by Lisa Shelby
“Cami…”
“I don’t want to hear another word. Get that fine ass of yours up off that seat and let’s do this.”
Did she just say I had a fine ass?
She holds out her hand to me, and with the entire table watching our exchange, I don’t really have a choice but to get up and take it.
“You suck, Cam.”
“Aw, you’re a big, tough guy. I think you’re going to be just fine. Besides…” she says, bringing the back of my hand to her lips again. “I got you.”
The beat of my heart stutters at those three simple words and the feel of her lips on my hand.
Fuck, if she only knew how right she is. She’s got me wrapped right around her little finger.
We join the line and make small talk with the groom’s family, and Cami stays glued to my side the entire time.
As we approach Stan and Candace, Hannah’s parents, I can feel the sweat beading on my brow.
Cami didn’t miss the look that Candace shot me earlier, and she doesn’t miss a beat as we approach them.
“Mr. and Mrs. Edwards, it’s nice to see you again.”
“Liam.” My name is a disgusted grunt from Stan’s mouth.
The fact that the line has stopped and we are stuck standing in front of them is clearly something just as uncomfortable for Stan and Candace as it is for me.
Holding her hand out to Candace, Cami puts an end to the awkward silence when she offers a handshake and beams, “What a lovely wedding. Everything is just beautiful.”
“Why, thank you. We worked very hard to make the day special for our little girl.”
“Well, it shows. Thank you for having us.”
“And you are?” Candace asks while giving me side-eye.
“Oh, silly me. I’m Liam’s girlfriend.” Cami wraps herself around my waist and cuddles up to me nice and tight while looking up adoringly at me. On instinct, my arm goes around her as well, and I pull her closer. This small act makes it all so much easier to take. Cami in the same room makes everything better but this…holding her is next level. “My name is Cameron. Liam has told me so much about all of you. It’s really great to finally meet you. Thank you for having us.”
Stan and Candace seem taken aback by my fiery little redhead, but mercifully, the line finally starts to move. In two steps, I’m standing in front of Hannah.
She looks beautiful.
She also looks and sounds manufactured.
She’s only been married for an hour, but she already has the look and demeanor of a Stepford Wife. I don’t even recognize her voice when she acknowledges me.
“Liam, so nice to see you.” The tips of her fingers take mine, and she leans in and kisses me on the cheek.
“Congratulations, Hannah. It’s nice to see you, too.” Her eyes dart over to where Cami is waiting to be introduced. Waiting in her sexy-as-sin dress that is paired with her sweet-as-honey smile.
This is the moment she has been salivating for…I can see it in her eyes. So, I follow her lead and give her what she wants.
“Hannah, this is my girlfriend, Cameron.”
This is my girlfriend. Damn if I don’t like the way that sounds.
She doesn’t reach out her hand. No, that would be too easy. Cami, being Cami, goes in for a full-on hug.
Hannah’s eyes widen in surprise, but she hugs her right back. This is what Cami does to people. Even if they don’t want to like her they can’t help themselves, and even Hannah, the Ice Queen, can’t help but hug her back when she goes in for the kill.
“Ignore Liam. No need for formalities. Call me Cami. You look absolutely beautiful, and the ceremony was splendid!”
Did she just say splendid?
“Thank you…Cami.”
I know the feeling, Hannah. You feel off your game. Maybe a bit wobbly even? Welcome to the club. Cami is a force to be reckoned with.
“Of course, we couldn’t be happier to be here. Right, baby?”
Did she just call me, baby?
Staring at Cami—who hasn’t stopped touching me—and forgetting that Hannah is standing in a wedding gown two feet in front of me, I roll with it. “Right, baby.” I wink at the adorable redhead attached to my hip.
Why am I starting to wish this was all real?
“Thanks for the invite, Hannah. It was a good excuse to come home and visit my parents.” I want desperately to get out this God-forsaken line… “We’ll get out of your way so the line doesn’t stack up. Thanks again and congratulations to you both.”
