“Take me, Cal. All of me.”
They needed no protection, not when she was already pregnant with their child. And when he moved inside her, skin on skin, with nothing between them?
There was nothing like it in the world. Nothing so good. Nothing so sweet. Nothing so perfect.
Only this.
Only Cal.
Lyssa felt as if she were in another dimension. Cal’s movements were slow, almost agonizing, yet so perfect. She wanted it faster, wanted him to pound into her, and yet his measured thrusts seemed to touch everything inside her like nothing ever had before. The sensations turned her mindless, stole her breath, quickened her heartbeat.
When he held her face in his hands, she opened her eyes, and he nipped at her lip, shooting a jolt of hot pleasure through her.
“Don’t stop,” she whispered. If he stopped, she’d die.
“I’ll never stop.”
There was meaning in the word never that she wasn’t ready for, not yet. All she could focus on was the beauty of his features as he brought her such pleasure. His pupils were wide, his eyes almost taken over by the black. She felt herself falling into their depths, felt his heat surrounding her, his strength taking her over.
An ocean of sensation built, bigger, harder, higher, until she detonated from the inside out. Her body clenched around him, her cries wrenched from her, and then—finally—he took her hard and fast. She loved his weight and the power of his body as he slammed into her.
She gripped his face between her hands and demanded, “Come with me.”
His arms shuddered, his body quaked, and he throbbed inside her, his eyes on hers until the very last moment when he closed his lids, threw back his head, groaned from deep, deep down, and shook with the force of his pleasure, taking her over the edge with him.
Later, she didn’t quite remember how it had happened, but he’d pulled the comforter over them, their bodies flush together as their skin cooled and their breathing slowed.
A part of her wanted to tell him how good it had been. But another part—the bigger part—couldn’t.
It had been too good, too perfect. The power of what they created when they touched, when they kissed, when he filled her was too overwhelming. Was it the out-of-this-world connection between them that could make her fall for him all over again? And make him fall for her?
Or was it simply the synergy of their bodies? Was it the baby inside her, connecting them? Or something even bigger and far more intense?
Something that her heart was still afraid to acknowledge in the wake of the two times he’d deserted her.
She stretched against him. “Now I’m hungry for food.”
He chuckled softly, the sound vibrating lusciously through her. “I could make you change your mind,” he said in a low voice that made her want to start at the beginning and do it all again. “But you’re going to need food to keep up your strength, so we should definitely eat.”
Cal slid off the bed and padded to the small refrigerator. She enjoyed the view of his flexing hips, the play of muscle across his back as he squatted by the fridge. She wanted to drink him in, and watching him, she could get drunk on the sight of him alone.
He stood again, giving her the full magnificent picture, beautiful and amazing as he glided back across the floor, a real-life sculpture.
Stuffing a pillow behind herself, she leaned against the headboard, eyeing the sparkling glass he offered her. “But I can’t drink champagne.” She patted her stomach. “The baby.”
He smiled. “I brought sparkling apple cider for us instead.”
Then he went back to the tiny kitchen and brought out a plate of cheese and crackers, which he set between them. The man thought of everything. She remembered that he’d brought in a small cooler, but hadn’t paid attention when he was unloading it.
It was so sweet, so incredibly thoughtful that her heart swelled in her chest.
Setting his glass of sparkling cider on the side table, he climbed in beside her and pulled up the covers. She savored the cheese on a cracker, took a grape as a chaser, and sipped the apple cider. “This is perfect.”
He smiled. “And you will note these are all pregnancy-approved cheeses.”
Clearly, he’d been researching and discovered that Bries and blues were off the list for the next nine months. She wouldn’t be surprised to hear that he’d already read every pregnancy book there was. He’d done this for the baby. And for her. What other man would ever have thought to look? It wasn’t just part of making her fall in love with him. It was his innate caring.
“This is a smoked Gouda.” He pointed. “And the Jarlsberg will be delicious with a little apricot jam.”
