Where Do We Go (2/2)
Title: Where Do We Go (2/2)
Pairing: Lightman/Foster
Rating: NC-17
Summary: A man from Cal's past is bent on revenge and finds it during one late night at the Lightman Group building. Will his actions drive Cal and Gillian apart, or will they find a way to move forward together?
CONTENT WARNING: This story deals with dark themes and contains references to sexual violence, rape, and forced sex. That probably makes it sound a lot worse than it really is! But I want to be sure to warn away people who will be upset or offended by this type of subject matter. I do not take issues like sexual assault or rape lightly. This scenario occurred to me and I couldn’t get it out of my head. I wondered how Cal and Gillian’s relationship would be impacted if someone else forced them to cross their self-imposed line. I’ve tried to handle the subject matter with respect and sincerely hope I’ve succeeded. I promise that actual violence is kept to a minimum (the bad guy gets the worst of it, for sure).
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When the police came they handcuffed Benson and wheeled him out on a stretcher, then took each of them into a different conference room for separate interviews. Cal tried to respect Gillian’s feelings to not use loaded words when he went over what happened, keeping it as simple as he could. Benson wanted revenge and he got it. Under threat of gunpoint, he had forced Cal to touch Ria Torres in a sexual manner, and then have intercourse with Dr. Gillian Foster. It didn’t really matter what words Cal used: it sounded like a horror story.
Cal watched with clinical detachment as disgust, embarrassment, and anger flashed over the faces of the cops who interviewed him. They pitied him. Felt angry for Torres and Gillian. Maybe even wondered if there was something he could have done to stop Benson. Cal wouldn’t blame them. He wondered the same thing.
By the time his interview was over, Cal wanted nothing more than to go home and pour himself a stiff drink. It was the only way he would get any sleep tonight. He already knew what he would see when he turned out the lights: Gillian’s eyes wide with fear, the blood on her head, the way her face tensed slightly when Cal thrust into her the first time.
It was bad enough that he had fucked her. Worse that his heart rate quickened even now when he thought about how she had felt wrapped around him. He was a goddamn animal. Maybe Benson had known what he was doing tonight, or maybe he had just gotten lucky. Either way, he had managed to hit Cal Lightman exactly where it hurt.
And goddamn, did it hurt.
Cal escorted the cops to the door and thanked them for their time. There would no doubt be more questions later, but at least they were done for tonight. The three of them were free to go home. Gillian was still in her office. Cal hadn’t seen her since she had walked out of the room after they disarmed Benson.
He knew he would have to go to her, that they needed to talk, but he didn’t want to. Part of him yearned to walk out of the Lightman Group building, possibly forever, and forget about what had happened here tonight. Not that he could do that to Gillian. Not after what had passed between them.
Torres walked to the front door, pulling her jacket on. “I don’t think I’ll be in tomorrow. I know we’ve got the Andrews case-”
“No.” Cal shook his head. Going back to their daily routine seemed impossible at the moment, let alone straight away. “Take the week.”
Torres stopped, then met his gaze. “Just tomorrow. I’ll be in on Thursday.”
Cal searched her face for some clue as to how she was doing. Torres was good. Even now her impassive mask hadn’t dropped. She could be traumatized beyond belief or barely perturbed, for all he could tell. “Thursday, then.”
“Good night,” Torres turned to open the door and Cal caught the barest hint of worry in her eyes. Uncertainty.
“Ria,“ Cal said in a quiet voice.
Her shoulders tensed slightly. She turned to face him with pure steel in her gaze. “Yeah?”
“I’m so sorry. It kills me that you got involved in that, and I-“
“It wasn’t your fault, Lightman.” Sometimes Torres could be brash and uncontrolled, but not now. He had never seen her hold her emotions so tightly inside. “I know you feel shame about what happened. But please know I don’t blame you.”
Cal nodded, too embarrassed to say more. “We’re all right, then? You and me?”
“I’m a big girl. I’ll be fine,” Torres said. It looked like she was telling the truth. At least he hoped she was. “Foster’s the one who needs you right now.” She put a hand on the door, then glanced back at him. “I don’t know what to call what happened back there between you two, but it didn’t look like rape to me, either.”
