by Mann, Marni
My stare briefly left him to travel around the room in search of Dallas. He wasn’t in here. I leaned up in the seat to check his bedroom door. It was closed.
“Why...?”
Cameron’s hands went to my knees. “Dallas called me.”
“He did what?” I couldn’t help raising my voice. Why Dallas would have taken that step without asking me, especially after I’d made my feelings clear last night?
Maybe I hadn’t made them as clear as I thought.
Or maybe I’d made them clearer than I wanted to.
A furrow formed between his brows; his hands began to push a little harder against my skin. “You’re not happy that he called me?”
Happy.
There was that word again. The theme that had surrounded our evening.
It suddenly made sense. Dallas wanted me to feel that again, even if he was the one who had to initiate it. When you’re happy, I’m happy. I wanted to be angry that he’d disregarded my feelings on the subject, but I couldn’t. He wanted what was best for me, and he knew that meant Cameron. And he knew I wouldn’t make the first move to bring us back together.
He really was a good friend.
But in my current state, I couldn’t form a proper thought. “I don’t know how I feel about anything, Cameron. I’m really confused at the moment.”
“I’m not confused at all. I know exactly what I want now, and that’s you.”
“How can you say that now when you ignored me for weeks? You spent every night in the studio or you went out…you brought Lora to our placeour place. And you painted her…naked.”
“I”
“I saw that painting you did of me, too. What was that supposed to mean?”
He looked troubled. “I have no excuse for the way I acted, Charlie. It was wrong. You didn’t deserve any of that, and everything Ryder said was true; I fucked up. I can’t apologize enough for it.” He wouldn’t look at me now. “If you honestly want nothing to do with me, then I understand, and I’ll respect that. But I had to tell you how I feel.”
“Now you have to tell me how you feel?”
“I’ve been trying to all week…you haven’t answered your phone.”
He was saying everything I wanted him to, everything I had been waiting for. But it didn’t predict the future, and it didn’t define anything that we both might be learning from this.
There it was again—learning, the other topic Dallas and I had discussed in our drunken haze.
Cameron’s fingers gripped the edge of the couch, squeezing down into the cushion. I could feel the pain emanating from him, the sadness and uncertainty hovering behind his eyes. “I went too far. I know that.” He took a deep breath and shook his head. “Fuck, Charlie, I really do know that. I’m sorry for it.”
“What about your feelings for me?”
“They’ve been all over the place. There are moments that I’m mad as hell at what happened and then there are times that a horrid sense of guilt consumes me for feeling that way. I go back and forth. It’s vicious.”
I shifted in my seat, straightening my back and tucking my legs underneath me. I knew I needed to address it head on, like Dallas had said I should. The hangover wasn’t going to make it easy. “I can’t undo what I did with Ryder in the mansion, and neither can he. It’s always going to be a part of our historymy history with you and him, and his with you and me. What’s going to stop you from treating me that way again when the thought of that becomes too much for you to take? Are you going to shut me out like that every time something unexpected happens between us—because it will, Cameron; our pasts are too fucked up for things to just go smoothly. Are you going to withdraw and make me feel like I don’t matter just because you don’t know how to deal with me face to face?”
“I can’t say that I’m not going to treat you that way again. I’m not good at this stuff; you know that. My brother has been the only consistent person in my life and I shut him out, too. I want to do better, for you and for him…and for me. I’m learning how to do this, just like you are. Are you willing to let me learn?” I didn’t know if I was. “And more importantly, are you willing to learn with me?”
We were two broken souls who had found each other in a world of shadows. We were held together by a connection of secrets, dark and fearful and reluctant to leave. They recoiled whenever light reached them. Their depth was seductive and overwhelming, an endless ocean of black that threatened to cover the brilliance we kept reaching for with each other.
But it wasn’t the only color on our palette.
Maybe it was time to explore a different hue.
