by Gina Watson
“You frustrate and anger me too.”
He sat on the couch. “Well, what on earth are we gonna do?”
“I’m gonna get the hell out of here.” She retrieved her portfolios from the table.
“Is that all it takes? A few stern words and you bolt? You give up too easily.”
She shot him a dirty look. “I assumed you’d be firing me, so I thought I’d save you the trouble.”
“I’ll say it again, you give up too easily.”
Eyeing him quizzically, Jenny assumed the job was still hers if she wanted it. Looked like she’d be staying after all.
2
Over the next few days Camp and Jenny remained cordial with one another and tried not to get in each other’s way. Camp suspected the shit would hit the fan when Jenny found out about the cut he’d made to her fabric budget. The woman was ridiculous. The curtains need not be silk in a hotel room. Couldn’t she find something that would do just as well? Satin? Linen? Hell, he didn’t know. He just knew it couldn’t be silk.
He stood in the foyer of the hotel where the majority of the work was currently being done and couldn’t focus on the task at hand. His dreams, daydreams and night dreams, were consumed with her nakedness, still fresh in his mind as the day she’d crashed into him in her suite. Camp’s brain was slowly frying. The tits that had bumped against his chest had hard points that he felt through the fabric of his shirt. Her breasts were naturally pear shaped, and her small taut nipples were dark. Her long, defined torso culminated at a mound tastefully dusted with closely trimmed curls so sparse they revealed her cleft. In seconds Camp had memorized the dips and curves of her body. Her back sloped deeply at the level of her hips that flared erotically to compensate her ass, which was spectacular. It was like a juicy apple that he wanted to sink his teeth into, and when she walked, her firm, bare ass had bounced under his gaze. Since the day he’d seen her naked, whenever she was around, he went as hard as stone.
He needed something to get his mind off of Jennifer Roberts, and so he was happy to see his oldest brother come stomping into the hotel.
“Clay.” Camp extended his hand, and Clay gripped it hard and then pulled Camp in for a bear hug. Camp and Cash were the smallest of the St. Martin clan, topping out around six feet. In comparison, Clay was the male version of an Amazon. And not just tall, but muscular. As a former girlfriend had once said—and none of the brothers would ever let him live down—Clay would put the Incredible Hulk to shame.
Camp looked up into the face of his brother. “Taking a break from fighting fires?”
Clay’s deep baritone ignited, “I got a couple of gigs out this way and I’m training for a certification through the next couple of weeks so you’re stuck with me.”
“Oh yeah, gearing up for that promotion? Am I looking at Baton Rouge’s next Fire Chief?”
“Possibly.” Clay nodded and turned his head left then right, taking in the surroundings. “This project is bigger than your last. I’m proud of you, little brother.”
Clay tousled his hair, with Camp attempting to jerk his head from under his super-sized hand.
Camp snapped his fingers. “I’m glad you’re here, I need to work up a contract for your fire protection company to inspect and outfit this place, if you have time.”
“For my little brother, I’ll make time.” He whistled through his teeth. “You guys have been busy. I just got a contract from the site Cash is working on.”
Clay placed his hand on Camp’s shoulder and squeezed. “Since Dad was benched, the company would be in a bind without you. You’ve done well for the family.”
Camp was proud that it was the St. Martin name that drove the company. He liked the work, liked that he could pick up from where his dad had taken them. “Thanks, I couldn’t have kept all of the projects afloat without Cash.”
Clay looked up at the exposed ceiling that was to be the entryway for the new wing. He crossed over to an exposed seam in the wall. “The old wing is outfitted with a massive fire wall.” He followed the wall up to the ceiling with his eyes. “Seems to be in the ceiling too. We will have to marry the new with the old, but the materials look decent.”
“Mr. St. Martin?”
Camp heard the sensual voice that never failed to excite him, heard it overly enunciate his name, as usual.
He turned toward Jenny. “I told you, you can cut the act. Call me Camp.”
