Cameron (Wild Men Book 7)

by Melissa Belle

  But that’s a conversation for another time. I lean out of the shower and grab a condom from my jeans pocket. Savannah helps me roll it on, and I slide my hand between her legs.

  “You’re wet for me,” I say as I nibble her earlobe. “Aren’t you?”

  “Of course I am.” She kisses my jaw. “I love you.”

  My heart is so full of love for this woman, but when she says things like that, I swear I fall even harder for her.

  “I didn’t know I could feel this way,” I say, my voice coming out ragged as I press two fingers inside her. “Come for me.”

  She clenches around my fingers and lets go with a loud gasp. I kiss her until she’s stopped writhing against me, and she pulls back to meet my gaze.

  “That was fast,” she says, her pink lips parted in surprise. “I never come that fast.”

  “Maybe it’s the shower.”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s the company,” she says with a smile.

  I back her against the tiled wall and she wraps her legs automatically around my waist. And then, I push inside her. I’m so hard, but she’s so ready that I’m all the way in quickly.

  “You don’t have to hold back,” she says, her eyes lust-filled and hazy. “Move as hard and as fast as you want.”

  I start slowly like I always do with her, but she’s so open. She moans loudly, and I lose it. I buck into her wildly, and she calls out my name desperately.

  “Cam, please,” she says. “I think I might come again. Oh, God!”

  “Savannah.” I drop my head, and my mouth finds her nipple. “You feel so fucking good.”

  And then I lose it. I come so hard I see stars, and Savannah joins me with a loud cry, the water pelting my back as I hold onto her tightly.

  “You’re the only woman I ever want,” I say into her wet, tangled hair. I’m still inside her, and I never want to come out. “The only woman for me.”

  “I love you, Cam.” She kisses my cheek tenderly.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Savannah

  The game starts promptly at seven the next night. Craig has me sit on the bench with the assistant coach and Bruce, who’s not running the scoreboard but was invited to travel with us all the same.

  “Are you sure that formation’s a good option against this team?” Craig asks Eric and me for the hundredth time.

  Eric, who’s far more patient than I am, goes over his plan with Craig again.

  “They’re slow getting back,” I say to Craig. “You’ve seen the film. They try to out-physical the opponent to cover their lack of speed. So we have to beat them at their own game. Don’t try to outthink them. It won’t work. Coach McMann lives for that kind of mind game. He’ll eat you alive.”

  “Suffocate them!” McLain shouts as he slams into the boards from his warm-up. “Flat out suffocate them!”

  “Easy,” Cam says to him. “You’ll be out of juice before we even fucking start.”

  Cam’s parents are in seats across the rink with Declan, who’s busy fending off admiring fans. The finals are shown on television, and the camera pans in on Declan unsuccessfully trying to hide in a low-drawn baseball cap.

  But as the players head onto the ice, my attention gets caught on a different man.

  Daddy looks as old as he did last time I saw him but a lot more confident now that he’s on his home turf. From the Caves’ bench, he glances across the ice, and I know he’s looking for me.

  We lock eyes, and he gives me a quick head nod.

  I nod back, and the game’s starting.

  Cam was right about McLain. He’s so jacked up that he loses possession of the puck on the first play of the game.

  Watts skates around him easily and slides the puck to his teammate, who shoots.

  The shot is weak, and it wobbles, but by bad luck, it takes a weird bounce, and our goalie loses sight of it.

  It slips across the goal line just before he can stop it.

  Craig slams his clipboard against the bench. “One fucking nothing and we’re not even a minute into the game.”

  “Not a great start,” I say, sitting on my shaking hands.

  Across the way, Daddy punches his fist in the air.

  McLain’s pissed at himself, and Cam skates over to him and slaps him on the back.

  “Come on, guys!” I stand up and shout. “Let’s get it back!”

  And we do.

  The Caves get a penalty for roughing, and Cam gets a short-handed goal.

