Page 26 of Through Any Fire (Any x #1)

Flashes of bruises and love bites covering the neck of a whiny blonde bombard me.

As if it were yesterday, an image frozen in time, depicting the shock hitting Cal’s teenage face like a Mack truck.

Then came his words, about how I could never survive as the boss’s wife, how I could never truly satisfy his needs, how he’d never sink so low as to marry from such a disposable bloodline.

Shivers erupt over my exposed skin. The memory of the pounding rain slices me to the bone.

I’d fumbled with my car keys before dropping them into a puddle.

The car was still warm, but I didn’t feel it.

Couldn’t focus on anything except watching the streetlights change from red to green.

Cal grinds his jaw and stares at the wooden flooring.

Seconds tick by. Emotions I thought were long buried bubble to the surface.

While most of me wants him to fight, to maintain this semblance of an arrangement, the other part of me is just so tired.

Tired of carrying this grudge. Tired of wishing I could meet someone, anyone , who could erase his ever-present claim on my soul.

Cal sighs. When he finally breaks the tense silence, his brown eyes are dull. “I may have said it…but I never meant it. Not a single word.”

His words hang in the air between us, and I feel each like a lash.

But pretty words wrapped in honey mean nothing when it doesn’t change the fact that I caught him in bed with another girl.

She was a grade above us in school, and for the rest of the school year, I was forced to see her perfect face and golden hair until she graduated and eventually left.

It was death by a thousand cuts—or in this case, a thousand blonde hairs.

My gaze hardens, and the flush of my anger rises over my chest, my neck, all the way to the tips of my ears. Through clenched teeth, I try to speak. “Well, I’ll never know if that’s the truth, but it doesn’t change the fact you slept with Brielle Waylan.”

Cal’s shoulders drop, and his face contorts with what looks like pain. Good. He opens his mouth to speak, but I throw up a hand.

“I don’t want to hear it. The day I walked in on you was the best day of my life. It was a cruel reminder that I don’t belong in your world.” I step closer, and my hands tremble. “But that never meant I wasn’t capable. Just that I shouldn’t bother with wasting my love on someone like you.”

Callahan grinds his jaw and stands, stepping into my space.

I tip my face up, feeling each heavy breath he exhales.

A second later, he steps away and stalks to his bedroom.

The revived anger coursing through my blood heats as I’m once again dismissed by the man who consumes my every waking thought. I turn on my heel to leave.

Before I can make it to the door, Cal cuts me off and grips the frame, his voice lashing out at me like it did all those years ago. “Where do you think you’re going?”

I freeze, my hand on the doorknob. “Anywhere away from you.”

I unlock the handle, but when I twist the knob, a bandaged hand slams the door shut. The other brushes against my hip. Through the dress, I can feel the heat of his touch, but it only serves to fan my flames. I do my best to ignore the growing need between my legs.

“I’m going to bed,” I say in defeat.

A growl so low I might’ve thought I’d imagined it rumbles over the shell of my ear, and his strong body presses me into the door. I know he’s so close that if I turn my face, our lips would almost touch.

“Then this is probably a bad time to tell you that you’ve been moved.”

My eyes widen, and I whirl around, but Cal gives me no leave. I’m pressed against the door, and Cal drags his bandaged hand to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, smiling like the cat that got the cream.

“If you’re going to sneak out at all hours of the night, then you need to be monitored.”

I open my mouth to argue, but he just continues.

“And if you’re going to be reckless with your life”—his gaze drops to my lips, then flicks back up to meet mine—“then I’ll just have to be your personal guard. To make sure you come home to me in one piece, darling. You understand, of course.”

Blood rushes to my cheeks, warming my face. Of course, the asshat would take any excuse to twist me into an obedient little wife. But if that’s how he wants to play it…

I smile, and Cal has the decency to be unnerved. He frowns.

“Careful, Callahan. You might just make me think you care.”

I duck out of his hold and stroll across the room into his bedroom. It’s one of the largest bedrooms I’ve ever seen. Cal’s soft steps follow behind me, and I hide any reaction from my face.

Toward the back of the room, there’s a king-sized canopy bed with red velvet curtains tied open.

How entirely pompous. A couch sits in front of a mounted television that could easily pass for a home theater installment, along with low tables on either end of the couch.

To the left, there are French doors leading out to an expansive balcony, one with a much better view than the one I’ve been working at.

Petulant jealousy tugs at me, but I ignore it, choosing to take a guess at one of the two other doors and hope it’s his closet.

I open the door, and my mouth parts. It’s almost as big as the guest room I’ve been staying in.