Her heels clicked and her breasts swayed in the silk shirt she wore and he felt his dick stir. Shit. He turned away from her to make an adjustment and caught Clay’s eye.
“Oh no, sir! I wouldn’t hear of it. As I was saying, Mr. St. Martin”—Camp caught Clay’s smirk—“I was just informed that you cut the materials budget without consulting me first.”
“I told you we might have to cut back on all your embellishments.” He waved his arm dramatically across the space in front of them.
“Embellishments!” she yelled. “You’ve cut my budget by fifty-six percent!”
“It’s nice to finally hear you speak in numbers. I’ve been asking you for a budget for weeks.”
“I already gave you my damned budget. You scribbled on it in grease pencil and then poured your coffee over it.”
Camp put his hand, palm spread, to his chest. “Accidentally spilled coffee over it. Besides, your budget was unacceptable, and you were asked for a new one. Since you never submitted what I asked for, I took the liberty of assisting you with the task.”
Jenny tapped her toe repeatedly. “Mr. St. Martin, did it ever occur to you that I too have met with the developer of this project? While you may not consider the embellishments”—her voice dripped with sarcasm—“to be of much value, I assure you they have been approved by the owner of this endeavor.”
“Is that so? Maybe he forgot to tell you of the quarter-million-dollar bonus I get if I keep the budget aligned and that includes wrangling in the designer.” As Jenny’s lips tightened, Camp stood straighter and squared his shoulders. “He calls me daily to check the bottom line. Evidently it’s damned important. Pretty sure he doesn’t give a fuck about your Italian sofas.” He rubbed his fingers across his upper lip as he watched her face turn red. “Do you have a quarter mil, Jenny? Because if you do, I could be persuaded to let you play fast and loose with the budget and we can shut this argument down right now.”
He crossed his arms and waited for her answer. She clicked over to him—God, he loved a woman in heels—and narrowed her eyes. “You’re hostile and moody, and I can’t work like this.”
“I’m hostile?” Camp said, pointing to himself. “That’s rich.”
Hands on her hips, she got in his face and said, “God, what I wouldn’t give to slap you across the face again.”
“What’s stopping you?”
They were nose to nose again, and the scent of her perfume was making him dizzy.
Thankfully, the throat clearing next to them caused them both to look up and into the questioning eyes of Clay.
“You guys wanna take this someplace a little more private so the entire crew doesn’t get a free show?”
Jenny held her hand up. “Not necessary. I’ll be on my way to cancel an order for twenty-one goddamned Italian sofas.”
As she stormed down the hallway, Camp watched her backside sway from side to side.
≈
That evening Camp and Clay went for a steak at one of their favorite restaurants.
Clay cleared his throat. “So I couldn’t help but overhear your argument with… Jenny?” He wiped at his mouth with a white linen napkin.
“She drives me fucking crazy.” Camp exhaled through clenched teeth.
Clay cocked his head. “A good woman will do that.”
Camp choked on the water he’d just swallowed. “A good woman? She’s combative, belligerent, insolent, hostile, aggressive, and certifiably deranged.”
Clay smiled. “Now, describe your fiancée to me.”
“Kimberly?”
Clay nodd
ed.
“Well, Kim’s different, you know. She’s… Well, she’s uh, she’s not any of those things.”
Clay cut into his steak as he said, “Bingo.”
“What’s your point?”
“My point, brother, is that the anger and hostility, that aggression, all of those things you mentioned, are ten thousand times better than no passion at all.”
Camp thought on his words for a while. He chewed his steak vigorously and swallowed. “So you think I should marry Jenny?”
“No, I’m saying you shouldn’t marry Kim. Even when you were a child you’d sit and stew. You’d keep yourself reserved and controlled. Jenny makes you buckle, and I’ve never seen you so flustered. Your interaction with her struck me as such a stark contrast to how you are when you’re with Kim.” Clay shrugged. “Jenny seems to be under your skin.”
Camp rested his forehead in his hand. “First Cash and Isa, now you. Nobody likes Kim.”
