“I loved—”
She kissed him. Threw herself at him, really, like the girl she’d been, and he caught her against him like a man who’d been handed a dream. A dream he had to hold onto at all costs.
Oh god. She was going to be the end of him. The absolute end.
“Take me upstairs,” she said.
“Are you sure?” he asked. “Because we don’t—”
Had that been him this morning? Thinking sex would be easy? Was he that fool?
“Please, Cameron,” she whispered.
Yeah. Game over. No more talking.
He lifted her against his body, her feet dangling over the floor, and carried her toward the stairs. Her hips bumped against his, that sweet roll, and he was hard between one breath and the next.
At the stairs he set her down and they ran, hand in hand, up the stairs to her room. That last room on the right where family always stayed at the inn. The room where it had all happened.
She hesitated, her hand clenching round his fingers.
“It’s just a room,” he said. Because he knew exactly what she was feeling.
“You’re right.”
And then they were inside. The curtains drawn across the window gave the room a kind of murky glow. A muffled quiet.
“Hi,” he said, smiling down at her face, so familiar.
“Hi.” Her smile was sweet.
“Just so you know…I’ve been thinking about this moment for a solid chunk of my life and I have a list of things I need to do to you.”
“Need?” she whispered.
“Yeah.” He pulled her close, up tight against his body, and she let out a gasp. Surprised and turned on all at once. “For instance,” he whispered. “I need to kiss you here.”
He pressed his lips to the side of her neck, in that dip of tendons and bone where he could see her heart beating. “And here.” The base of her throat, that sweet valley where her collarbones met. It had a name, that place, he just could never remember. “And here.”
Her black shirt had buttons down the front and was made of some silky material, and he pressed a kiss to the place revealed by every V-neck T-shirt she wore in all the years he knew her.
“Cameron,” she breathed, her head falling back. Her weight in his arms was complete.
“I’m just getting started,” he said, and considering he was supporting her body in his arms and he had zero fucking patience left, he gathered one side of that silky shirt in his fist and just tore it open. The fabric ripped and the buttons bounced onto the hardwood floor.
The minor violence of it added gasoline to an already hot fire. He kissed his way down to her breasts, taut and trembling in a no-nonsense bra. He pressed a hand to her stomach just to feel the muscles there quiver against his palm. He sucked her tongue just to feel the vibration of her moan.
She grabbed handfuls of his shirt, lifting it up until they had to stop kissing so she could pull it off, and the second’s separation was too much and they fell back onto each other like they were starving. And all the tenderness he’d thought he’d feel when he imagined finally getting his hands on her was lost and it was just need between them. Need—and every year they’d spent away from each other.
“Yes,” she moaned. “Hurry.”
They got tangled up trying to take off each other’s pants, and quickly gave up and worked on their own. Belts clanked and jeans were shoved out of the way and her hands, oh sweet god, her hands slipped over the gray fabric of his boxers. Her palm rubbed against the painfully hard length of his dick and he saw stars against the backs of his eyelids. He lost his own rhythm for a second and pressed his head against hers, standing there, letting her touch him the way he’d barely been able to dream of when they were young.
She slipped her fingers into the waist of his boxers, edging them down over the head of his cock and then off his hips. He sucked in air, suddenly light-headed.
“Watch,” she breathed, and he opened his eyes and did as she asked.
Her hand curled around his shaft and it was everything. Everything. His breath sawed in his chest.
“I wanted this,” she said. “Even before I really knew what it was.”
Yes. Yes. He understood that. A snake brain longing when they were too young to really know.
“I wanted to kiss you and touch you, and I wanted to be kissed and touched by you,” she said.
He kissed her forehead. She circled her thumb around his dick.
“You really are so beautiful.” She stroked him, over and over, and he stood there and took it for as long as he could. Holding on to control by a thread until it suddenly snapped in her fingers, and it was stop her or come all over her belly.
He grabbed her hand, taking it off his body.
“Cam—”
“I know. But I’ve got some things I need to do.”
Her laugh was a quiet humph. “Like what?”
He picked her up again by the waist, kissing her and walking her backward toward the bed, toppling them both onto it. Her legs parted and he slid into the cradle of her hips like this was a dance they’d done a million times.
Her legs wrapped around his waist and his cock rocked against her. He held his breath and pushed aside his own reactions, studying hers. Listening to how her breath broke and noticing when she shuddered and shook.
He cupped her breast and she sighed. He sucked her nipple and she cried out. He bit her nipple, just a little, and her entire body arched against him.
Yes. Yes. He was learning her. They way he’d always wanted to. And when his fingers slipped down over her stomach into her damp underwear he found her wet and hot. Her skin flushed and her eyes closed and he watched her face as his fingers found the spot that made her tremble against him.
“Yes,” he breathed, feeling like he’d cracked a code or unlocked a safe. Here she was open and on the edge at the very tips of his fingers. He stopped and her eyes flew open.
“Just checking,” he breathed.
“Please. Please, Cameron.”
And now he was cracked open. Totally revealed. His name on her lips in just that way was the end of him. Abruptly he stood.
