Seven Card Stud (Stacked Deck Book 7)

by Emilia Finn

  “I think you’ll be just fine,” I groan.

  I don’t mean to make this about me. As far as I’m concerned, I just want to make her come so she fills my hand and promises that she loves me as I love her. But my body does as it was made to do, too. My hips grind forward. My cock throbs for this woman. It seeps because it knows what’s so close.

  I grind against her thigh, groan when that alone makes me want to come. Then I grunt when Cam’s pussy clenches around my fingers and her legs tense beneath me.

  “Jamie… Oh!” she cries out. “Shit.”

  “I love you.” I move faster. Harder. My hips piston. But I lean forward and whisper gentle words into her ear. “It makes no sense, and fuck knows if it’s real. But it’s real for me right in this moment.”

  “I love you too,” she whimpers. Her hips thrust up, her muscular legs help her move and ride my hand. “It doesn’t make sense,” she sobs. “And I don’t know if it’s real.” Her eyes come to mine. “But I feel it too.”

  “Good.” I lean forward and slam my lips to hers in the same moment she explodes beneath me.

  Her body spasms beneath mine. Her pussy clenches so tight that she traps my hand, but she fills it, gushes, and screams out her pleasure. My name on her lips. My name in the air around us.

  Cam’s body is like a taut wire. She lifts, lifts, lifts as she comes. Then she falls flat to the log, spent and panting, so the only electricity left in the air is mine.

  “Hoooo…” she whimpers. “Shit.” She remains laying back on the log, listless, lazy, with her arms spread and the tips of her fingers almost touching the forest floor. Her chest lifts as she races to regain her breath, but her smile spreads, and her head lolls side to side until she finds my eyes. “I think I was the problem.”

  I lift a brow and try to talk my dick off the ledge of explosion. “Hm?”

  Instead of pushing me away, she brings her arms up and wraps them around my neck so I lay on her. “I said I’ve tried to make myself come, and it wouldn’t work. I think maybe I was the problem.”

  “I mean…” I smile and press a kiss to the dimple on her chin. “I’ll happily volunteer to be that guy for you for the rest of time. Maybe you needed my hand, and not yours.”

  “Maybe.” She lazily grins. “That was so… I think I’m numb from shock.”

  Snorting, I push up off her and the log, only to pull her to her feet. I hold her up when she sways, pull her pants up when she simply… floats. “You’re numb from the cold, silly.”

  “Ya know, I actually don’t think that’s it. But thanks.” She fixes the button on her jeans and turns to collect my coat. It’s wet on the outside, but waterproof, so the moisture wouldn’t have soaked through. She holds it up for me, and glows with a smug smile as I push my frozen arm into one sleeve, then the other. “I’m gonna feel so bad for you if you catch a cold after this.”

  Shrugging, I pull her into my arms, into my coat, and wrap her up so we can share a little warmth and reclaim what we lost while half-naked. My cock remains rock hard, painfully wanting, but I say nothing as she snuggles into my chest and breathes out a sigh of happiness.

  “Did you mean it?” she asks. She looks up and studies my eyes. “The thing about love? Or is this still just a game?”

  “It was never truly a game to me. Here.” I lead her to a little alcove of sorts, where two trees have fallen, and between them, they’ve created a type of loveseat. I scoop the snow out with one fast sweep, pat the excess moisture away, then I sit down and pull her into my lap so we’re squished into the little space, and warmth pulses between us. “We can hang out here a little longer.” I press a kiss to her cheek. “It’s not snowing anymore. The wind is non-existent in here. And for as long as you’re on my lap, I won’t freeze.”

  She snorts. “Sure, I’ll be your Jack Dawson.” She curls into my lap, breathes out a sigh of contentment, then she rests her head on my shoulder and grins. “I had no clue you, the spoiled secretary, could be so comfortable. I was totally planning to hate you this year.”

  Chuckling, I take her hand and twine our fingers together. I play with her long digits, separate them, study them. I study her fingernails. Short, neat, except her pinky, which has been chewed and made uneven. I breathe in the scent of her shampoo, absorb the feel of her weight on my chest, and wonder, a year from now, two years, ten, if we’ll get to repeat this feeling.

