Talking Dirty With the Player(61)

She squeezed her eyelids shut, her heart large and full in her chest.

Hello, slippery slope.

Panic gripped her as the roller-coaster took a sharp turn down the one hill she really didn’t want it to go down. The one she’d been so afraid of the moment he’d held her in his arms at Christie and Joseph’s wedding. She began to tremble.

But then he pulled her more firmly against him, his big body surrounding her. “It’s okay, darling,” he murmured in her ear. “I’ve got you. I’m here for you.”

Her throat ached. Her heart. Her whole damn body ached. Because of course he was there for her. He’d always been there for her. And now she wanted to be there for him, too. Actually, she just wanted him full stop.

For always.

“Caleb,” she said in a choked voice, the emotion in her heart too big for her to keep inside. It flooded outward, taking away the doubt, drowning the last vestiges of her fear. The time for protecting herself was over. Now it was time to give him what she’d been holding back for so long.

Trust.

“What is it?” he asked. His soapy hands slid up from her hips to cup her breasts, thumbs circling her slick nipples, the pleasure arcing through her.

“I want…I need—” You. Forever. But the words got stuck in her throat and she couldn’t speak.

He moved a hand down over her stomach, between her thighs, stroking the hot, sensitive flesh between her legs. “It’s okay, beautiful,” he whispered. “I know what you need.”

Then he turned her in his arms and pushed her up against the tiled shower wall. Lifted her leg up around his hips, easing slow and deep inside her.

Judith groaned, feeling her body stretch to take him. He slid his arms around her, holding her close, his face pressed to her neck as the water streamed over them. And she put her arms around him, arching against the wall so they could get closer, so she could feel him deeper, surrounding her. Pleasure sparked through every nerve ending as he began to move and she didn’t want him to ever let go.

Her nails dug into his back and she pressed her forehead against the wet skin of his shoulders, shut her eyes, and struggled to keep the feeling contained, to not let even a hint of what she felt escape. Not now. Not here.

As his movements became faster, harder, the pleasure winding tighter and tighter, she couldn’t be quiet. She cried out as it became too much for her, as the climax crashed over her, rolling her over and over until all she could do was hold onto him and sob, hearing his groan of release as he followed.

Then his hands were moving gently in her wet hair, pushing it back from her face. “Are you okay, Jude?” Because he always asked if she was okay. And normally she always was.

Not this time. This time she was very far from okay.

Because this time she fallen down that slippery slope, so far down that there would be no climbing out of it ever again.

She loved Caleb Steele. She always had. She always would.





Chapter Eleven


Caleb woke the next morning with Judith in his arms and a feeling of rightness in his gut. A rightness that had everything to do with the woman who lay snuggled against him, her back to his chest, her body soft against his.

Something had changed between them last night. After the confidences shared on the rugby field and then the incendiary sex in the shower—hell the whole damn night—it felt as if the focus of their affair had shifted. Become something deeper. Something more.

Even more than it had been eight years earlier.

As if on cue, she stretched, the small undulation she gave making him catch his breath, then turned over in his arms. Her eyes were so damn blue and her mouth curved in a luscious smile. “Good morning, studmuffin,” she said sleepily.

His heart just about stopped. She was irresistible like this, all sleepy and teasing. Without her cool sophistication or sarcasm.

He moved a hand to cup her breast, lazily stroking her nipple, making her shudder in response. “I told you I didn’t like studmuffin, right?”

“So?” She arched under his hand. “I didn’t get any say in babycakes.”

“Good point. I guess I’ll have to put up with it then.” He bent his head to kiss her throat.

God, he loved the taste of her, the feel of her. Like he’d been starving for years and years, and only now was he finally getting the sustenance he needed.

He moved lower, taking her nipple into his mouth relishing her soft gasp in his ear. Her hand touched his shoulder, fingers trailing along his skin, stroking him in an unhurried, undemanding caress. As if they had all the time in the world.

And maybe they did. Because why couldn’t this go on? Why couldn’t they keep on doing what they were doing?