by LaQuette
“I take it you’re still happy about beating your brother?”
That was an understatement. Spending all these years as a substitute for any of the major players because he didn’t have a partner cut Elijah in ways he’d never been able to voice. However, spending the day playing with Camden as his backup gave Elijah a sense of pride he’d never thought he’d experience outside of work.
“It’s never a bad time when I get to shut my brother down.” Elijah returned his attention to the sink just in time to keep the water from spilling over the sides. “Thanks for the help with the game. I gotta admit I never thought you’d be able to play like that. Where’d you learn?”
“In college.” His answer sounded final, as if there was nothing left to share. No story to help understand. After the way they’d connected playing cards with his family all day, Elijah assumed Camden would show him a little more of himself. He began to give in to the idea that perhaps he was wrong until Camden said, “My roommate in college wasn’t part of the trust fund club, so many of our classmates didn’t exactly jump over themselves to reach out and make him feel welcome. I invited him to a poker tournament to kind of break the ice, but he couldn’t play. I taught him; he played and made a little pocket money. A week later, he’d invited friends over, and they played Spades. Noticing my fascination with the game, he taught me.”
Elijah was thankful to whoever that roommate was. The day spent playing had done more than give Elijah a chance to beat his brother, or even bond with his family. It had given him the chance to see a little sliver of the real Camden.
“You had a good teacher.”
Camden nodded his head while emptying the rest of the dishes still sitting on the table. A sight that should have seemed foreign to Elijah, but the spark of fire igniting in his belly as he watched the man do something as simple as scrape dirty dishes in his kitchen was more than right. It was natural. As if it should happen every night after a shared meal between them.
“Need help?”
Elijah turned his head to watch Camden bringing the discarded dishes from the table to the sink. He raised a skeptical brow at Camden’s offer. “You wash dishes?”
Camden added the pile of dishes to the already halfway-full sink and sighed. “I’m uncertain if it’s a task that requires that much skill. Soapy water and a scrubbing brush usually do the trick.” Again, Elijah warmed at the thought of Camden in his home doing simple domestic things with him. Why the idea of sharing something so mundane with Camden made his fingers itch to pull him in and hold him close, Elijah didn’t know. “If you have gloves, that would be great.” Camden displayed his neatly trimmed fingernails, giving them a serious, assessing look. “Suds are hell on a manicure.”
Elijah shook his head and gazed up at the ceiling for a few moments. There was the real Camden: proper, prissy, and too damn delicate to work with his hands. Elijah dried his wet hands on the towel, hung it over his shoulder, and moved out of Camden’s way. “I wasn’t asking if you knew how. I was asking if you did. It’s hard to believe a pampered preppy like you would know anything about picking up after himself. You don’t have a maid?”
Elijah saw the smile on Camden’s face, and relief spread through him. He wasn’t trying to offend him. He was genuinely curious about Camden’s background. Right now, all he had to work on were his assumptions.
“If I still lived at either of my parents’ homes, then yes, there is a full house staff at my disposal. But I live in a one-bedroom in Brooklyn Heights. There’s not enough space for a live-in maid. I have a cleaning lady who comes in once a week to keep the place tidy, but the day-to-day cleaning of it falls on my shoulders.”
Camden’s smile faltered a little as he stole a quick glance at him. “You think so little of me, Elijah. Don’t you? I mean, as a human being.”
Elijah took the freshly scrubbed dish Camden handed him and dried it with a nearby towel. “I don’t know you, Camden. You never gave me the chance.”
Elijah could see the bob of Camden’s Adam’s apple and wondered if his statement was too blunt. It was the truth. Camden had disappeared from Elijah’s life after one amazing night together. The only things he knew about Camden were the intimate details about his lovemaking, but nothing more.
Elijah knew how sensitive the skin was at the base of Camden’s neck. Every time Elijah touched it, Camden would shiver with need. Elijah knew how much Camden enjoyed having the underside of his balls licked. He’d damn near lost his load when Elijah traced his tongue across them, begging for Elijah not to stop. He knew Camden loved facing his partner during sex whether he was being fucked or doing the fucking. Any position that would allow him to kiss his lover senseless always increased his enjoyment. He knew Camden didn’t believe the false narrative that a strong man like Elijah wouldn’t enjoy being bent over and fucked relentlessly. That, paired with the fact that Camden liked giving as much as he did receiving had made their one night unforgettable.
He knew so many intimate things about Camden. Had savored learning every single one of them too. But he knew almost nothing about who Camden was on the inside, and what made him tick.
“I suppose running off the way I did didn’t leave much opportunity for you to get to know me, did it?”
The man wasn’t lying.
Elijah saw tight lines appear around the profile of Camden’s jaw and wondered if he was pressing too hard.
“Cam, I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Camden placed the dirty dish he was holding into the water and turned to Elijah. His eyes were cast down and shoulders drooped just slightly, ruining whatever charm school lesson about perfect posture Elijah was sure someone like Camden would’ve been taught. In Camden’s world, Elijah imagined it was a rule you had to walk around impeccably put together. But here and now, Elijah didn’t see something to be scolded over. He saw vulnerability that made him want to scoop Camden up and protect him from everyone, including himself.
