Seduced in Secret (4 page)

Tessa cleared her throat. “Are you making friends again, Caleb?”

“It’s my sparkling personality.” He shoved the car into park and closed his eyes. “Tessa, are you intimating here that you’re hooking up with some guy you’ve never met just to fuck him?”

“I have met him.”

“That’s what he
says
.”
You dumb ass.
You
are the guy
! But at the same time, it didn’t matter. She was…he shut the mental debate down and waited for her answer. Part of him was already onboard, ready to pull the phone from its space in the console so he could fire up Facebook and set up a time and place.

But…

“Tessa, are you being smart here?”

“I was smart when I accepted Tyson’s proposal,” she said quietly. “Everybody said so. All my friends thought he was a great catch.”

“I didn’t.” Drumming his fist on the door, he stared straight ahead.

“Yeah. And that goes to show
you’re
the smart one.” She laughed softly.

“Then listen to me now. Are you reacting with your head here? Your heart? Or something else?” Guilt was working free now. He’d known Tessa for a lifetime, and he’d used all of that knowledge to manipulate her. He felt like a fucking bastard now.
I have to tell her.
But now wasn’t the time and he knew it.

He wasn’t the smart one.

He was the selfish one.

“I don’t…Caleb, he
feels
right. It’s like…everything we talk about, it’s like we
fit
.”

His heart ached and he wanted to shout.
That’s because it’s me! We
do
fit. Why can’t you see it, when it’s just me?

“Just take some time, okay?” he said roughly. “Think it through first.”

If she sent him a message and told him she wanted to meet up…

No. He had to come clean first. “Look, I gotta go.”

“Yeah, me, too. Break’s over and I’ve got a meeting with the docs.”

He went to disconnect and then softly, because he had to know, he asked, “Tess?”

“Yeah?”

“How come we’ve never gone out? Seriously. You and me?”

She didn’t answer. For a long moment, she was quiet. Then she laughed, as if she’d never considered the idea. “We’re friends, Caleb.”

“So?”

“Ah. Well. I guess I never thought about it.”

“Maybe you could. You shut me down a hundred times. I’m going for one-oh-one here, but maybe we could try dinner. A movie.”

∞

The messenger box stayed empty.

There were no phone calls.

No letters.

Four days passed and come Friday, Tessa didn’t know what to think.

She was torn between brooding over that and trying puzzle through what lay ahead that night.

A date.

She hadn’t been out on a date in a while. Well, there were the dates with Tyson, but once you’re in a serious relationship, things are different. A girl knows what to expect, right?

But now she was going on a date with Caleb.

Caleb.

She thought of the first time she’d seen him. She’d been moving into the house where she still lived and he’d been at his grandmother’s.

She’d been four.

That one memory was crystal clear.

She’d jumped out of the car, clutching a bear and a boy had crashed into her. All black hair and big, pretty, pale green eyes.

She’d dropped her bear and fallen down.

So had he, but he’d jumped up and then helped her up.

He grinned at her as he picked up her bear and then he’d taken off, disappearing down the block.

He was her best friend. He was the one person in the entire world who knew her, inside and out, through and through. If there was ever anybody in her life she could on, it was Caleb. And they were going out on a date.

She should feel stupid about it. It should seem silly.

So why was she so nervous?

Tessa stood in her closet and grabbed another dress off a hanger, held it up, and then jammed it back into place.

Nervous?

She laughed, almost hysterically.

She wasn’t nervous.

She was
terrified
.

The idea of going out on a date with her best friend should have been laughable, but she was elated and excited and…and…she pressed a hand to her belly, hoping it would settle the razor-winged butterflies that seemed to have taken up residence there. It did no good.

Terrified.

Yes.

She was terrified.

She was excited.

She was nervous and she knew exactly why.

Everything about Tyson had
seemed
perfectly
right,
but it had felt all wrong.

Everything with her secret admirer
felt
perfectly
right
but it
seemed
all wrong. Not that she really knew him or had a chance to know him, since the stubborn jerk wouldn’t consent to meet her.

But everything with Caleb?

Right.

In every way.

And that terrified her.

Grabbing a hot pink sundress she’d bought on a whim, she pulled it down and marched out of her closet, into her bathroom. She went to pull it on, but stopped. The dress was cute and sexy, but it was also a lot more formfitting than anything she’d ever owned. So she left and went to her bureau, pulled it open and studied the neatly folded pieces of lingerie. She owned more lingerie than really necessary, considering she never had a chance to put any of it to use. Tyson certainly hadn’t given her any reason to need it.

She shook her head, pushing thoughts of him to the back of her head and picked up the garment she’d been looking for. It was sexy as hell and functional, something that had cost a ridiculous amount of money, but Tessa loved pretty things, loved sexy things, and she’d felt wicked and beautiful when she put it on. Without letting herself think, she carried it into the bathroom.

It was one of those foundation garments that smoothed everything down but this one managed to be appealing, too. It had been worth the extra money. After she’d pulled on the hot pink dress, working it into place, she stood there and stared.

The nerves screaming inside her rose to a crescendo and she closed her eyes, sucked in a breath.

This was too much.

It was too sexy.

This wasn’t her.

The doorbell rang.

Swearing, she rushed out of the bedroom and stared at the clock.

Caleb pushed the doorbell again.

He was fifteen minutes early.

When the door swung open, Tessa stood there flushed with her hair tousled and her eyes snapping.

She glared at him.

“You’re early, damn it.!”

He stared.

“Well?”

She crossed her arms over her chest, tapping one bare foot.

He dragged a hand down his face and started mentally reciting one of the legal cases they’d been given to study. It was dry, bland, boring. It had absolutely no effect on the hard-on that was pulsing inside his trousers.

