CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Adalyn
“You sure you’re doing okay?”
I nodded my head, not daring to lift my gaze off the path.
“We’re almost there,” Cameron added. I sensed him coming closer to me. He’d been walking behind me, touching my back or shoulder every once in a while, as if he’d known we were approaching a bigger rock or a patchier spot on the trail. He set his palm against the small of my back, his voice falling close to my ear. “You’re doing great.”
My breath swooshed out of me and my words came out garbled. “I’m just walking.” His hand moved up, making its way around my waist, and he gave it a squeeze. I had to swallow before continuing, “This isn’t even a hike or a trek. It’s more like a str…” His jaw brushed my cheek, derailing my train of thought.
“You were saying?” he murmured. And when I didn’t say anything, he chuckled. The dark and rich sound traveled straight to my gut. Maybe even lower than that. “Are you tired or hurting?”
“Huh, what?” I frowned, realizing I’d come to a stop. Oh. Right. I resumed walking. “I’m fine. And before you ask or offer, I don’t need to be carried like a princess, either.” Not that I would mind, honestly. I wasn’t a huge fan of… this.
“A man can still hope,” he said, letting his arm drop and waiting for me to take the lead again.
Before I took him up on the offer, I sped up, or rather, resumed the moderate pace I’d kept for the last twenty minutes. With Cameron’s chuckle behind me, I tried my best to keep my focus on the path. On my legs. On the increasingly fast beating of my heart that had absolutely nothing to do with the exertion.
“So…” I started, glancing back at him over my shoulder. Mistake. That moss-green fleece he wore made his eyes pop like emeralds. I shook my head. I’d never compared anyone’s eyes to gems before. “So I, hmm, I thought you weren’t supposed to go on a hike when the sun is coming down soon?”
“Your foot was not up for a hike,” Cameron said.
I frowned at the trail in front of me. “So what are we doing then?”
“The next best thing.”
My lips pursed, ready to complain about him being so cryptic, but then, his arm snaked around my body again, and he guided me to the left.
Ugh, he smelled so good, so woodsy and fresh and just absolutely amazing, that I couldn’t help but smell him. I sniffed him. Just like Willow or Pierogi did. And Cameron, who hadn’t missed my reaction, let out a hum.
As if that deep, throaty sound wasn’t enough, his head dipped and he said, “I’m finding it particularly hard to keep my hands off you.” I came to a halt for an instant, unable to process the bubbling sensation building between my stomach and chest. He moved us forward. “It’s seeing you in all these clothes I got for you.”
A new wave of warmth climbed up my face. But it… it felt good. No. It felt great. Hearing his words, his confession, brought me a kind of pleasure I’d never felt before. Perhaps that was why I felt the urge to quiz him. To fully understand. I glimpsed down at myself. “But I’m all layered up,” I croaked. This couldn’t be all that attractive. Or appealing. “I’m the outdoors version of an onion. You insisted. How can you find this… attractive?”
Cameron let out a dark chuckle. “Would it be so terrible if having you warm and safe makes me hard?”
My blood swooshed down.
My legs failed. I swayed against him just as his other arm came around me, securing me to his side with a grunt.
Would it be so terrible if having you warm and safe makes me hard?
Something strange was happening to my body. It was shaking, trembling in response to his words. I started to turn, feeling the need to see his face after what he’d just said.
But something in front of us made me stop.
“Cameron?” I blinked, wondering how I’d missed what was before us. “What’s this?”
It really was the stupidest question I could ask. But if the man currently supporting all my weight against his chest agreed, he didn’t say so. “We’re stargazing tonight.” He walked ahead of me and pointed to his right. “The tent is a precaution. Just in case you get too cold and want to sneak in for a minute. I left a few blankets and a thermos inside it earlier today. But we’re not camping out for the whole night.” Cameron turned around to look at me, and he gave me a small smile. “We’re parked only fifteen minutes away so we can go back whenever you want.”
We’re stargazing tonight.
