Pink Champagne (5 page)

“Isn’t the right time for what?” His voice was barely above a whisper. His forehead grazed hers.

“I just can’t.”

His hand moved deeper into her hair, the other one still against the back of her neck. Leaving his eyes locked on hers, he moved his two hands to meet in the back of her head, buried them deep in her hair. He pressed his lips to her temple. She closed her eyes, breathing in sandalwood.

He backed her up against the wall next to the door. “I’ll stop if you really want me to, but I want you to know that it hurts to do it.” He pressed his cheek to hers.

Screw it. This was going to happen. She’d worry about the consequences later. She had the rest of her life to think about those consequences. She wouldn’t get another chance to wrap herself around Caleb Fletcher-Smith. She didn’t want to regret missing the one chance she had.

She pressed her lips to his collarbone, tasting the skin there. The next thing she knew, they were on his neck.
Then, his bottom lip.
He parted his lips, sighing against hers. He pressed her to the wall. She locked her arms around him. His hands moved across her back. Their mouths were locked together. She wanted to do much more than kiss him, and she used her mouth to try and show him this. It seemed he was doing the same with his. She lifted one leg onto his hip. He pulled the other up, and held her in place by gripping her thighs without ever separating his lips from hers.

Clinging to him, feeling his body against hers, she could tell he wanted her as much as she wanted him.

When he finally pulled back, they were both breathless.

“I should stop now. Before…” he said.

She ground her hips against his. “Really?”

He looked at the door. “What if Macon
?...
”

She hopped down and grabbed his hand. “Come here.” She led him to her room. She didn’t want to overthink things. She didn’t want to think at all. All she wanted was Caleb.

Soon, they were on her bed, writhing, hips grinding against each other. She kissed him hungrily, greedily, feeling starved after the few cold and distant months at the end with Derek. He’d been right that the sex was bad for the last few months, but wrong about it being her fault.

Not that she wanted to think about him when she was with a man like Caleb. She pulled him closer, rubbing against the ridge of his hard-on. She wrapped her legs around him as he teased her neck with his teeth and tongue. He moved lower until he was biting at her nipples through her shirt. She moaned as he teased them to hardened points beneath her bra.

Her breath came in shorter and shorter gasps as his hands explored her body. He touched every place that needed to be touched even though they were fully clothed. She screamed out with pleasure as he took her over the edge.

Her breathing started to return to normal, and he rolled off her and stroked her hair away from her face.

“Whoa,” she said.

He moved his hand along the inside of her thigh, bringing it to a stop at the crotch of her jeans. She unbuttoned and unzipped her jeans and pushed both jeans and panties off her hips. He pulled them down to her knees and brushed his fingers against the wet, curly hair they’d exposed. He groaned and ripped her jeans and panties down to her ankles, pushing them off the rest of the way with his feet.

His mouth settled onto sensitive skin that hadn’t been touched by a mouth in years. Derek didn’t do that. She sighed with pleasure as his tongue found the most sensitive part of the slick folds of skin he’d just excited through their clothes. He teased her skin until she was out of her mind with pleasure. Gently taking her pearl between his teeth, he sucked and nibbled at it until she was raw with need for him. Finally, he gave her sweet release once again. As the aftershocks of pleasure rolled through her, Caleb stroked her thighs.

He sat up. She reached for his zipper, and his hand closed over hers. He moved her hand away from his crotch.

“Quenby—”

“We should get ourselves together. Macon’s
gonna
be back up here soon,” she said. She looked at
him,
unable to believe he was leaving in just a few hours. It was for the best, though. She had to believe that.

She yanked up her jeans, got off the bed, and headed for her dresser. Raking her hands through her hair, she pulled it back and grabbed an elastic hair band from the dresser. Then she headed for the bathroom. She needed to splash some ice-cold water over her face.

When they went out to the living room, Macon was sitting on the sofa. She must’ve come up with Indigo, who was sitting next to her and who knew Quenby’s building code. Quenby didn’t know how long they’d been sitting there, and she didn’t ask.

“So how was your conversation with Adia?” Quenby asked, locking her hands behind her back so she wouldn’t tap them against her thighs. That was a dead giveaway sign she was hiding something. And both her friends knew it.

“The same one we’ve been having for months,” Macon said.

“Yeah.” Quenby wasn’t about to butt into her business and give Macon a good reason to bring up the fact that both she and Caleb had just come out of Quenby’s bedroom.

Caleb sat in an armchair across from the couch and Quenby sat on the sofa next between Macon and Indigo, glad that she didn’t have to look at Caleb at the moment. She was still trying to figure out how to feel about what’d happened.

“I know what you’re thinking, but we were just—” Quenby started.

“Quenby, please.” Macon cut her off. “We’re all adults here. No need to explain. Just do me a favor and stop talking before I get images burned into my brain.”

“No, no, really.” Quenby shook her head. “Nothing happened. We were just watching…TV”

“Then why isn’t the TV on?”

“We turned it off. I wanted to show Caleb something in the bedroom.”

“I bet you did.”

“Um.” Wow. She’d walked right into that one.

“Quenby, can I talk to you for a minute?” Indigo asked. “Out on the balcony?”

“Sure,” Quenby said slowly. She got up and followed her friend outside.

#

Caleb shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “I don’t want you to think I’m taking advantage of her.”

“I think she’s a grown woman who can make her own decisions,” Macon said, flipping on the television and staring at the screen. “I wish some people thought the same of me.”