  “I wish you didn’t live away,” I murmur. “A week a year isn’t enough.”

  “Don’t do that.” Her whisper cracks with emotion. “Don’t ruin the now with worry about later, remember?”

  “I’m trying not to,” I reply. “It was my idea to live in the present, but fuck, Cam. The future is coming, whether we want it to or not. Soon, you’re gonna be gone, you’ll be somewhere far away, and it’ll be a long, long time before you get to come back.”

  “I’ll call you.” She drops her head back a little to look into my eyes. “I know I’ve been giving you a hard time, and I know I was saying no to every single thing you wanted. But I’ll call you. Because I’d rather have a long-distance yearning than nothing at all.”

  “You promise?” I bring a hand under her chin and drag her closer. “You swear you’ll be with me, even when you’re there?” I frown. “Wherever there is.”

  “Swear. You’re like a fungus,” she tries to joke. “You grew on me. But I don’t wanna let you go, so…”

  “So you love me too,” I declare.

  Cam and I sit in our little hideaway for another hour. It’s freezing out. Literally. And the snow begins falling outside our little world. But we stay warm, because we lend each other our warmth.

  “That thing yesterday,” she murmurs after a few minutes of silence, “at Sophia’s dance school.”

  “Are you traumatized?” I ask quickly. “She was mean to you.”

  Cam snickers and cuddles in closer. “It was the single most amazing moment of my life,” she admits quietly. “Despite my bitterness and bitching, I’ve had a few wonderful moments over the years. They’ve all involved my brother and the fun we’ve had. But yesterday…” She sighs. “It was the dreams I had as a child. The hopes and goals I had during the hundreds and thousands of hours I spent dancing in my living room.”

  She pushes back, and lifts to an elbow so she can look down into my eyes. “It wasn’t just a stage, Jamie. It wasn’t just tights, or toddler ballerinas, or music, or Lucy Kincaid standing beside me while I pointed my toes. It wasn’t just the Ellie Solomon school, or Sophia Solomon teaching me how to be better…” She draws a heavy breath through her lungs until her chest expands, then she lets it out on a happy sigh until her eyes sparkle. “It was a dream come true. And even if I never get to become a professional dancer, even if I never get to choreograph for some fancy production company… I still have yesterday. And I’ll never forget you made that happen for me.” She reaches forward to run her hand along the short stubble on my jaw. “And I’m not even gonna bitch you out about how I don’t want favors done or debts owed. Because that favor,” she drops a sweet kiss on my lips. “That favor was really special to me.”

  “You had an amazing time on that stage?” I ask her. “You got to live out a dream?”

  She smiles. Then nods. “Yeah.”

  “Well, I got to watch that happen. Front row and center, I was audience to that smile you have, the one where the rest of the world doesn’t suck anymore. The one where you get to be free from whatever is always sitting on your shoulders. And you simply got to be… you.” I reach up and slide a thumb beneath her eye. “That was the single most amazing thing that’s ever happened to me,” I murmur. “So don’t think that yesterday was selfless on my part. It was pure selfishness, it just so happened to make you smile.”

  “My heart does spastic things when you look at me the way you do.”

  I snort. “That’s okay. My heart does spastic things when I look at you. Happy coincidence.”

  And then a new thought hits me.
<
br />   “Do you still have that knife in your shoe?”

  Cam’s body turns hard as stone in an instant. “Um… is this where you kill me? Because I didn’t agree to that kinda kink.”

  “No.” I laugh and pull her closer until our lips clash. “Give it to me. I wanna do something.”

  “Does that something include cutting into my flesh?” She brings her leg up despite her questions. Reaches down to her boot, despite the worry in her eyes. “Because I’m not gonna lie down and let you do that.”

  “No, weirdo. Stop speaking.”

  I take the pocket knife she hands me – because sure, it’s totally cool and normal for a ballerina to be carrying a weapon at all times – then I flip the blade open and reach back to the tree that stands right beside my shoulder. The tree that grew up out of the ground, and was likely the reason the one we sit on was felled.

  It’s the victor, the stronger, so I choose it for us, and with Cam still resting on top of me, I begin carving our letters.

