Beyond Now Chapter 17 - Alternate POV

Caleb 

Maisie had been looking at me funny all throughout dinner. I tried to brush it off. Laugh it away. Pretend I didn’t notice. But as I finished the last of my drink and left a hearty tip for our waiter, I couldn’t help myself. I had to know. 

Did I have lettuce in my teeth? 

Did she regret going out with me? 

Or maybe someone spiked her drink. 

Given her sappy smile and the dreamy glint in her eyes, I’d have to go with the last one. 

“What?” I asked, tilting my head and scrunching my brows. I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to ask. Not knowing would drive me crazy. 

Maisie sighed, propping her elbows on the table and cupping her chin in her palms. “Just thinking.” 

“That much was obvious. Hence my question.” I rolled my hands through the air, urging her to continue. “What, exactly, are you thinking about?” 

“You. Us.” She shrugged as if that word wasn’t charged. 

Us. 

What did it even mean? After she went home to her fancy life in LA, was an us even possible? And what level of us was she talking about? Reigniting our friendship? Or more than that? 

“I’m not ready for this to end,” Maisie said with a smile. 

“Me neither.” I wasn’t talking about the dinner. Not the vacation. Nothing so small and short-lived as those things. I was talking about us on a grand scale. I couldn’t say goodbye to Maisie again. And I was ready to know her on a new level. One a younger me couldn’t have understood. “Feel like coming to my house?” 

The question fell from my lips like it was no big deal, but it was a giant ass deal. If Maisie said yes, everything between us would change. Or become what it was always supposed to be. 

Because if she came to my house, we’d end up in bed. No dancing around that truth.  

And the look in her eyes when she quietly agreed told me she felt it too. 

On the drive to my house, I found myself thinking about the first day on the water with my boat, when she was brand new, and the beginning of a dream come true. The wind had blown all cares out of my head. The sun warming my skin while the waves whispered promises of the rest of my life. Watching Maisie walk up the steps to my porch felt a lot like that. 

Like the start of the rest of my life. 

And how stupid was that? She lived on the other side of the country. 

I held open the front door, reaching in to flick on the lights as she stepped inside. “It’s nothing special,” I said, following behind. “But it works for me.” 

Maisie surveyed my space like she was searching for answers, running her fingers along the back of the couch, smiling as she studied the few pictures on my wall. What did my home look like to her? What did she think it said about her childhood friend? I tried to see it through her eyes, the mostly bare walls, the comfortable though out of date furniture. Old Maisie wouldn’t think twice about it, but new Maisie? The one who worked in a glass castle in Los Angeles, surrounded by fame and money? What would she think about my less materialistic way of life? 

She stopped in front of one of my favorite pictures, one of me standing in front of my boat, smiling, happy, filled with hope. I stepped up behind her, wrapping my arms around her waist and holding her tight. “That was the day I bought her. I was so proud.” 

“I can see it.” Maisie turned in my arms, grinning up at me. “And you had every right to be proud of yourself.” 

Her breasts pushed against my chest. My dick pulsed. I wanted Maisie Brown and was damn sure she wanted me too. It was in the way her eyes met mine, the flare of her nostrils, the dilated pupils. It was in the charged air between us, this primal energy pulsing around us. 

But then… 

“Everything about you breaks my rules.” Maisie broke eye contact. “I’m a no strings attached kind of girl.” 

“And I have strings?” It was a stupid question. Maisie and I had been entangled since kindergarten. 

“Of course you have strings.” When she met my eyes, I saw the girl I used to know. The one who looked at me like I could solve the world’s problems. “You’re…you.” 

“You don’t exactly fit into my rulebook, either. I’m not into tourists. Or one-night stands. I’m not a short-term kind of guy.” 

Even as I reiterated my boundaries, I knew they didn’t matter. Not with her. I was too far gone. I lost myself to her when I was six. 

“So what does it mean?” Maisie asked. “Are we making a mistake?” 

I drew her closer, tilting my head, seeking out her lips. “No.” Her gravity pulled me ever closer. “Yes.”  

I kissed the corner of her lips, stunned by the jolt of electricity coursing through me. Pulling away, I cupped her cheeks and spoke a truth, my voice harsh as it grated up my throat. “Honestly, I don’t really care anymore.” 

