Page 25 of The Love Game
‘I surprised myself,’ she said, a tiny smile hovering on her lips for the first time since it happened. ‘God,’ she said, louder, covering her face with her hands. ‘What a complete farce!’
And then, finally, she saw the lighter side. Her shoulders started to shake, and Cal looked down and pushed his hand through his hair, laughing.
‘My mother called me several times afterwards,’ he said. ‘Ordering me to pick up my ball and come home because I’m grounded, or words to that effect.’
‘And will you?’
He rolled his eyes. ‘What do you think I said?’
‘I think you probably tried to be diplomatic?’
Cal sighed. ‘There is very little point in trying to be diplomatic with my mother,’ he said. ‘I’ve learned over the years that it’s best to be direct to the point of bluntness.’
‘I don’t want to make things difficult for you,’ she said.
He nodded. ‘She sure wants to make things difficult for you.’
‘Yeah, I got that. We did kind of play into her hands today, to be honest.’
Cal started to laugh. ‘Beau’s T-shirt!’
‘Keris in that bloody corset!’ Violet gasped, laughing with him. ‘Your mum couldn’t have come at a worse time if she’d tried. In fact, I blame you. You told me she’s always exactly on time. I wouldn’t have let Keris out in that corset if I’d thought your mum might materialise early.’
Cal tried not to smile. ‘Especially with you and Keris being raging lesbians now, too.’
Vi covered her cheeks with her fingertips. ‘Melvin and Linda really didn’t help the situation, did they.’
‘Life certainly isn’t dull in Swallow Beach since you arrived,’ he said.
She twisted her bracelet around on her wrist, studying the shells. She couldn’t believe she’d only been in Swallow Beach for five weeks, it felt like far longer. ‘I didn’t anticipate my arrival would make such headline news.’
‘Oh, you’ll be headline news in the local Chronicle this week, all right. On the front page in a fetish cage, I should think.’
A sudden thought occurred to Violet. ‘God, I really hope my family don’t get wind of this.’
He drank deeply from his brandy glass, contemplative. ‘And your sometime boyfriend? What will he make of things?’
Violet cringed. ‘Simon would be absolutely mortified if he knew. In fact I think he’d back your mum’s compulsory purchase order just to preserve my modesty.’ She reached for her brandy on the table and sipped it. ‘Simon’s not my sometime boyfriend. It was over before I came here. For me, anyway.’
Cal reached out and touched his finger against the leather ribbon around her wrist. ‘It suits you.’
‘I really love it,’ she said, and she meant it.
His fingers stroked the skin of her wrist, tracing the line of the bracelet. ‘I know we said we wouldn’t kiss each other again, but I think I’m going to kiss you now.’
‘We did say that,’ she whispered, looking at his mouth and wanting it on hers. ‘Shall we call it extenuating circumstances?’
He reached out and held her jaw, dragging his thumb over her lips. ‘It has been one hell of a day.’ His voice was low in his throat, his dark eyes turned on. Violet swallowed hard, a little breathless.
‘Cal …’ she said.
In reply, he slid his hand into her hair and drew her face to his, cutting off any more words with his kiss.
‘Don’t say anything else,’ he whispered. ‘And for God’s sake don’t say stop.’
She couldn’t have if she’d tried. Her brain wasn’t able to form any other words than yes , or Cal , or some kind of animalistic growl not dissimilar to the one she’d let out that morning.
Maybe Gladys was right, she was feral. What was happening to her?
She knew the answer to that question, Calvin Dearheart was happening to her.
He was happening to her mouth, and he was making her heart beat twice the speed it should, and he was pressing her back against the sofa cushions with the weight of his body and God, it was delicious and delirious and heady.
‘You’re my favourite new neighbour ever,’ he said, breathing fast and shallow.
‘Am I your only new neighbour ever?’ she half laughed, then gasped when Cal’s hand slid inside the back of her top.
She was braless, and his hand stroked slow and sure up her spine, moulding her body into his, shockingly close.
It was a line crossed; this wasn’t just kissing.
It was more, and then it was a lot more when he slipped his hand around between their bodies and touched her breasts, her nipples, the warm curves and dips of her body.
Neither Simon nor anyone else had ever made her feel so quickly, intensely turned on, it was almost painful pleasure when Cal moved his tongue inside her mouth as he rolled her nipple.
She arched, and his other hand moved up her back, pressing her deeper into him.
They slid from talking to feeling, from thinking to wanting, from wanting to needing.
She reached down and dragged her top up over her head and he did the same, then closed his eyes and groaned when their skin pressed together hot and seductive.
For a few long minutes, they made out like nineteen year olds on the backseat of a car, wondrous, gasping, hot as hell.
He kissed her body, she raked his shoulders.
He dipped his head and trailed his tongue across the edge of her PJ trousers, then moved back over her until she lay pinned beneath him on the sofa with her leg hooked around his thigh.
There was no hiding how much he wanted her, the evidence strained against his jeans and pressed between her legs.
She wanted to be naked, and she was about to tell him so when her phone started to ring on the coffee table.