by Stacey Lynn
Her lips pressed to one side. “Beer would be great, actually.”
Before I could get it for her, she squatted down and opened the small fridge.
Everything clinked and clanked and she peered up at me, smiling wide. “Red Stripe.” She grinned and stood up, holding two beers in her hands. “Want one?”
“Please.” I took it and opened a drawer that contained a bottle opener. Once the beers were opened, I nodded toward the deck. “Outside?”
“Sure.” She took a healthy swallow from her beer, closing her eyes as she swallowed. A brief, pleasured moan escaped her lips when she pulled the bottle away from them.
Hell. How did just that sound make me hard? How did enjoying watching a woman turn me into a horny teenager? I shook off the thoughts and allowed her to go first. Just like everything else about Camden since I’d first met her, she turned me on. From top to toe, she was the sexiest, most beautiful woman I’d ever met. I didn’t care if it made me a pussy to admit it, either. She was beautiful in a pulled-tight, tense sort of way. Intelligent, too, based on the fact I’d gleaned she was some sort of accountant.
Her downside? She hated my damn job. She also didn’t know shit about me, had never asked about me from what I had learned. None of that mattered when she looked at me. Her pretty green eyes softened, a wistful expression making her look like an angel, and that flush crept up her cheeks.
She wanted me. She just didn’t know what the hell to do about it.
When Tyson had sprung this last-minute trip to the Caribbean for his wedding, I decided two things. One, that I’d go, obviously. He’d been one of my best friends for thirteen years. And two, I’d spend the weekend making Camden want me. Making her see me. So that when she learned the truth, we’d both know we were in this for the right reasons. I was taking my chance, even knowing I could be burned in the end.
I hoped like hell I wasn’t.
My last girlfriend had wanted nothing other than the prestige that came along with saying she was a doctor’s wife and the black AmEx she assumed came with being a McGregor. What she hated was the being-alone part and the fact that my being an ER resident didn’t exactly feed her desired lifestyle.
On the surface, Camden was the same. Wanting money, wanting a man who made more than the tips I could carry in my pocket, but I saw beyond it. I saw the guilt she carried when she’d mentioned that she’d never date a bartender. There was more to the judgments she professed during her night out at Fireside Grill, where I worked and helped Declan. This weekend, I was going to explore every inch of her, inside and out, so I could find what it was she really wanted.
Then, I’d do my damnedest to give it to her.
“It’s so beautiful out here,” Camden said, folding into one of the outdoor lounge chairs. The white cushions were a stark contrast to the chocolate wicker, and while they were nice-looking on their own, seeing Camden’s alabaster skin and auburn hair draped over one made it more striking.
“It is.”
She was here. With me, and not running. When she panicked in the closet after I couldn’t keep my hands off her, I’d been afraid she would run away.
She turned to me, tilting her head and leaning back to look to me. I met her gaze, not once looking out to the teal water that seemed to sparkle through the gentle lights on my deck.
I didn’t care about the view…she made it beautiful.
Dipping her chin, she twisted back to the water and took a drink of her beer.
I sat in the chair closest to her and tried to relax. I wanted her in my bed, but she needed to want it, too. It seemed like she’d need some time to get used to the idea. “You girls have a good day?”
“Spent all of it having our hair and nails done.” She shrugged and turned to me, sitting up on the chair until her feet were on the ground, facing me. “What are we doing?”
I hid my smile behind my beer. “What do you want to be doing?”
Her eyes flickered to my bedroom windows behind us before her bottom lip found its way to her teeth again.
“I want you,” I said bluntly. “I’ve wanted you for months. This weekend, our friends are all paired off and I plan on spending most of it with you, convincing you why we’d be good together. That’s what I’m doing, Camden. What do you want?”
She chewed on her lip and let it go free. “I think that if we have to spend time together, we should at least be friends.”
“Friends?”
