Sweet the Sin by Claire Kent
“Good girl.” He was rubbing her ass as she came down from the intense orgasm. “That’s what I thought.”
She was still trying to catch her breath when he rolled on a condom, pulled her ass cheeks apart, and lined up his cock at her tight pussy.
He fucked her hard and rough, the way only he could, until she couldn’t keep quiet. She came again and again from his cock and wondered who this woman was, bent over a table, letting Caleb Marshall take her this way.
Chapter 6
This had been the strangest two weeks Caleb could remember.
He sat at the computer in his home office, deciding he could get through a couple more emails before bed. More would come in overnight, so the fewer he had left this evening, the better.
He was tired though, and he couldn’t stop thinking about Kelly.
Fucking her in the kitchen earlier had been hot. So hot he got a little tense just from the memory. But something had felt off about it, and he couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was.
Maybe he was just too old for too much of that kind of sex. It had been good—no question—but having sex with her last night under the covers had been more satisfying. It had felt different then, for some reason. More real. Like he’d really been able to take hold of her for a moment, when it so often felt like she was slipping through his fingers.
It was probably why she still held his interest after two weeks—which was longer than any relationship he’d had in a decade. She was as much a mystery as a pleasure, and he’d always had a puzzle-solving mind.
It was as much a part of him as his sex drive.
His investigator had turned up almost nothing on her past relationships, except she had a long habit of one-night stands. He was no closer to finding out who this dangerous ex was than he’d been a week ago.
Frustrating, to say the least.
When he found himself typing the same sentence twice, he closed out his email and gave up for the night. He was too tired and distracted to work right now. He might as well go to bed.
Kelly had gone to sleep an hour ago.
He went to his room to shower, but he hesitated before getting in his own bed. Despite his fatigue, there was a kind of shuddering energy inside him that compelled him to leave his room and head down to Kelly’s.
He tapped on the door and opened it, the same way he’d done the night before.
She rolled over sleepily as he made his way to her bed in the dark, climbing in beside her.
“Hey,” she mumbled. “This is a bad habit you’ve fallen into of waking me up.”
He pulled her into his arms. She felt warm and soft and strangely shaky. Like she was experiencing the same kind of shuddering energy he was. “That’s your mistake,” he murmured. “You’re going to sleep too early.”
She softened against him and he kissed her, unwinding some of his tension as his lips moved gently against hers, as her lush body rubbed against his. He was too tired to jump into arousal quickly—particularly after the sex they’d had not so long ago in the kitchen—but he felt his groin just beginning to tighten at the feel of her, the scent of her.
For a moment, it felt like she was trembling, even as she responded to his embrace.
“Wasn’t our session earlier enough for you?” she murmured, stroking his bare back with a slow caress.
He wasn’t in the habit of answering questions like that, since they gave too much away. “Are you saying it was enough for you?”
“It kind of was.” It sounded like she was smiling in the dark, but there wasn’t enough light in the room for him to see her expression. “I thought men were supposed to slow down when they passed forty.”
Momentarily, he felt a sliver of concern. He was a lot older than she was. Maybe she would prefer a man her own age. Maybe there were things she was missing, since he was no longer in his twenties.
He dismissed the thought as soon as it crossed his mind, though.
She’d made it perfectly clear in the last two weeks that he was more than capable of completely satisfying her. He had never felt anything less than confident before when it came to sex.
“I’ve always been exceptional,” he drawled.
She giggled, as he’d known she would, and the rippling sound prompted him to kiss her again.
Their embrace hadn’t deepened very far when she pulled away. “But, seriously, Caleb, I’m really tired tonight, and I’m not sure I’m in the mood.”
That was a first. He realized she meant it.
She’d never said no to any of his advances before. Honestly, he couldn’t remember the last time any woman had said no to his advances.
He didn’t particularly like it.
Fortunately, he wasn’t aroused enough yet for it to be a problem, although he was still experiencing that shuddering energy that just wouldn’t settle. He drew back slightly, lying on his side under the covers, facing her. “Okay.”
It felt like she was trying to peer at him, although the darkness made it impossible. “Are you sure?”
“Why wouldn’t I be sure?”
“I don’t know. You wanted to have sex.”
“I assure you I’m perfectly capable of dealing with rejection.”
“No, you’re not.”
He stiffened, since it sounded like there was a new resonance underlying the teasing words. “What does that mean?”
“Sorry. It was just a joke.” She scooted over and found his chest in the dark, stroking it with a soft hand. “It’s just that I don’t imagine you deal with rejection very often.”
It was true, but something about her tone just now still bothered him.
“I’m just not really in the mood right now,” she added, sounding like she was worried about his reaction. “I’m sorry.”
“No need to apologize.” Pushing aside his distraction, he followed the line of her body until he could slip his hand under her waistband, cupping her soft, round ass. “I imagine you’re still a little sore.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.” She was teasing again, evidently relieved at the shift in mood. “Your spankings aren’t that hard.”
