It was incredible.
Somewhere deep inside my chest, I knew it would be like this. Had known from the first time I saw her—from the first time it stirred something in me that went against the rules. That went against everything I should feel. It wasn’t just something—it wasthething I tried to ignore but couldn’t. The thing that drove me to break up with her sister. But that was the last thing she needed to hear right now. That was my guilt to carry. Not hers.
At some point, I started to hear the storm over our breathing and noticed the goose bumps painted on her back; it was time to go inside. Carefully, I slid out of her and drew her body up from the ground, feeling her shiver as I pulled her against me.
“Wild enough for you?” I rumbled and pressed my lips to her hair, feeling her melt into me. “Time for a hot shower.”
As I carried her to the door, her small moan of anticipation had my cock stirring all over again.
Chapter 27
Lara
“You made a mess,” I murmured as Calder set me on my feet in the bathroom, stepping away to turn on the shower.
A collage of muddy footprints and murky puddles stained our path through the Airstream, and I felt a twinge of guilt for insisting we stay out in the storm.
“You wanted me to,” he said and straightened, letting the shower door shut so it could start to steam.
Our eyes locked, and I felt my skin start to prickle again. What had just happened ... what we’d done ... I couldn’t even savor it because I simply ached too much for it to happen again. I knew where my priorities should lie. I knew I should be focused on my sister. Worried about what was happening to her. Worried about whathadhappened to her.
Worried, worried, worried about everyone but myself. Because, of course, I was fine. I was a doctor. I was stable. I had a good job. A good life.
I’d lost a patient. Been attacked in a place I thought I was safe. I’d buried my own fears and insecurities so deep, I didn’t even know how to unearth them, let alone give myself the freedom to treat them. I’d been alone for so long, too busy caring for everyone else—
“Hey,” Calder rumbled and I blinked as his hands cupped my face. “Not here. Not tonight.”
Air whooshed from my chest, sinking into the safety of his promise.
Calder was a buoy in the middle of my storm. Someone I could trust to keep me afloat when I just didn’t have the strength. Someone who could hold my weight and my worries without judgment. Someone who made me feel safe enough to not have to carry everything all the time.
“Yeah.” I tipped toward him, my hands splaying onto his chest.
He looked over his shoulder and then back to me. “Let’s get you clean.” When he stepped back, my arms fell to my sides, and I saw the muddy handprints left on his shirt.
“You, too.”
I caught a whiff of a smile on those dangerous lips before he reached in his pocket and I heard the gentle click of his knife sliding open.
“Are you going to ruin all these clothes, Wild Man?” I murmured when he brought the blade to my chest, using his free hand as a buffer against my skin.
He stilled at the nickname, his jaw muscle feathering his cheek. Slowly, his eyes lifted to mine, and that familiar tension metabolized the space between us. Oxygen ladened with ache. “Do you want me to stop?”
My heart thudded so hard, he had to have felt its lurch.
“No.”I never wanted him to stop.But that kind of thinking didn’t belong here. Tonight. It might not belong here at all, which was why I couldn’t think about it now.
He cut through my shirt with one swipe, the cotton releasing not even a whimper against the blade, and then peeled it off my shoulders in seconds.
“I need to get me one of those,” I murmured when his hands went to my pants. When his eyes lifted, I added, “I cut off my fair share of clothes.”
He frowned so harshly, I would’ve laughed if the reason for it didn’t make my stomach somersault.So it was possible for Calder Stone to be jealous.
“In the ER,” I murmured, but it didn’t seem to make a difference; a grunt was his only reply.
Flicking open the fly of my jeans, Calder stripped the muddy shreds from my legs, leaving me in front of him, naked except for my black bra. I waited for the embarrassment to come, but it never did. I stood in a pile of shredded clothes, covered in mud and dirt and rain andhim, and the only thing I felt was power. Like Venus rising from the sea, I’d risen from the storm.
And then I felt something leak down my thigh. Not rain. Something warm and sticky and wild.