Her lips twitched and pink spread to her cheeks. She took another sip of beer. “I’m going to be honest, David. All of this, tonight, it’s all so far outside my comfort zone that I’m still reeling a little bit. I mean, I just had sex with you in a closet and I’ve never done that before.”
I grinned. “But you liked it. And you like me.”
She rolled her eyes, but it was playful, not annoyed or disgusted. “Fine. Yes, I liked it. And I want more of it.”
It was all I needed to hear. Before she could tell me why we shouldn’t, I stood up and reached for her hand, pulling her to her feet and then to my chest. I wrapped my hand around her lower back and held her to me, dipping my chin so I could whisper in her ear. “Stop thinking so hard, Camden. Spend the weekend with me. We’ll have fun, we’ll be friends.” We’d be friends. Good ones. With excellent benefits. “And then we’ll just see what happens when we get back to Latham Hills, okay?”
Her pale-pink tongue slid across her lower lip.
I leaned closer until my nose brushed against hers. She shivered in my hold and a puff of breath escaped her parted wet lips. “Camden. Kiss me.”
Chapter 3
Camden
Before I could talk myself out of it, before I could question what in the hell I was doing with David, I listened to him.
My lips slid across his and I was immediately enveloped in his scent and taste. He tasted almost as good as he smelled, a mixture of cologne and body wash and salty sea air. I wanted to bottle it, have it forever, even if it was unnecessary. My night with David would be permanently ingrained in my memory bank.
I slid my hands into the breadth of space between our bodies and up his chest, feeling the ridges of his stomach, the curve of his chest, the firmness of the muscles at his shoulders. In the darkened closet earlier, I’d wanted to see every inch of him. Now, I could have all of him and do all the things I was too scared to do back in Michigan, where responsible and safe and sane were my middle names.
In Jamaica, I could turn reckless and wild, free to be whoever I wanted for the short vacation before I returned to bills and plans and lists. I pressed my lips more firmly against David’s, my tongue licking the seams of his lips until he opened for me. As he drew me in, that became my new plan.
I could do this. Forty-eight hours of fun with a man.
“David,” I whispered, against his lips. “Your room.”
I was breathless and unashamed. He laughed softly, lifting me at the same time. “Your wish is my command.”
“That sounds like it could be fun,” I said, swallowing my laughter. Twenty-four hours in the Caribbean and I was being silly.
How different would I be in another two days?
He carried me to his room and my legs tightened around his hips as he moved, pausing only to close and lock doors.
It warmed me, somewhere deep down, that he’d be thinking of safety when I was in his arms, but I didn’t dare say anything.
We entered his room and he shut the door. He stepped farther inside, but I stopped him.
“Lights,” I whispered, looking at the switch and feeling my cheeks heat. “I’d like them on.”
I’d imagined him naked for months. I’d had glimpses before. Long, drool-worthy glimpses, like on the day I stopped by to see Trina. Declan and David had just finished working out in Declan’s basement gym. I’d watched one drop of sweat, and then another, and then a third, roll down David’s molded chest into the sandy-blond trail of hair along his waistband before dipping below.
I’d
been speechless, and I’d felt his eyes on me. He’d put his hands on his hips and allowed me to look my fill. I’d felt my body grow so hot I must have been a deep violet color from the tips of my ears to my chest.
I hadn’t been able to look at him for a week afterward.
Now I could stare all I wanted. I didn’t want the first time I saw him in all his magnificence hindered by the shadows of the moonlight and outdoor floodlights.
His hands tightened around my lower back before he stepped back and flicked on the switch.
When the light illuminated his room, my breath lodged in my throat as I took in the expression on his face. His lips parted as if in surprise at my request, but he hid it behind lust in the blink of an eye.
“Have to say,” he said, and started moving toward the bed, “you’re full of surprises.”
My lips twitched as I fought against embarrassment. Boldness wasn’t me. It was David that made me feel unknown and inexpressible things.
I shook my head and pressed my forehead to his shoulder as his knees hit the bed. I wanted to hide the heat flaring white-hot on my pale skin, hide in the crook of his neck, where I could smell him and feel him but not have him see me.
