by C. M. Marin
“What can I do, baby? You want me to bring you a tea?”
Maybe with a sleeping pill so she can sleep through that day and start fresh tomorrow.
“Can I be alone for a bit?”
That stings. Hurts, even.
And just like that, dread digs into my bones. Maybe the news of her fiancé being alive isn’t such a good thing for me after all. Maybe she regrets those nights with me even more now than when she had the impression of betraying the man she was once about to marry. Maybe knowing that he’s part of the world I live in makes her doubt me, too. But whatever thoughts her head is struggling with, now isn’t the best time for me to try to find out. I’m not sure I want to anyway. So, I only say, “Sure.” And I leave the room.
Chapter 19
Camryn
The glazed paper melts away slowly. A year of laughter, of discussions, of kisses, of traveling… A year of life, really, is being consumed by the searing flames right in front of my eyes. A picture taken during our weekend in Seattle, one taken in the small, cozy apartment we made a home for ourselves in, and the picture immortalizing the day we got engaged on that beach we used to go lie at night to watch the starry sky are already gone. All burned.
“Camryn?”
I didn’t hear the door opening, but I’m too numb to be jumpy, I guess. Because after what went down twenty minutes ago, I should be slightly jumpy, at the very least. Maybe I’m not because I expected Nate to come back check on me soon enough considering how visibly reluctant he was to give me some space in the first place.
“Yes?” I say, not pulling my eyes off Colin’s smile as he sits on the porch of that cabin we rented for what I didn’t know would be our only Christmas together.
A fake smile. A smile that any talented actor could have flashed at the camera. Colin was just that. A talented actor.
“What you doing?”
I’m wishing that this lighter could burn away Colin as easily as it does those pictures.
When Nate comes to sit beside me on the floor, the waste paper basket in front of us, I ask instead of answering, “How is it I didn’t see a thing?”
“Camryn―” he starts softly.
“No, seriously, I really wonder,” I stop him. “I keep thinking back to that time, searching for something, anything…a small damn hint I must have missed at some point. But there’s nothing. I can’t think of anything. Maybe I need to call Colleen and ask her. Maybe she can help me with that, because there’s nothing I can think of, Nate. I swear… I’m not completely stupid. I swear there was not a freaking damn sign. I… This…guy,” I refer to Colin as I wave a hand toward the window. “I’ve never, ever met him. I don’t know who that is, and… God, I even met some of his colleagues a few times, for God’s sake.”
“Probably Spiders.”
My head shakes with a growing shame. “I’m so stupid, it’s laughable.”
“Don’t do this. How could you have guessed that? You weren’t even really aware of the MC world.”
“How?” I repeat, the word having a sardonic sound despite myself. “That’s simple. I should have known that something this perfect couldn’t be real. As simple as that. Love. That’s just bullshit, and I fell for it so easily. I was so sad and alone, still grieving the loss of my parents, that I stupidly fell for it.”
I wanted Colin and me to be as in love as my parents had been. I saw them love each other dearly my whole life, and ever since I was a teenager, that’s what I wanted to find for myself someday. I thought Colin and I were just that.
Angrily, I wipe off my cheek a tear that escaped despite all the efforts I put into making them stop during the past half hour. I shouldn’t be crying for that son of a bitch. I shed way too many tears for him when he died.
Bastard.
“I’m ashamed of the way I talked to you about him. Like he was such a wonderful man. So amazing and special.”
And with love still lingering in the words I used to describe him.
“He showed you what he wanted you to see.”
While nodding absently, I resume the task at hand by pressing my thumb down on the lighter one more time to watch the bright, blazing flame come to life again. The tip laps at the corner of the next and last picture, eating away the paper inch by inch. And there goes the memory of one of our Sunday mornings lazily spent in bed.