  But then we stall.

  And the Caves don’t.

  Maybe it’s the altitude. Or the fact that none of our players have been in a big game before, and the Caves are in the finals for the third straight year. By the end of two periods, we’re down two to one.

  “Don’t worry,” Cam says as he skates up to the bench. “One period’s plenty of time to still do this. And we will,” he says, his dark eyes on me. “I don’t break a promise.”

  As Craig and the players head for the locker room, I bend my head over Eric’s tablet.

  “Let me see those plays again,” I say.

  For the next ten minutes, he and I pore over the tablet, drawing and then re-drawing play options.

  “We’re not using our speed to our advantage,” Eric says. “They keep getting us to bite. And then they just take it to the goal.”

  “So let’s turn the tables,” I say. “That was our plan; we’ve just gotten away from it.”

  “Because they’re outmaneuvering us.” Eric runs his hands down his face.

  Craig and the players return from the lockers.

  I glance at Cam. His whole demeanor is…intense. He skates over to the bench like a predator, his expression angry and determined behind his facemask.

  He bangs his stick on the ice like he can’t wait for the third period to begin.

  As soon as it does, he’s a blur on the ice. We lose the face-off, but Cam’s in Watts’s face in a flash, stealing the puck away from him. He’s across the ice and into Caves’ territory in seconds.

  And then he shoots.

  He hits the puck so hard it sails through the air like a line drive.

  The goalie doesn’t have a chance. The arc and accuracy of the shot is impossible to defend.

  “That’s almost not fair,” Eric mutters. “Shit, he’s on another level right now.”

  My father’s face is so red I can see it from here. He’s screaming obscenities at his team, so much that the referee goes over to talk to him.

  Daddy stops swearing after that, but his anger lights a fire with his players, and with only two minutes left in regulation, the score is still deadlocked.

  At a timeout, Craig grabs the tablet from me and starts mumbling about what to do.

  “We’re missing something,” he says. “I think we should throw out the playbook for the rest of the game. Go back to what got us here.”

  “What got us here is Wild,” Eric says. “He can outskate Watts. He’s the only one.”

  “So let’s isolate him; put him in better position to score.” Craig points to one of my diagrams as the players crowd around us. “Change it up like this maybe?”

  Cam nods. “Yeah. I like that idea. That will work.”

  I shake my head. “I wrote that up to use only if we were losing badly. At this point in the game, it’s too risky. If this play fails, we’ve got no one between us and the goalie.”

  “And if it works, we’re champions,” Cam says, his gaze determined as he looks at me.

  “And if it doesn’t, we miss out on a chance for overtime or penalty shots.”

  “Who’s to say we’ll win either of those?” he says back, leaning over the wall so closely I can see the heat in his eyes. “We need to go for the win now, Savannah.”

  Craig looks between us, his expression conflicted.

  Finally, he claps his hands. “I go with Wild. Let’s go for broke.”

  “Cam.” I swallow. “I don’t know...”

  “Trust me, Savannah.” He keep
s his gaze on me like the entire team isn’t within inches of us. “Do you trust me?”

  We stare each other down.

  His dark eyes with the hint of gold beg me to say yes.

  “Yes,” I say on an exhalation of air I’d been holding in. “Go for it.”

  I can’t sit down. I can’t look away. All I can do is stand frozen and watch as the ref starts play again, and both teams jostle for the puck. For over thirty seconds, no one has control.

  Finally, McLain gets the puck, and the Cannons go for the isolation. And then…it happens.

  Cam breaks free, and the Caves aren’t ready for it.

  Watts tries to adjust, but it’s too late.

  Cam’s skating so fast, and he’s got such a head start that Watts can’t possibly catch him.

  The goalie panics and jumps out of position as Cam drives toward the net.

  The goalie lunges for the puck, and he almost has it.

  But not quite.

  Cam slides the puck to his left and hooks it past the goalie and into the net.

