"Is the milkshake good enough to be...How did you put it the other week? Fuckable ice cream?"
Caleb leaned back on the couch, bringing a hand to his chin and letting his finger play on his lower lip. I felt his eyes on me as I drank the cold perfection. In my peripheral vision, I glanced over his outfit, still wearing his slacks and button down from the surprise wedding he'd planned perfectly.
I laughed through a sip. "Actually, no. It isn't."
He frowned but didn't get a moment to ask why. I pulled my straw out and flung it at him, watching as droplets of melted ice cream landed on the exposed part on the top of his chest, up his neck, and all over his cheek.
"Now it is."
When he pressed his tongue to the inside of his cheek and his eyes darkened, my breath hitched and stomach flipped. I set my cup on the table as quickly and carefully as I could, jumping up and bolting for the opposing side of the coffee table. I turned back to stare at Caleb. He sat in silence, mouth slow to shut. The only piece of him that moved after a minute of my heart racing in his paused retaliation's wake was his eyes. They lifted slowly, raking up my body like a licking flame of promise.
"Rachel," he spoke slowly in a low voice. Calm and controlled.
"Hm?"
"Get your ass over here, baby, before I paddle it."
I swallowed hard, my limbs thrumming for the chase I knew he'd give me if I took a backwards step. He saw it.
"Ah ah ah, little slut. You need to clean up your mess."
My knees were a mere word from buckling. I was stuck on the verge of running and falling to my knees, knowing either way I went would end the same.
"Now."
His demand seared my brain, and my legs did as I knew they were going to—they buckled. On my knees a few feet away from Caleb, his narrowed eyes pinned me and had my core clenching in needy desire.
"Take the dress off, and then I want you to crawl to me."
I shuddered through my next breath but did as he said. I pulled the dress over my head, thankful it wasn't complicated but the mere zipper on the side. With my hands and knees on the floor, I made slow work of the distance I had put between us. Only when I was settled at his feet did Caleb kick them apart to give me room to lift higher.
The buttons of his shirt seemed to take forever to release, but he didn't move. Still sitting with a finger to his lips and his gaze boring deep into me, he didn't break when I pushed his shirt open. I went to use my finger to wipe up the droplets from his chest, but Caleb caught my wrist.
"You can do better than that," he taunted, the lightest of teasing in the irises staring back at me.
Leaning up higher to rest my lace-covered ass on my heels, I slid my tongue over his chest. With the sweetness of the ice cream and the warmth of his skin, I moaned at the flavor when it slammed into my senses. Caleb dropped my wrist and tangled his newly-freed hand into the strands of my hair. When he pulled, I moaned again.
When his chest was clean, I moved to his neck, sucking and biting at it along the way.
It was impossible not to hear his breathing grow more labored the longer I used my mouth on him. Impossible not to feel the grip strengthening in my hair as he fought to keep himself in check. To not immediately lose myself and give in to a kiss when I had cleaned his neck and moved to his cheek.
I wasn't even sure how much I'd gotten off of it when he pulled me away from my task and slammed his lips to mine. Groaning into my mouth, Caleb kissed me like a man starving. His tongue pushed past my lips, stroking against mine enough that my pussy was jealous it wasn't there instead.
"Fuck," he whispered into the kiss. "This damn mouth of yours."
I pulled back with swollen lips, fumbling with the button of his slacks. When I got it undone and he lifted his hips to allow me to pull them off, I leaned forward and wrapped my mouth around the head of his cock before he could lift me to take me to bed.
"Shit! Fuck," he groaned, gathering my hair and holding it at the nape of my neck.
Working my mouth on him, I stroked the underside of his dick. Faster, then slower, sucking harder, then softer to tease. I felt him racing towards the brink. His legs began to tremble. With his grip on my hair, he pulled me back. Wrapping it around his cock, he stroked himself to release, watching with devious greed as his cum coated my chest and tits.
With a rough, guttural groan, Caleb dropped his hand from my hair and jerked his shirt from his shoulders.
"Bed," he rasped. "Ass to the edge."
I lifted to my feet in a daze and followed his order, swaying my hips to show my ass off in knowledge of his eyes on me.
With my back on the mattress and feet on the floor, Caleb was now the one kneeling between my legs. My thong was pulled from my body and tossed somewhere I didn't care enough to see. He wrapped his arms around my thighs and pulled me further, smirking when I squealed and then diving in.
His tongue was hot on my clit, teeth teasing it. I screamed when two fingers pressed into me and curled. Finger fucking me as his mouth worked me over, Caleb drove me insane until my hands were twisted and tangled in the quilt.
"I'm so fucking close," I whispered, the grip I had on the sheets causing an ache to grow in my fingers.
He kept at it, curling his fingers and sucking harder at my sensitive clit. I came hard with a thrash of my head on the bed. My heels dug into Caleb's shoulders, holding his face there until I could think straight again.
Licking his lips, he pulled away and dropped my legs to lie limp over the edge. He reached a hand up and ran his finger through the cum still on my chest and breasts. He gathered some on his finger and retreated his arm, then pressed his finger into the still-sensitive depths of my pussy.
I gasped. "What are you doing?"
He repeated the act twice more, slipping two fingers into my core the third time before answering my question.
"Putting it where it fucking belongs," he groaned, sitting back on his heels with his dark gaze fixated on my pussy. "Goddamn, that's pretty. Such a good little whore for me. Fuck, I want you full of my cum forever."
Goosebumps littered my skin when his hands skimmed up my calves and thighs, sliding just to the top of them before slipping back down, then up again. When I was a turned on mess all over again and he finally joined me on the bed, I let him prove what he'd just said.
_
I threw my head back with a wholehearted laugh. "I didn't hate you! I just didn't particularly...like you."