“I don’t know what to make of that year I spent with him,” I confess as I release what’s left of the picture that completes its combustion at the bottom of the basket. “I want to forget them so badly. I want to forget him, but I just can’t.” I swat another tear away. “It’s cruel, what he did. I’m so angry I don’t even recognize myself. I’ve never been this angry. God, did he really think I’d accept his lies and join his club like a docile doormat? He wouldn’t have been able to hide his true personality there, with his friends, in his everyday life. Hell, he wasn’t even able to pretend out there, the first time I actually saw him in his real life. It’s almost funny how impressed I am about how he succeeded in never giving any sick part of him away during the year we were together. An entire year, and he gave nothing away.”
When I have to cut off my ranting so I can take a much-needed breath, Nate asks me tentatively, “You mean the fact he’s in an MC wouldn’t have bothered you?”
The first time Nate brought me here, he explained to me that most of the motorcycle clubs don’t condone violence against innocent people. After living here for a few weeks, I can only believe that. He took me in and protected me like I was part of his club, and his brothers did the same. There’s no doubt in my mind that they are good people. What they do isn’t technically legal, but they don’t put anyone in danger, and that’s good enough for me.
“What bothers me is that I shared everything with a psychopath for a year and never saw it. People say you’re supposed to see the evil in someone’s eyes, but if that’s true, I’m fully blind,” I snort. “I’m nauseous just thinking I let that man touch me. The truth is, I would have followed him anywhere if he had been the guy I fell in love with. But that guy was the biggest lie of all.”
There’re no more pictures waiting to be disintegrated since I only had a few in my wallet, so I close my eyes briefly, gathering the courage to say what scares me the most. More than that diabolic version of Colin, and more than the possibility of having a sociopath as a genitor.
“I can’t stay here.”
My voice is barely able to leave my throat as it breaks all the way, but at least it’s out there.
“No, Cam,” he urges, his eyes shouting distress. “I can understand you want to leave, but you’re safe here. Where would you go? I can’t protect you if you go back to LA. CJ meant every word. You don’t go to him on your own, he’ll take you. And do you really want to go back to your apartment?”
“No!” My outburst comes out with revulsion. “I don’t. If it were mine, I’d burn the place to the ground along with everything that’s inside.”
“Then what? You want to find another place? This is… I can’t let you do that. For fuck’s sake, Camryn. The last time I let you go, you could have ended up burned alive. If you don’t want to stay here anymore, at least wait until we’ve figured something out and―”
“It’s not that.” I make him stop talking when he implies for the second time that I want to leave. “I don’t want to leave here,” I tell him when what I really want to say is I don’t want to leave you. “But if I’m really related to that man, I’d understand it if you’d rather―”
“Do not finish that sentence,” he growls. “Look at me, Camryn.”
His voice isn’t hard, but there’s in his tone a severity that makes me meet his eyes.
I don’t bother to wipe away another tear, but Nate does. His thumb gets rid of it with a gentle stroke.
“First of all, he’ll have to bring me the fucking proof he’s your father. But even if he can do that, it’d mean nothing to me.”
“How could it mean nothing? You said
so yourself that this man is a literal monster and I could be his daughter. He’s taking and selling women, Nate. Possibly teenagers.”
“What about me?” he asks, confusing me.
A deep frown grows on my face. “What do you mean? You don’t do that.”
“I don’t,” he confirms. “But do you think I’m a monster?”
“I already told you I don’t think that,” I affirm vehemently. “If it weren’t for you, I’d probably already be their… I don’t even know what they expect from me, but as for Colin, I have a pretty good idea,” I say and regret it when I catch Nate’s jaw jumping under his skin a couple of times. “I had no one, and you protected me even though you barely knew me. You’re nothing like those men.”
“Yet my father was as much of a monster as Rod is.”
I’m still confused at first, but recognition dawns on me quickly.
“You think I’d hold against you where you come from when my own father was very fucking close to be the Evil himself?” he goes on. “How hypocritical would that be?” His palm comes up to press on my cheek, and he keeps talking softly. “I’ve never compared myself to him. As far as I’m concerned, the only father figures I’ve ever had were Jayce’s dad and granddad. The man that helped conceive me? I might have his blood, and I can’t change that, but he’s got no place in my heart and my head. And Rod has nothing to do with you, either. Your soul is pure and sweet. You’re the girl who helps my brothers’ kids with their homework and gives a hand to the prospect with all sorts of housework when you think I don’t notice you spoiling him,” he fakes a chastising tone, putting a small smile on my lips. “I don’t care if they think you belong to their club. You don’t. Your place is here.”