Cal swallowed the urge to lash out at Torres. Keeping his voice even, he said, “It doesn’t really matter what you two want to call it.”
Torres tilted her head. “Doesn’t it?” She didn’t wait for an answer, just walked out the door and into the night. Cal turned her words over in his head as he watched her go.
He supposed it mattered a little. To some extent. Cal knew he and Gillian had crossed their line earlier, that what happened between them had brought long-buried feelings into the open. Gillian didn’t consider it rape. But that didn’t mean she had chosen to have sex with him. Cal didn’t know how to feel about the boundaries they had so carefully constructed being destroyed against their will. Especially because it had excited him so bloody much.
Cal stood staring at the front door. He could just follow Torres out to the parking lot. There was a bottle of scotch waiting for him at home. Drinking away reality had never sounded so good. After a moment of hesitation, he walked to the front door and locked it. Better safe than sorry. He wasn’t going anywhere.
Crossing the hall to Gillian’s office, Cal took a deep breath and knocked on the door. “Foster?”
“Come in, Cal.”
Her voice sounded so quiet and sad. Cal turned the knob slowly and poked his head inside, not knowing quite what to expect. Gillian sat in her leather office chair, hands pressed flat against her desk. He could see her trembling from the doorway.
“I just wanted to check on you before I…” Cal gestured behind him with his head, gazed longingly at the front door, then forced himself to step inside Gillian’s office and look at the turbulent emotion that flowed from her like an open wound. “You all right?”
A microexpression of fear. Cal knew Gillian didn’t think that he would hurt her physically, but she was definitely scared of something. “How’s Ria?” Gillian said. “I didn’t get a chance to talk to her…after.”
Classic deflection. Cal shrugged. “Doing as well as one would expect, I guess. She’s gone home. Taking the day off tomorrow.”
“That sounds like a good idea.” Gillian’s chin trembled. “I regret asking her to work late tonight. She shouldn’t have even been here.”
“Not your fault,” Cal said softly. “She doesn’t blame you.”
“Doesn’t make me feel any better about it.”
He understood. Nothing was going to make him feel better about what had happened, either. “I suggested she take the week off, but she said she’ll be in on Thursday.”
Gillian nodded. “She’s tough.” Sorrow passed over her features.
“Back to my first question,” Cal said. “Are you all right?”
“Am I all right?” Gillian repeated quietly. She closed her eyes then exhaled, and her fear seemed to melt away. She smiled, opening her eyes. “No, I don’t think so.” Her gaze finally found his. “Are you?”
Cal considered lying for only an instant. “No, love. I’m not.”
Gillian stood and walked to her couch, sitting down carefully. Then she patted the empty cushion beside her. “Sit with me?”
Cal crossed the room in what felt like slow-motion and eased onto the corner of the couch. He told himself he was just trying to give her space. But he knew he kept his distance because he didn’t feel worthy of being close to Gillian anymore. He had contaminated her again, through far more than just the touch of his skin on hers. It was his past that brought Benson here. It had been bad enough when it was just fallout from his business dealings that hurt her. What happened tonight made their financials seem utterly trivial.
Gillian might not think it was rape, but Cal’s cock had gotten hard even as he saw fear in her eyes. What kind of man could get it up when his best friend was terrified? Cal moved to stand, suddenly certain that he couldn’t face her.
Gillian caught his hand, stopping him from walking away. “Please don’t.”
Cal exhaled. Regardless of her feelings for him, he didn’t understand how Gillian wasn’t more shaken by how easily he had been able to fuck her. “I’m not sure I know how to stay.”
“Just stay.” Gillian didn’t let go of his hand. Her fingers felt warm curled around his, and he found that he couldn’t leave her. He didn’t want to leave her.
Cal sat down again. “I’m being a coward, aren’t I?”
“We’re both scared.”
Cal held his breath when she pulled his hand into her lap, then closed his eyes, remembering. What it felt like to touch her. The warmth of her skin. Being inside of her.
“I’ve never seen you like this,” Gillian murmured.
“Pretty sure I’ve never felt like this.” Cal opened his eyes. All his practiced confidence was gone, the wall he built around himself to keep people at a distance crumbled at his feet. “Can’t say I much like it. I guess Benson got what he wanted.”
