Page 55 of Stay Baby Stay

My thoughts run in fifty different directions, like stray cats in a barn, imagining what our kitchen would look like. Our backyard. Our main bedroom. Not that Cal’s house would be mine, unless we were married...

As Kenzie would say,slow your roll, baby doll. He hasn’t even popped your cherry.

“Have you ever thought about being a dad?” I ask, turning the spotlight on him.

“A long time ago, sure,” he says. “My ex and I tried after we first got married. Gave up after it didn’t take.”

“Oh.” My arms fall to my sides. He’s never mentioned an ex-wife before, though in all fairness, I never asked if he’d been married. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He kneels on the carpet in front of me and takes my hands. “She and I called it quits years ago. She couldn’t handle a cop’s schedule and, to be honest, I was too caught up in my work to be an attentive husband, let alone a good dad.”

I nod like I understand, but the gesture feels phony. I guess this is par for the course when you date someone older; all the years between the two of you were years the other person spent living while you were learning to ride a bike without training wheels. Cal can’t help that he had a life before I came along. Just the same, I can’t help feeling insecure about it.

He loved someone enough to marry them. I want to pull my hands into my lap, curl up like a baby hedgehog, and roll away from this conversation.

“I know what you’re wondering.” He presses my palm to his cheek. “Do I still love her?”

My stomach twists. I nod.

“No,” he says. “In fact, I realized soon after we ended things how much my feelings toward her stemmed from a sense of obligation. She wanted to get married. I thought it was what men my age did, so I bought a ring.”

His openness about his marriage comforts me, even if I still don’t like talking about it.

“I think she assumed I’d be working less after we got hitched,” he says. “That didn’t happen. She got unhappy. I was never happy to begin with. When I’m on a case, I get consumed, and that doesn’t leave much room for other commitments.”

Cal’s been so attentive toward me these past few days that it’s hard to imagine him treating his wife any different. Then again, maybe we’re only good together because being with me brings him one step closer to catching the killer he’s already hunting.

“When this case is solved,” I say, “and you’ve moved on, do you think you’ll move on from me?”

His grip tightens on my hands. “Why would you think that?”

“I just wonder if things will be different between us when I’m no longer part of your case.”

Cal stares at our linked fingers for a long moment. “No, Holly, I’ve... I’ve never felt this intensely about anyone. I know it hasn’t been long, but it’s like you’re already a part of me. A vital organ. I’d bleed to death if someone tried to cut you out.”

He pulls me toward the edge of the bed and wraps his arms around me. I cling to him like a monkey, praying that the words he says are true forever and not just for the here and now. He kisses my neck. I sigh as his lips and teeth make their way along my jaw, to my mouth.

I open my lips to let him taste me, as his hands rove down my back to the hem of my tank top.

“Arms up, baby.” He pulls my tank top up and off, then helps me out of my shorts. Reaching behind me, he unhooks my bra, then slowly draws the straps down my arms.

A deep growl resounds in his throat, as he bares my breasts to his heated gaze. I gasp as he skims his thumbs across my nipples.

“Goddamn, baby, it feels like a lifetime since I’ve seen your tits. We’re gonna have to work out some kind of schedule, ‘cause Daddy refuses to wait that long again.” Plumping my breasts together, he leans in to French kiss my nipples. First one, then the other, then both at the same time.

I moan softly, pressing my hand between my legs. I feel myself shrinking, slipping back through time, to a smaller, younger, simpler version of myself.

Cal’s arms fold around my waist as he lifts me further up the bed. I relish the weight of his body as he rests on top of me, his cock a thick, hard branch inside his boxers. He captures my mouth again as he rocks his hips, grinding his erection against me. It’s like humping a plush toy, except now the toy’s humping me, and there’s nothing plush about it.

Suddenly, Cal stops, pulls back, kneels upright. It’s as though he’s trying not to let himself get carried away.

There’s a darkness in his gaze when he looks at me. Could it be his inner demons staring out at me through his eyes?

My skin tingles with goosebumps as he glides his fingers from the base of my throat, down my chest, between my breasts, all the way to my navel.

“You like this game we’re playing?” he asks. “Calling me Daddy, being my little girl?”

I nod. He runs his knuckles along the front of my panties, and that gentle stroke is all it takes to send pleasure rippling through me.

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