by Lesley Jones
“I’ve already told you I don’t know. We can try, Kitten. That’s all we can do.” I nod.
“I need to ask you something. If the baby’s yours, what will you do?”
“I haven’t got a fucking clue. I can’t look after a kid with my lifestyle, my work, and she certainly can’t.” He finishes his drink and then pours the last of the bottle into his glass. “Tamara’s just two years older than you. I’ve known her since she was eighteen. We were at some charity dinner thing. We spent the night together and that was it. She was just starting out as a model and she was doing some television presenting, and for a while, she was gonna be the next big thing.”
“She’s the redhead, the one I’ve seen you out with a couple of times,” I interrupt him.
“Yeah, yeah, she was a good-looking girl when she was younger. We always worked together coz she didn’t want anything more than a fuck. That’s all it’s ever been; that’s all it ever was for me. Then when she was about twenty-two. It started to become apparent that she wasn’t gonna make it as a model. She went a bit off the rails and I didn’t see her for a few years. Then we bumped into each other about two and a half years ago and we’ve just got together every now and then since, just for a fuck, or if either of us needed a date for an event, we got together, no strings.” He takes a sip of his wine and looks down at his glass, as though he’s thinking about what to say next. “I always thought she was happy with that set up. She never mentioned that she wanted more. She’s a nice enough girl, good looking, nicely turned out, never wanted anything. Then, within about a month of us bumping back into each other, I noticed she was becoming needy, clingy and a bit erratic.” He looks at me and shrugs. “I don’t bring birds back to my place, Georgia. I’m quite a private person. It’s either a hotel or their place, and apart from my wife, you’ve been the only exception to that rule.”
I’m not sure if his statement makes me feel better or worse. I drain my glass and look at him across the top of it. Without saying anymore, he gets up to go and get another bottle from the fridge and tops me up.
“Anyway, I did a bit of digging and found out she had a habit, an expensive habit. I tried to help her out. I’ve been there. I felt sorry for her so I paid off her debts and paid for her rehab.” He shrugs as he seems to be thinking about this. “Again, I didn’t hear from her, except the odd phone call or text for a couple of months once she’d straightened herself out, then she turned up at my club opening in Ibiza in August. We went to a hotel and fucked, and next thing I hear from her is that she’s pregnant and the baby’s mine. It was also apparent that she was well and truly off the wagon. I didn’t know what to do at first. I didn’t believe her, about the baby I mean, so I went with her to the doctors and then for a scan and all the dates match up, so like I said, I got her on a program. They seemed to think she’d been taking worse shit than coke, probably heroin, but they straightened her out and everything seems to be okay with the baby, but we won’t know for sure until he’s born.”
My head fly’s up at that news. “A boy, you’re having a son?” I hate her. This woman I don’t know, who’s gonna have something I never will, something she doesn’t deserve.
“I don’t know that I’m having anything yet, George. There’s ways of testing from inside the womb, but she’s all over the place so I don’t wanna rock the boat. She’s unstable enough as it is. So anyway, I’m paying for a flat and a nurse, a minder. I buy her shopping and pay her medical bills so she can afford to see the best doctors.” He shrugs. “If the baby’s not mine, then I’ll make sure the right people get involved to make sure the kid’s safe, but that’ll be it. If the kid’s mine,” he pauses and shrugs again, “I haven’t got a Scooby what I’ll do. No idea, but he’ll be with me. One way or the other, I’ll find a way to have the baby with me, and you need to know that. You need to understand that. If the baby turns out to be mine, I will fight for custody of him.”
I give him a small smile. “I wouldn’t expect anything less from you, Cam.” I take a sip of wine, hating the jealousy I’m feeling.
“If this works, George, if me and you make this work, we’ll have our own. If this baby is mine, it won’t stop us having our own.”
My breath catches. Oh, God, he doesn’t know. I’m not sure what the sound is that I make. I sob but my lips sort of roll. I suppose it’s what you could call blubbering and he moves so quick and pulls me into his lap and holds me.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Kitten. This must be so hard for you after everything you’ve been through. Fuck, Kitten, I wish it was your belly my baby was growing in.”
