Playing for Keeps (Heartbreaker Bay #7)(70)

“And also because I am falling for you, Sadie. Falling hard.”

She put her fingers over his mouth to hold in any more words.

“That won’t make it untrue,” he said around her fingers.

“Shh.” She closed her eyes and tried to calm her heart down. “Just shh for a minute.” Her thoughts raced in tune to her impending stroke. It was quiet around them. Lollipop was back at their feet, huffing from her exertion.

Okay, so Caleb had a lot of pretty words and those words had thrown her. He wasn’t a man to toy with anyone’s feelings, much less someone he cared about. He cared about her. At least he cared about the parts of her she’d allowed him to have.

But he was definitely missing some. In spite of his sisters looking into her—which they’d either not finished doing so or they hadn’t filled him in on the details yet—Caleb didn’t know her past. Because if he did, he’d be running for the hills. She knew this for sure.

Very slowly, Caleb slid a hand to the nape of her neck, urging her in for a gentle, tender kiss that turned very ungentle in a matter of seconds, leaving her in the same condition as always when he put his mouth of hers.

Hungry for him.

Another few drops of rain hit, and then a few more, feeling amazing against her heated skin as the last of the daylight began to fade away.

Caleb stood and offered her his hand, pulling both her and Lollipop back beneath an overhang to protect them from the rain. Lollipop climbed into her backpack and yawned.

Tugging Sadie close, Caleb wrapped his arm around her waist, taking one of her hands in his, pressing it to his chest.

“What are we doing?” she asked.

“Dancing in the rain.”

That he’d even remembered it was a secret little fantasy of hers had her momentarily speechless, but she slid her free hand up his chest and around to the back of his neck, and leaned into his warm hard body, completely swept away by the moment.

She let him lead, not that they did anything fancier than shuffle their feet and sway gently to the sound of the rain hitting the rocks around them and Lollipop’s gentle snores. Sadie’s head rested against Caleb’s shoulder, her nose up against his throat. Closing her eyes, she breathed in his scent and listened to his heartbeat. “Caleb?” she whispered.

“Yeah?”

“Take me home.”

His place was the closest. The front door barely shut behind them before he pressed her up against it, kissing her hungrily.

“Arf!”

Caleb sighed and pulled free. “Hold that thought.” He then scooped up Lollipop and vanished from the living room. Two minutes later he was back alone. “She’s in my office with a treat. She’s good for now.” He pulled her into him. “Where were we?”

“Arf!”

Sadie turned and sure enough, Lollipop stood in the open doorway, eyes bright, tongue lolling and tail wagging. Leashed to Caleb’s office chair, she’d dragged it down the hall and seemed to be waiting patiently for some attention.

“Not now,” Caleb murmured against Sadie’s mouth. “Mommy and Daddy need a minute.”

“Actually,” Sadie said, staring into Caleb’s eyes. “Mommy needs more like fourteen minutes, and that’s only if you’re really really good.”

“Oh, I think we both know that I’m better than good.” Eyes lit at the challenge, he nipped her bottom lip. “But I’ll tell you what, you can have as many minutes as you want. You can have the whole night.” He unhooked Lollipop from her leash. “Don’t eat the house,” he said and then took Sadie into the bedroom.

She reached for the buttons on his jacket and shoved it off his shoulders. It took less than a minute for the rest of his clothes and all of hers to end up on the floor. Eyes dark with intent, Caleb gave her a little nudge. The backs of her knees hit the edge of his mattress. As she fell to his bed, he pinned her down and began to explore every inch of her body with his hands, his tongue, his teeth . . . proving to the both of them that he didn’t need fourteen minutes.

But he gave them to her anyway. And many more.





Chapter 23




Caleb opened his eyes a little bit later to find Sadie plastered against him, her hair in his face, an arm and leg thrown over the top of him like she’d claimed him.

Clearly, her body was on board with what her mind wasn’t.

They fit like two pieces of a puzzle.

When his stomach rumbled, he remembered that they’d skipped dinner. Quietly as he could, he slid from her embrace and ended up in the kitchen with Lollipop. He found leftover mac and cheese in the fridge and put it in the microwave. While he was waiting on that to heat, he opened the laptop he always kept on his kitchen table and skimmed his notifications.

As usual, there were far more than he was willing to deal with at the moment, including the file from Sienne.

Lollipop was staring at him.

“Hey,” he said. “I haven’t opened it, have I?”

There was a text from Kel saying he’d seen in the news that one of Caleb’s companies was going to be sending people into space in the next decade and he expected a free ride. Caleb responded that it was good as done because he wanted to be able to say he hired the first space cowboy. Kel responded with the middle finger emoji.