“Lark?”
Those gorgeous eyes opened. “Oh, my god.”
“I'm—” His apology was cut off by her jerking his head back down to hers, claiming his mouth as her own, stealing whatever thoughts he had. She was as perfect as he'd always known she would be, and he groaned when she bit his lip and pulled it into her mouth.
“More,” she demanded between kisses, her hands traveling down his torso to his belt buckle. “I've waited a long time for you, Carter Jamieson.”
Her hand snaked into his pants, closing around his aching erection. “Lark. Cam...” he weakly protested as she stroked his length. “Now isn't—”
“I need you, Carter. Make me feel alive.”
Everything snapped into focus then. It was hard to think rationally with the woman of his dreams wrapped around him, her hand on his cock, but this wasn't the way. “I want you more than I want my next breath, but you're in shock tonight, Lark.”
“I'm clear headed, and I want you,” she rebutted. “I want you to take me. Right here, right now.”
He kissed her one last time, making sure it was gentle and full of the love he'd held at bay for years. “I want you. I've always wanted you, but it won't be tonight,” he told her before disentangling himself from her, the feeling of loss overwhelming him. He reminded himself it was the right thing, but when she whimpered, he almost broke.
“Your loss,” she said with a shrug before turning her back on him.
“When we make love, it won't be because you're shaken and scared. It will be because you want me as much as I’ve wanted you since before it was right.”
She gasped before spinning to face him. “What?”
“Always,” he reiterated before she bolted up the stairs.
He watched her go and forced himself not to follow. She needed time to regroup after the events of tonight, some of which he had caused. Someone was trying to keep her quiet even though she didn't know anything about the dealings of the club or Theo's murder, and now more than ever Carter was determined to keep her safe. He stuffed his hands into his pockets. She tasted just as he imagined, felt better than he'd dreamed, and he'd told her no. What kind of idiot told the literal ‘woman of his dreams’ no?
His phone chose that moment to ring, Mason's name flashing on the screen. He sighed before answering. “Does everyone have a police scanner?”
“Hello to you, too,” his best friend replied. “Dylan says Chris assured him Cam's fine and you're there with her.”
“About that...” he started.
“Yes?” Mason asked, a bit of laughter in his voice. “Something you want to say, counselor?”
“I love her,” he blurted, sounding not at all like the seasoned litigator he was supposed to be. “And I'm not leaving her side.”
“She's only twenty-five,” Cam's brother pointed out unnecessarily.
He was pacing now, but couldn't help himself. “I tried it your way, Mase, and I can't do it anymore.”
“You love her?”
“With everything I am.” He blew out a frustrated breath. “Have for eight years.”
He could almost hear Mason doing the math in his head, coming up with an answer that had made Carter ashamed of himself for years. “I know,” he said instead of the blistering earful Carter had expected. This time it was Mason who blew a large sigh into the phone. “But if you'd dated her when she was seventeen, she wouldn't have gone to Ithaca, never played on Broadway.”
He'd expected something about the decade of age difference, the fact that a twenty-seven-year-old man had no business lusting after a seventeen-year-old girl, but instead, Mason had gone in a different direction entirely. “What?”
“She wasn't subtle either,” Mason went on. “She had dreams to follow, but she would have thrown them all away in a heartbeat for you.” He paused. “What kind of brother, what kind of friend would I have been if I had let that happen?”
“I wouldn't have let her throw away her dreams,” he protested without vehemence. Mason was right, and as much as he'd like to believe he would have been strong, the only thing keeping him from her was his promise to stay away.
“Not on purpose.” He paused again. “Treat her right, Carter, and oh, hell. I release you from your promise. Is that what you need me to say?”
“You know me too well,” he admitted, shocked his friend, and Camryn's brother knew what he did.
“That I do. Now I need you to make me a new promise.”
“Another promise?” he asked with trepidation.
“Promise to love her.”
