CHAPTER NINE
THE AIR IN the arena didn’t seem to move. Levi watched the dog and trainer in the ring work in tandem to herd seven ducks from one side of the training area to the other. The ducks and the dog seemed to be performing an elaborate ballet, with sweeping movements that meandered around the room like a fast-running stream. How the dog kept from nipping at the ducks when one of them tried to make a run for it—and several of the ducks did—was beyond him, but the medium-size black-and-white collie patiently herded the wayward fowl back into line.
When the last duck waddled across the holding area and into the small pen, Levi joined in the clapping and celebration of the other spectators.
“I think those jokes about getting a group of children moving should be changed from herding cats to herding ducks,” he said to Camden when things quieted down.
It was Thursday afternoon, a day after they’d arrived in Tulsa, only about twelve hours since they’d made love, and everything in Levi’s life had changed. At least it felt that way.
He’d woken up this morning with Camden still in his arms. Levi never spent the night with women; that was a cardinal rule. Didn’t matter if they went to his house, his hotel room or hers, either Levi or the woman left after sex. It made things less complicated. Sex was one thing, a relationship was another, and Levi had never wanted a relationship. But there was something about Camden that made him want more than he’d ever wanted with another woman.
The thought chilled him. He hadn’t planned on this, and he didn’t know how it would work out. She was just coming out of a long and broken relationship, starting a business, starting her entire life over. Even if she was okay with them continuing what they’d started last night, long-term compatibility wasn’t built on great sex. He didn’t know her likes or dislikes, her plans for the future. Did she even make plans? Levi shook his head. Of course she made plans. Everybody made plans. It was one of the things that separated humans from animals—the ability to make plans.
“Have you heard anything from Calvin and Bonita?” he asked when things had quieted in the arena.
Camden shook her head. “Just that they would meet us here later this morning. Grandmom hates the city during Christmas, but she did want to visit a couple of craft stores for the bazaar coming up in a couple of weeks. They probably went there this morning instead of coming to watch the performances.”
“Did you want to shop?”
Camden blinked at him. “Why would I want to shop?”
“For the holidays. I wouldn’t live anywhere but Slippery Rock, but I’m aware of its shopping limitations. There are only so many things you can buy at Julia’s boutique, the coffee shop or the sporting goods store.”
“That’s why God created online shopping,” she said. “I’m covered. Not that I have many people to buy for.”
“What do you mean?”
“We don’t really do gifts, at least not with my mom and stepdad. Christmas usually means a vacation somewhere tropical. ‘Spending time, not money’ is what my mom calls it, but Darren—that’s my stepfather—usually mumbles something about five stars not coming free. Last year we spent the holidays in those over-the-ocean huts in Bali.”
“Sounds warm.” The crowd in the arena began to disperse; the next show wouldn’t be for another couple of hours. “Do you want to get some lunch while we wait?”
Camden nodded. “Sure.” While they climbed the steps to the concourse, she said, “It isn’t that I don’t appreciate a winter getaway. But one of the things I’m looking forward to in Slippery Rock is a traditional Christmas.”
“As long as you don’t expect one that’s white. We haven’t had snow on the ground before late January in a long time.” Levi put his hand at the small of her back as they maneuvered through the concourse and into the parking lot. He’d parked the truck several rows back and zipped up his jacket as they walked. The wind had kicked up, putting a chill in the early-afternoon air.
Camden wore another pair of rain boots today, this pair with cartoon owls in every color of the rainbow. The boots should look silly on a grown woman, but somehow Camden pulled off the look. She’d worn jeans and a gray striped sweater with something lacy hanging below the hem. Levi’s hand had been itching to explore the lacy whatever-it-was since the moment she walked into the main room in their hotel suite.
Camden pointed to the sky. “That looks like snow.”
“More like ice,” Levi said, “but I haven’t seen an alert come across my phone, so it’s probably just a little sleet or freezing rain.”
A worried expression flitted across her face as he helped her into the truck. “I’m sure your grandparents are fine. Calvin’s a cautious sort.”
“Still, I should call them,” she said and took her cell from her bag.
By the time he got around the truck, Camden was talking to one of her grandparents on the phone, and she didn’t look happy.
“Be safe,” she said, frowning as she disconnected the call. Levi pulled the truck onto the street.
“Same diner as yesterday?”
“They left,” she said, a note of surprise in her voice. “We’ve been ditched.”
Levi glanced in her direction. “I think we have different definitions of ‘ditched,’” he said.
Camden shook her head. “Their text this morning said to go ahead without them and they’d meet us later. But they’re already back in Slippery Rock. They left at eight this morning, stopped into Grandmom’s craft store and will be at the farm in another few minutes.”
“That does seem like ditching.”
“You don’t seem annoyed by this. Why aren’t you Oscar the Grouching them leaving town while we’re still here?”
Levi shrugged and pulled into the parking lot of the diner where they’d eaten the night before. He shut off the engine and turned to look at Camden. Her cheeks were pink and flustered, and she turned the phone over and over in her hands.