“I like Kim just fine, but you guys aren’t meant to be. You shouldn’t rush into marriage, at least. Maybe consider extending the engagement. It will be your second marriage.”
“Why does everyone keep telling me that as if I don’t know?” Camp was frustrated, but didn’t know how to relieve it. “Plus Jenny’s troublesome and defiant, not unlike a loose canon. She’d just be an aggravation.”
Clay nodded. “Maybe. Or maybe she would make you crumple to your knees.”
Camp’s mouth fell open, and he shook his head. “Never happen.” But what if it did? He asked Clay, “And that’s a good thing?”
Clay shrugged one shoulder. “It can be. I, for one, love passion like that in a woman. And notice that she is only like that with you, and you with her. It’s a chemical thing. And there are ways, as you well know, to stoke such flames.”
Camp’s eyes went wide. Clay had lost his mind; the smoke had finally gotten to him.
≈
When Camp returned to Whiskey Cove, he drove straight to Kim’s place. He needed to see if there was any passion to speak of. Like Clay had said, the evidence of any desire at all would be better than none.
He rang the bell at her front door. She answered in her white plush robe, fresh from a bath.
“Come in. Can I get you some sweet tea?” Her sweet tea made him gag; it was so sweet, his jaw locked as soon as the first drop hit his tongue.
“I’m good, thanks.”
Kim turned off the television. Then she rounded the coffee table, picked up a bottle of nail polish, and screwed the lid tight. He noticed her freshly painted nails as he took the chair next to the fireplace while she sat herself on the couch.
“Come over here.” Camp patted his knee, indicating where he wanted her. Her color deepened as she joined him. That seemed a good sign.
She stood before him, fiddling with her robe. “What is it?”
“I want you in my lap.”
She looked around—anywhere but at him—and grasped the collar of the robe, securing it higher around her throat. “My toenails are wet.”
He was getting more irritated by the second. What did she think he was going to do to her? Recalling how carefree Jenny was with her nakedness, he reached up and pulled the sash on her robe and slid it from her body while she gasped and reached to cover her breasts and pussy.
“Let me look at you.”
Her eyes were large and unblinking.
Camp’s voice was a whisper when he said, “You can do it. Move your hands.”
She closed her eyes, but kept herself covered. Camp didn’t understand her—was it him?
“If you won’t even let me see you naked, I don’t understand how we’re going to be married.”
At his words she lowered her hands and stood before him. She kept her head down, and he was unable to read her eyes, but she was beautiful, there was no denying that. He looked from her large plump and firm breasts to the sensual curve of her hips and the juncture at her thighs. Her nipples were not erect, and he wondered what that meant since he’d always thought of those as a barometer of a woman’s arousal. Was she not aroused?
“Do you want me?” His voice was low and raspy.
She sniffled as tears fell from her eyes. “I love you; of course I want you.”
Her tears made his chest burn. He felt like an ass, so he gave her the robe. She quickly put it on. He didn’t expect anything from her if that’s what she worried about. He would gladly just eat her out. Anything to have her completely let go and let the passion overtake her.
He held her hand in his. “Let me go down on you, I want to taste you.”
“You know I’m not comfortable with that.”
He knew all too well as it was one of his favorite sex acts and she’d yet to let him taste her. Camp sat and watched the woman he was to marry as his fingers rubbed across his brow.
“What forms of sex are you comfortable with?”
She shrugged and turned as red as a cherry. “I don’t mind you on top.”
“You don’t mind?”
She shook her head.
“But that position isn’t comfortable for you.”
With her eyes closed tight, she said, “I bought something.”
Her admission had Camp intrigued. He followed her into her bedroom and watched her pull a tube of lube from her bedside table drawer. “Here.” She placed it in his hand.
She climbed into the bed with her robe on, and he climbed up after her. He parted the robe and drew her nipple into his mouth. He was curious to see if it would harden at his touch, and so he grazed the tip with his teeth and felt it pucker. Okay, that response was normal. He kneaded her other breast with his free hand. He would have appreciated a moan or something, but she never did that. Instead she whispered, “Apply the lube.”