This was a vow he could keep. “Always.”
Mason chuckled. “Break her heart, and I'll break you.”
Chapter Six
Camryn eavesdropped on Carter's conversation from her perch on the top step, amazed at what she was hearing. Carter had loved her for eight years? She scurried to her room when she heard him move toward the staircase. She needed to talk to him, needed to find if what he was telling her brother was true. He'd turned her down twice now, because of some sort of promise he'd made. And what was this talk of throwing dreams away?
She needed to sleep, although she wasn't sure that was possible, and she was willing to bet Carter wouldn't be sharing her bed to comfort her in the middle of the night this time. Sending her away after she'd had him in her hand had hurt, but what he'd said afterward about making love made her shiver. She kept telling herself she wasn't ready for a relationship, but she couldn't kid herself any longer. If Carter asked, she'd give him just about anything, not the least of which was her very willing body.
Hours later she was still lying in bed, awake and thinking, watching the minutes click by slowly every time she checked her phone.
“Cam?” came Carter's voice through her door. “You awake?”
She held in the giggle that wanted to break free. “Come on in.”
The door opened, Carter again in boxer briefs and a t-shirt, this time his hair disheveled and his glasses in place. “We need to talk.”
“We've got nothing but time,” she said, keeping the alarm out of her tone. Even shaken and sleep deprived, she was an actress, and she could pretend those words didn't make her stomach sink.
He took a deep breath before sitting on the edge of the bed as far away from her as possible while still occupying the same piece of furniture. “That night when you were in my bed, it took everything in me to turn you down, to walk away from you.” He braced himself with one hand against the headboard. “I wanted you so much I was in physical pain.”
“So, why say no?” she asked, sure the answer had something to do with her meddling oldest brother.
“You were only eighteen.” He blew out a breath, shook his head. “That's not the whole truth. Yes, you were eighteen by that time, but Mason made me swear I wouldn't touch you. He knew I would if given half a chance, and it might have been easy to resist when you were literal jailbait.” He paused. “But when you were technically an adult? God, it about killed me.”
“Why'd you promise?” she asked, intrigued by her brother's reasoning as much as Carter's.
He ran a hand over his hair. “My blatant—” he cut himself off with a harsh word. “It was obvious I wanted you, and evidently just as apparent you wanted me back. Mason couldn't let that happen. For me, I agreed because you were a teenager, my best friend's sister, and supposed to be like family to me.” He made a noise that sounded almost like a growl. “You know I've never thought of you as a sister or a cousin or whatever the hell our siblings think of each other, and right now it's still all I can do not to pin you down and take you—”
Just the thought made her wet. “Do it,” she interrupted.
“Not tonight,” he replied with a shake of his head, the hallway light through the open door glinting off the frames of his glasses. “Tonight, I need to talk to you, and when I'm done, you can decide what you want to do. Tomorrow.”
She sighed. He was still making her wait, and it was driving her insane. “T
alk, then.”
“Mason thought you would have missed Ithaca, missed Broadway for me if I'd confessed.”
“Confessed what, Carter?” she asked, worried about what she might hear. She'd eavesdropped earlier, but what if she was wrong?
“I agreed to leave you alone because I love you, Lark.”
She bolted upright from the bed, turning to face him. “How does that make any sense?”
“I loved you when it was wrong. A grown man and a teenage girl? It's criminal.”
She had to laugh. Otherwise, she'd burst into tears. How many years had been wasted because of his misplaced loyalty?
“Camryn?”
She stopped laughing, hating the serious, pained glint in his gray eyes. “Criminal? You never so much as kissed me, much to my heartbroken teenage chagrin.” She wrapped her fingers around the wrist propping him up. “A hundred years ago it would have been normal.” She squeezed his wrist, needing the connection between them, loving the feeling of his flesh beneath hers. “Painting yourself with a sicko brush because you lusted after a teenager who openly flaunted herself in tiny bikinis and then sprawled naked across your bed just makes you a man, Carter.”