Curiously, I note my clothes have already been hung on the right-hand side.

I turn on my heel and raise a brow to the man leaning against the doorframe with his hands stuffed in his pockets.

He keeps a blank face, but the slightest curl to his lips gives him away.

“So that’s who you were texting in the car.”

He shrugs. Stepping into the closet, he opens a drawer and pulls out a pair of charcoal sweats.

Without a care for his decency, he begins undressing.

My cheeks heat, and I spin around. I desperately want to watch, but I can’t let him know.

Instead, I rifle through the drawer under my hanging clothes.

Once again, the top drawer is filled with women’s underwear.

I can’t help a rush of anger, and I slam the drawer shut so hard it rattles.

I move to the next drawer, where I’d found the loungewear in my old room, and sure enough, there are a few sets.

I grab the first I see and move to leave the closet, but stop short.

Cal is standing with a bemused smirk, his arms crossed, sweats slung dangerously low on his hips.

His torso is deliciously bare, but I refuse to give in to my base desires.

“Taking out your rage on my poor dresser, Bunny? That’s not very nice.”

My cheeks heat, and I know he’s enjoying my frustration. “I don’t think it’s very nice to shove a drawer full of your flavor of the night’s panties in my face, but we can’t all get what we want, now can we?” With that, I push past him and stride toward the other door a few feet away.

“You don’t like the panties I bought you, Bunny?”

Those were— are —mine? It stops me in my tracks, and my cheeks flood with heat. I can’t believe it. From the gleam in Cal’s eyes, he’s having the time of his life watching my brain malfunction. With a growl, I stomp away and head into the other door.

Thankfully, it’s a bathroom, as expected, and I quickly lock the door behind me.

It actually pisses me off even further to see how perfect his bathroom is.

A massive claw-foot tub sits in the center of the marble floor, and a separate alcove off to the right holds what is likely a toilet.

A dual-headed, waterfall, glass shower takes up a third of the space, with extra jets lining the wall.

In the gilded mirror hanging above the Jack-and-Jill sink, I take stock of myself.

It feels like it’s been ages since I snuck out, but with a quick glance at my phone, it’s barely even midnight.

A bone-deep fatigue settles over my shoulders. Deciding I don’t want to see Cal again just yet, I turn on the shower and wait for the room to fill with steam. As I step beneath the water, I do my best to banish the sting of betrayal. It’s always two steps forward, three steps back with Callahan.

Sure, all these years have passed, and now he says he didn’t mean the words he so harshly wielded, but I’ll never know the truth. Because no matter what he says now, the only thing I can trust him with is my brother.

The realization is like a punch in the gut, and all I want to do is sleep for ten years. But as life would have it, that’s just not an option. Alice is now missing, too, Mason is god knows where…

I pump shampoo into my hand, and this time, it doesn’t faze me that Cal has my brand in here, too. I rinse and condition my hair and wash the feel of Roy and David’s hands from my body. If I closed my eyes, I could still feel the press of David’s erection. A shudder rolls through me.

It was time to get serious.

And it could actually work in my favor that Callahan wants to stick by my side until the person gunning for our lives is caught and my people are found. He won’t have the option to toss me off to the side and ignore my badgering, no matter how much he wants to.

Resolution solidifies in my gut, and I step out of the shower with a shifted mindset.

By the time I exit the bathroom, Cal is sitting on the bed with his computer on his lap.

As if he has no other speed than furious, he types so quickly I can’t imagine he’s not misspelling every other word.

A pair of glasses with a thick black frame perches on the bridge of his nose, giving him a sort of Clark Kent look. Unsurprisingly, I find it rather sexy.

Fuck.

When I approach the bed, I instinctively head to my usual side—opposite of Cal.

It stops me in my tracks. Once upon a time, at the lake house during our very first sleepover, we realized we both preferred the right side.

We spent almost an hour arguing over who would get to keep ‘their’ side until we eventually passed out with me rolled on top of him, leaving it as a moot point.

The next night, Cal went straight for the left side.

When I asked him why he was giving up so easily, all he had to say was how the night before was the best night of sleep he ever had, and if losing his side meant he got to sleep next to me, then so be it.

And tonight—right now—he’s on the left side.

Warmth swirls in my belly, but I pay it no mind.

Instead, I pull back the covers and slide into the softest bed I’ve ever lain on.

On the bedside table lays my ring. I slip it on and do my best to ignore the man typing away.

I plug my phone in on the bedside table, then wrap the comforter around my shoulders.

Without speaking, Cal switches off the lights and lowers the brightness of his laptop.

As I drift off, all I can notice is how quietly he seems to type.