Chapter Five
Caleb was in the next room, and Kitty couldn’t get to sleep. Dinner had seemed like a giant step for her. Admitting what she wanted and even wished for had left her feeling torn open, confused, scared. Glancing at the clock, she saw it was a little after two in the morning. She hated when she couldn’t sleep.
Pushing the blanket off her body, she climbed out of bed, and made her way toward the kitchen. Turning the tap on, she poured herself some water and sipped it, staring out the window. There were some streetlights that illuminated the yard.
“Couldn’t sleep?”
She spun around to see Caleb standing near the fridge. “Have you been standing there this whole time?”
“No. I’m not that good at being hidden.” He laughed. “I heard you leave your room. It’s not comfortable?”
“Oh, it is. It’s just me. I’m a bit weird.” She crossed her eyes and smiled. Her cheeks heated as she realized what she’d done.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you do that before.”
She crossed her eyes again, and he laughed.
“Are you trying to flirt with me?” he asked.
“I have no idea what I’m trying to do. I think I’m a little weird right now.”
“Good for you I seem to like weird.” He opened the fridge and pulled out the milk cartoon. She gritted her teeth as she watched him drink out of it. “You want to yell at me right now.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Let’s have a rule while we’re here. No lying.”
She took a deep breath. “Okay, I totally do, but come on. Glasses are right there, and I washed them while you were painting the porch.”
“I was varnishing it.”
“Same thing,” she said.
Moving to his side, she reached up, taking a glass. “See, easy-peasy.”
“Very true.” He took the glass from her and still drank out of the carton.
She rolled her eyes and took a seat at the table.
“What kept you awake?” he asked, sitting opposite her.
“I was just thinking about everything and nothing. I’m not lying to you either.”
“What were you thinking about?”
“You. Me. Us. Him.” She ran a hand over her face.
“You can talk to me, you know,” Caleb said. “I won’t judge.”
She stared down at her hands, at the glass on the table in front of her. If she nudged her fingers forward it would spill over. She wasn’t ready. Not yet. She wanted to tell Caleb, to spill her soul to him, to let him know that there wasn’t anyone else in this world that she wanted more than she wanted him.
Kitty loved him, and had for a long while. Nothing was going to change that.
“Or how about a dance?” he asked.
“A dance?”
“Yes. If my memory serves me well and, seeing as I’m not that old, I imagine it does, you used to love a good dance.”
She smiled and nodded. “We don’t have any music though.” She watched Caleb as he moved over to the stereo and turned it on. Classical music filled the room.
“It’s late, and we don’t have any neighbors, Kitty. Come on.”
Getting to her feet, she made her way toward him. He shuffled from side to side, shaking his hands up and down.
Putting a hand to her mouth, she laughed. He looked sexy and silly.
The combination never failed to make her smile.
“Come on, dance with me.”
She didn’t just want to stand in front of him and sway to the music. Closing that distance to him, she grabbed his hand.
“I want to dance with you,” she said.
Caleb paused, and his smile dropped for a split second. She wondered if she’d ruined the moment and hated that she spoiled it.
Then his hand touched her waist.
“Tell me what you’re thinking about right now.”
“I want you to let go.” When she felt his hold loosening, she quickly grabbed his hands. “But I also don’t want you to.”
“That’s going to be hard to do.” His hold hadn’t tightened around her like it originally was, and she hated that.
Holding his hand, she brought her other up to his shoulder, and then pressed herself against him.
She stared up into his eyes and smiled. “I like this.” Her stomach clenched and part of her was nervous, but overall she liked it a lot.
“Me too. I’ve wanted to dance with you like this a lot.”
Kitty smiled. “I had no idea.”
“There has been a lot I’ve wanted to do with you.”
Her lips were dry, and she was so nervous about what that would mean. “Like what?”
“Like holding your hand as we walk through town so every single man that looked at you knew you belonged to me.”
“No one looks at me.”
“I’m a guy, and I’ve got eyes, Kitty. They look at you.”
“I’m not that pretty, Caleb.”
“You are. You just don’t see it. We all see it. Me, the guys, we all know that you’re a beautiful woman. It’s why whenever you were at the club one of us would be there to make sure you were okay at all times.”
Kitty had noticed that one or more of them stayed close to her, and she hadn’t put it down to them taking care of her. This information just made her love the club even more.
“What else?”
“The mistletoe.”
“What about it?”
