CHAPTER NINE
Cherry
I scrambled out from under Caleb before he could recover. But he just sat there, a glazed look in his eyes.
“Caleb?” I hadn’t hit him that hard.
He turned toward me, and when our eyes met, a sizzle of electricity nearly knocked me back. In that moment, every ounce of desire he had for me hung in the air. It made me feel important… and pissed. I didn’t want to want him. Definitely didn’t want the things that would ultimately come along with a tangle with Caleb. Fancy cars, fancy clothes, fancy everything. Starting last week, things had begun arriving at the house. A new workout outfit, new grappling shoes.
The air in the ring was flaming hot when I snapped back to attention and realized Caleb had stood. I let out a snarl of frustration as I swung with a right, but Caleb caught my punch and tried to manipulate my arm into a lock. I broke free, and this time when I did, found that I wanted to be locked in a grapple with him again, just so I could feel his skin against mine.
He threw a punch, and I spun away, buying time to try to get back in the zone. I admitted that there was a whole lot more to the rich boy than I originally thought, and it was sending me into a tizzy. What other sort of skills hid under his playboy exterior? I shivered at the thought.
He was by no means an expert, but he was strong, and I could feel the defined muscles with each punch I landed. If I could just concentrate, I was sure I could pull something from my bag of tricks to take him down, but every time I thought I was close, Caleb moved a certain way, or pressed himself against a new area of my body, and my thoughts went fluttering off again.
I’d never had such a difficult time reigning in my thoughts before and focusing on purely the fight. In fact, that had always been one of my skills, being able to shut out the rest of the world until only me and my opponent remained.
But I had no such luck with Caleb. My thoughts were rushing, my heart pounding, tension coiling in my middle, desperately begging for some kind of release.
I locked gazes with him, sharp blue eyes shaded from the overhead lights, making them closer to a warm cobalt. My attention was drawn to his lips. Wide, strong lips that made breathing difficult. Lips that made me want to kiss them and say to hell with the fact that I’d worked so hard and fought so long to get a leg up on life. I finally had it in my grasp, and all I wanted now was to risk it all by kissing the man who could halt the whole thing on a whim.
I wouldn’t give in.
I lifted my head and flew into a kneestrike, but Caleb was faster. Hooking his leg around the one I’d shifted all my weight to, he yanked it out from under me, and I hit the mat hard. Instantly, his weight was over me as he prepared to put me in a submission hold.
But he didn’t.
“Timeout,” he said as he stared down at me, splayed over my body so that I could feel his ragged breathing.
For a second, time blurred, then his mouth came down on mine. His lips were soft, amazingly so compared to the hard angles of the man pressed into my front.
He pulled back, breathed out my name, the sound going through me, awakening nerves that had slumbered all my life. He stared down at me for a solid ten seconds, looking at me like I was some kind of anomaly, and I was sure that I’d just ruined everything. But then he was ripping his gloves off, his hands winding around my wrists, pinning them to the mat.
This was even better than my dream, and I sighed into his mouth as he brought it back to mine, this time for a longer, deeper kiss. The warmth of his tongue against mine sent all sorts of pleasant impulses to sensual places I hadn’t known existed. When a knot formed low in my belly, I knew there was no coming back from the cliff I had just thrown myself off.
Caleb dipped his tongue into the deep recesses, dominating my mouth. I returned his effort, wanting him to know that I was every bit as into this as he was.
I gave in, gloried in the feel of getting swept away in the rush of tingles he elicited, the fast sweep of blood that seemed to carry his taste throughout my system. I didn’t even try to contain myself. I was like a body of water that had finally broken through a dam, and I would not be stopped. I would rush, an unstoppable deluge.
“I want you.”
His words were like a punch that made me want to give him anything he wanted, to make him happy, even if it meant surrendering.
Caleb’s hands punctuated the statement when his fingers released my wrist and glided slowly down my inner arm, grazing over my ribs so that I held my breath, then hooked under the bottom of my tight athletic top, his palm coming to rest on my abdomen. My hips lifted of their own accord and a soft whimper slipped from my throat.
My mind flashed to the contract I’d signed, and something in my center went cold. “I’m already yours,” I said in a flat tone, testing him.