My chest tightened, squishing my insides together. “You…” The word came out so rocky that I had to clear my throat. “You came by earlier to set this up? Is that why you weren’t home when Josie dropped me off?”
Cameron’s head tilted to the side, his jaw tightening. Something crossed his expression. Too quick for me to catch.
“What’s wrong?” I whispered.
“Not a single thing is wrong right now.” He stretched his hand, spreading those long five fingers I was growing obsessed with. “Come here.”
Without hesitation, I crossed the short space that separated us. I looked at his hand as it hovered in the air, waiting for me. For us. And when I took it, I felt the touch of his skin deep in my gut. Something changed in that moment, I could feel it. Sense it shifting. Cameron guided me closer to the tent, releasing my hand to set down the backpack he was carrying. He produced and unrolled a thick blanket, setting it down on the ground, then pulled out of the tent an outdoorsy version of what I’d consider a picnic basket. Finally, he sat down on one side of the blanket, stretching his legs.
It was when he glanced up at me, a slow smile playing on his lips, that I realized I hadn’t moved. He tugged down at the hem of my jacket, his mouth fully giving way to that grin I loved so much. But I still didn’t move.
“Darling,” he chastised, amusement dancing in his voice. “If you don’t quit looking at me like that, I can’t promise I’ll let you see a single star tonight.”
Promise me, I wanted to say. Promise you won’t. Promise you are all I’ll see tonight. But I didn’t. I joined him on the blanket, my heart pounding with anticipation and… possibility. Yes, it had to be that making me breathless. A warm container was placed gently in my hands, and when I looked up, Cameron’s eyes were on me. His expression was soft and hard, all at once.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
Cameron’s answer was a tilt of his head in the direction of my lap. The thermos. I lifted it up and took a tentative sip, tasting cocoa and milk. Warmth surged through me, partly because of the drink but mostly because of the man by my side. I set my eyes on the horizon before us, on the line the sloping terrain drew and how the sun had now almost disappeared behind it.
“I don’t know what to say,” I told him honestly, glancing sideways and discovering he hadn’t stopped looking at me. “I’m not used to… this.” I knew Cameron understood I wasn’t talking about the outdoors, or the views, or warm beverages and thick blankets. That’s probably why I turned back to look at the darkening sky. Soon, scattered points of light would spark to life above us. “The sun hasn’t fully set yet and it’s already so beautiful. I wasn’t expecting that.”
“It really is beautiful,” he agreed, and dear God, I could feel his eyes on me. “You gave me the idea, you know.”
I frowned. “How?”
“The night at the lake,” he answered with a low chuckle. “You were lying on your back, covered in goat shit, and you were looking at the stars. You were not frowning, or wincing in pain, you were in blissful awe for a moment.” I looked over at him, finding him shaking his head. “I’d never seen that look on your face. And the realization of how beautiful you looked and how outrageously I wanted you right then assaulted me. It caught me so off guard that I couldn’t even speak.” His jaw clenched. “And then you made it worse.”
Words left me with a rocky exhale. “I did?”
“You had to go into the lake and pull that goddamn goat out of the water like your life depended on it,” Cameron rasped out with a humorless laugh. “You, in heels and a fucking suit I…” A puff of air left him. “God, I’d never been more shocked and turned on in my whole life.” His throat worked. “I think part of me decided that night that I would be taking you here.”
I brought the thermos to my lips again, willing my heart to quiet, to stop drumming on my temples and let me enjoy the peace of this stunning place. But Cameron’s words kept echoing in my head. The weight of them and what lay in between them. In between us.
My eyelids fluttered for an instant, and before I realized what I was saying, the words were leaving me. “What’s next for you, Cam?”
It was the audible hitch in his throat that made me realize I’d called him Cam and not Cameron. “I don’t know,” he answered, and I could hear the honesty in his voice. I could also tell there was a hint of… fear, perhaps. Of uncertainty. “There’s a pundit gig on the table, in London. I don’t want it.”
Why? I wanted to ask. Are you not leaving the US then? But I didn’t know if I had the courage to ask him that. A part of me didn’t want to hear the answer. I didn’t want him to leave, but that was unfair. Because I wasn’t staying in Green Oak, either. I was leaving soon.