  “You’re writing our names into the tree?” She sighs. “Ugh. That’s so sweet it makes me wanna puke.”

  My chest bounces with quiet laughter. “Shut up. And yes. Because this is where we said we love each other.”

  “Oh, so you’re not marking the place you touched my vagina?”

  I stop carving for a moment. My cock refills and grows beneath her hip. Then our eyes meet and my lips curve up into a grin. “That too. But mostly the love thing.”

  “C-Q,” she reads as I carve, “plus J-K.” She sighs again.

  Happy sigh? Sad sigh?

  “For. Ever,” she finishes.

  “And ever. And ever. And ever.” I slide the blade back into place and turn to meet her eyes. Dirty denim, dancing with playfulness and love. “We have three-hundred-and-sixty or so phone calls to make after this week. I’m gonna be seriously pissed if you miss any.”

  “Will is gonna be pissed,” she snickers, “because normally, I call him when I’m working.”

  “But you’re gonna call me now instead?”

  Her grin creeps up and becomes crooked. “I’m gonna call you instead. But you’ve been warned. My big brother is gonna be so mad.”

  I roll my eyes and scoff. “Your big brother can suck my cock. Let’s go.”

  Cam

  Oops

  We move through the front door, Jamie’s large hand folded around mine as we laugh, chatter, and walk back into his kitchen while wrapped up in our own silly, flirtatious world. But then Jamie stops with a skid, his eyes fly to where his mom stands behind the counter, seemingly where she was while speaking to me earlier, but now my stool holds someone else’s butt.

  A fresh hot chocolate steams in front of the occupant’s arm.

  “Will?” Jamie’s voice literally squeaks and makes me laugh.

  Your big brother can suck my cock.

  Jamie’s eyes snap to mine – he knows why I’m laughing – and his teeth come together in a tight clench when Will stands from his stool and folds his arms.

  “Awkward,” I sing-song. “Did you wanna tell Will what you said, or…?”

  “Shut it,” Jamie rumbles. He looks back to my brother and clears his throat. “Er… Quinns gonna make it a habit to drop by my house all the time now, or is this a one-off thing?”

  “Where my sister goes,” Will growls, “I go.” His eyes come to mine and narrow. “Bubbles. Who are you standing with?”

  “Oh, yeah.” I slide away from Jamie’s side, shake my head at the shock in his expression, but when my brother’s smug grin creeps up like he thinks he’s won something, I steal the hot chocolate from the counter and go to stand beside Izzy. “I’m on the side of chocolate. Always and forever. But you boys have fun.”

  “Want more marshmallows?” Izzy turns to the pantry and grabs the bag before I answer. She opens it up and drops half a dozen into the hot chocolate.

  “Wanna know why this scene is so entertaining for me?” She waves toward the guys as they stand eight feet apart, both puffed on adrenaline, both trained fighters ready to throw down on kitchen tiles. “Because I was the girl in this position all those years ago. I was the sister, the girlfriend, the one everyone wanted to baby and coddle.”

  She smiles when Jamie’s eyes come to hers. He looks back to Will. To me. Then back to Will.

  “And every now and again,” she continues, “not all of the time. Not even most of the time. But sometimes, I had my now mother-in-law in the same room to watch the baboons show their butts. She knew her son was a fool, and she knew my brother was too. But she loved those fools dearly. It was her obligation to not pick sides.”

  “So she watched them fight instead?”

  Iz smiles. “She made me cocoa, she talked smack and incited riots, then we sat back and watched them nurse their wounds.”

  “So you’re saying we should throw gas on the flames?”

  “Cam!” Jamie’s voice snaps. “Don’t you dare!”

  “Yes,” Iz snickers. “I would very much like to see you throw gas on this fire.”

  “Mom!” Jamie cries. “You want me to die?”

  “What did you do that warrants your death?” Will growls. “You die either way, kid, but now’s your chance to own it first.”

  He touched me, I scream in my head. He loved me. He cherished me.

  He made me feel really, really special.

  “He said you could suck his…” I clear my throat. “Ya know.”

  The day after our time in the woods, I think Jamie realizes fight night is creeping closer and shit is getting serious, so not only don’t I get a phone call that lasts an hour and sends Will crazy with my obnoxious and completely out of character giggling, but I get nothing except a text that reads, Dad’s pissed. I’m running. I’ll come find you later.