Caleb's look told me he didn't believe me in the slightest. "You hated me. Don't lie to me, baby. I can get the truth out of you."
I propped up on my elbow, resting my head in my palm. "I mean, we weren't really enemies, were we? I don't think we ever have been."
"Couldn't have been enemies when you were always coming back to me for sex, gorgeous."
I scoffed and shoved his shoulder with my free hand. "Excuse me? You started it! And that's moot point anyway. You can't be enemies with benefits, Caleb. That isn't a thing."
"Well, what would you call it?"
"Idiots. We were idiots," I laughed again, all but hearing Hailey screaming the truth in my ear.
I wondered how her night had turned out.
Caleb pursed his lips and shook his head. "Doesn't sound as inviting."
"Okay..." I started, giving it another shot. "Two stubborn idiots who didn't know how to communicate but also couldn't keep their hands to themselves?"
He threw his head back and bellowed a laugh. "That's even worse. You know what sounds better?"
When his hand started to trail up my naked side, I felt my nipples harden. I wiggled against the onslaught of arousal flooding me—like I hadn't already had four orgasms for the night.
Caleb, simultaneously oblivious and arrogant to what he was doing, whispered into the night, "Calling you my wife. Took long enough."
"Sap," I accused with an unsteady voice. I smirked and shied away when he narrowed his eyes, squealing when he began tickling my side.
"Fine. Bending you over my desk again. Like that first time? That sounds better." He groaned. "Fuck, you really do have such a perfect ass." He leaned in to kiss me softly. "You know something? I'd do it all again if I had to just to see you come back to me that first day."
"Hmm, no. You were rude as hell when I walked in that day," I reminded him, my mind easily drifting back.
"You liked it."
"I did not!"
Caleb slid closer, his head cocked with that crooked grin plastered on his lips. "You did, baby. You still do. The domineering attitude you said you hated so much. Being my little whore. You loved it then, and you love it now. Say it."
"No," my voice cracked again with the dryness in my throat.
Naturally, he caught it. "Such a liar. Get up, little slut. I want that sexy ass in the air, chest on the bed."
Body buzzing, I complied. Caleb groaned behind me at something before I felt his finger run through my slit. I moaned when it slipped into my core, back arching for more.
But then he pulled back.
"Open," he ordered, and I turned to see his finger, glistening with a mix of us, poised at my lips.
Obeying his command, I sucked his finger into my mouth, licking it clean. Taking advantage of my preoccupied state, Caleb grabbed hold of my hip with his other hand and began to press into me, stretching me again.
"Fuck yes," he breathed the words out.
Slow, languid strokes that had me wanting to bite at the sheets. He tortured and teased, rolling his hips low and torturous.
He leaned forward so his lips were closer to my ear. "Such a good fucking girl. See how good we taste? How well we fit? How your hot little cunt always sucks me back in like your mouth is now? Tell me, little whore of mine. Lie to me again and tell me you don't love all of it. All of me."
He slipped his finger from my mouth, wrapping his hand around my throat instead.
"I—"
He snapped his hips forward in a burst of pleasure, eliciting another scream from me.
"I—"
"You're not thinking of lying to me, baby, are you?"
Releasing my hip, he reached down and started to circle my clit, teasing me further. When I still didn't give him an answer, he squeezed my throat and halted his fingers and thrusts.
"Fuck! Caleb, I'm going to kill you. I love it. Okay? Fuck, I love it. And you. God, I love you so much."
"Yes," his voice was a rough growl. "Fuck yes," he groaned, slamming forward.
I screamed into the sheets, biting them. When his fingers started rubbing on my clit again, I felt my pussy clamp down on his cock and we flew together. His release poured into me as his hand moved back to my hip, grabbing with enough force that I knew I'd wear the bruises tomorrow. Just as he would wear the scratches I'd etched into his back earlier in the night. The heat of its possession bit into my soul and had another orgasm crashing through me before the other had even ended.
"Goddamn," Caleb gasped a growl when it hit, releasing my throat and fumbling for the headboard to keep from collapsing on top of me.
His hand smoothed up my back as I shuddered with the aftershocks of my too-intense releases.
"Such a good fucking girl. Fuck, I love you."
His praise shot through my body. I groaned and he chuckled, flipping us to our sides with his dick still buried high inside of me.
"I told you so," he whispered, his breath a tickle against my overheated skin. Biting down on my neck, Caleb groaned when I tightened on him at the slight pain.
"Fuck you," I laughed, pulling his hand up to kiss the ring. I spun it on his finger, again and again and again, watching with a soft smile as it twinkled under the dim light of the bedside lamp.
New yet not. Unblemished yet imperfect. Perfectly flawed, as were we.
We were a work in progress, just as we had been nine years ago. But this time, we were ready to tackle life together. No matter what was thrown our way.
Caleb's lips pressed against the crook of my shoulder, and I felt him smile against it. "Anytime, little wife of mine. Anytime at all."
_
Well, I don't know about you, but it was a wild ride to me to finally get here.
Thank you for the love and support along the way. I appreciate you all so, so much more than I could ever say.
I have a big question for you! Miscommunication tropes don't typically do all that well on Amazon and Kindle, but I've been asked more times than I can count when I'll be publishing this so people can have it on their shelf. If that's ever the case, it'll get a rewrite to be better, though the concept and plot will remain the same.
So! That being said, I just need a little poll here. Please let me know in the comments on this line if you'd like to see this book really come to life one day! It's okay if not, I'm merely curious because of the trope.
Thanks again for all the love! And thank you for joining me on their journey! While it's over in this book, both will make appearances in Hailey's book! Updates for Strip Me Down will start July 15, 2023!
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