by Kira Graham
“That’s it? The battle?”
“Oh, yeah. It isn’t as easy as it sounds, either. You try dancing footloose-style to Ed Sheeran. I can almost guarantee you, it’s not possible. Unless you’re me of course,” I boast, ignoring Gia’s snort because she knows it’s true.
I’m the best at what we do. The absolute best.
“And I can join?” Lydia asks, her smile growing when I nod.
“If you can dance right,” Gia sneers besides Lydia, her face screwed up.
I tune that business out and turn to look at Cameron, his jaw, even in profile, clenched and jumping. This is so not comfortable but, like, what exactly am I supposed to say to him right now? Oh, ya know, this is what I do, and it isn’t going to change, and even if I win, I’m not going to let the Games go because I like them? Is he even going to be up for that? Because, sure as shit, Simon and Paul’s wives aren’t always so nice about the shenanigans.
“You know how messed-up this is—right?” he snarls, not turning to look at me even as he takes the exit for the highway and floors it.
I’m grateful for the speed and for his control of the car because we’re on a deadline here, and I really don’t want to lose.
“I mean, I know. I do. But it wasn’t supposed to take that long and it also wasn’t supposed to end this way. I was going to do a quick in and out and then meet you for dinner. I’m really sorry I missed dinner and basically stood you up,” I sigh, blinking when he snorts and turns to glare at me for a second.
“You think I’m pissed because you missed dinner?”
“Or… that you had to come and get me out of jail?” I try, not sure what he’s thinking until he huffs and purses his lips.
“You could have invited me. I’m a great dancer,” he grumbles.
“I—what?” I gasp, not sure I just heard right.
“It hurts my feelings that you didn’t invite me to battle. What? You think I can’t battle?” he grouches.
Okay. I’m not exactly sure what’s going on here, but since Lydia is giggling and Gia’s snorting, what I’m getting out of this is…
“You wanted to battle?” I ask, still blinking.
“Hell, yeah. It’s not fair that you didn’t once consider asking me, Lu. I can shake this money-maker, Sugar, and I’m not okay with you thinking I can’t. I’ll also have you know that having me on your team for the hunt is going to be awesome. I’m rich. I can hire people to work out the clues—”
“Hey, that’s not fair!” Gia yells from the back seat while I try to compute what he just said.
A slow smile spreads on my lips, and just like that, I’m laughing, all the worries I was harboring just flittering away as Cameron smirks and I giggle, ignoring Gia’s ranting from the back.
“Cheating is encouraged,” I murmur, my giggles growing when he glances at me and grins.
“In fact, you get points for cheating,” he says cheerily and he’s smiling at me so wickedly, I just fall all the way the hell in love.
He’s perfect. Absolutely and utterly perfect, this man, and I can’t believe I didn’t see it before.
“You realize she’s not a hair washer, right?” Gia snarls.
“That isn’t true. I just don’t like to strip the natural oils too often.”
“Oh, bullshit. You once didn’t wash your hair for two weeks.”
“And you smell like rancid vagina!” I yell, flushing deeply because that wasn’t my fault.
The water in my building was funky until I could get a plumber in to check things out. Okay, so that took a week, but by then I was into it. My hair didn’t frizz at all because it just stuck to my head after I brushed it. No product—
“You’re gross. I can’t believe he likes you. She’s a bed wetter too—”
“That happened one time, and I was awake. You’d pee yourself too if a dark shadow came out of the corner wielding a bottle of shampoo and a water jug!” I scream.
Nearly died of a heart attack that night. To be fair to Mom, I did need to wash my hair—but did she have to scare the shit out of me? I swear, I saw her eyes glowing from that corner—
“Be on my team. I make the best plans—”
“Get your own boyfriend, loser. He’s mine!” I yell, not caring how I sound or that Cameron’s mom is in the back seat, laughing hysterically.
I should just kill Gia now—I mean, there are no cameras and I’m almost certain that Cameron and his mom will alibi me. And we’re already headed to the cemetery. I could find that open grave and…
I slap my hands together in a sign of “done and dusted” and then come back to the moment to hear Gia cursing and Cameron and his mother laughing.
