Rogue Passion (The Rogue Series Book 5)

by Chelsea M. Cameron

  I took my time making the tea to give her some privacy. Sure, it was my house, but I could tell she needed a break. I got burned out on being around people and sometimes needed to just shut down and not talk or see anyone for a few hours.

  When I’d dawdled enough in the kitchen, I slowly walked out to the living room and found her asleep. Her phone was lighting up, but it was on silent on the arm of the chair. I put it on the coffee table and grabbed one of my afghans to put over her, but I was busted when she woke up.

  “Oh, I fell asleep,” she said, blinking at me. Our faces were mere inches apart.

  “Sorry, I figured you might want a blanket,” I said, but I didn’t move away from her.

  “Thanks,” she said, and she tilted her head a fraction closer to me. My heart had seized in my chest and I’d stopped breathing. Something was growing between us, and if she wasn’t into girls, she needed to tell me right the hell now.

  “Do you like girls?” I blurted out. Smooth. Way to go, Saylor.

  Echo blinked at me and I half-expected her to tell me to mind my own fucking business and that I didn’t need to know. She wasn’t here to date me.

  “Uh, yeah. I do. Do you?” Now I was the one blinking at her.

  “Yeah,” I said, and the answer made her smile. Crap, she was cute. And she smelled incredible. Like a bouquet of fresh flowers and clean raindrops.

  “I won’t put that in the article,” she said, and I chuckled. Neither of us had moved. My hands were still in the process of covering her with the blanket. I finally dropped it.

  “You can. I don’t mind. I’m pretty open. I’m surprised you didn’t know already.” My social media was plastered with queer stuff.

  “I mean, I did, but I never assume. Because it makes an ass out of you and me, and I would like to avoid that if I can.” I laughed again.

  “You’re funny for a journalist. I always thought they were so serious and always talking seriously about serious things and serious people.”

  I found myself leaning closer without even realizing it.

  “That’s a lot of serious,” she said and I could feel her breath whispering across my lips. We were definitely in kiss territory. Right on the border. I didn’t know if she was going to stop me, or if this was going to proceed.

  “It was. You took all my good words for today. I gave them all to you.”

  “Thanks,” she said and inhaled sharply. “Are you going to kiss me?”

  I was taken aback.

  “Um, I figured that was what was happening and we were just kind of dancing around it. We probably shouldn’t, though, right? It would be unprofessional.” Or something. Honestly, I didn’t care. My entire body was so keyed up that if something didn’t happen soon, I was going to break.

  “Oh, yes. Of course. Unprofessional.” She still wasn’t pulling away. And then my phone interrupted us and we both jumped as if we’d been shocked. I fell back onto the couch and the afghan slid from Echo’s lap and onto the floor.

  “Dammit,” I said under my breath as I realized it was just an update notification. Most of my friends knew I was horrible at returning text messages.

  “I should probably go,” Echo said, getting up and leaning down to grab the blanket. She folded it up and handed it to me.

  “Yeah, sure,” I said, still completely in a daze. This girl had bewitched me. There was no other explanation. At least I had finally established that she liked girls (including me) and probably would have kissed me if it wasn’t wildly unprofessional.

  “I’m sorry about the tea. Rain check?” I nodded without thinking.

  Echo gathered up the rest of her things while I just sat there on the couch like a lump.

  “So, I’ll see you next Friday?” I nodded like a puppet.

  “Uh huh.” I needed to collect myself ASAP and walk her to the door. Took me longer than it should have.

  “It was really nice talking with you, Echo,” I said, leaning on the doorframe.

  “It was lovely talking with you, Saylor. Maybe after this is over…” she trailed off, but I think I could figure out what she was leading to.

  “Yes,” I said a little too quickly. “Definitely yes.”

  “I don’t want anything to affect our working relationship,” she said, her face turning red. “I’m normally extremely professional. This is a first for me.”

  “Same,” I said. “I mean, it’s not the same. I don’t know what I’m saying anymore. What are words?” She laughed lightly and took a few steps backward, still facing me.

  “They’re my job and even I don’t know sometimes.” She took another step. “But I should definitely go. Right now. Before I completely throw my career out the window.”

  “Yes, please. Don’t ruin your career for me.” An itty-bitty voice in my head screamed that I would be totally fine with that if it would mean she’d kiss me. I told the voice that it was selfish and to shut the hell up.

  “Bye again,” she said, giving me a little wave.

  “Bye, Echo.” I waited until she was out of sight and then a little more until I closed the door. That itty-bitty voice told me that she was going to come back and kick my door in and kiss my face off, but that didn’t happen. Echo was an award-winning journalist. She wasn’t going to throw that away over me.

  4

  I couldn’t sleep that night and pulled up a blank email.

  I know this is probably the absolutely wrong thing to say, but I really wish you would have kissed me today. Or I would have kissed you. I know it’s not professional, but I don’t really care.

  I figured I should end it there and probably not hit Send. And then my finger slipped. Sort of.

  The next day I didn’t check my personal email until the next afternoon and my heart tripped when I saw a response from Echo.

