by Kate Stewart
I had to fight back tears when his lips took my trembling mouth. I hoped he thought it was from the cold, but the truth was, I was raw. I wanted what we had to be it. I wanted him to be the last man I kissed, the last man I gave my heart and body to. And I didn’t want my heart to be a liar. And only he had to power to make it true.
He said we didn’t deal in absolutes, but my heart was starting to disagree as it beat for him. Cameron was making me a believer.
I was falling.
And falling hard.
I didn’t need anything more from him than what he was giving. But what he was giving was so much more than I’d expected. I pressed into him, doing everything I could to show him how much he moved me.
Because Cameron moved me.
Don’t let me be wrong. Please, God, don’t let me be wrong again.
I looked up into jade eyes and took a mental picture at the expression on his face.
“Don’t make me a fool,” I whispered to him in a plea.
He paused his steps and looked down at me with a mix of emotion.
I shook my head with a smile. “But you can’t promise you won’t.”
He tightened his hold on me. “It’s really not so hard to believe in me, is it? I mean, you are dancing in the woods.”
I smiled. “I am, aren’t I?”
“You are,” he said as the wind picked up and we kissed words away.
Only words made liars out of people.
Cameron said kisses were unspoken promises, and so he kissed me until I understood his.
Our mouths became urgent, and I used his kiss as assurance. Now that I had him, I was too afraid of the other shoe dropping. If I wasn’t careful, I would ruin the here and now with the threat of the unknown.
I had to let go.
I had to let life happen.
And so, for myself, and for Cameron, I let go.
And he was still there, kissing me, touching me, being mine.
If karma and fate truly existed, I would make the exception and believe in them for the sake of us.
“I want you,” I whispered as I clutched him tighter to me. Desperation laced my voice as I pressed my body to his. “Fuck me, prom king.”
His answering groan rumbled through his chest as his hands gripped my ass.
The sound of crunching snow and moving headlights had us jumping apart like a bunch of guilty teenagers. I shrieked as a large truck approached, and Cameron made quick work of depositing me in the Audi.
I yelled for him to get in too as he closed the door. I was being irrational, and I knew it, but I couldn’t help the full-fledged panic that raced through me as Cameron ducked to converse with the driver.
Instead of the relief I should have felt, I had more concern for him and our bubble that had been popped by the intruder. When Cameron pulled back from the truck, he smiled in my direction and jogged toward me.
“We’re rescued. This guy is with the management company who rents the cabin. When we didn’t check in, they came looking for us. He said it happens all the time. Hey, hey, what’s wrong?”
“I . . . I . . .”
You’re irrational, you’re crazy, and you’re in love with him. Crazy in love with him.
“Hey,” he said, leaning over. “I’m okay. We’re okay.”
I nodded, my mind fuzzy from the booze, my heart pounding with residual worry. Relief finally made its presence known as I realized we wouldn’t be making any headlines.
It was a good thing too. I would’ve been one pissed off woman at the pearly gates. Things were just getting good.
“Sorry, I guess I’m still a little on edge,” I whispered sheepishly.
“Come on,” he said, motioning with his chin toward the truck. “They’re going to send a tow when the storm breaks. Let’s go get you that steak.”
A little after midnight, we finally made it to the cabin and it was nothing short of postcard-perfect. The roof and porch were covered with a blanket of fresh snow, the surrounding grounds immaculate and dusted with winter.
We collectively thanked the driver as we climbed out of the truck and made our way down the short walk that led to the porch.
“It’s beautiful,” I said in appreciation as he took my hand and led me up the steps. “How did you set this up?”
“A buddy of mine owns it. But it’s normally rented this time of year. We got lucky.”
“I wish you would have given me more notice or let me pack a bag. I don’t even have a toothbrush.”
“I packed an extra for you.”
“I’m not playing Scrabble naked,” I scorned as he opened the door.
“It’s slob weekend,” he declared. “I’m going to make sure of it,” he said as he ushered me through the door.