“Oh, dear, this is so much fun. You gals are just hilarious,” Lydia says from the back seat, sounding so excited I grin and share a look with Cameron.
We pull into a dark spot beside the cemetery a few seconds later, and then it’s a scramble as we find the break in the fence where we came in before and make a dash for the headstones. Peter, being the ever-organized man he is, whips a flashlight out of his trunk and then we’re frantically checking headstones because this has to be perfect.
“This one!” Gia yells, pointing at a gravestone with the name P. Potter.
It’s not as great as Harry Bush, the one we were aiming for earlier, but we’re on a time crunch and I’m ready to wet myself as Cameron calls five to midnight. It’s now or never, I think, breathing in deeply as Gia squares off with people and gets serious.
“All right, people! This is the plan. We’re doing Jerusalema tonight, and we need to get the headstone in the shot to prove location and so Dad can get a load of the name. Lydia—right!” she yells, pointing to the spot where she wants the woman. “Cameron—left. Lu, you’ll be just in front of him, and I’ll cover Lydia in case she fucks this up. Kat, you’re either in or out because if you’re not recording, Peter is. Okay. The song is Thinking out Loud, Ed Sheeran’s most famous vomit fest,” she yells, sounding like a drill sergeant while Cameron looks at me and blinks.
He mouths WTF, and I get it. If you’ve ever danced Jerusalema before, you know that Ed’s vibes aren’t exactly fast enough to keep in the moves, which is why I chose it. It’s super, super difficult to pull off but this is for a win, and I plan to win against those ninnies. I have to.
“Okay. And start recording!” Gia yells just as Kat starts the song. “Let’s go, people!”
I giggle as I start, tapping my left foot and then hopping to start on the right, the slow strains of the song so at odds with the moves that I’m laughing like a loon before we transition into the next hop. I hear Cameron curse behind me, but Lydia’s trilling with laughter, and Kat’s covering her mouth while she snickers, telling me just how ridiculous this looks.
“Oh, Jesus,” Cameron groans as I turn, my eyes going to his ass as he tries to wiggle without missing a beat.
I’m in stitches by the time we really get into the last five seconds of the dance, and when Kat stops the song and Peter calls it good, I’m outright screaming with mirth while Cameron turns to scowl at me, his eyes shining brightly.
“And that is it! Battle,” Gia yells, high-fiving Lydia who’s laughing and clapping so hard I pity her poor hand flesh.
“That,” Cameron wheezes, coming over to grab me while he mock scowls, “was awful. It’s not natural,” he whines.
“Only because you suck, pretty boy!” Gia yells, reviewing the footage with a critical eye and then forcing Peter to send it to Dad’s number while I giggle.
“That’s battle. It wouldn’t be a fight if it was easy,” I say, sighing softly when he leans down to kiss me, his hands automatically going to my ass.
Just that fast my body decides on its own, and I feel Cameron grow hard against my belly when he feels me melt and kiss him deeper, his growl a sound I know. He wants me, I want him—and when that happens…
“Oh, Jesus! Please tell me you guys aren’t getting randy in a graveyard,” Gia mutters, sounding horrifie
d and impressed while Lydia snickers.
“Pete, take the ladies home, would ya?” Cameron growls, still kissing me and still kneading my butt like he’s trying to make bread.
I’m hot now. It’s probably gross and weird that I’m this turned-on right now, but in my defense, you didn’t see his ass shaking while he ground slow to Ed. It was just so sexy and his lack of rhythm was so adorable, I nearly self-combusted on the spot.
“Bye, Cam! Lulu, call me!” Lydia yells just as Cam palms my ass and lifts me, settling my sex right over his crotch with a growl.
We shouldn’t be doing this.
“Oh, God, we shouldn’t be doing this,” I sigh, my words ending on a moan when Cameron chuckles darkly and steps back, stalking further into the shadows and not stopping until I have my back to a tree while he rips at my jeans.
Once one leg is free, he tears the crotch of my panties, frantically fumbles with his own pants, and then kisses me furiously before he lifts me and then impales me on his cock.
