Page 98 of Shades of Grey & Gold

My hands are on my hips as I lean away from him. “Excuse me, I could totally rock a perm. And maybe, possibly, not fuck up ravioli.”

“I’ll be back at one. Please,” he levels an icy look at each sister. “Please, be nice. Or maybe be silent.”

“Blah, blah, fun sucker.” Sophia opens her book, sticking her tongue out in his direction without looking at him.

Maggie busies herself with shuffling remaining dishes into cabinets, but I catch her eyes glance over her shoulder in our direction before I feel Cal’s hand on the small of my back. My eyes flick up to him as the warmth from his hand spreads through my body.

“I’ll be back soon. Are you sure you’re okay?” His eyes search mine, looking for any indication I’m not.

I nod and he nods back, offering me a small smile before he turns to backtrack out towards the foyer.

“He’s different with you,” Maggie almost whispers the words. I notice that she is leaning on the expansive, white marble island with her chin resting in the palm of her hand. “Every other time he’s home, he’s… it’s like he slides across ice. Hard. And cold—unforgiving. He’s here, but unwilling and a shell of himself.”

“He’s scorched earth on the outside, like fried desert,” Sophia chimes in, but her eyes don’t leave the pages of her book. “With you it’s like, there’s… cracks of something coming through.”

I don’t know what to say to either of them, but I offer her a small lift of my lips. “Really? He’s just the same Cal as always to me—”

Fast footsteps pound from behind me and I whirl around, panic flooding my body.

The blood on his shirt yesterday was the first time the reality of this situation has crashed down in front of me. He said everyone was fine, and that’s the most important part, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t keep me up a little late last night thinking about what he said. That my route to school has to change and I have to take more of his men with me.

And then my eyes catch Cal jogging down the hallway back towards us.

He stops abruptly, his eyes bouncing from one sister to the other before landing back on me.

He tugs on the lapels of his suit jacket, takes a tentative step forward, and clears his throat.

“I… uh, I forgot something.”

My eyebrows pinch together, but my lips tilt up at the expression on his face.

Embarrassment? Confusion, maybe? I feel like it’s a look I have rarely seen on his face. Always confident and unwavering, but he seems cautious, almost uneasy, but his eyes almost look happy.

He takes another step forward, looking from me to each of his sisters again. The pause is long, and the silence is longer.

I tilt my head and lean towards him as he gets closer.

“Well, genius? We are waiting. What is it?” Sophia says from behind me at the same time as Maggie says, “Don’t keep us in suspense.”

Cal shoots daggers at them with his eyes, squinting slightly as he closes the last two steps between us and fixes his golden-green gaze on mine.

My breath catches somewhere between my lungs and my throat, sending a burst of something hot through my chest as he reaches up to run his fingers across my cheek. He cups my jaw lightly and runs his thumb across my cheek.

Visions of him loving me with those hands play uninvited in my mind. Him above me. His shoulders working. His lips painting every inch of my body with kisses. And his tongue.

I see his jaw work, and I wonder if the same scenes just flashed before his eyes. But he softens, with a smile touching his lips, crinkling the spots at his temples.

“I’ll see you later.”

I part my lips to respond, but his lips are pressed against them before a sound can escape. My eyelashes flutter against the tops of my cheeks as my eyes close and I reach out to press my hands to his chest. The kiss is slow, light and flawless.

But he pulls away too soon. Heat has risen to flush my cheeks, and it only deepens as I come back to reality and the realization that his sisters are behind me.

He kisses my cheek once, gives me one more smile before it falls. He nods to each of his sisters, buttons his suit jacket, throwing them a gruff, “Bye,” before he’s turning on a heel, briskly walking back in the direction he came.

And I watch him go until I hear the door shut from the foyer.

I hear a thud and twist around to see Sophia has thrown her book on the floor beside the chair.