“Good sex tends to take the grouch out of me,” he said, hoping to lighten her mood. He didn’t mind that Calvin and Bonita had gone back to the farm without them. He didn’t care that they wouldn’t have an audience to play to. In fact, not having an audience played into the plan he’d been contemplating since he woke up to the sweet scent of Camden in his hotel bed. “Let’s grab lunch, and then we’ll figure out how to spend the rest of the day.”
The diner was like something out of the 1950s, with black-and-white-tiled floors, Formica-topped tables, and lots of neon lights along the walls. Even the music was 1950s era, running toward Elvis and Johnny Cash and a few girl groups he didn’t know the names of.
After the waitress took their orders, Camden took out her phone again. “The forecast just calls for rain, if you want to head back early.”
“I had a different idea,” he said and smiled when she frowned at him. “What if we stay?”
“The competitions are over. There will be a handful of demonstrations this afternoon, but nothing major. And with my grandparents not here to see the act—”
“What if it isn’t an act?”
Camden waved her hand between them. “Of course it’s an act. Having sex last night doesn’t make this, whatever it is between us, not an act. We’re doing this to get Grant out of my life, and so I can casually mention your plans for the—”
Levi cut her off. “Grant isn’t here, and I told you last night, I don’t need you to talk to Calvin about the land. We have the hotel booked through tomorrow night, we’re two consenting adults and I’m asking you to skip dog school this afternoon and spend time with me.”
Her brown eyes widened, but she didn’t say anything. Her hands, fidgeting with the cell phone, stilled.
“I’m saying, now that we’ve had sex, I’d like to date you. It’s kind of backward, but since our entire relationship so far has been bu
ilt on schemes, I figure that’s okay.”
“I don’t,” she began, but then changed course. “You don’t have to say this just because we slept together last night. You barely liked me before the dance on Saturday. We don’t have the same interests, the same background.” She motioned between them again. “This made sense when it was a plan to make Grant face reality. It doesn’t make sense without that.”
“Who says people who date have to have all the same interests? We have physical chemistry, you think I’m grouchy, I think you have a few too many pairs of those rain boots. Maybe that’s enough. And it sure doesn’t have to make sense.”
Camden laughed. “Chemistry, annoyance and a shopping addiction are not good reasons to get involved. I just walked out on a wedding to a man with whom I had everything in common.”
“My mother was in the Peace Corps and my father was a dairy farmer when they met on vacation. They’ve been happy together for forty years. You think they had a lot in common?”
“My mother and stepfather have everything in common and barely speak to one another.”
“My point.”
“Grandmom and Granddad have everything in common, and they’ve been together almost fifty years.”
Levi shrugged. “So sometimes common interests work. The point is, we don’t really know that we don’t have anything in common.”
“Other than that forward pass thing, I know nothing about football. I know even less about dairy farming.”
“All I know about stock-dog training is that your dog is an escape artist. That isn’t the point. The point is, I like you, Camden Harris. You’re not the kind of woman I normally date.” The guys’ voices echoed in his mind in a chorus of unavailable. Camden was the poster child for unavailable, having just broken off a relationship, just come to town, just upended her own life. Probably, he should back off. Give her room to figure out what she wanted out of life.
Yet Levi had no intention of doing that, because after last night, he wanted her to figure out that what she wanted was him.
“This doesn’t make sense. I’m not interested in starting up a new relationship. This wasn’t part of the plan.”
“See? We do have something in common. This wasn’t part of my plan, either. Not when we started this trip, not when we went to the holiday dance and not when you suggested we fake date each other to get what we both wanted.”
“What if we don’t like each other?”
The waitress delivered their meals. Levi took a bite of his burger and considered. He couldn’t say that he understood Camden, but not liking her? Infatuation was the only reason he could think of that would have him making multiple trips to check on cattle that were mostly self-sufficient. Her boots were silly, and she’d made a mistake with Khaki Pants, but still there was something about Camden that he liked on a fundamental level.
“What if we do?”
Camden pushed food around her plate with her fork, but she didn’t eat.
She cared about Calvin and Bonita, that was evident, despite their sham of a first date. Hell, she even cared about the ex. Wanting to see him move on benefited her, yes, but he’d known a few women in his football days who liked having men on the hook for them, following them around like puppies waiting for a treat. Camden not only wanted her ex to move on, she was adamant that he do so.
Maybe she hadn’t changed as much as he thought from the young girl who used to follow him around the woods of Slippery Rock. The girl who tried to make his streamlined tree fort into a comfortable hideout by bringing pillows from the farmhouse so they would have comfortable places to sit.
“What do you say, Camden? Do you want to have a real first date?”
She nodded her head slowly. “But first, we could just go back to the hotel.”
* * *
SHE DIDN’T CARE that this was stupid. She already knew that having sex with Levi was like nothing she’d ever experienced. Still, getting involved with him...that was dangerous. Having sex with him again would make it so much harder to go back to being her own woman. To figuring out how to live her life according to her own terms.