Cameron’s body shifted on the blanket, coming closer to me. I was shaking again but it wasn’t because I was cold, and I think Cameron knew that. “Looking forward to returning home?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” I looked down at my feet. Home. “I thought I’d be glad when this whole thing came to an end, and I could go back to my life. But I… It’s strange. I’ve never felt like I wasn’t part of the Miami Flames, but the more time I spend here, the more detached I become. Like I was never part of them. Not really.”
Cameron’s palm settled on my thigh, the weight and warmth seeping through the thick fabric of the pants he’d insisted I wore. He squeezed, those long fingers tightening against my skin in a way that made me think—wish—he was doing more than just that.
“I always dreamed of being in charge of the club one day,” I heard myself confess. “You know, take over from my father. Maybe that’s why I didn’t hesitate to come here. It was a way to redeem myself and earn back his respect after I embarrassed him.” The words I’d heard David say that day returned. “Although, I don’t think my father ever fully believed in me. And I guess I proved him right.”
“Stop that,” Cameron said from my side. “Stop justifying every single person who treats you like rubbish.” His brows furrowed, and when his lips parted I knew the question that was coming out of them. “What happened, love?” he asked me, voice soft. “What was done to you for you to break like that?”
Break.
I had broken, hadn’t I?
Yes. There was no question.
Blood rushed to my head at the scattered memories of that day, the clip, but most of all, of Cameron’s reaction to seeing it. His words.
I would have done everything in my power to protect you.
“Nothing was done to me.” I stumbled over my words, feeling my hands shake and setting the thermos beside my hip. “I am the only one responsible for my actions, and believing otherwise would be stupid. And immature.” I shook my head. “What happened is not worth wasting this beautiful night with you.”
Cameron’s palm lifted off my thigh and landed on the back of my head. His fingers slipped into my hair. He tilted my head so I would look at him. “Let me be the judge of what’s worth my time,” he told me, all that softness melting away.
And I could see it in his eyes, clear as the day. I would have fucking cared. Tell me. Trust me.
So the words rolled off my tongue. “My ex, David, had been lying. Using me. And my father had been part of it.”
Cameron’s eyes darkened with an anger that reminded me of last night, of his reaction to seeing the stupid clip. For a second, I’d thought he’d release me, that he’d move away, but instead, his touch turned more possessive, more intent, against the side of my head. As if he was scared I’d go somewhere. Or perhaps he thought I’d break again.
“Turns out, I’d been nothing but collateral in a business transaction,” I told him. And God, I felt sick to my stomach hearing the words. Allowing myself to think of it for the first time. I pushed through. “David had never wanted to date plain ol’ Adalyn. He’d only wanted the daughter of Andrew Underwood. And my dad had encouraged it because we just… made sense. David was the son of a business partner and I was his daughter. Same circles, same age. He…” Cameron’s expression tightened, and I let out a humorless laugh. “He promised David a high management position in the club if he married me. Like I’m some… stock or possession you exchange. Or worse yet, like he didn’t believe David—or anyone—would do that without some kind of motivation or compensation. I don’t know.”
No words came out of the man in front of me. His only response was a brush of his thumb against my jaw. Soothing. Encouraging. All while a storm brewed behind the green of his eyes.
“My father wasn’t wrong,” I continued. “David had never intended to marry me. Probably not even date me, seeing as I am ‘frigid, boring, and forgettable in bed.’ ” I gestured in air quotes. Those were his exact words. And I shouldn’t care but… I did. A part of me did. “That’s why the moment he’d locked in the position, and it was announced, he dropped me like the dead weight I was. ‘Dodged a bullet,’ he said.” A humorless chuckle left me. “I can’t even imagine how mad my father must have been when his plan not only backfired, but he ended up being extorted by David.”
I could almost picture my father’s face. The way it contorted when something didn’t go his way. And what was stranger, how could someone who had played so many people be played like that? I couldn’t understand.
