Beyond Broken (The Bay Boys #3) (15 page)

He shook his head.

“Okay.
 
How about I drive you home?”

“No,” he rasped, sounding like he’d just swallowed a handful of sand.
 
“I’ll stay here tonight.”

Maddie didn’t argue with him.
 
Something in his expression told her that he needed to, not because he wanted to.

“I can’t go back there,” he murmured quietly, almost to himself, like he forgot she was there.

“Where?”

“To his house.
 
To her house.
 
Jesus, I don’t know,” he said, pinching his brow.
 
“Fuck, I can’t think.”

“Shhh, just rest, Caleb,” she said soothingly.

Another silence dropped between them and Maddie couldn’t help the shiver that ran through her.
 
It was a cold November night and she’d left her jacket upstairs.
 
And now that she wasn’t scared that Caleb might be sick or going through some sort of mental breakdown, the frigid air hit her like ice picks.

Caleb eventually noticed and said, “You should go home.
 
I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Maddie immediately shook her head.
 
“No, I’m not leaving you.
 
Not yet.”

The old Caleb had yet to return, but his lips still flattened into a grim line.
 
“I’m fine, Maddie.
 
It’ll pass.”

“Then come back inside.”

“I…I can’t.
 
Not yet.”

“Then I won’t either.”
 
She sat more comfortably on the cement, but continued to keep her hands planted, just as she promised.

“Jesus,” Caleb whispered, staring at her.
 
An annoyed spark lit up his eyes and Maddie was
relieved
to see it return.
 
“You’re a real piece of work, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” she said, with a small half smile.
 
“My father would be proud.”

Caleb made a sound and for a second, Maddie thought it might have been the beginnings of a startled laugh.
 
But this was Caleb they were talking about and she’d never heard him laugh before, or even genuinely smile when it wasn’t a sarcastic smirk.

Slowly, Caleb stood from his crouched position, looking down at her sitting cross-legged on the ground.

“Come here then if you’re cold,” he told her.

She blinked up at him, her heart skipping a beat.
 
“What?”

“Come here,” he said again, gruffly.

Maddie didn’t know what ‘come here’ even meant, but she hesitantly pushed up from the concrete and drew closer to him.
 
Caleb took her by the shoulders and gently pushed her into the wall.

“Keep your hands there,” he told her, placing them against the building wall.
 
“And don’t touch me.”

“Okay,” she said, surprised she could even form that one word through the lump in her throat.

Caleb drew their bodies together, their fronts pressed tight, his warmth suddenly seeping into her shivering skin.
 
She almost lifted her palms to pull him closer, but resisted at the last moment.
 
Then he bent his head down and tucked it into the side of her face.
 
His palms held her upper arms tightly, but she didn’t mind.

“Better?” he asked, drawing in a shuddering breath.
 
She could feel how fast his heart was pounding, an after-effect of his panic attack most likely.
 
She nodded against him, afraid to speak.
 
“I just need a few more minutes out here.
 
I just…I need this.”

This was, by far, one of the most surreal, strange moments of her entire life.
 
Standing outside in the dark, surrounded by cigarette butts and empty soda cans, being held by a man she was convinced hated her, as he tried to calm himself down.
 
She wondered if she would wake up at any moment.
 
Or perhaps find that this was all one big daydream and she was still in a lecture hall or in the library or in Caleb’s office.

Either way, she didn’t know what to believe.

It was
nice
though.
 
Caleb was warm and solid and he smelled like a bonfire in the woods on a cold night, all smoke and musk and forest.

They stood together for more than a few minutes because Maddie unconsciously counted the seconds in her head.
 
She reached 472 before Caleb’s heart slowed to an almost normal pace.
 
She reached 648 before his trembling stopped completely.
 
She reached 829 seconds before she felt his head lower into her neck, before she felt the tip of his nose trace a line to a sensitive spot behind her ear.

“C-caleb,” she whispered in surprise.

He didn’t say anything in response, although Maddie didn’t quite know what she wanted him to say.
 
A moment later, he kissed her neck, the soft flesh of his lips brushing her skin.
 
Maddie pressed her hands harder against the wall, staring at the the soft material of Caleb’s t-shirt, eyes wide.

His breath was scorching against her neck.
 
His hands gripped her arms tighter.
 
Between their bodies, his shaft hardened, shocking her.
 
She’d never been in a situation like this and she was both terrified and excited.
 
She felt like the world was tilting on its axis and she would fall off at any moment.

Caleb’s lips followed the curve of her jawline.
 
Maddie shifted her head to the side, just a little bit, and then their lips met.

A sharp, surprised inhale from Caleb.
 
A small gasp from Maddie.
 
And then her eyes slid shut and all she could think about was Caleb’s lips on her own.

25-going-on-70 Maddie
, as Kyra liked to call her, had never been kissed before, except when she was six-years-old, stealing kisses from boys on the playground.
 
But those didn’t count.
 
This
kiss…this kiss certainly did.

For a man who hadn’t kissed a woman in almost eight years, Caleb made her head spin.
 
He was both demanding and gentle, taking her lips hungrily before softly stroking her tongue with his own.
 
Nibbling on her bottom lip before soothing it with a delicious suck.
 
Maddie wanted to clutch him closer, wanted to bury her hands in his thick hair, wanted so many things that she felt like her skin was too tight.

All too soon, it was over.
 
Caleb stumbled away from her, breathing hard, and the cold air that took his place made her shiver.
 
Her body felt heavy, the space between her thighs aching with want and unfulfilled desire.
 
Her lips felt swollen and she saw Caleb glance at them before he turned away, murmuring, “
Fuck
.
 