“No, I can’t get upset with you for telling the truth. The way I left was inexcusable. I owed you better than that.”
“I don’t know about you owing me anything.” Elijah threw his drying towel over his shoulder and faced Camden. “I never understood why you disappeared the way you did. After our date, I thought we connected. The way we were in bed….” He remembered the sensation of being so in sync with another person’s body. “I didn’t understand what happened. Then I realized you were just slumming, and building something beyond that night wasn’t on your agenda.”
“It was never about you, Elijah.”
Elijah placed the dish he was holding on the counter. Despite Camden’s statement, when Elijah had woken up to emptiness and silence that morning, the ache in his ass and his heart informed him otherwise.
Camden grabbed the towel from Elijah’s shoulder and dried his hands before speaking again. It was as if the mundane motions gave him an opportunity to build up the nerve to speak his mind.
“Elijah, that night we spent together was more than I ever expected. I wasn’t thrilled about my boss setting me up with her friend, but when I met you, I knew she’d put me on the path to finding something irreplaceable.”
The word “irreplaceable” made Elijah’s heart swell. Camden was a lawyer. A good one according to his record. Choosing the right words to express himself, to make the most impact, was part of what made him so good at his job. Selecting that word was intentional.
“Then what was it about? Because I’ve never been able to figure it out. Everything about the way you left just made me feel like I wasn’t what you wanted or wasn’t worth your time.”
Camden hung his head as if the shame of his actions was too much for him to overcome. The pose struck Elijah as odd. The word “shame” wasn’t something he associated with Camden. But that’s exactly the way Camden’s body language was reading now.
“My father has planned my life out for me from birth. He has great political aspirations for me. He believes my life and career have to meet
certain standards if I’m to be the first openly gay president. The first step is me becoming the district attorney before my fortieth birthday. That position will lead to either a mayoral or gubernatorial run, which will lead to a presidential campaign. But before I run, I need to present the perfect package to the world. I need to settle down with the right man. One who comes from as powerful a political family as I do. One who can model the picture of consistent, wholesome, dedicated love to the masses of politicians and constituents.”
Elijah knew what it was to have his mama harping on him about finding a good man. However, this sounded nothing like that. The deep lines appearing around Camden’s mouth and his eyes declared this far outweighed a meddling mother.
“His plan has never allowed me to step outside of his outline for my life. Well, not until the one night I shared with you. It was perfect. It was everything I dreamed a night with the right man, a man of my own choosing, could be. But then the morning came, and my father sent me a text telling me he’d set up a meeting with a potential candidate for the role of husband, and I knew everything we’d shared that night would never be possible in my world.”
Elijah moved closer to Camden, placing a hand against his cheek, hoping to take away some of the tension that seemed to be building while Camden spoke about his father.
“Camden, it’s your life. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”
The loud sigh that slipped through Camden’s lips weighed on Elijah. To see Camden, the upbeat, quick-witted man he knew, carrying something so heavy pained Elijah.
“When you’re born into the world I am, it’s not as simple as finding your own path. Disobedience means exile. And as much as I want freedom, I don’t think I could handle exile either.”
Camden lifted his eyes, the bright blue sullied with sadness leaving a dull, almost unrecognizable shade in its place. “I desperately wanted more with you, Elijah. What I experienced when we talked, when we laughed, when we made love, it’s never left me.”
There Camden went again with those deliberate word choices. It hadn’t escaped Elijah’s notice he’d called their time together in bed “making love.” Elijah swallowed the lump of emotion bottled up in his throat. He’d never allowed himself to label the intimacy they’d shared as lovemaking. How could he? To do so would’ve worsened the blow of being tossed away so easily by someone Elijah connected with on almost a spiritual level.
“Me either.” The words fell from Elijah’s mouth on a soft breath. So soft he had to wonder if they’d come from him. They were absolute truth, though. He’d never been completely free of that night. It was always somewhere in the back of his mind, haunting his present, reminding him of what he wanted most, but could never have. “I wish you’d brought this to me then. We could’ve worked it out, Camden.”
He shook his head. “You don’t think I wanted that? You don’t think I wanted to tell you everything and hope you’d take enough pity on me to choose me, choose us anyway? The only thing I could’ve offered you was a life in the shadows. You deserved better than that.”
Elijah shook his head, then stepped closer to Camden. He leaned forward and pressed his forehead to Camden’s as he placed a hand at the nape of Camden’s neck. “No, Camden. What I deserved was the opportunity to make that decision for myself. And I’m so sorry you didn’t trust either of us enough to share this with me back then.”
“Why?” Camden’s one-word question hung in the air, making it heavy with uncomfortable anticipation.
Elijah pulled Camden into his arms and hugged him to disperse some of the nervous energy Camden’s tense body displayed. “Because we could’ve been awesome together.”
Elijah pulled away from the hug and looked into Camden’s eyes. He saw a familiar mixture of sadness and regret that Elijah had only witnessed once before.
“You were there, weren’t you?”
Camden’s confusion was clear in the pinched lines of his brow. “There where? When?”