I shake my head, but I can’t get any words out. I gasp in air as I try to control the sobs, but all he can see is me shaking my head and I don’t want him thinking that I’m saying no to that idea. I’m panicking and it’s making it harder to breathe. My chest hurts so much as I force out the words.
“I can’t, Cam. I can’t.” I look up at him. “I can’t have kids. The accident, they took it; they took everything away. It’s the only way they could stop me from bleeding.” He stares at me silently, his eyes wide as he processes what I’m saying to him.
“No, oh, fuck no, Kitten.” His face is an image of pure pain as he shakes his head and his eyes fill with tears. “I didn’t know,” he whispers.
“Hysterectomy,” is all I manage to choke out.
“Fuck, Kitten, fuck, fuck, fuck.” For the next half hour, he holds me while I cry. Once again, Cam holds me while I fall apart.
Chapter Eighteen
I must’ve dozed off in Cam’s arms. When I open my eyes, he’s looking down at me. I give him a small smile.
“I fell asleep.”
“Yes, you did.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why?”
“For crying, for being such bad company.”
“You’re the only company I want.”
“Am I?”
“Always.”
“Even if the baby’s yours?”
He closes his eyes for a long moment. “Whether I’m the father of that baby or not makes absolutely no difference to you and me. Other than it will be just another thing for us to work through.”
“D’ya think we can do it? D’ya think we’re strong enough, ready enough for this?”
He shrugs. “If we want it bad enough.” I nod. I need to wee badly, but I’m so warm and comfy, I don’t want to move.
“I need to ask you something,” he says quietly.
“Knock yourself out.”
“What was Jodie on about when she said you’d been fucking her ex while you were in Byron?” Great, coz that’s what I really wanted to talk about right now.
“I met a bloke in Byron. He sang and played guitar in my aunt’s bar.”
“He was a singer?” I nod.
“Yeah, I know. He was nothing like Sean to look at. He just happened to sing and play guitar.”
“What’s his name?”
“Roman, Roman Peterson. He’s not famous or anything. He’s actually an engineer and works away in the mines most of the year, but takes a four month break and goes home to Byron and plays guitar around the different bars there.”
“And you fucked him?” I don’t see any point in lying, I don’t want to lie so I just nod.
“I’ve been numb, Cam. I’ve felt nothing and I just suddenly felt something. It was the strangest thing. It actually disturbed me.”
“Why?” I think about this for a few seconds.
“Because he made me feel and I wasn’t sure if I was ready for that, and because I felt so guilty. It hadn’t been quite a year since Sean’s death and I was feeling something for another man. Not emotionally or anything, it wasn’t like that between us. It was just desire I suppose, but even that was more than I was prepared for.” The only light is coming from a lamp over in the corner and I watch him frown while listening and digesting what I’m telling him.
“What was it like then, between you and him?”
Ho
w the fuck do I explain this one? I decide to go with honesty. “Rome’s a bit of a free spirit, independent and adventurous. He just wanted to help me. He wanted to show me that I could go on with my life.”
“Sounds like a hippy.”
I nod. “Yeah, he was a bit of a hippy. He was good for me, Cam. He was exactly what I needed; a bit like you and Tamara, we were friends who fucked. He knew I was going back to England at some stage. I knew he was going back to Western Australia and we were both fine with that.”
“And you didn’t mind that he was Jodie’s ex?” he asks.
“Yeah, well, that’s where it all went tits up. I had no idea and was really pissed off when I found out, but because he’s so laid back, he just didn’t see what the problem was. As far as he was concerned, it was a long time ago and it didn’t matter, but what he and I didn’t know was that he’d gotten her pregnant, and without telling him, she’d got rid of the baby.”
“Fuck,” he says and lets out a breath.
“Yeah, fuck, the relationship meant a lot more to her than it did to him, and when she found out I had been seeing him, she was pissed off.”
We’re both silent for a few seconds, but now his questions have got me thinking.
