CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Adalyn
Tonight.
Tonight was the night. And I’d never felt more unprepared.
Could someone lose their virginity a second time? It wasn’t even like it had been that long since I’d had sex. Or perhaps it was. It all blurred together somehow. Every past experience faded to gray now that I knew what Cameron’s touch felt like.
Tonight was different.
It felt like more.
More than just sex. More than just wanting someone. More than physical attraction.
There was a raw need inside of me that wouldn’t stop making demands. I wanted to be close to Cameron. Closer. I wanted to be kissed and taken and thrown around. I wanted him to look at me like he had earlier today, when his face had gone all soft. But also like he couldn’t wait to eat me whole. I wanted him to give me his slow smile and his frown and his head tilt when he was trying to sneak inside my head. I wanted to make him laugh and for him to call me love not because it was sweet or sexy in that English gruffness, but because no one had ever called me that, and it felt right that only he did. But above all else, I wanted to be wanted by him. Craved. Like someone craved that feeling in your chest that lit everything else up. Like I craved him.
The touch of his palm on my thigh brought me right back, and when I looked at him, the green of his eyes gave him away.
He couldn’t wait to bolt. He—we—were only here because I’d asked him to stay a little longer. Josie had thrown a good luck dinner for everyone on the team who wanted to join, and most of the parents had turned up.
“Why so serious, Coach?” I asked, the corners of my lips bending upward. “This is for good luck. I didn’t peg you for someone who would disrespect a nice rite like this.”
The smirk that he gave me sent the blood rushing to my head. He leaned forward and spoke right against the shell of my ear. “I can think of a couple of things we could implement for good luck.” His lips brushed my skin, sending a wave of shivers down my spine. “If we leave right now.”
My heart throttled in my chest. “I think…” I swallowed, wondering how strange it would be for me to jump into his lap right now with half the town sitting at the table. “I think that’s something we can discuss. But we’re not leaving just yet. Boss’s orders.”
He hummed against my skin, and when he withdrew his mouth, his head didn’t go too far.
God. Maybe I wasn’t doing myself any favors. How long were good luck dinners supposed to last?
My phone pinged from the table, so I picked it up and checked the notifications. My mother.
“Did she make it all right?” the man beside me asked with what I knew was genuine concern.
“ ‘Drive was okay,’ ” I read out loud for him.
He sighed. “I could have driven her myself. Asheville is only a couple of hours away.”
I melted against his side at the reminder of him offering, I wasn’t going to lie. “ ‘I gave Vincent my handle,’ ” I continued reading. “ ‘He’s young but I could teach him a few things.’ ” A pause. “Oh boy.”
“Who was Vincent again?”
I looked up at him. “Josie’s friend’s cousin, I think? He had come to town to talk some business with Josie and was returning to Asheville today.” Cameron muttered something, and I placed my hand against his cheek. “Stop being so sweet. I… I’m struggling to keep my hands off you as it is, Cam.”
He leaned against my touch with a sigh. “Call me Cam again.”
I lowered my voice. “Cam.”
Cameron let out a little grumble. “Okay, now tell me, how am I being sweet and why should I stop?”
“Worrying over my mother,” I answered, barely able to ignore the roaring in my chest. “It’s making it really hard for me to resist you.”
His head turned, lips grazing the skin of my palm, then trailed down to my wrist. “Why would you ever want to resist me?” He nipped at my skin, wickedly fast. “It’s frowned upon. Experts recommend not resisting things that are good for you.”
I giggled. Giggled.
Cameron’s eyes shifted to mine, and when he said against my skin, “I could spend a lifetime hearing that sound.” I didn’t even question his words. I knew they were true.
My chest expanded. “I—”
Someone cleared a throat next to me, and we both turned.
“Hi,” Mr. Vasquez—Robbie—said, a careful expression on his face. María was by his side, and she nudged his leg before smiling at me. He rushed out, “I’m sorry to interrupt.”
“That’s okay,” I assured him. And I meant it. “You’re not interrupting anything.”
The man by my side grunted a soft complaint.
