Changing the Rules

by Erin Kern

  Audrey shifted closer, as though she wanted to test the waters. Maybe place her mouth against his? Yeah, he wasn’t opposed to trying things out either.

  But a faint buzzing interrupted the moment, sort of like having a bucket of ice water dumped over his head.

  Audrey jerked back as though she’d been burned and glanced at her phone. “I need to answer this,” she muttered; then she hightailed it out of the kitchen as though her ass were on fire.

  Cameron glanced at Piper as she girl’s gaze followed Audrey out the back door, before placing her wide green eyes back on him.

  “How do you like your eggs, Piper?” Cameron asked, because it was better than apologizing for damn near molesting Audrey in the middle of his kitchen.

  Seven

  Audrey closed the sliding glass door with a trembling hand and tried desperately to calm her thudding heart.

  Cameron had been about to kiss her. And more horrifying than that realization was the fact that she’d wanted him to. From the second he’d crowded her against the counter, she’d recognized the look in his eyes and the low timbre of his voice.

  Worse yet, she’d been turned on as hell, even though she knew this kind of seduction game would never end well.

  Luckily she’d been saved by her ringing phone. And like the coward she was, Audrey had run away.

  But what had burned her more than anything had been the smirk on Cameron’s face. The half tilt of his mouth had only heightened the burning sensation in her cheeks. He’d known exactly what he’d done to her and the fact that she’d wanted it just as much as he did.

  But her focus needed to be on Piper, not a hunk of a man who could melt her bones with a simple stroke of his thumb.

  Audrey jerked when her phone rang again. Whoever was trying to get hold of her had hung up, then immediately starting calling again. She stole a glance in the house and spotted Piper still on the stool and Cameron pouring pancake batter into a hot pan.

  Audrey was about to answer her phone when a flash of blue out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. She recognized the elderly woman in the blue polyester pants and towering beehive from the pancake breakfast, the one Annabelle had told her belonged to some group. What was it she called them?

  The Beehive Mafia.

  If Audrey didn’t know any better, she’d say this lady was spying on Cameron.

  Even though Cameron was the last person who needed a protector, Audrey felt like she should put the woman in her place.

  “Can I help you?” she asked Lois.

  The elderly woman waved a hand in the air, then produced a phone. “Just pretend I’m not here. Trying to catch a shot of the guy, because he’s so damn crafty.”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s not legal for you to be snooping around someone’s house and taking pictures,” Audrey pointed out.

  Lois pursed her lips as she tried to see inside the kitchen window. “Oh, Cameron won’t turn me in. He tries to pretend he’s a bear, but really he’s just a big old softie.”

  “Does Cameron know you sneak around his house with a camera?”

  Lois tossed Audrey a look as though she’d lost her mind. “Well, of course he doesn’t. The man would flip his lid if he found out.”

  Audrey arched a brow at her. “I thought you said he’d never turn you in?”

  “And I don’t think he would. But that doesn’t mean he’d be pleased to find me here. Ever since that debacle with the married woman, the man’s been intensely private.”

  Say what? “Married woman?” Audrey repeated.

  Lois slanted her a look as she tried to get a better glimpse inside the kitchen window. “You didn’t hear me say anything.”

  What the hell was that supposed to mean? Had Cameron been involved with a married woman? He didn’t strike her as the type, but then again neither had Rick, her boyfriend before Evan, and he’d turned out to be a two-timing douchebag.

  But Cameron was different. She’d sensed from the very beginning that he was honorable, even if he was a bit gruff and rough around the edges. Was she wrong about him? What if he turned out to be like every other shallow asswipe?

  For some reason the very idea made Audrey uncomfortable, even though it shouldn’t have bothered her. In two months she’d be gone. But it would matter to Piper, and Piper mattered to Audrey.

  “Got one!” Lois exclaimed as she pumped her fist in the air. “Nothing sexier than a man who knows how to cook.” She shot Audrey a triumphant grin. “Our followers are going to love this one.”

