“Oh, shit!” he said, bending over.
She leaned over. “It’s okay. I’ve got it.”
Nose to nose with Camden Bergen, she stilled, no longer concerned with a little spilled beer. Without breaking their connection, he reached down and righted the bottle.
“Can I tell you something?” she whispered.
“Anything.”
Her breaths grew shallow. “I’m not lonely right now.”
He cupped her cheek in his hand. “I’m not either.”
Their breaths mingled together. The sun had set, and in the darkness, it was like how she felt with Mac. Hidden. A sweet secret just for her. But this was real. Camden’s touch. The heat radiating off his body. She pressed her hand to his chest, and his heartbeat quickened—or maybe that was hers. At this point, she didn’t know where she ended and he began. She gathered the fabric of his T-shirt in her hand and pulled him a breath closer.
“Maybe we could not be lonely together this summer,” she whispered.
He rested his forehead against hers. “Is that what you want?”
A summer being not lonely—whatever that meant—with this man would eventually come to an end. It was temporary, and it didn’t have to mean that she cared any less for Aaron or that Mac wasn’t an important part of her life. It just meant…
He stroked his thumb across her lips, and her mind stopped spinning. Stopped weighing and assessing and evaluating. Stopped projecting and planning and budgeting, and everything became crystal clear. Cloaked in the twilight, she pulled back and met his gaze in the hazy darkness.
“Kiss me, Camden,” she half-whispered, half-pleaded, then held her breath, not sure if the heat coursing through her body was from the apprehension that he’d deny her request or the excitement that he’d grant it.
8
Camden
He could barely believe his ears. Had Mountain Daisy asked him to kiss her?
This day and this woman had him reeling.
He slid his hand into her golden hair and trembled.
“Are you cold?” she whispered against his lips.
Not cold. Completely and utterly mesmerized and completely and utterly lost. The fresh start he’d dreamed of had disappeared, evaporated when Bodhi Lowry got out of that car. He couldn’t tell her he was her Mountain Mac—because Mountain Mac couldn’t be anything more than a message in a chat room.
Or could he be more…for the summer?
He could give her that. And Christ, he wanted her! Last night, she’d transformed his appearance—cut off the layers he’d hidden behind for years. Today, she’d transformed his heart, loosening the grip of the pain and guilt that tormented his soul.
But it was only temporary.
He barely trusted himself enough to find Mountain Daisy. A child changed everything. It was hard enough to carry the pain of what he’d done to his parents. But to hurt a child? That was the line in the sand he couldn’t cross. He’d failed the two people he’d loved the most in this world. He couldn’t bear the responsibility of ever doing that to a child—especially to Mountain Daisy’s son.
Still, he couldn’t deny the joy that coursed through his body today. Running alongside Bodhi as he rode his bike had been exhilarating, but the look on Cadence’s face—the gratitude and relief, ignited a tiny part of him that dreamed he was worthy of a real life. That tiny part that wanted so badly to quiet the voices in his head and believe that he could keep Cadence and Bodhi safe.
Cadence released her grip on his shirt and slid her fingertips up to his collarbone, and her touch sent a rush of heat to his belly as lust edged out his anxiety.
He could give her the summer as Camden and Cadence. And when it ended, they’d go back to Daisy and Mac—and she’d never have to know.
He tangled his fingers in her hair. “Do you know how much I want to kiss you?” he said, lips barely a breath away from hers.
“How much?” she answered.
He slid his hands down her back, and just as he’d done in the shower, he gripped her hips. Except for this time, instead of pressing her lithe frame into the wall, he lifted her onto his lap. She gasped as the swing jostled, his hard length pressed between her straddled thighs. Her skirt rode up her legs, and he slid his hands underneath, palming her ass, his fingers tracing the outline of a lacy G-string.
“Wow!” he whispered.
She wrapped her arms around his neck. “I kind of have a thing for pretty panties.”
No sweeter words had ever been spoken.
She threaded her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck, and a fresh rush of desire overtook him as she swiveled her hips. He could spend eternity here—in this space, a heartbeat away from his first kiss with Mountain Daisy. Want and need building, layer upon layer, his desire intensified. He’d denied himself for so long waiting for her, dreaming of her. And now he had her.
“Camden,” she said, her breath tickling the corner of his mouth.
Daisy.
He cupped her face in his hands. “Let me look at you.”
She pulled back. “You don’t want to kiss me?”
He stroked her plump bottom lip. “I’ve wanted to kiss you from the moment we met, but I need to look at you, so I know this is real. So I know you’re real. I don’t want to close my eyes and have you disappear.”
“I’m not just some voice in the dark, Camden. I’m right here, and I’m not going anywhere.”
The muscles in his chest tightened as he stared at the real Mountain Daisy.
She gave him a sweet smile, and her eyelids fluttered closed. “I’ll go first.”
A strand of her blond hair caught the wind in the cool night breeze as a pair of headlights from a passing car illuminated her face.
He tucked the hair behind her ear. “I never imagined you’d be so beautiful.”