Elijah kept his gaze leveled at Camden. “My father told me you were at the hospital after my attack. But I keep remembering you standing at my bedside during one of my rare moments of lucidity. You were worried and upset and you kept asking me to fight. I’ve always thought I was hallucinating. But I wasn’t, was I? You really were there?”
Camden didn’t answer at first. In fact, his silence stretched out into an awkward gap of nothingness. If this had been one of their prior encounters, Elijah would’ve filled in the blanks with some smartassed comment. But this moment was too important for that. Not just because of Elijah’s need to know, but also because Elijah sensed that this moment could become their turning point if they both dug in and did the work.
Camden returned his gaze to Elijah’s. There was none of his usual cockiness there. Camden was always confidence and flair. But tonight, the subdued way his shoulders folded in and his gaze wavered every few seconds revealed the man was lacking the usual dose of self-assurance Camden seemed to exude with great ease.
“I was there.” His answer was quiet and small. “I was in a meeting with the DA when the news of your attack arrived. I knew I had no right to be there, but I needed to know you would make it. So, I used my ADA’s badge to get me inside your room.”
Camden took a deep breath as if the memory of that night was too much for him to bear. It was almost like he needed to fortify himself to be transported back to that time.
Elijah understood that kind of hesitation. He had it every single time his mind or his therapist wanted him to walk back into that black moment. But why would Camden?
“There’s no valid reason to explain away my presence in your hospital room. I just knew I had to get to you. Even with so much time passing between us, even knowing you would probably send me away, I still had to be there.”
“Why?” Camden lowered his eyes again in response to Elijah’s question. Elijah placed a single finger under Camden’s chin and lifted until their gazes were level again.
“Because I was afraid you’d die, and I’d never have the chance to tell you how much that one night with you meant.”
The longing and regret Elijah saw in Camden’s gaze pulled at his heart, making his need to protect Camden sit in the middle of his chest like deadweight. He leaned forward, placing gentle hands on either side of Camden’s face, and pressed a soft kiss on the man’s mouth.
The kiss was tentative, and part of Elijah hated that. They’d wasted so much time. Five years after their first night together and they were still at the stage where liberties couldn’t be taken, where Elijah didn’t know for certain that his advances would be welcomed or rejected. But the satisfying moan that seemed to come from somewhere deep inside Camden led Elijah to believe the kiss was something they both desired.
When Elijah tried to pull away, Camden wrapped his arms around his neck and kissed Elijah with fierce intention. The hard press of their lips, the excitement of strong fingers touching him, the satisfying moans of pleasure wafting into the air all reassured Elijah both of them desired this moment.
The heat of anticipation burned through Elijah’s system as Camden deepened the kiss. It overran his senses with the taste of Camden’s mouth and the feel of his body pressed so closely against his. If they were in this house alone, that wouldn’t have been much of a problem. But getting lost in the delicious taste of Camden’s tongue wasn’t something Elijah could afford with his entire family positioned throughout his house.
With deliberate moves, Elijah gentled their kisses, pulling away from Camden.
“I swear to God, Elijah, if you push me away again, I won’t be responsible for what I do.”
Elijah smiled, leaning in to place another quick peck on Camden’s lips. “I have no intention of pushing you away again. I just don’t want my mama to walk in on us ripping each other’s clothes off at my kitchen sink.”
Camden nodded in agreement. “As much as your mother seems to love me, I don’t think she wants to see that, either. Upstairs, then
?”
Elijah shook his head. “No, I’ve got a better idea. Follow me.”
Elijah extended his hand to Camden and waited for him to accept it. The moment Camden took to place his palm against Elijah’s might have been a source of concern if Elijah hadn’t seen blazing desire coupled with resolute decisiveness in Camden’s gaze. He wanted Elijah—that much had been true the first night they’d met. But tonight, as Camden intertwined careful fingers with his, Elijah could see in the depths of his eyes that for the first time in five years, he was choosing Elijah.
“Lead the way, Lieutenant.”
Chapter Seventeen
CAMDEN held Elijah’s hand. Partly to follow Elijah’s lead, but mostly because he wanted to hold on to the magic of the moment they’d created in that kitchen.
Camden recognized the spark when Elijah pulled him into his powerful embrace. From the first time he’d encountered Elijah to now, it was there. It was strong, clutching at his heart, stoking a fire Camden had struggled to smother all this time.
Back then, the excitement was about experiencing something new with a man that ticked all of Camden’s boxes, all except the one his parents would insist be checked off. But tonight, Camden knew what to expect. He’d relived every moment in his head and heart during their separation. What was new was the hope that this moment could extend itself beyond the satisfaction Camden knew he and Elijah would gift to each other.
A short walk through the mudroom and they were walking through a connecting door into what Camden assumed was a garage. Only after Elijah turned the lights on did Camden see this space wasn’t a garage at all. It was fashioned into a one-room studio. A kitchen area in the back and an open space that doubled as both a living room and a bedroom at once.
The space was bathed in tranquil deep blue hues that invited you to sit down and rest for a while. An offer Camden intended to take full advantage of for as long as Elijah allowed.
