But knowing it and having something like that happen so close to me…
Unconsciously I tightened my hand on his.
“You look like you want to make him eat his own face,” Kaleb said.
“Ew.” I blinked at the disgusting mental image, then laughed. “I think it would be a nice punishment. Have any suggestions on how to make it happen?”
“No. But I’ll think about it.” He slumped a little deeper into the seat, his eyes staring off at nothing. “He wants another ten grand. Says the money I paid him covered Camry’s drug debt, but that he’s entitled to get the money he’ll lose when she leaves him. She’s one of the favorites – like she’s some kind of piece of meat.”
“Kaleb…”
“Look, I’m sorry.” He went to slide out of the booth, shaking his head. “We should head on up to the lawyer’s office, see if they’re ready for us. If not…look, I don’t need to dump this on you. You’ve already helped me enough.”
I caught his hand. “What are you going to do?”
He stared down at me. “I’ll figure it out.”
“You’ve been trying to do that ever since he dumped this on you, haven’t you?”
He didn’t answer, but judging by the dull red flush creeping up his cheeks, I could take a good guess.
“Come on.”
As I led Kaleb out of the coffee shop, I called the driver. “Come on back, would you? It didn’t take long.”
I hung up before the man had a chance to answer and turned to meet Kaleb’s eyes. “That was my driver. He’s on his way back. We’ll get this figured out.”
He just frowned.
I called the lawyer’s office next and looked away as I waited for the receptionist to come on the phone.
His attention grew more intense as I canceled the appointment, explaining that something urgent had come up and I’d get back with them when I needed them – so terribly sorry.
“What are you doing?” he demanded. He gestured toward the entrance doors for the office building, just a few hundred feet away. “It’s right there.”
“You’ve got bigger problems, Kaleb…and I’m going to help.”
“It’s not your problem, Piety,” he argued. “I’ve got to fix this on my own.”
“I’m your friend.” The word felt…funny. We were friends, I thought. But that was such a mild term for what we had. “Friends help each other, right?”
“And what do you propose we do?” He crossed his arms over his chest, staring me down. “Are you going to pay me to stay married to you for another week or two? Give me more money so he can jerk me around again? Is that the solution you have in mind?”
“No.” Then I shrugged. “Actually, I don’t have a solution. But this guy is a user – you’ll never be free of him as long as you play his game, so I don’t think paying him is the answer. But I’m not walking away and leaving you – or your sister – alone to deal with him.”
“My sister isn’t your concern,” he said gently, reaching up to cup my chin.
As he angled my head back, forcing me to meet his gaze, I tried not to let him see how much I loved having him touch me again.
I’d missed it – missed him – every second.
I’d felt the loss of him every second.
It was hard enough to convince myself that I needed to come out here and handle the annulment. The only thing that made it even semi-tolerable was knowing I’d see him again. But the thought of walking away now when he was dealing with this was just intolerable.
“She is.” I leaned in and kissed him gently. “Because she’s yours and I’m concerned about you.”
18
Piety
I’d booked a room at the Bellagio before I left Philadelphia.
Now, as my driver came to a stop at the elegant, grand entrance, I tightened my hand around Kaleb’s. He was staring at nothing, and I knew part of him wasn’t here.
He was thinking about his sister.
I wished I could take the worry away, but I was too acutely aware of the sort of trouble she might be in. The first month I’d been at the shelter, I’d worked with a girl who’d tried to get away from her john. She’d tried so hard.
One day, she left the part-time job at a coffee shop, and he caught up with her, threatening that she still owed him.
When she stood up to him, he’d beaten her senseless.
People like this Stefano were bottom-feeders. We had to find out how to help Camry.
“Thanks, Delano,” I said as he helped me out of the back of the car. I passed him a twenty. “Would you be available tomorrow if I need you?”
“You just give me a call, Ms. Van Allan.” He tipped his hat to me and nodded at Kaleb as he climbed out.
Offering my hand to Kaleb, I waited for him to take it before we started inside.
The concierge had seen me coming, and he already had my room key ready as well as a bellboy on hand to take the luggage Delano had unpacked from the trunk.
“I still can’t get over that,” Kaleb said abruptly.
I glanced at him, puzzled.
He gestured to the bellhop walking in front of us as we started down the hall. “You didn’t even have to check in. They were just…waiting for you.”
“Ah…” Blood rushed to stain my cheeks red. “Well. Yeah.”
He laughed. “You’re embarrassed by it. I imagine your dad would be furious if a place like this wasn’t ready to get down on bended knee the moment he walked through the doors.”
“Probably.” I nodded at the bellboy as he held the elevator doors for us, nudging Kaleb in the ribs so he’d stop.
But he either didn’t get the hint or refused to take it. He met the bellboy’s eyes. “What’s it like? Working at a place like this?”
“It’s a good job, sir.” He smiled politely at Kaleb.
“I’m not a sir.” Kaleb snorted. “I’m only here because I’m lucky enough to be hooked up with her. Otherwise I’d be…hell, a week ago, I was taking my clothes off for a living.”
