Tell Me a Story (The Story Series Book 1) by Tamara Lush Page B

blueberry yogurt I’d told him I liked.
    “Aww,” I said out loud, genuinely touched.
    The rest of the condo, I didn’t snoop. Not exactly, anyway. It’s not like I looked in drawers, but I did peek in closets. One of the guest rooms made me pause. There, on a nightstand, was a small, framed photo of Caleb in a tuxedo and a gorgeous, dark-haired woman.
    His wife.
    It was obviously on their wedding day, because she wore a white dress and a veil, and he looked so young, with a smooth face and jet-black hair. My finger went to the glass and traced the line of his jaw. It didn’t make me jealous to see them together. The Caleb in the photo was a different man. But seeing his wife’s huge, dark eyes and genuine smile made me melancholy. He’d lost the woman he loved, and now I was in his condo, spying. I’d never measure up to that woman he’d wanted to spend his life with.
    I briefly pondered whether to leave, if it would be best to end this now. With other men, I could usually guess how the relationship would end. Some annoying detail in his personality, a stupid comment about trailer trash or white trash , or edgy banter about class issues and privilege would usually surface. And I’d know the end was near.
    I hadn’t yet discovered the end in Caleb.
    I peered at the photo more and sighed. I wanted to be here. I missed him. And he did ask me over. He desired me—sexually, at least. Wasn’t that enough for now?
    And why did he keep the photo in the guest room? Had he moved it before I came over that first night? I imagined him with a heavy heart, picking up the photo from his nightstand near his bed and silently apologizing to his dead wife.
    “Jesus, you’re so dramatic,” I whispered, then set the photo back on the bureau. “Get over yourself.”
    Trying to forget about the image of a happy Caleb and his stunning wife that had burned into my mind, I went to his bed and nestled under the white duvet and read a book that Caleb had given me. It was a Gabriel Garcia Márquez novel that I’d read years ago, and Caleb had smiled as he’d handed it to me right before he went to Brazil.
    “I know it’s stupid, giving the owner of a bookstore a book as a gift,” he’d said. “But it’s one of my favorites. I wanted you to have it.”
    I became absorbed in the book, repeatedly reading one phrase: “ There is always something left to love .” I set the book on my chest, thinking about that phrase, and nodded off.
----
    T he seductive smell of vanilla and oak roused me. When I opened my eyes, Caleb was standing in the bedroom, gazing at me and pulling his tie through his shirt collar.
    “Hey.” I grinned and blinked lazily a few times. I peeled back the duvet and reached my arms toward him. The book rested on the other pillow.
    He sat on the corner of the bed and gently picked up my book and placed it on the nightstand. “This is what I wanted to come home to. You, looking like my sex doll in my bed, reading a book.”
    When he kissed me, his tongue tasted like mint. I smiled against his mouth. “Thank you for the nightgown. I love it. What do you think?”
    He sat up and sucked in a breath, running his fingers over the little straps. “It’s perfect. As I knew it would be.”
    He put his mouth to my shoulder, then kissed slowly downward. His mouth found my breast, capturing the nipple through the lace. When we’d had sex before he left, it had been rough and quick; now, with only a sliver of the bathroom light streaming into the room, his touch and his lips were soft caresses on my skin. My nipples formed points, because, like the rest of my body, they needed him.
    Caleb shifted lower. With a whisper-soft touch, he pushed the hem of my nightgown to my hips and softly growled. I wasn’t wearing panties and I had gone to the waxing salon earlier in the day.
    “That’s your surprise,” I whispered, and he groaned in response.
    With his index finger, he traced my bare labia, then stroked the wet seam and