“Extorted how?” Cameron asked, making me realize I was lost in thought.
“David threatened to come clean if my father fired him or demoted him.” The day of the incident with Sparkles had been the anniversary party and there had been pre-celebration drinks. I knew what alcohol did to David. It made him cocky. Braggy. “I overheard David. He was so happy, telling all of this to… Paul. Sparkles. He was blabbing all his secrets to the mascot of the team. A giant bird made of polyester. Right there, in the stairwell, where anyone could have heard. As if this was some locker story you shared with your teammates instead of… my life.”
I stopped talking, needed a second to myself. Focusing on Cameron’s touch.
“I felt so incredibly small,” I continued, voice breaking. “Deemed unsuitable by David. Incapable of handling one of the most natural things in life by my father. Not enough. And what was worse, I felt betrayed by the club I’d given so much to. Sparkles being the one listening to all of this made it so much worse in some bizarre way.” My voice wavered again. “So, when I saw the silly bird shaking his ass in the middle of everything and everyone that represented the Miami Flames, not even ten minutes later, as if nothing had happened, as if my whole world hadn’t been turned on its axis, I did break.”
Cameron’s eyes roamed all over my face, my body, in a desperate, aimless way. And when they finally returned to mine, I recognized the question in them. So I nodded—how could I not—and before I could so much as blink, he was settling me on his lap and bringing me to his chest.
“The last thing I remember is walking toward Paul,” I whispered, and Cameron’s arms came around my shoulders and waist. Tighter. As tightly as I’d ever been held. “Then, Sparkles’s head was at my feet.”
Cameron hummed deep in his throat, the sound reverberating against my body.
“I wouldn’t blame you if you thought I was crazy,” I heard myself say. “Seeing as even that way, even after everything I heard, I’m here, proving myself to them. To him. Instead of confronting them.” My voice turned into a murmur. “But I guess I’m not that brave. And I still messed up. I hate messes. I’m usually the one who cleans them up.”
That club was everything I knew. My life was the Miami Flames and, therefore, my father. So what else could I have done but try to win them back?
“Do you want to hear what I think?” Cameron asked.
I closed my eyes, burying my head beneath his chin, sticking my nose right into his chest. God, I loved it here. I loved how solid he felt against my skin. How safe. I didn’t want to lose that. “No, I really don’t want to. But I also know you’re going to tell me anyway.”
A short puff of breath fell against my temple, and for an instant panic settled in my gut at his silence. I cared what Cameron thought of me. I cared how he felt and how he saw me. I cared too much, and I realized now that it wasn’t something new. A part of me had always cared.
“I think,” he finally said, his hand suddenly cupping my face and tipping my chin up. “That for someone who’s always justifying everybody else’s shit behavior, you’re extremely hard on yourself.” The green of his eyes darkened, and his tongue flicked over his bottom lip, as if preparing himself for what was coming next. “I think that you’ve worked so hard at keeping yourself contained, so in control and safe behind that hard shell you put around yourself, that it was all bound to collapse.” His gaze dropped down to my lips, and his thumb caressed the line of my mouth. “I also know that I’ll need to stop myself from catching a flight to Miami the moment we get up from this blanket.” His frown turned serious. Focused. Distracting. “And last but certainly not least…” he trailed off, his voice changing, morphing into a rasp.
I could do nothing but watch as the man holding me inhaled deep and slow through his nose, as if needing a pause. A moment. A curse left him under his breath, and before I could prepare, his hands were moving, reaching around my waist and guiding me around his lap until we were fully facing each other.
My body lit up, and I rested my palms on his chest. My heart pounded, mirroring the way his chest seemed to thrum against my hands.
“Last but not least,” he resumed, voice so low I wouldn’t have heard it if I wasn’t so close. “I know, with terrifying certainty, that once the shock and anger at the world for being so fucking ugly had passed, I’ve never been more in awe, more stunned silly, more turned on, by such a display of viciousness.” He pushed me up with his legs, leveling my gaze with his, and making my knees fall onto the blanket on each side of his hips. “So much that ever since seeing that video, I’ve been physically restraining myself from kissing you. From taking your mouth and feeling all that fire burning inside you against my tongue.”
