by Kim Karr
My surprise has to be evident on my face. “You’re kicking me out?”
For some reason I just thought I’d be staying.
Poker-faced still, she seems to be contemplating my question. “I wouldn’t call it that,” she answers.
After a few seconds of silence, I ask, “What if I refuse to leave?”
Instead of answering me, she whirls around to face the bed, her hand flying to her mouth and a giggle escaping her throat. “Then I guess you can stay,” she manages with all out laughter.
Yeah, she got me.
Narrowing my eyes at her, even though she can’t see me, I have a choice to make. Call her bluff and leave or provide the ultimate payback. Of course, I choose the latter.
Lunging for her, I tackle her to the bed, flip her around, and pin her wrists over her head. “That was mean, just down-right mean.”
She bites down on her lip and looks up at me. “I couldn’t help myself, but the look on your face was priceless.”
I take both wrists in one hand and use my other to find her belly. “Payback is a bitch, baby.”
That smile. Fuck, that smile. “No, stop. I’m ticklish.”
“You shouldn’t have told me that,” I murmur and tickle her from under her arms to way down below her belly.
“Stop, please—that was payback for the vibrator.”
“Say, ‘Camden Waters is a sex god,’ and I’ll stop.”
That body of hers bounces, that laughter gets higher and higher, and I feel a strange something going on in my chest because of it. “Mercy!” she calls out.
Leaning down so our noses are almost touching, I breathe hot against her lips. “Say, ‘Camden Waters is a sex god.’”
If there were ever a master tickler, it would be me. Just ask my sister. I used to make her so mad with the things she had to say to get me to stop. None of them sexual in nature, of course, but things that pissed her off, like, “My brother is always right,” or “My brother is the best ever.” It was so much fun. This is equally so, and then some.
Makayla snorts, tears falling from her eyes, and then finally it comes. “Camden Waters is a sex god.”
“Sorry, I didn’t hear you.”
“Camden Waters is a sex god!” she shouts.
Satisfied, I stop. “I think everyone knows now.”
She punches me, and I grab her arm again, this time tugging her to the head of the bed and pulling her snug to me, her back to my front.
Happy like this, I bend to pull the sheet around us and then kiss between her shoulder blades. She tucks her hand under her cheek.
My hand drifts up and down her hip, moving the sheet in a motion like waves rolling in the ocean.
Some time passes and then Makayla turns around to rest her head on my shoulder.
I kiss her hair. “I don’t know what this is between us, but I can’t get you out of my head.”
“I don’t know either, but I feel it too.”
That is all that needs to be said for now. “Good.”
Her fingertips dance lightly across my skin and soon she traces the B on my chest. She’s never asked me about it, but I know she must wonder.
The words just come out. “We called ourselves the ABC’s—Amelia, Brandon, and Camden. Brandon was the oldest. He was always the fun-loving one. I was the middle child and the responsible one. And Amelia, well, she was our little princess.”
Makayla’s hand pauses for the barest of blinks before continuing to stroke my chest. “Brandon, is he B?”
I nod my head. “Yes. He died just over a year ago.”
Her head lifts to look at me. “Tell me about him.”
“He was always the life of the party. Everybody loved him. He had that kind of gravitational pull, you know?”
She nods in understanding.
“It made everyone always want to be around him. But as the years went on, he just refused to grow up and be responsible. That was always my role—taking care of the three of us while our parents argued their way through life.”
Makayla listens without comment.
“That’s what fucking pisses me off the most. All he had to do was talk to me. Tell me what he was feeling. I would have helped him any way I could. Instead, now every time I look in the fucking mirror, I wish I hadn’t gotten this damn tattoo because it only reminds me how pissed I am at him.”
Her head lifts, but again she says nothing.
I close my eyes. “The night you saw me in Chinatown was the night of his memorial service. One that my father insisted on having to ease his own conscience or put on a show for his friends, who knows. I was out just trying to forget about it.”
She moves closer to me. “Why? You didn’t want to go?”
My eyes fly open. “Fuck no. I hate to go to any of my father’s dog-and-pony shows. I went for my mother and sister.”
“What about for Brandon?” she asks.
“I already told you—I’m fucking mad at him.”
“But Cam, he’s your brother.”
“Was,” I clarify.
“No, Cam, he is. Just because he isn’t alive doesn’t change that.”
“Fuck that. He overdosed and left me. Left me because he couldn’t deal with our prick of a father or cope with the demands of growing up. Unlike me, Brandon never stood up to our father. I didn’t realize working for our father was making him so unhappy. If I had, I would have gone to bat for him against the prick.” I pause for a moment before adding, “I just never knew how bad things were.”
“Was he a drug addict?”
“Yes, but I never knew it. I only thought he liked to party. He was good at hiding his addiction.”
Both of her elbows on my chest, she asks, “But Cam, that’s what addicts do—hide it.”
“But I was his brother; I should have seen it. Why couldn’t he have talked about his condition with me? We were best friends, for fuck’s sake.”
“Maybe he didn’t want to burden you?”
I sit up, wanting to be done with this conversation.
