Page 37 of Through Any Fire (Any x #1)

When he speaks, it’s a low whisper that rumbles through my bones. It makes it easier to listen with him standing behind me.

“Ren, Bunny, I never betrayed you. I…” He trails off, and my traitorous heart stops beating as I wait for him to finish his sentence.

“My father found out about us. He told me to end it—or else—and I knew what his father did to Mia. I had no doubt my father would do the same to you. And so, I made the choice that Danny couldn’t.

But I knew you’d never believe me if I said I didn’t love you anymore.

I had to”—he gulps, his embrace tightening—“to hurt you. So badly you’d never even look at me again. ”

A thick knot swells in my throat. Cal trails a feather-light touch over my hip, the satin robe disheveled. It’s barely tied at the waist, and his fingers play with the hem of the fabric.

“But I never slept with her. You know how Luc moved in that summer?”

I nod slowly.

Cal continues. “Well, she’d spent the night with him, and I slipped her into my room five minutes before you were to show up. It was the only thing I could think of. And the biggest regret of my life.”

Sometime during his confession, his hold on my bicep turned into an arm binding around my waist, clutching me to him as if he feared I’d run away. I can’t speak, can’t move, can’t think. All of this…was a lie?

“Ren, please. It’s plagued me every day for the past four-thousand two-hundred and twenty-four days we were apart, each one more agonizing than the last. There were weeks where I couldn’t get out of bed.

Months I don’t even remember. It got to a point where Matthias didn’t recognize me anymore.

And when I looked in the mirror, I couldn’t either.

” He sighs, and I brace for whatever he was about to say.

“When you showed back up in my life, I knew I couldn’t resist you anymore. So, I told you I needed a wife.”

I suck in a shaky breath, my heart pounding so fast I can hear its thrum in my ears.

“But I didn’t need a wife. I needed you .”

I squeeze my eyes shut. “But that night, after the meeting, you went to Abstrakt to see Kyra…”

Cal tightens his hold, and I feel the pounding of his heart against my back. I count the heartbeats, all the way to fifteen until he speaks again.

“Yes, I was at Abstrakt that night, and I saw Kyra, but—”

“So, which is it? You didn’t betray me then, but you did now?

I know I’m not really your wife, Cal, but I thought you respected me enough not to break your promise to me.

” The words feel wrong in my mouth, but I speak them anyway, no longer wanting to hide behind quips and banter.

When I finish, silence takes hold for a long beat.

Then Cal sighs, and my heart cracks, another tear slipping over my cheek. We were so close. I was so close.

“Ren…Kyra works for me. She’s an inside agent who reports any useful intel she picks up during her shifts. I met with her after the restaurant because I needed to know if she knew anything that could verify what Rose told us. And that night, she did. Parts of it, at least.”

I suck in a breath. He didn’t have sex with her?

“Whenever I’m there, I act like a client, and we head into a room so it’s not suspicious.

But I’ve never touched her. Never even looked at her, Bunny.

I haven’t looked at another woman since you came back into my life.

My bed might have been warmed by women over the years, but no one has ever replaced the ironclad grip you have on my soul. ”

If not for the hold around my waist, I would’ve collapsed. His confession coils around my heart, squeezing until it bleeds.

“But…” The word trembles out of me, and I twist around in his hold. His arms slide around me, hands grazing the curve of my ass and leaving no choice but for me to stay. As if I could ever leave now that I know.

Cal’s brown eyes shine with emotion, and for the first time since I saw him in Abstrakt, I see past his mask. The charm he wields, the devil-may-care attitude he employs. It’s all an act. An elaborate show, but a show, nonetheless.

This time, it’s my hands lifting to cup his cheeks, to hold on to him tightly. His bottom lip trembles, and my eyes flick down to it for a moment before returning to his tormented gaze.

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” My words are barely a whisper, a buoy thrown into the crashing waves of his turbulent storm. I can only pray he takes my offering.

His mouth opens and closes—once, twice. Then he shuts his eyes, tipping his face to the ceiling. My gaze is drawn to the bobbing of his throat.

“I tried.” He exhales. “I sent you a letter—” He shakes his head and starts again. “My life is dangerous, Ren. So dangerous, you don’t even know.” He speaks to the ceiling as if he can’t bear to face the reality in front of him.