Gillian shook her head. “No. He wanted you to lose my trust. You haven’t.”
Cal stared at a spot on the couch next to Gillian’s shoulder. He didn’t want her to see just how vulnerable he felt. “I’m sorry for upsetting you before. When I said you had been raped.”
Gillian stiffened and Cal was afraid he’d fucked up again. The word seemed to hang between them like a dark stranger in the room. Then Gillian relaxed, using her free hand to run a fingertip over Cal’s earlobe. “Benson didn’t make me kiss you, Cal.”
Cal shivered. No, that had been all Gillian. “Yeah, about that. Why did you?”
“Because I wanted to. Because I’d be damned if we were going to-” Gillian’s throat moved and she ducked her head to meet his gaze head-on. “What I said before, about saying to hell with the line. You know I meant that, right?”
“Yeah.” Cal had seen it in her eyes. Not that she had any choice at that moment, as far as their line went. That’s what made this all so confusing.
“Then why do you feel so guilty?” Gillian lifted his hand and cradled it to her chest, holding him close. Cal inhaled sharply at the press of her breast against the backs of his fingers. “He forced you just as much as he forced me. It wasn’t something we chose to do, but it wasn’t anything I hadn’t thought about. Or that I imagine you haven’t thought about.”
Embarrassed to admit how much, Cal opened his mouth but didn’t respond.
His hesitation seemed to send her into a bit of a tailspin. Gillian blinked rapidly and said, “At least I guess I hope you’ve thought about it. Haven’t you thought about it?”
“Of course I have,” Cal said. But the admission made him feel dirty. He covered the shame with a smile that felt like a grimace. “That doesn’t mean we would have ever gone there together.”
“Maybe not.” Gillian ran her fingers over his, sending another shiver through his body. His cock threatened to harden again, unleashing a fresh wave of guilt. “There it is again. Tell me what’s got you feeling so bad about yourself.”
She wasn’t going to let it go and Cal didn’t know what to say. So he opted for radical honesty. “It felt incredible to be inside you, Gillian. Even though I knew you were scared.” He felt her heart begin to pound against his hand. “How could I not feel like a bastard about that, love?”
“You’re a man, Cal. We’re attracted to each other. And we’ve been moving toward this for some time now. Haven’t we?”
“I suppose we have.” Cal thought back to their flirtation in the viewing room earlier, and the obvious pleasure she had taken from it. What if they had been able to make a real start, instead of being forced into this mess? “It just wasn’t supposed to happen this way.”
“Of course it wasn’t. But it did.” Gillian squeezed his hand tighter against her chest. “So I guess the question is where do we go from here?”
“Where can we go?” It wasn’t a rhetorical question. Cal asked because he needed an answer. He had no idea what their options were. Could they ever go back to dancing around their line, now that it had been destroyed?
“How about forward?” Gillian stared into his eyes. It felt like she was daring him to look away. “Come home with me tonight.”
“Gillian-“
“I want you in my bed, Cal. On my own terms.”
“I don’t think that’s-“
“Just to sleep. I need you with me tonight. I need to feel you breathing next to me.”
He knew if they went their separate ways and he had time to think too hard, he was going to push her away again. Not because that’s what he wanted, it’s just what would happen. So he grabbed onto her invitation as though she was throwing him a life preserver. “All right. Whatever you need.”
“Thank you.” Gillian smiled and tilted her head, touching his face gently. Cal leaned into her warmth and stared into her eyes. He searched for her true feelings there, not much trusting that everything was really okay. No matter what she said. It was only a matter of time before the other shoe dropped, and Cal didn’t want to let his guard down.
Gillian’s lips parted as she studied his face. “Why do you do that?”
“What?”
“Shut me out,” Gillian said. “It feels like every time I’m about to see the real Cal Lightman, he runs away and hides.”
“I think we already established that I’m a bit of a coward when it comes to you, love.” Cal was too tired to be anything but honest with her. He rested his head on the back of the couch, pressing his lips against Gillian’s shoulder. “Can we go home now?”