“Mmmm,” she said around a mouthful of deliciousness. “Who would have guessed you’re a cheese connoisseur, on top of your other talents?” And he had so many talents, not just the way he touched her or the pleasure he gave her, but the way he made sure to notice and compliment her abilities, building her up.
Cal chuckled. “Will had a variety of cheeses he wanted me to try one night. We ate cheese until we nearly popped.”
Her brother Will was in imports and exports, and he’d come across the most amazing goods, everything from wine and caviar to Persian rugs and porcelain teacups. When Will introduced a product, it nearly always became a new fad.
“He didn’t ask me to taste-test,” she groused.
“That’s because you’ve buried yourself in work since you joined the foundation.”
“Tell me more,” she said. “Tell me something else I don’t know about you.” Suddenly, she wanted to know everything. “Start with where you went to college.”
His face changed, an infinitesimal adjustment of his features that slightly flattened his expression. “Back East.”
“Where back East?”
He looked as though he didn’t want to tell her. Finally, however, he said, “Harvard.”
“Wow.” She raised her eyebrows. “That’s very impressive. And not at all surprising. Why don’t you seem happier about it?”
“I wanted to be a lawyer, following in my dad’s footsteps.” He huffed out a breath, as if it was painful to remember the past. “But I changed my mind and went to Harvard Business School instead.” He finally looked into her eyes. “It was the right move. I like what I’m doing. A lot. I like working with the Mavericks. And I like buying and selling companies on my own too.”
“We’ve never really talked about that,” she said. “I mean, I know that’s what you do, but we’re always so busy with the foundation when we’re together that sometimes I forget you even have another focus.”
“I’ve been doing it a long time,” he told her. “And I have a great team who’ve been executing my vision so well, for so many years, that I’m pretty peripheral at this point.”
“I doubt that,” she said with a smile. “You could never be peripheral to anything or anyone.”
Especially to her, she realized. Somewhere along the way, she didn’t even know how, Cal had become the very center of her universe. It was kind of scary. And kind of wonderful too.
“That’s why you fly all over the world?” she asked. “Because you’re checking in on all the companies you’re managing?”
“I wouldn’t say managing. More like advising. When we were in London, I visited a textiles manufacturer. They’ll show a profit by the end of the year, and the owner can buy me out if he wants. It’s a win-win for both of us. I buy only what people want to sell. Sometimes they don’t have capital, so I invest, help turn them around. Other times, people are just tired and want out. So I take the company off their hands.”
He didn’t do hostile takeovers. He made sure a merger helped both sides, that they both received benefits. And he was modest about it all too.
He leaned in to kiss the tip of her nose. “Now it’s my turn to ask you some questions.” Though she got the sense he was deliberately pivoting away from himself—the way he always did, she suddenly realized—she couldn’t help but laugh when he said, “How many hearts have you broken in high school, college, and after?”
“I never broke any hearts,” she said with a shake of her head.
“I find that impossible to believe.”
“It’s true. I guess it’s just that I never met anyone who measured up to my brothers and my dad. Everyone I’ve dated—” She shrugged. “—paled in comparison.” She looked up at the ceiling fan. “The guys in high school and college all seemed like such boys. And when I graduated, I wanted to concentrate on my career. I wanted to get on with my life.” She thought about Gary, her last date before she’d flown down to see Cal. “Even now, the men I’ve dated all seem so immature.”
“Your brothers and father are very difficult to measure up to,” Cal agreed.
But you do.
As soon as the thought popped into her head, she knew it was true. Regardless of what had come between them before now—specifically his repeated post-sex disappearing acts—she had no doubt whatsoever that Cal was a good man.
The question was why had he disappeared on her?
Their sex was so powerful, so all-consuming that it was clear he was attracted to her. So it wasn’t that he’d been trying to let her down easy.
He was genuinely over the moon about the baby, so it wasn’t that he didn’t want children.
And once he’d known she was pregnant, he’d become intent on persuading her to marry him, so he wasn’t marriage averse.