We start to walk away, but the blonde in white lace grabs my hand, and I instinctively pull it away from hers. “Wait, I want you to meet my husband.” I have my hand back, but I’m not rude enough not to turn back to meet her new husband who was busy talking to another guest until now.
Damn it! I had hoped to get out of here without this awkward moment.
“Liam, this is Thad.”
Thad looks at me like I am nothing more than an afterthought and isn’t offering his hand.
As hard as it is to take the high road and offer mine, I do. “Nice to meet you, Thad, congratulations on your big day.”
I wonder if he’s seen that side of Hannah. I hope you know what you’re getting into, buddy. You poor bastard.
“Liam? Aren’t you the construction worker Hannah dated to get under her parent’s skin?”
I take that back. He deserves her.
“Oh, goodness you must have been misinformed, Thad. Liam’s father owns a construction company here in Savannah and Liam is running the new expansion in Portland. I’d say he’s a whole heck of a lot more than a construction worker. Not that there’s anything wrong with being on the ground floor, doing the hard work. In fact, I’ve seen Liam on days when he’s at the work site and it’s actually pretty sexy.” She turns her face that is beaming with adoration to me. “If I do say so myself.”
“Is that so?”
She lifts up on her toes and whispers in my ear for only me to hear. “There’s nothing like a nice fitting pair of jeans and work boots. Nothing at all.”
She ends her confession with a kiss to my cheek.
Is it getting hot in here?
The newlyweds are taking in our show of PDA, and it appears Cami’s confession about hard work being sexy may have been a little TMI for them. Seeing their reaction just reminds me how stuffy Hannah was and how she rarely ever touched me in public.
What did I ever see in her again?
“Looks like the line is stacking up, so we’re gonna go find a spot outside for some alone time before dinner is served. Congratulations again, and we’ll see you guys on the dance floor!” Cami beams.
Her mission accomplished, Cami leads us away from the happy couple and to the doors that lead back out to the garden where the ceremony recently took place.
Under a shade tree of classic Spanish moss, we take ownership of a hanging bench and start gently swinging back and forth.
“How you hangin’ in there, big guy?”
“I’m as cool as the other side of the pillow, little lady.”
She smiles proudly at me. She knows she just owned Hannah and her parents in there.
“Cami that was quite a performance. Thank you. You didn’t have to say you were my girlfriend, though. I hope you didn’t feel like I expected you to say all that.”
“Oh, sweet Liam. You may not be my boyfriend, but I’m pretty sure you’ve looked in a mirror lately? What woman wouldn’t want to hang off of your arm and do some flirting. Besides, Hannah and Thad are incredibly annoying and wouldn’t know what it’s like to be hot for another person if it bit them on the ass. There is absolutely no chemistry between the two of them. They seem so uptight. Yuck.”
Fuck, did Cami just say that she’s hot for me? Is earth in retrograde? Is there a full moon? Am I dreaming?
I may be extremely confused at the moment, but my ego is feeling pretty damn good.
“So…are you saying that you really meant what you said about my j
eans and work boots?”
“Like I said…you have a mirror, mister. Don’t go letting that ego of yours get all inflated. You know you’re hot and I’m not blind.” She stands from the bench I could keep my ass stuck to all night as long as she’s swinging on it with me, and motions her hand up and down my sitting body. “Now let’s get back inside and show off all this hotness.”
I take her hand on our way back in. “I’ve got the hottest date here tonight. I agree…let’s show you off.” I place a kiss to the top of her head. “Thank you for tonight, Cami.”
She just smiles and her eyes sparkle the way they do when she’s happy, and I can’t help but think that I made her smile like that. I can’t help but feel there is something happening between us. Or…is she just a friend helping another friend out in an uncomfortable situation?
We join our table just in time for dinner. After we eat our plates of fish and steak, the cake is cut and toasts are made. I don’t hear the toasts, though. Cami is distracting me with text messages. She has her phone in her lap and is using emojis to tell silly stories about the people at our table.
