His presence in my life feels, in lots of ways, like I’m stuck in limbo. Moving on in any real way with Dom is unrealistic. I shouldn’t even want it. But I do and I don’t know where that puts me. Or him. Or us.
“Nate is moving in with me.”
“Why?” I ask, caught off guard.
“He’s behind on a bunch of payments and managed to get a loan, but it’ll be a couple of months before it’s processed or something. He and Ryder are going to shack up here until he gets things sorted.”
“That’s nice of you,” I offer.
“Yeah, well, what am I supposed to do? It’s family, right?”
“Of course. My family would do the same.”
“Your family would just buy the other person a house,” he laughs. “I bet two of you haven’t lived together since you were kids.”
“Not true,” I say, taking a bite of my froyo. “Sienna and I lived together until she moved to LA.”
He laughs again. “And she managed to stay away from you for how long?”
“She was there for four years, actually. She still kind of lives there. I think,” I consider, spooning in another glob of yogurt.
“She’s been in Savannah the whole time I’ve known you. She doesn’t live in LA, sweetheart.”
“She still has an apartment there,” I counter.
“Sienna lives in LA as much as I do, and I’ve never even been there.”
Giggling at his analogy, I lick the spoon. “Yeah, that’s probably true. She’s thinking of moving to Illinois now anyway.”
“Must be nice.”
Jamming my spoon back in the carton, I sit back in my chair. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.”
“No, say it.”
“Say what?”
I can hear the smirk in his voice, the level of amusement I’m providing thick in his tone. It annoys me that he doesn’t take me seriously. That he thinks my life is some kind of charmed existence that doesn’t have a lot of substance.
He’s never said that, not to my face, anyway. I see it hidden in the depths of his sapphire-colored eyes sometimes.
He doesn’t have a problem with the volunteer work I do. He just thinks I should be doing something else, something that matters specifically to me. That pushes me. That drives me. And I don’t know how I feel about that.
“Don’t laugh at me, Dominic Hughes,” I warn.
“Or what, Camilla Landry? What will you do?”
I pause. “I don’t know.”
He just laughs harder. “I’m not laughing at you, babe. I’m laughing at how your sweet little voice tries so hard to break into a roar soon as you’re mad, but it can’t quite get there.”
“I’m not mad.”
“Then what are you?”
“I don’t know.”
“No, you do know,” he goads. “I hit a nerve. Say it, Cam. Tell me how you really feel.”
“You didn’t hit a nerve—”
“One of these days, you’re going to blow the fuck up, and I’m going to laugh my ass off.”
“What if I blow up at you?” I tease. “You won’t be laughing then.”
“Yeah, I will, and I can’t wait to see it. You’re all prim and proper, and then—boom! Here she comes.”
“I wish I was coming,” I hint, kicking off my shoes. “My body is so tight. I could use a good workout.”
A low rumble rolls through the line. The gravelly sound floods my veins like the lit end of a stick of dynamite. The fire scorches, burning up the fuse as it hits the center of my thighs. “Dom,” I whisper, clenching my legs together. “Stop it.”
“I didn’t say a word.”
“You didn’t have to.”
The line might be quiet, but it’s not still. It’s filled with an anticipation, a feeling that one of us might jump to action. With bated breath, I stare at the shaker of cinnamon on the counter that I forgot to put away at breakfast and wait for his next move.
“If I didn’t have to get up so damn early in the morning and head up north for a job, I’d be on my way over,” he promises.
“What would you do when you got here?”
It’s a loaded question, one that will only make it harder that he’s not here tonight. Not that he would be here all night anyway. He doesn’t sleep here. He won’t. He’ll come over, but I always wake up in my bed alone.
“I’d hope you’d be wearing that yellow silk robe that isn’t long enough to cover your ass,” he says, a grit to his voice that’s as smooth as it is rough. It reminds me of his hands—soft enough to caress, yet coarse enough to cause my body to fire on all cylinders. “I’d find you standing in the kitchen, watching porn on your phone.”
“No, you wouldn’t!” I giggle. “I don’t watch porn on my phone.”
“This is my little fantasy,” he teases. “Don’t interrupt.”
“Fine. Continue on,” I say, propping one leg up on a neighboring chair.
“I’d walk in behind you and almost lose it when I see you with your hand between your legs. Your head would fall back just a little as you moan like you do when you’re turned on. I’d wrap your hair, still wet from a shower, around my fist and tug your head back just a little more so I can bury my face in the crook of your neck.”
The whimper that passes my lips isn’t intentional, but I couldn’t deny it if I wanted to. The thought of his hands on my skin, his breath against my cheek, his cock rock hard and long against the small of my back, has me shifting in my seat.
Lifting the hem of my floral-print dress, I move aside the lace of my panties and feel the heat and wetness radiating from between my legs.
“I’d kiss you right behind the ear just so I could feel you shiver against me,” he breathes. “Smelling your vanilla perfume mixed with the scent of you all turned on would make me so fucking hard.”
“And me so wet,” I whisper.
“I lay my hand over yours,” he continues, “my fingers holding yours in place. You breathe in, the top of your robe falling open so I can see those big, round titties swollen for me, wanting my mouth on them.”