But why had he held back initially? And why, even now, did she feel as though he was still keeping a part of himself hidden from her?
Was it because he knew she was still weighing all the pros and cons? Or could it have something to do with his reaction when she’d asked him about his past, even something as innocuous as where he’d gone to college?
Mired in her own emotions about his leaving and the baby, she hadn’t been able to see the forest for the trees where Cal was concerned. But now, she could start to see things more clearly. To see him more clearly.
Only one thing was absolutely certain thus far: Cal never liked to talk about his past.
Which begged the question yet again. Why?
* * *
They rose late after that wonderful night of loving and climbed down the cliff path to walk along the narrow strip of beach. Surfers were out there catching the waves.
Cal had made love to Lyssa again in the early hours, the night so dark he couldn’t see her. It was so damn sexy, their touches and sighs and kisses and bodies coming together.
He wanted Lyssa and their child with everything in him. He wanted the kind of family he’d never had. He hoped the day, and night, they’d just spent together had tempted her at least part of the way along the path to loving him.
Especially since he was all the way there himself.
He took her hand as they walked, enjoying the ease between them, the romance of a walk along the shore.
Lyssa pulled her jacket tighter around her with her free hand. “It’s gorgeous out here.”
“Absolutely gorgeous,” he said, seeing only her.
“Look at those mind-blowing waves.”
As she said it, a monster wave crashed down on a surfer, throwing his board high in the air, tossing him around like a blender might, until he eventually popped up.
There was a lot more Cal could have told her about his life, beyond going to Harvard and pivoting from law to business. He rarely talked about his younger years. The Mavericks knew, because they’d deliberately plied him with alcohol to pry out a few secrets. They each had enough dark secrets of their own that they could accept his history without so much as a blink.
But what would Lyssa think?
“Where should we go next?” She looked at him with a glow on her face, the inner light Lyssa always possessed. “I chose axe throwing and glamping. That means it’s your turn.”
He was glad he had a great idea to throw her way. “What do you think about heading to Cambria to watch the light show in Paso Robles after dark?”
“You mean like a laser light show?”
“Not quite.” He pulled out his phone and brought up the website. Turning the phone toward her, he watched her face as she scrolled, her eyes growing wider, her smile bigger.
“This looks incredible.”
The site displayed a field of flowers made of solar lights that charged in the sun all day. At night, they were brilliant, creating shapes and waves across the landscape for a dazzling light show.
“I’ve always liked outdoor art and the way it not only uses the elements, like how this guy is using solar to power the lights, but the way it actually becomes part of the elements.”
“What other outdoor art have you seen?”
“In Palm Springs, there was a display of giant metal babies crawling around a huge sandbox. They had no faces, just a stripe down the middle like a bar code.” He raised an eyebrow. “I believe it was supposed to represent the dehumanization of society. But I just thought it made them look soulless.” He pursed his lips. “And I don’t believe we’re a soulless generation.”
Lyssa snorted. “I bet Charlie would have a field day with babies.” Sebastian’s fiancée would not make them soulless. “All of her work is so upbeat.”
Cal wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close, holding her tight against him. “That’s why I liked the London street art so much. It brightened my mood with all the brilliant colors.”
This time, she was the one raising an eyebrow. “As I recall, you liked the street art other people made, but hated your own.”
“You’re right. I didn’t like the idea of doing my own art. But I’ve found myself looking at the pictures of it more than once. And I have to admit…I actually kind of like what I did now.”
She hugged him hard. “I’m so glad. What you made was brilliant. And even if it wasn’t, I still would have loved it, simply because you made it.”
Did she know how much she’d just revealed to him? That she’d told him something mattered to her because he’d imagined it? Did that mean she was closer to loving him than she knew?
Clearly, he needed to make a point of revealing himself to her. Take the street art—all this time, she’d thought he hated what he’d done, when the truth was he’d cherish their day in London forever. It had been one of the best days of his life.
