“I think you’ve said more on this trip than you have in the past five years.”
He paused.
“Well, I should have been talking to you more. I should have let you in more.”
Cameron squeezed my hand, and I squeezed his in return, my eyes closing at the truth behind his words. “I know it’s hard.”
“It is,” he agreed quickly. “But I’m your husband, and I should have been there for you. When everything…”
Cameron’s voice broke, and he cleared his throat, adjusting his position behind me.
“I’ve been seeing someone,” he said, and instantly, my heart froze, the beat stuck under my rib cage. But before I could draw any conclusions of my own, he clarified with, “A therapist. His name is Patrick.”
I sat up, twisting a little until I could see Cameron’s face.
“How long?”
“A little over a week,” he said, and I felt the tremble in his hand still intertwined with mine.
Cameron hated talking, hated opening up and feeling vulnerable, and here he’d been doing so with a stranger — and now, with me. I leaned against him again, this time curling into him, my cheek against his chest as I wrapped my arms around his middle.
“There’s so much I want to tell you, Charlie,” Cameron said, his hand running over my damp hair before he pressed a kiss to it. “So much I need to tell you, things you need to hear, but I may not be able to say it all at once. I may not get it all out tonight, but I promise you, I’m trying. And I will tell you everything. I will.”
“It’s okay,” I tried, but he shook his head.
“It’s not. And I could start in a lot of different places, but the first thing I want to say to you is that I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry I left you to battle the grief over losing Derrick and Jeremiah on your own. I was stupid to think you needed space and time. You’re right — you needed me, and I wasn’t there.”
Emotion strangled me like a noose, its hands wrapping tight around my throat as I wrapped my arms around Cameron tighter. He was so warm, yet he was shaking, and I tried as much as I could to make him feel comfortable.
The words he was giving me, they were more than he’d given me in years — and I knew how much they hurt for him to say.
“I was devastated,” he said, his voice just above a whisper. “When we lost them, I felt like somehow it was my fault — like I had failed you and them in some way I couldn’t even be sure of. And I wanted to help you, to make you feel better, but I didn’t know how. I was useless. I tried rebuilding your library and packing away any memory of our boys…” He swallowed, voice thick with emotion. “Like I could make them disappear. Like I could fix your pain by removing any reminders of the reason it existed, instead of facing it head on with you.”
My heart broke with his admission. Here I’d felt like it was my fault, like I was the one who’d failed by not carrying our boys into a healthy birth, and Cameron felt that same pressure.
It was all too much for us. For both of us. Why hadn’t I ever thought to ask him if he was okay?
“When I told Patrick about what happened, he asked me how I felt about losing them,” Cameron said. “The boys. And at first, the answer was easy. I was sad, I was angry, I was devastated and heartbroken. I blamed God, blamed myself, blamed my shit father even though I haven’t seen him since I was eight. Somehow it was his fault, too, and that’s when Patrick helped me realize something I hadn’t before.”
My breath caught, and I held it in my lungs as I waited for Cameron to continue.
“The truth is, I was more angry than anything when we lost the boys, Charlie. I couldn’t handle the pain, or the thought of not having them in our lives, but I could spend hours and hours every night being angry. And what Patrick helped me see was that I wasn’t mad at you, or at me, or at the doctors or the stupid grieving books your parents gave us,” he said, shaking his head. “I was angry because it wasn’t fair. I was angry because of the injustice of my life, of being an unwanted child who, in turn, couldn’t have the children he wanted more than anything.”
I closed my eyes, tears I hadn’t even realized were building rolling down my cheeks in two symmetrical lines.
“Oh, Cameron,” I whispered, holding him tight. “You weren’t unwanted.”
“Yes, I was,” he said louder, his voice strong and sure. “And it’s so, so fucked up that they could have me when they didn’t even want me. A druggie mother, an abusive, asshole dad. They didn’t want a kid, and yet they got me.”
