Dirty Little Secrets (Dirty Little #1)(3)

I stop—of course I stop—and he moves in, like he’s going to tell me a secret.

Whatever it is he has to say, I have never wanted to hear something so badly in my entire life.

“Don’t walk away from me, Mia,” he whispers. His voice is low and firm, but there’s an undercurrent of pleading in it.

I couldn’t walk away if I tried.





CHAPTER TWO





“You have really nice hands,” I say, before I can stop myself. “It was nice when you touched me.” I shake my head as I try to get my stupid, nervous mouth under control. “What I mean is that it felt good, like…never mind.”

“Mia,” Caleb laughs, leaning in close. Just the way he says my name sends a thrill to all the right places, and his hot breath on my skin combined with the way his lips brush the shell of my ear make me shiver. “You have no idea how good my hands can feel.”

I take a deep breath, not daring to look at him. I’m a little weak, and I’m worried that I’m going to embarrass myself, because I know that Caleb felt me tremble just now.

“Are you here with someone?” he asks.

Does he want to know if I came to the bar with someone, or if I’m here at the hotel with someone? I suppose it doesn’t matter either way, because the answer is, “No.”

His lips lift up into a grin at my answer, and I lean in a little closer, wanting to be near the warmth of his body. He smells good, and he’s so gorgeous; it’s like every single cell in my body is a magnet, pulling me to him. I want to wrap my arms around him, I want to bury my face in his neck and breathe deep. I can’t even bring myself to worry about the fact that I’m practically intoxicated by this man that I’ve only just met. It’s insane, and yet here I am.

“Are you here with anyone?”

“No.”

I grin, kind of like he did just now.

“Your smile is gorgeous,” he says.

My apparently gorgeous smile grows bigger. “My dad paid a lot of money or it,” I say. I immediately want to smack my hand over my mouth, because I’m drunk on pheromones, and I’m going to wind up making a huge fool of myself because of it. “I mean, he didn’t pay for veneers or anything; these are my actual teeth. I meant braces. He paid for braces.” I shake my head once I finally stop talking, feeling the blush rising in my cheeks. I want to duck behind the bar and hide, but I’ll settle for bringing my hands up to my face to act as a shield because I’m so embarrassed.

There’s a shift in the air. I can tell that Caleb is moving closer, and then his arm brushes mine. “Don’t do that,” he says, his voice rough in my ear. He crooks his fingers around my wrists and gives them a gentle tug. “Don’t cover your face.”

I can’t deny his request, and when my hands drop to my sides, I give him a smile. It’s almost too much to believe that this beautiful man is as into me as I’m into him, even though he’s saying all the right things, and looking at me with unbridled heat in his eyes.

When he reaches up and slides his thumb across my cheekbone, it’s like the smallest touch sets my skin on fire.

“Beautiful,” Caleb whispers, like it’s a secret between the two of us.

“You’re good at this.” My voice sounds more affected than I expected it to, and the flash of lust in Caleb’s eyes lets me know that he noticed it.


“Good at what?”

I playfully roll my eyes. I’m practically putty in his hands, and he’s acting like he doesn’t know what I’m talking about. “You know, the whole seduction thing.”

He flashes that killer smile, and I’m expecting that the next words out of his mouth are going to be utterly, ridiculously cocky.

“I like you,” is all he says. No smooth line, just straight and to the point.

“You haven’t known me long enough to know if you like me.” That is totally not true, but if he knew the reason why I’m here in this hotel, in this city, he probably wouldn’t like me very much. Especially since Caleb exudes the kind of confidence that only rich men seem to have. I’m guessing he wouldn’t be too impressed if I told him that in an impulsive moment of anger, I fancied myself a modern-day Robin Hood.

“I have known you long enough, and I do like you.”

I’m choosing to believe him, because why not? If this thing goes anywhere, it’s one night at most. It would be a nice respite, and a reprieve from the running. He is way, way out of my league, so I would be foolish not to take this chance while I have it. I reach out and take Caleb’s hand, and if he’s shocked by that, he doesn’t let on. I turn it in my grip, and uncurl his fingers, bringing the back of his hand to rest against my thigh. My fingertip traces the lines that stretch across his palm. His hands are calloused, something I wasn’t expecting from a man wearing such a nice suit. I figured typing was the most work he did with his hands, but now I want to feel the roughness of them gliding across the planes of my body.

“What are you doing?” Caleb asks, his voice stilted.

Grinning, I reply, “I’m tracing your like line.”

Caleb looks so adorably confused. “My what?”

“When I was a kid, my grandmother lived across the street from a palm reader,” I explain, as my finger continues its circuit. “I was obsessed with her; I thought she was the coolest person I’d ever seen. She wore these long, flowing dresses, and kept her hair all wrapped up in these bright silk scarves. Anyway, my grandmother, of course, thought everything that came out of this woman’s mouth was complete bullshit.”