  I scream so loudly I can’t hear myself.

  Our entire bench is shouting, and the players are banging their sticks against the boards.

  Luckily, the players on the ice stay in control. The Caves pull their goalie, but Cam’s like a force of nature, forechecking all over the ice, and the Caves can’t get the puck out of their end.

  The buzzer sounds, and the game’s over.

  We won.

  Cam is mobbed by his teammates, and the bunch of them fall onto the ice in some sort of crazy celebratory group hug.

  I stay safely on the bench, hugging Bruce and then Eric and even Craig.

  But once the bedlam dies down, Cam skates over to the bench alone.

  His helmet’s off, and his bright eyes find mine. His face is flushed, and his black hair’s a mess. I’ve never loved him more.

  He grins at me and gives me the thumbs-up.

  “You did it!” I say.

  “We did it,” he says. “Your play call was awesome.”

  I jump over the boards and into his arms, and he gives me a hard kiss on the mouth.

  “You deserve to be out here too.” He tugs at my ponytail. “No one worked their ass off more than you did the entire season.”

  And then, he wraps his arm tightly around my waist, and with no warning, pushes off with his skates and takes off around the rink. I let out a surprised squeal, my feet dangling just off the ice as Cam speeds up on the curve.

  “You’re a force, Cameron Wild,” I say as he slows down and we come to a stop in the middle of the rink. “You literally refused to lose.”

  “I can’t lose when I’ve got you on my team.” He lowers his voice. “We’ll celebrate this win privately later.”

  I kiss his jaw. “I can’t wait.”

  The trophy presentation takes place on the ice, and Cam is awarded Most Valuable Player.

  “I wouldn’t be up here if it weren’t for Savannah, who taught me how to have fun playing hockey again. This is ours, babe” he says as he points at me and then hoists his trophy into the air.

  The crowd breaks into deafening cheers as Cam beckons to me.

  When I hesitate, Bruce gives me a little shove.

  Cam reaches out his hand and helps me up next to him.

  I’m on a high, and even the eyes of the crowd don’t bother me. I cuddle into Cam’s side and laugh as he hands me the trophy and McLain takes a photo.

  “Look.” Cam points at his grinning face and my smiling one reflected in the shiny gold of the trophy. “We’re champions, Savannah. The Cannons won the whole thing. How do you feel?”

  Like I needed this more than I even knew.

  “I’ve dreamed of the Cannons winning since I was a little girl,” I say into his ear. “But doing it with you? That blows my fantasy out of the water. This is so far beyond what I could have envisioned, Cam.”

  As I look out over the ice, a familiar figure catches my attention. He’s standing at the back of the crowd, watching the opposing team celebrate. His eyes are focused on me.

  I give Cam a hug and tell him I’ll be back.

  I walk through the people gathered on the ice, careful not to slip and fall on my ass. When I break through the throng, my father’s waiting for me.

  His eyes are dim the way they always get when he loses, and his mouth is a thin line. But he surprises me by stepping forward and giving me a kiss on the cheek.

  “Congratulations, Vannah. I knew you could do it.”

  I don’t bother to correct him, and he points to the aisle outside the rink. “I want you to meet some people.”

  He leads me off the ice and over to a smiling woman who is heavily pregnant.

  “Savannah, this is my Flora.”

  “Oh, Savannah,” Flora says. “Aren’t you darling?”

  Flora looks my age, and I’m not exaggerating. In reality, Celie had said she’s thirty-five, but she’s got beautiful smooth skin and a doe-eyed expression that makes her appear even younger. She’s blond, blue-eyed, and about to pop. But if she weren’t pregnant, I can tell she’d be skinny.

  I say hello and congratulate her on her pregnancy.

  “Thank you,” she says. “And that’s Tara. My first baby.” She points outside the rink window at a young girl smoking a cigarette.

  A daughter? I turn to my father.

  “Didn’t I mention my about-to-be stepdaughter?” he asks me.

