“Let’s make a wager: you manage to hide for fifteen seconds and I’ll give you something nice.” He flips his hood back, and I have to hold in a small gasp at the beauty of his hair. It really is the color of sunshine and spun gold; I wish I saw it more often.
“Nice, how?” I query, shaking out my hands. “Oral sex? That’s Hael’s favorite thing to bet.”
“Even better than that,” Cal says, pulling a pack of gum from his hoodie pocket. He unwraps a single stick and folds it into his mouth. “Now,” he puts his hands on either of my shoulders and leans in close to my face, smelling like mint and sweet things. The scent is completely at odds with his aura, this dangerous swirl of smoke and long-buried bones. “You run; you hide. I’m going to count to sixty in my head.”
Callum releases me, and I feel this surge of adrenaline take over that I didn’t expect. It feels like a serious PTSD reaction to the idea of hide-and-seek, one of Neil’s favorite games to play with me and Penelope as children. I almost choke as I turn and sprint into the yard, around the corner of the house and toward the old playhouse. It’s been here for years, slowly rotting away.
Hiding inside the house seems too obvious, but there’s a space underneath it that I know I can crawl into, a hole dug by Aaron’s first and only dog. I remember her, actually, this beautiful golden retriever that his father took to a bar one night and ended up trading in exchange for some of his debt. Nobody ever bothered to fill the hole in, so here it is: big enough to hide a body.
I hit the dirt on my knees and shimmy underneath, cursing under my breath at the pulling in my side. I cannot fucking wait to get these stitches out.
As soon as I’m under, I do my best to control my breathing. It seems impossible though, with the adrenaline making my heart pound like a heard of galloping horses. You can do this, I tell myself, but then I glance over and see Kali’s rotten face in the darkness. My breath catches, and I almost scream.
“Hide-and-seek?” she mocks. “How fitting. One of your worst nightmares, and you’re using it as a game.”
But I’m not.
I trust Cal’s instincts. If he thinks he can teach me to move the way he does by playing children’s games, then I’ll do it.
A hand clamps on my ankle and drags me from the hole as I do my best to swallow a scream. Callum releases me as soon as I’m free of the playhouse, standing up as I roll onto my back and stare up at him.
He smiles.
“You made too much noise running over here. Slow and steady wins the race, Bernie.” Cal nods at me again, pushing up the sleeves of his hoodie to reveal his tattoos. The desperate ballerina on his arm stays slumped over, mourning a dream that will never come true. “Try again.”
Callum turns away, and I stand up. This time, I take his advice into account and move as slowly and quietly down the cement walkway as I can. Since I’m moving more slowly, I can’t cover as much ground, settling for crouching behind a trellis covered in winter-dead roses, as black as a corpse’s fingers and in desperate need of trimming.
I’ve not fully settled into a crouch before Callum appears beside me, like a demon summoned from the lengthening shadows of early evening. This time, I do jump, but he just laughs at me.
“You took too long,” he tells me, licking the edge of his pink mouth. “Again.”
I stand up and dart from the bushes as fast as I can, slowing down only when I near my next hiding spot: the house. Cal never said I couldn’t hide in here.
When I slip inside and Aaron sees me, I put a finger to my lips, winking to let him know it’s nothing serious. He raises a brow but stays where he is, settled on the couch with the girls flailing around in their VR headsets in front of him.
I tiptoe down the hall, slip into the master bedroom, and hide behind the open door. If the sliders in here hadn’t been locked, I’d have gone in that way.
Closing my eyes, I try to guess if it’s been a minute or not.
I have no idea, so I start to count down from fifteen, just to see if I can make it that long.
Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen …
The door slams closed, and I open my eyes to see Cal standing in front of me in the dark.
“What gave me away this time?” I ask, my voice soft, almost tentative.
“I could smell you,” he whispers back, putting his palms on the wall on either side of my head. “Like peaches and leather. But you did better this time.” He leans close and breathes me in. “I have the advantage here, since I know your scent so well.”
“Creepy,” I whisper, but when he drops his mouth to mine and kisses me like he’s absorbing my very essence, I know that I don’t care. He might be a scary motherfucker, but he’s here for me. He can’t dance anymore; there is only me, only Bernadette.
Callum pushes his body up against mine, pinning me to the wall with his lean form. My hands slide up under his hoodie and t-shirt, finding the planes and valleys of his lower abs. They contract at my touch, and he sucks in a sharp breath.
“Do I still get the prize?” I whisper and Cal chuckles, pulling away from me just enough to talk.