“Oh!”
I’m monosyllabic when I’m mindless with pleasure, and I cry out nonsensically when he’s all the way in, his dick stretching me so roughly that for a second I wince before my sheath flexes and adjusts, the slide of my juices making the invasion easier.
“God, woman, you make me hot,” Cameron snarls into my mouth, his hips pumping hard and furious even as he makes sure to cushion my ass with his arm so that bark doesn’t hurt me.
“You too. Shit, Cam. Uuuuh. Right there, right there,” I groan, beyond the point of caring that we’re having sex in the dark, in a graveyard.
Everyone probably knows what we’re doing and that’s so embarrassing, but I don’t care. All I care about is his thickness stretching and filling as I clamp down hard around him in search of the pleasure only he has ever given me.
“So tight. Fuck me, Lu. You’re always ready for me, Sugar,” Cameron moans, ripping his mouth away from mine to pant in air.
When he slants his mouth across my throat, his teeth clamping around my pulse, his mouth sucking and his groin rubbing against me, creating a friction against my clit that is rough and dirty, I think I nearly pass out from the intensity of just how right this is. Here and now, with Cameron pummeling me roughly and grunting like a beast, all I can do, feel, think, is that he’s perfect for me.
“Want to eat you,” he moans, sounding tortured when I cry out and gush between my legs, the dirty words enough to make my lust turn into a dark, needy, desperate fire that burns so hot it feels like I’m ablaze from the inside out.
I cry out, protesting when he suddenly pulls out of me, but the sound is short-lived and ends on a scream when he drops to his knees, lifts my thighs onto his shoulders and clamps his mouth around my sex, his tongue delving deep while one thumb furiously rubs at my clit.
“Cameron!”
“Hmm… Fuck, yes,” he growls, ripping his mouth away only long enough to snarl the words at me. “That’s it. Ride my face. Grind all that sweet juice over my chin, Lu.”
Oh, hell. Yes. Yes. Yes. I feel wanton and wild as I obey and ride his face, my hips squirming, my clit throbbing and swelling as he pulls his tongue out of me and suctions his lips around my bud. I’m on fire for an orgasm now, my sex clutching at empty air while he eats me savagely and growls like an animal. Then he’s back up and kissing me as he lifts me and impales me again, his cock hot, hard, and pulsing against my walls while I shudder and grow slicker.
“Cameron, baby. Please,” I whine, the overly full ache growing until it’s a painful coil of tension deep within.
And then it happens. He kisses me again, deeper, groaning and desperate, and I explode, my core shivering wildly while he goes stiff and then groans, his cock pulsing and stiffening, shuttling deep. I feel him then. His closeness, the way he cradles me tenderly even in his need, and I know something that makes my eyes burn and my heart stutter. Something terrible in its greatness.
“Oh, hell,” Cam mutters, shaking violently while I come down and clutch at him. “Oh, freaking hell.”
Oh, freaking hell indeed, I sigh silently, my arms tightening around him, my face buried in his neck. Oh, freaking, freaking hell, people. I really, really do love him.
Chapter 16
Cameron
“And that’s a win!” I shout, shoving my fist up in the air and glorying in my victory until a rabid little animal launches herself over the table and sends my chair crashing back, the momentum and weight toppling us so that I hit the floor with a bang and my head ricochets off the wood.
“You did not win. Cheater!” Lu screams, her hand closing around my collar while she glares, one eye ticking madly as I chuckle and try to cover my balls.
“Face it, Lu. I won that one,” I taunt, my shoulders shaking hard because she’s sneering at me with teeth bared and she looks ready to kill.
One thing you should know about my little lotus flower is that she hates losing. Hates it. So much so that last night, after we got back from the cemetery, she stripped down, jumped in the shower and then sauntered over to the bed with her eyes flaming. I was hard as a pike as I watched her slide onto the bed, her body a smooth picture of skin, naked boobs and silkiness that I really, really enjoyed when I was doing her against that tree beside an old lady’s headstone.