She wraps her arms around me. When I don’t recoil, she tightens her hold. “It isn’t your fault. I don’t have to know all the circumstances or exactly what happened, but I know that addictions have a way of taking over someone’s life. And sometimes it’s hard for us on the outside to understand that.”
Getting up on my knees, I turn around to face her. “I’ve heard it all before,” I tell her.
“Then you’re not listening. Bad things happen, Cam. And I get that right now you hate your brother for dying, but he didn’t do it to you. He died from a drug overdose. And maybe that’s what you should think about because I am certain he wouldn’t want you blaming yourself.”
“I know that,” I spit out.
“Do you? Isn’t your guilt holding you back from doing something with your life you might care about?”
I look over my shoulder with a scowl. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
There’s no pity in her eyes as she looks at me, just a softened expression and maybe a little understanding. Lightly, she kisses my shoulder. “Yes, I do. I know you want to do more than you are.”
“How do you know that?”
“I see your mind working whenever you talk about local businesses around here and how they’re doing. You always have an idea about how to make them better. You see what other’s don’t. You need to move forward, Cam. Stop letting your hatred for your father or your anger toward your brother hold you back. You may not ever be able to forgive your father, but you have to forgive your brother.”
Bold words, and they strike me like lightning.
With a sigh, I try to explain myself without getting angry with her. “You don’t get it. That’s all I can think about. I graduated Columbia Business School four weeks after Brandon died. I was supposed to go to work for my father, but I didn’t. The grief of my brother’s death was too much. Vanessa went to work for him instead and I took some time off. I have no idea how long she had
been fucking him before I found them that Thanksgiving. I never asked. She tried to tell me his grief had gotten to her and she only wanted to comfort him. His grief? His grief! Can you believe that?”
Makayla gets on her knees and put her hands on my arms. “No, I can’t. I can’t believe you had to deal with that in the midst of grieving for your brother. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m not. In fact, catching them together might have been the best thing that ever happened to me because it brought me out here. Lifeguard or not, my life is so much better here than there. Like I told you, my mother thinks I’m living in a dreamworld and that I refuse to get a real job because I want to hurt my father, and she tells me as often as she can that I’m hurting myself more than him.”
Her hands slide down and she squeezes mine. “Do you think she might be right?”
I put my hands on her hips and pull her close to me. “Sometimes I do. Lately, more than I used to.”
She rests her head on my shoulder. “Maybe that means you finally believe it and are ready to do something about it.”
“I don’t know,” I breathe out with a deep sigh. “All I know is I’m ready to stop talking about this.”
For a long time we stay that way. Staring at each other. Unmoving.
Having had more than enough pillow talk, I push her to the bed and lean down to kiss her knee.
She giggles. “That tickles.”
The sound is breathy and hoarse. I like it. Liking the way her skin feels, I glide my lips down a little to kiss her calf, then lower still to kiss the bone of her ankle.
Her toes wiggle, and I take her foot between my hands and start to massage it.
She rises on her elbows. “That feels so good.”
Maneuvering my fingers, I apply a little more pressure. “The summer after college I went backpacking with my brother and my best friend, Keen Masters. Somehow we ended up on a plane to Singapore, because Keen had this idea in his head that the women in Singapore were like no others on earth.”
Her grin lights up her whole face. “And were they?”
I bob my head from side to side as if stretching the muscles in memory. “They were gorgeous, that was for sure, and they were small, so short and petite. But let me tell you, they had the most amazing hands. The massages they gave were definitely like no other.”
She covers her mouth and feigns shock. “Let me guess…you all enjoyed your happy endings.”
I raise both my brows and wiggle them. “That we did.”
She laughs and shakes her head. “I give a pretty good massage, too, Mr. Waters.”
I lick my tongue up her thigh. “I will most definitely be taking you up on that, Ms. Alexander.”
Her nipples go tight beneath her tank top when I nip at the lace of her panties, and I know she has to be wet for me. “Anytime, day or night.” She winks.
I meet her gaze and the air shifts. “Take your top off,” I tell her.
Without wasting a minute, she stands and strips it off, and then hooks her thumbs in the side of her panties.
“Stop,” I tell her, and then make a twirling motion with my finger. “Turn around.”
She does.
It is not a thong, but half of her ass cheeks show. So fucking hot. “Fuck, what do you call those?”
“Brazilians,” she purrs over her shoulder. “And don’t you dare ask me to put on six-inch platforms and pretend to swing around a pole.”
My cock rises against my belly and I stroke it lightly. “That could be fun.”
From over her shoulder, her eyes land on my hands and her lips part. I stroke a little harder, seeing how much it excites her.
“Sorry, no pole in here,” she says.
“That could be arranged.”
“I don’t think Maggie would appreciate it.”
“Shhh,” I order. “Come here.”
Turning around, she takes her panties off as she walks and flings them across the room before she joins me on the bed.
I breathe her in. I breathe her out. Voice muffled against her flesh, I whisper, “Fuck me.”
And she does.
19
Curiosity Killed the Cat
Makayla
You know how sometimes you meet someone you just click with?