It didn’t matter how somber or overcast my world had become, how sick my stomach felt, how the alcohol worked to rebel in my bloodstream. Here, with Cameron: this was the only place that felt right. It would take time to forgive him, to trust that he wouldn’t resort to ignoring or avoiding me whenever those feelings decided to return. But I wasn’t about to deny what I wanted just because I was afraid.
I’d done enough of that.
“I’m willing to try,” I said. “I want to try.”
His hand reached for my cheek, his thumb hovering above my mouth and pulling my lip out from under my teeth. I’d missed him doing that. Then he took it between his, slowly inserting his tongue over mine. The taste was exactly the way I had remembered it, what I’d thought about when I fell asleep…what I’d craved when I woke up.
He pulled away and placed his forehead against mine. “I haven’t told you everything yet.”
I leaned back and searched his face. “Okay…” I realized I couldn’t do things half-way with him. If I trusted him, I had to trust him entirely. “You can tell me. Whatever it is.”
His thumb dipped down to run the length of my lips. Then his eyes met mine. “I haven’t even spoken to Ryder about this…and I’m not sure if I will. I really just want to forget the whole fucking thing happened, but I can’t. I’m haunted by it.”
I reached for his shoulders, massaging the muscles and coaxing him into opening up.
“You and Ryder weren’t the only thing I was dealing with at that time. I honestly think I took all of it out on you when it wasn’t even half you.” I braced for whatever this other thing might be. “Larry called me one afternoon while you were at school and told me there was someone downstairs who wanted to see me. When I got to the lobby, he pointed outside to the sidewalk…where my dad was standing.” His eyes became a little glossy, his speech slowed. I could hear the pain in his voice. “I haven’t seen him since I was six years old… that was twenty-five years ago. But he looked exactly the same when I met him outside. I felt like I was that little boy again, looking up to his father, clinging to his leg so he wouldn’t leave like he had before.”
“Oh Cameron...” I didn’t know what to say. I knew what it felt like to find my father after not knowing he even existed for my entire life. But that was nothing like Cameron seeing his own father after losing him so long ago.
He took several deep breaths. “But I’m not that little boy anymore. I’m too strong, too self-aware for him to hurt me again. And we weren’t standing outside one of the filthy slums we used to live in. We were in front of my building, the apartment I’ve worked so hard to have, so I wouldn’t end up like my parents.”
I knew the things that had happened in his past were dark. I had run my fingers over the scars on his body, the ones on his chest and hands that had come from cigarettes and belts and wooden spoons whatever had been available and within reach when his parents or his foster parents decided he should be punished. But it killed me that I couldn’t protect the little boy who had borne those beatings and was left with the marks forever. I knew that he had endured it all, that he had survived what had happened. That had to be enough for me. I also knew that he blamed his father for most of it. The man had gone to jail for armed robbery when Cameron was six, leaving the three of them to fend for themselves. And because it wasn’t his father’s first offense, and everythin
g else had been drug-related, he’d been given a much longer sentence for it. Things only fell apart even more from there.
“He’s out for good?” I asked.
“If he doesn’t get into any trouble, he is.”
“How did you leave it with him?”
His eyes dropped to my lips, then back up. “I just want to bury myself inside you and forget this whole conversation.”
The inside of my body began to warm; the outside started to tingle. He knew how his words affected me and how to get me to spread my legs. But I had finally gotten Cameron to open up and I wasn’t going to let him in quite yet—and especially not on Dallas’s couch.
“Cameron…”
He knew he couldn’t change the subject now. “He gave me his phone number and told me to call him. He said he wanted to see Ryder, too…that he wants to make things right. I guess he’s staying at a halfway house somewhere in the city. He has a job; he’s trying to get his life together.”
I nodded. “I’m sure it isn’t easy to get acclimated again after spending twenty-five years behind bars.”