The cabin had an open floor plan, and at the heart of it was a stone fireplace. The furniture looked new but homey.
The walls were free of expected taxidermy, and the place had the hint of a woman’s touch. Comfortable, soft blankets and multi-colored pillows were scattered throughout.
Cameron unloaded his bags on the kitchen counter next to a cozy dining nook and opened the fridge, pulling out a beer.
“What’s your flavor?” he asked as I spotted a washer dryer combo in the pantry of the kitchen, relieved at the very least I could wash what I had on.
It was obvious Cameron wasn’t well versed in what a woman considered necessary for survival.
“A shower.”
He quirked a brow. “Want some company?”
“No,” I said, dousing his hopes. I had some intimate cleaning to do, and regardless of how sexy he thought it would be, I knew differently. Shower sex wasn’t my favorite. Someone always ended up freezing their ass off.
“I had a shower sex incident,” I explained. “It started with soap and quickly escalated to burning in places I don’t ever want to burn. It’s not in the cards,” I said as his lips twitched. “Besides, I’m just not that into you yet to risk it.”
“You’ll pay for that,” he said without taking an ounce of offense before pulling on his beer.
“As long as it’s not in the shower.”
He shrugged his coat off with a smirk. “Sure, it won’t happen in the shower.”
“Cameronnn,” I whimpered, my eyes rolling back as his chest flexed and he thrust back in, hitting me so deeply my whole body quaked. “I’m coming,” I rasped out as he closed his mouth around my nipple while the water cascaded down his back.
“Abbie, I can’t get enough,” he grunted out as he held me in place in the stall before he drove his point home. He pressed his forehead against mine, lips parted before he jerked inside of me with a growl.
Shower sex is the shit!
Spent, I stood lax against the wall as Cameron turned off the water, before toweling off my body and then his. I watched his muscles flex as he rubbed the droplets away from his ripped stomach and had to physically stop myself from taking a bite of his bubble ass.
If there was an award for asses, Cameron would rightfully claim it.
His knowing smirk at my inability to keep from having shower sex showed on his face as he glanced at me. I gladly gave him the win as my imagination went wild with the possibilities for the rest of the weekend.
“For the record,” I said with a voice full of lust, “I don’t have table sex, couch sex, patio sex, hot tub sex, or counter sex, either.”
“Noted,” he said as his dimples appeared.
Later that morning, and without shame, I watched Cameron sleep. A lock of his dark hair lay in a slight wave across his forehead and his full lips taunted me. The fact that he looked so perfect without effort, well . . . it pissed me off. Tousled hair, flawless skin, he looked freshly fucked, but in a way that made him movie scene worthy, and I just looked . . . fucked. It was totally unfair.
I’d never been the girl to apply makeup in the morning to deceive some poor unsuspecting guy with a false future reality. But when I woke, I made damned sure to sneak in a run with the t
oothbrush and rinse with some Listerine I found in his leather travel bag.
After I dampened my three-million-watt hair to tame it, I used a squirt of his manly gel and ran my fingers through.
My lips were chapped from the cold and bruised from his kiss, so I put on some designer Chapstick that may have looked a little like tinted lip gloss.
In an attempt to keep things clean, I may have rolled on some of the deodorant I kept in my tote.
There was a chance I went through his suitcase and found a fresh button-down flannel shirt and slid it on. On a technicality, he did say he brought one for me. Cuffing the sleeves, I glanced back to him as he slept.
The man was a demigod, cut, etched, and completely at ease as he dreamed godlike dreams. He’d told me he’d lived a charmed life, and I believed it. As wrong as the thought was, I was sure his looks gave him a sort of advantage in his years.
And from what I’d gathered, he’d used that advantage, especially with women. But there was a difference between a man who was good looking and arrogant to a man who was good looking and had substance, and that difference was Cameron.
I loved that he didn’t ramble on about his hey-days, though I was sure he was a bit of a bad ass. It was smirk implied.