“God, Dom,” I groan, spreading my legs a little wider. Flicking at my engorged clit, the sensation makes me gush a breath of pure need.
“What are you doing right now?” he whispers.
“Ah,” is my response as I roll the nub with my thumb, my eyes squeezed closed imagining it is Dominic’s hand on me and not mine.
“Are you touching yourself, Camilla?”
“Yes.”
“Fuck,” he hisses. “Do you wish it were me?”
“Yes.”
“I’d shove your robe up, bend you over the table, and bury myself inside you so deep you almost can’t take it. Would you like that?”
“Yes,” I almost moan. My back is now arched, my breathing heavy and panting, as I replay two days ago when his words tonight were almost a play-by-play.
“I love the way you squeeze around me. Your little pussy almost milks my cock, begs for it. Do you know that?”
My eyelids clench together harder, almost painfully hard, as I touch myself in just the right way. The burn begins low in my stomach, the rumble getting louder with each and every movement of my hand.
The lace of my panties causes friction against the back of my hand, just another bit of sensation that sends me on a spiral higher and higher.
“Think of how good it feels when I hit that spot in the back of your pussy,” he coaxes. “The way you let loose. How your legs shake as you flood my cock with so much fucking juice that it almost shoves me out of you.”
“Dom,” I utter through clenched teeth as the tremors of my orgasm hit me full-on.
“You coming, baby? You coming thinking of me buried inside you?”
“Yessssss.”
My body hums at the imagery he’s painted for me, the thought of him doing all of those things sending me on a high that could only be topped if it were him doing them.
Sucking in a
breath, I hear him follow suit, as I whimper at the aftershocks of my climax. My legs relax, the riot in my stomach eases, as I let my head fall back with a contented, satisfied sigh.
“Damn, lady,” Dom says just as I’m piecing myself back together. “That was ridiculously sexy.”
My cheeks heat as I drop my hand to the side, my body now spent. Embarrassment rears its ugly head as I realize, without an orgasm-needing brain, what just happened.
“Cam?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” I ask, trying to keep my tone light.
“Don’t be embarrassed.”
“I’m not.”
“Yes, you are. I hear it in your voice and you’re a terrible liar.”
“That’s the second time I’ve been told that today,” I laugh.
“Who else you lying to?”
“Lincoln, but I wasn’t really lying to him. He was just being an ass.”
Dominic takes a deep breath before blowing it out slowly. “Did that conversation have anything to do with me?”
“Why would it? They don’t know what I’m doing.”
“You mean slumming it?”
“Stop it, Dominic.”
He chuckles through the phone. “I’m kidding.”
“Do you want to meet them?” I ask with hesitation. It would be a bloodbath, most likely, and my family would definitely have reservations. And questions. And issues. Still, I can’t deny the leap in my chest that maybe his reaction is because we’re there. To the point where he does want to admit to being serious. To—
“Hell, no.”
My spirits fall like a piece of confetti out of a sixty-story building. “I didn’t think so.” I stand up and get my skirt smoothed back down. “My froyo is melting on the table.”
“That could be fun.”
“What?”
“Melted ice cream. If I would’ve known that was happening, I could’ve added it into my little fantasy.”
Still reeling from the hopes of a few seconds ago, I watch the chocolate treat create a little puddle on the white tabletop. “You should remember that next time.”
“Noted. But, in the meantime, I’m gonna get off of here so I can go get myself off. That little show you just put on has my cock so hard it’s ready to explode.”
“If you came over here, I’d help you out with that.”
“I bet you would.” I hear him groan and he moves. “You have any plans for tomorrow?”
“I’m having lunch with my mom, Sienna, and a couple of my brothers’ wives. There’s a charity thing they want to put together and I volunteered to head the effort. What about you?”
“Working then heading to the gym straight after. Maybe we can hook up late?”
“I’d like that.”
He pauses. “Me too, Cam. Talk to you tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
“Later.” And just like that, the line goes dead.
I pad down the hall and into the master bathroom, washing my hands, teeth, and face. Dressing in the yellow robe that I know now is Dom’s favorite, I climb into bed.
Looking around the white walls, white carpet, and pale pink furnishings, I think back to last night. This time yesterday I was snuggled up in Dom’s bed. His ratty blue comforter, eighties-style wood paneling, and grey shag carpeting that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy is almost preferable right now to lying here alone.
Without him.
“Come on, Cam,” I admonish myself, burrowing in the down blankets. “You can’t expect anything. Not from him.”
And I shouldn’t expect anything from him. Worse, I shouldn’t want anything from him. He’s not what I need.
I need stability. I need a five-year plan. I need someone that can raise a family and give me and my future babies a solid foundation. He’s none of that. I’m not even sure he’s capable of it. Worst of all, he’s made it obvious he doesn’t want it.
He doesn’t even want to integrate me into his life or be interwoven into mine. He doesn’t want me at the gym, at Nate’s bar, and he’s not about to go to the Farm for Sunday dinner. As wonderful as he is when we’re together, he has a way of making it clear there’s a line between my world and his, and that line will remain. I’m an interesting addition to his collection of women, and while I know he likes being with me, I also know there’s nothing between us that will last forever.