He shrugged, but I knew he agreed. I couldn’t imagine how conflicted he felt. His father had completely abandoned him because he couldn’t stay out of trouble, and Cameron’s life had been hell after that. But his father had been punished for the crimes he had committed and he was making an effort to do better now that it was over. That was more than Lilly had doneeven as she was dying, she was still a bitch. She hadn’t even been able to tell me that she loved me. She told Dallas instead.
“So are you going to call him?” I asked.
“Are you going to come home with me?”
I smiled as his eyes drifted to my mouth again. I knew his thoughts were no longer on his father, they were on my body.
“I want to,” I exhaled.
He rose from the floor, stopping at the base of the couch to reach one arm under my knees and the other behind my back. Then he lifted me up and hugged my body against his chest. “I wasn’t going to give you a choice anyway.”
“Cameron,” I laughed, looking down at the tiny shorts I had on, the white, skin-tight tank top and my braless nipples that were poking through the transparent cotton. “You can’t take me outside like this. I’m practically naked. And I don’t even have shoes on.”
“You don’t need any. I’m going to carry you.”
“Like you’re my hero?”
“Yep. Just like that.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck. “What about my things?”
“We’ll come back and get them. I need you home—now.”
We moved through the living room and back through the kitchen. “Do you think we should leave a note for Dallas to let him know I went home with you?” I asked.
He opened the door and carried me through it, moving down the narrow path to the elevator. “He already knows.”
“How?”
“I told him I wasn’t leaving without you. And if you refused to go, I was going to move in with him, too.”
The tingling that had started between my legs was now throbbing and my wetness was spreading to the inside of my thighs. I ignored the ache in my head, the one behind my eyes, the hangover that I knew was going to be even worse in the morning, and I focused on Cameron’s skin, his smell. They were details I had memorized. I was afraid I would never experience either of them again. Now that I had him back, with my nose rubbing against the smoothness of his neck, he was making me high.
“You’re not really going to walk us home, are you?”
Dallas’s apartment was at least two miles from our place. The clock on the microwave had shown it was four in the morning. It wasn’t just unsafe to walk at this hour; it was crazy.
While I waited for his answer, my lips caressed the spot where his neck met his shoulder. My tongue swept up to his ear.
“No, baby,” he said, smirking as he gazed at my chest. “I don’t want to share the vision of you like this with anyone. I’m getting us a taxi.” He stepped out of the elevator and walked through the lobby. “You think you can keep it together while I hail one down, or do I need to take you into the stairwell right now and make you come?”
I nibbled at his lip. “I’ll try…but I make no promises.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
AS SOON AS WE GOT INTO OUR ELEVATOR, Cameron pushed me against the back wall and ran his hands up the length of my stomach. My legs circled his waist. Then his fingers reached my chest, stopping when they found my nipples. It had been so long since he’d touched me; I could barely control the volume of the sounds pouring from my mouth. He didn’t try to quiet me…and the way he rubbed my nipples between his fingers told me he only wanted me to be louder.
While he pinched and circled my sensitive buds, I pulled his T-shirt over his head. My hands needed more of his skin, his muscle…my nose needed more of his scent. When the door opened to reveal the entrance to our apartment, he turned us around, lifted me off the wall and carried me into the entryway.
“Welcome home, baby.”
My tank top was halfway off. I finished yanking it over my head and wrapped my arms around his neck, dropping it to the floor. “I’m so happy to be home.” We were on our way to the bedroom, the soft lighting illuminating the kitchen and living room leading us onward. “I’ve missed our home,” I told him. It was as though nothing had moved since I’d been gone. Even my favorite coffee mug was still in the sink. My eyes were drawn to it…it was such a symbol of comfort, of the soft, contented mornings we shared.
“I left it in there,” he said, noticing my attention had been drawn away from him. “Since you’ve been gone, I’ve only come in here to shower. It didn’t feel right being here, living here without you.” He kissed me. “Don’t ever leave me again,” he whispered. “Please.”