Raising his head, he took in my change in mood. “That’s called sponsorship. I put up money to give you advantages. It doesn’t mean I own you. And nothing that happens between us personally changes a damn thing professionally.”
He was right. And a chunk of the ice in my belly broke off. But I could tell by his unshuttered gaze that that wasn’t all. “But you want me to be…”
“Mine,” Caleb said with force. “To want only me, to dream of only me, only scream out my name.”
The cool air of the gym broke into the sensuous haze for a moment, but I was quickly pulled back in as Caleb’s lips found the side of my jaw. Once more, reality echoed fantasy as he kissed his way down the side of my neck, and then finally to my collarbone.
“Do you want me?” he asked.
“Yes,” I gasped, wanting nothing more than to feel his teeth on my skin like in my dream, proof that he wanted me as desperately as I wanted him.
He pulled away, staring down at me with a gaze so intense I felt like I might actually melt. “Why?”
“I…” I shook my head, trying to make everything I was feeling make verbal sense. I couldn’t. What was happening between us was too strong, too powerful. “There’s just this… I can’t not want you.”
He blew out a breath. “God, I know. It’s confusing, frustrating. But there’s only one way to tamp it back.” His smile was pure sin, and then he was kissing me again.
I wound my arms around his shoulders, wanting to fuse us together like we were one. He felt like he was made to fit against me, and I tangled my legs in his, hooking our bodies tighter together.
I wanted, needed to feel his bare skin. I pushed him up far enough so I could grip his shirt and yanked it up and off, Caleb helping. The garment managed to muss his hair from its normally perfectly coiffed style, the tousled look so sexy that the tension in my middle twisted that much tighter. His muscles were taut, and I hungrily took in the striations of each bulge in his six-pack. I’d never craved someone so thoroughly and found myself impatiently wanting us to progress as quickly as possible, while also never leaving this moment.
Freedom from his shirt seemed to be a signal to him to escalate because suddenly he was gripping my leggings and yanking them down. They were so tight that they fought coming off even though I tried to help, but Caleb didn’t seem to mind the challenge and dipped his head, kissing my stomach as he worked them down. Finally, I was only in my blue lace underwear, grateful I’d taken a shower.
“Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?” he murmured, voice low and drenched in sex.
“You keep saying that.” The words were out of my mouth before I could hold them back, and my cheeks warmed. He had a way of making his opinion sound like an indisputable fact.
“It’s undeniable.”
I pulled on his shoulders, wanting his lips on mine again, but he dipped his head low and his hot breath was on my collarbone and inching lower. My breathing picked up speed in anticipation, in hope, when his hand crawled up my abdomen and found one pert nipple through my sports bra. I thought I might combust right there in the ring. Pulling the bra over my head in one quick movement, the material had barely hit the floor before his lips closed over my nipple.
My fingers found his hair, and I held onto him as he sucked my flesh deep into his mouth. I keened, begged for more, and he gave it to me as his hand trailed a wandering path down my belly.
The tension in my middle increased, my adrenaline flowing until my heart raced so fast that my heartbeat drowned out everything. His lips followed his fingers, licking and kissing down my stomach.
His name left my mouth in a rush when his fingers hooked under the edge of my panties and pulled. Soon, the blue lace was tossed to the side, and he settled down between my legs. His fingers parted me as he blew lightly on my most sensitive skin. A straight hurricane of ecstasy rushed through me. “Oh god, Caleb!”
I was bared to him now, but instead of feeling self-conscious or vulnerable, the way he was looking at me — like I was the most delicious thing he had ever tasted, like I really was as beautiful as he said — I felt empowered. I felt sexy and desired.
It made me want him. Want him to hurry up and shed the rest of his clothes. Want him to fill me.
I could feel him smile as his tongue flicked over my clit, eliciting more nerves to surface and cry out for more. My back arched, and his hand moved up to encircle my breast, his thumb moving over the nipple, matching the movements of his tongue.
Every cell in my body was focused only on what his tongue was doing to me and the way his hand was now joining the other between my thighs, opening me farther. I thought I might go mad, if I wasn’t already. My bare back pressed into the mat, and the cool surface was a contrast that only emphasized the heat that was growing in my very center.