  I know. I wanted to. You don’t know how much I wanted that. But my editor is really excited about my notes for this story. I don’t think I can kill it now.

  Well, shit. Guess the story was happening no matter what. That made me nervous. I knew that we had already kinda crossed a line by even talking about kissing or admitting that we were attracted to each other. At least we hadn’t gone further. I didn’t want her to get hauled into her editor’s office for anything. At least no one had seen our little indiscretion, and Echo’s recorder had been turned off. We would just have to pretend that it never happened and would have to keep anything else from happening until the story went to print.

  I could totally handle that.

  I could totally handle it until Echo showed up on Friday at my apartment. This was the first time I had seen her look nervous. She seemed scattered and clumsy. The photographer didn’t seem to notice anything as he set up his equipment and moved furniture around and tried to get me to look presentable. I’d done my best with my hair and makeup and outfit.

  “Is this okay?” I asked Echo. She barely glanced at me and just gave me a terse nod. She’d had her head buried in her notebook since she walked in the door.

  She also hadn’t emailed me again, and I made myself delete all of the flirty ones. Didn’t want to leave a trail that someone could find.

  The pictures took forever and I was totally uncomfortable with the whole thing. He took snap after snap and I knew that probably only two or three would make it into the article. I tried my best, but I didn’t have a whole lot of faith that they would be good, but he seemed satisfied and got out of there as quickly as he could and then it was just me and Echo.

  Alone.

  “Let’s get this over with as fast as we can, deal?” she said, her voice tight. There were tension lines on her forehead that I wanted to use my lips to kiss away. That was not a helpful thought. We had to be all business.

  “Right. Yes. Let’s get it done.”

  This time, Echo’s questions were sterile and there was no banter in between. We both seemed like we wanted to get out as many words as fast as possible. I didn’t know what else she needed to cover, but she kept firing qu
estions at me.

  “Can that be enough?” I finally asked. I was completely exhausted from being ordered around by the photographer for hours.

  “Yes,” she said, turning off the recording app. I let out a long breath.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, setting her notebook and pen down. “I don’t want to be like this, but I don’t know how to be friendly with you without being flirty. How am I doing?” She finally cracked a smile and it was like seeing the sun after a month of nothing but clouds.

  “Extremely professional. Most professional. Top professional.” I gave her two thumbs up.

  “Good. My editor has been really excited about this so I’ve been under additional scrutiny. Honestly, I wanted to kill the story, but she would ask why and I don’t think I can get into that with her. She’s one of those hard, older journalists that doesn’t believe in making connections with people. Be completely removed and an observer. Don’t get close to your subjects. But then when I do the opposite of that, she loves my stories, so I have no idea.” She rubbed her forehead with her thumb and forefinger.

  “So how long do you think it will take before it goes to press?” I honestly had no idea how the process worked.

  “A week.” My heart sunk. I was hoping it would be like, tomorrow. Or in a few hours.

  “A week?” I was totally whining.

  “A week,” she said, nodding.

  “And then?” I asked.

  “And then our professional relationship is over and we can…” she trailed off and shrugged. “I mean, it’s still not totally above board, but if anyone asks, I can say that everything that happened while I was writing the story was recorded and nothing happened. Or, I could kill the story and face the wrath of my editor.”

  “I don’t want there to be questions. I don’t want to have to tiptoe around. But I also don’t want you to make your editor mad at you.” Echo narrowed her eyes and steepled her fingers together, as if she was deep in thought.

  “On the one hand, we have to wait a week, and it puts my integrity in question. On the other hand, I have a mad editor, but I get to kiss you right now.” My heart stopped and then sped up to double time.

  “And which one are you going to choose? I’m sure you know what gets my vote. I never wanted to do this story in the first place, and I’m pretty sure that those pictures are going to be crap.” She nodded as if she was mulling it over.

  “It’s a tough decision.”

  I was on the edge of the couch, waiting. Just waiting for Echo to choose what she wanted.

  “Actually, I lied. It’s not a tough decision.”

  With that, she pushed up from the chair and stood in front of me, her hands on either side of me.

  “You’re one of the easiest decisions I’ve ever made, Saylor,” she said. I had one second to prepare before her lips met mine and I wasn’t thinking about the story. I wasn’t thinking about anything except how damn good she felt.

  I leaned back and she came closer, crawling into my lap. Her lips teased mine for only a moment before she was demanding more, and I gave it to her. Her tongue teased me, taunted me until I pressed mine against hers in return. Her hands ran up my shoulders to cup my face and she ground her hips against mine, just a little. It was the hottest first kiss I’d had with anyone. Ever.

  My hands clenched her ass and urged her to let herself go against me. She could take whatever she wanted. I would give her anything.

  Echo groaned and I gasped as she lifted her mouth from mine.

  “I’ve wanted you since the second I saw that picture. Did you know that? I saw you and I knew I wanted to be around you. I know how that sounds, but I don’t care. I had to come here and meet you, even if it was just for an interview and then I never saw you again.”

  I pushed some of her hair back in her face.

