Page 25 of The Date
Chapter 6
Ididn’tlike the glimmer in Cal’seyes.
Well, Ilikedit, the same way I liked pretty much every fucking thing about the man, but I didn’t trust it. Whatever he was planning, I could tell it was going to be devious and at least a little kinky. My boxer briefs chafed against my cock as my erection swelled at theidea.
The fairgrounds smelled like summer - sunblock and citrus, squashed grass and fried food. Cal grabbed some stuff out the glovebox in the van, and I was pretty sure I could guess whatsomeof the supplies were, but not all of them. I couldn’t lie — not knowing what would happen but trusting Cal anyway was the maybe the best part of the sex between us, just as good or better than the orgasm itself. Getting off was nothing special. But finding someone who understood what I wanted even before I did and stopped at nothing to get it for me? If karma was real, I’d been anangelin a pastlife.
I held onto his hand as he led me through the maze of booths. It seemed like everyone in O’Leary was standing on this one acre of land, and it should have felt crowded, but it didn’t. Dozens of people greeted me by name and slapped me on the back. Old Henry Lattimer asked me about preseason football and when I was gonna make anhonest manout of my boyfriend, which made Cal flush red from his hair to his chest. Rena Cobb stopped and eagerly demanded that I pose nude for her next sculpture series before her wife Dana intervened and moved her along. Marci Thatcher and her son Hunter asked if they could come talk to me about the Navy, since Hunter was planning to enlist. Myrna Lucano offered to give us the pick of her dog’s next litter in exchange for a “big-ass” birthday cake for her husband Frank’s birthday. Caelan grinned at me and said, “A dog, huh? We’llsee.”
I hadn’t been lying when I told Cal that the Summer Picnic might be my new favorite holiday. The bar just kept movinghigher.
When we got to the corner of the fairgrounds where the local Cub Scout pack was holding a charity sale, Cal’s hand tightened on mine. “You wanna get away from the crowd? Be ready to run,trained operator,” he murmured as he pretended to inspect a set of foam beerholders.
At least, I hoped he waspretendingto inspect them and not actually planning to buythem.
I frowned at him, but when he tugged on my hand a second later, I was ready to move, and we darted across the open stretch of grass - much narrower than the expanse near our booth - that led to the townwoods.
The second we hit the tree line, the temperature dropped ten degrees. In here, the air was spicy with the scent of pine and vibrated with the white-noise hum of a thousand little creatures at home in the damp earth. If I’d been the kind of guy who believed in fairy tales, I’d have thought we’d transported ourselves into a parallel universe. We were only feet away from the entire population of O’Leary — I could still hear people laughing and giggling just beyond the trees — but it was a world apart. The only thing that hadn’t changed was the feel of Cal’s calloused fingers wrapped aroundmine.
Then Cal stopped and pushed me up against a tree, pinning me in place with his chest against mine. “We need to talk,Ashley.”
I swallowed. The little thrill of warning in his voice, the little flicker of danger coming from a man who’d protect me with his life, set meon fire. My skin prickled with awareness and my heart picked upspeed.
In six months, I hadn’t gotten used to this. It was a fucking rush every time. And I knew in a way I couldn’t explain that it would be like thisalways.
“Do we?” I asked him as innocently as I could, because that was how the game was played. “About identifying venomous coral snakes? Or, uh, me being Rena Cobb’s lifemodel?”
He snorted. “Oh, we’re gonna talk about you being Rena Cobb’s fuckinglife model, alright.” His fingers found my nipples through the thin cotton of my shirt and pinched just right. I sucked in a harsh breath. “Do you want everyone to see you naked, Ashley? Hmm? For them to look at you and admire you? Towantyou?”
I had never had an exhibitionist kink, and I had absolutely no desire to pose naked foranyone.
“Maybe,” I said archly, gritting my teeth when his fingers pinched harder. “Maybe Ido.”
“I wondered,” Cal said. His fingers trailed down my stomach to toy with my waistband. “Because you seemed pretty eager to do things in public earlier. Weren’t you?I don’t care if O’Leary is watching, you said. Didn’tyou?”
My breathing was unsteady, and all I could do was stare at the red-gold stubble of his jaw, burnished in a stray shaft of sunlight that fell through the tree canopy, whilehewatched his hand move lower and lower until he was cupping my balls.Oh, sweet babyJesus.
“Answer me, Ash,” Caelan ordered, and I would have, I swear I would, if I could remember what the hell he’dasked.
“I… yes,” I whispered as his fingers tightened.Yeswas always a good answer where Ash was concerned.Yes,I want cupcakes.Yes,please fuck me. Yes, I’ll move in with you.Yes, yes,yes.
But this time, my agreement only made him chuckle darkly and trail his fingers back up my shaft to open the button of my shorts. I gripped the tree behind me and let the rough bark dig into my fingers as my stomach clenched witharousal.
He knew exactly how to touch me. He had from the first minute. But the innate trust and understanding between us had only deepened over the past few months, and now he could make me hard in just a matter of seconds with nothing more than a simple touch to my face or a hand on mywrist.
He was the puppet master and I was the puppet… except I knew it went both ways, and Cal was just as lost to this as Iwas.
Cal’s hand dipped inside my shorts and boxers, forcing my zipper down. His fingertips barely brushed the crown of my erection. Then someone — no acoupleof someones, based on the amount of noise they were making — came running through the woods not ten feet away fromus.
Fuck!
“Wait!” one of them yelled. “Come back here and talk to me! Please,baby!”
Cal clapped his free hand over my mouth, covering my gasp. His eyes glittered in the dimlight.
I couldn’t see anything from my position, but I could hear that someone had paused just behind us. I tried to turn my head to look, but Cal held my gaze and shook his head back and forth.No.
Then he moved his hand lower to grip myshaft.