  “I really don’t think you should be posting pictures of Cameron without his knowledge,” Audrey warned her, even though she knew it wouldn’t do any good. The woman was in her own world.

  Lois only offered a shrug of her frail shoulders. “Oh, he’ll have knowledge of it eventually. See ya.”

  And then she was gone as stealthily as she’d arrived, slipping around the corner of the house.

  Audrey blinked after her, warring between Cameron’s invaded privacy and the whole married woman thing. She supposed she could just ask him, but something told her he wouldn’t confide in her.

  She shoved the subject out of her mind, for now anyway, and reentered the house, sure of herself that her pulse had calmed down enough. But as she entered the house, the sight in the kitchen brought her to an abrupt halt.

  Cameron was at the stove, and Piper was seated on the counter next to him as she poured pancake batter from a measuring cup.

  Her little legs were swinging back and forth and her teeth were digging into her lower lip. She finished pouring and set the measuring cup on the counter.

  “I think it’s time to stir the eggs,” Cameron advised. He handed Piper a spatula. “Remember how I showed you?”

  “Yep,” Piper answered. She stuck the spatula in the pan full of eggs and whipped the thing around.

  “Be sure to scrape the bottom real good. We want them nice and fluffy.” As Cameron gave the instructions, he dropped a handful of shredded cheese into the eggs.

  Piper giggled. “More cheese,” she demanded. “Cheese is my favorite food.”

  Audrey resisted the urge to remind Piper that she supposedly hated cheese.

  Cameron chuckled. “I thought jelly beans were your favorite food?”

  Piper swung her legs back and forth harder and thunked against the lower cabinets. “Nope, it’s cheese.”

  And tomorrow it would be hot dogs.

  Cameron took the conversation in stride, as though six-year-old speak were an everyday occurrence for him. It had taken Audrey forever to acclimate herself to the way Piper’s mind worked. She bounced from one subject to the next, asking nonstop questions and making strange observations. One minute she’d say how she wanted to be a unicorn when she grew up, and the next she’d be yammering on about a puppy she saw on TV.

  Cameron didn’t break his stride from cooking to scratch his head at Piper’s conversation. He’d grunt and nod at the appropriate times. He even laughed and ruffled her hair when she cracked a lame joke that didn’t even make sense.

  Audrey’s ovaries clenched.

  She cleared her throat, and they both turned to look at her. One fixed inquisitive green eyes on Audrey and the other raked his blue gaze in slow perusal that had her breasts tingling.

  Her body really needed to stop clenching and tingling around him.

  “Sorry for leaving you with dinner duty,” Audrey said. She held up her phone. “That was my friend Roxy.” Whom she now needed to call back.

  “Not a problem,” Cameron grunted.

  “We’re makin’ eggs,” Piper announced. She stuck the spatula back in the egg pan and gave them another stir. Next to the stove was a plate full of pancakes and another filled with bacon slices.

  Audrey set her phone on the counter and walked across the kitchen. “Yes, I see all the cheese you dumped in. I’ll be sure to have 911 on speed dial in case my arteries clog.”

  Piper blinked, and Audrey knew she didn’t get the joke. Obvi
ously Cameron didn’t either, because he just looked at her.

  “You joke now, but wait until you taste them,” he told her.

  “By the way, there was a woman named Lois in your backyard taking pictures of you.”

  Cameron didn’t stop cooking. “Yeah, she does that.”

  “You’re aware that she sneaks around your house and takes illegal pictures of you?” Audrey questioned. Why wasn’t he more outraged?

  But he just snorted. “Illegal?”

  “Well, yeah.” Why was she the only one who had a problem with this? “She puts them on some social media page for people to look at.”

  Cameron shut the burner off and moved the egg pan to a cooler part of the stove. “Tumblr,” he informed her. He shot her a look as he took three plates down from the cabinet. “The Beehive Mafia is harmless.”

  “She’s invading your privacy,” she told him.