Gillian scratched her fingers through his hair and he suppressed a groan. He loved a woman’s nails on his scalp, and Gillian had never done this for him before. She gave him a gentle smile. “You can drop the mask, you know.”
“Or you could stop trying to read me.” Cal offered her an exhausted grin. “It’s been a long day and it’d be brilliant if I didn’t have to work so hard at looking like I’m not about to fall apart.”
“Simple solution, Lightman. Just let me inside.” Gillian tugged on his hair and he shivered. “Please.”
If only it were that easy. Cal was so used to hiding vulnerability that he wasn’t sure he knew how to let anyone see it anymore. Especially Gillian. “If I promise to work on it, could we go home?”
Gillian nodded and stood. “Come on. Want to follow me in your car?”
“No.” Now that Cal had decided to stay the night with her, he didn’t want to lose sight of Gillian for even a moment. “We’ll ride together.”
“I’ll drive, then.” Gillian helped him to his feet. She got her purse, then led him to her office door by the hand. “Let’s go.”
#
The ride home was quiet. Cal didn’t know what to say and thankfully Gillian didn’t try to make him talk. Sometimes he just needed to sit and stew, and she was usually a fair judge of when to leave him to it. He knew they weren’t done talking yet, but he was grateful for the reprieve.
When they got to Gillian’s house they met at the back of the car and linked fingers again. She walked them to the front door then released his hand to dig in her purse. The night air chilled him as soon as they stopped touching, and he jammed his hands into his pockets and watched her fumble with her keys. When she got the door unlocked she immediately reached for him and pulled him inside.
Cal had slept in her guest room before. Tonight would be his first time in her bedroom. The thought had him both scared and excited. Cal walked to the middle of her living room and stood awkwardly while she dropped her purse on the dining room table. He waited for her to tell him what to do next.
“I really need a shower,” Gillian said. “Wash this night away.” She gave him a tremulous smile that laid her bare, leaving her so open and exposed it took his breath away. Was that what she wanted from him? So much naked, uncontrolled emotion? Sometimes Cal felt like he couldn’t breathe when he let himself feel too much. And right now he was feeling far, far too much.
Cal eyed the dried blood on her forehead with a wince. “Brilliant idea.” In fact, nothing had ever sounded better. He could feel every drop of blood and bodily fluid on his skin. Suddenly being clean became an obsession. “I think I’ll have one, too. Is there a towel in your guest bathroom?”
Gillian stepped close to him and put a hand on his chest. “Join me?”
“You really want that?” Cal asked. As much as he didn’t want to leave her, the thought of being so close to her nudity again was frightening. He didn’t know how he would react, or even how he should react. “I mean, after what happened-”
“Please, Cal. I need it. Because of what happened.”
“Right.” No matter how nervous he was, Cal intended to surrender control to Gillian. It seemed only right. And he wanted so badly to have faith that she knew the right thing to do. “Lead the way, then.”
Gillian walked to her bedroom, looking over her shoulder as though making sure he didn’t make a break for it. Cal trailed behind her and puzzled over what she was feeling. He wouldn’t have guessed she would want to be so vulnerable with him after the night she’d had. It wasn’t as though Cal had been the only one to touch her. Benson had smacked her around. What if being naked in the shower with him triggered her into some kind of panic or flashback?
Then again, maybe she really did need him there. Maybe she needed for Cal to prove that he still found her attractive, that he wasn’t disgusted by what had happened. That he could let her call the shots.
“You need to trust me, okay?” Gillian closed the bedroom door behind them, putting a hand on Cal’s arm. Her face told him that he was doing a shit job of hiding his anxiety.
“It’s not you I don’t trust.”
“Well, I trust you. And that’s going to have to be good enough.” Gillian went into the master bathroom and turned on the shower. Cal stood in the doorway, watching silently as she came to him and presented her back. “Unzip me?”
Cal’s hand shook as he worked the zipper down the curve of her spine. Gillian kicked off her shoes then pushed her dress off her shoulders, allowing it to fall and pool around her ankles. Then she stepped out of it toward the shower and checked the water temperature with her hand.
Cal stared down at himself, feeling less and less certain where to start. He looked up at Gillian but tore his gaze away when she reached behind her back to unhook her bra.