As Tessa continued to glare at him, he lifted the bottle he’d brought over.

She scowled at him and then, her eyes softening, she reached out and took it. “You bum,” she said, sighing. “When did you have time to go out there?”

He shrugged. No reason to tell her he’d gone by her favorite winery a month or so ago, when classes had been on spring break, and picked up a case of her favorite wine, right? It was a couple hours away, so she usually didn’t get up there very often, either.

“It’s cold,” he said.

“I can tell.” She slid him a look as she strode into the kitchen.

His eyes narrowed on the strip of pale flesh visible through the open zipper of her dress.

“Since you’re frazzling me by showing up early, I’m having a glass.”

He moved up behind her as she pulled a corkscrew out of a drawer. “You’re open.”

She stilled. Was it just him, or did her breath catch as he slid the tab of the zipper up?

He wanted to press his mouth to the vulnerable skin at the nape of her neck. Wanted to bite her. Right there.

Instead, he fell back and waited as she poured two glasses and offered him one.

He took it, although her taste in wine ran to the sugary side.

She took a sip and then nodded down the hall. “I need to finish getting ready.”

He said nothing. He was tempted to duck into the hall bathroom and deal with his immediate, physical problem, but he wouldn’t.

He’d been hiding how he felt about her for too long and he’d already decided it was time to stop. Either Tessa could accept it and they could make something together…or he’d just been fooling himself.

Either way, he needed to know.

Chapter Four

I had a good time.

The words circled around in her head as Caleb pulled up the driveway and she wondered just what she was supposed to say to the man she knew better than she knew herself. To the man who knew
her
better than she knew herself.

Just what did she say as he walked her to her door?

She knew what she wanted to say.

She
had
had a good time, although that wasn’t a surprise. It wasn’t like they hadn’t grabbed a meal together, or a movie before.

It was just that this was…different.

Dinner together as friends was one thing.

But Caleb hadn’t looked at her like a friend tonight.

She’d felt the difference. Part of her wondered if maybe that difference was something that had been there for a while, and she just hadn’t seen it.

Caleb had always watched her.

His fingers brushed down the back of her hand and she looked up, realized they’d been sitting in the parked car. She hadn’t even realized he’d shut off the engine.

The silence of the night wrapped around her as she looked over at him.

Green eyes watched her.

She licked her lips.

Then her breath seemed to lodge inside her chest as she realized he was doing it again—watching her. Specifically, her mouth. He watched the path her tongue had taken with intent interest and her heart started to race. “Caleb—”

He reached up and cupped her face, brushed his thumb across her lower lip, following the path her tongue had taken.

She lapsed into silence.

Unwittingly, she swayed forward.

It seemed the most natural thing in the world to kiss him.

His tongue traced across the contours of her lip, slow and confident, demanding entrance and when she didn’t yield fast enough, he just took it. She reached up and gripped his wrist, moaning into his kiss and he growled, swallowing the sound down.

That one kiss became another, and then another.

Then it ended and she was sitting her seat, panting. Caleb was gone.

His door had opened, shut.

She looked around, confused and then jerked her ahead as he opened her door.

He pulled her out and she all but sagged against him, desperate for another one of those kisses.

He pushed her back up against the car, his hips pinning hers in place as his hands buried into her hair, twisting and twining and arching her head back for another kiss. “Open,” he growled. “Open.”

She did.

His tongue came into her mouth and she sucked on it, greed taking over.

Caleb shuddered.

She slid her hands down his chest and wrapped her arms around his torso, gripping him tight. She arched closer, rubbing against him. Inside the silk of her bra, her nipples were tight, swollen and throbbing. She couldn’t get close enough.

∞

Silken smooth skin lay below the hem of her skirt.

Caleb felt just a few inches as he worked the tight material up and then he encountered something else—tight and form fitting, like she’d poured herself into it. He wanted her naked. Now. Thought about just shoving the skirt of the dress up over her ass, and whatever fussy feminine thing she was wearing under it. Then he could bend her over.

His mind had already processed the terrain around them. Left over from his time in the Navy.

It was too bright out here, the light from the garage shining down on them.

He could get her up to the porch. There was a darkened corner there—

Tessa moaned out his name and he went rigid.

What the fuck are you doing?

Slowly, he eased away.

When she tried to follow his mouth, he brushed hers with soft, soothing kisses.

There was no way in hell he could possibly do this.

Not with Tessa.

She’d finally seen him.

He couldn’t risk blowing it.

A few strained seconds passed, her heaving chest rising to meet his own and then she opened her eyes.

They stared at each other in the light coming down on them from the garage.

He twined one lock of golden hair around his finger.

“There’s a game tomorrow.”

She blinked.

“Baseball.”

“Yeah?” She licked her lips and Caleb could have whimpered when her lashes fluttered and a low hum echoed out of her throat.

“Maybe we could go.”

“Yeah. Maybe we could.”

∞

Tessa glanced at the clock as she settled down behind her computer.

She’d left the office over an hour ago and she wasn’t due to return for ten days.

Ten whole days.

She had three days booked at a cabin in the Shenandoah Mountains where she would read, lounge in a hot tub, and do nothing but lay around. Then she would do the same thing here. Nothing glamorous, but she was looking forward to it.

And then there were a few dates with Caleb.

The first one was tonight.

In twenty minutes.

Since she had some time to kill, she was going to download some books for her upcoming laze-away.

But instead of going to browse around the bookstore’s website, she found herself at her inbox.

She only checked in her personal inbox once or twice a week—or that’s about how often she
needed
to check it.

There had been a time when she’d checked it daily—sometimes more.

Because she’d be waiting for a note.

It had been three weeks since she’d heard from
him
.

Her secret admirer.

He’d told her
soon,
and then he’d all but dropped off the face of the planet.