Dirty Little Secrets (Dirty Little Secrets #1) (5 page)

“Maybe he has some work you can help him with.”
 

I shake my head. I don’t even need work right now, especially not working with a new client who will want to look into my references. I have a few projects I can work on from here, with businesses that already know and trust me. I’m having a difficult time getting that work done as it is.
 

“You haven’t even seen what kind of work I can
do
, Caleb. For all you know, I’m terrible. I mean, my work is excellent, but don’t go recommending me to him based on…” I wave my hand between us. “Whatever this is.”
 

He looks almost crestfallen at my answer, and I feel like a terrible person for shooting him down right away. He knows that I’m new in town, and for all he knows, I need to make some business contacts. It was very generous of him to even think of recommending me to his friend, but I absolutely cannot take him up on that offer, even if I was planning on staying in town.
 

“Thank you, though,” I say, sliding my hand down his forearm. “It was very sweet of you to think of me, but I don’t want to start having anything handed to me, okay?” Not to mention the fact that I don’t want to get involved in anything that will make it difficult for me to leave town. I’m already treading dangerous water where that’s concerned. I came here to hide out, not make connections. And yet here I am…

“I understand.” He gives me a smile that lets me know that’s the absolute truth.

“Thank you.”
 

“So,” Caleb says, looking down at his glass before his eyes meet mine again. “You said you’re new in town. What brought you here?”
 

Shit.
 

Of course he would ask the one question that I absolutely do not want to answer. I hate being the kind of person who skates around telling the truth using technicalities, but I’m going to be that person tonight. I don’t want to lie to him, but I also don’t want him to look at me like I know he will if I tell him the truth. If I tell him the truth, this ends right here. Right now. I’m sure of it.
 

Maybe it’s selfish, but I don’t want that. I want to make this last for as long as it can.
 

“I was looking for a fresh start in a place where I didn’t know anyone, and no one knew me. I just…I really needed to get out of Chicago.”
 

Caleb looks at me with this intense gaze, like everything in him is focused directly on me, and he can see my deepest, darkest secrets. “I understand needing a fresh start.”
 

“Yeah?”
 

He nods. “Yeah. I don’t want to assume anything, so I can only speak from my own experience, but sometimes being in a place where you’re constantly reminded of what happened there, or what used to be…it’s not good for you.”
 

Even though I’m not sure where this piece of information fits in the puzzle that is Caleb, he’s showing me a part of himself. He’s laying it bare for me to examine, and I feel like it’s only right for me to do the same thing. I’m feeling incredibly vulnerable tonight, and I don’t want to let anything slip that I shouldn’t, but I can share something with him. Don’t I at least owe him that?”
 

“My childhood home, it was in this crappy, low-income building, but I had good memories there,” I tell him. “It burned down last year, and…I couldn’t even go on that side of town anymore. I’d pass it all the time when I was riding the El, and it made my breath catch every time. There was this hollow ache in my stomach that didn’t ease up until I left.”
 

I don’t tell him that my father was still living in that building when it burned down. I don’t tell him-

“It’s nice to go to a place where you don’t run into a memory every time you turn around.”
 

I nod, then move closer to Caleb, and this time I don’t try to hide it. He wraps his arm around me, and I snuggle into his warmth. With my head buried against his neck, I breathe in the clean smell of him, then press my lips against his neck. He lets out this low rumble that barely even registers, but I can feel it against my cheek, and then we’re kissing.
 

It’s soft, and long, and slow, and makes the kiss that we had earlier in the bar almost tame in comparison. Our tongues brush together, and Caleb’s fingers tangle in my hair, pulling me closer. I wrap his henley around my fingers, grabbing a fistful of fabric, just needing something to hold onto.
 

When we stop and take a time out to breathe, he says, “Let’s go inside.”
 

“C’mere,” Caleb says, crooking his finger at me.
 

He’s sitting on the couch, relaxing back into the cushions, with a lust-drunk look on his face. We haven’t had that much wine, but he’s clearly got a little bit of a buzz going. The whole effect on him is really nice.
 