“What was that like?” The bellboy smiled again, still polite, but I saw a hint of amusement in his eyes. “Working at a job like that?”
“Good one,” I murmured. Then I winked at the bellboy. “Ignore him. He’s had a rough few days.”
“I understand.”
Once he had my suitcase in the room, he nodded at us and accepted the bill I extended, then left, closing the door softly behind him. Meeting Kaleb’s eyes, I said, “When I’ve had a bad day, I get a little bratty, just to make me feel better. It looks like we share that in common.”
“Sorry if I embarrassed you.”
“Oh, it takes more than that to embarrass me.” I sat down and reached for the ankle strap of my shoe. “But questions like that to an employee, in a place like this? The wrong kind of answer, overheard by an asshole sort of manager could get somebody fired. I think that would make you feel like shit.”
Kaleb hissed out a breath and turned away, shoving both hands through his hair. “That doesn’t make sense. I was the one being an arse.”
“But this hotel is meant to cater to the guests. If a manager decided that the kid had somehow insulted you…” I shrugged. “Things are different here when it comes to that sort of thing. People are more uptight a lot of the time.”
“You’re not.” He looked back at me, eyes wild and hot. He came to me, and a few feet away, he went to his knees.
I’d been in the process of reaching for my other shoe, but at the look in his eyes, the muscles in my body started to feel curiously lax and limp, overheated too, like a puddle of hot wax. He crawled to me and bent over, pressing his lips to one knee, then the other.
“I missed you,” he murmured. “I didn’t expect that to happen, but it did. It’s like you’re a fever in me, Piety. I’m not certain I like it.”
He reached for my remaining shoe and sat back on his heels, staring into my eyes as he freed the strap and slowly slid the shoe off.
“I w
asn’t expecting any of this to happen,” I said truthfully. “But I’m not exactly unhappy with it.”
It kind of stung that he might be.
“I didn’t say I was unhappy with it.” He ran his thumb along my instep.
It sent a shiver through me, and I had to swallow a sigh when he began to dig his fingers into the tight muscles of my left calf. “You’re the best damn thing to happen for me in ages. But I don’t have time for this…for you…for all the things I feel for you.” His fingers moved higher. “And damn me if I give a flying fuck.”
My breath caught in my lungs, stuttered, and hitched there.
Then he straightened, coming up in front of me and tugging me to the edge of the bed until we were eye to eye, chest to chest, belly to belly. “I get around you, and it’s like nothing else matters. I don’t like that, Piety. I have to think about my sister and you make me not want to care about anything.”
“You’ve spent most of your life taking care of her.” I traced my finger across his upper lip. “It’s okay to want something for yourself every now and then.”
“She needs me.” His gaze fell away, his hands resting on my thighs.
For a moment, I thought he’d get up, walk away.
Then he looked back at me. “But I need you.” He leaned in and kissed me, his mouth hot and demanding.
I didn’t even have time to brace myself, not that it would have mattered. The kiss was deep, and his hands were hard, hungry, as he pushed my skirt up and stripped away my panties.
“Tell me you want me,” he said against my lips.
“More than I’ve ever wanted anything.” And it was nothing but the truth. I needed him so deeply, so desperately.
He tugged me closer, and I thought he just might pull me down onto his lap and take me right there, but he went for the hem of my dress instead, peeling the skirt of it up and stripping it away until I sat naked in front of him. The surplus cut front had let me go without a bra, and I shivered a little, the cool air drawing my nipples into tight, hard buds.
Then his mouth closed over one, and it was heat and wet that made me shiver, that puckered and tightened my flesh.
I cried out and shoved my hands into his hair.
He gripped my hips, fingers restlessly kneading.
He went back and forth between my breasts, and I wiggled closer, an ache spreading through me.
When he slid one hand between my thighs, I whimpered and spread them wide, eager for more.
But he didn’t touch me.
In fact, he straightened and stared down at me.
Panting, I waited, watching him.
“What are you doing?”
He shook his head and caught my shoulders, easing me down to the bed.
When I lay flat, he kissed the underside of my left breast, rubbing his chin back and forth across my flesh so that the stubble growing on his chin rasped over my skin. He kissed my belly. My hip.
I arched up, whimpering.
When he nuzzled the folds between my thighs, I whimpered and curled one leg around his upper torso.
Then he licked me, opening me with one long stroke of his tongue.
I arched up, screaming, but the sound was breathless and broken.
He did it again, then stabbed at my clit with his tongue.
“Piety…”
Even the brush of air over my skin felt like too much, and I fisted my hands in his hair, trying to draw him closer. “Please,” I moaned.
“Tell me.”
I couldn’t, another moan choking out the words.
He caught my wrists and dragged them from his hair, pinning them next to my hips. “Tell me what you want, baby. Do you want my mouth on you?”
“Yes…please…fuck…yes. Your mouth, your tongue…you.”
He flicked his tongue over me again, raked my clitoris with his teeth.
Then he pushed two fingers inside me and pressed up.
I came in a rush, startled by the suddenness of it.
