Page 68 of What Hurts Us

“I’m not going to be used as a placebo. This relationship might be pretend, but my feelings aren’t.” I turned my cheek, looking away from him. There was pain in his eyes that I couldn’t comprehend. I couldn’t find the root of it. Couldn’t diagnose it. “At some point, I stopped faking it, and I started falling for the man that I know you can be.”

Cal did the one thing I never expected.

He hugged me.

He pulled me into his bare chest and wrapped his tattooed, bouldering biceps around me, cradling my head with wide hands. “Please don’t leave.” His cheek pressed to my temple.

“Why don’t you want me?” I cried in a whisper against his sternum. I felt as though I had been flayed. “How can you look at me the way you do and then treat me like I’m just another Creeker you have to tolerate? What you did this morninghurt.”

“Wanting you has never been the problem, Lay.” Callum peeled wet strands of hair away from my cheeks before peppering my skin with kisses. “I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anyone. But I know that I can’t give you what you want. I can’t do relationships, Honey. Taking you the way I want to when I know I have nothing to give in return is criminal. I can’t let you go, but I know I can’t make you stay.”

I attempted to dry my eyes, but it was useless. “Tell me that you want me to stay.”

Callum shook his head. “I can’t, Honey,” he rasped. “I can’t do that to you.”

I rested my forehead against his heart. “Tell me, Cal. Tell me you want me to stay, and I will. But if you can’t do even that, then I’m walking out that door.”

I waited for him to release me from his arms. I waited for him to back away and open the door. I waited for him to offer to help me move out.

But he didn’t.

Cal had me trapped between the wall and his national park-sized chest. His forehead rested against the drywall above me, and his chest rose and fell as if each breath was a feat in itself. His lips parted as if he was on the verge of uttering the one word I wanted to hear most.

“Give me something,” I begged in a meek voice. “It doesn’t have to be everything right now. Just… Something. I need you to meet me halfway.”

He exhaled, releasing his pain into the universe. “Please…” Cal pressed his lips to the top of my head. His body trembled as he begged. “Please stay.”

I looked up, meeting him in the kiss. Callum’s hands frantically raked my flight suit, searching for the zipper. I yanked it down as he abandoned his search, using his hands to cradle my face instead. His grip kept my head pinned against the wall as I toed off my boots and shucked out of the Nomex suit.

I gave myself a mental pat on the back for showering before I left the base this morning.

Reverently, Cal slid his palms up my stomach, over the thin cotton stretched over my torso. My long sleeve shirt stuck to my sports bra like a second skin. A pair of cotton shorts were the only thing on my legs. I hooked my thumbs in the elastic waistband to wiggle them down, but Cal’s hands restrained my wrists.

“No,” he rasped. “Let me.” Cal dropped to his knees and slowly lowered my shorts. He pressed a kiss to the tops of my thighs, then the side of my hip. “So beautiful, honey.” His breath was warm on my skin. “So beautiful.”

Callum trailed a finger up the back of my knee, teased the inside of my thigh, and grazed it along the gusset of my panties. The back of my skull hit the wall with athud.

As he rose to his feet, Cal helped me out of the tangled flight suit. I kicked it away and shoved his sweatpants down. “I want you,” I whispered as I wrapped my hand around his erection. “Please—”

“This what you want?” he growled as he pinned my arms against the wall and thrust his cock between my legs. His granite erection slammed into my pussy, blocked by my underwear. I yelped at the dull pain that radiated through my core, then whimpered as it melted into simmering desire.

“Cal—”

“That’s right, honey.” He thrust again, this time holding his cock against my entrance. My panties strained to keep him back. Cal rocked his hips, drilling his dick into me, and he whispered in my ear, “Keep my name on your lips.” He reached for the hem of my shirt, slowly peeling it up without his gaze ever leaving mine. “Tell me something,” he said, tearing my shirt over my head.

The bra I wore sported a zipper on the front. A half-smile curled up at the corner of his mouth as he toyed with it.

“Yes?” I said on a heavy breath.

Cal yanked the zipper down, my breasts springing free. “Tell meexactlyhow you want me to fuck you.”

24

CALLUM

Layla sucked in a sharp breath. I parted the halves of her unzipped sports bra and let her tits spill into my hands. She muttered something in Farsi that sounded a lot like a curse word when I teased her pebbled nipples.

“Tell me,” I urged her again.

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