I’m thinking if Myrtle Meyers was still alive, the things I was doing to Lu would have sent her straight to her grave. But that wasn’t what was on my mind when Lu spread her thighs with a sultry look and showed me the goods. No—I was all in and ready to start pumping again. That is until she looked at me and shit got serious because that glint was back. The one that only lives in her eyes when she’s in competitive mode. It turns out she competes with everything, and since she gave me a hummer on the drive back home—which I recommend highly but not in a car that’s going eighty miles an hour—she demanded I give her head.
I wasn’t complaining. Hell, I would never, ever complain at the chance to get my mouth on her sex—but as with everything else about us, this too is now a competition. An orgasm competition that I always lose because I really, really like giving Lu orgasms. When she demanded I get to work because we were three to four, I laughed my ass off.
I shouldn’t have. She meant it.
My jaw still aches from last night. A lot.
“I hate you,” she grunts, her mouth curving into a pout that is so cute I laugh and lean up to kiss her softly.
“Nah. You like me. You like me a lot,” I tease, grinning when she huffs.
“I like you some,” she mutters, rolling over to get to her feet, something I stay still for because from this angle I can see right up my shirt that she’s wearing, and since my girl doesn’t like panties…
Oooh, la la.
“Hey, Lu?” I ask, rolling to my feet and righting the chair.
“What? Don’t talk to me. I’m never playing cards with you again,” she mutters as she pads to the kitchen to open the fridge and rummage around. “Oh, my God, dude. Why isn’t there any cheese in here?”
“Because I don’t eat cheese unless it’s on a pizza,” I shrug, grinning and watching her bend over to check the drawers. “Lu?”
“What kind of person doesn’t have cheese in their fridge?” she mutters, ignoring me and continuing her hunt.
I’m enjoying the hell out of the view, and I really like her efforts to keep things smooth when she suddenly shoots up straight and turns to me, her expression thoughtful. I don’t like that look, not one bit, and I know for my own safety I shouldn’t keep going but Lu is just… she’s so cute when she’s mad. She talks to her hand when she’s mad. I don’t know if she even realizes, but I’ve heard her tell that hand that she likes me a lot, which is great considering I have to tell her what her sister did.
I’m not looking forward to that. Like I said, the woman is scary when she gets really mad. Then she goes silent and she does things like stare at you without blinking. Staring without blinking while thinking. Which can be bad. Cole Sugar to
ld me it’s bad, when he called to give me “the talk.” Which wasn’t so much a warning to never hurt his little girl, but a guide to survival if I was serious about Lu.
I almost laughed my ass off when we met for lunch and the man handed me a fully typed and printed guide on how to stay alive being married to a Sugar girl, and I thought it was a joke, I really did. Until he got serious, looked me deep in the eyes and recounted a tale so stark and evil, I no longer keep chili or anything resembling pepper in the house. No man should wake up from a dead sleep with chili on his ball sack. No man.
“I wanted to ask you…” Lu says, snapping me out of my musings while I shudder and keep my mouth shut about my one poker win.
Out of six rounds. Six, people. She beat me five times and she’s having a conniption about one win for me.
“Ask me…?” I murmur, swallowing and trying to find my balls because I can’t keep delaying this talk.
I’m going to start with something romantic, possibly the Love words I’ve been holding in, and then I’m going to slowly, and very gently, first explain my non-participation in the Bamboozle episode. I gotta make sure she knows I wasn’t in on it, and then… then I’m going to have to tell her that we’re married. Slowly. And possibly while we’re in a room with Jaja. I should hold him. Yeah. I should be holding him because Lu won’t come near me when he’s with me.
Yeah. Good plan—
“You know, something’s been bugging me about that whole Bamboozle thing,” she says, frowning while my balls crawl up into my gut.
Oh, shit. Abort!
My mind is screaming at me to retreat and run when she starts to chew on her lip and her left hand comes up, fisted as if she’s holding a phone. Don’t laugh, I warn my stupid brain, my pits starting to sweat a little when she frowns and looks at me. Me? I shrug. Shrug! As if this isn’t the perfect time to tell her everything I know. I don’t wanna, though.
