“Before you go, you mind…” he glanced down at his uncovered wound, and I frowned.
“Shit, sorry.”
I quickly knelt back down, grabbing a fresh gauze and bandage and applying them over the wound. Caleb grunted, but he kept still, his muscles rippling under my fingers and sending heat teasing through me as I finished taping him up.
I grabbed my bag when I was done and hurried to the door, Caleb right behind me.
“You late for something, darlin?”
I blushed. “No, I just… the clinic.” I smiled, hoping it covered the raw heat on my face. God, just being around him had me losing all control. “We open soon, and I just need to be there to… you know.”
“Be a vet?”
I bit my lip. “That, yeah.”
Caleb nodded, his eyes locked on mine as he reached past me and opened the door.
“I’d tell Landon you stopped by, but you wouldn’t want your boyfriend knowing you hung out up here with me all alone, would ya?” he was grinning, but his eyes were fierce and wild as they burned into mine.
The heat teased over my face as I wet my lips and shook my head.
“Nothing—” I swallowed. “Nothing happened.”
Our eyes locked.
“With him, or with me? Because just in case you forgot,” Caleb moved closed, and I swear I could feel my skin tingling with electricity. “In case you forgot, Doc” he growled. “Technically, I kissed you first.”
“I—”
And before I could even come up with words, or react, or run, or throw myself into him and lose myself completely, he moved first.
Fast, and hard.
He moved right into me, his lips found mine, and when I felt them crush to mine, it was like opening a floodgate. I moaned, panting and letting him push me back against the doorframe as he claimed my mouth with his. I whimpered, my lips parting as his tongue found mine, his hands sliding over my waist and his fingertips teasing under the hem of my shirt against bare skin. I gasped, our tongues sliding together, our breaths panting against each other’s. His rock-hard body pressed into me, and when I felt the thick throbbing bulge between his legs pulsing against me, I whimpered. Hungrily.
And that’s just about the time he decided to pull away.
“I—”
I swallowed, looking for words.
“You had to go, right?”
I nodded mutely, my head swimming and my whole body on fire.
“Right, yeah,” I said distantly, my whole world spinning.
Caleb’s hand slid over my hip, his eyes locking onto mine a he tugged me towards him, one finger hooking into the belt loop on my jeans.
“Or you could stay and—”
My cell phone went off in my back pocket, and it was like the needle that pops the balloon with a bang.
I jolted, suddenly tumbling back into reality—the reality where in the span of less than twenty-four hours, I’d operated on a gunshot wound that probably made me an accessory to a crime, and kissed not one but two wild, completely off-limits, completely wrong for me, completely rough and gorgeous men. Who also happened to be best friends.
…The fuck was wrong with me?
“I have to go!” I blurted, jerking away from Caleb like I’d burned myself. I whirled, and before he could say a word, I was dashing down the stairs and running across the parking lot of Outlaw Ink to my car. The engine roared to life, and I spun out, tires squealing as I gasped for air and for distance between me and the man who made me lose my head.
* * *
The call ended up being no one. A telemarketer or something. And while I did have to open the clinic, I didn’t have anything on the books for another hour. I was still trembling as I got inside my office though, my whole body still tingling and on fire from that kiss.
…Or both of them.
I stepped into the locker room to change into my veterinary scrubs. My clinic had at one point been an old boxing gym, and while I’d renovated a lot of it, the small locker room with its shower was a bonus I’d kept.
I opened my locker and started peeling my blouse off. But with each button, my thoughts went to all sorts of dirty places. In my head, it was Caleb popping each button, his lips still pressed to mine, his tongue still claiming mine. I felt my skin sizzle heatedly all over again, and as I shrugged the blouse off, I let my hand brush across my thin bra. My nipple reacted instantly, tingling as it puckered hard against the material. I panted, my eyes closing as I imagined Caleb running his tattooed hand over me, cupping my breasts and teasing my nipples.
My hands pushed lower, popping the button to my jeans and sliding the zipper down. But it was there that my thoughts went darker again. Naughtier. Dirtier. In my head, Caleb was still teasing my nipples. But it was Landon who was peeling my jeans off. I moaned, and when my hand pushed inside my jeans, and slid under the elastic of my panties, I gasped quietly.