“I want to take you under the mistletoe just to kiss you. Did you know last Christmas we were beneath it ten times, and not once did we kiss?”
Guilt swamped her.
She’d never even noticed the mistletoe there.
“I had no idea.”
“I know. I was always watching, waiting to see if you’d give me a chance.”
She heard the pain in his voice, even though he tried to hide it. She’d done this. She’d made him feel like she didn’t trust him.
“Caleb, it’s not you. Please understand that. It’s never going to be you.”
“I know, sweetheart. I know that this is something you’ve got to do on your own.”
If he knew her name, she wondered what else he knew about her, but instead of asking, she kept her questions to herself. Only when she was ready would she ask them, and they were not for right now.
“Kiss me.”
“Kitty…”
“No, pretend that we have some mistletoe and kiss me.” Her heart pounded inside her chest, and her hands felt a little clammy. She even had a tightening in her stomach, but she didn’t want him to stop, not yet, not ever.
Since coming to the cabin for a day, she’d felt this switch, a change inside her that she couldn’t stop, nor did she want to.
Caleb was going to leave.
He had every intention of going to Vegas, and she knew there was nothing that could stop him. Unless she started fighting again. That was the only chance she had of keeping the man she loved.
She’d been stringing him along now for several years, and that wasn’t right. She’d been selfish with him, refusing to let him go but also not taking him for herself. Their time in a Dom/sub relationship hadn’t helped matters.
Well, in the beginning, it had helped her at least. Caleb had been clear that she was the one with all the control. That she told him what he could and couldn’t do. She’d witnessed BDSM when she first joined the Dirty Fuckers MC, and she’d been so enthralled by what she’d seen, she knew she wanted to experience it with Caleb. Not only that, she’d seen the tight control, the thorough discussions that took place. It was a relationship that had boundaries. That allowed her to be held down and yet have the control as well. At any time during a scene, she could call out a safeword.
In the beginning, she’d hoped more than anything that it was a build up to something more. That she’d be able to break away from her past and look forward to a future that wasn’t shrouded in pain or humiliation.
Instead, she’d withdrawn into herself, her past becoming a constant cloud around her wherever she went.
This wasn’t the life she wanted, far from it.
She didn’t want to go through life yearning for a hug, a kiss, some touch of some kind, but when it came, it only made her think of him.
You’ve got to fight back.
Kitty knew she didn’t have much choice. So, this time at the cabin, alone with Caleb, this was her chance to change, the turning point that she’d been desperate for most of her life. She was tired of being afraid, of the tears, of keeping to herself.
There was no way she’d ever want any other man’s touch, but Caleb was different. They shared a bond that no one could break.
When his hand tightened on her shoulder, she glanced down at his lips. They were so close, and as his head came closer, the world seemed to stand still.
It was only the two of them in this moment.
His lips touched hers, firm, unyielding, and something sparked within her body. She gripped his shoulders, not to push him away, but to hold him closer, to never let go. Kissing him back, she closed her eyes, and all she saw was Caleb. Opening her eyes, he was still there, and she ran her fingers from his shoulder to sink into his hair, holding his head tightly against her as he deepened the kiss.
When his tongue traced across her lips, she gasped, opening up to him, letting him take her, to touch her, to taste. She gave herself over to him completely, relishing every single touch as he continued to deepen the kiss.
Her pussy grew damp, and her nipples tightened.
Never had she experienced such a reaction, and it was totally foreign to her.
By the time he broke the kiss, they were both panting.
“I’ve been wanting to do that for years,” Caleb said.
“Me too. So much.”
She smiled at him, marveling at what she’d done. She wanted to kiss him again.
His grip on her hips tightened, and she couldn’t help the little guttural moan that escaped her lips.
Afterward, she tried to hide her yawn but failed.
Caleb chuckled. “I will not let that affect my ego.”
“It shouldn’t. It’s been a long day. This has nothing to do with you.”
“I know. A lot has happened so I think it’s safe to say it’s time to go to bed.”
“I’ll be happy to.”
They switched off the lights, and she kept hold of his hand as they made their way down the small corridor. When she got to her room, however, Kitty didn’t want it to end.
All of this was happening, but it wasn’t like she’d changed her life around within a space of a day.
This had been a long time coming. Over ten years of her life had been wasted, listening to her thoughts about a man that was no longer in her life. If she didn’t fight them now, she never would. The last thing she ever wanted to do was wake up in fifty years, alone, regretting her life because she refused to take a chance right now.
