She struggled a moment, not to escape but to keep her hands on him, so he collected both of hers in one of his and yanked them up over her head.
“Now,” he said. “What’s going on?”
She blew a strand of hair from her face and said, “Well, I thought we were getting busy.”
“You were,” he said.
She rocked into him with her hips, nudging the hottest—and wettest—part of her over the undeniably hardest part of him. “You too,” she murmured. Her motion hadn’t stopped and her undulating hips were driving him wild. She fought to free her hands, only to clench a handful of his hair, holding his head to hers.
He obliged, kissing her for long, intoxicating moments before shifting to the hollow at the base of her throat and then that spot just beneath her ear that always seemed to make her crazy. He waited for it and wasn’t disappointed to feel her quiver beneath him. Then he nibbled her earlobe before sliding his mouth to hers, feeling yet another tremor course through her as their lips collided.
Her fingers tightened in his hair enough to sting and the contrasting sensations of pleasure and pain had him throbbing painfully. He needed more, now, and going off the sweet sounds she was making, she felt the same. Dipping his head, he caught her lower lip between his teeth.
Her hands held his head close as his tongue slid against hers in a sensual dance that mirrored what he wanted to be doing with the rest of their bodies. A shuddering groan rumbled out of him and he tightened his hold on her, feeling her bare breasts, so perfect and beautiful, rubbing against his chest.
“Please,” she whispered, her mouth traveling across his jaw to his ear, her breath hot and moist.
As if he could deny her a single thing. He fumbled in the top drawer by his bed for a condom but in the end it took the both of them to roll it down his length.
As he slid into her, he dropped his forehead to hers. “Home,” he whispered. “You’re like coming home.”
This statement nearly startled Callie out of the haze of erotic, sensual desire, but she was too far gone. Tanner was inside her, filling her up like no one else ever had, and it seemed as though her body disconnected from her brain and was on its own mission.
The bottom line was that she couldn’t get enough of him and even though she hated herself at the moment, she wanted this. She wanted any part of him she could get.
And right now she had one of her very favorite parts of him and she felt herself tightening, pushing toward the edge of orgasm as he moved deep inside her. He slid his hand along the underside of her thigh, holding her leg against his hip so he could thrust deep, sending her spiraling out of control. Staring up into his face, she thought that she’d never seen that look before, like he was completely lost in her. That, and lust, a sheer, unadulterated lust that took her over with one final thrust. He kept moving until they were both spent, unable to move a single muscle.
“Callie,” he finally whispered, his voice filled with a wealth of affection that was like an onslaught, a battering ram against the wall she’d built around her heart.
He slid one arm around her back and pulled her in even closer while he cradled her head with the other. Then he lowered his mouth and kissed her with a tenderness that she wasn’t prepared for. Not even close.
Playful and lust filled, yes.
But gentle and meaningful? God. God, she couldn’t.
He briefly left the bed and then came back, pulling up the covers before sliding beneath them.
“What are you—oh,” she breathed, and then held on as he spent a good long time exploring every inch of her body with his tongue and his hands. By the time he entered her again, she’d had another orgasm and was well on her way to yet another. Any thought of holding a part of herself back was gone because the only thing she could concentrate on was the feeling of Tanner on top of her and inside her.
How she felt in that moment was beyond any words she could have come up with. During the party, and especially after he’d let her and the world know she was just Callie to him, she’d been able to keep her emotional connection to him in check. She’d even told herself she’d cut that emotional connection entirely. Severed it clean.
A big, fat lie.
Tanner stirred when Callie slipped out of the bed. She gave him no lingering touch, not a good-bye, nothing. It was like their first time all over again.
He hadn’t realized he’d become so dependent on the time they spent time in each other’s arms, laughing, talking…It’d become almost as important as the sex itself.
Except this, with her, wasn’t just sex. Not even close, not to him. “Where’s the fire?” he asked.
She didn’t answer right away, just moved about his room in the dark, picking up her clothes, righting them, putting them back on.
“I need to get home, I’ve got a thing,” she said. Lightly. Carefully so.
And he got his second warning niggle. It hadn’t occurred to him until now that she’d come here just for this. “Got all you needed?” he asked.
She glanced at him. “Yes. As did you.”
“No question,” he said. “I just didn’t realize it was a booty call.”
Her mouth tightened. “Well, what did you think we’ve been doing?”
“Actually,” he said, “once you took your clothes off, I stopped thinking entirely.”
She picked up her purse and fished out her keys.
“Can’t the ‘thing’ wait?” he asked.
She looked at him for a long beat. “No. The thing can’t wait.”
Call him slow, but he was finally getting that something was truly, seriously wrong. He sat up. “Did I hurt you?”
“Just now?”
He’d missed something. Something big. He got out of the bed. “Or ever,” he said. “Let’s start with that.”
She shook her head. “Definitely don’t have time for this.”
He caught her wrist. “Make time.”
“I have to go.”
He was getting that loud and clear. He was also getting that he’d fucked something up big time. “It’s important,” he said.
“I have to go,” she repeated.
“Later then. Today. We’ve got to take a group out for deep sea fishing, but I’ll be back by three. I’ll take you out on the water for sunset and then dinner.”
“A date?” she asked in a surprised voice, and regret hit him like a one-two punch to the solar plexus. Because of their work schedules and caring for Troy, most of his and Callie’s time together had been late at night in bed. “Yes,” he said, promising himself he was going to convince her that they could do better. That on top of that, they could actually work. “A date. I’ll pick you up by five the latest.”
She didn’t look impressed, but he couldn’t tell if that was disinterest or something else in her eyes.
“Please,” he said.
Another long assessing gaze and he did his best to look like something she couldn’t live without.