Either she was getting aroused or she wanted to get it over with. Either way, Camp needed to find something to hold on to, something that said marriage with Kim made sense. He squirted some of the lube into his hand and massaged her with it. Then he rubbed his glistening hand over his cock until it was slick. Still, she was small and he was large and if he could just position her better, sex wouldn’t be painful, but she always refused. He used his knees to settle between her legs. He’d try one more time. He slid his hands under her ass and tilted her up, spreading her legs wide, and to his surprise she didn’t protest. He would have liked to start by massaging her to climax, but he didn’t want to press his luck, so he slowly entered her tight, slick passage.
She didn’t make a sound, but he gasped from the struggle to hold back. After sheathing himself all the way inside, he gave her a minute to accept his size. When he could hold back no longer, he pulled out and thrust in again. He drove in and out of her repeatedly. His pace became more aggressive and erratic, and he reached down to massage her clit, feeling her tightly controlled body tremble. He felt the increased wetness and knew she’d climaxed, though she showed little reaction. He’d never had so much trouble getting a woman off. When Camp came inside her, he looked to her face. She had her eyes closed tight as tears leaked from under the lashes. The situation seemed hopeless.
As Camp drove to his house twenty minutes later, he was conflicted about his relationship with Kim. He suspected he’d rushed into an engagement to satisfy his need to be with someone—he hated returning to an empty house. He’d always imagined coming home to dinner bubbling on the stove, kids running around screaming, and a loving, passionate wife. Kim would give him that—except for the passion. And what about love? Did she love him? Did he love her?
No, he didn’t think that he did. He felt sympathy for this woman who was unable to let go and trust him with her body. If she couldn’t do that, would she trust him with other things? Her life, her future?
As he pulled into the driveway, he saw Cash’s truck and Isa’s Camaro. That meant she was staying over again. Isa was his friend and Cash his twin brother, so of course he couldn’t be happier for them, but their intimacy in all things—even the most mundane tasks—and thei
r consideration for one another made his situation more pronounced.
He’d asked Kim if she wanted to see someone about her issues. She didn’t understand his suggestion. He’d told her she recoiled at all things sexual. She’d told him she just didn’t like sex. Camp had asked her about other men. There had been two. He knew one of them—Jerry Joe. Had she thought they were a romantically involved couple? He didn’t have the heart to tell her that Jerry Joe was gay. When he asked her about the second guy, she’d told him he left to pursue his calling at seminary. Missionary position indeed.
What was it Cash had told him? Death was preferable to a lifelong marriage with no passion. Camp sighed loudly in frustration as he headed toward the front door. He thought about Jenny and how just her presence caused him to become hard as steel—she was gasoline and he was fire. To stay hard tonight he’d actually been thinking of her naked body, the heavy, swaying breasts and erect nipples. He’d climaxed inside Kim, but only because he’d been reliving Jenny’s hand slapping him across the cheek. What a fucking mess. He was engaged to one woman and yet coming at the thought of another. Shit.
He knew what he had to do and once that task was completed, he knew what he had to have.
He wasn’t a fool, and wasting time was foolish. Not going after what he needed was foolish too.
Yeah, he was all about going after what he needed.
≈
Camp didn’t want the situation with Kim looming over him, so he’d called her at lunchtime the following day. He was on his way to her home now to break off the engagement. He couldn’t live like a monk with her. He was no missionary and he definitely wasn’t gay.
As they sat on the couch in Kim’s home, she handed him the engagement ring he’d given her. He hadn’t had to say anything; she was breaking it off with him.
“Camp, I can’t satisfy you. You know how I was raised. I feel dirty doing those things.”
Her parents were strict, but Camp thought that she, like most people raised by parents that were too unyielding, was ready for a rebellious stage. Once again he’d been wrong about a woman.
