and his tongue dragged against mine. I slid my fingers through his hair, angling my head to let him take the kiss deeper.
He kissed me slow, like warm maple syrup. Sweet and soft and a little messy. I melted against him, yielding to his gentle touch.
I wanted it all. I wanted him to devour me. But this wasn’t the unleashing of bottled up sexual tension. This was saturated with emotion, as if he was saying everything he couldn’t put into words with his kiss.
He pulled away slowly and rested his forehead against mine. “Shit.”
I kept my arms around his shoulders. “That bad?”
“No, too good. I wasn’t going to kiss you.”
“Too late.”
He nuzzled his nose against mine and I massaged his scalp with my fingertips. He seemed so much calmer. Like kissing me had drained all the stress and tension right out of him.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” he said.
I nodded, enjoying the closeness. The feel of his hands on my waist, his face next to mine. “I’m glad I’m here with you.”
“Me too, Callie. I’m so fucking glad.”
He drew me against him and wrapped his arms around me, holding me tight.
How long had it been since I’d been held like this? Strong arms surrounding me, protective and comforting. An embrace filled with emotion, not as a means to getting my clothes off. Although my body whispered soft suggestions—and we were certainly alone—this moment wasn’t about sex. And I didn’t want it to be. I didn’t want to be another notch in his bedpost. And he was more than something to make me feel a little bit less alone for a night.
Truthfully, I didn’t know what this was. He turned his face into my hair and breathed in deeply, his arms still wrapped tightly around me.
I wasn’t the girl who stayed. I always moved on. There was always another project, another artist. Another tour.
But maybe Jenny had been right. Maybe I had been running.
And maybe I was ready to stop.
22
GIBSON
Rain pattered on the roof and against the windows. A storm had rolled in after sunset, and it had been dumping out there for hours. I lay on the couch, my head on a pillow, a blanket over my legs, and stared at the ceiling, listening to the rain. Cash snored softly on his dog bed in the corner.
I couldn’t sleep. The memory of Callie’s lips against mine was visceral, like she’d imprinted herself on me. Her mouth had molded with mine so perfectly, her lips soft and sweet. I’d been trying so hard to hold back—to keep my feelings from showing. Hell, I barely knew what all those feelings meant.
But I’d cracked.
Despite the way I wanted her—the primal urge I’d been fighting to rip her clothes off—once I’d touched her, all that animalistic lust had taken a back seat. I’d never experienced anything like it.
I’d kissed her, but carefully. Like if I made one wrong move, she’d disappear. And it had felt better than any kiss—better than anything I’d had with a woman before. Sex was great; I enjoyed it as much as the next guy. But somehow kissing and holding her like that had been better.
It was really fucking with my head.
Because there was one thing that would explain what had happened to me today. One single reason that a simple kiss and a woman in my arms would have rocked my world like this. And it scared the living shit out of me to even think it.
I didn’t do love. I wasn’t cut out for it. I loved my family, even if I was terrible at showing it. But romantic love, relationships, commitment? That wasn’t for me.
My mama had made Scarlett promise she wouldn’t get married until she was thirty. She’d made us boys promise we wouldn’t get married for any reason, except one. Only if we were stupid in love.
She’d emphasized the word stupid.
I hadn’t kept to that promise because I felt obligated, like my sister. I’d kept it because it made damn good sense. People like Harlan and Nadine Tucker—happily married after so many years—seemed like the exception. My parents were the rule. Two people stuck together by circumstances they couldn’t control, making each other miserable.
Maybe that was where the stupid came in. Because when I thought about Callie, it was hard to see a future of resentment and regret. In fact, I realized as I lay there, if I let her go, that might become the biggest regret of my life.