“No.” He grabs my arm and leads me toward the bed, leaning in to put his lips near my ear. “But you can have something else.”
He pushes me down on the mattress and then crouches on the floor, sliding one of my boots off and then the other. He takes his time, too, setting them aside before removing my socks and pressing his thumbs into the arch of one foot.
It feels so damn good that I throw my head back with a throaty moan.
“This is my punishment for losing?” I whisper, not wanting Aaron or the girls to hear. Likely, they’ll be in virtual reality land for a while, but I’m not risking it. “A foot massage?”
“Punishment?” Cal queries back, his voice as husky as mine. “Whoever said you were being punished? You just didn’t win the prize—this time. But that’s okay: we’ll play again.” He lifts up from the floor like his body is weightless, like moving it around costs him nothing, takes no effort at all.
It’s a lie; we both know he’s in constant pain.
Cal grabs me by the hips and pulls me toward the edge of the mattress, unbuttoning my jeans and pulling down the zipper while he maintains eye contact. I don’t ask what, exactly, it is that we’re doing now. It seems pretty obvious.
That is, until I try to sit up and undo Cal’s pants and he pushes my hands away.
“No,” he repeats, while still smiling. “And don’t give me that look. I’m not Oscar; I like being touched. But this is still a lesson. You’re going to learn how to be quiet.” He pulls my jeans down, leaving my panties in place.
Cal crouches back down and pushes my knees apart, dropping his mouth to my inner thigh. He doesn’t touch me with his lips however, choosing to breathe against my skin and make me shiver instead. It’s near torture as he trails his fingertips along my thigh, tapping, tickling, but refusing to take it any further, even as my hips buck in response.
My panties are already soaked through; I can feel them.
“Cal,” I breathe, trying to guide his face, but he just laughs at me, the sound a near physical sensation as his breath flutters against the sensitive flesh of my upper thigh.
“Patience, Bernadette,” he chastises, finally granting me a single kiss to the inside of my knee. My entire body breaks out in goose bumps. “Yet another skill you need to learn.” He continues moving those perfect lips down my leg, kissing me gently on the calf, the foot. His thumbs knead my arch again, working some of the tension from my right foot.
I try to be patient like he’s asked, but it isn’t easy.
“Get on the bed with me,” I murmur, but Cal just locks his blue gaze with mine, his face shrouded in the half-dark. His hood is still pushed back, blond hair an ashy gold color in the shadows of the room.
“Not yet.” He kisses his way back up my leg, running his tongue along the length of my thigh as I lean back on my elbows and try to remember to breathe. When I do manage to catch my breath, pulling in a sharp inhale, the sound is loud. “Focus on keeping your breathing slow and controlled for me.”
He pushes my knees apart with gentle fingers tipped in blue nails, putting his mouth up against the front of my panties. Slowly, Cal presses his lips and tongue against my core, teasing my body through the fabric.
My heartrate picks up, and I struggle to swallow a groan of longing. Too slow, too drawn-out. I just want him to tear that slip of silk off, so he can fuck me. But maybe that’s the prize I didn’t win tonight?
My body turns speckled with beads of sweat as Cal holds my trembling legs apart, kissing and sucking at the fabric over the aching heat of my core. The need for him to go further becomes almost unbearable, and I lift my hands to my own breasts, squeezing them through my shirt and bra as I close my eyes.
One of Cal’s palms skims up my belly and under my shirt until it’s resting against my heart.
“Still so jumpy,” he murmurs, pulling his mouth away and then sitting up. He moves his right hand to my waist, matching its position on my other side with his left. I open my eyes to find that he’s still watching me, sliding his hands up and catching the hem of my shirt with his thumbs. Cal lifts it up and over my head, tossing it aside and then pressing his mouth against my lower belly.
He licks his way up, using those careful fingers of his to pull the cups of my bra down, freeing my breasts and the hardened pink points of my nipples to the warm air. It’s cozy inside this house, even if it’s bitingly cold outside. Aaron’s done a good job, making this place feel like home.
My hands dig into Callum’s blond hair as he puts his mouth to one of my nipples, sucking and licking, savoring the taste of me with a low murmur of appreciation.
“This is a good test for me, too,” he breathes, biting down on my right nipple and making me cry out. I curse myself under my breath, but if I listen carefully, I can still hear the girls shrieking and playing on the other side of the wall. Nobody heard me. Not yet anyway. “There’s so much more I could be doing to you right now.”