  Piper hopped down from the counter and ran to the stool she’d been sitting on earlier.

  Cameron picked up a giant spoon and scooped eggs onto a plate. “Are you going to fight my battles for me, Audrey?”

  She crossed her arms over her chest and watched while he stacked a pancake next to the eggs. “Sounds like someone should.”

  “Be my guest,” he told her. “I’ve been trying to get them to leave me alone for years. They’re tenacious as hell.” He dropped one slice of bacon on the plate, then delivered the plate to Piper.

  The kid swiveled back and forth on her stool, then smiled her thanks.

  “You could call the police on her,” Audrey suggested.

  Cameron snorted again as he grabbed another plate and heaved a heaping spoonful of eggs. “And what? Have her arrested? She’s a hundred years old.”

  He had a point, but still. “Maybe they could get her to leave you alone.”

  He slanted her a look, and they both knew she was kidding herself.

  “All right, fine,” she replied with a nonchalant shrug. If he didn’t care about having himself posted all over some senior eye-candy page, then it was no skin off her back.

  “This is killing you, isn’t it?” he questioned.

  Audrey watched while he added three slices of bacon to the pancakes and eggs. “What’s that?” she asked as she took the plate from him and wondered how she was going to eat all the food he’d given her, even though it smelled delicious, like one of her childhood Sunday mornings.

  “Not taking your advice,” he finally answered.

  “Not even a little,” she lied.

  He watched without responding while he ate from his own plate, standing at the kitchen counter instead of sitting. Why did he always have to look at her like that? Like he was waiting for her to reveal some ulterior motive? What kind of women had he been with in the past? She got the feeling that he was always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  Immediately, her thoughts went to the comment Lois had made about the married woman. Of course, it was none of her business, but Audrey couldn’t help but wonder if Cameron had gotten himself into some nasty situation that had left him jaded about future relationships. Audrey could certainly understand the feeling of once bitten, twice shy.

  Even though she was dying to ask, she kept the curiosity to herself.

  “What?” he asked.

  Audrey crunched into a piece of bacon. “Nothing.”

  “So you met Lois, huh?” he commented.

  “Actually I met her at the pancake breakfast. But Annabelle came to my rescue.”

  One side of Cameron’s mouth quirked. She’d learned really fast that he was good at smiling without really smiling. Although she wasn’t sure how he did that, it was sexy as hell. It softened his features and created little shivers in her belly.

  “Lois cornered you, did she?”

  “She thought I was your baby mama,” Audrey commented as she cut into her pancakes.

  Cameron shook his head. “Beehive Mafia. It’s probably all over town by now.”

  “I thought you said they’re harmless,” she pointed out.

  “Normally, they are. But usually it’s pictures, not speculation over my personal life.”

  Audrey set her empty plate on the counter. “You don’t like that, do you?”

  “What?”

  “People getting in your business,” she guessed.

  Cameron pinned her with an unreadable look. “I like my privacy.”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  Cameron set his plate on the counter next to hers and put his hands on his lean hips. “You say it like it’s a bad thing.”

  Audrey only shrugged. “Just making an observation.”

  Again, he just watched her. Audrey didn’t like people getting too close either. People were unreliable. From her mother disappearing when Audrey was eight, her estrangement from her brother, and the men who’d come and gone, Audrey learned it was better to keep herself at a distance from people. If she stayed isolated, she couldn’t be hurt anymore. Even Dianna’s death had left her hollow.

  “Why are you always looking at me like that?” she blurted out.

  “How would you like me to look at you?” he countered.

  Don’t answer that. It’s a trap.

  She opened her mouth to form some really witty reply, because that was the only way to keep this man at a distance, when Piper saved her.

  “Can I have more eggs?” she pipped.

