Melting points (2)

Ruth's POV

"Not today," I whispered before pressing my lips to Caleb's. He exhaled and moved his lips over mine softly. Delicately.

This was new, I thought as I felt his thumb stroking my jaw. His fingers ran over my arm lightly, leaving goose bumps in its wake and I shivered, pressing myself closer to him.

Until now, every time we had kissed, it had been like the world was ending and this was the last kiss that both of us were ever going to get to experience.

They were hot, restless and wild. But this was slow, leisurely. Like he had an eternity to spare and he planned on spending it by just kissing me. I moaned, both loving his slight touches and getting impatient with it.

I could feel the muscles of his chest move as he breathed in deeply, before cupping my face with both his hands and deepening the kiss.

I smiled with satisfaction, feeling myself move even more closer to him. His hands left my face, stroking my neck and arms as if he was trying to assure himself that I was real.

His hands entwined with mine, and then he moved his arms around my waist, trapping my hands behind my back and pulling me against him at the same time.

I could feel his heart beating behind his ribs, and mine seemed to synchronise itself to his.

I broke away from the kiss, and he ran his lips over the shell of my ear, tickling with his breathe. I could feel his smile on my skin as I squirmed, and he did it again playfully, running the tip of his tongue on my earlobe.

It was torturous and wonderful all at once and suddenly it was too much. For some reason, I felt the need to put distance between this playful and tender Caleb Cross. He was making me feel things, I wasn't sure I was ready for.

I twisted an arm out of his grasp, needing some form of control over my own body. He let go easily enough, but when I lightly pushed at his abs, he didn't move an inch. Instead, he ran his nose up my cheek and neck, leaving a trail of light kisses in its wake.

I swallowed hard, forgetting myself for a moment. It felt way too wonderful to push away. So I let my mind shut down, letting go my sudden, irrational need for control and instead of pushing him away, ran my palm over his waist, travelling up.

My hand reached the top of his chest that was exposed by the V neck of his t-shirt and I felt him suck in a sharp breathe at skin-to-skin contact.

It occurred to me that among all the other trysts we've had with each other so far, not once had we gone past the point of kissing.

I let my fingers play with his bit of exposed skin there and he looked down at me with dark eyes.

His face was expressionless, all playfulness and smiles gone now. I looked up at him, and trailed my fingers over the base of his neck and back, feeling him shudder.

He eyes dropped to my lips, and I had a sudden idea.

Pressing the back of his neck gently, I pulled him towards me. He bent his head down, letting me do what I planned. When his neck was at the same level of my lips, I ran my tongue over the side of his neck, right below his ear.

Mmm.. citrus, spice and everything nice.

I must've made some noise because he brought his lips close to my ear and whispered, "shh," before bracing his hand that was not holding mine, on the bookshelf behind and burying his face in my shoulder as I continued tasting his skin, sucking on it like an addict.

The word described me perfectly when it came to this man, I decided. I was addicted to Caleb Cross, and weirdly I didn't even want to overcome this addiction right now.

He ran his nose on the curve of my shoulder, placing a soft kiss just below my ear, before starting, "Ruth, I—"

"Jeez, get a room, you two," an amused voice interrupted whatever Caleb was going to say.

I jumped in shock, raising my head quickly about the same time Caleb turned, making my head knock against his nose, hard.

A string of muttered expletives spilled from him, as he clutched his nose and glared at someone behind him.

"Or better still, use your own room. It comes with a bed, afterall," it continued, full of laughter as I heard the door pushed open wider.

I moved away from Caleb, then peeked around him and saw Leo's huge body shadowing the doorway, his grin reflected by the flickering light coming in through windows.

He reached somewhere beside the door frame, and flicked on a switch, letting the room bathe in clear, white lights.

I blinked, adjusting to the change of lighting, trying - and failing - not to blush. Not only had he caught us invading his home, but also nearly fornicating in his library.

"The King of horrible fucking timings," Caleb muttered darkly, and making me blush harder and Leo snort.

I moved to put more distance between Caleb and myself, no longer touching him, but his arm wrapped around my waist, pulling me back to him as he looked over his shoulder.

"You're the one to speak of timings? Cake cutting was an hour ago."

"Oh, I'm sorry, did it break your heart that I wasn't there to sing "happy fucking birthday" to you?"

"It stung, definitely. Your baritone voice crooning the birthday song to me has always had a way of making me blush."

I silently watched their back and forth for a moment, realising that even though Caleb spoke like he was pissed, there wasn't much heat behind his words. Infact, it seemed like he was actually enjoying their bickering.

There was a genuine warmth behind his eyes, a slight smile on his face as he threw one cutting remark over the other at him.

I had noticed him talking to many people at work these past few weeks. The comfort he spoke to Leo with was usually missing when he spoke to others, even when he was being flirty or polite, or even humorous.

It occured to me that Caleb categorised people into groups, depending on his feelings for them.

Group one consisted of people he was flirty and nice with on the surface, but didn't care about much for. His eyes would always be cold and restless, even when he talked with a huge grins and loud laughs.

And then there was group two. It had those rare and genuinely good hearted people, that Caleb actually liked, even if he wasn't overtly showy about it. People like Jay Patel from work and Leo, the ones he was sarcastic and argumentative -almost, an asshole - with, but genuinely liked them deep down.

Like right now, his eyes held genuine liking for his cousin, even as he arched his brows at him arrogantly and replied to something he said with a rude comment.

It made me think back to some of our conversations before, and I wondered which category I fell into. But before I could process this, their conversation caught my attention.

"You need something, Leo?"

"Many things actually. For starters, I need my guests to actually attend my party instead of sneaking off to the quiet corners of my house, without even wishing me."

He made an exaggerated pouty face and I felt Caleb snort.

"We weren't "sneaking off", birthday boy. I was just showing her—"

"—Ah, show and tell still, Caleb? I thought you grew out of that trick after high school."

"Trick?" I asked curiously. Leo strolled deeper into the room and flopped down lazily on one of the armchairs near the fireplace, looking like a big cat wrapped over a tree branch.

"Oh yeah, whenever Caleb wanted to impress a girl, he brings her into the library. Very 'Beauty and the Beast' of him, isn't it?"

"What the fuck do you mean by "whenever"? I've never brought a girl here before," Caleb almost snarled at him, but it was somewhat hampered by the confusion in his voice.

"Sure, you have. Ruth, honey, if you really wanna know all his tricks and dirty little secrets, you know where to find me." Leo winked at me and Caleb rolled his eyes.

"Like, you would know."

"Sure, I would. You brought Allison Morgan here to 'show her the library' when you were 16. I'm actually kinda impressed that this trick still works."

"16? I thought you had moved to Seattle when you were 15?" I asked Caleb, frowning as I recalled what he had told me few minutes ago.

"I did. Leo has a habit of making up fake as fuck stories just to show that he knows me better than anyone else."

"Hey! I do know you better than anyone else! There's a reason why I'm your favourite cousin. And as for this, I can prove—"

But Caleb wasn't listening. He took a hold of my hand, and said, "let's go downstairs, shall we? I think we deserve a slice of cake each for dealing with Leo and coming out sane the other side."

As he pulled me out of the library, Leo's voice followed us, yelling, "don't you dare mess the fondant, Caleb Cross!"