Your place is here.
I know he means right now, but I can’t help hoping it was more than that. Since the very beginning, I’ve been holding back on how I feel about Nate. The attraction first, then those emotions that started flowing through me and couldn’t explain.
Even if it now fuels my rage thinking about it, I felt happy with Colin. Really happy. But what I feel around Nate is something else. Or do I think that because I just found out my story with Colin was nothing but a total sham?
No.
Nate stepped into my life only recently, but he’s become a need already. His presence instilled a new peace in me, his hands ignited a new fire inside me. I lived through very dark times after losing Colin, yes. But losing Nate? I can’t even contemplate it. I wouldn’t survive it. Only picturing him hurt has the taste of nausea swelling at the back of my throat.
When I let the urge to be close to him speak, his lips stay frozen against mine.
“Cam,” he utters, the sound tortured.
“I want you,” I breathe against his mouth, not pulling away.
Our breaths mingle as I graze his lips with mine, taunting him.
“You’re upset,” he states, still not responding to my initiative.
I smile as I whisper, “See? You’re a softy biker boy.”
He deprives me of his lips as he throws his head back, his generous laugh hitting the walls around us.
My smile grows wider, and that’s the moment everything becomes clear.
It doesn’t matter that my life with Colin was a massive lie. It just doesn’t. Of course, it hurts. Of course, I’m angry. I’m so furious, I wish I were a guy so I could beat the shit out of him until he was nothing more than a pile of limp muscles weeping on the floor. But in the end, would I even be here today, drinking in Nate’s laughter, if Colin hadn’t done what he did? Not that it excuses anything, but now more than ever, I believe that everything happens for a reason. And everything that happened in my life, good or bad, brought me right here, in this room, with this strong, wonderful man.
“A softy, huh?” he snickers when his laughter fades.
I hum, drawing back closer to follow a path of kisses along his jaw.
“Look at me, baby,” he commands, and I let out a sigh but meet his eyes anyway. “You can’t tell me you’re fine.”
“I didn’t say that. I’m well aware I’m not,” I admit. “And I need you to help me with that. When I’m with you, I feel like everything will be okay. There’s this peace I can’t explain in me when you touch me, and I need you to make me feel that way now.”
Hesitation doesn’t stop playing on his face as his eyes stay locked on mine, assessing me. I get his concern, I really do, but I’m getting impatient, and this stare down starts to annoy me quickly, so when my lips slam into his again, I jump onto his lap at the same time, making sure to push into his crotch with mine.
My fist dies to raise up in victory at his deep groan I swallow when he yields to my tenacity and opens his mouth for my tongue to slip in. Instead, my hands quickly work on taking his shirt off him even though it forces me to break our barely started kiss.
His skin is hot, and the bulge inside his jeans has grown fully hard. Sneaking a hand between us, I undo his jeans and urge him to lift his ass from the floor to let me free his cock. Then I grasp his length, and with a swipe of my thumb over the tip, I rip out another growl of him as he lets himself fall back to lean against the bed, bringing me with him. But while I love stroking him and enjoying the dark need swirling in his eyes, I’m eager for more, so I stand up and lose my own jeans. My panties go as well, but I don’t waste any more time taking my top off.
I drop back to my knees, each one settling on either side of Nate’s thighs, my gaze already on his cock that rests taut against his stomach. My fist clenches around it in a firm grasp, which causes a gasp to flee his lips. The next instant, I’m lowering myself on him, and just like Nate, I fight hard to keep my eyes open. The lust darkening his features is too beautiful to miss out on.
This view on its own has the power to excite me. This tough, hard-edged man giving in to the pleasure I spark off in him turns me on to no end.