All that fire.
Fire. Cameron saw fire in me.
And it did feel like flames were suddenly licking at my skin from the inside, making me so suddenly hot that I was finding it hard to pull in a breath. All I could think was Kiss me. Please. Take my mouth. “That’s ridiculous,” I whispered.
“Maybe,” he said, his expression tightening, the tilt of his mouth severe. “But it doesn’t make it any less true.”
My hands closed around the fabric of his jacket. I’d never experienced this kind of need in my life. This dizzying attraction that went beyond looks and ink and muscles. It was him. Cameron, who caused this craving to pierce right though me.
Cameron’s chin dipped down. “Don’t you see? You are anything but dispassionate, Adalyn. You’re relentless, determined, fiery, and have made every moment I’ve happened to be next to you as alive as the fucking sun lighting everything up at dawn. Anybody who fails to see that is either blind or some worthless piece of sh—”
“Cameron,” I whispered, bringing his words to a stop.
Something passed between us.
His jaw clenched. “Tell me,” he said. My heart sped up, wanting out of my chest. His hands moved around my waist, his fingers pressing into my skin with barely restrained pressure. “Give me permission to—”
I closed the distance between our mouths.
Cameron was stunned for a fraction of a second, as if he had expected me to deny him, and then he melted against me, making a deep, throaty sound. His mouth moved on mine, lips parted, and one of his hands moved up, finding the back of my head, bringing me closer to him.
Every cell, every ounce of who I was, came alive against his lips. Cameron deepened the kiss, and when a whimper climbed out of my chest, his fingers curled around my hair. My arms flew to his neck in response, snaking around it and clutching him to me with a desperation I’d never felt before him.
Another groan vibrated against my chest, mouth, body, and I felt his other hand move to my back, stopping at the base of my spine. He pulled me deeper into his lap. Hips clashed, and God, I could feel him so hard and hot beneath me, so unbelievably solid against my body, that all sense escaped me.
I came up for air with a breathless gasp. And Cameron’s mouth dropped to my jaw, traveled along my skin, down my neck and up to my ear. He nipped at a sensitive spot there, and when my eyelids fluttered shut, a loud moan I wasn’t sure was mine echoed in the night.
“Fuck,” he rasped against my skin.
Waves of tingles—sparks, electricity—spread throughout me as my blood pulsed, swirling with need and traveling right where the junction of my thighs met his. I opened my eyes again, finding his gaze on me, attentive, determined, letting me know that there was no turning back. This was a kiss that changed something, and I should know that. Cameron was telling me. And I wasn’t fighting that notion, or him, any longer.
I was giving myself a chance.
Fingers that were now shaking moved to the back of his neck, and this time I savored the taste of his lips, memorized the feel of this tongue against mine and let my whole body shake with the sensation of kissing and being kissed like this.
We came up for air at the same time, breathless, drunk, and Cameron whispered, “Tell me you feel this, too.”
I gave him a single nod, telling him silently that I wanted to feel even more. Everything. Cameron thrusted his hips up. A moan fell off my lips at the friction, the sensation it created against a growingly sensitive spot between my legs. God, I was pulsing. Pounding with need.
“More?” Cameron asked against my lips. And when I didn’t answer, he tightened his grip on me, pulling gently just as he jerked my body closer to him with a new motion of his hips. Another brisk thrust. My lips parted with an abandoned sound, and he said, “That’s what I thought.”
I closed my eyes again, trying to get a hold of every single sensation wreaking havoc inside of me, pushing me further and further into the night. Into him. Cameron.
He moved then, widening his legs and positioning me in a way that heightened that swirling need coursing through me. Now, I could feel him grow impossibly hard under me, I could feel his heat. Instinctively, I swayed my hips.
Oh God.
“Again,” he demanded, bringing both of his hands behind my head. When I didn’t move, still too stunned by how good that had felt, he took my mouth, begging and commanding me to move. My hips swayed again. Then again, and again. And when Cameron broke the kiss, he moved his mouth to my ear. “Good girl.”