  I swear I didn’t want a dependency.

  I didn’t want a boyfriend.

  I didn’t want a long-distance heartbreak.

  And I didn’t want a rich man showing me attention, because it doesn’t make me feel good about myself or my economical position in life.

  But here we are, and I wish he didn’t have to run today. I wish the tournament didn’t exist, rather that Jamie and I had a bubble we could hide in for the week. I wish we didn’t have to see anyone else, speak to anyone else. I wish we didn’t even have to eat or sleep. I selfishly want him to myself, so he can spend his time holding my hand and telling stupid jokes purely so I can roll my eyes and call him dumb.

  “Stop pouting,” Will grumbles in the parking lot of the Rollin On Gym.

  The snow isn’t falling from above, but plenty fell overnight and remains stuck to the ground today, even though it’s late in the afternoon. Will wears black compression pants, sweatpants, two hoodies, and a beanie, and though he’s sweating from the massive tractor tire he obsessively flips at a monotonous rhythm, he keeps his layers on and stays warm.

  Fight night is close, which means Christmas is soon after that. Which means – yes, I’m pouting – that my departure from town is so soon that it makes me sick.

  Call me crazy, but I sort of fell in love with a boy, and I already miss him.

  “You like him, right?” I sit on a second tire and dig my hands into my pockets. I wear my borrowed beanie and vow to never give it back. “You like Jamie, right, Will?”

  “Yeah, I like him.” He tosses the tire and it lands on the gravel with a booming thump. “I have a problem with the fact he looks at you the way a man looks at a woman—”

  “He is a man.”

  Will’s nostrils flare with rage. “I know.”

  “And I’m a woman.”

  “Don’t fucking remind me,” he snarls. “At some point while I wasn’t watching, you grew up. And I hate it.” He hisses the word, and tosses the tire again. His shoulders bulge, his chest pumps full with adrenaline. “I fucking loathe it. Because soon, you’re gonna… and he looks at you like… and you’ll say…” He looks into my eyes and, I swear, almost weeps. “I’m not okay.
”

  “But you’ve been with girls.” I tuck my hands between my thighs and lock my legs closed. “Right? You date, you spend time with women.”

  “The things I do with those women, the things I do to them…”

  I sit back and scrunch my nose. “Ew.”

  “Exactly!” He points a finger in my direction. “I’m not okay with this, because I’m a guy, Kincaid is a guy, and maybe he’s nice and all that, but eventually, he’s gonna want to do nasty shit. And fuck, Bubbles. I think knowing you’re his woman, and not my baby girl anymore, might scar me for life.”

  “I think…” I don’t make a habit of lying to my brother. Sometimes I’ll tell a small fib, if I think it’s best for his blood pressure. But the deep stuff, the important stuff, I tend to share. “I think that, when he wants to do things with me, and when I want to do things with him… I think he would be respectful about it.”

  “Fuckin’ lies,” he grunts. Will tosses the tire, then turns to me with his hands on his hips. “A man can love a woman deeply. He can respect her in the streets, he can think she’s his queen. But take those clothes off, Cam, and shit gets nasty real quick. The more in love a guy is, the more freaky-deaky the stuff between the sheets becomes.”

  “Um…” Heat rushes to my cheeks. “What?”

  “I said what I said.” He turns back to the tire and starts flipping again. “I’m not saying this disrespectful man is harming his queen. He’s not hurting her, or doing things without her permission. But I’m saying, the more love and trust there is in a relationship, the wilder that motherfucker is gonna go. Because he trusts her to say no if she doesn’t want something, and she trusts him to listen if she needs to speak up. When a couple is mutually respectful outside of the bedroom, they become disrespectful as fuck when it’s time to sodomize.”

  “Sodomize!” I slap my hands to my cheeks and feel the burn. “What the hell are you into, William?”

  “Figure of speech,” he grumbles. “The point is, you’re my baby girl. And baby girls are innocent and perfect. But that fucker in there,” he points toward the gym, “that prick doesn’t want an innocent girl. He wants a woman. And god help him, he’s gonna make you into one.”