Yeah, for me that never happens. Not until now. Not until Cam. He and I talk about everything. No subject is off limits. It’s fun and exciting, and a little scary, too. Our views are sometimes the same, sometimes different. Debates are always up for grabs. And long discussions seem to go by in the blink of an eye.
I know all about where he ranked on the swim team in high school and who his favorite football team is. That he likes basketball over baseball and wants to get season tickets to the Lakers this year. He’s even shared stories about his brother and sister, such as how they would trick their nanny into leaving them alone. How they used to get on the subway without their parents knowing and explore the city on their own. How they always counted on each other. Did everything together.
In turn, he knows I graduated top in my class. That Maggie and I despised cheerleaders in high school and that I didn’t lose my virginity until I went to college. Yes, I took a lot of flak about that from Maggie. I told him about my mother dying. About Maggie’s mother taking me in and how she is like my own. And he knows that designing jewelry is my lifelong dream.
With each waking hour, I think we learn a little more about each other.
It’s not as if I’ve been keeping track in my date book or anything, but we’ve seen each other every day for the past twenty-two days. We haven’t spent every night together. However, the nights we didn’t stay together, Cam snuck into my bed in the early hours of the morning to wake me up before he went to work. All I can say is the sex is fantastic. Varied. Wild. Crazy. Subdued. Romantic. Hot. The list goes on and on. And yes, don’t shoot me, but I made a list of adjectives to describe it.
Then there are his text messages. Like clockwork, he texts me during the day when he’s on break—funny texts, dirty texts, downright pornographic texts sometimes. They always make me laugh and sometimes make me blush.
I try to be as witty as I can, but when it comes right down to it, I’m just not as funny as he is.
Shhh…don’t tell him that.
Cam goes back to New York tomorrow for his sister’s graduation. He’ll be gone a week, and I think I might miss him.
It’s odd to think a guy I haven’t known that long already means so much to me.
Honestly, I’ve tried not to think about it too much. I have a tendency to overthink everything and I refuse to overthink us.
As I fit my key into my door, a text goes off from my phone.
Cam: I’m off for lunch at 1. Want to meet me?
Me: Just got home. Let me pick something up and we can have a picnic. Where should I meet you?
Cam: At the main lifeguard tower. Grab the book. It’s on my nightstand right next to the studded condoms. Feel free to bring one of those along too. Gabe will have nothing on me.
Me: Keep dreaming ☺
Taking my time, I go inside and yank my dress clothes off so that I can slip into something more comfortable and maybe a little sexier. A strapless sundress is perfect. I pull my hair back and grab a pair of flip-flops. Much better.
I’d spent the morning calling on boutiques with my portfolio to try to place my designs in their stores. Again, no bites.
Turns out I couldn’t live without a plan. It just isn’t me. Free love. That I can do. Free bird? Not so much.
List complete or not, I think I know who I am. The same old Makayla—just an improved version. And I like who she is.
Still, I need a plan. The sales at the surf shops aren’t taking off quite the way Derek and Andre had projected. The prices are too high, and there is no way to lower them and still make a decent profit without compromising on quality. And that I’m not willing to do. Andre and I have gone round and round about it. He’s giving it two more weeks. Soon,
I’m certain I’ll be pulling my designs out of his stores.
Cam and Brooklyn hide their spare key under the front mat. How clichéd is that? But hey, it works out when I need to get inside.
Unlocking the door, I hurry through the kitchen and stop when I see a gift box on the table.
Now, we all know curiosity killed the cat and I should know better, but still I can’t resist, and I lift the lid slightly. There’s something silver and shiny inside and it gleams in the sunlight. Now I have to know what it is.
Lid off, I stare down at it, almost studying it, completely uncertain what it is. It’s one solid piece of metal with three beads on the end and a curved handle. There’s a card, so I pick it up. It reads, “Cam, here’s a fun wand, which can be used vaginally and anally, not necessarily in that order. Bring it with you when you come to New York and stop by. No strings attached. Promise. Can’t wait to see you. Love, Vanessa.”
Like a hot potato, I drop it into the box and wish I’d never even looked inside. Now, I not only have the picture in my mind of how it works, but of Megan with a B using it in front of Cam to lure him back.
Awesome. Just awesome.
Rushing from the room, I run to his. Taking a breath, I calm myself down. I have nothing to worry about. He’s never given me cause in the least to fret over Megan with B. Just because she hung out with him and his brother all the time and they share memories of Brandon doesn’t mean he wants to fuck her. Just because I saw him give in to her once doesn’t mean he will again.
Convinced I’m right, I grab the book and stare at the condom package with a smile. Cam bought a whole bunch of silly ones, but that one is by far the funniest. Small silver studs coat the outside with one large one at the end. It is meant to stimulate the feeling of a piercing when inside me. So far, I have refused that one, but who knows, I might decide on it tonight.
Feeling better, I leave, trying not to think about the fun wand—in all its shininess and the angles of pleasure it promises to bring. Cam and I don’t need toys like that to find our pleasure.