CHAPTER TWELVE

      Caleb

      IT WAS SEVEN o’clock and I’d been up for an hour. I should get up. Draw clear lines by returning to my room.

      I didn’t engage in cozy heart-to-hearts. I never fell asleep in a woman’s bed. Or, worse, woke up and...lingered.

      Yet I couldn’t move.

      Because I had no clue where the line was anymore. I’d given Lily the green light to blur it, and I’d completely obliterated it by sleeping with her.

      And hell, I’d barely scratched the surface of my need for her. I couldn’t get enough of Lily. Her silky softness. Her smell. The way her eyelids fluttered as she dreamed.

      I breathed out slowly, reluctant to wake her even though my eager dick was raring to go again.

      One taste and I was addicted. Enough to remain in her bed, enjoying her slight weight draped over me as I waited for her to wake up so I could indulge all over again.

      Despite being more than a little rattled that I’d also experienced the soundest, nightmare-free sleep in years. The jagged, heart-pounding images that usually taunted me with how I failed to save my mother were so inherent I’d accepted their presence.

      Last night they didn’t materialize. It was disturbing to even consider that Lily had anything to do with it. That something as simple as sharing bits of our past with each other had achieved this result.

      It was absurd, right?

      Unbidden, other moments filtered through—her pain during our first lunch in the restaurant. Her tears when she told me about her stepfather. Exposing her vulnerability at the possibility of one of her team sabotaging her work.

      After the sort of childhood Lily had experienced, many people would’ve cut their families out of their lives and closed themselves off.

      I was surprised she hadn’t.

      Stephen Gracen parked himself on his favorite bar stool in his favorite Irish pub most days before noon and stayed till closing, his tab settled courtesy of the money he’d made off his stepdaughter’s talent. The guy I sent to Boston to check him out had reported that while Gracen hadn’t exactly talked trash about Lily, he hadn’t been complimentary, either.

      Gracen was either too bitter or too stupid to realize the gem he had in his stepdaughter.

      I’d met several Silicon Valley types who thought they were hot shit because they could string code together that baffled the common man.

      In the past few days I’d discovered that Lily, despite being a highly intelligent woman who was mostly likely being paid millions for her professional skills, wasn’t in any way a pampered princess.

      She was caring and considerate.

      And she’d shared her deepest pain with me.

      Scattered across several events, they’d seemed minor but put together they were huge. Put-your-trust-in-another-person huge.

      When was I remotely okay with being that guy?

      I eyed the bedroom door, wondering again why I wasn’t hightailing out of it.

       Because you want the same from her.

      The sharp ache in my chest answered the inner voice.

      I shifted again, uncomfortable at the fresh turmoil churning inside me.

      This was why I didn’t do feelings. So far, every encounter between us had come packed with them, even the moments she’d accepted my help to ease her stress sexually. They were all emotional land mines that usually had pushed my eject button.

      I gritted my teeth. I liked her. A hell of a lot. But feelings and fucking didn’t mix well. Period.

      She stirred against me. I looked down and saw her watching me with contemplative eyes. It was that same look she’d given me before prying secrets from me yesterday in the car.

      “You look seriously...serious.” Wary questions lurked in her eyes, traces of unease and all those pitfalls I suspected came with the morning after a night of earth-shattering sex.

      “For a genius, I expected more eloquence than seriously serious.” I kept my voice light.

      Her hand drifted up my waist to my chest even though her eyes remained dark, searching. “Okay, how about this.” Her thigh brushed my hard-on. “Is that one of my sex toys in your lap or are you just extremely happy to see me?”

      Sex. This I could handle.

      Talking about my mother and how I would have her back in a heartbeat, if only for a chance to do things differently, push harder, shout louder until my voice was heard, until she got the help she needed, I most definitely couldn’t.

      I smiled past my disquiet, willing my emotions to detach again as I rolled her over and slid two fingers beneath the choker we never got round to taking off last night. “In case I need to spell it out, your battery-operated boyfriends have had their privileges revoked for the foreseeable future. I’m taking care of your every need from now on.”

      The words echoed with an unnerving sense of permanence, sending another spike of unease up my spine.

      Something flitted through her eyes before her lids swept down, cutting me off from her expression. When she looked back up, her eyes contained nothing but hot sexual promise. “If it’s going to be anywhere near as good as last night...”

      I brushed my lips over hers, teasing even though I wanted to plunge in and devour. “That better not be a challenge, baby. Or I’ll be forced to give you a demonstration.”

      Her breathing picked up, her pulse racing against my fingers. “Yes, please.”

      Before the words were out of her mouth, I was sliding my tongue between her lips, giving her a vivid taste of what was coming.

      A moan rolled from her throat as her fingers dug into my back. My dick jerked, homing in on that place between her open thighs. When her eager wetness greeted it, my vision blurred.

      For the first time in my life, I wondered what it would be like to take a woman bare, to glide skin on skin. To come at the gateway to where a new life could be created—

       Christ, what the hell is wrong with you?

      I dragged my mouth from hers, scrambling for sanity before I did something unthinkable, like ask if she was on the pill. If another man had ever been with her the way I suddenly craved to be.

      Irrational jealousy bubbled up, joining the deranged carnival going on inside me. The hand fondling one gorgeous breast tightened.

      She inhaled sharply. “Caleb?” Bewilderment laced her lust-soaked voice.

       Get yourself together!

      I dropped a contrite kiss on her mouth. “Shower or pool?” In the hour before she woke, before perplexing thoughts ruined my mood, I listed all the places I wanted to fuck her.

      She blinked, then murmured, “Shower.”

      Thank fuck. I didn’t think I’d make it to the pool.

      I scooped her out of bed, grabbed a condom before walking us into the bathroom. Like mine, there was a huge copper roll-top bathtub and a separate shower stall.

      I held her against me as I turned on the shower and adjusted the temperature. When my hands slid from her ass to her waist to set her down, the arms around my neck clung, forcing me to look into her face.

      “Caleb, are you okay?” she asked, still a little hesitant.