I laugh, and his smile widens. “Oh, sweetheart, that’s not what I meant.”
My admission pulls a small whimpering noise from Kayden’s throat. He continues to toy with the collar of my shirt like it’s the one thing keeping him tethered.
“Kayden.” I close my hand around his fingers, stilling them, and here goes fucking nothing, but I need to know. “Are you attracted to me too?”
He closes his eyes and sucks in a breath. I’m so far out of my depth here. It feels like I’m in freefall, about to crash to the ground, but then Kayden pulls me back with a simple, breathy “Yes.”
“Yeah?”
He nods, still smiling. “A lot, actually.” He blushes even harder, and I laugh again.
“Don’t laugh at me,” he pouts, narrowing his eyes.
“Baby, I’m not laughing at you.”
“No?”
I shake my head. “No. I’m laughing because I have no fucking clue what else to do.”
“Oh.” He dips his chin, and I think he heard something completely different from what I meant. I cradle his face, forcing him to look at me. I try to keep my voice as steady as I can so there’s absolutely no room for interpretation.
“Because what I really wanna do is something that’ll change everything between us.”
“It is?”
“Yes.”
“In a bad way?” His face is so close to mine now that I can feel his breath like a light caress on my face.
“I don’t know, K. I don’t know,” I admit.
He’s almost in my lap now, his eyes wide and wondrous. When he licks his lips, it almost kills me. “Does it involve my lips and your lips?” he asks, and there’s no mistaking the hope hanging to each of his words.
I swallow. “It does.”
He leans in, and now heisstraddling my lap. His hands untwist from my shirt and slide up my neck and further up my chin until they rest against my cheeks. His eyes search my face. “I really want that too,” he whispers, his breath hot against my lips. “So much.”
“K.”
“I mean it, Caleb. I really want you to kiss me, and if you don’t, then I’ll kiss you.”
And it’s times like these that I wish I were a better man, because God help me, I can’tnotdo what he asks me to when he looks at me like that. All my good intentions, all my morals, just fly out the window. It’s just me and him and his beckoning lips.
Chapter Eleven
Kayden
Caleb is kissing me. Caleb. Is. Kissing. Me. Not where I need him the most, but heiskissing me. His lips ghost along my chin, setting my entire body aflame with desire. His words echo through me.
‘Because what I really wanna do is something that’ll change everything between us.’
My insecurities resurface, threatening to take hold of me again, but I push them back, focusing on the way it feels when Caleb presses a string of featherlight kisses against my chin. He hums against my skin, and the small noise reverberates throughout my entire body until it settles in my chest. One of his arms is wrapped around my waist, the other drawing circles on my back. I feel hot, but still, goosebumps spread up my neck, and I shiver.
Caleb chuckles against me, then adjusts me in his lap. I moan, because fuck, I’m so hard and I think he is too. Caleb is hard. For me. I must be dreaming. It must be the pills Mom gave me before she left for work. This can’t be happening.
“Oh, it is,” Caleb laughs against the corner of my mouth.
“What?”