He chuckled, pulling his hand out of her pajamas before his body started getting the wrong idea, and settled her against him, trying to get more comfortable. “We’ll have to address that next time, I guess.”
“They say that practice makes perfect.”
He smiled at the wry note in her tone, enjoying how she felt pressed against his side, tucked under his arm. “That’s only true if one practices in the right way.”
After a stretch of silence, he started to wonder if she’d gone to sleep. Once she had, he would go back to his own room. He’d come down here for sex, after all. Not to fall asleep with her in his arms.
“Why have you never gotten married?” she asked.
He tensed automatically before he made himself relax, since he wasn’t in the habit of giving such revealing responses to questions. As close as she was, she would definitely have felt his initial reaction. “What kind of question is that?”
“I don’t know. Just wondering.” Her tone was very light as she added, “No need to worry. I’m not offering myself for the position or anything.”
“I didn’t think you were.” It was the truth. Kelly might be partly a mystery, but she wasn’t a mystery in this. He never once suspected her of having domestic designs on him. If anything, she kept holding part of herself back from any true intimacy.
She was like him in that. She was like him in a lot of ways. More than anyone he’d ever met.
Which might have been why he answered her question, when he normally wouldn’t have done so. “I don’t know. It just never crossed my mind as a good option. If I had a wife, I—”
“You what?”
“I wouldn’t treat her right.” He wished he hadn’t said the words after they were spoken. They sounded bland, unconcerned, but they exposed too much.
Kelly was silent for a moment, shifting slightly against him, her soft hair
“That’s true.”
It felt like she was going to pursue the question, but then she seemed to pull herself back. He wondered why she’d asked in the first place, since she seemed to avoid any sort of personal conversation.
He felt off-kilter and strangely vulnerable—having admitted more than he had to anyone for years—so he asked, “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Why haven’t you gotten married?”
“No one has ever asked me.”
“Don’t give me that. You’ve never given anyone the chance to ask you. Didn’t you tell me on the first day we met that you don’t do seconds?”
He remembered that day well and wondered why she’d felt more complete to him then than she did now. What about her now—even with his arm around her—felt like it was always slipping through his fingers?
“Yeah. I might have said that.”
“So why? Why just casual sex?”
She pulled away from him, rolling over on her side to face him. He could only see a vague outline of her face and body in the dark, but she felt defensive, prickly, even though her voice was still light as she said, “Coming from a man who has lived his life with nothing but casual sex, that’s a strange question.”
Maybe it was a strange question, but he knew why he resisted any serious relationship. Wes had been right a couple of weeks ago when he’d said he always ran when things got real. He didn’t know why Kelly resisted, though, and he wanted to know. “Coming from a woman who just asked me why I’ve never gotten married, that’s a strange response to a harmless question.”
He felt her relax with a long exhale. “I’ve just never wanted to do relationships. Is that so strange?”
“It’s rather unusual, yes.”
“Because I’m a woman?”
“Partly.”
“I don’t know.” She rolled over onto her back and now seemed to be staring at the ceiling. “I don’t like to depend on other people, and in a relationship I would have to. I’m not inclined to trust people, and you have to trust to make a relationship work. Sex I can control, so that’s what I do.”
A thick silence followed her words, a silence Caleb could feel in his chest. He somehow knew the words were true and that she hadn’t intended to say so much.
If he’d been a kind man or a sensitive one, he would have let the topic drop, since her tension now made it clear she wasn’t comfortable with this conversation. But, for the first time, he felt close to getting her, reaching her, understanding her, and he wasn’t going to lose the advantage.
“Why don’t you trust people?”
“Because they let you down.”
Her voice was small, tight, clearly trying for casual, and it evoked the most unexpected response in him. He reached out to pull her against him again, holding her snugly. She buried her face against the side of his chest, clinging to him with a strange sort of tension.
He didn’t understand it at all, but she felt uncharacteristically needy. After a minute, he asked, “Everyone in your life has let you down?”
“Not everyone. But if they don’t, they get taken away anyway.”
His throat suddenly tightened so intensely, so powerfully, that he couldn’t breathe for a moment. Because he knew—he knew—he knew how she felt.
It had happened to him too.
She might look beautiful and soft and untouched, and she might be secretive and sensual and damaged, but she wasn’t all that different from him.
He understood her. Knew her. The way he knew himself.
Maybe she sensed some of what he was feeling. Maybe she felt it herself. Because, after a minute, she raised her head and stared down at him in the dark. “What about you? Do you trust people?”
“No.” Just the one word, the one truth.
“I didn’t think so.”
It felt like she was drawing away from him, so he tightened his arm around her. She didn’t resist, settling against him again.
