What I Shouldn’t Want

NORA’S POV "Don't," I said. Caleb didn't move his hands. They were on the edge of the counter on either side of me, and I could feel the heat coming off his chest. He'd been drinking the same whiskey I had. We'd finished most of the bottle sitting on the kitchen floor of the lake house, passing it back and forth, not talking about Daniel. "Don't what?" he said. His voice was low and wrecked. "Don't look at me like that." "Like what, Nora?" I should have pushed him away. I knew exactly what I should do. I'd known it for the last hour, every time his knee brushed mine on the floor, every time I caught him watching my mouth and he looked away too late. "Like you're sorry," I said. "I can't take sorry tonight." "I'm not sorry." That was the problem. He wasn't, and neither was I. I grabbed his shirt and pulled him down and kissed him. It wasn't gentle. He made a sound against my mouth, half groan and half something that sounded like pain, and then his hands were in my hair and he was kissing me back like he'd been holding his breath for years. My back hit the cabinet. The whiskey glass went over on the counter and neither of us looked. Eight months. Eight months of casseroles and sympathy cards and people touching my arm and saying he's in a better place. Eight months of nobody touching me like I was a person and not a glass about to break. Caleb touched me like I wasn't going to break. That was what got me. "Nora." He pulled back an inch, breathing hard. "Tell me to stop. I mean it. Say it and I stop." "If you stop, I'll hate you." "Okay." His forehead dropped against mine. "Okay." He picked me up. I wrapped my legs around him without thinking and he set me on the counter, and the cold of the granite through my thin shorts made me gasp. His mouth went to my neck. I dug my fingers into his shoulders, and under his shirt he was solid and hot and shaking. "You're shaking," I whispered. "Yeah." He laughed, short and rough. "I've wanted this for so long I don't know what to do with my hands." My heart stopped for a second. So long. I could have asked what he meant. I didn't. I didn't want the answer yet, and I didn't want to think. "Figure it out," I said. He did. He pulled my shirt over my head and looked at me, really looked, and something in his face cracked open. Then his mouth was on my collarbone, my chest, his hands sliding up my ribs like he was memorizing me. I arched into him and pulled at his belt, my fingers clumsy and impatient. "Slow down," he muttered. "No." "Nora.." "I've been slow for eight months. Please. Caleb, please." He swore, low and ragged, and shoved my shorts down. I heard his belt hit the floor. When he touched me I made a sound I didn't recognize, and he went still, his hand pressed against me, his eyes locked on mine. "God, you're soaked." "Don't talk. Just…” He kissed me to shut me up, and he knew exactly what he was doing with his fingers, which I wasn't ready for. I bit his lip. He grunted. I felt my whole body climbing toward something I'd forgotten it could do, and I grabbed the back of his neck and held on. "Look at me," he said against my mouth. "I need you to look at me. I need you to know it's me." That stopped me. A knife-edge second where I could have bolted. I opened my eyes. Caleb's eyes, gray and wide open, not Daniel's. His hair was a mess from my hands and he looked terrified and certain at the same time. "I know it's you," I said. "I know." He pushed into me slowly, and we both stopped breathing. I dropped my head against his shoulder and a sob tore out of me, one I hadn't seen coming. He froze. "Hurt?" "No." I was crying and laughing at the same time. "God, no. Don't stop. Please don't stop." "Okay. Okay, baby, I've got you." He moved. Slowly at first, careful, his hands tight on my hips, then less careful as I met him, my heels digging into the backs of his thighs, urging him on. The counter shuddered against the wall. A cabinet door rattled. Somewhere a part of me was horrified and I shoved it down hard. "Harder," I said. "Nora…” "Harder, Caleb. f**k. I need to feel it." He swore again and gave me what I asked for. Every thrust pushed a sound out of me that I couldn't hold back. I held on to his shoulders, his back, anything, and I wasn't thinking about the funeral or the hospital or the hole in my bed. There was only him, the sweat on his skin, the whiskey on his breath, the way he said my name over and over like it was the only word he had left. "I'm not gonna last," he gasped. "You feel too good. I can't…” "Then don't." He dragged me against him, one hand under my thigh, shifting the angle, and I saw white. My whole body locked. I came with his name in my mouth and my nails in his back, and he followed me a few seconds later with a broken groan, burying his face in my neck, shuddering against me until there was nothing left. We stayed there. His chest heaved against mine. My legs were still around him. The kitchen was dark except for the light over the stove, and the only sounds were our breathing and the lake slapping the dock outside. "f**k," Caleb whispered. "Yeah." He lifted his head slowly. He looked wrecked. Not sorry, not yet, but he was getting there. I watched it come into his face, the arithmetic of what we'd just done. "Nora, I…” "Don't say it." "I have to say something." "Not tonight." My voice came out thin. "Please. If you say it out loud it's real." "It's already real." "I know." I pressed my hand flat against his chest and felt his heart slamming. "I know it is." He eased back and helped me off the counter. My legs weren't steady. He caught my elbow, and we stood there half dressed in the dim kitchen, not looking at each other. I found my shirt on the floor. My hands wouldn't work the sleeves. "I'll go," he said. "I'll sleep in the truck." "It's two in the morning and you've had half a bottle." "Then I'll sleep on the couch." "Caleb." He stopped, his back to me, shoulders tight. "I don't regret it," I said. It came out smaller than I wanted. "That's what scares me. I should. I keep waiting to." He turned. His eyes were wet, which undid me more than anything he could have said. "Me neither," he said. "That's the worst part." I reached for my phone on the counter, to check the time or to have something to hold, I don't know which. The screen lit up when I touched it. I'd set a music playlist going earlier, and I must have bumped something, because the call log was open. Last on the list was a number I had never been able to delete. My thumb hit it before I could stop. It rang once and went to voicemail. The greeting started, bright and easy, and I knew every word of it. "Hey, it's Daniel. You know what to do. Leave it after the beep, and I'll call you back." The speaker was loud in the silence. Caleb flinched like he'd been hit. I couldn't move. I couldn't make my hand turn it off. His laugh was right there in the room with us, because he'd laughed at the end of the recording, the way he always did, like the whole thing was a joke. The beep sounded. Neither of us said a word.