Robbie’s eyes shot to Cameron before returning to my face. “I just wanted to say thank you. For what you’ve done for Tony and María, and for… everything. Ever since Tony started spending time with the team, he… he sounds and looks more like himself. It has made me realize that he was spending too much time on the farm. Working too much when he’s just a kid. I—” His throat worked. “Thanks for giving him a job doing something he loves.” Robbie looked down at his daughter with a smile. “Happy?”
She lowered her voice to a loud whisper. “Ask her for the tickets.”
The man cursed under his breath. “María—”
“Do it,” she repeated. “You told me you were a j-word to her, so apologize. You make me apologize all the time when I’m rude, then it’ll be okay to ask. Tony will love it. You know he wants to try out for that team in Charlotte. He’ll lose his mind.”
The man pressed his lips into a tight line and sent me an apologetic look. “Please, ignore—”
“Consider it done,” I told him. “We can talk about dates tomorrow after the girls’ game. There was something else I wanted to ask you anyway. But it can wait. We’ll talk tomorrow.” Robbie still looked unsure, so I felt the need to slip into my old self. “The Miami Flames will be happy to have you for a visit, I promise.”
Cameron’s body tensed against mine. It was only an instant, but all the hard muscles I was leaning against flexed and tightened with his breath.
María clapped her hands, recalling my attention. “Yay!” she exclaimed, throwing herself at me without warning. “Celebration hug,” she said against my cheek, and I couldn’t help it. I squeezed her in my arms. Then, as if she wasn’t thinking about it, she let out a soft, “Ah. This feels so good. We should do it more often.”
I hugged her even tighter.
When she released me, she was smiling, and I didn’t know what my face was doing but my chest felt like mush. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Miss Adalyn.” She looked at the man sitting by my side. “I’ll see you tomorrow, too, Coach Campanile.”
Robbie muttered something under his breath.
Cameron let out a chuckle, bringing his arms around my shoulders and pulling me back to him again.
“Oh!” María said, already walking away as she pulled at her dad’s hand. “Don’t forget to give Coach his shirt!” Then, she disappeared around the far end of the long table, dragging Robbie along with her.
“What shirt?” Cameron asked.
I sighed. “That was supposed to be a surprise.” I shook my head. “It’s back ho—” I stopped myself. I didn’t know why, but I did. I cleared my throat. “Back at the Lazy Elk.”
Cameron hummed. “Close,” he murmured, his arm snaking around my waist. “It’s okay, love. I’m not one to give up at halftime.”
Cameron unlocked the front door of the cabin and stepped to the side.
I looked inside, toward the hallway that turned to the right, leading to Cameron’s room. Right across from what had been mine. My eyelids fluttered shut for just an instant.
I turned around. Faced him. Blocked his way into the cabin. Deep green eyes met mine, and I said, “Hi.”
“Hi,” he said back. His lips twitched, and I thought he’d give me a slow smile, which would dazzle me and perhaps distract me from my thoughts. But instead, he clenched his jaw. I watched his eyes as they roamed all over my face, settling on my lips for what felt like a long time, but was just a second or two, and that giddiness, that anticipation, before Cameron had been so uncharacteristically mine, bubbled up inside.
“What’s on your mind?” I asked him.
He brought his hand to my face, brushing my cheek with the back of his hand. “Several things,” he confessed in that calm, stern tone, as if he didn’t mind I was keeping us from crossing the threshold of the door. “I’m thinking, thank God, that dinner is finally over.” I smiled at that, and the pad of his thumb grazed my bottom lip. “I’m also thinking, Christ, she’s so beautiful in this light. With the full moon shining so brightly over us. Would it be too corny to point it out? Would she laugh? I love her laugh.”
My smile fell, my heart doing this weird thing against the walls of my chest. “That would be one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever been told.” I wrapped my fingers around his wrist, felt his pulse under my thumb. It was a quick, hurried beat. Was he nervous, too? “I wouldn’t laugh. I would probably stall for a longer time.”
“Stall,” he repeated slowly. “Tell me why.”
I opened my mouth to say something I suspected sounded a lot like: Because it’s you, and it’s me. And I’ve never felt like this. But the answer that left me was, “It’s hard to explain.”
If today—the last days—had proved anything, it was that I wasn’t a seductress. And with Cameron I didn’t mind. It’s me who’s in charge. He said that earlier today. I wanted him to offer again. To take charge. I’d never felt safer, freer, than when he took over for me. And yet… this nervousness made me wonder and doubt myself. What could I possibly have done to deserve this, to earn him wanting me this much. I—
“Try me,” Cameron said.