“Cal, I may not have been born a Bianchi, but I was raised in that home, too. My father was the right hand to Dominic Bianchi for twenty years. You know that. You don’t think I learned a thing or two from it?”

My imploring finally breaks through to him, and he shifts to look at me once more. His eyes are glassy, and the steam from my earlier anger evaporates before me.

“I’m stronger than you think, Callahan.”

The slightest curl to his lips appears, and drawn to his presence, I press closer until we share the same breath.

Maybe it’s the alcohol, maybe it’s the validation that the love I carried for him for so long never really left, because I knew somewhere deep down he would never actually betray me like that.

His words feel true. It never made sense why he let Brielle into his bed, but suddenly it does.

“You are, without a doubt, the strongest woman I know. And because of that, I don’t know how you could ever forgive me. I may have been a kid when I broke us, but I’ve lived with that decision every single day since.”

“Why didn’t you come find me, then? That letter could’ve been lost in the mail.” My cheeks flame. Knowing that I never opened the letter, instead clutched it to my chest every night for six months, is slightly embarrassing.

Cal sighs. “It had to be your choice, Ren. I had to respect your decision that you were done with me. With us .”

It was admirable, and so like the Callahan I knew.

He was constantly warring with his father over the tasks he was assigned.

Some days, it was like meeting different people entirely.

But he never took my choices away from me.

Many of the punishments he told me about still haunt my dreams. I tried to wrangle control over the dark stories, writing the worst of the scenes into my books as some sort of cathartic therapy.

Sometimes, it worked. Most times, it made my heart ache .

“When you moved out of the Bianchi residence, I couldn’t even trust myself to keep tabs on you. I was afraid if I saw you were dating anyone, I would’ve been charged with multiple counts of murder.”

My nose scrunches. “Multiple?”

“I would’ve killed whoever you were dating and their entire bloodline. Obviously.”

Laughter rumbles from my chest, but it trails off when Cal doesn’t join in.

Shit, he’s serious.

“So that’s why you didn’t know about my writing?”

This time Cal does smile. “No, but you better believe I binged the first half of Lovers of Sin the first chance I had. By the way, it sounds vaguely familiar.” He smirks, squeezing my hip with a knowing twinkle behind his brown gaze.

His observation is on point. The first book was based on one particular assignment his father subjected him to, where he had to seduce a woman fifteen years older than him.

It’s twisted— sick —because Cal was only sixteen when his father sent him off, and the woman was in her late thirties.

But in my book, he was in his early twenties, and she was only thirty, and by the end, they fell in love.

Everyone ate it up, and it launched my career as an author.

My cheeks flame. Callahan Keane has read my words.

I do the only thing I can: change the subject.

“The letter you sent. I never opened it.” The confession tumbles out of me. Ever since the break-in, it’s haunted me I’ll never know what secrets were folded between its pages.

Cal’s dark brown eyes widen. “You never…?” Disbelief rings through his tone .

I shake my head. “I kept it in a shoebox with a handful of pictures my mom took over the years. It was stolen in the break-in.” My chest aches with each word, and I reach for the phantom pain.

“That’s why you never met me…”

Met him?

“I’m here now.” My words are a quiet confession, and I pray he understands the double meaning. My arms slip around his shoulders, and my fingers play with the hair at the base of his neck. With his smile, a tension long pressed around my shoulders dissipates.

Then he frowns. “How did you know I went to Abstrakt to meet with Kyra?”

The confusing barrage of texts from throughout that day returns to the forefront of my mind, and my smile slips away. “Leon texted me. He sent me pictures of you going into a private room with her.” I arch a brow, and a spike of jealousy heats through me. “You’re incredibly convincing.”

Cal glowers and tips his forehead against mine. My eyes slip shut. The contact is so familiar, and yet so foreign. It only lasts for a moment.

When he speaks, it’s practically a growl. “Why was Leon texting you?”

I sigh, slightly amused by his obvious jealousy.

“He’d been texting me all day, apparently.

I actually wanted to talk to you about it because it’s really weird.

He was blowing up my phone, begging me not to go to my meeting at the publishing house.