“What went on between you and her?”
He shifts me off his lap slightly before he starts talking. “It was nothing other than professional. We went to lunch once and dinner twice. Lunch and one of the dinners were business meetings, and then one night, we both finished at the club late and I asked her to have dinner with me. I didn’t see the point in both of us eating alone; that was all there was to it. I didn’t realise she was reading more into it.”
I’m getting pins and needles in my feet so I uncurl my legs and stretch them out in front of me, and because of the way the throw is tangled around us, my bare legs are now on show and I watch as Cam looks along the length of them.
“Is that it, no kissing, no flirting?” I ask.
“What like you’re doing now?”
“What?” I haven’t said a word. How am I flirting?
“Flashing me your legs, just because I’m talking about your cousin.” I smile at his assumption.
“If I was flirting with you, Cam, I wouldn’t be sitting with my legs stretched out on the sofa. I’d have them wrapped around your neck while I sat on your face.” He throws his head back and gives me his big Cam laugh and I can’t help but throw my arms around his neck and hold him for a few seconds. I breathe him in and say quietly, “God, I’ve missed that laugh. I’ve missed your laugh and your smell so much.” He slides his hand under his hoodie that I’m wearing and runs his fingertips up and down my spine. I shudder in response.
“I love the way your body reacts to me. If I touch your nipples now, how hard would they be?” I feel lightheaded with desire. I ache for him to be inside me again.
“Hard enough to cut glass.” I turn myself around and straddle him, grinding my hips into his once they’re lined up.
“If I put my hand in your shorts, how wet will you be?” He bites along my jaw as he asks the question, and again I shudder and he gives a little laugh.
“Wet. I’m wet.”
“How wet, Kitten?” I can feel him grow harder underneath me, and as I start to rub harder, he grabs my hips and stills me. I pull back to look at him and his brown eyes meet mine. “Stop rubbing yourself off on my jeans. I want you in my bed naked. I want your skin on mine. I want you calling me, begging me, Kitten. I need you to convince me that you want and need me as much as I want and need you.” His teeth drag over my jaw and neck as he finishes speaking and I let out a moan.
“Take me to bed, Cam. Take me to bed and I’ll show you. I’ll show you how much I want and need you.”
He stands and carries me upstairs still wrapped around him. He lays me back on his bed and switches on a lamp. I push myself up on my elbows, putting me at eye level with the boner he’s got going on in his jeans. I look up to meet his eyes and he has a cocky grin on his face.
“Get naked. I’m gonna shower. Then I’m gonna make you scream, beg and call my name.” He turns around and goes into the en suite. I take off what I’m wearing and lay on my belly, my chin resting in my hands as I face the bathroom, waiting for him to finish his shower. He’s only gone a few minutes when I hear the shower go off and he returns, dripping wet, with a towel around his hips. He is just so male, so my Mr TDH and he looks even better wet. Our eyes meet as he puts his hands on his hips and looks me over. “Don’t move, Kitten. I want you to stay exactly like that.
He moves around the bed as I lay still. I don’t even turn my head. I feel his hands around my ankles as he uncrosses my legs and spreads them wide. I feel his hand in my hair as he moves it from my back and brushes it all over my right shoulder and he gently bites my left. I turn and look at him. He gives me the sexiest pout and a ‘what?’ kind of look, knowing full well how much I like the feel of his teeth on me. He winks, and if I had a womb, it would’ve just exploded. I don’t know why I let thoughts like that into my head, sometimes they just slip in to torture me and my throat tightens. I turn back away from him as he uses his middle and index fingers to trace down the bumps of my spine. When he gets to my bum, he keeps going, dragging two fingers right through the middle of me, he keeps going until he reaches my clit, he circles his fingers and I let out an, “Oh, God,” and grind myself down onto his hand.
“Still, Kitten, keep still and I’ll give you what you want, but I want to play for a while. I need to see you. I need to hear you. I need to taste you.”
This time it’s an, “Oh, fuck,” that I let go of and I suddenly feel his teeth sink into my bum cheek.