Those ramblings would only have turned me off, stories of a cocky and insecure man, but Cameron had shed those years and grown into a gentle giant. His beauty went further than skin deep and behind it, he was all heart.
Enamored, I stood staring for a stalker minute while his body rose and fell, taking and expelling even breaths. Even in his sleep, he was too much to take in.
The attraction I felt for him only grew stronger when I thought of how his full lips felt on mine, and how his eyes shone when he looked at me. I couldn’t get over it, no matter how hard I tried to play it cool. Everything about him appealed to me—his size, his strength, his beauty, him.
While I waited for Cameron to wake up, I decided to clean out my bag, and it was then that I brushed on a little blush along my cheekbones to make sure I still liked the shade.
Because I was in my tote, I grabbed my lotion bar to scent my wrists, what could it hurt to make a little bit of effort?
And then I got to digging in that bag and found some old diamond stud earrings that I loved in a hidden pocket. They were nothing special.
I may have played around with my phone, twisting my head at odd angles to make sure he didn’t wake up seeing my unpredictable and opportunistic double chin. In my defense, that secondary chin tended to flare out like a lizard’s neck without warning. I didn’t want to scare the poor man.
When I’d finished polishing my nails and toes with a shade I’d bought months ago and forgotten about, I decided that Cameron was going to sleep forever, so I may have borrowed his razor and shaved my legs a little.
By the time I was finished not getting ready for Cameron to open his eyes, I was exhausted and even more disturbed by the slow smile that covered his face when I made myself comfortable back in bed.
“You are not human,” I whispered, praying when he woke I’d see a hint of spinach in his teeth from last night’s feast. He cooked a mean steak and spinach salad.
Come on, give me one flaw!
“Are you all dressed up for me?” he asked, his sexy voice filled with sleep.
I snorted. Snorted and ruined every chance I had of looking like a sexy sophisticate.
“No, this is how I always look in the morning.” That was my story and I was sticking to it.
“Sooooo, you didn’t brush your teeth, fix your hair, put some shit on your face, use my razor to shave your legs, and pose for twenty pictures you didn’t take?”
I touched my forehead to his, my eyes wide and searching.
“What are you doing?” He chuckled as I climbed on top of him and peered at him closely.
I was sure I looked like a cartoon character as I pressed in. “I’m looking for your third eyelid, you lizard!”
He laughed and with the swipe of his arm, pinned me beneath him. It was then that I noticed his only flaw was a faint bruise on his chin.
“What happened?” I asked as I lifted to press my lips against it.
“Max caught me with an elbow on the court,” he said pulling away from my lips, “and don’t change the subject.”
“Fine. I can’t get away with shit when you’re around,” I grumbled while my cheeks flamed.
“I was forced to watch you for too long before I got to touch you. I’ve gotten good at it. And don’t get too comfortable with your I don’ts, either. I do seem to recall shower sex being a definite no.”
“Dick persuasion will not work on me, sir. That was a fluke.”
His beautiful lips twitched. “A . . . fluke.”
“Your job is to woo, not sway opinions,” I reminded.
“Well, after all the effort you just put in to dress up for me, I will woo, madam.”
Still slightly embarrassed, I shook my head and stared at the ceiling.
He trailed his lips from my neck to my ear. “I love that you did all of this for me. I loved watching you doll yourself up for my benefit. I got hard when you blew on your nails. Abbie, you are beautiful without all that effort, but it makes me feel so good that you do it for me.”
Pulling me to sit, he plucked one of the freshly cut roses from the small glass vase beside the bed and handed it to me. I knew the arrangements of pale pink stems placed strategically throughout the cabin weren’t a coincidence. Cameron had sent a few dozen roses in the same shade to my house in the last few weeks. I constantly filled my nose with their sweet scent.
“Thank you,” I said before I pressed the flower to my nose and inhaled. “I meant to ask you, of all the flowers you left at my table, why did you decide to send roses?”