“Hey.” He pushed a knee onto his bed and crawled forward, lowering us while I clung to him, my limbs holding on tight like they were suctioned there. He pressed one hand to the mattress and gently lowered me to the bed. “I like this,” he whispered, “and I’ve already told you that. Do you know how many times I’ve wanted to trail this blush on your skin and see where it goes when it disappears beneath your clothing?”
I laughed awkwardly. Not that I’d ever examined myself in the mirror for that, but with the way he touched me, the way he talked to me, I felt the heat spreading everywhere, straight to the apex of my thighs.
“It’s not attractive,” I whispered, admitting my own vulnerability before I could stop it. There was nothing beautiful about splotchy, pale skin, or the abhorrent scar on my thigh he’d brushed against earlier. It was impossible to avoid that scar, and usually it didn’t bother me. But earlier, when David’s thumb had brushed against the raised and rigid flesh, old but forever visible, he’d frozen on it, opened his eyes like he’d wanted to ask me what it was from. I’d kissed him before he could.
Suzanne and my mom were the only ones who knew. The only ones who would ever know.
David’s eyes narrowed. He made me feel like he could truly see inside me. And I was the one who’d requested the lights on. Stupid. He already watched me too closely.
But you want this. And him. And you like it.
I pushed my hands into his hair. “Kiss me,” I whispered. “Now.”
“Bossy.” His mouth brushed against mine, sliding back to my jaw and my ear before he nipped my tender lobe. “I like it. Like everything I see in you.”
I shivered and pretended it was from his touch, but it was the roughness of his voice that told me I was right. He saw more than he let on, knew more than he should. It would take effort to protect that part of myself over the next two days.
My hands dragged from his hair to the front of his shirt, where I quickly undid the buttons. The shirt was a wrinkled mess over one pec. I’d done that. Latched on to him and curled my fingers into his shirt when he’d first kissed me.
He’d been so soft and tender. I didn’t want that now.
In his bed, with just the whisper of our voices drowning out the lapping water below the bungalow, I wanted wild and free. I wanted what David promised he could give me with one heated look.
I shifted beneath him and pushed myself up until we were both on our knees on the bed. Pushing the shirt off his broad shoulders, I scanned his body, my eyelids dropping at the sight in front of me. The linen of the shirt, coarse beneath my fingers, was in opposition to the smoothness of his arms. Veins popped on his forearms and the backs of his hands, muscles straining while he let me touch him, explore him first. His chest rose and fell quicker as his pulse kicked up.
He groaned when I slid a finger through the dip between his abs, tightening in response to my light touch. I stopped when I reached the black belt threaded through the waistband of his gray pants, the bulge beneath them obvious and large.
“Don’t stop now,” he muttered in a thick voice. “Take what you want.”
My gaze flickered up to his and I threw away my embarrassment. There was no more room for that here. I barely recognized my own voice as I boldly declared, “I want it all.”
Chapter 4
David
Her boldness undid me, snapping the remaining strands of restraint I’d clung to.
I want it all.
She didn’t know yet what the words meant, but I’d show her. I had two full days to convince her.
I climbed off the bed and held out my hand. She took it quickly and I tugged her to her feet.
“Turn around.” My hands went to her waist as she moved, and then my fingers found the zipper concealed beneath the barely there back of her dress. It started just above the curves of her backside, and as I pulled it down, I was instantly shown two small dimples just above her ass at the small of her back.
I wanted to taste them, lick them, touch them. I wanted to devour her. Take my time and make it fast. I’d felt her earlier, but it had been rushed and dark and we’d been fully clothed. God, why had my first time with her been in a closet?
I swallowed the groan building in my throat and finished undoing the zipper. She flinched as I did, and my hands went to her shoulders to push the dress off of her.
“David,” she whispered, and her hands went to her hips as if to hold her dress in place.
Was she stopping this? It would kill me. “What?”
