Darker the Release by Claire Kent Page B

she was feeling.
    Naked. Vulnerable. But still safe somehow, as if she could trust Caleb with what she’d offered him.
    “Sometimes I feel like I’m living in a Shakespeare play,” she said after a minute, remembering her reflections earlier.
    “
Romeo and Juliet?
” There was a little smile in his eyes, a dry humor that could never be fully stamped out.
    She loved that about him.
    She gave a little laugh. “No. They were so young—and barely knew each other. That doesn’t feel like me at all. I was thinking one of his more mature tragedies.
Hamlet
or something. Where one act sets off this whole downward spiral of events, and no matter how hard you try, you just can’t pull yourself out of them. Sometimes my life feels that way. Since my father’s death, I’ve never been able to pull out of the downward spiral.”
    Caleb let out a long breath. “I know how that feels.” He was silent for a while, and then he began, “Did you ever want to…” Caleb trailed off and restarted his question. “If that had happened to me, and I knew who was responsible, I would have wanted to make the person pay.” He sounded serious, reflective, like he was genuinely thinking it through, feeling with and for her.
    It hurt in so many ways. “It was an accident,” she managed to say.
    “But someone did it.”
    “Yes.”
    “What happened to the person?”
    She swallowed hard. “Nothing.”
    He let out his breath. “Yeah. You’re a better person than I am. Because I would have done anything in my power to make them pay for it.”
    The irony was so exquisitely bitter that she froze for a few seconds. Then she reached up to take his face in one of her hands, making him meet her eyes. “I’m not any better than you are, Caleb. Don’t tell that lie to yourself. We are just the same.”
    She saw the words process in his eyes, and his expression twisted very briefly with emotion. “Okay.” He pulled her into a tight hug and murmured against her ear, “Although I think you might be a
little
better than me.”
    She shook with bone-dry amusement and a different kind of feeling and let herself enjoy his embrace.
    He held her against him for a long time until he adjusted their bodies enough for him to press his lips against hers. “Thank you for telling me. About your father.”
    She nodded, knowing he’d realized how hard it was for her to say. “I don’t tell anyone.”
    “You can tell me, though.”
    “Yeah.” After a moment she added, “What about you?”
    “What about me?”
    “Do you have anything you want to tell me?” She looked up at him and was surprised to see an expression of uncertainty on his face.
    Like he was torn, like there might be something he wanted to unburden on her too.
    She wanted it. Wanted to know more about him, wanted to know the contours of his soul. Wanted so much to know if she was allowed to feel for him this way.
    She waited, but then she saw his face relax and knew he’d made his decision.
    He wasn’t going to open up all the way with her yet.
    “I love you,” he said, turning on his side and smiling at her. “Is that what you wanted me to say?”
    She accepted the new mood his word and smile had shaped, since it was safer, easier. She smiled back. “You said that this morning.”
    “I haven’t changed my mind yet.”
    “Good. Me either. I love you too.”
    His smile widened and he leaned forward, kissing her gently at first until he wrapped one arm around her and the kiss deepened dramatically. “Do you know what?” he murmured against her mouth, his voice throaty and erotic when they finally broke the kiss.
    “What?”
    “This is the first time in my life when I’ve ever wanted a woman for more than her body. Is that strange?”
    He was definitely getting into sex mode, but she could tell that his last question had been a serious one. He wanted an answer.
    “I don’t know. Maybe a little. Forty years is a long time to want nothing but sex from women.”
    Her mind felt