“I…” I tried, knowing I probably would voice it in a way it didn’t make sense. “I’ve always felt like I never really clicked anywhere. Like, I always needed to make a bigger effort to show everyone that I deserved to be there. And here you are.” I shook my head. “Making me feel like you’d close the gap to get to me. Like, I don’t need to convince you. You—”
“Fuck him,” Cameron said, bringing my gaze to him. “Fuck them. Fuck everyone who has made you feel like you’re not worth everything you deserve.”
Something locked inside of my chest. Loudly. So very close to my heart. “You don’t have to—”
I was lifted up and dropped on a wide shoulder.
“No more overthinking,” he said, walking us both inside. “No more questioning how I feel toward you. I didn’t sit through a full hour of campfire songs so you could find a reason to boot me when I finally get you home.” His other hand fell over the backs of my knees, securing me against him, as if he feared I’d try to jump out of his arms. “This,” he said, stomping into the living room. “I had to restrain myself from taking you and throwing you over my shoulder like this. Josie is a horrible singer.”
I blinked down at his back, his ass, his long legs, and I… I burst out laughing.
He came to a stop immediately, loosening the vise of his arm, removing me from his shoulder, and placing me in front of him. I steadied myself against his chest.
“I’m already tempted to do that again,” he said, his eyes dancing between my mouth and eyes. The beating of his heart drumming against my palms, quicker than a few moments before. “I could do it every day. With every door.”
“It can be discussed.” I was still half laughing, but when Cameron’s jaw clenched again, all of that lightness dissolved. “Okay, I should give you your spoiled surprise.”
He opened his mouth, but I was already stepping away from him and whirling on my heels. I walked to the guest room and fished the gift out of the wardrobe I’d hid it in.
When I turned around, Cameron was leaning against the frame of his bedroom door, right across from mine. I swallowed. Padded closer to him with the pink bag in my hands.
I offered it to him.
Cameron opened it and extracted what was inside. The bag dropped to our feet. His hands held the shirt in the air.
“ ‘This coach kicks monkey bum,’ ” he read out loud. He swallowed. “ ‘Coach Chamomile, Green Warriors of Green Oak. Six Hills Little League, NC.’ ”
My heart raced. “It’s so silly,” I said, hearing my voice sound low and guarded. “I had it made so the girls could sign it tomorrow.” A shaky breath left me. “María helped come up with the first part.”
Cameron’s arms dropped. He looked at me with an emotion I didn’t recognize. One that wasn’t any of the ones I’d expected the shirt to cause.
“It was supposed to be a joke,” I explained. “I… I thought you’d find it funny.”
A muscle in his jaw jumped. “There’s no press attending tomorrow’s game, is there?”
My stomach dropped at my feet. “Of course not.”
“There hasn’t been any press at any game.”
My throat tightened, clogged, and I had to make myself swallow. “I would never put your anonymity or privacy at risk. Not after what you told me.”
“But you only found out about that recently,” he countered, taking a step closer to me. “You changed your mind before that. Why?”
I felt myself shaking. Trembling. “I could still make it work.”
Another step. “At the cost of your ticket back to Miami?”
My mouth clamped shut. My heart raced. My eyes fluttered shut.
Cameron’s fingers brushed my cheek. “Yes or no, love?”
I met his gaze, and there was so much in there, so much that mirrored exactly how I felt. Desperate. Needy. Falling so fast and hard I could barely breathe. “Yes,” I said. “At any cost. I was and will protect you at whatever the cost.”
He cupped my face. “I see you, Adalyn.” His other hand joined, and the shirt he’d been holding fell to our feet. “I goddamn see you, love. But you finally opening up like that for me? It makes it impossible for me not to crack open in return.”
I grasped his wrists. “And how would you do that?”
“Treating that side you hide,” he said against my mouth. “I want to spoil it rotten, just because I can. I want to bury you in pillows when you’re cold and carry you to my bed in my arms every night. Kissing you hard when we bicker and reminding you just how crazy you make me.”