When he stopped, I gasped for air and realized that I hadn’t even known I was holding my breath. But Caleb didn’t give me time to recover. A single finger entered me, then another, and I wailed as they curved, exploring my inner walls.
“Please…” I begged.
He licked my clit, his fingers moving faster. “Please what?”
I didn’t know, so I pulled his face against me harder, grinding onto his tongue and teeth until a wave of pleasure hit me so hard, I wailed out his name.
While I watched, my entire body on fire, he rose to his knees, his hands going to the fly of his shorts. Those hands mesmerized me, and I watched as he took his time removing them, his hot blue gaze locked with mine. Once more, I marveled at how his intense stare seemed to look right through me, see right inside. I prided myself on my walls, but it seemed like they were thinner than paper under his gaze.
Then his workout shorts were off, and my breath hitched as only his boxer briefs remained.
My teeth worried at my lips while I watched, enraptured, as all of him was revealed to me. His need was certainly evident, standing tall and thick.
I couldn’t wait any longer, and when I reached up to him, he let me pull him down on top of me. “I want you inside me.”
He shot me a triumphant grin as his hand found my aching center again. “I want that too. But first, I want to watch your face when I make you come.” I gasped, arching up into him as his fingers parted me. He took his time. Stroking, caressing, exploring. Learning every inch of me and exploiting every reaction. I could only hold on to his muscled shoulders as he strummed me, bringing notes out of my mouth that I had never made before. I thought I’d had good sex, decent sex before, but I was quickly realizing that I was sorely mistaken.
Something beautiful was building along my pelvis and arching up my spine. I knew I couldn’t be approaching another climax so soon, and yet that was exactly what was happening.
“Oh, Caleb, that’s so good. I’m gonna…” His fingers curled inside me as I tried to find the right words, and all hope of finishing what I had been about to say was lost.
“You feel like heaven,” he growled, and that guttural sound was what toppled me over the edge.
A cry escaped my throat as I tensed around him, and the world spun away from me, leaving my only tether to reality Caleb’s fingers inside of me as I rode them through my climax.
I was panting and breathless when I finally came down, and my bones felt like pure jelly. I laid there, content in my bliss, but that same furor struck me like a whip again as Caleb left me for a moment. I only wanted his heat pressed down over me but understood as I heard the crinkling of a condom wrapper.
Then his cock was pressed to my opening.
“Do you want this?” he asked, pinning me with eyes full of desire, but at the same time patience.
“I want you. Yes, I want you.” I said it louder than I meant to because my entire body had turned traitor, and I had the idea I would have done anything in that moment to have him inside me.
His eyes flashed to something like relief, and he surged forward with a snarl, planting himself inside me.
I let out a noise somewhere between a gasp and a shout as he filled me, stretching me. He held himself deep inside, and there was a pinch of discomfort because he was so large, but it quickly faded as pure pleasure took its place.
“Are you okay?” he rasped, and I ran my hands down his torso, exploring the ridges of hard muscles tensed to their max. He was shaking ever so slightly in an effort to make sure I was okay before he continued. Even though his dominance had come out, he was still thinking of me first.
I didn’t know what came over me, maybe it was that his dominant nature brought out the brat in me. With a quick shift of my hips, and because he was off-guard, I managed to turn us so that he was beneath me, and I was fully impaled on his engorged length.
He let out a hiss as I cried out again, and his hands went to my hips. There, his fingers dug into my skin as he guided me up, then back down his length.
Satisfaction that I’d turned his seduction back on him coursed through my veins and I quickened my pace. The muscles in my abdomen were fluttering already, tightening into a tense ball.
When was the last time I’d finished more than once in a single encounter? Never.
Caleb pressed his thumb over my clit, and all thoughts of the past ceased to matter. Right now, the whole world was just me and the carved god below me.
I bent down, my lips capturing his as my hands traveled over every crook and valley of his molded chest. The change in angle had unexpected consequences, and he was suddenly hitting the spot within me that made my mind empty of everything but his touch.
“Don’t stop!” I begged, pistoning my hips to meet his own desperate upward thrusts.
“Not… planning… to,” he growled, impossibly picking up his speed even further as I laughed.
I felt like my body was going to rattle apart at the joints as we devolved into a borderline frenzy. The world whittled down to fast, harsh breaths, straining muscles and the slap of our skin on the mat below us. Wild, reckless, and oh so wonderful.