In all the years since his family had fallen apart, nothing surpassed the time he’d spent with Lyssa.
“I loved dancing on the London Eye,” he told her, wanting her to know it all now. “I loved the street art. I loved glamping. I even loved axe throwing.”
“Thank you for telling me that,” she said, laughing in his arms.
The way her happiness bubbled up and out so freely made him want to make love to her right on this narrow strip of beach.
All he wanted, from now until forever, was to make Lyssa Spencer happy.
The question remained. Could he do it through sheer determination and depth of love?
Or was he bound to fail the same way his father had?
* * *
“I haven’t relaxed into a vacation like this since I got out of college.” Lyssa leaned back in her seat with a happy sigh as Cal maneuvered the car along the coastal road’s winding curves.
“I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself,” he said as he reached out to put his hand over hers.
Being with Cal felt so good, was so much fun. He made her feel so safe. And at the same time, he respected her mind, her ideas, and the way she could take care of herself.
She looked at his gorgeous profile, then out at the ocean’s breathtaking waves. Being with him was at once calming and incredibly exciting. Especially when she thought about all those deliciously wicked things they’d done in bed. And that sexy interlude on Catalina, too, even if it had ended badly.
When her stomach rumbled, it was a good thing they’d just rolled into Ragged Point, a small coastal town with a few cute shops, a resort, and a couple of restaurants.
“Hungry?”
She rubbed her stomach. “Hungry times two.”
His eyes lit the way they always did when they talked about the baby. It warmed every part of her that he truly wanted to be a father.
Suddenly, she spied the perfect place. “Let’s eat there. Frank’s Fish Market.”
He slowed in front of the restaurant. “The line is a mile long.”
“That means the food has to be amazing.” She glanced at Cal. “You don’t wait in lines much, do you?”
“Nope. Only with you, it seems.” He smiled as he pulled into a parking spot. “Fortunately, you’re more than worth it.”
His words—and his smile—were like a warm caress.
They waited in line on the sidewalk for half an hour, talking and laughing. He grilled her about why she hadn’t liked her last job, and she told him about the boss who never recognized her skills.
It struck her that while she wanted to know everything about him, there were so many things he didn’t know about her. If he was to fall for her, too, then revealing herself was as important as learning more about him.
“Have you always wanted to be an accountant?” he asked.
“Yes, but mostly because I know it’s a great pathway to my ultimate goal. Accountants know a business inside and out,” she explained. “It’s a stepping stone to being CEO of my own company someday.”
He tipped his head, as though looking at her in a new light. “I see you doing whatever you set your mind to.”
He continued with the questions until he finally leaned in close. “I know you think I hired you because your brothers wanted me to. I’m not going to deny they applied some heavy-duty pressure, but I hired you because you’re smart and hardworking.” He brushed his fingertip over her lips. “And because you made my heart beat faster.”
“You never even noticed me,” she scoffed. “I was just the Mavericks’ little sister.”
His gaze was suddenly deep. “That’s what I tried to tell myself. I didn’t want to admit what you did to me.” He curled a lock of her hair around his finger. “But you had my heart in the palm of your hand, Ms. Spencer, from the moment we danced the funky chicken at Matt and Ari’s wedding.”
She laughed, turning heads, and she knew she was glowing. She’d gone wild and crazy that day, miffed when Daniel had tried to tell her how to live her life and who she could and could not fall for.
Was Cal saying that what happened between them on the flight back from London had been inevitable?
A big part of her longed to tell him he’d won the challenge—that her heart was his. But there was still enough sting left over from the way he’d hurt her that she held the words inside, saying instead, “You only like me for my funky chicken.”
He didn’t let her turn it into a joke. Instead, he lowered his lips to hers and whispered, “I like you for a hell of a lot more than that.”
Then he kissed her, and she almost forgot about trying to guard the last sliver of her heart still holding on to the pain. It was only a nudge from the people in line behind them that kept her from dropping her final walls and blurting out three little words in the middle of a sidewalk in Ragged Point.