Unconditional

“Did you guys have a fight or something? I don’t have the energy to mediate you two today and it’s Christmas Eve, shut it down.” I sigh as I think about the fact that he has gotten between a few of our arguments in our day, usually when I thought she was taking the bad cop thing too seriously, and I wanted the good cop to bail me out.

“No! Cal, it’s bigger than that.” I stop, wondering how to phrase my next words. Do I just blurt it out? Or do I ease into it?

“Does…does she know something?”

“She has a hunch. I just spent the last hour and a half with her and she flat out asked me if we’re having sex, so, NO Cal, do not meet with her right now.”

I hear the sounds of a door closing. “What!? What would make her ask that?”

“Because some whore you went out with showed up and I got territorial, okay?”

He groans and I can already hear him pacing the length of his office. He’s probably pulling at his hair, his sexy mouth pulled into a scowl.

And now I’m thinking about his mouth and everything it can do.

I continue. “Cal, she wants me to move in with her and Henry. She says living with you is too…tempting.”

“WHAT?” he yells and I wince at the volume resounding through my car.

“That was my reaction. I flew off the handle and her cop senses started tingling. She started crying and…it was a mess, Cal. I finally had to tell her that she was right in that I had a crush on you but that you’d never touch me. I panicked.”

“There’s no way I’m letting you move in with Aria and Henry.” His voice is angry, but I know it’s not directed at me. I can also hear the wheels turning in his head. How were we going to get out of this? And now that Aria has a hunch, would Henry tell her what he knows? More importantly, has he already told her and this is all a test?

I bite my lip and nod my head. “Please don’t,” I whisper.

“I won’t. Okay? I’ll take care of it.”

“Don’t…don’t be too obvious.” Aria’s intuition is usually spot on, I mean obviously. But Cal is quick on his feet and smart as hell. He’ll take care of it. He’ll fix it.

He has to.

The sound of the front door almost makes me drop the spoon I’m using to stir the chili I’m making. It’s Cal’s favorite and something tells me he’ll want something like this after dealing with Aria. I’m just about to turn around and make my way towards the door when I feel hands around my waist and his lips at my neck. “I could get used to this,” he murmurs in my ear and presses a kiss just behind it. I’m instantly flooded with feelings so intense that he may as well have kissed my pussy. His hand moves around me and slides into my sweatpants and into my panties so easily it catches me off guard. I shiver as his cold hand rubs the warm slick skin between my legs, his calloused fingers rubbing my clit so gently it makes my knees weak.

“Get used to what?” I spin around to face him effectively removing his hand from my pussy.

He sucks the two fingers that were previously inside of me into his mouth and lets them go with a salacious pop. “You in my kitchen when I get home.”

“Because I haven’t been for the better part of the last year?” I raise my eyebrow at him and he rolls his eyes in response.

“You had to kill it.” He takes a step back and grabs a beer from the fridge.

I almost don’t care that the moment has passed because we have important things to discuss. I don’t want to get lost in Cal and I getting intimate. “So, what happened with Aria?”

“She never even stopped by, and I certainly didn’t want to call her and initiate anything.” He pulls me away from the stove and sits down, pulling me into his lap. “Not when I wanted to get home to you.” He grabs my head and brings me closer to his mouth when I stop.

“Cal, wait.”

“You’re telling me to wait?” He chuckles. “You usually toss your panties at me the second

I’m through the door.” He tugs at the waistband of my sweatpants and peers down them before letting them go to snap against my skin.

I scoff at his comment. “Rude and untrue. Sometimes I make you work for it.” Rarely. I put a finger up when he goes to respond. “Eventually you’re going to have to talk to Aria. Tomorrow is Christmas, and we’ll all be at Margie’s…it might come up.”

“She’s not going to bring anything like that up in front of my mother.”

“Then she’ll pull you aside, Cal. You didn’t see Aria today. She was like a dog with a bone and you know how she is when she fixates on something! She’s not going to let this go. Come new year she wants me out of here.”

“And that’s not her fucking call to make. Besides, you’ll be eighteen.”