My legs were trembling as a tremendous white wave of pleasure came rushing violently toward me. And then, the wave crested, and I was swallowed up.
“Caleb!” I didn’t mean to scream his name, but that was exactly what escaped my mouth as I came hard, Caleb spasming within me as he let out a feral sound.
I laid there, locked in my own body’s celebration, letting my hands flutter softly over the hair on the back of his neck. I’d never had sex this good, this… connected. It had been such a workout, had me breathing as hard as after one of Andre’s sessions.
I stiffened at the thought of Andre’s name.
Shit.
I’d just had sex with the man sponsoring my dream.
Reality and all its complications came back in a nauseating rush.
What had I done?
I shot to my feet so quickly that my knees almost gave out. Unable to look at Caleb, I grabbed my clothes, holding them to my chest.
It took Caleb a beat to realize what I was doing, and as he did, his contented expression faded, replaced by a frown. “Hey, where are you going?”
I couldn’t look at him. “I have to go.”
Caleb leaped up. “Wait a second, I’ll drive you home—”
“I’ll be fine.” I walked as if I was in no hurry even though I wanted to sprint toward the locker room. After I was there, I splashed water onto my face before quickly yanking on my clothes with shaking hands.
I knew that in order to leave, I had to pass Caleb to get to the main entrance, and that was just absolutely not an option. I had finally gotten the opportunity of a lifetime, and I may have thrown it all away for a few minutes of sex. I needed time and space to figure out how to proceed. But I didn’t have it, had to figure out my next step without the luxury of planning time.
Straightening my back as I stepped out of the locker room, hoping to bypass a confrontation, I bit back a cry of frustration, and my fingers clenched the bag I carried. Just when I was sure that I would have to face him, I noticed the glowing red exit sign over the door at the side of the building.
Without a second thought, I walked out the door and into the cold February air, pulling the hood of my sweatshirt over my head. But even as I rushed toward the bus stop, I could still smell him on me. The throbbing of my lower half would not let me forget that his fingers had been there not minutes before.
When I walked in the door at home, I was confronted in the living room by my friend, Grace, who was watching Colby play a whichever Fallout game he’d gotten for Christmas. I suspected that Colby had a crush on Grace, and at the moment he was trying to impress her with his survival skills.
She looked up when I entered, doing a double take at my appearance, which I knew didn’t look much out of the ordinary after a workout. I’d checked in the mirror before leaving the gym. That meant that the encounter with Caleb was written all over my face. Or body.
I held back a grimace and said with a tight smile, “I’ve got to shower. What a workout today. Be back in a few.”
Colby yelled out an agreement, obviously happy to keep Grace occupied longer, and I hightailed it to the bathroom.
I scrubbed vigorously in the shower, washing off the gym’s grime like I did after every workout. Except today’s workout was fundamentally different from any other I’d ever had at the gym. Or anywhere.
Try as I might to put the encounter out of my mind, my brain kept flickering back to the events that had just unfolded. Caleb peeling my underwear down my legs. Caleb thrusting himself inside me. The way we moved together in sync, as if it had been pre-orchestrated. Amazing. Much more than I’d ever looked for in a purely sexual situation.
It was the stupidest thing I could have done. The best-case scenario was that Caleb would act like nothing happened, but I knew how incredibly unrealistic that was. He was either going to fire me outright for unprofessional conduct or assume that I was some kind of whore who slept her way to the top. Because in this situation, women were whores and men studs, right?
What happened between us was entirely my fault. I shouldn’t have gotten into that ring. What kind of fighter got into a ring with her sponsor, hoping to punch him out? I gripped the sides of my head.
“Hey, are you almost done in there? I gotta go!” I growled in aggravation as Honey banged on the door.
“I’ll be out in a few minutes!” I called back. Living with four siblings, there was no such thing as a long shower, even if the water heater held out.
“You’ve been in there for half an hour, and I gotta go!” Honey had recently learned to tell time and took every opportunity to announce how long an event was taking. But when Honey had to go, she really had to go. My sister had more energy than all of us in the house put together and went headlong until Mother Nature came to call.