It was like he knew something was going to happen. ”

Cal’s nostrils flare, and he swears under his breath. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

“I muted his notifications. I didn’t see the texts until that night. Then it sort of took a back seat to everything else. ”

Cal swears again, this time louder. I don’t speak, unsure of what to say.

He kisses my temple and whispers against my face, “I’m not mad at you, Ren.”

I let out a deep exhale.

“I could never be mad at you. If I’m mad at anyone, it’s myself.”

Cal catches my gaze and tips my chin up with a single finger. Our lips are a breadth apart, and the heat of his body threatens to set me ablaze.

“I’m sorry, Loren. I’m so fucking sorry.” His apology rumbles out of his chest, and I desperately want to believe it.

“I owe you an apology, too. I shouldn’t have been so hostile toward you in Abstrakt. I just…didn’t know how to be in your presence again or how to pretend I didn’t care.”

Callahan looks at me with something warring behind his eyes.

Then a flash of heartache, before finally: resolution.

A smile slides over his lips, giving way to a mischievous smirk.

His hands slip over the curve of my neck, fingers trailing over the thrum of my pulse and cupping my jaw.

He tilts my face to his and whispers against my lips, “I’m going to kiss you now. ”

Without waiting for me to answer, he slams his lips to mine.

I fall into the kiss, sliding my arms around his neck and dragging him closer, if that were even possible.

His lips are as soft as I remember, both from years ago and the hazy kiss from the other night.

He slides his tongue against the seam of my lips, demanding entrance.

My fingers coil around his hair as his slide over my waist, the curve of my ass, picking me up.

As he walks me a few steps backward, a moan slips out when my back softly lands against the wall.

I tighten my legs around his waist. My robe becomes even more disheveled.

One tug on the belt, and it would fall right off .

Cal smiles, eyes hooded with lust as he trails a hand over my neck, squeezing gently. “Fuck, I’ve waited so long for this.” He groans, then slams his lips back to mine.

The kiss deepens and heat gathers between my legs.

I feel like a teenager again, grinding my center against the bulge in his pants.

The thin satin material of my robe is all that separates my skin from his trousers, and it drives me higher and higher, knowing one swipe could expose me.

Cal’s hands knead my thighs, pushing the black material upward, and I gasp.

With a shift of his hips, he bumps against my center in the most delicious manner. I moan into his mouth.

“You make the sweetest noises.” Another kiss, another groan. “Tell me, does it still drive you crazy when I kiss you”—he drags his lips to the soft spot behind my ear—“here?”

My eyes flutter shut, my head falling against the wall.

I writhe in his grip as he brushes open-mouth kisses over my neck, my jaw, a whimper escaping my lips with each touch.

After my skin is on fire, he finally returns to my mouth.

With a roll of his hips, he coaxes another groan from me.

It’s maddening, and I can’t help but find myself drawing near that edge with barely even a touch.

After years of dreaming, years of wishing…

Knock knock.

Someone is at the door. “You ready, Cal?” Luc’s muffled voice filters through the door, and my head snaps over.

Cal groans, but this time not from pleasure. He places one final kiss on my neck and slides me down his body. My robe is ruffled, barely tied together with my hip exposed to the heated air. Cal’s gaze drags over my body, and he reaches for me but stops. His hand curls into a fist, and he bites it.

“Fuck,” he swears, turning on his heel and adjusting his pants.

I’m left standing with weak knees, barely able to support my weight.

When Cal almost reaches the door, he curses again and turns back.

His long strides eat up the distance, and his hands go straight for my face, cradling my jaw as he places one gentle kiss on my lips.

“This should only take a few hours. We’ll finish this when I get back. ”

I nod, my face still cradled in his hold.

“Come back to me in one piece. Otherwise, I’ll have to kill you myself.”

Cal chuckles. Instead of answering, he grips my hands and squeezes them tightly before striding to the closet.

When he returns, he’s dressed in blacked-out combat gear.

He gives me a fiery look while he adjusts his erection in his pants.

My breath catches in my throat, cheeks flaming.

But then the reminder of what’s happening tonight comes rushing back, and my heart lurches.

All I’m able to do is sit on my hands, and it’s killing me.

Cal spares me one last glance before he leaves, a lingering look that promises more than his last words. He’ll return. There’s no alternative.