He rubbed one of the delicate petals between his fingers. “It was the only flower you picked up first, instead of an afterthought, before you left the coffee shop. I knew then they were your favorite.”
“I didn’t even know they were my favorite.” I sighed as he traced my neck with his lips. “You really are the king of woo.”
“King of woo?” he repeated in question, a small smile playing on his lips.
“Yeah,” I said softly, “you earned it. So, what’s on the docket today?”
“Well, first I’m going to ruin all your hard work,” he said, reaching for the buttons on my shirt and freeing them before he slowly pushed the fabric away so it slid off of my shoulders. Eyes intent on mine, my nipple peaked under the careful trace of his finger.
“King of woo,” he said softly, his tickled grin showcasing the divots at the corners of his mouth. “I like it.”
I said his name on a prayer when he took the stiff peak in his mouth.
Wordless, he gently pushed me beneath him and sank between my thighs. I locked my legs around him while he lined himself up at my entrance and held his weight above me. His sculpted chest on display, my greedy fingers explored.
Pushing in slightly, he watched my reaction to him as the buzz between us increased.
“Damn,” he grunted as I tightened around him. His lips parted as he thrust in further.
“I knew it.”
“Knew what?” I rasped out as he pressed me into the mattress, making sure I felt every inch of him.
“Maybe I didn’t know, but I had a feeling,” he whispered before his mouth took mine and he buried himself. No further explanation needed.
I was doing it. I was running in the woods, and it wasn’t because I was being pursued by a mass murderer, which was a definite bonus. Cameron had dressed me that morning in one of his thick sweaters that hung down past my knees. I also had my leggings, coat, scarf, gloves, and snow boots on. I looked ridiculous, but I was warm, and getting warmer as we ran through the woods.
After only a week, with Cameron’s encouragement, I was getting to the point that I could keep his pace despite his longer stride, though I was sure he made allowances. But I’d been speed walking aro
und Chicago for a little over ten years, so I already had a fair amount of stamina. And it helped. I was becoming a runner, and the knowledge of that had me blissful as he glanced back at me with a smile.
We didn’t venture far. Cameron told me he wasn’t pushing his luck. But he did bring me to a break in the trees the led to a breathtaking view of a large pond. Surrounded in a winter wonderland, I appreciated everything about the silence that engulfed us. It was a picture-perfect storybook type of isolation with the only person in the world I would want to share it with.
“Not so bad, is it?” he asked, looking back at me as I scoured the sight in front of us.
“It’s beautiful,” I answered, catching my breath before walking toward a small dock.
“There’s a little boat out in the shed next to the house. I saw it last night when I was grilling. I’ll bring you back here this summer and you can read me poetry or Jane Austen, while I row you around.”
“Let’s not get too carried away, Casanova.”
“Too late,” he said as his eyes swept over me. “Too fucking late.” He tugged at my hand, pulling me to him. “You can’t run too much in those boots. It’s not good for you.”
“I know. I just don’t want to break the routine.”
“I’m proud of you. You don’t even look like you want to kick my ass when I show up at your door in the morning.”
“Oh, but I still do,” I said as we shared a grin.
“And it’s just the beginning. Wait until you run your first 5K,” he said with a wink.
A rush of emotion swept over me as I looked up at him.
“What are you thinking?”
I swallowed.
“Okay,” he said playfully, “now I have to know.”
“I don’t know how to say this without geeking out.”
“Abbie, you can tell me anything.”
“It’s just . . .” I frowned to keep my chin from wobbling, but the tears sprang up anyway.
“Baby, what is it?” he asked, his hands cupping my face.
“It’s like when people say they can’t swim, I have a hard time believing them because it came so naturally to me. Some people are terrified of the water, and treading it seems simplistic. I mean, it’s not exactly swimming, but it serves the purpose. For most, it’s like a natural reflex. But treading water isn’t swimming.”