He needed to be careful. Talk like that could get him in trouble. He couldn’t reveal he was Mac. It was just so damn hard not to tell her she was the reason for…Christ! For everything. For giving him the courage to step out of the safety of seclusion.
“I’m not going to disappear, Camden. I’m real, and I might explode into a million tiny pieces if you don’t kiss me,” she whispered with a sexy curve to her lips.
He sighed, hovering on the precipice with Daisy on one side and Cadence on the other, hardly able to believe they were one and the same and that he’d been given both of them. He tilted his head and dusted her lips with a whisper-soft kiss.
Their first kiss—and his fantasies couldn’t hold a candle to the reality. Like the first drops of rain falling from the sky on the verge of a summer storm, the kiss started slowly; the air buzzing with expectancy and giddy with anticipation.
Cadence released a sweet, breathless moan as her lips parted, and what started as merely the hint of a kiss morphed into a whirlwind dance of passion. One hand cupping her cheek as the other gripped her ass, their tongues met, heat building between them.
“You taste so good,” he said between kisses.
He could feel her smile. “I must taste like pizza.”
“No, you taste like…”
Home.
She tasted like home. Her touch was shelter. Her scent, the air, fragrant with wildflowers.
She was everything he’d loved about his life in Colorado before he’d exiled himself to Switzerland, and she was his—for now.
He guided her body against him in slow, delicious strokes, his cock straining against his jeans as her sweet center rubbed his hard length through the fabric. He slipped his fingers inside her G-string and took in a sharp breath. Hot and wet, he teased her entrance. Her arousal had him thrusting his hips, desperate to make her come.
The hanging swing rocked beneath them, the wood creaking and the chains jangling, but he kept her close, kept the rhythm of their bodies steady, and slid his fingertips over her tight bundle of nerves.
She gasped and thrust her hips, tightening her hold around him, and twisted the hair at the nape of his n
eck.
Her chest heaved against him. “Camden!” she whispered against his lips.
Fire scorched his veins, and another wave of heat washed over him. This was no detached, purely physical encounter like he’d grown used to before he’d met Daisy. This was a connection, a fusing of minds. He’d never touched her, but he already knew her heart. A carnal triumph surged as he took her higher. He dialed up his pace, increasing the pressure on her sweet bud. The rocking of the swing and the rhythm of his touch had her riding his hand, swiveling her hips and bucking against him. She was close.
He kissed a trail to her earlobe, grazing it with his teeth. He would own every ounce of her pleasure. He pressed a kiss to the delicate skin. “I’m going to make you come so hard.”
She twisted her fingers into his hair—every tug amping up his desire.
“I—” she gasped, then stilled.
“Here, boy!”
They pulled apart; the swing swaying as she slid off his lap, their gazes meeting in the darkness.
“Did you hear that?” she whispered.
“Here, boy!”
There it was again along with the slap of shoe meeting pavement.
“Rufus! There you are! Were you chasing those squirrels again?” the man said as the dog’s excited yelps peppered the night air.
Cadence leaned in. “I recognize the voice. It’s just a neighbor from a few blocks away.”
Camden glanced over his shoulder. Had Rufus made it a few more houses, they would have been caught making out like horny teenagers.
“Looks like those squirrels are causing mayhem in the neighborhood,” she said, a nervous lilt to her voice that wasn’t there before.
He turned to her to say what, he didn’t know, but she spoke first.
“Is this crazy?” she asked.
A pang of guilt shot through him. Was this not only crazy but was it also selfish—him knowing he’d found her while she still believed Mountain Mac was just some message on her phone?
“Maybe,” he answered.
She nodded. “Should we call it a night? Camp starts tomorrow.”
“For me,” he said.
She nodded. “Yeah, me too. It’s my summer job. I’m the certified teacher for Baxter Park’s Bergen Adventure Summer Camp.”
Jesus Christ! Not only was he going to live next door to her this summer, but they’d also be working together.
She frowned, clearly reading his disbelief. “I figured you knew.”
He hadn’t checked his email or opened the laptop Bren had dropped off. Dammit! He needed to get his shit together.
“I didn’t.”
“Bodhi will be there, too, in the primary grades group.” She ran her index finger down his jawline. “You’re going to do a good job as site leader, Camden.”
“Why would you say that?” he asked.
He’d barely interacted with anyone besides her in years—and none of them children.
“You were great with Bodhi today. I know you’ve been on your own a long time, but you’re a natural with kids.”
“That was one afternoon,” he answered, feeling the weight of agreeing to work for his family’s company this summer.
She rocked the swing. “Call it a professional hunch, but I bet you were one of the best high school counselors back before…”
“Before I ran away?” he supplied.
Her expression grew pained, and she felt for her necklace underneath her shirt. “We don’t know what life’s going to throw at us. Sometimes, all we can do is try to get through it the best we can.”
“Is that what you’re doing?” he asked, the words spilling out before he could stop himself.
She rolled the pendant between her thumb and index finger, almost as if she were trying to soothe herself.
He touched her hand. “Can I see your pendant?”