  I shake my head.

  Tara’s a teenager going on fifty. She has her mother’s blond hair but dark eyes, eyes that look at me like daggers through the glass.

  My father says he’ll join her for a quick cigarette, and I watch him greet her. Tara hugs him happily, and I feel a momentary pang of jealousy as I watch them. Clearly, they have things in common, what with their mutual cigarette habit and all. I was nearly Tara’s age when he left, so it’s strange to see him fathering a new teenage daughter when he couldn’t be bothered with us.

  Flora says to me quietly, “This means so much that you’re spending time with your father like this. He had some trouble this morning.”

  Dread shoots through me, and I jerk my head to meet her frightened gaze.

  “What do you mean—trouble? I thought he was on meds.”

  “He is.” She shrugs. “The doctor said he needed therapy as well, but you know…”

  “I do. All too well,” I say.

  Her smile fades a touch, but she regains her confidence quickly. “I know he’s a bit temperamental. But he’s a good man, your father.”

  I reach into my purse and press into her hand the card of the therapist Mama tried to give Daddy years ago. All these years, I kept it.

  “Take this,” I urge her. “This therapist is one of the best in the country at handling narcissists and other complicated disorders that are hard to categorize. She does phone and online sessions, or I’m sure she could refer you to a therapist out here in Denver.”

  Flora glances around furtively and then takes the card and slips it into her lily-white clutch that perfectly matches her blouse.

  “Thank you, Savannah. You seem like a lovely person.”

  As soon as they return to the arena, Daddy says to Tara, “Did you meet my favorite daughter? Vannah’s here all the way from Minnesota!”

  “Hi, Tara,” I say. “Nice to meet you.”

  Tara glares at me and doesn’t answer.

  “I was seventeen when I found out I was pregnant with Tara,” Flora says. “Crazy in love, I thought, with the most popular boy in school. We were homecoming king and queen, and on Prom night, we made a little princess!”

  I swallow. “Wow. That’s, um…”

  “A shock!” Flora laughs. “And the king is nowhere in sight, let me tell you! But now, Tara will have a new daddy,” Flora says with a doting look at my father. “How could a girl get so lucky?”

  Daddy grins and gives Flora a big kiss.

  He seems happy with Flora. And I want to feel happy
for him.

  “Let’s sit down together like a family and have hot chocolates at the café off the lobby.” Flora breaks into my thoughts. “Do you have a few minutes, Savannah?”

  I glance back at the ice. The team is breaking up, and the players are heading for the showers. It will be at least an hour before everyone’s ready to return to the hotel.

  “Sure.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  My father’s mood declines over hot chocolate. He gets short with Flora when she asks him a question, and he rolls his eyes at me when I talk about the mountains.

  My moment of peace from the win starts to disappear.

  Maybe it’s because I’m seeing my father with his new family. Or because Flora confided that he couldn’t get out of bed this morning, and so it feels like all this family joy is a bit of a joke. Maybe it’s because I know that after a loss will come the shouting and cruel words. I may not be here for it, but it’s definitely coming. I can feel it in the dark clouds that have started to show over the mountains outside the café.

  I excuse myself for the bathroom and run into Cam.

  “Are you okay?” he asks.

  “He’s fine,” I answer automatically.

  I lean back against the cold wall outside the restrooms. I’m exhausted.

  “I don’t give a shit about your father. I said, ‘are you okay?’” Cam reaches over and brushes a hair off my face.

  I nod. “I gave his fiancée the name of a therapist.”

  “Savannah, that’s nice of you, but fixing your father is not your job.” He puts his arm around me. “It never was your job, but it sure as hell isn’t now.”

  “Still, it may do my future brother some good. And that would be worth it.” I lean in to kiss Cam, who’s still in his hockey jersey and pads. “Go shower. I’ll see you soon. I promise I’m okay.”

  “Honey, you don’t have to make up for beating him you know.”

  “I’m not.”