This was her time.
She wouldn’t waste it.
“Can I sleep with you tonight? Just to sleep,” she said.
“Are you ready for that?” Caleb asked, reaching out, his knuckles close to her skin once again.
No!
She wouldn’t take a step back. The other men at the club, she cared for them. They were not like Caleb, never had been. They’d been safe because she cared about them, but there were no real passionate feelings.
Pressing her face to his knuckles, she smiled up at him. “I am ready for that.”
More than ready.
Caleb was about to climb into bed, and she couldn’t let this chance go.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Sorry?”
“For everything. For being this … person. You deserve so much better than me and for a long time, I thought you’d find someone else. Someone who wasn’t screwed up. You’re a great man, Caleb. The best person I’ve ever known. I’ve been wrong and selfish, and mean, and I’ve been a coward. It has been so much easier to hide behind these walls that I built. To keep you away because I feel ugly and you don’t deserve that. It wasn’t always about the touch. The others, they mean nothing. They’re my friends. You are different. You have always been so. I don’t want to lose you. So, I’m going to try to fight this. I want to be worthy of you.”
There, she finally said it, and from the look on his face, she’d surprised him.
****
The following morning, Caleb rolled over and watched Kitty sleep. She’d wanted to come to his bed, and even though she’d gone to the side that he normally slept on, he didn’t care. She’d climbed in and snuggled beneath the covers.
Smiling, he was so damn proud of how she was coping but not just that. She’d spoken from the heart last night, given him the truth, and that in itself was progress. Maybe he deserved someone easier, but he didn’t want that. If he did, he’d have left Kitty a long time ago. Easy was not for him. He rather liked the challenge.
After the kiss they’d shared, he’d been afraid that he’d pushed too far. This was their first real kiss. The one that he’d spent many nights dreaming about as if he was some kind of teenage boy. This was the power Kitty had over him, all the time.
He wanted to be her everything, and never stop.
Touching his own lips, he felt like a fool as he swore he could still feel her now even after the night they’d shared.
She sighed, and her eyes opened.
Caleb tensed, waiting for her to panic, to scream, to beg to get away. None of that happened. She looked happy as she smiled.
“Tell me I didn’t imagine last night? That it really did happen?”
“You mean when you yawned after the kiss we shared? Yeah, that really happened. Don’t worry though. My ego is in firm place.”
She giggled. “It should be. It was one hell of a kiss.” Her gaze went to his lips, and he saw the color in her cheeks.
“You’re thinking about me kissing you right now, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
She never lied to him, not once, at least not about important stuff. Drinking out of the milk carton didn’t count, as it was just an annoyance. There were times she simply didn’t speak, but she had made a promise to him when they started playing together that no matter what, she wouldn’t lie.
“Would you like me to kiss you again?” He’d have just pressed his lips against hers, but, seeing as they didn’t have a normal relationship yet, he would wait until she was ready every single time.
“Yes. I want you to kiss me.”
He reached out, placing his hand against her cheek, her skin soft to the touch. Sliding his thumb back and forth over her cheek, he marveled at how much just touching her was affecting him.
His cock was hard as rock, but he wasn’t some teenage boy going through his first time. He was a grown-ass man who had experience and was in complete control of his body.
Pressing his lips against hers, he kissed her.
She released a little moan, and as she did, he slid his tongue across her lips, waiting for her to open up.
She rewarded him, and he plunged inside.
Kitty didn’t just take his kiss. Her tongue met his, and her hands moved to his arms, holding him. Her nails dug into his flesh, but he relished that bite of pain.
She moved across the bed, pressing her body against his, and he fucking loved it. He didn’t push her down or slide between her thighs. He stayed perfectly still as her body melded to his, the soft curves in complete contrast to his own hardness.
He worked out often since he left the fighting in Vegas. He always wanted to be ready for anything, and of course he used to love it when Kitty would come and watch him in the gym, and she used to. She’d sit on one of the push-up stools with a bag of chips, and watch.
Just seeing her would drive him crazy, and he’d used the time to deal with his never-ending blue balls.
Any other man would have quit a long time ago with her.
He had no intention of quitting.
All Kitty needed was time, patience, and love.
That was what he intended to give her. From the start, they’d had this connection. She’d been so young and scared when they first met. Over the years, he’d watched her bloom into a beautiful woman, and that spark between them had never gone away.