“I think we’re way past being shy, Cal.” Gillian gave him a smile tinged with sadness. “Please don’t let me be the only one with no clothes on.”
The words kick-started him into action. Cal unbuttoned his shirt and let it drop to the floor. He watched Gillian slip off her panties and hesitated with his hands on the button of his pants. Now that they were alone, he was able to really look at her. And she was breathtaking. Her body was so womanly, with delicious curves in all the right places. He allowed himself a moment to stare at her breasts, overwhelmed by how beautiful he found her.
“It’s okay,” Gillian said, drawing his attention to her face. “I’m still attracted to you, too.” She gave him a confident, open smile. “Now get in here.”
Gillian stepped into the shower and moaned quietly when the steaming water hit her skin. She pulled the shower curtain closed, obscuring Cal’s view of her body. He thumbed open the button on his pants. Hesitating only a moment, he shed his boxer briefs and walked into the shower after Gillian.
Cal closed his eyes as the water hit his chest, ducking his head so that it soaked his hair and ran in rivulets down this face. He combed his fingers through his hair and scrubbed, then backed out of the spray and shook his head. When he opened his eyes Gillian was staring into them.
“Hey,” she said quietly.
“Hey.” The air between them was charged. Emotion welled in Cal’s throat and he put out a hand to touch Gillian’s arm, not sure how else to ground himself. He didn’t want to break down, goddamn it. But if she kept staring at him like that, he wasn’t sure how he’d hold it together. He grabbed her other arm and gently turned her around. “Let me wash your hair.”
If she knew he was trying to avoid eye contact, Gillian didn’t let on. She handed him a bottle of shampoo over her shoulder. “Thank you.”
Cal squeezed a dollop of shampoo into his palm, then set aside the bottle so he could rub his hands together to work up a lather. He buried his fingers in her soft, thick hair, massaging the soap into her scalp. Gillian moaned, low and throaty, and Cal’s nostrils flared as his cock got hard all over again.
Fuck. Cal kept up his massage of her scalp, not wanting her to turn around and see his erection. It didn’t really matter that he was standing naked in the shower with a very wet Gillian Foster. As good an excuse for being turned on as that was, it felt like no excuse at all. Why couldn’t his body just recognize how inappropriate arousal was after what they’d been through?
Gillian grabbed a loofah sponge and squirted some soap onto it, then went to work scrubbing the front of her body. Cal brought his face close to the back of her neck and inhaled. This is what Gillian smelled like every day: a heady combination of shampoo, soap, and something uniquely her. Cal loved those smells. The sight of her arm working the sponge over her breasts and between her legs was doing nothing to quell his interest.
Gillian offered him the loofah. “Get my back?”
“Sure.” Cal grabbed the sponge and exhaled. He ran it over her shoulders, down her spine, to the dip in her lower back. Closing his eyes, he soaped her bottom, trying to ignore the perfect shape of it beneath his hand.
“Thanks,” Gillian murmured. She turned to face him and their eyes met.
Cal knew she could see right through him, and his first instinct was to retreat. To crack a joke. Even leave the bathroom altogether if he had to.
“Let me wash your hair now.” Gillian picked up the shampoo and had a coin-sized pool in her palm before he could refuse. She rested both arms on his shoulders, trapping him in front of her, and rubbed the shampoo into his hair while her fingernails scraped against his scalp. Her breasts brushed against his bare chest, and he jerked his hips backward, not wanting her to feel what she was doing to him.
“You’re going to bloody kill me, darling,” Cal said quietly. It was a warning as well as a plea. This was getting to be too much: a terrifying overload of arousal, fear, relief, and soul-crushing love. He could have lost her today. Benson could have pulled that trigger and taken Gillian Foster away from him forever. But he hadn’t. Even what Benson had done didn’t seem to have scared Gillian away. Cal’s chest tightened as a sob welled up. “Please,” he begged her. “I need to-“
“I’m here, Cal. Be here with me.” Gillian rubbed her thumbs over his temples and leaned her forehead against his. “It’s all right.”
Something snapped inside of him. Cal reached for Gillian’s face with the desperation of a dying man. He stroked his hands over her cheeks, then her mouth, pushing one fingertip between her lips. She trapped his finger between her teeth, never breaking their eye contact.