A kind of pressure I wasn’t familiar with rose in my chest. It reached my eyes, making them sting. And I wanted to burst. Really burst. I felt so happy, so ecstatic, so… full of that something I didn’t think I could say out loud, or even think, that I wanted to burst open at the seams and let him see.
A broken laugh fell off my lips, and I didn’t even recognize myself when I said, “You’ve just made my surprise look really bad.”
“I loved the surprise,” he said softly, so softly it felt like a caress. He pulled me into his body and started walking backward, pulling us into his room. “I’ll blame the surprise when I lose control tonight.”
I shook my head, a single tear helplessly creeping down my cheek. “Why?”
“Because now I know you’re happy, really happy. And this tear?” he added, pressing his mouth against my skin and tracing the wet trail with his lips. “It’s proof of how much.” He tilted my head back, kissing the brow of the culprit eye. His gaze dipped down to my lips. “Now, I can take your mouth and know that you know how I feel. That this doesn’t need to be earned. You already own the right.”
This time, it wasn’t Cameron waiting for me to cross the distance and kiss him. He did.
Cameron took my mouth, parting my lips with such hunger I had to link my arms behind his neck for support. Our tongues brushed and I pulled him to me, briskly, need pulsing in my belly, ears, limbs, chest, everywhere. And with a growl, he moved forward, dragging his hands down my throat, shoulders, waist, coming around my hips and landing on my ass. He lifted me up.
As if I’d done this a hundred times, I closed my legs around his waist. I braced my arms on his shoulders, pushing my body upward, searching for the right spot, until the junction of my thighs rubbed right against the hard ridge in his pants. His chest vibrated with a growl, and when he came up for air, the green of his eyes shone as bright as I’d ever seen a color shine. His mouth came down again, not wasting more than a second, and he grazed the side of my neck with his teeth.
I threw my head back, whimpered, and then, I was being dropped on something soft. His bed.
A cloud of his scent enveloped me. The sensation made my chest so full, so packed to the brim with bliss, that I swore I could fly.
“That smile” was all but growled from the foot of the bed. I looked over at Cameron. My lips didn’t waver. “Come here,” he said, tugging at my foot. “I need that smile against my mouth.”
His hands wrapped around my ankles and I let him drag me all the way to where he was. I went up on my knees and met his gaze, still smiling, still feeling so full I might burst. I crossed the distance, pressing my mouth to his, doing as he asked.
A groan left him and then he was grazing his lips all over my face. Sweet but firm caresses that went up and down and left and right, making shivers spread and twinkle down my arms.
“I’ve never wanted anyone like this,” I whispered against his mouth, placing my palms on his shoulders. One short breath left me. And I let my fingers fall down his torso, until I reached the hem of one of his fleeces that I now loved so much. I closed my fists around the fabric. “I’ve never felt this safe, this cherished, this wanted, this…” Loved. “I want you so bad.”
Cameron’s body shook. With restraint, with need, with that emotion I was so scared to voice? I couldn’t know. I didn’t think I cared. Not right in that moment as I felt his hands come around mine and tug up. “Undress me,” he said in barely a rasp.
I pulled it up, his hands leaving mine to help when I couldn’t reach all the way up his arms. A beautiful collage of ink and skin was revealed before me. A new kind of need reeled in. The need to touch, memorize, brand, and make him mine.
“Show me,” he told me, pushing his body against my hands. “Show me how bad you want me.”
Deliberately slowly, I pressed my lips to his chest, right above his heart, marked with the design of a rose. I could feel his muscles flexing in response. His skin was so smooth, so solid and hard, and his heart drummed briskly, almost too fast. I grazed my teeth over all that ink, and his hand landed on the back of my neck.
I moved upward, leaving a trail of open-mouthed kisses all the way to the bottom of his throat, feeling his fingers slip into my hair. I nipped at the skin, a little harder this time, and a groan came from his lips. It felt amazing to have such an imposing man crumbling down under my touch like that.
My eyelids fluttered closed at the thought, and before I could anticipate his next move, he was bringing us both down on the bed.
His scent blanketed me, filling my lungs again, feeling like more. His weight pressed so sweetly against me that I circled my arms around his neck and pushed him down. Cameron resisted, his hand right by my head.