She was a strong woman. Even if she didn’t see it herself, he did.
Kitty was a strong woman who’d faced so many demons, and still, she was fighting. She’d not given in to the darkness.
She kept on fighting, and, if she could do it after all that she’d suffered, he knew without a doubt that he could take his time and show her that he was the man she deserved.
Her hand stroked down his back, resting on his hip. Breaking from the kiss, he allowed himself the temptation of kissing her neck, hearing her moan.
All he wanted to do was kiss down her body, to taste those perfect tits, and then lick between her legs, tasting her cunt.
Instead, he stopped, stroking her hip where he placed his hand.
She was panting, and even though he showed no signs that it had affected him, he was rock-hard.
This would be torture, but, seeing her flushed face and the tightening of her nipples, he knew he’d gladly take any kind of pain that no release would grant him.
“Why did you stop?” she asked, licking her lips.
“I don’t want to overwhelm you. You’re new to all of this. I’m not going to let you get carried away.”
“But … I’m ready.”
“Good. Then you will understand that I don’t wish to rush this.” He pressed a kiss to her lips. “I’m willing to take my time, Kitty.”
“But what about you?” Her gaze drifted down his body, and he didn’t hide his response. “You need to take care of that.”
Caleb smiled. “I’m a full-grown man, Kitty. I’m not going to lie to you, it aches, and more than anything I’d love for you to kiss down my body and take me in your mouth, but one day, you’ll be ready. Maybe not in these two weeks, or a year, but I have hope that one day, you’ll trust me enough to take care of you.”
“I trust you now, Caleb.”
“Then trust me right now. As your best friend, your lover, your everything, that I know what I’m doing.” He cupped her cheek, tilting her head back. “Do you trust me?”
“More than anything.”
“Then know that I will never do anything to hurt you. Never.”
“I know that, Caleb. I know it.”
“Good.” He kissed her lips. “I’m starving. Will you make me those pancakes I love so much?”
“Chocolate chip and cinnamon?”
“Hell, yeah.” He kissed her again because he simply couldn’t resist and climbed out of the bed. He moved toward the curtains and pulled them back. His cock pressed against his shorts, tenting them, and he didn’t hide it.
Kitty sat on the edge of the bed, her cheeks still red as she gazed at his cock.
“Are you sure you don’t need me to take care of that?”
He knew she’d try and maybe they’d even be successful, but he wasn’t willing to risk it, not yet. He had … other ideas. Nothing that would hurt her, but he hoped it would show her that she could trust him with everything.
“No, I don’t.” Entering the bathroom, he winked at her. “Make me breakfast, woman.”
He heard her chuckle as he shut the door. Gripping the edge of the sink, he closed his eyes, and thought about everything vile and disgusting in the world.
Caleb could just take his dick in hand, and rub himself until he came, and then go and see her.
There was no way in hell that he was going to do that to her. When he came, it would be when she was ready.
No, he wasn’t being a martyr.
Kitty had gotten him aroused, and when the time came, she’d see him come, witness it. There was no way he’d grant himself a piss-poor orgasm just to deal with a rock-hard dick. Maybe he was a bit screwed in the head. All those years of fighting and being hit in the head repeatedly had clearly gotten to him, but he wasn’t going to change, not now.
He loved her more than anything else in this world. At first, he’d cared about her very deeply. She’d been through hell, and he’d seen it in her eyes every single time he looked at her. He’d also seen her need for him to not pity her.
This was why he knew with time, Kitty would find a way to him, where he got to touch her, to make love to her, to have a future that they both could enjoy. She’d lost herself along the way, the demons of her past refusing to let her break free, but since she arrived, he saw glimpses of that old strength that he saw when he first met her. The woman who came to him so brazenly and asked for him to take her to the room, to train her, to hurt her, even with her boundaries.
He had believed she wasn’t ready, so that first time, he’d gotten her used to simply posing for him, spreading herself open on the spanking bench, assuming positions.
A new determination filled him.
This time he’d trust her. When she wanted more, he’d give it to her, but not rush her. Today would have been for his pleasure, and he wanted them first to enjoy each other. That was what he hoped for, craved even.
There was so much pleasure to be had where neither of them even touched, and he intended for her to know that kind of pleasure, to understand it, to relish it.
Smiling, Caleb knew exactly what he was going to do.