“Aw, Macon. You know I’m only trying to look out for you.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Caleb glanced toward the balcony doors. Indigo was making wild gestures with her hands. Quenby kept shaking her head. “You think they’re talking about me out there?”

“Probably.”

“I really do like her.”

“Your butt is going back to Georgia at four-forty five P.M.,” was all Macon said in response.

“So you do have a problem with this.”

“With what? There’s nothing to have a problem with—you live in Georgia, she’s just trying to deal with what happened yesterday, and—and—there’s just nothing to have a problem with.” Macon crossed her arms over her chest.

“If there were, in theory of course, something for you to have a problem with, would you have a problem with it?”

“You know, you have such a huge problem with Adia, but what about what happened last spring?”

“Ouch.”

“That poor girl thought she was going to marry you.”

“I thought the same thing. I’m sorry I hurt her, and you know I am. I never meant to lead her on or anything,” he said. “And don’t forget Mama’s part in that one. You know how she is. She practically put the ring on that woman’s finger herself.”

“I know. I’m sorry to lash out at you like that. But you’ve been asking for it all weekend.
And until you get over what happened with Liz…no.
I can’t be excited about the idea of you being with one of my best friends. I think it’s a very good thing that we’re going back to Georgia.”

“You had to bring her up, didn’t you?”

“You made me.”

He’d never been more in love with anybody than he’d been with Liz. A former Miss Georgia Peach. Current special
ed
teacher and someone else’s wife. Perfect, he thought, in every way.
Until she’d fallen in love, and eloped, with Macon’s brother.
Yep, Caleb’s own cousin had stolen his woman. Caleb had tried to get close to other women after that—he’d almost gotten to the altar with his ex fiancé last spring—but somehow the other relationships always fell apart in the end.
Mostly because there was only one Liz.

No matter how hard he tried to forget her, all he could see, feel, touch, or want was Liz and his memories of her. It didn’t help that he had to see her at every, single, friggin’ family function.
Her, his cousin whom he still didn’t speak to, and their now two-year-old son.

Chapter 7

Caleb had class in less than twenty-four hours, but he couldn’t imagine leaving Quenby yet. Even though they were headed to RIC in Quenby’s car, he couldn’t bear the thought of it. He’d managed to meet a woman who blew his mind for the first time since Liz, have an amazing time with her, and lose her all in less than a weekend. Well, he hadn’t lost her yet. Not technically.

While Quenby and Macon droned on and on in the front, and Indigo contributed to their conversation from where she sat next to Caleb in the back, he stared out of the window at the passing trees as they headed down Staples Mill Road toward the airport. Could he stay? Missing a few classes would be worth it for even a week with Quenby. But what would Quenby say if he asked to stay there with her for a few more days?

Maybe she’d gotten her rebound fling out of her system already. He hoped not. It hadn’t seemed like that was how she felt to him. But maybe that was just because he wanted it to feel like more to her the way it did to him. There was no way to know for sure. They hadn’t gotten the chance to talk all that much.

When Quenby pulled up in front of the terminal and popped the trunk, Caleb went to get the bags. He stepped onto the sidewalk and went over to them, carrying only Macon’s luggage.

“Where’s your stuff, cuz?” Macon asked as he set the bags by her feet.

“Still in the car.” He took the boarding pass he’d printed out that morning at Quenby’s out of his back pocket. He tapped the folded pieced of paper nervously against his hand.

“Why’s that?” She narrowed her eyes suspiciously at him.

“I can’t leave. Not yet.” He looked at Quenby. Her brown eyes softened like melting chocolate.

“Why’s that?” Macon asked again. She and Indigo both looked like they really wanted answers—and good ones.

“Quenby,” he said, talking only to her. “I need a week with you. If you want, I’ll go back to Georgia, but not without you giving me a good reason why I should. I won’t impose myself on you, but I’d really like to stay. A lot.”

“What about school?” she asked.

“I imagine Emory will still be there when I get back.”

“This is crazy.”

“So live a little.”

Quenby shifted her gaze between Caleb and her friends, biting her lower lip in a way that made Caleb want to do nothing more than kiss it.

“I shoulda seen this coming after this morning,” Macon drawled.

“Okay. If you really want to, and you’re not going to fail out or anything, okay,” Quenby said.

“Thank you.” Caleb grinned.

“You two be careful with each other,” Macon said.

“Don’t worry. We will,” Quenby said, kissing her cheek.

“You better,” Indigo said, giving Caleb a meaningful look before she and Macon exchanged goodbye kisses and hugs.

“Your mama’s
gonna
kill you,” Macon said to Caleb.

He chuckled. “You let me worry about Mama.”

“And worry you better.”

They walked Macon into the terminal before getting back into Quenby’s car and heading away from the airport. After they dropped Indigo off at her apartment, Quenby drove using her left hand, and they rode back to her condo with their hands folded together on Caleb’s lap.

#

When they got back to the condo, the happy mood she’d been in since Caleb decided not to get on the plane back to Georgia was killed by a text from Derek popping up on her phone. He’d been calling all morning, but she’d ignored the calls so they hadn’t bothered her. She read the message again with a sigh.

“What is it?” Caleb asked
,
keeping his hands to himself as if he sensed the mood was shot.

“It’s Derek.” She shook her head. “He claims he wants to come over and get his stuff. Says he can use his key, but he’s trying to be adult about this.” She laughed. “He actually said that. Adult.” She texted him back that he could come over tomorrow while she was out. He sent another text almost immediately stating that they needed to be there together to go through everything. She told Caleb all of this before
saying,
“I really can’t handle seeing his face right now. He can take it all. I don’t care.”