He was inside me before it was over, the thickness of his cock stretching me.
“Look at me,” he said, tangling his hands in my hair and arching my head back.
Blindly, I stared at him, whimpering as he twisted his hips and sent the head of his cock sliding and rubbing over my G-spot. Grabbing for him, I clutched at his sides, my nails sinking in deep.
“I don’t want to think about being without you,” he said against my lips, only a second before he kissed me.
I caught the words, clung to them. I wanted to ask him what it meant – did it mean anything at all?
But he was stealing the breath and soul from me, riding me fast and I couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe.
“Come for me, Piety…come.”
Like I had any other choice.
We lay curled against each other, the room dim and quiet, sweat drying on our bodies as we stared at each other in silence.
It should have been awkward.
There were no words spoken, nothing that I could think needed to be said in that very moment.
I’d come to need him and it could either be the best thing that had ever happened…or the very stupidest thing I’d ever done.
I didn’t know.
But right then, I didn’t care.
Snuggling in closer, I rested my head on his shoulder and sighed in satisfaction as he curled his arm around my shoulders.
The silence, warm and comfortable as it was, stretched out, but it couldn’t last forever.
Finally, Kaleb said, “We need to talk.”
“I know.” Rubbing my cheek against his chest, I slid my hand up, then down his abdomen. Muscles jumped and clenched under my touch. Lifting up, I stared down in his eyes. “But do we have to do it now?”
“No.” He cupped my cheek. I felt him kiss the top of my head. “We don’t have to do it now.”
“Good. Because I’m not ready to.”
“Me neither.”
19
Kaleb
The earth had moved. Okay, maybe not literally.
It wasn’t like there was an earthquake shaking Las Vegas.
But as I laid there with Piety wrapped around me, I understood why some people talked about how being with a certain person made their entire world shake under their feet.
She’d changed something in me.
She’d changed me.
I don’t know if this was what it was like to fall in love – maybe it was the start of it. Maybe it was something else entirely.
I don’t know, but things felt…different.
And I couldn’t tell her any of it.
Whatever it was between us, it was only temporary, and I would be an idiot to think otherwise.
Maybe I was an idiot anyway because instead of keeping whatever distance between us I could, all I wanted to do was grab up every second possible.
My hand was in her hair, and I could feel her breasts moving against me with every breath.
Nothing had ever felt so good in my life. Her hair was silky smooth, her body was soft and warm.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked, her voice drowsy and soft.
“The same thing I think about a lot these days,” I replied.
“Your sister.” There was a world of understanding in her voice.
I should have felt more than a little guilty.
Camry should be on my mind.
She wasn’t though, until now.
But the guilt I knew I should feel wouldn’t rise and rear its ugly head. It would later, but for now, the only head rising was the one that had been driving me crazy around Piety almost from the get-go. Turning toward her, I met Piety’s eyes. “I’m thinking about you.”
She pushed up onto her elbow and looked at me. “Really?” There was no surprise in her voice. She had a smile on her face that I’ve seen on my own more than once lately.
“Yeah. I like thinking about you.”
She laughed, and the sound was bubbly and soft. “I like thinking ab
out you too.”
There were a hundred other things I wanted to say, but before I had the chance to put even the first one into words, my cell buzzed, letting me know I had a call.
Sighing, I reached for it.
It showed only a number, but I recognized it. Setting my jaw, I answered, careful to keep my voice neutral.
Stefano’s voice was lazy, arrogant in a way. Nobody will tell me no, he seemed to think. “Dude. Kaleb, you don’t sound too happy to hear from me. Why is that?”
Because now I’m thinking about you instead of the woman in bed with me, I thought. I didn’t say it though. “Don’t know what you mean, Stefano. It’s a delight to hear your voice.”
“Yeah, it shows.” He laughed, amused. “Look, I was just…you know, checking in. Wanted to make sure you hadn’t thought about taking off and leaving your sister to hold the bag. You wouldn’t want to do that, would you? Leave your sister holding the bag?”
Fury flooded me. I fought the need to hit something – like Stefano’s face.
“I don’t plan on leaving her, Stefano. I’m working on the problem.”
“So you’ve found a way to come up with the rest of the money you owe me?”
The money I owe you? He was unbelievable. It was some made up figure he’d foisted off on me and now…
Slowly, I sat up, easing away from Piety and staring at the wall as I willed myself to stay calm.
Completely unaware, Stefano continued to talk. “See, you better work fast. Otherwise, the price will just keep going up and up.”
“I want to see my sister.” My eyes burned, and the fury bubbled in me like acid. “I want to see my sister and make sure she’s okay before this goes any further.”
“Nah, that ain’t going to happen,” Stefano said confidently.
“Then…” I sucked in a breath, blew it out through my teeth. “You know what? Fuck you. You’ve got my sister dancing like a puppet on your strings, but I’m not your puppet, Stefano. I’ll help her, but I want to make sure she’s okay first. If you can’t make that happen, then shove that money I gave you up your arse and don’t expect to see a penny more.”