Page 49 of Play for Power (Central Sparks #3)

Asshole. I feel my skin flush with embarrassment, feeling completely chastised but also vulnerable, and Caleb has seen me far too vulnerable for one night.

I can’t bear another second. With his skin on mine, hot and comforting, the caresses, the… care. I didn’t sign up for this. I sit forward, wrapping my arms around my body.

“I don’t want to do this. I should leave.”

“Woah, hey, easy. I didn’t mean to tease you.” He rests his hands on my shoulders. “It’s just surprising, is all. I would have thought men everywhere would be fighting to have you wrapped in their arms.” He leans forward and kisses my shoulder as I blink back the surprising sting behind my eyes.

No one has ever fought to hold me longer than the time it takes for them to come.

Though, I don’t usually let myself hang around long enough for that kind of disappointment.

I, myself, also hightail it out of there.

But I wasn’t even cuddled as a kid. Apart from the group hugs or quick hugs of comfort shared with Addison or Casey, no one has ever just held me.

And I really hadn’t paid attention to that fact until he was suddenly always trying to hold me.

I know he’s tried to embrace me before, tonight included, each time he’s realized I’m uncomfortable and he’s let go, not lingering.

This is different. So, so different.

I admit to nothing of course, instead waiting for him to give up and leave the bath so I can dress and bail. But after a minute, he’s still there.

His large hands massaging warm circles on my shoulders, every now and then a soft kiss against my neck. He doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t even try to touch me in a way that’s overly sexual. I haven’t a clue what to make of it.

So, I let my eyes fall closed, taking a number of deep breaths. The warm press of Caleb’s hands on my skin somehow grounds me. The more I focus on it, the less I feel the need to run from his embrace, and the more I find myself wanting to just let myself have this, to just enjoy him and his touch.

So, I do the one thing I never saw coming.

I fall back into him.

He must be as stunned as I am, because his hands hover for a moment before they slowly and gently wrap around my middle, moving me slightly so I’m nestled more comfortably between his legs.

Ever so slowly, I let my hands relax, moving them to rest on his outer thighs and he lets go of a heavy breath.

It’s intimate, in a way I feel I’ve never been with another person in my entire life. More than just sex, or attraction. It’s a stolen moment, and maybe that’s why I lose all my senses and let him in on another piece of myself that I haven’t shared with anyone before.

“I’ve never been held,” I whisper.

He doesn’t move or say anything for a moment, and then I feel the soft press of his lips to my shoulder.

I feel his hands start to roam my body in a delicate caress, lighting up every nerve ending as he passes over them.

“I’ve never been held, or seen…or so exposed.

Certainly not with someone I’m sleeping with, but not even with my friends.

” I close my eyes briefly, and though it pains me to finish, I whisper, “No one has ever wanted me like that.” I go stiff when I feel his motion still, kicking myself for saying anything at all.

He probably thinks I’m some unfeeling weirdo.

Probably questioning why he would want to hold me tight against him when literally no one else does.

Before I can spiral further, though, I feel his hand on my jaw, less gentle than it was before as he turns my head so I’m looking back into his eyes.

“ I want you like that,” he whispers before he tentatively presses his lips to mine, in a whole new type of kiss.

It’s gentle but firm, like what I imagine a kiss would be for two people who had a whole lot of deep and complex feelings for each other.

Obviously, not the kind of feelings Caleb and I were ever capable of having.

Yet I find myself falling into it. Committing it to memory and realizing there is something about this night, the way he holds me, sees into my soul, and the very press of his lips against mine in this moment, I know I’ll remember it in years to come.

When I am finally settled in a future I never wanted, didn’t ask for, and have dreaded since I was sixteen.

One day, when I’m miserable and lonely, I will sit there alone in a bath and remember the way this kiss felt. His kiss.

Caleb pulls away from me, his expression hard to read, but I recognize the intensity swimming in the depths of his eyes. Desire so hot and so intense it somehow replaces all my feelings of panic. Slowly dousing it all with the potency of his hunger, and it is all the more suffocating.

This whole situation is too much. I need normal, my normal.