Maisie brought her lips to mine, kissing me so deeply, so passionately, I had no chance to think, to react. My body acted on its own, backing her against the wall, running my hands along her body, kneading those perfect breasts. 

“Tell me, May-bell,” I said, my voice tight, tortured with need. “Does this feel like a mistake?” 

She shook her head. “Not even a little bit.” 

I couldn’t take it anymore. I yanked her shirt over her head, sucking the sweet flesh of her breasts, pinching her nipples while she moaned. When I pulled away, a red mark stood out on her pale skin and a smile tugged at my lips.  

Mine, said the mark. You’ve always been mine. 

We fumbled with clothing, her raking fingernails across my back, me, removing every possible barrier between us until it was skin on skin, breath on breath. 

Fuck she was beautiful. 

She was long and lean, her muscles feminine, yet sculpted to perfection. I liked my women with more curves, hips, an ass, heavy breasts, but this was Maisie. She could be anything and I’d still want her. I dropped to my knees in front of her, hooking a leg over my shoulder, sucking her sweet clit into my mouth. I teased her with my tongue, my fingers, enjoying the hitch of her breath, the tightening of her muscles.  

She gasped. 

She moaned.  

She cried my fucking name and it was every teenaged fantasy come true.  

“Caleb…” The passion in her voice made me feel like a fucking god. “Please...” 

Her hips began to buck, a quickening. Her fist tightened in my hair. I wanted her first orgasm to be on my cock, and from the sound of it, she did too. 

I stood, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. “Please what?” 

“Take me to your bedroom or lose me forever.” She smirked, sweet, sexy, and so proud of herself that something very real unlocked inside my heart. 

Maisie might be in the Keys temporarily, but she had always meant forever to me. 

“What did I tell you about massacring lines from Top Gun?” I tossed her over my shoulder, smacking her ass while she squealed with laughter. As I strode into my room, I slipped my hand between her thighs, caressing her silky warmth before I lowered her to the bed. 

This all felt so real, too real, with both of us knowing the other couldn’t be what we needed. I lightened the mood by stepping out of my shorts and spinning them over my head like a cheap hooker. Maisie laughed, but when her eyes went to my dick, her feminine gasp relit the chemistry between us. 

I climbed onto the bed, her hand wrapping around my cock, stroking, teasing, playing.  

“Fuck, that feels good.” I dropped my head back and closed my eyes, but shit, she was going to make me come too soon. I grabbed a condom from the bedside table and slipped it into place, positioning myself between her thighs. 

I expected her to close her eyes. To bite her lip. To grip her pillow. 

I was not prepared for her to push up on her elbows and watch as I slid myself inside. Her parted lips, the hunger in her eyes, it was too much. I was coming undone and if I didn’t do something about it soon, I’d finish before we got started. Gripping her head, I kissed her deeply as I buried myself to the hilt. 

“Oh, fuck,” Maisie whispered, and I couldn’t agree more. 

Holy fuck. 

She was a masterpiece. A temptress. 

“That’s right, baby. Take me in.” I thrust into her. “Take it all.” 

Her moans turned into whimpers and I stared down at this beauty beneath me, stroking myself against her walls, rolling my hips, fingering her clit. Her orgasm was beautiful, powerful, and fueled my own. I flipped onto my back, gripping her hips as she impaled herself on me, sucking her breasts as she kissed my jaw, my throat. 

My balls tensed. My body flexed. And I came so fucking hard it shocked another orgasm out of my May-bell. I watched her lips part, her eyes close, her back arch and knew…she was meant for me. This…this wasn’t something to take for granted. 

She lowered herself beside me and we lay quietly side by side for several moments before I pushed the hair out of her eyes. I needed to know what she was thinking, how she was feeling, because what we just did felt like a beginning…even though our time together was coming to an end. 

Maisie met my eyes with a wide smile. “We just ruined sex for the rest of the world, you know that?” 

I laughed, propping my head up with my hand. “How so?” 

“No one can ever match what we just did. We set the sex-bar so high, no couple will ever live up to it. And they all know it. Even if they don’t know they know…they know. There’s no way everyone in the whole wide world didn’t feel what just happened. It was that good. That perfect. That…” She shrugged as if she’d said all there was to say. 

And really, she had. I understood it all. 

We were what we’d always been. Exactly what the other needed.