He ran his fingertips across her collarbone. This was the second time he’d noticed her touch the necklace in what looked like an involuntary response anytime that sad, faraway expression marred her features. Cadence dropped her hand, and he pulled the chain and pendant from where it lay hidden beneath her shirt.
But it wasn’t a pendant.
“It’s my husband’s ring,” she answered, a thread of sadness woven into the words.
He stilled, the weight of the cool metal multiplying with her admission.
“I became a widow at twenty-five.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t...”
She’d never mentioned this in any of their chats. But why would she? He sure as hell didn’t know she had a child. Why would she have disclosed she’d had a husband? They never got into specifics. In fact, with her, he could be the unbroken version of himself. Not the runaway Bergen heir. Not the son who’d failed his parents.
Had she done the same?
Had she found solace in their friendship, sharing the best parts of herself, too? Had she also longed for someone to confide her hidden dreams and deep contemplations? Had he been her guiding light in the dark just as she’d been his?
It blew his mind.
He’d never assumed she carried the kind of pain he shouldered.
She touched the ring as their fingertips overlapped and he let go, allowing her to tuck the gold band back into her shirt.
She gestured to the houses. “This was our dream: leave Grand Junction and move to the big city. Aaron, that was my husband’s name, he worked construction when we were teenagers and studied engineering when we were in college. He was always taking something apart and putting it back together. He loved the idea of renovating these historic houses.”
“You guys grew up together?” Cam asked, surprised at how much he wanted to know about her life to fill in the gaps left between two people who’d shared both everything and nothing with each other.
She nodded. “Our grandmothers met in a support group.”
“A support group?” he echoed.
“For grandparents who were given custody of their grandchildren. Aaron and I never knew our birth parents.”
His brows knit together. “What happened to them?”
She was back to toying with the ring. “Methamphetamine, oxycodone, heroin. They died of drug overdoses.”
“Jesus, Cadence,” he said, and took her hand.
She gave his hand a light squeeze. “We were both taken away from our parents when we were still in diapers. Neither of us had any memories of that time.” She paused. “That’s strange.”
“What?” he asked, watching her hand fall from the pendant.
“You’re the first person I’ve told in Denver about my parents.”
“Brennen’s fiancée doesn’t know?”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t really have a reason to talk about it. Aaron’s gone. My grandparents are gone. If anyone asks, I just say my parents passed away.” She smiled up at him. “You’re very easy to talk to, you know that?”
Of course, he knew.
He stilled, and she took his silence as an opening to go on.
“Our grandmothers became friends, and Aaron and I grew up together. Holidays, summer breaks—we were always together. We got married right after college, and Bodhi came along soon after.”
“And then you moved here?”
The streetlight lit her in a silvery glow as her hand went back to the ring.
“Bodhi and I drove up a day early to start going through the houses. Aaron was wrapping things up at his job and getting the rental we’d been living in all cleared out. He called me before he left for his last day of work. He’d biked to work every day for two years. He loved biking. Mountain biking. Road biking. He loved it all. Well, that day—his last day in Grand Junction—a car hit him on the way to work and fled the scene. Someone drove by and saw him and called nine-one-one. But he died right there on the side of the road. It wasn’t until a police officer knocked on our door a day later that I learned he’d been in an accident.”
“How do you do it?” he asked, again, the words e
scaping before he could stop them.
“Do what?”
He exhaled slowly. “Keep going?”
“Bodhi, my job, and this place—these houses. At Aaron’s funeral, I promised him I’d follow our plan to fix them up. We buried him close by at the Fairmount Cemetery. We didn’t have any family left in Grand Junction, and I wanted him to be close so we could visit him.”
“That’s where my parents are,” he said softly.
Cadence stroked his palm with her thumb. “See, we’re just two people doing the best we can.”
He shook his head. “You sure as hell are. Me, not so much. You stayed and built a life.”
“You could, too. It’s like what you said to Bodhi today. Look at where you want to be and focus on that spot.”
“My dad used to tell me that,” he replied.
She leaned against him. “Maybe you just need to find your focus.”
He’d found it. He just couldn’t have it.
They sat there, listening to the hum of the city at night, when she released his hand and stood.
“Can we try something?”
“Sure,” he answered, clueless as to what she had in mind but on board with whatever she wanted.
“I think we could use a little redirection.”
“Redirection?” he echoed.
“Yes, it’s a teaching term. It means we need to shift our behavior and get back on track.”
“Oh,” he answered, remembering Bren’s warning about when Abby and Cadence busted out the teacher talk.
She lifted her chin. “I’d like you to go home.”
He was not expecting that.
He came to his feet. “What? Back to Switzerland?”
“No, back to Glenna’s,” she replied with a laugh.
He couldn’t keep the sisters straight.
“That’s next door? My place?”
“Yes,” she answered.
“Did I do something wrong?”
Shit! Was it the kiss or talk of her past? He couldn’t read her. She didn’t seem upset. In fact, that twist to her lips said she was the opposite of angry.
She touched his face. “No, you’ve done everything right. That’s why I want you to go home and go into your bedroom.”
Man Find (Bergen Brothers Book 3) Page 10