Fuck
!”

Dread was already beginning to pool in her belly, but Caleb surprised her.
 
Instead of the cutting remark she expected, he told her, almost gently, “You need to go home.
 
Right now.”

She wanted to argue.
 
She wanted him to kiss her again.
 
She wanted to stay with him, to make sure he was all right.

She didn’t do any of these things.
 
Shaken, like a coward, she murmured, “Okay.”

Maddie pushed away from the wall on shaking legs.
 
With one last look at Caleb, she turned back towards the door, pushing it open before hurrying upstairs to the office to collect her purse and jacket.

She only felt like she could breathe again once she was in the safety of her own car.

Her first kiss…and she didn’t know whether it was the most exciting moment of her life, or the most devastating.

FOURTEEN

Maddie stayed in her car once she arrived back at her apartment.
 
The drive hadn’t helped calm her nerves and she desperately needed to talk to someone, to figure out what in the world had just happened between her and Caleb.
 
So, she fished her phone out of her purse and dialed Kyra, the one person she knew with the most experience with men.

“I don’t know if I did something stupid or not,” Maddie told her once her best friend picked up.

There was a pause on Kyra’s end.
 
And then, “Please tell me you did something dirty with him.”

“It…it wasn’t
dirty
,” Maddie started uneasily.
 
Despite her words, Kyra shrieked excitedly on the other end and Maddie had to hold her phone away to prevent permanent hearing loss.
 
“He kissed me.
 
Or…I guess maybe I kissed him?
 
I don’t know.
 
Everything happened so fast.”

“Oh my God, oh my God.”

Maddie sighed, placing an elbow on the steering wheel and propping her head up with her palm.
 
The same palm Caleb had placed against the wall of the garage, telling her not to move.

“Okay, so wait, why is this a bad thing?” Kyra asked.
 
“This is progress towards Caleb Montgomery popping your cherry.”

Maddie groaned and cringed at the same time.
 
“Ugh, can you not describe it like that?”

“Was it good?
 
Did you like it?”

“Of course I—” she cut herself off because she wasn’t actually sure.
 
The kiss was good.
 
Amazing.
 
Fantastic.
 
Everything she’d ever wanted when she’d fantasized about kissing Caleb all those years ago in high school.
 
It was when the kiss ended that doubts began to plague her.
 
Those
she didn’t like so much.
 
“I don’t know.
 
It’s complicated.”

“Start from the beginning.”

She was hesitant to.
 
She didn’t want to tell Kyra that Caleb had a panic attack in his office and that he needed to go outside to calm down.
 
It felt like she was betraying him somehow because she knew he would never want anyone to know about it.
 
The fact that it happened while she was in the office would probably bite her on the ass tomorrow.

So, instead, Maddie told Kyra that they’d had a little fight—which wasn’t necessarily a lie because they
had
had a fight on Saturday and had barely spoken since—and he stormed out of the office.
 
Maddie followed him and they talked.

“And then he noticed I was cold since I hadn’t brought a jacket with me.
 
And he held me to keep me warm,” Maddie said quietly, remembering the shock and giddiness she’d felt.
 
“And then it just kind of happened.
 
Suddenly we were kissing.
 
Then, he broke away…and he told me to leave.”

Maddie heard Kyra blow out a breath on the other end.
 
“Okay, don’t move.”

“What?”

“This calls for a proper night in.
 
And we will analyze the
shit
out of this.”

Maddie swallowed.
 
“What if it’s not a big deal?
 
What if it didn’t mean anything?”

“Nonsense.
 
Caleb Montgomery kissed you.
 
Since when did that not mean anything?”

Kyra came over a half an hour later, armed with hot chocolate and popcorn, Maddie’s favorite combination.

“Okay, let’s get down to business,” Kyra declared, clapping her hands together gleefully like they were about to solve the most important mystery in the history of mankind.
 
Maddie supposed that in her mind, they probably
were
.
 
Kyra had also had a little crush on Caleb in high school, although not to the extent of Maddie’s.
 
Kyra had even tried to flirt with him once since they shared their gym period together, but apparently, he’d shut her down cold.
 
Kyra had never quite gotten over it.
 
“Tell me again, play-by-play.”

Maddie sighed, already digging into the popcorn, settling down on her small couch.
 
She told her again, trying to clearly remember the lie she told so she wouldn’t mess it up the second time around.

“He
so
wants you,” Kyra declared, triumphantly.

Maddie’s stomach fluttered.
 
In a way, she already knew that.
 
She’d felt his…
ahem
…erection pressed against her earlier tonight.
 
She’d seen the desire in his eyes that night in his office when he helped her pick up papers off the floor.
 
For some reason, Caleb
did
want her…at least physically.

“Even if he does, he won’t do anything about it,” Maddie said, hearing the truth in her words even though she didn’t want to.
 
“He doesn’t want
me
.”

Maddie knew that he was struggling with something.
 
One minute, he seemed to want her, the next he was telling her that she was desperate.
 
One minute, he was kissing her, the next he was telling her to leave.
 
How exhausting it must be for him, that constant battle in his mind.
 
Wouldn’t it be easier to just let
go
?
 
How bad could the consequences seriously be?

Maddie sighed, suddenly tired.
 
“I met his friend.”

“Who?”

Maddie shook her head.
 
“No one you know.
 
His name was Luke.
 
Him and his girlfriend stopped by the garage last night.
 
He knew about me.
 
He knew my name.”

Kyra bounced excitedly on the couch.
 
“Don’t you see?
 
That’s all the proof you need!
 
If he’s telling his friends about you, it means you’re important to him in some way.”