“What—?” she gasped, as if he’d yanked some rug out from under her.
“Condom.”
She blinked, her mind gone in some anticipatory haze. Some half-finished blown-out bliss, and he smiled at her and felt himself slipping. His very protected idea of what exactly this was between them losing it edges.
Fuck her and move on. That had been the plan. Answer the question that had burned in the back of his brain for so long: What would we be like together? And walk back out the door. Maybe they’d stay in touch this time. He could visit her when he found himself in New York City.
Or not.
But looking at her on that bed, his fingers still damp, his mouth still tasting like hers, he thought the worst thing he could think right now. She would be so easy to love. Again.
“Cameron?” She pushed herself up to her elbow and then onto her hand. “Are you okay?”
So strange that the only person he could talk to about this was her. I’m in trouble, he wanted to say. I’m in a lot of trouble with you.
“Good,” he said and went into the bathroom to get the condoms. His dick was so hard it hurt.
He came back to the bed and tossed the condoms down beside her on the bed. She grabbed one as he grabbed her hips, pulling her down to the edge of the bed.
“Wha—?”
“This.”
His knees on the floor, he pulled off her underwear, damp and thin. And then he settled himself between her thighs he could taste her before putting his mouth on her. And he knew she was about to become his favorite flavor. That, years from now, he’d wake up from a dream and still be able to taste her.
He put one arm over her hips, the tip of his tongue tracing her delicate seam. She jerked and moaned, and he did it again, deeper each time, until he was inside of her.
She pulled at his hair, push
ed at his head.
“I’m going to—”
He hummed against her, slipped his finger deep pushing on that soft tender spot as he sucked her clit and she exploded against him, a shaking, wild dance between him and the bed. She clapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes closed, and she tried to control it as best she could which was cute. Sure.
But also not going to work for him.
If he was in danger of falling apart, he needed her right with him.
And there was no one in the goddamn lodge.
He grabbed a condom and slid it on, and before her orgasm had faded he pushed himself deep.
She hissed a pained breath. Her face twisted in a sharp wince.
“Am I hurting you?” he asked, pulling out, noticing just how tight she was.
“I’m fine,” she lied.
“Bullshit, Josie. I’m…” There were faint smears of blood on the condom and his heart stopped. Dead.
“Please,” she moaned, lifting her hips to tempt him back inside but he could not forget her blood. “Cameron. It just hurt for a second. I’m fine. I’m good. I need you. Please.”
“How alone were you?” he asked, unable to believe he was asking this. Unable to believe the answer he already knew in his gut.
A virgin. Josie had been a virgin.
She shook her head. Her chest was damp with sweat. Her eyes wide and dilated. “Don’t stop. Please, Cameron.”
“Goddammit, Josie.” He bit the words out through his teeth. Everything inside of him was crumbling. Melting. He pushed back into her, slowly, so slowly. Taking care even when his control felt razor thin.
Her eyes popped wide and her hand left her mouth to grab onto the bedspread like she was about to fly up and away and needed the grounding.
“A virgin,” he whispered, bending his head, clinging…clinging. “A goddamn virgin.”
Savagely, he loved it. Loved it. That she was his in this way. It was backward and base, but it was real in him. A prehistoric delight.
He moved slow but all the way. As deep as he could go until he saw her eyes roll back in her head and the skin of her neck turn red. Her legs twitched restlessly against his and he grabbed her knees, pushing them back and onto the bed.
His plan had never been tenderness. His plan had been cathartic mutual violence.
Now it was survival.
He eased into her like this was the end. Like it was goodbye. Like it already hurt.
She grabbed his shoulders, breaking the distance he was trying to hold onto, and he lay against her, chest to chest.
“So good.” Her breath hitched. “Oh my god, it’s so good.”
He ducked his head and got pulled into the rhythm of the orgasm that had been gathering in his body for— seven years? It was undeniable now, and he reached between them, found the bead of her clit, and worked it with his thumb. Harder than before. Finesse was gone and she jerked under him, her moans louder, but it wasn’t enough.
He knew, all at once, that nothing would be enough. Not ever again. Not with her. Not without her. He was ruined. But that was a problem to deal with later. After.
“I want you screaming,” he said.
“Cameron,” she gasped.
“More.”
He did as she asked, gave her more, holding on by a thread until her mouth opened on a sweet cry, her body a sweaty clamp of muscle and pleasure all around him, and he ducked his head, pushed his whole soul right into her, and came so hard he saw his life and his world explode into stars.
15
JOSIE
Whatever she’d thought the aftermath of sex with Cameron would be like, this…this wasn’t it.
They lay, side by side, naked on top of the covers despite the chill in the air, catching their breath.
Carefully, so carefully, not touching.
How was that possible? How did he go from being inside of her to not touching her at all?
Is this me, she wondered, not touching him? Or him not touching me?
She grabbed his hand, a test, and he shifted out of the way. So far out of the way he got up and walked to the bathroom. Boneless and limp she watched him go, the flex and shift of his body was so beautiful her breath caught.
He’s walking away. Again.
It’s because I was a virgin. A twenty-four-year-old virgin. I knew that would be a whole thing.
