Like Cats and Dogs by Kate McMurray (scary books to read TXT) 📗

Right. Lauren had quite forgotten this was just sex. It wasn’t romantic. There would be no cuddling, no spending the night, no kisses over waffles in the morning.

She shook it off and led him to her bed.

***

It didn’t take them long to get naked, their clothes tossed all over the room. It didn’t escape Caleb’s notice that there was a fresh box of condoms on the bedside table, and when he looked in the drawer, the old ones had been removed. That she had anticipated this was encouraging.

When he turned back to her, she lay staring at him. She was on her back, her head pillowed by her arms, her perfect breasts raised up a little. Her body was lovely, curvy in the right places, soft in a way he found appealing. He touched her belly, ran a hand up her side and cupped her breast. He couldn’t not touch her. He loved how soft and smooth her skin was, how beautifully shaped her breasts were, how hard and pink her nipples were. He bowed his head and took one of those nipples in his mouth. She moaned when he did.

He wanted to taste all of her. He set the condom aside and then trailed kisses from between her breasts to her navel and finally between her legs. She was already wet, and he relished her taste, sweet on his tongue. When her fingers wove through his hair, he applied more pressure, making her hiss and sigh and groan. He licked her clit and slid a finger inside her, and the way she smelled, tasted, and writhed around on the bed aroused him like nothing else had in a while.

She came on his tongue.

She’d whispered it was coming, but he felt it when her back arched off the bed and her body vibrated around him. He kept licking and stroking her through the orgasm, then slid up her body and kissed her lips.

His cock, hard as it had ever been, pressed against her, and he was about to reach for the condom when she tilted her hips up and the tip slid inside.

“You’re gonna kill me,” he said breathlessly. “Hold that thought, please.”

“I need you inside me right now.”

“And I need to be inside you, but I need to do one thing first.”

He managed to roll the condom on before his brain leaked out of his ears, and he finally slid home in one smooth movement, her body warm and tight, he pressed inside her. It felt amazing to move in her, tight and tingly and hot, and he knew he was about to go off like a teenage boy.

“I’m not gonna last long,” he said.

“If you do it right, I’ll come again.” She was equally breathless, her face and upper chest flush, beads of sweat on her forehead.

God, she practically glowed.

“Do it right?” he asked.

She grabbed his hand and positioned his thumb on her clit. He understood exactly what she needed and he moved his thumb in a circular motion. She hissed and arched off the bed again.

It became a challenge to keep up anything like a rhythm, and he felt like he’d gone primal, that he was just rutting around looking for release. He tried to give her what she needed, putting pressure where she needed it.

But it was too good. Lauren dug her fingers into his back, he surged forward, and then everything went white as he came. He clutched her body to his and pumped his hips and groaned.

When he came back to himself, he rolled off her, but reached for her body. “I want to make you—”

“No, you’re good. I’m good. I came twice, Caleb. That hasn’t happened in years.”

“You came twice.”

“Don’t look so smug.”

He laughed and rolled out of bed to run to the bathroom. When he came back to the bed, she was still laying there pretty much as he’d left her.

“Having a problem there?” he asked.

“All my limbs are Jell-O now. I just want to lie here forever.”

“Well, move over. I want to lie down for a bit.”

“Right.”

She shifted slightly toward the side of the bed. He lay down beside her. Then she snuggled up to him and laid her head on his chest.

It was…nice.

They lay together in comfortable silence for a long time, and Caleb put his arm around her and pressed his hand near her shoulder. He regretted that he’d have to get up to leave in a few minutes. Not only did he have to get home to Hank, but he couldn’t stay here. If he did, his walls might come down.

“I wasn’t always this way,” he said softly.

“Mmm?”

“You asked me that recently. If I was this much of a bastard before the divorce. That’s not how you phrased it, but that’s what you meant.”

“And you’re saying you weren’t.”

Caleb let out a breath. “A divorce will take all the idealism right out of you.” If his heart wasn’t open—to a potential romantic partner, to the animals he treated—then it couldn’t be broken the way it had been that day Kara had handed him divorce papers and told him she was seeing someone else.

“It’s hard to picture you as idealistic.”

Caleb laughed.

He ran his hands through her hair. He would have loved to spend the night, just talking about whatever, maybe showing her the kind of man he used to be, but he knew better. “I should get going.”

She made a protesting noise.

“I’m sorry, Lauren. I gotta get home to my dog.”

She rolled away. “I know. Of course. He’s probably eaten your rug by now.”

She sounded angry, and he couldn’t really blame her. But he couldn’t tell her why he wasn’t staying, either. That had the potential to pull down his walls, too.

It was too soon. He was still too raw. And this…thing…he had going with Lauren was never supposed to be anything but sex.

He got up and started putting his clothes back on.

She sat up and pulled her sheet over her breasts. “You are