Page 26 of Goodbye Paradise
“Why?If you don’t love her.”
“Because sheguessed, okay? A couple of years ago she asked me if I was in love with you. I guess I wasn’t as good an actor as I thought. Because she was only fifteen, and she figured it out. That was a tricky conversation. But then last month she said, ‘please, let’s get married. We understand each other. This way, we won’t end up with people who’ll hurt us.’”
“Oh.” Miriam was smarter than I was, obviously. Just like everyone.
“Hey,” Caleb cupped my cheek again. “I never want you to feel bad. We get to be honest with each other now. I’ve beendying, Josh. Wanting you. Wanting to tell you. I’m sorry if I scared you just now.”
“You didn’t. You never could,” I said. His thumb continued to trace a sensuous path around my face. It swept my cheekbones, then my nose. I just wanted to close my eyes and sink back into him.
“Then why did you stop me before?” he asked, removing that thumb that I loved so much.
“Because,” I whispered. “I was about to…” I let out a shuddering breath. “…And we can’t make a mess in Washington’s bunk.”
Caleb let out a bark of laughter. Then he kissed me on the cheek. Then he did it again, because once wasn’t enough. “Come to bed with me. I won’t let you make a mess.”
Now my body was onfire,just because he said the wordbed. “Don’t know if that’s possible,” I stammered.
Still laughing, he pulled off my sweater. “Trust me, okay?”
Trust me, he said. The thing was, I’d trusted him my whole life. And, if this night was to be believed, the Caleb I’d trusted was a different one than I thought.
I did not know how to feel about that.
Yet his fingers brushed my chest as he began to unbutton my shirt. And then Caleb began removinghisshirt. My Caleb. He shucked it off, and then he stood up and stripped down to his boxer shorts right in front of my eyes. And—God have mercy on my soul — his erection tented the front of his boxer shorts. I stared and stared.
With a chuckle, Caleb caught me under the chin with his hand. “You’re catching flies,” he said.
I slammed my jaw shut.
“Come on, now,” he said, patting my cheek. “Get in bed with me.”
Still feeling shaky, I kicked off my shoes, and took off my trousers. I left my T-shirt and briefs on.
“Put the blanket on the floor, like he told us to,” Caleb suggested. “If we hear him at the door, one of us can roll down like we’d been there all night.”
“You are sneaky.”
“You have no idea.” He got into the bunk and held the covers aside for me.
I followed him, lying down on my side.Getting into bed with Caleb. I shivered, just from excitement.
He didn’t make me wait. Caleb pulled me into his arms and kissed me. And I wasgone. There was nothing better than this. I pushed my tongue into his mouth to taste him. And he pushed it out, chasing me into my mouth, tangling his tongue with mine. I was moaning already, and I didn’t think I could stop.
The reality of kissing him was so much better than my daydreams. My fantasies never had much to go on. I’d always just had a vague idea that I wanted his skin on mine, and his hands on my body. But my poor daydreams had never accounted for the sweet slide of his soft lips against mine, or the rough feeling of his two-day beard on my neck.
It was all amazing — every little sensation. But they were coming on with more speed than I could even process. We were cocooned into each other. His hard body bumped and tussled with mine. The rest of the world ceased to exist.
Nobody had ever thrown me away.
There were no mistakes.
No lies.
There was only the heat of his mouth and the exquisite stroke of a hard cock bumping against mine. I wanted to touch it so badly. And the wanting made me crazy.
Again, I pulled back. “We have to stop. I can’t take it.”
His teeth flashed with a smile in the dark. Then he reached down and eased the elastic of my briefs over the throbbing head of my erection.