“I don’t want to hear that. It’s not ladylike.”
“Tiger, I’m lying face down naked on your bed while you rub my clit. I think I left my ladylikeness at the door.”
Without saying a word, he pushes his fingers inside me, but he doesn’t move them. He leaves them completely still as he lifts my leg by my foot and gently bites the back of my ankle. My Achilles heel and I can’t help but think how appropriate that is. That’s what he’s always been for me, my Achilles, my weak spot. Despite being happily married and in love with my husband, I fucked this man and I thought about him far too often during my marriage, and now, here I am. My husband’s dead and now here I am, back in his bed, and as much as I want this, I know it’s wrong, but I don’t want it to be. I want to somehow make it right, make it okay. It’s not even the rest of the world I care about convincing. It’s just myself.
The sensation of Cam’s tongue licking up the back of my leg brings me back into the here and now. He stops at the back of my knee and alternates feather-light kisses, licks and bites. The sensation is exquisite and I give up trying to hold in the moans that want to escape me.
“That good, Kitten?” I nod, but I know he wants more. He grabs my hips and pulls me up onto my knees, leaving me with my arse in the air and facing towards him. He bites down gently on my right cheek. “Tell me, Kitten. I need to hear it.” He pushes my legs as wide apart as they will go. My knees are on the very edge of the bed and I’m grateful that the only light in the room is coming from a lamp in the opposite corner.
His tongue is suddenly inside me from behind, his arm is over and around my hip, his two fingers coming back into contact with my clit.
“God, Cam, that feels good.”
“I know it does, you’re so fucking wet.” I can’t help but smile at how self-assured he sounds, especially as I know that he’s not, that he needs me to tell him how good it feels, how good he makes me feel and to let him know how much I want him.
“I want more, Cam. I want to feel you inside me.”
“Where, Kitten, where d’ya wanna feel me?” He licks me from front to back and pushes the two fingers that were at my clit inside me and curls them. My whole body shudders.
“There, right there.”
“You like my fingers there, Kitten, or d’ya want my cock there?”
He bites my shoulder and says into my ear, “So where shall I put my fingers, Kitten, if my cock’s in your cunt, where shall I put my fingers?” He slides them out, and using my own juices as lube, he pushes one inside my arse. I see stars. I’ve never let him touch me there before, Sean did, but I’ve never let anyone else.
“Fuck,” is the only word I can manage as I push back on him.
His teeth and lips and tongue are on my shoulder, neck and jaw. He bites gently on my earlobe, then flicks his tongue around my ear.
“More, Kitten, you want more of this?” He pulls his finger from inside me but then circles two around my hole.
“I want your cock inside me, Cam.”
“In your arse?”
“No, no fucking way is that fucking thing going in my arse!” I hear him chuckle, but as I turn to look at him over my shoulder and our eyes meet, the laughing stops. The atmosphere in the room changes.
“Turn over, Kitten. It’s been too long since I’ve seen you naked.” My stomach and my heart do what feels like a synchronised flutter at his words and I have a moment of panic. I was twenty when he last saw me naked. I’m thirty-two now. I have scars that he’s never seen. I’m not as perfect as he once thought I was and I wonder what he’ll think now.
Before I get a chance to turn over, he pulls away from me and goes into the bathroom. I hear water running and the sound of him washing his hands.
“Turn over, Kitten. I want you on your back when I walk in there,” he calls out. How the fuck does he know I haven’t moved yet? I turn onto my back and lay so I’m the right way around on the bed. He heads out of the bathroom and towards me, stopping at the end of the bed. He stands and looks at me. He’s totally naked and so comfortable and confident in himself, and so he should be. I have no idea how often he works out, but it must be a lot; he’s got to be around forty-two now, but he is the image of absolute physical perfection. His shoulders are broad, his arms toned. He has a six-pack that’s perfectly defined and that V thing that I don’t know the name of, but love all the same. His cock is hard. It’s sticking up, long and thick, and I try not to stare too long and instead move my eyes back up to his face.