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“I don’t care, and I would happily come and be in your world with you, if that’s what it takes.”
“You cannot mean that.” She was doing her best to push me away, but I sensed there was still some hope for me. I’d laid it out on the table for her, and hopefully she’d take it at face value when she was ready.
“Oh, I mean it, and I have the ability to make it happen. Watch me.”
“I don’t care for this arguing,” she said stubbornly.
“I don’t care to be told I cannot own my feelings.” I finally snapped and asked the question. “Do you want me to go? I can stay with my brother tonight and get back to Boston in the morning.” It would hurt like a bitch, but I would do it if she asked me to.
She eyeballed me.
I gave it right back to her.
I waited for her to say, “Give me five minutes and I’ll drive you to your brother’s house myself,” in the Jeep Cherokee that probably had a good five years on me.
She didn’t, though. Instead she rose from her chair and came around the table to my side. She held out her hand to me.
I took it.How could I not?She was handing me a lifeline, and I’d fucking hold on to it.
“I don’t want you to go, Caleb. I’d like you to stay and hear the rest of my story. I think you should know everything about me, and then you can evaluate if your feelings are still the same.” She tugged me up from my chair. “You’re right. It’s not fair of me to tell you what you can feel for another person. I am sorry if I hurt you when I said you couldn’t possibly feel more for me. I don’t want to hurt you, Caleb. Never that.”
I let her lead me up the stairs to her bedroom where I’d stowed my bag earlier when she gave me the grand tour of her cottage.
She peeled off her shirt first. Then her leggings. The bra came off next and my dick started throbbing. I was fully erect when the panties were dropped to the floor. I watched her reveal herself to me physically and wished she could do the same on an emotional level. Why is it we always crave what we don’t have?
She came to me and I let her help me take off my clothes, piece by piece, until I was as naked as her.
“Do you know how easy it would be for me to fall in love with you, Caleb?”
“No.” I shook my head.
“It would take no effort at all, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea—for me, or for you.”
So that door wasn’t completely closed. Good to know. “What do you want from me, Brooke?”
She smiled. “I want you to make love to me in my bed, and then I’ll tell you the rest of my story. After that you can decide if you still want me.”
Turnabout is fair play, baby.“I agree, but only if we switch it around. You tell me first, and then we make love. And for the record, I’ve already decided.”
Her face fell and her eyes narrowed.
“I know what you’re doing. You think that whatever you have to tell me will make me stop wanting to be with you; I’ll leave, and you’ll be vindicated of your fucking absurd notion that you are unworthy to be loved by me.”
“It will,” she said.
“Well, baby, you’re just going to have to trust me then and see what happens.” I smiled this time. “Let’s get into the bed, shall we?”
So into her bed we were going. Buck-ass naked, but not to fuck.
Both of us tense, unsure of how we fit in to the other’s life. I knew where I wanted her in mine, but she seemed pretty adamant about where I could be in hers. Sex was okay, but lovewasn’t apparently. How was it possible to find the one woman on earth Ineededto make life bearable, only to have her believing I shouldn’t love her because she wasn’t worthy?
My heart was being fucked from all directions.
I held out my arms to her and she fell into them, loving how her soft skin melted into mine when our bodies aligned. I tugged her down into bed, tucked the sheets and blankets that smelled of her around us, and waited...
She talked and I listened. Her heart had been broken before, and mine was being broken now as she told me her story.
“I was truly born on the wrong side of the tracks as you say in America. The wrong side of the sheets is what it was called back home. My mother went to London for a semester abroad when she was in college. She met my father, Michael Harvey, and very quickly fell madly in love. She also fell pregnant with me. But my father was already married and had a family. My mother and I were his secret. He loved us and was a steady part of our lives, but we would always be the shameful secret that must be hidden away because that’s just how it was. He was an MP, a Member of Parliament, and I never took his name. That is why my last name is Casterley like my nan. Dad had money, and he kept us well looked after, which was fine when he was alive—but there was no provision for us when he died. The one exception was my university education, because he’d set it up when I was born in my birth name. It was the one thing his sons couldn’t take, because legally it was mine. I have two half brothers I’ve never met in person.