A reckless sound left me in response, something inside of me overpowering all sense, making me sink and push and stroke myself against his length with utmost desperate need.
“Let’s see how sweet you come,” he rasped in my ear, accompanying my motions with his hips. My whole body was trembling now, pulsing with every rough drive of our hips. My hands started moving, desperately seeking ways to get rid of whatever was between us. I tugged at his jacket, at mine, wanting to tear them apart. Make them disappear. One of Cameron’s hands snatched my wrists. “Ride me like this,” he ordered, voice impossibly dark.
He released my hands for an instant, but only to bring them behind my back. My body arched with the change, my hips shifted, and his length rubbed right against my clit. “I need to feel you,” I mumbled. I wasn’t even talking about the grip he had on my hands. I wanted him. “I need to feel your skin.”
“I’m not taking a single thing off you or me,” he whispered against my mouth. “What did I tell you, huh, love?” He thrust his hips, pushing me further and further into him. “I’m a little mean when I have to be. Now, lift your hips and make yourself come against me.”
I thought a noise—a sound I should have recognized—came from somewhere around us. But I didn’t care. I couldn’t when a stream of moans was leaving my throat. When I was too lost to this, to us, to care. So I swayed against Cameron, obeying his demand and getting lost in every inch of him that was now roughly rubbing against my clit. Oh God. “Cameron?” I whimpered.
“Let go, love,” he said with such desperation, such need, that it tipped me closer to the edge. His free hand trailed down my back, reaching my ass, his palm pressing, pushing my hips to ride him faster. Harder. “I want you to let go and show me how fucking bright you burn.”
An explosion took place behind my eyelids, my whole body turning into nothing but a bundle of nerves, vibrating, pulsing with release so intense that I thought it would never come to an end.
“Fuck,” Cameron whispered, letting go of my wrists and ass to bring his hands to my face. He pulled me in, placing a hard kiss on my mouth. “So goddamn beautiful,” he murmured, letting his forehead rest on mine.
I hummed, feeling depleted and numb, letting all my weight fall on him. I reopened my eyes, realizing only then that I’d closed them at some point. Cameron’s nostrils flared. His mouth parted with a rough exhale. I moved my hands over his chest, feeling how hard he was breathing.
I met his gaze, that deep shade of green swirling with need. I wanted to see him. I wanted to—
Cameron kissed me again. Hard and soft, all at once. I melted against him, my hands seeking, going down his chest, and reaching the edge of his coat. I slipped my fingers underneath, just like I couldn’t before, and hooked my thumbs on the loops of his pants. “Ah, love,” he breathed out, followed by a humorless laugh. “I’m not fucking you in the middle of the woods.”
I tugged at his pants, releasing a breath. “But only I finished. I owe you an orgasm.”
“You don’t owe me a single thing.” He kissed the tip of my nose, then lowered his voice to a dark rasp, “I promise to come as hard as I’ve ever done when I’m finally inside you. But not here.”
My throat worked, the sweet taste of happiness and possibility making my lips turn up. I bit back on the smile. “Presumptuous of you to think that that’s in the cards for you.”
That lopsided grin took shape. “Foolish of you to think that I’m not still playing the long game here.”
My face fell, my heart jumping to my throat. I stared back at him, trying to squash the hope in my gut, the need to demand that he really mean those words. “Cam—”
My phone rang. And I… Had it done that before? I was vaguely aware.
With a grunt, Cameron stretched his arm and pulled the device out of the front pocket of the backpack.
He handed it to me, and I picked up the call without breaking eye contact with him.
Foolish of you to think that I’m not still playing the long game here.
How long? I wanted to ask. How—
Josie’s voice came through the line, but I was so focused on Cameron’s eyes, on the eruption of hope and fear in my chest, that I wasn’t making out any of her words. Not until a certain phrase slipped through.
“What?” I blurted out, snapping right back into the real world. “What do you mean my mother is here?”