My hands curled into fists while I waited for her and she twisted her neck to look at me over her shoulder. A mischievous smile hid her earlier nerves. “Don’t be gentle with me.”
“Fuck.” My head fell forward to her shoulder and I wrapped my arms around her stomach. I held her against me and pressed kisses to her bare skin. Then I undid my belt and let my pants fall to my ankles before pushing down my underwear. Something told me she’d enjoy it more if she wasn’t the first one naked.
Her breath caught, a slight hitch of sound when I stepped back to finish removing my clothes, and then I returned to her dress, to the silk straps at her shoulders, and pushed it forward.
Her dress fell to a pile at our feet, mixed with mine. And damn…had anything ever looked so right? So perfect?
If I’d seen it, I couldn’t remember.
She didn’t want gentle, but I couldn’t give her anything other than adoring worship.
Placing my hand on her hip, I twisted her until she faced me and slid my hands to hers, gripping her lightly.
“We can stop at any time.”
“I don’t want to.” Pretty, lush pink lips curved into a smile. She moved back, scooting onto the bed until her head was propped on pillows.
Pale skin, deep auburn hair, lashes that fluttered wildly. Nervous bumps pebbled her skin as my gaze raked over her. She had a beauty mark on a hip bone, another just below her left breast. Light pink fingernails trembled as she brushed her hand softly over her stomach.
“I don’t know where to start,” I admitted. Everywhere. I wanted to touch all the imperfect places on her, all the perfect ones. Burrow inside of her, and not just her body but her heart. I was thirty-two years old, done dicking around with one-night stands and short, shallow relationships. I knew what I wanted and I was taking it.
“You can start here,” she whispered. She drew a circle around her belly button, up the divide in her abdomen and between her breasts, to her throat, her chin…her lips.
She tapped them twice. I was done for. Vixen, seductress, siren…whatever song she sang, I wanted to be addicted to it.
My hand wrapped around my hard dick and I stroked it. Her eyes followed the movement of my hand, lashes fluttering languidly. I bent down and grabbed my pants, removed the condoms I’d
put in my wallet earlier, and tossed them to the bed next to her.
She looked at them and then me. “Two?”
“Better safe than sorry.”
All teasing evaporated when I bent over her and crawled up the length of the bed. I stopped when I reached her stomach and pressed my lips there. Her muscles rippled. Her whimpers went straight to my cock.
“Is this where you wanted me?” I looked up at her and waited for her nod. All confidence was gone. All I saw was pure need and nerves, a heady combination.
“Yes,” she gasped, as I began trailing circles around her stomach. Over to the beauty mark I’d seen above her hip bone. My eyes stayed on her the whole time, watching every intake of breath, cataloguing every time I reached a spot that tickled or turned her on even more. My hands on her thighs, I slid them upward until my fingers grazed over raised flesh.
My hand froze. Then moved again. Her eyes closed and I wanted to ask.
A scar. Large, long, jagged raised flesh scarred over. What the hell? I’d brushed against it in the closet earlier, but now in the light, I could see it. It was longer and wider than I’d originally suspected. On the outside of her thigh, I hadn’t seen it when she first lay down.
“David,” she whispered. Her voice was a plea, almost as jagged as the scar beneath my fingertip.
My mouth opened to ask but she shook her head, stiffened as I swiped a finger alongside it again. My other hand gently brushed her inner thigh, calming her while I explored. Thick and nasty, the scar was all I could think about now.
She wouldn’t answer and I knew not to push. So instead, I bent over her hip, pressed my lips to her scar, and slid my other hand to her center.
“Oh,” she gasped, arching her hips into my hand.
She was wet, hot…and terrified out of her mind. I didn’t need to see her to know, and I gave up wanting to ask the question in my mind. What had happened to her?
There’d be time.
I slid back to her stomach. My fingers slid through her folds, inside of her. I smiled against her stomach and moved up to her breast, tasting her nipple and sucking it into my mouth. Hard.