His expression showed he was genuinely perplexed. “You're not upset?”
She was, but not about that. Never about that. “Why would I be upset the man I've wanted since before I knew how to say it loves me?” She squeezed his wrist again. “Sounds to me like the only one beating yourself up about wanting me is you.”
He made a humming noise. “I talked to Mason tonight.”
She wanted to say something but nodded instead.
“Told him I couldn't keep my end of the deal anymore.”
Heart beating triple time, she asked, “What did he say?”
“To treat you right.”
“Start with kissing me,” she demanded, taking his face in her hands.
The kiss was slower and less demanding than the one in the foyer, but no less passionate. This was what she'd wanted when she'd waited for him all those years ago. This man. The fact that loving her had made him doubt himself, think of himself as a criminal gave her pause. When he lifted his mouth from hers, she pulled his glasses from his face, studying the gray eyes she knew so well. “Loving me isn't wrong, Carter.” The look in his eyes told her he wasn't convinced, but he'd committed to her tonight, and she would grab it with both hands.
“Even if it were, I'm not sure I'd care.”
She smiled then, pulling his face down to hers for another kiss as she deposited his glasses on the side table. “Stay with me tonight,” she whispered.
“To sleep,” he countered as he flopped onto the bed beside her. “Someone tried to shoot you today, and you need to be sure about this.” His eyes met hers. “Once we do this, there’s no going back.”
The finality of his tone made her heart skip a beat. “There's nothing to think about or reconcile, Carter. Your attraction, your lust, your love is far from one sided.”
“You're killing me, Lark. I'm trying my damnedest to be a gentleman, and you say things like that.”
She chuckled. “I am so freaking tired of you being a gentleman. Take me, ravage me, or hell, just make love to me but stop with the fucking gentleman business. We've lost a lot of years to you and your misplaced chivalry.”
His eyes widened. “You mean that? All of that?”
“Would I say it if I didn—” The rest of her protests were cut off with his mouth on hers as he rolled her beneath him.
~*~
Everything he'd ever wanted was right here with him, and he wasn't going to rush, no matter that her words made him harder than he'd ever been. Ravage her? She had no idea. Her legs had opened when he'd rolled them over, and having only underwear between them was testing him in the best and worst way. Taking a breath, he braced himself above her. “I just promised we wouldn't do this tonight.” He paused to study her face, finding only beauty and no signs of stress. Still, he said, “I know you're still shaken, still scared, but God help me...” he trailed off.
“If you stop now I will murder you, Carter Austin Jamieson,” she threatened.
He pushed himself up to look into incredible hazel eyes full of lust for him. He wanted nothing more than to sink into her and never let go, but nothing about this night was planned, and there was a glaring omission. “The last thing I want to do is stop. God, I don't want to stop, but I don't have a condom, Lark.”
“Is that all?” she asked, rubbing against his erection and making it difficult for him to think.
He kissed her then, sliding his tongue into her mouth to deepen it when she opened beneath him. “There is so much we can do without—”
She continued to grind against him, pushing his resolve to the breaking point when she asked, “I assume you're healthy?”
He had a hard time forcing his brain to work. “Of course, but it's not fair—”
“I have an implant. I'm covered for almost three more years,” she cut him off again and rocked his world. The thought of sliding into her unprotected was almost too much to bear. A shadow crossed her face for a split second. “I got it just before...” she didn't finish the sentence, and he wouldn't push. One day she would tell him about what happened in New York when she was ready. They'd covered enough of the past tonight.
He wasted no time divesting them of their shirts and underwear, baring her to him for the first time in nearly a decade. “You are amazing.” He was breathless just looking at her, and prayed he could keep himself in check long enough to take care of her like he wanted, needed to do. “I could look at you forever.”
She nipped his chin. “Forever is a long time.”
“It's yours.”