Her timing doesn’t go unnoticed. I know she’s doing this so I don’t hear all of the speeches about how meant to be the bride and groom are. She thinks hearing them will hurt me, but if there is one thing today has done for me it’s helped me come to the conclusion that a woman like Hannah is not whom I want to be with. These are not my people, and I think it took being faced with it all to realize I don’t give a shit if I am good enough for Hannah. She and her family aren’t good enough for me.
Once the first dance, the father-daughter dance, and mother-son dances have been danced, the party is in full swing and Cami doesn’t wait a second to drag me out onto the dance floor. My boogie buddy doesn’t let me down, and we dance together and with everybody around us just like she has known these people her entire life.
She dances with little kids. She dances with grandparents, and boy does she dance with me. She doesn’t get down and dirty like she did at Embers. She’s keeping it classy, but it works.
Classy. That’s what she is. All of these pretentious assholes think they are the classy ones, but Cami is the one that exudes class.
Watching the way she makes people young and old feel is awe-inspiring. I have never met anyone like her.
The way she makes me feel is new, unfamiliar, and unexpected. She is everything. She’s the kind of woman I would be proud to have by my side. I thought after the debacle that was my relationship with Hannah that I wouldn’t ever want to be a committed guy again, but damn if I wouldn’t like to be committed to the likes of this woman.
It’s in this moment, on the dance floor, swinging her around to an old Frank Sinatra song, that it hits me like a truck.
All I can hear is my heart pounding in my chest and the realization that the beautiful woman trusting me to twirl her around this dance floor, is in fact the fucking bee’s knees.
Shit! I am so screwed.
“What’s that?” Cami asked as she twirls back into my arms.
Double shit! Did I say that out loud? Keep it cool, Fanua.
“Oh nothing. Just talking to myself. You having a good time?”
The Sinatra song ends and Michael Buble starts singing The Way You Look Tonight.
“Actually, I’m having a great time. I mean, my date is pretty hot. That certainly helps.”
The wink she gives me nearly knocks me on my ass.
“You don’t say?”
Is this really all I’ve got? I am the master at charming women, and for some reason, I don’t have it in me to flirt back. I think it’s because of the wild thundering of my heart. I can barely even hear her sweet voice when she does her best to flirt with me, and flirting back seems nearly impossible.
She moves in close. Close enough that I can feel the heat of her body on mine.
Thump…thump…thump…
I really think my heart might beat out of my chest.
“How about you? You still hanging in there, big guy?”
How am I? If she gets any closer, she’ll realize exactly just how I am.
“I am, thanks to my hot date,” I say, finally finding myself again. “Seeing her again. Hell, seeing all of these people again, has reminded me that I don’t even like them. To be honest, I don’t know what I ever saw in her.”
Her reply is to beckon me with her finger so I bend down closer to her face.
“Yes, dear?”
Her hands slide around my neck. “Kiss me.”
And before I get the chance to do as she commands, the softness of her lips are covering mine in the whisper of a kiss.
Her kiss is soft, slow, sensual, and hot as fucking hell. I have had lots of first kisses…I mean a lot…but never one like this. You always hear that when you kiss the person you’re meant to be with, you feel it in that instant. I’ve always thought that was pure fiction.
Until. Right. Now.
She pulls back, and her emerald eyes are smoldering. She’s the one who demanded the kiss. Who made the first move. But she seems just as shocked as I am.
Does she feel it too?
She seems to be at a loss of what to do next, but I know exactly what to do.
As much as I want to go caveman on her, I keep it soft and sweet when I capture her with my lips and pull her body flush with mine. My tongue outlines the seam of her lips, and she opens to me without apprehension. I feel the vibration of a whimper from the back of her throat as I gently and slowly continue to taste her.
I have never tasted anything so sweet. She may be the God-damned bee’s knees, but she is also sweet as fucking honey.