“Fuck, yeah, like that, deep, baby. Fuck, you’re squeezing me to perfection. Tight as fuck.”
The words he gets out in a tight, praising voice only heighten the sensations fizzling inside me. I keep moving down slowly until it’s impossible for me to go lower. Nate grabs hold of my ass, his fingers digging into my flesh. Just like he told me to do that day on the rooftop of his house, I take what I need, moving on him. The curse hoarsely leaving him is lost into my mouth when I crash my lips to his, demanding the most searing kiss he’s capable of giving me.
My pace picks up. My moans get louder. Nate’s fingers dig further into my ass and hips. His hands follow my motions but don’t take control, and just like my knees pushing on the hard floor, his touch borders on painful. But this whole picture of us is so arousing, it only adds to the euphoria my body is on its way to be thrown into. But it not only feels good, it feels like for the first time in so long, I’m right where I’m supposed to be.
A sharp fear comes with that realization. I don’t think I’ll be able to get over him once I have to go back to LA. No, I know I won’t be. But I decide to kick that thought away from my mind for now. Instead of delving into the sad truth, I chase the climax I’m in desperate need of until stars dance brightly in front of my eyes. And from the guttural sound vibrating in Nate’s chest in concert with my cries of pleasure, he takes what he needs from me, too.
* * *
Small kisses tracing a tingling path on my collarbones wake me up. Stirring a little, a sigh of delectation leaves me as I thread my fingers into Nate’s messy hair, which has him grinning against my skin.
“I wanted to let you sleep, but your skin was too damn tempting. Besides, it’s 5pm. We should go get something to eat.”
“I’ll sleep in a shirt from now on,” I retort, my voice sleepy.
I never slept in the nude before, usually wearing panties and whatever shirt serving as pajamas. But after our third-round last night, and the following two during the day that we apparently spent in bed, exhaustion kept me from even caring, let alone moving my relaxed limbs to get something
to put on.
“I’ll burn them all when your sexy body lets me get out of that bed.”
Though equally sleepy, my laugh bursts out of me at his serious tone as I open my eyes to find his on me. He drinks the quiet sound in when he kisses me, and I worry about my morning breath only briefly. I let his tongue ease into my mouth, shutting up my laughter altogether.
His erection feels massive against my bare thigh. I can’t believe I’m still turned on after the busy past twenty-four hours we’ve had. And since abstinence had been a daily torture in my life for a long time until a week ago, there’s no need to say that this new frenetic rhythm has caused some parts of me to be a little sore.
Not that it’s enough to tell Nate to leave the condom right where it is in the drawer when he stretches his arm to get one. And I don’t kick him away either when he settles between my legs and adjusts himself over me.
“You wet, baby?” he asks me even though his fingers are already stroking my hot flesh to make sure of it. “Good girl,” he says in an approving tone.
My next exhale is more of a deep rumble of intense pleasure when he pushes inside me in one thrust.
“How do you want it?” he rasps.
“Hard,” I respond shamelessly.
I like him a little rough, and I’m the first surprised by it. I’ve always been more of a vanilla girl until I met Nate. Colin would sometimes take me harder than he usually did, and I liked it, but it was rare, and I was afraid to ask for it. I was somehow self-conscious, afraid to pass as depraved or something. Back then, I thought that no self-respecting girl was supposed to be wanting that, especially since Colin never complained about our sex life. Now I know Colin’s restraint was no more than an act to fit the character he had created. And most of all, I know I have every right to want what Nate makes me feel. With him, it’s easy to accept my needs. There’s no shame. Even when Colin hadn’t reappeared yet, I felt shockingly at ease with what my body was craving.
At first, Nate doesn’t move. His lips delicately glide over my skin from the corner of my mouth up to my ear. I expect him to say something when he pauses there, so I’m surprised by the rolling motion of his hips that pull away right before meeting me again with a blissful force. Straightening up, he kneels between my legs as he lifts my ass, holding it up in the air with a hand clasping each one of my hips.