“Fine! Just give me a minute.” I shut off the water and stepped out of the tub, grumbling the entire time. Wrapping myself in a towel, I opened the door, and she rushed past me, hopping up and down on her toes.
She perched on the toilet and let loose before I could give her any privacy, but she didn’t care about that and launched into conversation. “Did you see a spider?” Wide hazel eyes just like mine surveyed the black and white tiled floor.
“A spider?” I looked for the offending arachnid too. “Was there a spider in here?”
“Your eyes are so big, I thought maybe you saw a real huuuge one.”
“My eyes… Oh, no. I didn’t see a spider.”
“Her eyes are pretty big, Honey.” Grace stood in the hall, her head cocked, looking in on the scene with interest.
Dammit. I’d never be able to hide my secret from Grace now.
Without explaining, I headed to my room. Clementine was at an art design after school class, so I had it to myself for a precious amount of time.
Grace followed and shut us in, folding her arms over her chest and leaning against the door. “What’s going on?”
“Going on?” I parroted, my brain scrambling for reasons I could give Grace for being out of sorts. But I didn’t want to lie.
I found the comfiest pajamas I had and slid into them, feeling like it was a good day for early pajama donage. My mind immediately wandered to wondering what kind of pajamas Caleb slept in, or whether he slept in anything at all. I sighed and sat on the side of the bed.
“Well, something is.” Grace pushed off the door. “You come in all flush-faced, avoiding us all, scurry to the shower…” She pressed a finger to the small dent in her chin. “I’d almost think you had really satisfying sex, if I didn’t know you better.”
“Sex?” I squeaked and shut my eyes when Grace lit up and grinned.
“You did! You had amazing sex! It’s all over your face.” Her footsteps came closer. “And is that beard burn?”
I groaned and lightly pushed her away, flopping on my back on the bed. The room practically spun with my thoughts, all twisted up. “Okay. Okay. I did. But it was more than amazing, it was… razzle-dazzle.”
“You had razzle-dazzle sex? Is that the kinky kind?”
I pulled a pillow over my eyes. “Oh my god, Grace, no! And I’m never doing it again.”
“What?” She tried to pull the pillow away, and I fought to keep it in place. “Why would you want to do that?”
I sat up, hugging the pillow to my chest. “I can’t. I just can’t. I may have ruined everything.”
“How? You did it with your trainer?”
“Andre? No!”
Her eyes went huge, and if I wasn’t mistaken, her face paled a bit. “Oh my god! You did it with the billionaire!”
I groaned and fell back on the bed, going limp with surrender. “I did,” I whispered, unable to keep the awe out.
“He didn’t, like, pressure you or anything, right?”
I gave her a look. “Who could ever pressure me into anything?”
“Good point, but you can’t blame me for wanting to make sure my best friend is safe.” But she wasn’t content to let the conversation end there. “So, is there a reason why you’re reacting like you just had a bad encounter?”
I lifted my head off the bed and gave her a duh look. “Because I jeopardized everything by getting a lil’ somethin’ from the guy with the deep pockets. This is my chance. And I prioritized getting laid over my big break.” I covered my eyes with my hand, my stomach churning.
“Have you considered that maybe, just maybe, this Caleb is a bigger man than that and that he wouldn’t let your razzle-dazzle affect your working agreement?”
I uncovered my eyes, hope spearing into me. “Do you think so? I guess that’s possible.”
“If you’d lower those walls of yours maybe you could see over them. So, do share. Is he hung?”
I let out a squeak then smashed a pillow over my own face, muffling my response. “You have no idea.”
“Really?” Grace sat on the bed next to me. “How hung?”
“I’ve never in my life…”
“You gonna tell me, or are we going to play twenty questions?”
I elbowed her, laughing as I came up for air. “You’re bad, you know that? It’s like he’s some sort of magnet, constantly pulling at me with this crazy irresistible force. I can’t seem to make it stop.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t make it stop. But you should definitely tell me more details.”
“I’m sure Caleb wouldn’t appreciate my telling everyone what his kisses—”
My door burst open, and Honey danced in, jumping up and down on her toes. “Caleb! Caleb! Cherry has a crush on Caleb! She kissed him!” Her dark blonde hair flew as she leaped then came down on the soles of her feet, grinning ear to ear as she planted her hand over her mouth.