I take a step into the space between Caleb’s knees, and he gives me this cute pout in return. Clearly he was expecting me to move in a way that provided us with a lot more body-to-body contact. Intent on achieving this, he takes my hand and gives it a little tug.

“
C’mere
,” he says again, more emphatically this time, inviting me onto his lap.
 

With the soft lilt of Caleb’s voice and the desire in his eyes, I can’t say no to that. I lower myself down until I’m straddling him, my knees planted on either side of his thighs. One of his hands comes to rest on my hip, and the other slides around to the small of my back, where his fingertips find their way beneath the hem of my shirt. His palm presses against my skin, and I move, giving us a little bit of friction. It’s not too much, and we’re both wearing jeans, but still…it’s good.
 

I sink further down, until I can feel his erection, and I move my hips again. Caleb sucks a breath through his teeth in a long, quiet hiss.
 

“Mia,” he breathes.
 

Our lips crash together in a heated frenzy, and Caleb licks into my mouth. He tastes sweet, like the wine, and his lips are warm and insistent. The hand that was resting on my back slides across my hip to run up my side, lifting my shirt up as he goes. What I want is for him to take my shirt off, to touch me without fabric between us, but he doesn’t seem to want to do that just yet.
 

“Are you teasing me?” I ask, breathless.
 

I feel Caleb smiling against my mouth. “Mmm. Yes,” he replies. “And I’m teasing myself, too.”
 

My hands slip down his chest, across the broad, rippling muscles that are hidden beneath his henley. When I reach the waist of his jeans, I scoot back on his lap a little to give myself better access.
 

“What are you-”

I cup him through a layer of denim, pressing my palm against his cock as I glide my hand back and forth. There’s this soft, barely-there whimper that escapes the back of his throat as he rocks up against me, enjoying the friction. The fact that I can make a noise like that come from a man like Caleb, gives me a sense of power that swirls in with the lust that’s coursing through my veins. Caleb’s head drops to the crook of my neck as he lets himself get lost in sensation. He starts sucking on my neck, then he plants soft, teasing kisses along the neckline of my shirt.
 

It’s…it’s too much. It’s also nowhere near enough.
 

“Take it off,” I breathe.

“Yeah?” Caleb says, his lips against my ear. “Why should I?”
 

A short, quiet whine escapes my lips before I can stop it, and I can feel Caleb’s smile. “Because,” I say, panting. “Because…”

“Tell me what you want, Mia. Or else you won’t get it.”
 

“I want…” His hands and lips are doing things to me, making it difficult for me to
think
.
 

“Say it.”
 

“I want your hands on me. I want to feel your mouth on me.”
 

Slowly, so
slowly
, Caleb slides my shirt up and over my head. He takes a moment and gives me an appreciative look, then he gives me exactly what I asked for: his hands on me. His mouth on me.
 

His fingertips tease the clasp of my bra, while he kisses a trail across the lacy cup covering my right breast, then my left. He gently bites my nipple through the fabric, his warm breath giving me goosebumps. When he undoes my bra, I can’t help but shrug out of it as quickly as possible, letting it fall to the floor.
 

Caleb immediately palms my breasts, and my head falls back as I let out a moan, reeling from the pleasure of his touch. I have to clasp my hands around his wrists to steady myself; it would be so easy to lose myself in his touch. His hands are rough in a good,
good
way. He flicks his thumbs across my nipples, and then leans in and teases me with his tongue. He sucks my left nipple into his mouth, his soft, warm tongue rubbing across it, driving me crazy.
 

I want to give him as much pleasure as he’s giving me, so I unbutton and unzip his pants. Caleb’s so worked up over what he’s doing that he doesn’t seem to notice that I’ve got plans of my own until my hand slips under the waistband of his boxer briefs, and around his thick, hard cock.
 

As I stroke him, Caleb leans back, watching my hand move up and down his length. He’s still cupping my breasts, still working my nipples, and it feels so good. It feels even better, watching him watching me touch him like this.
 