“I’m going to knock down every wall left standing,” he said against my ear, his other hand moving, climbing up my side, and taking the fabric of my sweater and shirt with it. “And once I’m inside,” he rasped, the pads of his thumbs reaching the underside of my breast. He moved his fingers over my bra, roughly, desperately. “I’m going to bury myself so deep into you”—he brought the lace down, making my breast topple out—“that you won’t be able to tell where you end and where I start.”
“Yes,” I whispered. “To all of that. Yes. A hundred times.”
A dark chuckle left him in response. Then, he was lifting my arms over my head and securing them against the comforter. His mouth came down on my breast, and my breath caught. A hum vibrated against my skin then, he was grazing my nipple with his teeth. Pulling. Tugging. Making my back arch off the bed.
He did the same to the other one, and I complained, feeling restrained, wanting to touch him. Wanting my mouth on him, too.
With a brisk motion, the clothes that had been bunched at the top of my chest were off, together with my bra. Cool air teased my skin, and I felt my eyelids flutter closed, overwhelmed by the sensation of being bared to him. It hadn’t been a long time since someone had seen me like this, but this felt like so much more than naked skin.
There was a growl. Followed by a curse.
I opened eyes I hadn’t known were closed, finding Cameron straddling my hips, wide chest heaving, lines upon lines of ink swaying with every muscle that flexed in tension.
“I could look at you all night,” he said, his hands engulfing my sides. “You drive me mad with need.” He dragged his fingers down, reaching the hem of my jeans. “In the best of possible ways.” His fingers worked the button undone. “Lift up.”
I did, no hesitation. And Cameron didn’t waste a single second in pulling my jeans down and off my legs, throwing them on the floor.
He bent down again, slowly this time, placing one open-mouthed kiss against my pulse.
“Cameron,” I said, begged. My hands flying to the waist of his pants, hooking around the belt loops as he left more kisses down my chest, reaching the swell of my breasts. Continuing to my navel. My hip bone. I lost my grasp of the waistband of his jeans. “I need you inside of me. Now.”
A dark chuckle left him. “But I haven’t even tasted you on my tongue.”
And just like that, he was spreading my legs, first with his hands, then with his shoulders, and at last, his head was between my thighs. My breathing had lost all sense of control, anticipation and need so thick in my blood that I swore I could feel it swirling with every violent beat of my heart.
He pressed his mouth against that pulsing bundle of nerves covered by the fabric of my panties. Urgency, clear and loud, shot up my body, driving a curse to fall off my lips.
He trailed his teeth up and down my folds, and I could feel his lips through the fabric, that trimmed beard I loved stirring awake dozens of nerve endings. I’d thought it was too much, too quick, too good, but then, he shoved my underwear aside with his teeth, and repeated the motion with his lips. He sucked, his tongue thrusting inside, and that’s when I saw real, twinkling stars behind my eyes. Felt them under my skin.
A groan fell against my clit, and that thumb he’d teased my nipples with joined his mouth, drawing circles over that throbbing spot that demanded release. My head spun. My pulse raced. My whole body shook.
Without stopping those wicked motions of his hand, Cameron moved up my body, taking back my mouth and swallowing all the moans toppling right out of me.
“Open your eyes,” he demanded. And I did. “Look at me,” he said, as if I could look anywhere else when all that fierceness and need was twisting his handsome face.
Gazes locked, he went up on his knees and undid his pants, drawing my eyes down just in time to watch him pull himself out. He closed his fist around his hard cock and gave himself one rough stroke.
“Fuck,” he said before releasing his dick and closing those strong fingers around the fabric of my panties. He ripped them off me, threw them aside and teased my folds and clit again.
I moaned louder, impossibly so, and then, when he brought that exact hand around his cock and stroked himself again, I thought I’d come. I didn’t need more than seeing him coating himself in me. I reached down with my hand, all sense of control lost, and touched myself.
“Mine,” he warned, snagging my hand and coming down on me. His hard and sticky length fell right against my clit. “Condom,” he exhaled the word with a gulp of air. “I need—”
“Pill,” I whispered. “I’m on the pill. I want you. Just you. I’m clean. Are you—”
“Yes.” His fingers tightened around my wrists, and he brought them over my head again. Cameron’s weight shifted, his hips wedging into mine, opening me right up. “Now,” he said, positioning the head of his cock at my entrance. “Now, you move with me.” He pushed, and my back arched with a loud whimper. He thrusted again. Harder that time. And again. “Now you come for me.”
