“I know.”
I shook my head, my wet hair moving along my back with the action. “How are you like this? How can you be so calm?”
“Because Jack and I put you in this situation. I’ve known from the beginning about your feelings for him. I know you have to sort things out. But I’m not giving up on us.”
“This is fleeting,” I said. “There’s too much badness to move on or to fix anything. This will all end the second we step away from each other.”
“I’m set to change your mind on that.”
He pulled me into his arms and wrapped me up in the strength I’d gotten lost in so many times. A warmth like his was unmatchable.
“Don’t move on, just move towards me,” he rasped, his lips hovering over mine. He’d said something similar in the past when he was there, helping me move past Jack. Without thinking, I did just that, taking a step to press my wet body further against Cal’s. His handsome face gave a tentative grin as his lips brushed mine. “That’s it, Kitten. Come to me.”
He coaxed in such a way I couldn’t deny. His mouth snagged mine and took a deep taste. He was everything warm and safe, and I wanted him so much. My chest didn’t settle right without Cal. He was an anchor and promise I’d come to rely on. He made me feel not so…alone.
“I can’t do this,” I said, and pulled away, but he wouldn’t let me. His arms tightened and kept me close. “I can’t promise you anything. I can’t commit to you,” I said. It hurt too much still.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said against my lips. “I’ll take you however you’ll allow me.”
“How can you say that?”
He looked at me like the answer was simple. “Because I love you, Lana.”
God, I loved him too. So much. And Jack was forever in the background of my feelings. I wouldn’t ever commit to either of them, but that wasn’t the point. What we had was beyond titles and norms. I’d been changed since the day I met Jack, and again when I’d fallen for Cal. One thing that didn’t change was the fact that I couldn’t get over either of them, and it was tearing me down the middle.
But I’d get through this. I had to. Denying Cal went against my instincts as acutely as denying my lungs air. I couldn’t. Didn’t want to. Because everything in my body and soul reached out for him.
He slowly ran his lips over mine. When I parted for him, he surged his tongue deep, pushing against my teeth for greater access. I gave in. He kissed me so hard, yet so slowly. And I met every stroke of his perfect mouth.
I kissed him with everything I felt. With an apology I couldn’t say and all the logic that didn’t matter. I kissed with passion and desperation. Confusion and lust. I needed him. Needed him to need me back.
“I want to feel you,” I whispered.
He peeled off his soaked shirt, then his jeans, and tossed the material in the corner with a slosh. I ran my hands along his hard wet torso, up to his chest. When my palms brushed over the ridges of his abs, he sucked in a breath, and all the strength he had flexed further.
He was slick and hard and perfect. I could touch him forever. Leaning in, I skimmed my lips over his bicep and the tattoos I knew intimately. His big hands splayed over my ass, pulling me closer. We were lost in each other’s slow moving touch.
I kissed his muscles the way I could his mouth. Licking and sucking. Tasting those tattoos and moving toward his chest.
He moaned my name and his grip on me tightened.
Loving on him made my knees tremble and my stomach flutter. The water felt a degree cooler because my skin was heating by the second. Everything about Cal turn me on. I was wet and aching, and just the taste of his strong frame had me ready to beg to be surrounded by him.
I kissed his pecs, paying special attention to his nipples and the hard ridges of his upper abs. His fingers slid up my back and tunneled into my wet hair. His chest rose on a heavy inhale, like he was happy to have my mouth on him. Almost as happy as I was to have it on him.
“I need to be inside of you,” he rasped.
“Yes,” I said against his slick chest.
He spun me so quickly, I barely knew what’d happened. But when he pressed his hard cock against my ass, I moaned and went to reach back to feel him. He caught my wrists and put them on the wall in front of me, bending me over slightly.
“I mean what I say, Lana.” One brawny arm wrapped around my stomach while the other covered my breasts. “But remember that I’m fighting for what’s mine. And I’m not going to be gentle about it.”
The tip of his cock nudged my entrance, and I looked over my shoulder and saw his blue eyes blazing with heat, and it was all the warning I had before he surged inside of me. I gasped as he filled every inch of my core and hit so deep. I would have rocked forward if not for my hands bracing myself on the wall.
“You are mine,” he said in my ear, pulling all the way out and thrusting to the hilt once more.
I gasped at the rough and slow sensation of feeling Cal all around me. In me. He had a softness and kindness in him that melted my heart, but an intensity and heat that made me shudder. He was all alpha male, claiming what he thought to be his.