“I’ll meet you on the docks,” she finally said. “At five.”
And then she was gone.
Chapter 26
That afternoon Callie sat at her grandma’s kitchen table. She was simultaneously inhaling the cookies her grandma had gotten from the bakery earlier and watching the clock.
“You late for something?” Lucille asked.
“Nope.”
“You have a date with your hottie?”
“I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that if I do, everything I say will be used against me on a social media platform,” Callie said.
Lucille grinned. “You do have a date.” She clapped her hands together, clearly pleased as punch. “You two have decided to make a go of it. Am I right? Tell me I’m right!”
“Not entirely, you nosy woman. I’m merely meeting him at the dock at five.”
“For a date.”
“A small date,” Callie corrected.
“To make a go of it?” Lucille repeated.
“I
don’t know.” Callie hesitated. “I want to, but—”
“No but! That sentence should start and end with ‘I want to.’”
“He doesn’t think of me in that way,” Callie said.
“Bullshit.”
“Grandma!”
“I’m serious, Callie,” Lucille said, and to prove it she even put down her cookie and leaned in, eyes solemn. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”
“Like I’m an amusement?”
“Like the sun rises and sets in your eyes.”
Callie blew out a breath. “He introduced me as Callie.”
“Well, honey, last I checked that was your name.”
Callie closed her eyes. She knew this sounded dumb. “Sam introduced Becca as his wife-to-be. Cole introduced Olivia as his girlfriend. Tanner then introduced me as just Callie.”
Lucille looked at her for a long beat. “Do you think you’re the only one who’s afraid of getting hurt? Do you think you’re the only one who’s uncertain about the future and letting someone in?”
“No,” Callie said. “Of course not, but Tanner—”
“—is just a man. A man who came back to Lucky Harbor to provide a steady family life for the people he loves. He doesn’t turn his back on anyone, ever, and I’ve seen how he looks at you. If he didn’t slap a label on your forehead, it’s simply because he didn’t know what that label was. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel anything for you. It just means that maybe he doesn’t know what you feel for him.”
Callie stared at her grandma. How many times had she told Tanner that their sleeping together “wouldn’t change a thing”?
A lot.
She’d never once let on that she had growing feelings for him. Which meant her grandma was right, she had no one to blame but herself.
“Honey.” Lucille took Callie’s hands in hers. “What is it you want from him?”
“I don’t know.” A lie. She wanted him, all of him.
“I’m going to ask you again,” Lucille said gently. “What is it you really want from him? Nothing? A good time? Everything?”
“Everything,” Callie whispered.
Lucille smiled and squeezed Callie’s fingers. “Then tell him. Tell him tonight.”
“You think?”
“I know.”
Callie’s heart leapt and bounced against her ribs some. In a terrifying but good way. Was she ready for this?
Yes. God, yes. And this time when she looked at the clock, she rose. “Here goes nothing.”
“Or everything,” Lucille said.
Or everything.
“Don’t forget some lip gloss,” Lucille called after her. “And it wouldn’t hurt to tame the hair a little.”
“Grandma!”
“Just sayin’…And you’re going to put real clothes on, right?”
Callie glanced down at her yoga pants and sweatshirt. Shit. Yeah. She needed real clothes. Because tonight she was going to be her own client, and she would never let a client meet her future groom in sweats.
She stopped at home and put on her cutest pair of skinny jeans. She did have to lie flat on the bed to zip them up, but they looked good tucked into the boots Tanner liked.
She got to the docks at a quarter to five. Habit. Normally she prided herself on being early and prepared, but today she would have liked to have been the one being waited for.
The boat was moored but empty. The hut was closed. The warehouse, locked.
The guys weren’t still out on the water but they weren’t here either.
Telling herself not to look at her phone again, she sat to wait.
And wait.
But Tanner never came. He just…didn’t show. And it was like standing at the altar all alone waiting for Eric all over again.
Waiting for someone to love her.
Chapter 27
Tanner sat in the principal’s office next to his son, who was also sitting, holding an ice pack to his eye.
The principal was glaring at the both of them balefully. “I thought we agreed that this behavior couldn’t continue,” she said in that principal-to-errant-student tone that made Tanner feel fifteen all over again.
Troy said nothing.
Tanner had docked the boat half an hour ago and found messages waiting for him. One from the principal that merely said “Need to see you in my office ASAP.”
One from Elisa saying “Got a message from the principal, need you to handle it.”
Not surprisingly nothing from Troy, not one little peep.
Cole and Sam finished up with their clients as Tanner headed to the high school.
And here the three of them sat.
“I’m going to have to take more severe action this time,” the principal said.
Tanner ignored this and turned to Troy. “What happened?”
“He hit a fellow student and started a fight,” the principal said.
Tanner didn’t take his eyes off Troy. “I’m asking my son.”
Troy lifted his gaze to Tanner’s, his eyes registering surprise that his dad would listen to him over the principal.
Tanner gave him a small, reassuring nod. He wanted the truth, and he wanted to hear it from Troy.
“After school a couple of the guys were picking on someone,” Troy said. “Saying mean stuff, pushing. I told them to knock it off but that only made it worse.” He paused. “And then when the person they were teasing was tripped and fell, spilling all their stuff, I stepped in and pushed back for them.”
“The boy you pushed hit the railing and got a cut lip,” the principal said.
Troy didn’t look apologetic about this. In fact, there was a flash of fierce pride.
“How did you get the black eye?” Tanner asked him.
“The kid I pushed jumped up and punched me.”
Tanner made a show of looking around the office. “And where is he?”
The principal folded her fingers together. “He’s not here because he didn’t start it.”
“Yes, he did,” Troy said. “And it’s not the first time. Last week he stole stuff from someone. Important stuff.”
“Like?”