He grabbed up her bag and took her hand and, after disarming the internal alarm system, led her up the main staircase and straight to his bedroom.
He almost hated the insatiable hunger that infused him when she was around. Hated it yet welcomed it with every breath in his body. Their physical union was an unexpected, yet very welcome, addition to their working relationship and Josh had no doubt it would take some considerable time to burn out.
Callie reached for him the second he slammed the bedroom door behind them—shoving his jacket off his shoulders and wrenching his shirttails from the waistband of his trousers. He loosened his tie and ripped it from beneath his collar even as she undid the buttons that ran down the front of his shirt. Then her hands were on his chest. He let out a groan as she scratched her nails lightly across the flat disks of his nipples.
She quickly replaced her nails with her lips, her teeth gently rasping over his tender skin while her hands slid down his abdomen and to his waistband. He felt his trousers slip down his legs, felt her hand reach deftly inside his briefs and then, gloriously, felt her free his erection—her fingers wrapping instinctively around him with just the right pressure.
Josh reached beneath her dress. Rucking the fabric up over her thighs, her hips, until he could tug at the scrap of nonsense she called underwear. His fingers slipped between her legs and he groaned again as he felt her wetness. He rubbed her sensitive flesh and caught her answering plea with his lips as she pressed herself harder against his fingers.
He walked her backwards until he felt her knees buckle against the side of the king-sized sleigh bed that dominated his room. She fell gently backwards onto the bed and Josh reached for the top drawer of his bedside cabinet, grabbing the box of condoms and scattering its contents onto the bed bedside them.
Callie’s throaty laugh as she saw what he was doing caused him to smile in response, but then he was all seriousness as, sheathed, he positioned himself at her entrance. Dammit, but he’d planned to take it slow with her this weekend. Make every second, every stroke, count. But the fever that raged through his veins demanded to be assuaged right here, right now.
He plunged inside her welcoming heat and felt her inner muscles contract around him in a velvet fist. He nearly lost it right there, but somehow he found the strength to withdraw and drive home again, and again, until her scream of completion rent the air between them and he could finally let go with everything he had.
Wave after wave swamped him and he collapsed against Callie, his chest heaving, his heart thumping as if he’d completed a marathon. She sucked everything out of him in a way no woman had ever done before. When he was capable, he rolled onto his side and lay there next to her on the bed. Eventually, he propped himself up on an elbow.
“Are you okay?” he asked, smoothing a lock of hair from her face as she lay staring up at the ceiling, her legs still splayed, her dress still around her waist.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been more okay in my life,” she answered, turning her head to look at him. “How can it keep getting better?”
Josh smiled, a swell of pride rolling through him. “We have this weekend to find out. C’mon, we’ll grab a quick shower then let’s see about dinner.”
He sat up and removed his shoes and socks, grinning ruefully at his total disarray as the incongruity of their appearance struck home. He kicked away his trousers and shrugged off his shirt before reaching for Callie and helping her to remove her dress and bra. He led her through to the cream-and-gold marble master bathroom and turned on the faucets in the massive double shower.
Slowly and tenderly he bathed her, taking extra care between her legs, trailing his soapy hands over her breasts and relishing their fullness before he rinsed her and pushed her gently from the shower stall.
“If you don’t go now I won’t be responsible for my actions,” he explained.
Through the steamy enclosure he watched as she leisurely dried herself and walked naked back into the bedroom. Josh turned the faucets to full cold, standing beneath the needle-sharp spray until he knew he’d be able to follow her without throwing her back on the bed for round two.
Restraint, control. They’d been his touchstones for as long as he could remember, yet Callie Rose Lee had effectively rendered him useless in that regard. Somehow that didn’t bother him as much as it should. He’d always sworn he’d never settle down until he’d avenged his mother’s sorrow and made his father pay for his abandonment, but with Callie he almost began to wonder if his plan didn’t need some revision. Whether there wasn’t room for both in his life. It was certainly something worth exploring, he decided.