I flew off the bed. “Honey! It’s not nice to eavesdrop”
Honey looked up at the ceiling. “What’s dropping? Eve? Oh! Like Adam and Eve?” She began strutting, chanting, “Cherry and Caleb, like Adam and Eve.” At the “Eve,” her feet hit the floor hard in punctuation.
I flew off the bed. “Shush!”
She giggled as my brother, Sage, hit the top step out in the hall, bellowing, “Cherry has a crush on her boss?”
My face heated. “He’s not my boss. And I don’t have a crush on him.”
Sage stopped in the doorway, his dark brown wavy hair mussed from a day of work at the hardware store, rubbing his chin like he was thinking particularly hard about my predicament. But the sly upturn of the corner of his mouth told me that he wasn’t taking Honey’s proclamation as fiction.
“You’re fidgeting, and your face is red.” He turned to Honey, who we all knew was like a town crier. “Honey, I think our big sister is in love.”
Honey squealed at a pitch so high I was surprised it didn’t shatter the glass sconces on the ceiling fan over our heads and planted her hands on her cheeks. “Are you getting married?”
Horrified, I went to the door, making a herding motion. “I don’t get crushes. I’m not in love. And I’m definitely not getting married.” I pursed my lips as if I was insulted at the very suggestion.
Sage tapped his head. “Correction, you’ve never had a crush before. That doesn’t mean that you don’t have one now. And in the end, there’s a first time for everything, isn’t there? And sometimes it ends in marriage.” His eyes sparkled, telling me I was giving him the best entertainment he’d had all day. Probably all week.
“Not this time.”
His eyes widened, and I realized I’d given myself away. He had what he’d wanted. “Fine, whatever you say. But would it be so bad to have a crush on him?”
“Yes!” I answered instantly. “Now out! All of you. Training takes a lot of energy, and I need my rest.”
“Uh-huh. What about dinner? Trainers eat, don’t they? Mama left you dinner.”
At the mention of food, my stomach rumbled. “Yeah, I’ll be down.”
They all filed out, Sage asking Grace if she was staying for dinner — now, there was a crush. She declined but sent me a this conversation isn’t through look before she went down the steps.
Shutting myself in, I groaned and let my head fall against the door. “I just have no idea what I’m going to do now,” I whispered to the empty room.
I closed my eyes, and a sudden memory overtook me. It was me and my dad, out in the orchard digging a hole for a new cherry tree to expand the wide variety of trees we had already. I’d been about Clementine’s age and couldn’t make more than a teaspoonful of dirt move with the tip of my shovel and had thrown it down in frustration.
“I can’t do it, Daddy.”
Daddy stopped fingering the root ball of the new tree and looked me over with his piercing green eyes that never missed a thing. “Sure you can. Maybe you’re a little on the light side just yet, but you can wrangle that shovel into submission, girl.”
“It won’t submit.” I shook my head, tears pricking, wanting to be as good a farmer as my dad. “It’s too hard.”
“Hey now. Bowers have never had it easy, but we always come through on the other side.”
As I sniffled all over the shovel, he pulled the story from me about how the girls at school were making fun of me because I liked to use the punching bag in the school gym.
He listened, then picked up the offending shovel. “The important thing is that you hold your head high and march in there tomorrow like absolutely nothing happened. Don’t let them decide what possibilities you have. Be proud of your interests, and they’ll back off, then this will be a blip in your autobiography.”
“What’s an autobiography?”
He laughed. “The story of your life. Now we’re going to teach this shovel to submit. Submit, Mr. Shovel!”
I’d giggled as he showed me how to put all my weight on it to get more dirt.
I opened my eyes, and those precious memories faded away, a sense of calmness replacing them. Returning to my bed, I sighed heavily, feeling just a bit less lost.
We Bowers have never had it easy, but we always come through on the other side.
While it was true that we were still struggling after my father’s death years ago, the one thing we had was a whole unit that we could trust with anything. Well, except Honey, unless you wanted your business broadcast on the six o’clock news. I knew people who didn’t even have one soul in their lives like that, so I really was lucky.
Tucking myself under the covers for a nap, I fervently hoped that luck could spill over onto the dream job that I had possibly just torpedoed.
Fingers crossed.