Cal opened his mouth to speak, but found he had no words. Gillian released his finger with a gentle swipe of her tongue across the tip.
“I know,” Gillian whispered. “It’s okay.”
Cal dropped his hands to Gillian’s throat and bent to kiss the warm skin between his thumbs, poking out his tongue out to lick at the steady thrum of her pulse. That she was alive and in his arms was more than he could process. Everything he was feeling was written all over his face, and for once, Cal didn’t try to stop Gillian from seeing.
Gillian clutched at his shoulders, biting her lip as her eyes filled with tears. Not sadness. Joy. Carried away by his need for her, Cal pressed Gillian against the wall of the shower and let his body touch hers. He kept his hands on her throat and trailed kisses to the corner of her mouth.
“I love you,” Cal said. Wrapping his arms around her, he pulled her as close as she could get. Her body was warm and slippery, and so supple, and his hard cock pressed against her, but the embrace wasn’t about lust. It went so much deeper than that, so deep that Cal could hardly breathe. “I was so scared I was going to lose you. You’re my best friend and I can’t…I can’t lose you.”
“I love you, too.” Gillian clung to him, both hands in his hair again. She was shaking. “And you haven’t.”
Cal held her against the shower wall, wanting so badly to get closer, not knowing how. “This okay?”
“More than okay.” Gillian dropped a hand to his lower back, keeping him in place. “The real Cal Lightman takes my breath away.”
Cal drew back and studied her face. “Funny, that. You do the same to him.”
Gillian flushed and lowered her gaze. “I’ve wanted to be with you like this for so long.” Her voice broke on the words, and she tugged lightly on his short hair with a watery grin. “I was afraid it might never happen. I’m glad it did. No matter how we got here.”
Cal looked down at the scant space between their bodies. Gillian’s breasts were crushed against his chest, their arms entangled. Water pooled between them with no way to escape. “So what do we do now?”
Gillian used the hand on his lower back to pull his hips into hers. Desire surged through Cal. He had never seen Gillian like this before. So confident and unguarded, and utterly gorgeous. "Let's go to bed and remind ourselves that we're alive. And making the choice to celebrate that together."
The thought made his head spin. Cal didn’t know whether to slow things down or take Gillian’s hand and hold on tight. Gillian’s eyes studied his reaction and he saw a flicker of worry on her face.
Cal shook his head, cradling her chin in his hand. “It’s not that I don’t want that, love. But I thought we were just going to sleep.” Raging hard-on aside, Cal wanted to make it clear that sex was the last thing he needed from her tonight. He had already gotten more than he could have dreamed. “Believe me, I don’t need anything more than you in my arms.”
“I believe you.” If he hadn’t already been hard, the coy smile Gillian gave him would’ve made him that way. “But I don’t think I can just sleep after that.”
No matter how surprised he was, Cal had to trust that Gillian knew what she wanted. It wasn’t like he didn’t want her just as badly. To drive away thoughts of what had happened earlier, to have a first time he could remember fondly. To be as close to her as possible.
Cal stepped away from Gillian and helped her off the shower wall. He turned off the water, then moved the curtain aside to grab a towel from the rack. Pink and fluffy. Very Foster. Unfolding it, he put it around Gillian’s shoulders and tugged her into his embrace. Cal lay his head on her shoulder and rubbed his hands up and down her back, drying her off.
After a moment Gillian stopped him by dropping her hands to his hips and giving him a firm squeeze. “Come on.” She unwrapped the towel from her body, rubbed it over Cal’s hair quickly, just enough to get the loose droplets off, then took his hand. She led him to her bed, pulling back the comforter and sheets with a shy smile.
Cal slipped beneath the covers beside her. He opened his arms and she crawled into his embrace with a sigh. It felt so right to hold her this way, Cal almost couldn’t remember why he ever would have thought it was wrong. Intellectually he still understood all his worries-losing his best friend, complicating his professional life-but here in her arms, it felt worth all the risk.
Gillian tilted her face up and he kissed her mouth, gently at first. When she deepened the kiss with an excited little moan, the last of Cal’s fears evaporated. He was in love with her, and she with him. There was no going back.