He was shaking, and I smoothed my hands down his lower back where I held him, lips pressed against his chest.
“And here we are, two people who love each other more than anything in the world, and we couldn’t have our boys.” He swallowed. “That’s what I played on repeat, over and over, until my thoughts were scrambled and knotted. All I could think was how we wanted those boys and we couldn’t have them. But we deserved them, Charlie. Damn it, you deserved them.”
Cameron grabbed my arms, pulling me up until my eyes met his. He ran his hands up and over my shoulders, my neck, until they framed my face as his eyes searched mine, begging me to hear him.
“You will be the most amazing mother one day,” he said, his voice breaking. “Whether with me or…”
But he couldn’t finish the sentence, and I hated myself for ever making it a sentence he thought in the first place.
“You will be the best mom in the world. I know it. And I’m just so sorry those boys didn’t get to live long enough to have you as their mother because they would have been the luckiest boys in the world.” He sniffed. “And I would have been the luckiest man.” At that, he choked on a laugh. “I still am, at least for now.”
“Shhh,” I said quickly, leaning in to kiss him, and we both exhaled together once our lips met.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him into me, twisting in the bath as the water sloshed over the sides again. I straddled him the best I could in the space we had, our chests fused together as he kissed my lips hard enough to bruise them.
“I’m so sorry, Charlie,” he said between kisses. “I just wanted you to know that. I was hurting, too. I lost them, too. But I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you the way I should have been. I’m sorry I haven’t been here, not really, since the day they left.”
“It’s okay, Cameron. It’s okay. I understand.” I kissed him again, softer this time — longer. “There’s no right way to handle what we went through, okay? We were both just doing what we could. That’s all we had to give, and it’s okay.”
“I’ll never forgive myself,” he whispered. “But I had to tell you. I wanted you to understand. And more than anything, I need you to know that I have always loved you, Charlie. Always. That never wavered — not ever.”
“I know,” I said quickly, but in my heart, a familiar pain stung me like a wasp. Because though I knew he’d always loved me, he had wavered — he had strayed from my love and into the arms of another woman.
And I still didn’t know why.
But I pushed those thoughts from my mind, choosing to focus on the little ray of light Cameron had chosen to shine on his darkest thoughts that night. He’d let me in, he’d let me see, and I wanted to live in that light as long as I could.
“Cameron,” I said, running my hands back through his hair until his chocolate eyes connected with mine.
“Yes?”
“Do you want me?”
He blew out a long breath, shaking his head as his forehead leaned in to mine. “More than anything.”
“Make love to me,” I whispered.
Cameron’s hands gripped me tighter, his lips finding mine with a sigh of relief and passion. I rolled my hips against him, making waves in the water around us, and I felt those waves washing away any and everything that wasn’t us in that moment. For now, for tonight, we were only man and woman, husband and wife — and he was all I wanted.
“I’ve been aching to touch you all night,” Camer
on confessed, his hand snaking under the water to cup my ass. “But I’m not doing it in a lukewarm bathtub.”
I laughed, head falling back before he pulled my lips to his again. He helped me turn carefully, until we were both facing the faucet again, and then he stood as I leaned forward in the tub. He stepped out first, grabbing a towel off the rack, but when he turned to where I still lay in the tub, he paused, shaking his head.
“God, Charlie,” he groaned, eyes devouring every inch of my skin. “You are so… beautiful. Crushingly so.”
I blushed, following his gaze to where my nipples peeked out of the water, to where my thighs were visible, too. With my eyes snapping back to his, I rolled, giving him a view of my backside as I bit my lower lip.
He groaned again, holding the towel in one hand and offering his free one to me. “Come here.”
There was something about having my husband look at me that way again — like it was that first night he’d taken me to that hotel room, like he wanted me more than oxygen in his lungs — and it gave me a confidence I hadn’t had in years. Maybe ever.