It can’t. All of those dreams I want to come true aren’t possible with him.
“Uh,” I grumble, trying to get comfortable.
My stomach sours as I imagine working him into my life. Explaining to my family the man I love fights for a living. Can barely pay his rent. Is related to Nolan—the man that tried to ruin Barrett’s entire career.
Closing my eyes, it’s the memory of his face that greets me. I imagine he’s behind me, his chin resting on my head the way he does when he’s waiting for me to fall asleep. It’s this feeling, this warmth, that makes me want to blur the line he so carefully creates so I don’t have to eventually let it go.
Dominic
CLIMBING OUT THE SHOWER AND wrapping a towel around my waist, I rub the fog off the bathroom mirror. There’s a small cut over my right eye that shouldn’t look too bad by morning. My face lights up in the glass as I picture Camilla’s reaction to the scrape if she were here.
She hates me fighting. It seems barbaric to her on some level. She can’t imagine someone being so down and out that they would willingly go into a brawl to get a payday. I tried to explain it to her the first time it came up in conversation, but that was the last time I wasted my effort. She won’t get it. How could she? She just swipes a card if she wants something or asks her brother for the money from her trust fund if it’s over a certain amount.
That’s what I can’t imagine—letting someone else control my shit. They control everything about her from where her money goes to who she dates to what she does with her afternoons. It’s wild.
It’s also one of the reasons why this little thing we have going on is temporary. It’s carried on a little longer than I expected it to, but that doesn’t mean an expiration date isn’t stamped on it somewhere. Her world isn’t just the other side of the tracks; it may as well be the other side of the fucking universe. My side? It’s no place for a girl like her, a girl that not only nails that fifty-one percent, but aces the other forty-nine. A girl that’s way outta my league.
My phone rings in the bedroom and I shut the light off behind me before heading across the hallway. It’s buzzing on my nightstand when I pick it up.
A little drop of disappointment hits me when I realize it’s not Cam. “Hey, Nate,” I say, sitting on the edge of the bed. “What’s up?”
“Just got Ryder to bed. Chrissy let him have way too much sugar tonight and he wouldn’t settle down. It was rough, man. I pulled out all the stops, even singing that twinkle star song.” He laughs. “Hell, before it was over, I was singing the old Oscar Meyer hot dog commercial theme.”
“What a way to spend a night,” I laugh.
“Yeah, but fuck it, Dom. I mean, what else is there, really? I had three chicks on the bar tonight, basically doing a strip show by the time we closed. Juicy asses, big titties, lips carved to wrap around a cock. There was a time in my life when that was the end to a great day. Now, I just wanted to get home before Ryder went to sleep.”
“I get that. He’s your boy.”
“Yeah,” he sighs through the phone. “I don’t know. It’s more than that. It’s . . . Remember Dad not being home? Hell, half the time Mom wasn’t either? We’d let ourselves in after school and pour some shredded cheese on some stale tortilla chips and watch television? I want to give him something more, something better than what we had growing up.”
“You’re doing that,” I say, running a hand over my damp hair. “He never has to worry about where his next meal is coming from. That’s more than we had a lot of the time.”
“I was thinking . . . maybe when
the loan goes through, and I get everything caught up, maybe I can start thinking about changing the atmosphere in The Gold Room.”
“To what?”
“Something more respectable, I guess.”
“You’re going yuppie on me, aren’t you?”
He barks a fit of laughter through the phone. “Fuck, no. I just mean clean the place up some. Change our reputation a little. Maybe pull in a different group of customers, ones that have more money than Joe and Copper.”
“So you mean ones that have any money?”
“Basically, yeah.”
“Joe ever paid his tab?”
“Nope.”
“Did you stop letting him charge?”
“Nope.” Before I can respond, he keeps going. “Sometimes that ham sandwich is all he eats all day. How do I cut him off, Dom? He doesn’t ask for much. A drink and a sandwich sometimes. And he pays when he can.”
My heart tugs at the predicament. The hollowness in my stomach—from being hungry and scared and not seeing a clear way out after Mom’s death came a year after Dad’s—is never too far away. “I feel ya. Maybe think it through some between now and the loan going through and get a plan in place.”
“That’s what I’m thinking. This is either going to have to be a long-term, successful thing or a really expensive headache.”
His words spark something in my brain that I’ve been toying with for the past few months. Maybe it’s time to start looking at the HVAC job as a career, that I might be at the point in life where things just are the way they are. Go in all the way because . . . this is it.
I’ve always felt like something was going to change, that if I peddled along, busted my ass, kept going for long enough, eventually there would be a turning point. That things would get easier. That I’d get the stability and straightforward life I’d always craved.
Maybe that’s not true.
Maybe it’s always a struggle. Realization is starting to set in that maybe this life is my life. Whatever hopes I had of rising above my current situation, of starting my own business, of making something out of myself, isn’t really going to happen. Maybe the stars were just stacked against me from the night my inebriated father fucked my mother.
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