The Redemption of Callie & Kayden

you to know how I felt.”
    His lips start to separate and I push up on my elbows, grab hold of the top of his shirt, and crush his mouth against mine, so he doesn’t have to deal with it just yet. Putting his hands out, his palms slam against the mattress and he braces his weight on his hands, stopping himself from smashing into me. His tongue pushes between my lips and slips powerfully into my mouth. He tastes like syrup and pancakes and smells like coffee and snowflakes. I breathe in through my nose, inhaling the scent as I kiss him. He sucks my bottom lip into his mouth and bites it roughly, sending a searing ripple to the center of my stomach. There’s freedom in his movements, from the way he kisses me to the way he grabs at my breast. His happiness makes me happy and that’s all I really need at the moment.
    He draws his lips away, but before I can protest, he sits me up and grips the bottom of my shirt, yanking it over my head, and my hair falls to my shoulders. With a needy look in his eyes that sends a coil up my legs, he reaches behind me and flicks the clasp of my bra open. I notice there is a collection of rubber bands on his wrist and I wonder if his therapist gave them to him.
    He notices that I’m staring at them and he stares down at them too. He slips his finger underneath one of them and flicking it looks up at me. “They’re supposed to help me heal.”
    I nod, looking into his eyes. “I know.”
    A moment passes between us and then he’s kissing me again, folding his strong body over mine as he pins me down below him on my back. He pushes his knee between my legs and skims his fingers up my inner thigh, propelling my body into an uncontrollable frenzy. I open my legs and let him rub his knee against me, probing my fingertips into his shoulder blades as he tastes my neck with his tongue. Little moans keep fleeing my lips as my body arches into his and unexpectedly he moves his legs away from me.
    “Don’t stop,” I beg and he slants his head to look at me. I feel mortified for begging. And surprised at myself. “I’m sorry,” I apologize, embarrassed.
    “Don’t be sorry,” he says in a gravelly voice. He grabs my hip and turns us to the side. Reaching his hand down the waistband of my pajama bottoms, he slides his fingers deep inside me and a moan leaves my lips as my body clings to his. He cups the back of my neck and lures my lips to his, kissing me fiercely as he moves his fingers inside me, and I end up screaming out his name.
    Once I come down from the high, I feel embarrassed by my outburst. My cheeks are warming and I know he can see it.
    “You know you’re adorable when you blush?” he says, outlining my damp cheeks with his finger.
    I bite down on my lip. “I’m sorry I begged like that… and screamed.”
    He shakes his head and strands of his brown hair hang across his forehead and shadow his forehead. “Don’t be sorry for telling me what you want. I’ll give you whatever you want, Callie.”
    Whatever I want? I want him to say that he loves me, but I won’t ever make him
give
me that. So instead, I do something that is so out of character for me that it shocks us both. I lift my hips and start slipping off my pants, because what I want is for him to be inside me.
    He watches my every move with this animalistic look in his eyes that I’ve never seen before and I’m pretty sure every speck of my skin is flushed with heat. I take of my panties too and then just lie there naked while he’s still fully dressed. Despite the fact that I’m blushing, it’s a huge step for me and the very fact that I did it says that I’m moving forward in my life. He starts tracing his fingers across my cheek, then draws a line to my neck, his skin searing hot when it reaches my chest. His eyes stay on me the entire time as he strokes his finger across my nipple and my breathing instantaneously picks up. He moves to the other one and then heads downward, skimming his fingers across my ribs, feeling each bump until he reaches my hip. It tickles, but in a good way and the insides of my thighs are scorching so severely I have to entangle them around each other to contain the heat.
    He keeps his fingers on my hip as he swings his leg over me, his eyes never leaving mine. Once he has a leg on each side of me, he uses his free hand to reach around and tug his shirt off. I feel a little better now that he’s not entirely dressed and I’m not the only one naked. As soon as my fingers