Dirty Little Secrets (Dirty Little #1)(15)

“Little bit.”

“Sorry,” he replies. “But I’m not really sorry.”

He looks so mischievous and sleep-rumpled that I have to kiss him, morning breath be damned. This kiss is slow, and soft, and makes me want to melt right into him. “I’m not sorry, either. Sex has to be the best reason for aching muscles,” I admit. “Best workout ever.”

Caleb grins, and nuzzles his nose against my cheek. “If working out made me come like that, I’d be in the gym all the time.”


I let out a short little laugh as I trail my fingertip down the ridges between his abs. “You don’t look like you’re in need of more gym time.”

Caleb flips me, and my back is pressed against the mattress. Anchoring his weight on his arms, he lowers himself down until his chest touches mine, and his hard cock rubs against my belly. He gives me a kiss, and then lifts himself back up.

“Did you just…did you just do a sexual push up?” I ask. It’s a completely ridiculous, show-off move, but it turns me on like I never would’ve expected.

He arches his brow. “Maybe.”

I slide my fingertips across his shoulders. “Do it again.”

He does. This time he stays down longer, kissing me thoroughly. I buck my hips against him, providing some friction as a little reward. Just when I decide that the ache between my thighs isn’t going to stop me from having sex with him again, my stomach conspires against me by letting out a loud, embarrassing growl. Of course, Caleb laughs.

“Worked up an appetite, huh?”

I nod. I worked up one hell of an appetite.

“How about some breakfast?”

I give him a skeptical look. “You can cook?”

“No, I’m a total disaster in the kitchen. But I can take you to my favorite place for bacon and eggs.”

Bacon and eggs sounds really good, but I turn and look at the clock on the table beside the bed. “It’s almost lunch time.”

“Then we’ll get some fries to go with it.”

I sigh, running my hands across his abs. He’s so beautiful, and it’s just unfair. “You eat like that, and look like this.”

After he kisses me, he says, “I can always work it off later.”





CHAPTER TEN





In a corner of the busy diner, Caleb and I sit across from each other at a cozy little booth. Caleb’s legs are so long that our legs are tangled up together, and after spending hours wrapped around each other last night, neither one of us bothers to move. I don’t know how Caleb feels about it, but it’s nice to keep the connection here in public.

Yet again I’m reminded that this thing is moving way too fast, but—and I know this is incredibly short-sighted and stupid—I don’t want to stop it.

“I have to ask you a question,” Caleb says, swiping a fry through a puddle of ketchup that’s in the middle of the plate we’re both sharing.

My heartbeat picks up, and I tamp down the panic that is threatening to rise. “Okay.”

“The bag you carry everywhere…”

My breath catches. “Yeah?”

“Do you carry it with you everywhere, or is it just because you’re in a new place?” He’s got this charmed smile on his face, so I know that I’m not being interrogated, but at least now I know that he has actually noticed the bag. Not that it’s a difficult thing to notice, considering I’ve had it with me every time I’ve seen him. I had just hoped he hadn’t been paying attention to it.

I look down at the bag, where it’s sitting on the floor beside my feet. Its handles are wrapped round my ankle again, even though the booth we’re sitting in is adjacent to a wall. No one can reach over and take it from me without crawling under the table first, but still…I feel safer with it like this.

“It’s because I’m in a new place. My livelihood is in this bag, so are all the things that I brought with me,” I tell him. It’s a vague explanation, but definitely not a lie. “I don’t feel comfortable leaving it in the hotel when I’m not there.”

“And you feel comfortable carrying it around the streets of New York?” he asks, quirking his eyebrow at me as he steals another fry.

I want to tell him that I feel safe as long as it’s with me, because if I have to run, I won’t have to worry about leaving anything behind if all I’ve got is with me. Instead, I say, “I’ll stop doing it once I’m settled in somewhere.”

“You could’ve left it at my apartment,” he says.

I look down at my plate, at the half-finished bacon and eggs. “I wasn’t sure I’d be going back there.”

After the words are out, I look up at Caleb, and catch the moment his entire expression changes. He was all teasing and light a minute ago, but now he just seems crestfallen. He schools the look quickly, but still…I saw it there.

“Oh,” he says.

“What I mean is that I wasn’t sure you’d invite me back after this, and I didn’t want to assume anything in case this was, like, the end of things.” I’m rambling, and I really don’t want to make a big fool of myself here, but I can’t seem to help it.


“Mia,” Caleb sighs. He’s got this soft look in his eyes as he reaches across the table and takes my hand, and my frazzled, overworked nerves calm instantly.