Having sex with Levi was definitely wrong. Oh, but his hands on her body, his mouth on hers, felt so incredibly right.
Right now, making it harder for Future Camden wasn’t nearly as important as being with Levi in the present. Not when his mouth was doing amazing things to that spot beneath her ear, and not when his hand was at her core.
Most of all, she liked the way she felt with Levi. Like maybe whatever made Bonita jump off that parade float to lay a hot kiss on Calvin all those years ago could happen to her. That what the two of them had started so many decades ago could happen for her, too. She knew it was stupid; she’d already walked away from one wedding, and this was not the time to start daydreaming—or sex dreaming—about another. But, lord, being in Levi’s arms right now felt so close to heaven it was hard to think that maybe this could end somewhere other than with a broken heart or short-term vacation affair.
Oh, how Camden wanted a career that was built on what she wanted, on her interests. But she also wanted a life built on those things. Right now, she couldn’t see past Levi being part of that life, or at least this one night in that life. She needed to stop thinking and just feel.
Camden wrapped her arms around Levi’s neck, reached up on her tiptoes and took his lips with hers. Their clothes lay in disarray all over the sitting area of the hotel suite. They’d kicked off their boots, his sensible and her whimsical, at the front door. His jeans and long-sleeved tee hung haphazardly over the back of the sofa, their jackets were in a pile on the floor, and her sweater and the lacy tank she’d worn under it had landed atop the television set.
He reached under her legs, lifting her against his chest, and began walking down the hall, never taking his mouth from hers. He was too good at this, but she didn’t care how many women he’d taken to anonymous hotels all over the United States. All she cared about was having more of him.
When the backs of her legs hit the silky duvet, Camden sank onto the comfortable mattress. Levi rested one knee between her legs as he followed her down, down, until her head rested on a small pillow.
“Camden.” He said her name quietly as his hands played with the sensitized skin of her lower abdomen. His gaze caught hers, and for a moment it seemed as if time would stop. She could only look into his chocolate-brown eyes, wondering what he was thinking. Then his mouth descended on hers, and time seemed to speed back up.
His big hands were on her belly, then one hand was over her breast. She grasped the hem of his T-shirt, pulling it over his head. She wanted to see all of him, wanted to feel all of him. A light mat of black chest hair covered his broad chest, tapering down to a V that disappeared beneath his boxer briefs. She teased the back of her hand along the ridges of his abdomen, liking it when his muscles clenched. Camden pushed the boxers over his hips and took his length in her hand, savoring the feel of him, hot and hard in her hand.
“Now that you’ve got me here, Miss Harris, what is it that you want to do with me?” he asked, grinning at her.
“Everything,” she replied and pushed her hands against his shoulders so that he lay on his back. She lay atop him for a while, their legs tangled, chest to chest, pressing little kisses along his collarbone, liking the contrast of their skin tones. Liking even more how his body kept going taut, like a dog’s leash when it was on the hunt for something. Levi’s hands explored her and she let her fingers walk down, down, through the light smattering of chest hair. Felt his abdomen tense when her hand passed his belly button, and when she wrapped her hand around his length again, he growled. Camden grinned.
“You keep stoking this fire, Cam, you’re going to get exactly what you’re hoping for,” he said as she ran her hand gently along his length and then squeezed.
“That’s the plan,�
�� she said. “Taking what we both want, and not worrying about what happens next.”
“What does happen next?” he asked, and Camden didn’t have an answer, at least not an answer that she cared to think too long or too hard about. Because the only answer that seemed feasible was that this was Tulsa, and when they returned to Slippery Rock, things would go back to the way they’d been, despite their talk in the diner about really dating and not fake dating. An occasional sighting in the fields surrounding the dog school, awkward avoidance when they both showed up at the Slope or ended up in the same line at Mallard’s Grocery.
“This,” she said and squeezed his length gently in her hand. Levi hissed out a breath. She didn’t want the moment to end, that was definite, and she knew it couldn’t last, but that didn’t mean she had to think too much about it. She just needed a little more Levi to block out the future.
He clasped his hands behind his head. “Okay, then,” he said, “call the play.”
Camden grinned at him. “Do you always confuse pillow talk with football talk?” she asked, drawing her hand slowly over his hard, velvety length once more. Levi’s pupils darkened, and his slow breath whistled as he inhaled.
“I learned a long time ago that football metaphors work in all human situations.”
“We’ll see about that.”
Camden kissed her way down his body, pausing a moment to taste his abs, to run her tongue along the taut ridges there. She wondered what it would take to make him lose that controlled exterior.
She studied him for a moment. His expression was a mask and his breathing carefully steady, but there was something burning in his brown gaze, something that made the fire in her own belly leap in response. Maybe he wasn’t so controlled after all.
She put her mouth on his length, just a gentle kiss, and he twitched at the contact. He was holding on to that control, but she was going to make him let it go. She took him into her mouth, and Levi groaned. Keeping her hand taut around him, she began moving up and down his shaft. One of his hands held her head in place for a moment, and then he flipped her onto her back, the move so sudden it took her breath away.
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