She wrapped him tightly with her legs at his declaration, grinding against his bare cock. He was so ready to sink into her, but he had to slow down, or their first time together would last all of three seconds. Carter captured her lips again, savoring the taste of her when her tongue entered his mouth, stroking against his own. When he was able to leave her lush lips, he trailed kisses across her cheek, following a path down her neck to her collarbone. When she breathed his name, he smiled against her skin. “No rushing.” She gave him a noise somewhere between a whimper and a groan, but he traveled slowly down her body, stopping to show proper reverence to her full breasts and reveling in the mewling sounds she made. When he finally reached heaven, he prayed he wasn't dreaming.
“Carter, please,” Camryn plead on a moan when he put his mouth on her, teasing and tasting her sensitive flesh. He worked her for a while, reveling in the taste of her, thighs tight against his head, fingers buried in his hair, moans and pants falling from her lips. When she arched against his mouth, body taut with release, he slid up her body and took her mouth again as he sheathed himself within her. She was perfection. Hot, slick, tight, and all his. He tried to remain in control, but she needed hard and fast if her begging was to be believed, and he was determined to give her everything. He lengthened his strokes, slamming his body into hers, again and again, pulling a clenching climax from her before following suit, emptying himself into the love of his life.
“That was...” she started.
“I'm never letting you go,” he said, breathless from the most amazing lovemaking—the only true lovemaking—of his life.
“And you were afraid of me.”
He was terrified of her. She had always been the only one who could break him, and someone had been shooting at her mere hours ago. “My only fear now is losing you,” he replied on a whisper, surprising himself with his honesty.
“It's still ridiculous,” she said, voice drowsy and rough. “Why you stayed away from me.”
He was sure it sounded that way. “I made a promise, Lark. I have never broken a promise.”
“Never?” She smiled before kissing him. “Make me a promise, then.”
He wanted to hear what she was going to ask but needed to move for risk of crushing her. He adjusted them so they were face to
face on their sides, and met her sleepy gaze. “Ask me for anything, and I'll give it to you.”
“Don't hurt me,” she asked, echoing her brother's sentiments from not long ago.
He took her mouth with a soft kiss, deepening it when she opened beneath him. “I would die before I hurt you.”
~*~
Camryn woke slowly, cocooned in the warmth of Carter's heavy arms. After he'd given her the most romantic answer to her plea, they'd fallen into sleep only to wake twice during the night to make love again. He insisted she not belittle what they had by calling it anything else, and that was romantic in itself. She had to either get out of bed or slide against his growing morning wood, and what woman would choose to leave this man?
She had just positioned herself to take him into her mouth when the glass-break alarm started screaming.
“Are you okay?” Carter asked her, going from sound asleep to alert in seconds. He grabbed his glasses from the nightstand and jumped from the bed, pausing long enough to throw on his boxer briefs and snag his phone. She watched him move at lightning speed and barely found her voice to answer him before he bolted from the bedroom. What would he find? He was an unarmed lawyer for god's sake. She wrapped herself in the sheet and followed behind him.
What she found downstairs had her mortified. Her neighbor and his young son were in the living room, Carter on the phone—presumably with Dylan's company relaying that it was a false alarm. Looking at the scene before her, she guessed Drew had hit a baseball through the window. She glanced at the antique grandfather clock and saw it was barely seven in the morning. After swallowing the worry she'd had since the alarm went off, she pasted on a smile, deciding to brazen it out. “What an exciting way to start a Sunday.”
Drew and his father turned to look at her, and she clutched the sheet tighter around her breasts. Mr. Langley's eyes took her in from head to toe, and she almost apologized to the man for her appearance but stopped herself. She was allowed to be an adult, to be naked beneath a sheet in her own home with a man who treated her like the most precious thing in the world. Mr. Langley nudged his son, and she wished she remembered the father's name, so she could do something other than smile awkwardly at the pair.
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