She slowly pulls away, and her eyes signal me to look to the left. That’s when I see Hannah is right next to us dancing with Thad.
My heart…the one that was pounding out of my chest a second ago is now beating a slow cadence. The disappointment that she was only kissing me to get to Hannah, courses over my body in the form of cold sweats.
Hannah catches my eye, and then she and Thad dance off to another section of the dance floor and out of our line of sight.
I need some space, so I take a step back from Cami, thinking I’m about to leave the dance floor to catch my breath and try to level the humiliation I’m feeling, but Cami has other ideas.
“Where are you going? The song’s not over.” I feel her fingers wrap around my wrist, and she pulls me back into her arms. “Practice makes perfect, and if I want to be the perfect girlfriend tonight…I better keep practicing.”
And without another thought, one of her hands is on my neck, and a finger on the other hand is casually outlining my jaw. Her eyes are locked on to mine as she lifts up on her toes. The smell of sunshine takes over my senses a moment before my ears hear the sweetest melody I’ve ever heard.
“Kiss me. Please?”
“Cami?”
“Please don’t make me ask again. I’m not really one to beg, Liam.”
That was all I needed to hear, and I am on her in a flash.
She feels so tiny pulled against my large frame, and it must look like I’m devouring her, but I couldn’t care less.
If Cami wants me, she can have me.
Here.
Anywhere.
I am hers. There is no doubt about that.
Buble stops singing, and it seems the party has just kicked it up a notch because the lights have dimmed and AC/DC starts screaming about being shook all night. The dance floor is flooded with all the singles that didn’t have a date for the slow stuff.
We finally break our kiss, but I keep her face in my hands. “I should have made you beg.”
“Oh, you would have liked that, now wouldn’t you?”
“You have no idea.”
We’re both completely wrapped up in each other. Not breaking our gaze but both smiling like we’ve just won the lottery, when Ed and Martha, from our table in the back corner, put a stop to our moment.
“Come on you two, break it up!” Ed s
ays as he pulls Cami away from me and Martha steps into my dance space.
At one point during my dance with Martha, Hannah taps her on the shoulder and asks if she can cut in.
“Certainly, my dear.” Martha says, graciously giving the bride her request.
“Sorry, Hannah. The only one cutting in on Martha is Cami, and she’s busy over there with Ed.”
Hannah glances in Cami’s direction, and Cami, who is watching the scene from a few feet away, gives a little wave of her hand. Hannah looks back at me, fuming.
“Besides, I think your husband is looking for you,” I say, pointing in Thad’s direction where he stands with his arms crossed, watching us from the edge of the dance floor. I give him the same wave Cami just gave his bride.
Hannah storms off, and Cami dances her way over to me and gives me a high-five.
The rest of the night is filled with dancing, laughter, champagne, and kisses.
Many more kisses.
Much to my surprise, we close the place down. When the crowd starts to gather to watch the bride and groom leave for their honeymoon, we grab a car and head back to the hotel.
Once we’re away from prying eyes, and the boyfriend/girlfriend act is no longer required, we don’t seem to know what to do with ourselves.
“My feet are killing me…it feels sooo good to sit down.”
“You should have told me; we could have left earlier.”
I feel her delicate fingers glide over the back of my hand until they are interlaced with mine again. And it feels so good. She doesn’t have to put on an act anymore, and she’s still holding my hand.
“I had a really good time tonight, Liam. There was no way I was going to let a couple of sore feet get me off that dance floor. Thanks for being my date.”
“Well, if it helps ease the pain, you look spectacular in those heels.” God, does she ever. She may be tiny, but I swear her legs go on for days. Right now, it’s not her legs that have me searching for my next breath. It’s the ton of bricks that hit me earlier in the evening and that keeps hitting me square in the chest over and over again. The one and only thing buzzing around this head of mine.
Two simple words.
Bee’s knees.
She needs to know how I’m feeling and just how appreciative I am. So, I take a deep breath and squeeze her hand and tell her.