  “I know. I wanted to meet you from that first email. I didn’t know what it was either. I don’t believe in fate, but I don’t know what else to call this, Echo.” She kissed my forehead and I pulled her closer.

  “I just hope this doesn’t make me a bad journalist. Getting into bed with my subject.” A bolt of lust went through me at the idea of us getting into bed together. Yes. That needed to happen, and soon.

  “You’re not the first, or the last. And the story is never going to run. You can totally blame it on me. I don’t care what you tell your editor as long as you kiss me again, right now.”

  She smiled and happiness blossomed in my chest like a thousand flowers.

  “Deal.”

  She kissed me again.

  Acknowledgements: Firstly, I want to thank everyone involved with this anthology. I saw submissions were open, but I hesitated. Finally I saw it in my twitter feed again and said “screw it” and submitted. I honestly didn’t think I would be picked, so THANK YOU.

  Second, to my rockstar editor Laura, for getting this back to me so quickly. You are THE BEST.

  To all of the activists who I have followed on twitter who are fighting the good fight and educating everyone, which is an often thankless task. I have learned so much, and I will never be the same. Thank you for what you do.

  Lastly, to my Dear Heart, thanks for letting me work, as always. And for folding the laundry when I was finishing this. You’re my very favorite.

  Author bio:

  Chelsea M. Cameron is a New York Times/USA Today Best Selling author from Maine who now lives and works in Boston. She's a red velvet cake enthusiast, obsessive tea drinker, vegetarian, former cheerleader and world's worst video gamer. When not writing, she enjoys watching infomercials, singing in the car, tweeting (this one time, she was tweeted by Neil Gaiman) and playing fetch with her cat, Sassenach. She has a degree in journalism from the University of Maine, Orono that she promptly abandoned to write about the people in her own head. More often than not, these people turn out to be just as weird as she is.

  Also by Chelsea M. Cameron:

  The Noctalis Chronicles

  Nocturnal (Book One)

  Nightmare (Book Two)

  Neither (Book Three)

  Neverend (Book Four)

  The Whisper Trilogy

  Whisper (Book One)

  Fall and Rise

  Deeper We Fall (Book One)

  Faster We Burn (Book Two)

  Slowly We Trust (Book Three)

  Together We Heal (Book Four)

  My Favorite Mistake

  My Favorite Mistake (Book One)

  My Sweetest Escape (Book Two)

  Our Favorite Days (Book Three)

  Surrender Saga

  Sweet Surrendering (Book One)

  Surrendering to Us (Book Two)

  Dark Surrendering (Book Three)

  Surrendering to Always (Book Four)

  Deep Surrendering

  Rules of Love

  For Real (Book One)

  For Now (Book Two)

  UnWritten

  Behind Your Back

  Back to Back

  Bend Me, Break Me

  OTP Series

  Style (Book One)

  Chord (Book Two)

  Brooks (Benson Brothers, Book One)

  Violet Hill

  Second Kiss (Book One)

  Double Exposure (Book Two)

  Second Chance (Book Three)

  The Hot Mess Series

  Dirty Girl (Volume One)

  Dirtier Girl (Volume Two)

  About the Author

  Chelsea M. Cameron is a New York Times/USA Today Best Selling author from Maine who now lives and works in Boston. She's a red velvet cake enthusiast, obsessive tea drinker, vegetarian, former cheerleader and world's worst video gamer. When not writing, she enjoys watching infomercials, singing in the car, tweeting (this one time, she was tweeted by Neil Gaiman) and playing fetch with her cat, Sassenach. She has a degree in journalism from the University of Maine, Orono that she promptly abandoned to write about the people in her own head. More often than not, these people turn out to be just as weird as she is.


  Find Chelsea online:

  chelseamcameron.com

  Twitter: @chel_c_cam

  Facebook: Chelsea M. Cameron (Official Author Page)

  Instagram: chelccam

  Sign up for her Patreon!

  Acknowledgments

  Firstly, I want to thank everyone involved with this anthology. I saw submissions were open, but I hesitated. Finally I saw it in my twitter feed again and said “screw it” and submitted. I honestly didn’t think I would be picked, so THANK YOU.

  Second, to my rockstar editor Laura, for getting this back to me so quickly. You are THE BEST.

  To all of the activists who I have followed on twitter who are fighting the good fight and educating everyone, which is an often thankless task. I have learned so much, and I will never be the same. Thank you for what you do.

  Lastly, to my Dear Heart, thanks for letting me work, as always. And for folding the laundry when I was finishing this. You’re my very favorite.

  The Suit and the Doll

  Zoey Castile

  Sofia Bernal has lost her father, her scholarship, her boyfriend in the past year. After dropping out of law school, the only way to make ends meet is working admissions at a stripclub near Wall Street. She’s living life day by day, trying to pull herself back together after a hellish year. Then, a tipsy customer changes her life.

  Rory Donovan is a small town boy in a city bigger than anything he ever dreamed. Working for a land developer was supposed to be his ticket to saving his family’s legacy. But when he’s assigned a project that goes against his ethics, he goes into a downward spiral and winds up at a place he never though he would—a stripclub.