CHAPTER EIGHT
Ruby
He hasn’t gone home, and I haven’t wanted him to. We’ve been sitting on my back porch, watching the sun come up, talking about everything and nothing at all. Truth be told, I keep trying to come up with questions to keep him here. I don’t want this night to end, don’t want to let him go.
“You want kids?” I ask him, pulling a blanket around my shoulders that I went to get an hour and a half ago once it got too cold. My legs are in his lap and he’s still playing with the rip in my thigh. He hasn’t stopped doing it since we sat down, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t feeling it in every part of my body. Each time he makes a trip forward and back, my nipples peak and my core throbs.
“At least two, probably three or four, if I’m given a chance. I want a family, something I didn’t have until I was eighteen, when Karina came into our lives.” His voice is deep with what sounds like the need to sleep. We’ve talked for hours, and even I have to lick my dry lips.
“I’m there for the two. I have a brother who’s two years older than me,” I reveal. “Our relationship isn’t like you and your sister’s, though. We’re tough on each other, and he’s a fuck up. I find myself cleaning up his messes, and my parents constantly make excuses for him. It drives me up the damn wall, but he’s my older brother and I like to give him chances.”
“Men mature slower than women.” He plays with the skin of my thigh again, causing my breath to catch and my thighs to press together.
I laugh loudly because that’s what my mom has told me almost every time I’ve complained about them coddling Preston. “Trust me, I know all about that. I hear it every time I complain about him.”
Caleb chuckles deep in his throat. “Look at that sunrise.” He extends his finger toward the sun coming up. I follow his finger, as it traces the horizon.
We sit there for a few more minutes, both yawning as we put our heads together. At this point I’ve been up for twenty-four hours and I’m pretty sure he has been too.
“I need to get out of here–” his words are broken up by a stretch, dislodging my head and legs from his grasp-“if I’m going to make it home before I fall asleep.”
There’s an idea floating around in my head, and I’m wondering if I want to ask it. Rejection is a thing, and I’m scared of it, but we’re running out of time because I’m tired, and I know he is too. I don’t want him to get hurt on his way home, so I go ahead and decide that it’s time to grow a pair. We turn quiet, each lost in our own thoughts. With a deep breath, I work up the courage to throw it out there.
“You can stay here with me, if you want to. We can sleep, and then when you’re rested enough, you can go home,” I invite him, almost cringing at the way I sound. Not confident at all.
His eyes are wide, like it’s the last thing he expected me to ask, and the silence stretches for too long. It embarrasses me and all my insecurities seep into my thoughts. If he’d really wanted to stay, he would have jumped on the chance. And now I feel stupid.
“Forget it.” I reach down, grabbing a bottle of water one of us has gone in and gotten during our long night of conversation. I’m getting it so that I have a reason to get up and leave. So he can leave me without having to save face and make a quick exit. “Bad idea.”
“No.” He reaches out, stopping me. “Great idea. I haven’t slept with a woman in a long time. I’d be honored to break that drought with you.”
Little does he know, the pleasure is all mine.
Cruise
“If at any time you don’t feel comfortable, just tell me.” I follow Ruby into the back of the duplex, and immediately I feel as if I’ve been placed in a time warp. Earlier when I came in, I didn’t pay much attention, but now I do, remembering us all moving Violet in when she’d been able to leave her husband. “Not much has changed since Violet lived here.”
“Is it weird she lived here and now you’re here with me?” She takes off her shoes, motioning for me to do the same and stick them next to the doorway.
“No, I wasn’t here very often. I helped her a few times, move in, move across to Ace’s side, and then when they bought a house all of us moved them out. It’s been years since I’ve been in here, but I remember how proud she was of it.”
She turns toward me, holding her hand out for my jacket. “That’s kinda how I feel.” She shrugs. “I went from my parents’ house to the dorms, and now I’m here. I’m lucky though, so many of my classmates weren’t able to find jobs, and they’ve had to move back home. Even if Laurel Springs doesn’t pay a lot, I didn’t have to move back home. I’ll always be thankful that it worked out this way.”
“Oh my God, isn’t that the truth? I live in an apartment across town, it’s a really small two-bedroom, but I would rather live there than live with my parents again,” I commiserate with her. “I sleep naked now, and there’s no way I could do that under my parents’ roof.”
She laughs loudly, putting her hands over her face, as she runs her eyes up and down my body. “You sleep naked?”