  Cameron gazed at Audrey for a moment longer. Then she breathed a sigh of relief when he redirected his attention to the six-year-old bouncing on her stool. This was why she carefully thought everything through. Blurting things out like that always got her into trouble, but she had to remember that Cameron was different. He saw her differently than everyone else. She hadn’t been around him enough to identify what exactly that was. But it was definitely a threat, a threat to the isolation she’d built between herself and the world.

  “Here you go, kiddo,” Cameron said as he dumped another spoonful of eggs on Piper’s plate.

  “By the way,” Audrey announced as she pulled a folded piece of paper from her pocket, “I have a list of school supplies Piper needs.” She handed him the paper, but Cameron just set the thing down on the counter.

  “If you leave that there, you’ll forget about it.”

  He gave her a look like she’d lost her mind. “No, I won’t.”

  She didn’t believe him. So far, she’d been the only one to make an effort to get Piper into school. “Better to put it in your pants pocket.”

  “My pockets have giant holes in them. It’ll just fall out.”

  Audrey’s gaze dropped to his pants, as though she could see the holes through the material. But all that did was draw attention to his thighs and how, even through the loose cotton, she could tell how big they were. Strong. An image of those powerful thighs pinning her to a mattress sent a shiver down her spine.

  “Why are you always looking at me like that, Audrey?” he questioned.

  Yeah, touché and all that. He had her on that one.

  “Good one,” she answered with a tight smile. She picked the paper off the counter and folded it back up. “Just take it.”

  When he only stared at it, she shoved it against his chest. Colossally big mistake. The tips of her fingers got an instant impression of carved muscle, of grooves and dips that outlined what had to be seriously fantastic pecs. She’d always been a sucker for a man’s chest perfectly sculpted for a woman to trail her fingers over. And judging by what she’d felt just now, Cameron had one in spades.

  “You should really stop doing that, Audrey,” he warned in a low voice.

  Yeah, she knew, but she had to ask anyway. “Doing what?”

  He wrapped his warm palm around hers, which trapped her against his chest. He was warm and solid and so undeniably male that Audrey almost whimpered. Why did it have to feel so good to be pressed against him? Why couldn’t he smell like he hadn’t showered in a week, instead of being all spicy and woodsy and stuff?

&nbs
p; “Looking at me like you’re trying to picture me naked,” he murmured against her ear.

  This time she actually whimpered.

  “All you have to do is say the word.”

  She shifted her eyes to his and found them dark and smoky. Intent. On her and her only.

  “What word?” she asked like the idiot she was.

  He inhaled deeply and pressed his mouth harder against her ear. “Yes,” he whispered.

  If only it were that easy. If only she could toss all her structure and self-imposed rules to the wind and just go for it already. Couldn’t he tell how hard it was for her? He seemed to be able to read her so easily, to see through everything she said. How could he not see how it was killing her not to drape herself all over him?

  Just when she was about to give in and utter the single-syllable word that would destroy her, Audrey pulled away. She shoved the paper harder against him.

  “Just take the damn list.” With a good yank, she was free and striding across the room, away from him and everything he represented. “And fix your pants.”

  Eight

  Audrey took Piper to the Bobcats’ next home game. Luckily, Annabelle and Stella had saved a seat for her, because the stands were packed. She’d shared a brief introduction with Stella’s hunk of a husband, Brandon, while carrying Jellybean under one arm and holding on to Piper with the other hand.

  The child had been particularly cantankerous all day. First, she’d thrown a fit when Audrey hadn’t let her have popcorn for breakfast. They’d compromised on s’mores Pop-Tarts, and she gave Piper a bowl of popcorn an hour after breakfast. But at least she’d had breakfast first, so whatever.

  Then Piper had folded her arms and pouted when Audrey had mentioned taking her school shopping for clothes and supplies.

  “I hate school!” Piper had screamed as she’d run into her room and thrown herself on her bed.

  Audrey hadn’t bothered to point out that Piper hadn’t even been to school before, so how would she know? Dianna had opted not to send Piper to preschool because she’d been on the downhill slide of her cancer battle and wanted to spend as much time with her daughter as she could.