Playing for Keeps (Heartbreaker Bay #7)(61)

He flashed a smile and she stared at him transfixed because she knew what was coming next.

Her .

She’d known what would happen from the moment she’d crossed the kitchen, and she reached for him. He lifted her, setting her on the countertop, making her squeal when she made contact with the ice-cold granite. “You’re right,” she gasped. “You’re not even close to perfect.”

“But I’m good,” he said, his amusement giving way to something far more intense. His hands were on her ribcage, just beneath her breasts, his thumbs teasing her nipples, leaving her feeling like she was walking along a cliff, toying with a tumble off the edge.

Snagging one of the barstools with his foot, Caleb yanked it close. Then he rested his butt against it, giving her a look that nearly melted the thong right off of her before ducking his head beneath her dress.

“Wait,” she gasped, not at all sure why she was stalling other than the mix of how easy he was to be with and his innate sexiness had her off-balance and she hadn’t had a chance to get her barriers into place. “You didn’t finish your dinner. Aren’t you still hungry?”

She felt him smile against her, the hands he had on her both familiar and warm. She was stalling and he knew it. “I’m starving,” he said, muffled by her dress. His hands skimmed up her thighs to nudge them apart. Then the erotically rough pads of his fingers scrapped the lace aside and . . .

“Oh my God,” she gasped as his tongue rasped over her quivering flesh.

“Nope,” he said. “Just me.” This was the last thing he said.

Not Sadie. She said lots. Or rather whimpered and moaned things like “yes!” and “oh, please . . .” and “don’t stop!” and when he played with her, holding her on the edge of the mother of all orgasms, there was more than one “dammit, Caleb!” And that was the thing about him. He could push buttons she didn’t even know she had. And he’d clearly read her instruction manual because he knew exactly how she worked and what she needed to run at maximum capacity.

When he’d thoroughly and shockingly taken her apart and put her back together again, he gently kissed first one inner thigh and then the other, and then her two tattoos.

And then the scar beneath those two tattoos.

She stilled, but not Caleb. He rose, kicked the barstool out of his way, and produced a condom.

Not neon pink.

Leaning over her, he brushed his lips across hers and had her fingers curling into his shirt as she tugged it off him. His tattoos were sexy as hell and she pressed hot kisses to every part of him she could reach as she slid her hands inside his pants, making him doing a little creative swearing of his own.

She didn’t normally have a hard time keeping her emotional connection to a guy in check, but whenever she and Caleb were intimate, it was impossible to control herself, much less her emotions. The gentleness and obvious affection with which he touched her always dissolved the best of her intentions.

“Sadie,” he said huskily.

“Yeah?”

“Missed this.”

“It’s not been long,” she managed to grate out, holding on to him because suddenly he was her only anchor in a spinning world.

And then he was inside her.

She gasped as he filled her, his hands going to her hips to yank her closer to the edge of the counter, allowing him to slide even deeper inside her. She bit his shoulder to hide her moan.

“Aw. You missed me too,” he said and began to move.

And just like that, like always with him, she lost herself, pulled into his force field by the sheer presence of his personality alone. Add to the mix what his body did to hers and how he looked at her . . . She’d never experienced anything like it. It’d probably terrify her if she had any brain capacity left in that moment, but she didn’t. Not with Caleb holding her like she was the best thing that had ever happened to him, his body tensing, telling her he was close. But she was even closer, and even as she thought it, she fell into the abyss, pulling him along with her.

Their release was followed by a perfect moment of contentment as Caleb’s kisses turned tender and lingering again. When their heart rates returned to some semblance of normal—although Sadie wasn’t sure her heart would recover—he helped right her clothing. His hands were still lingering when his phone buzzed on the counter. Nuzzling at Sadie’s neck, he said, “Answer.”

“Honey,” a woman said into the room. “The girls are coming over for The Bachelorette and I’m ordering pizza. Can I get you one?”

Sadie felt Caleb’s chest rumble with his laugh. “Hard pass on The Bachelorette , Mom, but no thanks.”

“But what about the pizza? You love pizza. What’s wrong? You sick?”

One of Caleb’s hands was in Sadie’s hair. He slid it down her throat to cup a breast, letting his thumb slide over her nipple, which tightened for him. “Just . . . busy tonight,” he murmured.

This got him a beat of silence from his mom, like his words didn’t compute. “But you’re always starving by now. Did you get dinner?”

His gaze went wicked as he looked at Sadie and she felt her face heat. “I ate,” he said, and then it was more than just her face heating up. “Gotta go, Mom. Love you.”

Sadie waited until she was sure the call was no longer connected. “You just lied to your mother.”