Cal moved over Gillian, holding her face in his hands as he returned her kiss. She threw her arms around his back and wrapped her legs around his hips, pulling him tightly against her body. Drawing him in. Keeping him close.
Cal lifted his head and stared down into Gillian’s eyes. Her body fit perfectly against his. His cock nestled between her thighs, the length of it pressed along her impossibly soft heat. On instinct he rocked against her, and Gillian matched him by pushing her hips into his. She was slippery wet, drawing the tip of his cock slightly inside.
With effort Cal stopped moving. He bent and kissed her neck, then shifted lower, covering her erect nipple with his mouth. Gillian gasped and scratched his back when he laved her with his tongue. The slight pain of her nails on his shoulder blades kicked his heart rate up and sent a jolt of pleasure to his groin. When he tried to press a line of kisses down her torso, Gillian gripped his bicep tightly.
“Where are you going?” she asked breathlessly.
Cal picked up his head and gazed into her eyes. “I want to make you come in my mouth.”
“Not now.” Gillian tugged him back up so that they were face-to-face. “I need you right here. Kissing me. I need to feel you inside me.”
Lowering his mouth to hers, Cal gave Gillian a deep, slow kiss. She splayed her hands across his back and cradled his hips with her thighs. Literally enfolding him in her warmth. Cal broke away from their kiss and gritted his teeth as his cock slid over her labia, then grunted when Gillian angled her hips upward so that he slipped inside.
“Foster,” Cal groaned, closing his eyes tightly and burying his face in her damp hair. Gillian writhed against him and he had no choice but to match her rhythm, thrusting deeper. Her pussy clutched at him, squeezed him until he couldn’t think. He lifted his head and touched her throat again, staring into her eyes. All he saw was love. “This is exactly how it was supposed to be,” Cal murmured.
Gillian’s grin lit him up from the inside out. She slid her hands down to cup his ass, using her leverage to pull him against her. There was no fear, no hesitation. Just the two of them, together.
Cal knew he wasn’t going to last long. There was no way. Not his first time with Gillian, not when he was this emotionally exhausted. He mourned the end of their coupling before it was over, wanting to stay inside her forever.
Gillian moaned and whimpered as he thrust into her. She turned her head to the side and sucked on his fingers, face contorting with pleasure on every stroke. Watching her reactions spurred on his release, and there was disappointment but no surprise when he felt the telltale signs of orgasm after only a few minutes inside her.
“I’m so sorry, love,” Cal mumbled, embarrassed. He tried to disentangle himself, to pull back. “I swear I can usually go longer, but-“ Tightening his jaw, he tried to stave off the inevitable. “This is just too much.”
Gillian curled a hand around the back of his neck, scratching lightly with her nails. “Don’t go,” she murmured, tightening her legs around him. “Stay.”
Cal traced his thumbs over her eyebrows. “You sure?”
“Come inside me, Cal. Just don’t stop.”
Lowering his mouth to hers, Cal pressed his tongue inside Gillian’s mouth and kissed her hard. She brought her hips up into his, meeting him stroke for stroke. Cal held out as long as he could, but after a few more thrusts he lost control. When he felt himself start to tumble over the edge, Cal raised his face and gazed into Gillian’s eyes.
“Oh fuck,” Gillian whispered quietly, then arched her back beneath him. She cried out, a wild, breathy noise that immediately had him releasing inside her. Snaking his arm beneath her back, Cal held Gillian close, focusing on the thump of her heartbeat against his chest.
Cal stayed that way for a long time, even as his cock softened inside of her. He didn’t want to let her go. He buried his face in her neck again, feeling like he would cry if he let himself meet her eyes.
No matter how much he wanted to trust Gillian with the real Cal Lightman, he sure as hell wasn’t going to cry. Not after a shag, no bloody way.
Gillian rested her hands on his back, skimming her palms lightly over his skin. He waited for her to push him away, knowing she was bearing all his weight, but she didn’t. Instead she held him and kissed his temple.
“Now that was lovemaking.” Gillian sounded content in a way he had never heard before. Because of him.
Gathering his courage, Cal lifted his head and stared at her through wet eyes. “Yes, darling. It was.”
END