“What about your mafioso lover?” He’d been putting pieces together about her in his mind.
She jerked.
“What?”
“The guy who’s after you. If you just do casual sex, how did you get involved with him?”
After a brief hesitation, he felt her shrug. “I was just trying something out with him, and obviously it didn’t work. Plus, what makes you think he was Italian mob?”
“You said he was connected.” He stiffened as he processed this new idea, the puzzle distracting him from his intense, softer feelings before. Maybe—he sucked in his breath as a different thought crossed his mind. “If you’re going to tell me you got involved with someone in the Mafia or some—”
“Oh, just shut up. It’s none of your business who I got involved with. Just let it go.”
He didn’t respond, knowing she was really annoyed now, so the conversation would be fruitless, but he was worried in an entirely new way. Some wannabe gangster from Atlantic City would be one thing. A Russian or Albanian would be something entirely different. The stakes would be much, much higher.
He was mulling over this new avenue of investigation when she shifted beside him, stroking his bare belly with her hand. “Sorry,” she murmured.
“Don’t be. It’s fine.”
“I know you’re just trying to help, and I don’t want to sound ungrateful. But it’s my mess.”
“I know you don’t like to depend on other people, but sometimes we can’t get out of our own messes without help.”
She gave a loud sigh. “I know.”
They lay in silence for several minutes. She started to stroke his chest and belly again, and he couldn’t help but like the feel of it.
Finally, she said, “I should probably start figuring out what I’m going to do with my life now. I can’t stay here with you much longer.”
He tensed involuntarily, for just a moment. “Why not? I’ve told you that you can stay for as long as you need.”
“I’m not your mistress, you know.”
“Damn it, Kelly,” Caleb snapped, responding to a surge of resentment and—very strangely—defensiveness. “Of course you’re not my mistress. You’re staying here because you’re in danger, and we just happen to be having sex.” He wasn’t sure why he was reacting this way. It wasn’t like him at all.
It must have to do with how vulnerable he’d felt a few minutes ago.
“You’re supporting me, and I’m fucking you. You go to work, and I lie around here all day. It feels like being a mistress to me.”
“You are under no obligation to fuck me. I’m not going to kick you out if you’ve gotten bored with it. The sex is not the reason I’m letting you stay.”
It was part of the reason—he had to admit to himself. He found it unlikely that he would be this interested in her, this invested in her, if they hadn’t been having sex, if the sex hadn’t been some of the best he’d had in a long time. But he was bothered by the implications of her words.
She asked, “So why are you letting me stay? This situation is kind of crazy, you know. We were strangers two weeks ago, and all of a sudden I’m living with you and sleeping with you. It makes me feel—weird.”
Caleb had no idea she’d been feeling this way, and he didn’t like things that he didn’t know. “So, we won’t fuck anymore,” he said tensely.
Kelly groaned. “Would you stop it? I’m not saying I don’t want to fuck you anymore. You must know how—how much I enjoy it. But I don’t like to feel dependent, and that’s how I feel with you.”
He was silent for a long time, recognizing that he liked her being dependent on him. He liked that, right now, he was the only person in the world she was relying on. What that said about him, he didn’t really know.
“So what are you planning to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“I can understand why you might not want
Kelly tried to pull away from him, but he wouldn’t let her. So she grumbled, “I never said I didn’t have any resources. I’m hardly destitute. I can hire help if I need it. I can take care of myself.”
“Then what are you waiting for? Leave. Tomorrow morning, if you want. And take care of yourself.”
“Is that what you want? Me to leave?”
He let out a brief, frustrated exclamation. “No. Damn it, Kelly. Haven’t I just said so? I want to help you. I don’t want you to leave.”
It was true, but he couldn’t believe he’d just admitted it out loud.
The words seemed to have a good effect, though. She sighed deeply and was silent for a long time. She pressed herself up beside him again, burrowing under the crook of his arm. “All right. I’ll stay a little while longer, just because I feel a lot safer with you. But I’m not going to just let you support me. I’ll start figuring things out.”
“You can pay me rent, if it makes you feel better.” He intentionally made his tone very dry.
He was rewarded with a little laugh. “Thanks. I might take you up on that.”
—
Mid-morning on Saturday, Caleb found Kelly on the patio, drinking coffee and drawing something on a sketchpad.
“What are you drawing?” he asked, trying to catch a glimpse of it.
She gave a little twitch, since he’d obviously surprised her, and she ducked the pad away from his view. “None of your business.”
He frowned, but such a small secret felt too petty to pursue. “I’m taking Ralph to the park. Do you want to come?”
Closing her sketchpad, she stood up with a smile.
“Yes. I’d love to. I was wondering why…”
“You were wondering why what?”
She gave a pretty little shrug. “Do you take him there a lot? I’ve been wondering why you took him to the park in the first place, since your place here is so big and there’s plenty of space to run.”