I need distance between us. Not the physical kind—as if I was leaving the bath now; if you could feel what I could feel pushing against my back, you’d understand—but the mental and emotional distance.

I feel naked in more ways than I should.

So I pull back on my mask, pushing away the strange vibrations that course through my body when I look at him, and ignoring the look in his eyes, I close the distance and kiss him again.

This time his hand shoots through the tangles of my curls and grips them.

His tongue teases my lower lip and I open, locking my tongue with his as he moans, tightening his grip in my hair.

I fall backward, further into his hold as his free hand travels south.

Caressing and teasing my skin under the warm water, his lips continue to devour mine, stealing the breath from my lungs.

“I’ve wanted you this way since that first night?—”

“No, don’t say anything. Just keep touching me,” I interrupt to silence him; silence all the words I know will follow that look in his eye. I’ve never been more grateful for the sigh of defeat that leaves him, and the reprieve he gives us in his change of topic.

“Then tell me how you want me to touch you, Rosie.” I look up to him. “Use me. Like I’m just your sex toy, remember?”

I take a breath, pulling away from the kiss and trying to remember who I am.

Who he is. We aren’t this intimate couple.

We are two friends who play, who drink and party, and we have really mind-blowingly excellent sex.

I smirk, falling back into our game and shoving everything else to the far recess of my mind, pivoting so my head is tucked back under his chin.

Tucking my hands on the outer side of his thigh, I imagine what I’d do if I were bathing by myself and looking for release.

“Tease me, slowly, touch me everywhere except where I need it.” The sound I love leaves his throat, it’s like a pained moan.

The hand in my curls releases me and caresses my neck, shoulders, moving to gently massage my breast, while the other trails a slow path down my stomach.

Just as it reaches the peak between my thighs, he redirects it down to the side.

So close, so painfully close to where I want him, a delicate caress, and my breath hitches at the sensation.

“My edging you tonight wasn’t enough?” His voice is deep, almost breathless as he asks.

“Maybe you just unlocked a new kink,” I breathe in response, and his fingers dip slightly into my entrance before gliding out and up the other side, still so close but not close enough. “ Fuck. ”

“I love the sounds you make for me, Rosebud.” He hums the words against my neck, following the same pattern between my legs a couple times.

The hand at my tits massages and plays with my nipples, pinching and teasing them in tandem with the hand playing between my legs.

It’s making me senseless. My uncontrollable writhing and the breathy moan that slips my lips have Caleb losing a little of his control each time he nears my entrance.

He stays, lingering, pushing in slightly.

It is dizzying and nearing on madness how close he is driving me to the edge and avoiding that little bundle of nerves I want him to play with so desperately.

“You’re a fast learner,” I pant out.

“How so?” he asks, so quiet, focused on his task of teasing me into an ache so bad I already regret asking him to do this.

“You already know how to touch me. I don’t understand how you’re so good at this.” The compliment just slips out, because Caleb makes my mind mush when he has me on the brink of orgasm. It’s embarrassing just how submissive I become when euphoria is imminent.

“You’re not a puzzle, Rosie. You’re responsive, and it’s so fucking hot.

You tell me in how you react, how you move your body into mine.

” His fingers continue their painful trail, this time lingering longer right in my center, while the other continues its effort on my breasts.

Dipping in, spreading my need everywhere before he teases my clit and circles back around.

“It’s agonizing, how you breathe, how you gasp.

” He proves his point by pinching my clit and eliciting that exact reaction from me.

“I’m a details guy. I pay attention, and you’re my favorite topic to study.

” His ministrations turn up a notch, paying more attention to my clit and my nipples, pinching them, playing with them, massaging them.

My whole body feels like it’s floating on a cloud.

Like being at the top of a roller coaster, knowing the impending drop is about to come, and your stomach falls out a little.

I feel like my entire body is about to fall off a cliff, and if it doesn’t soon, I’m going to run and fucking hurl myself over it.

“Jesus, I want to ride you so bad.” It comes out pained, my voice completely unrecognizable.

“Do you think about riding me when you touch yourself?” His breath is hot against my neck as his teeth drag against my skin. I can only manage a nod as my breathing becomes a pant.