“Well, once we get to know each other well enough, you’ll find out for sure.” I give her a wink. I’d like both of us to sleep naked right now, wrapped up in one another. After talking to her about anything and everything, I feel closer to her than I have anyone else I’ve been with in a long time. It’s just I don’t know how she’d handle the request. Soon though, we’ll know each other that well. Until then, I tell my wayward dick to calm down.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do with you.” She walks farther into the living room, and I follow her like a puppy.
“Just let me stick around. I’m gonna end up being one of those things you can’t live without,” I say, making her a promise.
“You think so?” Ruby asks, stepping close to me this time, hooking her arms around my waist.
“Count on it.” I loop my arms around her waist, holding her close.
* * *
“Sure you don’t want to take your jeans off?” she asks as we get situated in her bed. She’s changed into a pair of the shortest damn shorts I’ve seen, and a shirt that slips off her shoulder. When she moves a certain way, it shows the lace of a black bra underneath. I run my hand down my stomach, barely able to stop myself from reaching down and adjusting my package.
“I think they should stay on, I don’t want to pressure you into moving too fast, because of how I react to you.” I let my eyes do the talking as she flits around the room, closing the curtains.
“I kinda like how you react to me.”
When she gets done, she comes back over to where I’m lying and slides in next to me. “You set your alarm, right?”
“Yep.” I pick up my phone and make sure one more time I set it correctly. “We can sleep almost eight hours, then I have to get out of here and go change for work.”
Slowly, she scoots over to where her head lays on my chest. Circling my arm around her neck, I hold her close.
“You’re the first guy I’ve ever had in this bed,” she whispers softly a few minutes after we cuddle up with one another.
“What about in this apartment?” My voice is deeper than it should be, the answer she’s about to give me means more than it should.
I’ve always been the guy who’s taken my responsibilities seriously, and I’ve been accused of having a hero complex more than once. But the night when I saw her scared to death, it did something to me. The first glance I had at her, I saw a future. One I’ve never let myself think about, one I wasn’t really sure was ever for me. Everyone always told me when I met my match I’d know it, and damn if I don’t know it right now.
“No men besides family have ever been in the living room, much less the bedroom.” She scoots in closer to me. Maybe she’s like me, feeling more comfortable because of the darkness of the room, the quietness encompassing us.
“That makes me happy.” I run my finger up and down her arm.
“You should go to sleep,” she says quietly before tucking her face into my neck, hooking her leg over my abdomen.
Chancing her pulling away, I put my hand on her thigh, squeezing, where it lays against a cock that’s starting to pay attention to what’s happening between us. “I should,” I agree with her. My eyes are heavy, words a little slurred, because I’m starting to drift off. I have presence of mind to lightly push my fingers through her hair, and level her gaze to mine. “But what I really want to do–” I stop, letting her pull away if she wants. When she doesn’t I go forward with what I’ve been wanting to say all day. “–is kiss you. Is that okay with you?”
Her smile is lazy, and she doesn’t open her eyes, but she tilts her mouth to mine, letting me take control. Control is something I like, it’s something I crave, and her giving it to me so easily? Maybe Ruby’s made for me in more ways than one. Leaning slightly into her, I brush my lips against hers, slightly pressing for entry. When she allows it, I take. My tongue dances with hers as I slightly tighten my grasp in her hair. Slowly she melts into me, hugging me tighter with her hip across my waist. My hand there tightens on her thigh, and it takes everything I have not to pull her across me, sit her up, strip her of her shirt and bra, and end up with her tits in my mouth. She strains against me, digging her fingers into my skin, moaning softly in the back of her throat. When I pull away, she chases me, but I hold her back.
“As much as I would love to explore this mouth, and making out with you, I seriously gotta get some sleep.”
My voice is wrecked, deep and regretful.
“I know.”
“If I didn’t have to work tonight…” I release her hair from my grip and let my hand fall to the front of her shirt. Through the material, I cup her breast, running my thumb over a nipple that’s peaked against my touch. “I would explore all the ways we could both make each other feel good, but I do have to be decently rested to work a shift.”
She moans, easing back from me, grabbing my thumb. “Then don’t tease me, Caleb. Get some sleep so I don’t have to worry about you so much.”
“You gonna worry about me?” The thought spreads a warmth across my chest and into the pit of my stomach.
“Yeah, hot stuff,” she sighs as she situates herself against me again. “I’m gonna worry a lot about you.”
“I didn’t see you coming,” I whisper in the stillness.
“Didn’t see you coming either.”
And as I listen to the sound of her even breathing, I drift off into the best nap I’ve ever had before a shift.