“Where the hell is Crosby?” I was exasperated.
Callie looked up, and those haunting green eyes caught my tongue and stopped my heartbeat in its tracks. I’d never witnessed anything as sexy or as gut-wrenching as the eye contact she gave me. She was glad to see me, that I could tell, but her spitfire personality raced to the forefront to mask any vulnerability she felt.
“Girl stuff. She called your dad, and he picked her up on the way home from the office.”
I threw my hands up in the air. I hadn’t prepared to be alone with her, and the surprise caught me off guard. My feelings were a jumbled mess, and to make matters worse, my dick was hard again from one look at her mouth.
Here I was trusted to babysit her and be her pseudo-dad, and instead, my hormones had me riding a fucking roller coaster.
Callie stormed off in the opposite direction of the car. Beyond the basketball court, the landscape became thickly wooded. There was no reason to go that way except to escape me. My chest nearly cracked under the pressure of worrying if Callie was actually afraid of me. I turned off the car and threw the keys in my jeans pocket. I didn’t have a raincoat, and Callie was wearing a freaking cheerleading skirt.
“Callie!” I shouted as I ran after her rapidly shrinking form. She was impulsive, so I didn’t trust her to stop or not break into a run.
Thunder cracked, and a streak of purple lightning lit up the sky. Great—a monsoon and a rebellious teen who was angry as hell at me.
“Callie, stop! It’s dangerous out here.” Track and field wasn’t my strong suit, but I figured I could still overtake her.
She glanced back when I started to jog, and she picked up her pace as well. The rain was coming down hard and slanted, slicing through the air like tiny daggers with a vengeance. She reached the tree line and slipped into the woods.
“Shit.” I leaned over, hands on my knees, and panted, trying to catch my breath before breaking into a sprint and chasing down the runaway nymph.
She had her back to a tree when I ducked under the canopy. It was surprisingly dry beneath the tree branches, with large drops falling through the leaves and splattering on the pine needle floor.
“Callie, what the hell are you thinking?” I probably shouldn’t have said it. Her expression was so injured, as if I’d insulted her intelligence. But God, that face, those succulent lips, and bright-green doe eyes. Her nipples were hard through her school sweater and her long legs on display thanks to her short skirt. She was shivering, her blond hair was tangled, and her arms were crossed defensively under her breasts. I tore off my sweatshirt, nearly taking my T-shirt with it, and held it out to her. Her eyes flashed dark after seeing a peek of my naked torso.
My teeth chattered ever so slightly, not from the cold, but from the sexual tension that was thick enough to slice through.
I knew I had to make amends, and I’d have to do it fast. Teenage girls’ moods shifted with the wind, and I didn’t know when we’d ever be alone again.
“Callie, I shouldn’t have kissed you. It was wrong. I’m sorry. I want you to feel absolutely safe with me and go back to how things were before the dance. I thought I was helping, but I never should have let it happen. If I were Dean, I would beat the shit out of me and report it.” I stuffed my hands into my pockets, hoping my apology was sufficient.
Callie’s eyes ate me up like a hungry wolf. There was something volatile about her lurking just below the surface. I wasn’t afraid of Callie—she was a fifteen-year-old girl, for Christ’s sake—but I felt unsure of what to expect from her. I had no idea what she’d do.
“Since you kissed me, you have to be my first. When I’m ready to lose my virginity, I want to come to you and have you be the first man inside me.” Her eyes flickered with the resolute determination she seemed to have in spades.
My dick strained, rubbing raw inside my jeans. I was afraid I’d come in my pants, something that had never happened to me before.
“I shouldn’t have kissed you. I ruined your plan. But Callie, just let things happen naturally. Why don’t you pretend it was Logan instead, and we can forget the whole thing? You’re blowing it way out of proportion.”
Callie scoffed at my suggestion, tipped her chin to the sky, and marched out of the forest, passing right by me. I ran to retrieve her bag she’d left under the tree and rushed to catch up with her.
The rain had stopped, but there were still dark purple clouds on the horizon. Rays of light from the setting sun streamed through the clouds, lighting up the grassy field and Callie’s long blond hair like a halo.