At his command, I did. Stars flashed behind my eyelids, pleasure rippled inside of me, shoving me into darkness for one blissful moment. And God. I’d never orgasmed so fast in my life.
“You come so sweet,” he said against my ear, riding me through the wave of pleasure until my body was nothing but a spent tangle of limbs. “You come so bright.”
I moved my mouth, but no words came out, I was too lost to the sensations, too lost to the feel of him still moving inside of me, filling me up.
A rough press of his lips against mine, and then, I was being flipped onto my belly.
His hands moved to my sides, and when he lifted my body up, I felt him hot and hard and wet against my back. Rough palms dragged up and down my ribs, stomach, thighs, then climbed to my breasts. He tugged at one of my nipples, bringing that need back alive. His thighs shifted underneath me, the shaft of his cock nudging at my entrance from behind, and a new rush of urgency made my head spin. I pressed myself onto him.
“Tell me,” Cameron said, grazing his teeth over the side of my neck. “Tell me you want me like this,” he demanded, moving his hips and bringing his shaft to tease my clit. “Tell me you’re mine to take if that’s what you want.”
“Cameron,” I whimpered, and he rewarded that with a kiss on my shoulder. “I have only wanted you,” I all but expelled the words. The sound rough and drenched in need but oh so right. “I want you any way possible.”
He moved his cock, the head gliding in. “Then, tell me to fuck you.”
“Fuck me,” I whispered. “Please.”
He thrusted all the way in, the position, the size of him, the way we fit together just now pulling twin groans from both our mouths.
“Ah fuck, love,” he growled, plunging into me. “How goddamn soft and perfect you are.” His arms came around my waist, his thrusts increasing in pace, losing all sense of rhythm. “I’m buried so deep inside you.” His hand moved to where we were joined, and he pressed his palm there. “We might be at odds sometimes. Drive each other crazy. But this is how we fuck.” His fingers circled my clit. “This is how I’ll always fuck you, no matter what. This is us.”
“Yes,” I whimpered, getting lost in the tsunami of sensation barreling into me again. “This is us. Just with you. Only us.” He groaned behind me, shifting the angle and hitting a different spot. More stars. More waves of pure and raw sensation. Too much and not enough. “Make me come. Come inside of me.”
His free hand moved to my jaw, gently, firmly, his hips pushing up and up. “I promised you that much, didn’t I?” He moved my head, making me meet his eyes. “Look at me, see what you do to me.” The rhythm of his thrusts broke. “Come with me, love.” His voice cracked. “Let me see you shine.”
Release grabbed me, snatching me and spinning me, making my whole body throb as I screamed Cameron’s name.
As if in sync, his large and solid body spasmed beneath me, his limbs and cock jerking with his release, my own name leaving his mouth in a growl as he held on to me tighter than I’d ever been held by anyone in my life.
Chests heaving, we remained in that high, his hips still rocking, his hand still moving over my clit, and his cock still hard inside of me. Cameron’s mouth pressed on the side of my jaw, and my head fell back on his chest.
I didn’t know how long we stayed in that position, I only knew that at some point, he slipped out of me and rearranged me in his arms. He returned me back to the living world with a kiss and asked me to go pee because he’d come inside me and it was important that I did. Then we slipped into the shower he turned on and he brought me to his chest. We let the hot stream of water fall over us, turning our skin sleek under each other’s fingertips.
“Adalyn, love,” he whispered in my ear, his hands trailing up and down my back. “This is no longer a game.” My heart swelled in my chest at his words. At the possibility they painted. The truth that I hid. “Tell me you understand.”
I extricated my head from his chest, making sure I met his gaze. I understood. So much that I was beginning to see how I’d never stood a chance. The moment I’d set foot in Green Oak, I’d already lost. But now, my heart was on the line, too. Now, what was at stake was greater than redemption. Larger than fixing a PR mess or earning back someone’s trust.
But this was Cameron. And I trusted him like I’d never trusted anyone. I saw that. So I kissed him in the center of his chest, and when I said, “I know,” I meant every word.