His lips fluttered up her neck, a brushing tease. In the middle of a weekday, the store was virtually deserted. The employee from the paint department wasn’t even facing them. There would be no one to see if she closed her eyes, puckered her lips, and lost herself in his sinful kiss that had once made her dizzy and flushed and wrought endless speculation about how skilled he would be in bed.
It was neither cautious nor smart, but Carlotta couldn’t stop herself from tilting her face to his and letting her eyes slide shut. His lips didn’t cover hers. Instead, a growl filled her ear as he plunged his fingers into her hair and tugged just forcefully enough that she couldn’t call his grip gentle.
“You’re tempting me, Lottie. Not here. Because once I start, I don’t know when or if I’ll stop. Think long and hard about that before you offer me your mouth again.”
Then suddenly, he was gone—his fingers in her hair, his body heat against hers, that deep voice that made her shiver. She opened her eyes with fluttering lashes, then caught sight of his taut profile. Every muscle in his body looked tense, poised for battle…or sex. Her gaze flitted down. The front of his jeans protruded, looking even harder than the rest of him.
Instead of being scared as she’d been the last time he had kissed her, she felt herself tremble with excitement. Her belly flipped. Parts of her that she had barely thought of in years suddenly turned slick.
Goodness.
She turned away as Caleb took the cans of paint from the store’s employee and loaded them on the flatbed. He rounded the square counter of the paint department, gathering tarps and paintbrushes, painter’s tape and a bit of sandpaper. Caleb did not once look at her as he dragged the cart behind him, but her intuition told her that he was not angry. Rather, he was restraining himself. For her.
His actions were commendable and sweet. Still, she hoped that he would not remain too sweet.
Carlotta had never imagined that anyone—much less a hunk like Caleb—would find her attractive at this stage of her life. She felt a bit like pinching herself. Of course, his behavior suggested that he had always been attracted to her. Shortly after her divorce, however, she had been too anxious and shell-shocked to handle Caleb. She had wondered if he merely pitied her or thought she would be an easy mark to ply into bed. Over time and through Hunter, she had come to know Caleb much better and realized that he was exactly as he seemed: honest to a fault, steady, sexy. A protector. A provider.
A lover.
“Come with me, Lottie.” His voice rumbled as he nearly sprinted to the checkout counter at the front of the store.
She rushed on her high heels to keep up and chastised herself for not wearing more practical shoes in a store this huge.
As they reached the register, Caleb threw everything on the counter that would fit and jogged to find another cart, shoving every item in the moment the cashier scanned it. Hunter had paid for the flooring in advance, so Caleb left that on the flatbed. He barely listened to the total the cashier rattled off, but swiped the debit card, checked his phone for the PIN, and punched it in. The second the machine spit out a receipt, he grabbed the scrap of paper and tore it free, tossed it in one of the bags, then ushered her to the cart. He took the flatbed with the flooring and jerked it behind him as he all but ran out of the store. He had the truck half loaded before she reached the parking lot.
Carlotta suppressed a smile. If he was half as aroused by the idea of a long, wet, hungry kiss as she was…then, yes, she was impatient to be out of the unromantic orange of the big-box store and to reach someplace more private.
On the drive back to the new house, Caleb remained intensely focused on the road. He gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. Thick silence shrouded the cab of the truck. Two yellow lights and a sharp turn into the driveway later, he brought his truck to a quick stop, then killed the engine. His abruptness startled her a bit.
“Out of the car, Lottie.”
Suddenly, the swarm of butterflies in her stomach attacked. It was one thing to ponder kissing a man when she was desperately out of practice. After all, she had not kissed anyone since their second date. What happened if things heated beyond a kiss? She was not twenty-one anymore. Her body showed it. The thought of being naked in front of Caleb filled her with anxiety.
But no denying that she had missed having a man’s touch. Being with Eduardo had been a rush of love, but short on actual pleasure. They had come to one another virgins, and the babies had come so quickly that they’d had very little time for satisfying sex. They had spent the next years being parents…and then a violent man had snuffed out Ed’s life. Gordon had been her only other lover, and he had approached sex as he had everything else—selfishly.
She suspected that being with Caleb would be totally different. He might be a man of military precision, but he had the drive and ambition to be successful at any endeavor he undertook. The thought that he could give her true pleasure both excited and terrified her.
“Lottie?”
Whipping around toward his voice, she saw him standing at the passenger door of the truck, holding it open and watching her with a concerned expression.
She smiled and set her hand in his. Caleb gently tugged her down and against his body. He was hard all over, his eyes narrow as he studied her. His breathing fell in low pants on her face.
“Caleb?”
“Come with me,” he said finally and pulled her away from the truck and up the walkway to the kids’ new front door.
With a press of his key fob, he locked the vehicle. Carlotta looked over her shoulder as Caleb shoved the key in the lock and opened the door to the house.
“Are we leaving everything in the truck?”
Caleb pulled her into the house and shut the door, then backed her against the wall beside it. He settled every angle of his body to her soft curves and cupped her cheek. “I’m trying like hell to go slow and not scare you away again, but the way I want you…” He swallowed. “If you’re going to say no, say it now, Lottie.”
She drew in a shocked breath and blinked up at him. The way his fingers curled around her neck, the way those incredibly blue eyes delved deep into her, the desire tightening his face…he would not stop with a kiss.
The Catholic girl in her said that a good female did not have sex out of wedlock. The fifty-year-old woman whimpered that revealing herself to a man as fit and beautiful as Caleb would be nothing short of embarrassing. The hungry woman in her with thirty years of lackluster sex in her past wanted to know just this once what it meant to splinter apart because an experienced man had the patience and care to unravel her.
To hell with guilt and insecurity.