I pulled his face even closer to mine and leaned into his ear. “I won’t…not ever. I promise.” Then I pressed my lips against his again, preparing the smoothness of his mouth for the nasty pleasure my body was going to give it. His fingers tightened on my ass, dipping under the shorts and brushing over and in between my cheeks.
He didn’t release me when we reached the bedroom; he just rested me on top of the mattress instead and kneeled in front of me, taking my shorts and panties off in one easy sweep. When I was fully naked, leaning against the pillows, he paused. His back arched as he reared up to get a full look at my body. “You’re beautiful.”
The setting on the bedroom lights was so low, it was as romantic as flickering candles. It was also subdued enough to highlight my curves. My skin glowed in the golden radiance; his shimmered in it. But I knew better. “I was a hot mess when you found me on Dallas’s couch. Now you’ve added in a cab ride and some flattened out hair from the elevator. There’s nothing beautiful going on over here.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” he said. “I’m not looking at any of that. I’m looking at you, Charlie. Going this long without touching you, without seeing you naked, the images I held in my head don’t even compare to what’s before me right now.”
“Flattery will get you”
“I’m not flattering you.” He reached forward, his two fingers grazing the spot between my lips, running to the top of my clit, and then he entered me, but only briefly. “I’m already between your legs and I’m about to feel that wetness on my dick. What I’m doing is telling you exactly what it feels like to be me right now…and I’m one lucky motherfucker.”
My face was blushing, my body was trembling. And my heart was absolutely full.
“I love you,” I said softly. It came so naturally. I waited for Lilly’s voice to slink in and tell me again how I didn’t deserve anything this wonderful. It never came. I hoped she was gone for good.
I heard his intake of breath, the silent few seconds he held it in and the gust when he released it. It hit my chin and trickled down to my chest, the warm air wrapping around my nipples.
“I’ll never get tired of hearing you say that,”
he said.
“I love you…I love you. I love you.” I didn’t want to stop.
He shook his head slowly as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. I almost couldn’t believe that I was saying it. But I felt it, and I meant it. I was absolutely sure of it.
“I love you, too,” he said finally.
I couldn’t wait any longer.
My hands reached for the buckle on his belt. I unclasped it, then unfastened his button and his zipper. I stood off the bed while I pulled them down, taking his boxers with me. I climbed back in, straddling his body as I came straight down on top of him. His breathing tensed, the movement taking him by surprise. I lifted and slid down onto his hardness. I had missed this rhythm, this sensation, this closeness that came with having him inside me.
Using the mattress and his shoulders, I had plenty of leverage to continue bouncing, giving his hands the freedom to wander over my body. But he didn’t just use his fingers; he used his mouth as well. One followed the other, instinctively covering the spots that craved just a bit more of his touch.
“You’re so wet,” he panted. “It feels like my tongue just left you.”
His finger moved down my body, placing it on the spot he’d just mentioned. I moaned and tightened, squeezing him within me.
“Fuck…that felt good. Do it again.” He rubbed harder, faster, while I clenched my muscles, giving him exactly what he asked for. “You’d better slow down, baby…I’m close.”
I was close, too. But I didn’t want to slow down. Knowing Cameron, this wouldn’t be the only time we would have sex tonight. He’d take a short rest, and then he’d be all over me again. My body needed to be reminded of the ecstasy that it had missed. But it needed to be freed from all the pent-up angst first. After that, we could go as slow as he wanted.
“You want me to come?” he asked.
My body was giving him that answer; the speed with which I ground over him hadn’t slowed at all, and I told him how close I was. He responded by flipping me onto my back, lifting my legs to his waist and spreading them as wide as they would go while he kneeled in front of me. He could plunge as deep as his length would allow, and he wrapped his hands around my thighs and held them tightly while he entered and exited. The pressure had already been close to peaking when I had been on top. Having him dominate my body, with his eyes beaming at me while he stroked, only brought me closer.