And I should get up.
He came back into the room. He smiled at her. But it was…oh, it was off.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said and looked up at the ceiling, wondering why she felt like crying. “You?”
“Good. We….ah…should…talk about…what happened.”
Oh god, he couldn’t even say it.
“I should go,” she said, because no. They weren’t going to talk about it.
But the truth was, there was nowhere to go. He was silent and she felt her body go red and itchy, like she was having an allergic reaction to the moment.
Oh. After all this, it’s like that.
Silence and more silence.
She got up off the bed and had to pause for a second to make sure her legs still held her, that her trembling, shaking muscles still worked. How embarrassing, she thought as Cameron calmly pulled on his underwear. Found his T-shirt and started to gather her clothes. She’d been fucked into some other state and he seemed…fine.
“Here,” he said, handing her the shirt he’d ripped off her.
She shrugged it on but there was only one button left on it.
“Oh,” he said, and she, nauseous with humiliation, slipped a hand over her chest. Covering the breasts still scraped red from his beard. How, she wondered, was this happening?
We weren’t supposed to be like this.
She found her underwear and slipped it on, blinking back tears. There was blood on her thighs. Just a little. But there. She hid it by jamming her legs into her jeans. There’d be another shirt she could wear around here somewhere. A sweater left over a chair in the office or in the main closet. Lost and Found something.
Silently she opened the door. Her mouth clogged with tears and anger.
“Josie.” He grabbed her hand and she jerked away. “This…this isn’t going right.”
“Well, that’s…that’s pretty par for the course with us, isn’t it?”
“Look at me.”
“Fuck you,” she said without any heat.
“You are a virgin,” he whispered, eyebrows raised, eyes pleading, like he was telling her she had cancer.
“Was,” she said with a laugh.
He sucked in a breath. “This isn’t funny,” he said.
No. No, it wasn’t.
“How was I supposed to let someone in after what happened?” How was I supposed to let some other man touch me when I’d ruined everything?
“I don’t know.” He was clearly baffled. “You just do. You move on.”
“Like you did?” she asked and he was silent. “Well, I guess now I can. So, thank you for that.”
She opened the door into the hallway, which was colder than the bedroom, and darker, too, somehow. The big windows at the end of the hallway looking out on the Catskills were shrouded in gloom.
She practically ran down the stairs.
“Josie.” Cameron was following her.
“You don’t have to do this, Cameron.” She turned at the door, shoving her feet into her boots. She grabbed her jacket and her mitts from the hearth where she’d laid them out to dry. They’d both done that. Old habits walking into the Inn from a snow storm. You always set out your stuff or you’d be shoving your hands into wet mitts and no one liked that. “You know, we answered the question we both have been asking for a long time.”
“What would it have been like?” he said, standing there half naked and wholly attractive.
“Yep.”
“And?”
“You were fine.”
“Now who is talking bullshit?”
Me. I am. Total bullsh
it. I may never walk the same.
“Don’t leave like this,” he said.
She threw open the front door and let in harrowing blast of cold air so powerful she literally got pushed back a step. Snow gathered in a drift inside the door, and outside the door it was absolutely white. A blizzard.
Cameron jumped forward and shut the door, muffling the howling wind.
“Holy crap,” she breathed and turned to look out the big windows. They showed nothing but a wall of white.
“It’s a blizzard,” he said. “Total whiteout.”
His skin was gooseflesh and he blew air into hands that had to be freezing.
“I can’t leave,” she said.
They were snowed in.
CAMERON
He went upstairs to get dressed and check his phone and maybe…gather himself for a second. Man, the reality about a moment’s hesitation was no joke. He’d screwed everything up. He rubbed at his eyes and slipped on warm socks.
Whiteout blizzard, Alice texted. Tell me you’re back at the lodge.
I’m back, he texted. Josie is here, too. We’re fine.
Okay. Storm’s supposed to get worse until tomorrow morning. Stay in. I’ll check in later.
He sent her a thumbs-up and went downstairs to assess the damage he’d done with that moment of silence.
And the plan. That stupid plan. Have sex with her and forget her. What was wrong with him?
Josie was sitting on couch in front of the empty fireplace, a blanket over her shoulders and her laptop open on her lap. She didn’t even look up when he came in.
“Airports are closed,” she said. “There’s a twenty-car accident on the highway.”
“Wow,” he said. Because he was the king of conversation. The prince of cool. “Have you talked to your family?”
“Max was ready to put on the snowshoes and come look for us.”
“You stopped him.”
“Barely.”
The moment seemed warm, a thaw between them, and he laughed. She did not.
“Josie—”
“I don’t know how to talk to you Cameron. About this. About…us. So how about we don’t?”
“Don’t talk?”
“You did it to me before,” she said, looking him straight in the eye, stone cold, and for a second he was impressed. How cool she was. How she worked so hard at indifferent. But he’d just tasted her body. Felt her breath break as she came. He knew this was pretend. The fury of her was all right there, shrouded in ice. “I have work to do,” she said.
Christmas At The Riverview Inn Page 15