand.
Seeing as I had the hots for him and couldn’t seem to remember the reasons that I’d once thought Callahan O’ Shea made a bad choice.
Cal came back into the room. “Here,” he said, taking my sleeping pooch from me and wrapping him in a big towel. He rubbed the dog’s fur, causing Angus to blink sleepily at the strange man holding him. “No biting,” Cal warned. Angus wagged his tail. Cal smiled.
Then he kissed my dog on the head.
That was it. Without even quite realizing that I’d moved, I found that my arms were somehow around Callahan’s neck, that I’d knocked off his Yankees cap, that my fingers were in his wet hair, that I was squishing Angus and that I was kissing Callahan O’ Shea. Finally.
“It’s about time,” he muttered against my mouth. Then he was kissing me back.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
HIS MOUTH WAS HOT AND SOFT and hard at the same time, and he was so solid and warm, and he was licking my chin while he kissed me…or no, wait. That was Angus, and Callahan laughed, a low, scraping laugh. “Okay, okay, hang on,” Cal murmured, pulling back. One of his hands held Angus, the other cupped the back of my head. Oh, crap, my hair. The man could lose a finger in there. But he gently disentangled himself, then set my damp little dog on the floor and straightened up, looking at me in the eyes. Angus yarped once, and then he must’ve run off somewhere, because I heard his toenails clicking away. But I wasn’t looking at anything except the man in front of me. His lovely, utterly kissable mouth, the slight scrape of razor stubble, those downward slanting, dark blue eyes.
Now those were eyes I could look into for a long, long time, I thought. The heat of him shimmered out to me, beckoning, and my lips parted.
“Want to stay over?” he asked, breathing hard.
“Sure!” I squeaked.
And then we were kissing again. His mouth was hot and fierce on mine, my hands clenched his hair. His arms went around me, crushing me against him, and God, he felt good, so big and safe and a little scary at the same time, so masculine and hard. And his mouth, oh, Lord, the man knew how to kiss, he kissed me like I was the water at the end of a long stretch of burning sand. I felt the wall against my back, felt his weight pressing against me, and then his hands were under my wet shirt, burning the damp skin of my waist, my ribs. I tugged his shirt out of his jeans and slid my hands across the hot skin of his back, my knees practically buckling as his mouth moved to my neck. Then his hand moved a little higher and my knees did buckle, but he held me against the wall and kept kissing me, my neck, my mouth. All that time in prison must have made Callahan O’ Shea a little desperate, and the fact that he was with me, kissing me…it was overwhelming. A man like this. With me.
“You sure about this?” he asked, pulling back, his eyes dark and his cheeks flushed. I nodded, and just like that, he kissed me again and lifted me, his hands cupping my ass, and carried me into another room. One with a bed, thank God. Then Angus yarped and jumped against us, and Callahan laughed. Without putting me down, he gently shoved my dog out with his foot and closed the door with his shoulder.
So it was just the two of us. Outside the room, Angus whined and scratched wildly. Cal didn’t seem to notice, just set me down, slid his hands up my face and stepped closer, erasing the space between us.
“He’s going to ruin that door,” I whispered as Cal nuzzled my neck.
“I don’t care,” he muttered. Then Callahan O’ Shea pulled my shirt over my head and I stopped worrying about my dog.
Whatever urgency he’d felt before seemed to melt, and suddenly things moved in slow motion. His hands were so hot on my skin, and he bent to kiss my shoulder, sliding the strap of my camisole down, his five o’clock shadow scraping the tender skin there, his mouth hot and silky smooth. His own skin was like velvet, his hard muscles sliding underneath with hypnotic power.