Chapter 3

Caleb was used to feeling guilty, but he could usually shake it off better than this.

However, something about the clash between his feelings for Kelly and his conversation with Moore had left him with a guilt so heavy it was weighing him down.

He liked who he was with Kelly, and he didn’t like other things he’d done—the other man he’d been—to raise their heads in her vicinity.

There was nothing he could do about the sins of his past. They were done, and no recompense could be offered to absolve him of them. Most of the time he was fine with that, but he couldn’t shake the feeling tonight. The weight of it intensified everything else he was feeling too.

It was probably why he got so jealous when Wes leaned over and whispered something in Kelly’s ear as they were leaving.

He had no idea what his friend was telling her, but he didn’t like it. Not because he thought Kelly would ever respond to the other man, but because it indicated something about her that he didn’t know.

Her reaction was just a casual smile, but it didn’t look genuine.

Something bothered her about what Wes had said, and she just shrugged it off when he asked.

Caleb didn’t say anything else. He just took Kelly by the arm and led her outside to where his chauffeured car was waiting.

He wasn’t sure why it bothered him so much, but it did. Wes had no business talking to Kelly in private, and Kelly had no business keeping it from him.

He told himself to get over it. Nothing important had happened. It was just one of those nights where everything stood out in starker contrast. Where every feeling, thought, and impulse seemed stronger and more significant than it usually would.

It probably had something to do with the hot sex they’d had before they left the house, and it definitely had something to do with the lingering guilt from his conversation with Moore.

Kelly and what had happened with Moore were among the few things in the world that left Caleb feeling out of control.

“Wes seemed nice,” Kelly said, seeming a little distracted. She looked like sex embodied in lush, golden form in her red dress and tousled fall of hair, and his body reacted to the sight of her.

It almost always did.

Caleb wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say in response to that comment, but he really didn’t want to talk about Wes right now. “He’s okay.”

“You’ve known him a long time?”

“Since elementary school. Why?”

She gave a little shrug. “Just curious. Is he married?”

Caleb didn’t like the direction of these questions. Why the hell should Kelly care about Wes anyway? “No.”

“Girlfriend?”

“Why?”

“They’re normal questions, aren’t they? Isn’t he your friend?”

“I guess.”

“Why are you so grumpy?” Kelly asked him with a frown. Her dress had shifted as she’d adjusted in the seat and was now revealing an even larger expanse of her deep cleavage.

“I am not grumpy,” Caleb gritted out, feeling like the hairs were standing up on the back of his neck. “I just don’t know why we need to have a whole conversation about Wes, if that’s all right with you.”

Kelly stuck out her chin as the car pulled into the street and headed back to Caleb’s house outside the city, which was over an hour away. “Are you jealous?” she asked, looking almost surprised. Her eyes seemed tired and a little strained—as if she’d had an emotionally stressful evening herself, although he wasn’t sure why or how that would have been the case—but they were now flashing with something that taunted him.

“I am not jealous.” He wished this topic had never come up. Wished he’d not attended this party after all. Wished one of his few friends in the world hadn’t shown up this evening.

Kelly took a deep breath, and something about that breath struck Caleb as strange—as if she was gearing herself up somehow. But then he forgot all about the strangeness when she scooted over next to him on the supple leather seat. She gave him a teasing grin and slid her hand from his belly up to his shoulder. “I think maybe you are jealous,” she murmured.

“Kelly,” Caleb warned, his impatience boiling up. He needed to be left alone so he could recover his control—of himself, of his feelings, of his guilt. If he didn’t, the roiling intensity inside him might escape, and Caleb couldn’t allow that to happen.

“What?” she replied, tilting her face up toward him. “Why don’t you just admit it? You’re jealous and angry because your friend made a move on me.”

Caleb made a harsh noise in his throat and jerked toward her. “So he did make a move on you?”

The corners of Kelly’s full lips turned up, although her eyes still looked rather stressed. Which didn’t make much sense, since Kelly should have just spent a relatively uneventful evening. “Of course he did. And what would you do if I told you I was…tempted by his offer?”

Caleb narrowed his eyes. He knew she was teasing him on purpose. He knew it. But he couldn’t suppress the feral response. “Were you?” he asked thickly.

Her eyebrows lifted. “What would you do if I was?”

“Were you?” he demanded again, leaning toward her and grabbing one of her upper arms with his hand.

He was being irrational. This was absolutely stupid. Why the hell couldn’t he act like his normal self again?

He was being played by her. She was trying to get him to let go of his feelings, and he was allowing it. Letting her play him.

Almost as if he wanted to let himself go.

“Would you try to convince me otherwise?” Kelly teased, her voice husky and seductive. She took one of his hands and placed it on her thigh, just where the slit of her skirt exposed the bare skin above her knee. “Would you try to prove to me that you have more to offer than he does?”

“You already know what I have to offer you,” he managed to say, in a semblance of his natural voice. Every word he spoke was rougher and throatier than it should have been, and he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why he was acting this way.

His hand remained on her thigh, and he could feel both the fabric of her dress and her supple skin beneath his palm. He didn’t move it any farther, though. He’d always been happy to follow her lead whenever she wanted to try something adventurous sexually. But something about this felt strange—and the strangeness wasn’t just from his nearness to losing control.

Something about Kelly felt…off. As if she were baiting him this way in spite of her mood rather than because of it.

But that wouldn’t make any sense at all.

Kelly shifted until her mouth was next to his ear. She lowered her hand once more to his belly, just above Caleb’s partially hardened cock.

He’d been semierect for a while now, his arousal feeding off his other intense feelings.

“Caleb,” Kelly whispered, her breath wafting over the sensitive skin of his ear. “Why do you keep holding back? Let yourself go. Show me why I shouldn’t be tempted by anyone else.”

Then she covered his hand with hers on her thigh, closed her fingers around his wrist, and slid his hand up beneath the skirt of her dress. All the way up her thigh.

Up to the juncture between her legs.

He could feel the warmth of her through the fabric of her panties.

His cock jumped painfully to full erection as a flash of hot desire slammed into him.

“Fuck me, Caleb,” Kelly murmured, her voice an erotic caress, a tantalizing torture. “Are you really going to make me beg?”

Caleb grabbed her upper body and devoured her mouth with a hard kiss, finally letting go of the restraint that had been holding his instinct in check. She clung to him. Moaned into his mouth. And Caleb channeled all the smoldering intensity of the evening into claiming her as his.