Dirty Little Secrets (Dirty Little #1)(26)
“Do you not want the same things I want?”
Those clear green eyes of his are boring into mine, and all I want to do is give him an answer, but answers come with consequences that I’m not ready to deal with yet. “I want you,” I tell him.
He takes a deep breath. “Only me?”
I give him a grin, then reach out and twine our fingers together. “Only you.”
Caleb leans down and gives me a sweet, tender kiss. “Please stay. It’s not that I’m trying to control you, Mia. This is for me. Please do this for me.”
“Caleb, I-”
“Don’t make me listen to someone hurting you over the phone again. Please.”
When I see the genuine pain in his eyes, I’m nearly left breathless. Of course hearing what happened to me over the phone scared him. Even though things are still incredibly new between us, I wouldn’t want to listen to him getting robbed and beaten while I was on the other end of the line, helpless. Just the thought of it makes my stomach roll.
“Okay,” I tell him, and he looks absolutely relieved.
“Come here,” he says softly. He guides me through the apartment, down the hallway that leads to his bedroom. There’s a room on the left, near the middle of the hallway, and the door has been closed every time I’ve been here.
Today, he opens it. Inside is a spare bedroom. It’s a beautiful space; sunlight floods the room. Everything is neutral, from the hardwood floors, to the beige walls, to the off-white comforter that covers the bed. The large, wrought-iron headboard is the focal point of the room, and it is framed by two large, floor-to-ceiling windows. There’s a vase full of daisies on the nightstand to the right of the bed, and I grin, because I made an offhanded comment not too long ago that they’re my favorite. But…why are they in here?
“What’s this?”
Caleb looks at me with a bashful smile. “It’s your room.”
My eyes widen, and my stomach drops. I figured that when he asked me to stay, he was asking me to stay with him. As in sleep with him, sleep in his room and in his bed, like I have been.
“My room,” I repeat dumbly. “Do you not want…” I’m having difficulty forming the words for the rest of that question. Did we not just decide that he’s officially my boyfriend?
Caleb shrugs. “You seemed to want to stay in your hotel a lot, and I figured it was because you wanted some time away from me. I thought it would be good for you to have a place to escape to, if you wanted.”
“Oh,” I sigh. “Caleb, that’s not why.”
I wait for him to ask me why I spent so much time in my own hotel room when I could’ve been spending time with him, but he doesn’t. He just says, “I want you in my bed, Mia.”
The words send a wave of desire through me, even though my face is swollen and the color of an eggplant, and I know for sure sex is off the table for the foreseeable future. But when a handsome, kind man says something like that, how can I not go weak in the knees?
“I want to be in your bed.”
“Good,” he replies, leaning down and placing a quick kiss on my lips. “But if you need some time to yourself, this room is all yours.”
Right now it feels like time to myself is the very last thing I need.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
When I wake up, I hear voices echoing all the way down the hall into the bedroom. The door is open, and I figure Caleb left it like that so he could hear me if I called for him. The fact that he’s so thoughtful makes me smile, despite the crankiness I usually feel when I first wake up. Last night was my first night as a temporary resident in Caleb’s apartment, and he told me that he was going to be working from home for the next few days in order to keep an eye on me. So, I’m not exactly surprised to hear his voice; I figured he would take a conference call or two during the day. What does surprise me is that there’s someone responding to him when he speaks, and that someone is here in the apartment.
I glance back at the clock, surprised to see that I’ve slept so late into the morning. I’ve always been an early riser, but Caleb’s thick, lined curtains keep the sun from shining through and waking me up like it normally does.
Slowly, I begin the process of getting out of bed. The nurse was adamant that I not move too quickly for the first few days I’m home. I move my legs across the soft sheets, until they dangle off the side of the bed. When I’m feeling confident that I’m not going to be dizzy or pass out when I step onto the floor, I slide down off of the mattress.
I’m only marginally woozy. The doctor said it’s common and that it would pass soon enough. Honestly, I can’t wait for that day to come.
The only clothes I have with me are the ones I was wearing when I was robbed, so I’m wearing a t-shirt that belongs to Caleb, and actually looks like an overly large dress on me.
Standing in the middle of the room, I notice that I can’t hear the voices as clearly as I did before. Caleb is still talking to his guest, but I can only make out faint sounds of the conversation. Even though I know it’s terrible to eavesdrop, I really can’t help my curiosity, so I step out into the hallway and quietly walk toward the main living area.
The closer I get to the end of the hallway, the clearer those hushed voices are. When I’m at a place where I can get a good listen, I immediately recognize one of the voices as Ben’s. The fact that they’re being hush-hush about whatever it is that they’re talking about makes me think that whatever it is that they’re talking about is me.