So, instead of reaching up for his hand, I rolled to my back again, letting my knees fall open as one hand slid between my thighs. I kept my eyes on him, watching as he grew harder for me at the sight of me touching myself, and when his eyes found mine, I gasped, letting out a long moan as I slipped one finger inside me.
Cameron inhaled a stiff breath, and I creaked one eye open to see him watching me. His lower lip was pinned between his teeth, his cock rock hard now, and the hand that had been offered to help me out of the tub was now wrapped around his shaft. He pumped once, flexing his hips into his touch, and the sight of him touching himself sent a jolt through me.
I’d never seen Cameron stroke himself, never walked in on him watching porn or relieving himself before bed. There was something about the way his eyes almost closed, the heat that lay within them as he watched me, the pressure of his hand as it slid over his wet crown and down his shaft to the very base of him. I knew every inch of him, every curve, every vein, and every sensitive spot.
That man was mine. He always had been.
When my fingers moved up to circle my clit, Cameron growled, dropping the towel altogether and reaching into the tub until I was cradled in his arms. I giggled as he lifted me, but his lips suppressed that laugh quickly, and he carried me blindly to the bed, dropping me into the comforter with every inch of me still dripping wet.
“Open,” he commanded, tapping the inside of each of my knees. He was still standing at the edge of the bed, stroking himself as I did as he said, and once I was spread open for him, he dropped to his knees.
His hands wrapped around my hips, tugging me toward him until my thighs hit his shoulders, and his tongue licked the water from the inside of my thigh first before his mouth fused with my core. I fisted my hands in the sheets at the feel of his hot mouth on my clit, his tongue circling, teeth nibbling with just the slightest pressure as he sucked and kissed.
Just as I knew him, Cameron knew me — he knew all the right places to touch, the right ways to tease, the right spots to hit. After all these years, he still remembered, and I knew he always would.
And just when I wanted it most, he carefully slipped his middle finger inside me, turning his wrist toward the ceiling and curling that finger until I arched off the bed with an insatiable moan.
That moan fueled his passion, his tongue swirling faster as his finger worked me closer to a release. It never took long for Cameron to get me there, not when he knew exactly what I needed — exactly what I craved. But before I could catch the fire I chased, he slowed, withdrawing his finger with a soft kiss to my clit before he stood again.
Seeing him standing there at the edge of the bed, the floral wallpaper and half-full bath tub visible behind him, it was almost like traveling back in time. I blinked and saw him at just twenty years old, his hair a little longer then, face a little rounder and more baby-like. Then I blinked again, seeing how age had changed him, how the stubble grew on his chin now, how his eyes were a little more worn.
I thought I loved the boy I had in this room more than ten years ago, but it was nothing compared to how I felt for the man who stood before me now. He was my protector, my lover, my best friend.
And maybe I’d lost him for a while, maybe we’d drifted apart, but tonight, we were coming back together. Tonight, we would try again.
Tonight, I was his. And he was mine.
Cameron stroked himself once before he crawled onto the bed with me, helping me maneuver back into the pillows. When he settled between my legs, we both moaned at the feel of his hardness sliding between my wet lips. But he backed off a bit, kissing me softly until he balanced on his hands above me.
“Roll over.”
Again, I did as he said, heart racing with anticipation of him being inside me. When my stomach was on the bed, he pulled my hips up just a bit, lifting me with a low arch in my back and his crown at my center. His hands massaged my cheeks, spreading them wide so he could see all of me before he positioned himself at my entrance, and with careful, slow measure, he flexed forward, and my husband filled me.
For a brief, fleeting moment, I thought of Reese.
Not because I wanted him in that moment, but because I couldn’t help but compare how different it felt when Cameron slipped inside me. I knew the feel of him, I knew the way he curved inside me, and yet it was like a new man touching me that night. It was the man he’d revealed to me, the man I’d been trying to reach since our sons died, and now he was here — he was present — and he let me see all of him, feel all of him, like never before.
