Caleb's smile turned sharp and he took a step closer.
"I'm not a nice man," he said, voice dropping into something more honest. "I just play one on TV."
She could walk out. She could be offended. She could call him on the lie and leave him standing here with his fake video excuse and his perfect TV smile.
But I don't want to.
It was the kind of reckless, ridiculous choice you'd laugh about with friends later.I had sex with Mr. Christmas in a library at the Sterling Gala.The others came with instruction manuals she hadn't asked for. Histories. Expectations. The weight of years spent watching her. Caleb didn't come with any of that.After three years of Chad’s mediocre everything, April wanted that. Wanted something that was hers to choose. To take. To walk away from without apology.
She stayed.
“Is that a line?"
"The only thing unscripted is my dirty mouth."
And then he kissed her.
It wasn't aHeartlandkiss. No slow lean. No soft swell of violins. No careful tilt of the chin for cameras.
It was a collision.
His mouth crashed into hers without hesitation, without testing. Just heat and a kiss that came with a parental advisory. His hand cupped the back of her neck, fingers threading through her hair and tightening just enough to tilt her head exactly where he wanted it.
When she gasped, he took the opening. Her hands found his chest, fisting in his shirt, and she wasn't sure if she was pulling him closer or trying to anchor herself.
Caleb's other hand gripped her waist, dragging her flush against him, and April felt the hard line of him through too many layers of expensive fabric. He groaned, low in his throat and the unfiltered want in it made her knees threaten to file a formal complaint.
When he finally pulled back, they were both breathing hard. His pupils were blown, his perfect hair disheveled where her fingers had mussed it.
In every rom-com he'd ever starred in, this was where the camera would cut away. Pan to the fireplace. Fade to the morning after with tasteful blankets and implied satisfaction, literal tape on the floor telling him where PG ended and the credits began.
"But this?" His fingers found the edge of her dress, the slit Liam had probably chosen specifically for its structural vulnerability. "This gets to be real."
April's body froze but relaxed into it as his hand slipped under the fabric, warm and calloused against her skin. Her nipples tightened, suddenly oversensitive against the silk.
This was Caleb Hart, unscripted.
Caleb’s hands found the hem of her dress and began to lift. Slowly.
"You have any idea how good you look?" His palms slid up her thighs, taking the silk with them. "How hard I am right now?"
The silk slid upward with expensive obedience, gliding over her thighs like it knew it had a reputation to maintain.
This was the part where the camera would pan to the fireplace, the director would call cut, and America's favorite Christmas bachelor would reset to his mark and wait for notes.
But there was no camera. No director. Just Caleb's hands gathering emerald silk inch by careful inch, his eyes never leaving hers.
“God, look at you,” Caleb murmured, his voice rough, his wholesome persona abandoned somewhere near the ballroom. “This dress has been killing me all night.”
April let out a shaky breath, her hands gripping his shoulders. “You’ve only been looking at it for fifteen minutes.”
He walked her backward until the bookshelf met her spine.
“They were a very long fifteen minutes, April.”
April’s brain tried to narrate it like a Heartland scene, the handsome rancher’s hands trembling as he reached for her, overwhelmed by feelings he didn’t have words for. Except Caleb's hands weren't trembling and he had plenty of words, most of them explicit and none of them suitable for family programming.
Caleb's thumb traced the edge of her underwear, his thumb dipping just enough to confirm her reaction. "Already dripping for me. You want this bad, don't you?"