I slide my thumb over the bead of moisture that has formed on the head of his cock, and I can actually feel him shudder. He kisses me then, all lust-drunk and sloppy, and it’s
so
good. He pulls away after nipping my bottom lip, and in a move I’m incredibly grateful for, he flips me until I’m spread out on the sofa, and he’s kneeling on the floor between my legs.
 

Caleb wastes no time unbuttoning my pants. A little earlier in the evening, I would’ve expected him to be all about teasing and seduction, but we’re well past that point now. The two of us are nothing but fiery lust and need at this point. He curls his fingers around the waist of my pants and my panties, and slides them down quickly. He tosses them somewhere over his shoulder—I barely even register it—and then sits back for a moment, just looking at me. I’m spread open before him, with nothing between us now. He’s still fully dressed, aside from his pants hanging off of his waist, and being naked here in front of him like that turns me on even more.
 

He runs his hands up the insides of my thighs, then licks his lips in anticipation.
 

“I’m going to make
you
feel as good as you made
me
feel,” he says, his voice dripping with lust and promise. “And I’m not gonna stop until you’re so exhausted you can’t keep your eyes open. How does that sound?”
 

I look down at him, and can barely focus on anything that isn’t his warm breath against my skin, and how close his mouth is to the place I want him more than anything.
 

“Mia,” he says, sliding his hands up, up, up, until his thumbs are rubbing maddening circles oh-so-close to my clit. “How does that sound?”
 

I lick my lips and let out a long breath. Caleb’s looking right at my mouth, like he wants to kiss me senseless.
 

“It sounds good,” I reply. Short, simple words are all I can manage at this point.
 

Caleb leans forward, and slides the flat of his tongue across my wet slit, circling my clit before sucking it into his mouth.
 

“Oh god,” I cry, gripping his hair between my fingers.
 

Caleb’s arms crook under my knees, then he grips my hips, and pulls me down so my ass is resting right on the edge of the sofa. The look in his eyes is nearly predatory, and his lips are wet from me.
 

“It sounds
good
?” he asks, trying to sound offended. Then, as if he wants to prove some kind of a point, he goes down on me with reckless abandon. He’s licking and sucking at a maddening pace, and I’m rocking my hips against his face, wanting any kind of friction it will give me. I can’t even hang on to him anymore, I’m just a writhing mess, desperate to come. I grip the back of the couch for leverage, for something that tethers me to this world.
 

Caleb slips his fingers inside of me, and I’m done for. Breathless, muscles squeezing him, pleasure coursing across every nerve in my body as I cry out. He holds onto me as I ride out my orgasm, and when my breathing finally slows, I grip his henley and pull him up for a kiss. He tastes like me, and I moan into his mouth.
 

“Still sound good?” he asks, grinning.
 

“It sounds great,” I reply between kisses. “It sounds amazing. Mind blowing.”
 

“Mind blowing?”
 

I nod. My body is firing off aftershocks from my orgasm, so I grind against his cock. His boxers are still down from where I touched him earlier, so it’s just skin on wet, slick skin, and I can tell it catches Caleb off guard.
 

Caleb picks me up, and I wrap my legs around his waist.
 

“I want you, Mia. I’ve wanted you since the moment I saw you in that bar.”
 

“I want you,” I say, grinding against him again. His patience is obviously wearing thin, and I love that. I want him to lose control.
 

He leans in, and sucks on the skin just behind my ear before he says, “Don’t make me wait.”
 

“You’re staring,” Caleb says, grinning.
 

“You’re beautiful.” My thoughts are kind of a jumbled-up mess as I’m kneeling on the edge of Caleb’s bed, drinking in the sight of his naked, perfect body. His skin is tanned and practically flawless, muscles rippling everywhere in an understated way. It’s not obnoxious, he just looks…sculpted. His cock is hard and ready; the sight of it makes my mouth water, and my body sings with anticipation. I want him inside of me more than I want anything else right now. I might want it more than I’ve ever wanted anything, which is just a ridiculous notion.