Cameron withdrew his hips with a low groan, sliding back inside me again a little slower, hitting a new depth as I tossed my head back. One hand came up to fist my hair then, and he held that fistful tight as his lips lowered to my neck. He kissed and bit his way down to my shoulder, his hips working a little faster, every nerve in my body awakening to his touch.
“Yes,” I moaned when he slid in at a slight angle, hitting the spot within me that drove me closer to release. “Right there. Yes, Cameron. Yes.”
His breath was hot in my ear as he moved, and I felt each flex, each centimeter inside me, each hand of his — the one in my hair, the one bruising my hip. He shifted me a little more to the left, a trick he’d learned years ago, one that let him reach that perfect spot inside me. And when he did, my moans grew louder, more erratic, my hands fisting in the sheets as I lost control.
There were no words as my orgasm built fiery and fast, three pumps of his hips getting me to the top before I soared over the edge. He stayed deep when he felt me shaking around him, flexing his hips in smaller pumps that hit that spot over and over as I came. And I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything other than feel him in that moment.
It was the sweetest release, and at the end of it, I collapsed to the bed, hips dropping into the comforter as my back ached in the best possible way.
Cameron slowed, releasing my hair from his grip as he kissed gently down my back. I shivered under his feather-light kisses, shaking more when he withdrew, and he kissed my lower back softly before helping me roll to my back.
He took his time climbing back up my body, his lips and tongue savoring each stop along the way — my thighs, my stomach, my ribs, my breasts, my collarbone, my neck, before he finally settled between my legs and tasted my mouth with his own. I moaned into that kiss, arching up toward him, aching for him to fill me again until he found his own ecstasy.
He pulled back from our kiss, hand sweeping my hair away as his eyes searched mine, and in that moment, I saw it — the pain. It pained him to touch me, to have me, when he felt like he didn’t deserve to. He swallowed, brows bending together, and as he lowered another kiss to my lips, I replied to what he couldn’t say out loud.
“I love you, too, Cameron,” I whispered. “I love you, too.”
He sighed, shaking his head just once before his lips found
mine again, hot and needy, and his thighs spread my own so he could slide inside me once more.
I was tighter now, my climax making me swell with want, and we both groaned at the way it felt when he stretched me open for him again. I ran my hands through his hair, tightening my grip and holding on as he flexed into me, over and over, slow at first before picking up a steady rhythm.
And he didn’t watch my modest breasts as they bounced when he came, nor did he curse or groan. He just watched me, his eyes fixed on my own, his mouth falling open as a longing sigh left his lips and landed on mine. He pulsed out his release inside me, his hands gripping me tight, as if I’d float away once the moment was over. And when it was, my name was all he whispered before he kissed me.
He rolled to his side, taking me with him, his lips still soft on mine as he stroked my hair back away from my face. His eyes were closed now, and when he pressed his forehead to mine, our breaths slowing, I let my eyes fall shut, too.
And though he was all I wanted that night, and though I was sated and satisfied, I couldn’t ignore the familiar, lonely ache that crept its way up through my chest. Because Cameron had opened up to me that night, he’d let me in, and so I felt closer to him, yet still so far away — like we had both crossed our ends of the bridge, but were still separated by a five-foot jump between the two.
He had given me so much that evening, but there was still so much he held.
Could I find comfort in what he’d offered? Could I hold onto that small bit of light, hoping it would eventually grow tenfold and show me everything he’d hidden away over the years? And even if he could, I wasn’t naïve enough to believe that one happy night with Cameron was enough to erase what I’d felt with Reese.
Even now, laying in Cameron’s arms, I wondered if Reese was thinking of me. I wondered when I would see him next, and what I would feel when I did. It didn’t matter that I was angry with him, or that he’d kept Blake from me — I still wanted him.
Because though Cameron had made me happy tonight, Reese had made me happy first — after years of being dead inside, and well before Cameron had even woken up to see he was losing me.
Best Kept Secrets: The Complete Series Page 33