Jesus Christ, she was propositioning him. “What happened to pregnancy scares? Ax murderers? What happened to efficiency?”
“Cameron, I’ve just come from a gay club. It was full of hot, shirtless men writhing against each other. The girls have been talking about sex all evening. I’m starting to think you might be onto something with that whole human touch theory of yours.”
“Aha!” He couldn’t help gloating. “You’re horny.” And so was he. She was right; there were pheromones in the air tonight, and that shit was contagious.
“You are correct.”
“You’re also drunk.” And thank God for it. He needed an out, an excuse to do the honorable thing. “I don’t do drunk hookups.”
She tilted her head at him. “Why not?”
“Because there’s this little thing called consent? Give me a little credit, Jane.”
She smiled, a slow, knowing Cheshire cat sort of smile, and lifted a glass that appeared to be full of cola. “I am stone-cold sober, my friend. Which is another reason this party is wearing on me.”
His dick twitched. “Yeah, you don’t realize how stupid drunk people are until you’re the only sober one in a group of them.”
She hitched her head toward the exit. “So let’s get out of here.”
He sighed. “I can’t.”
“You’re turning me down.”
He winced, and though she hadn’t phrased it as a question, he nodded, trying to think how to say some variation on “it’s not you, it’s me,” and not sound like an asshole. “It’s not a good idea, Jane. I can’t be the kind of guy you—”
“It’s just sex, Cameron. That’s all.”
Her declaration gave him pause. Was it possible that he and Jane really could enjoy a fallout-free hookup? Because, damn, he could get into that idea. But no. He thought of Gia all up in his face a little while ago. It was too slippery a slope.
“Are you, who have been talking about nothing but getting laid since you got to town, trying to tell me that I’m not allowed to have meaningless sex?” Jane went on.
“That’s not what I’m saying…” I’m saying I like you too much to have sex with you. I’m saying you deserve someone better. I’m saying I’m not sure it would be just sex, and it’s not just your reaction I’m worried about.
He wished she would interrupt him again, but she did not. She simply stared at him with that single damned eyebrow raised. He started again. “Of course you can have meaningless sex. I just don’t…”
“You don’t want to,” she said, and the hurt that flared momentarily in her eyes might as well have been an inferno engulfing him.
“No!” God, could he dig a bigger hole for himself here? He was trying to protect her from him, but was it possible he was hurting her more by turning her down?
The answer to this late-breaking question was irrelevant though, because the hurt disappeared from her eyes, replaced by steel, as she said, “That’s okay. I’ll find someone who does.”
And eff him if she didn’t then turn on her heel and march up to a group of guys at the bar. And they weren’t even bachelor party guys. No, they were, to use her term, “randoms.”
* * *
Ten minutes later, Cam was accosted again, this time by two of Jay’s groomsmen, a fellow accountant named Kent, and Andy, who was Elise’s brother.
“She’s cute, eh?” said Kent, a quiet guy who hadn’t made much of an impression on Cam.
“Who?”
“Jane,” he said, nodding to where Jane was clinking her glass against the beer bottle of some pretty, overgrown frat boy type. “You know, the one you’ve been staring at?”
Andy snickered.
“I haven’t been staring at her,” Cameron said, staring at her. Shit. She leaned in to let Captain America whisper something in her ear, and then she threw her head back with laughter that seemed irritatingly genuine.
“I’m just checking because I’ve been thinking of asking her out,” Kent went on. “Wanted to make sure that you guys weren’t…you know.”
Cam shook his head as Jane put her hand on the Ralph Lauren model’s forearm. For someone who claimed to not date and not hook up, she was pretty good at flirting. He had to make a conscious effort to unlock his jaw to say, “Jane doesn’t date.”
“What do you mean, she doesn’t date? She’s single, isn’t she?” It was true, but even if it wasn’t, this unassuming Kent dude was not the guy for her.
“Yeah, but she’s not in the market for a guy,” Cam said. Except tonight, apparently, she was. Kent, however, did not need to know that.
“I have to say, I’m afraid he’s right,” Andy said to Kent, nodding in Jane’s direction. “I’ve known Jane since she and Elise were freshmen in university. She’s had one boyfriend in all that time. She doesn’t seem interested.”
Cam refrained, but only just, from turning to Kent and saying neener, neener, neener.
“So what is that, then?” Kent asked, nodding as Jane went on her tiptoes to say something into the prepster’s ear that made him drop his drink like a hot potato, grab her hand, and start towing her out of the pub.
“That is…”
…not happening.
Cam was up, propelled across the room by pure unadulterated jealousy that was as shocking as it was strong. He had never been jealous before, not even when he’d walked in on Christie with his replacement, not really. He’d been angry, yes, but more at the loss of the life he’d thought he was coming back to. And even that had rapidly been replaced by resignation.
But right now he could murder both Kent the Accountant and Captain America without blinking. And he’d do it, too, before either of them touched Jane.
Goddammit. If Jane was bound and determined to pick up a guy tonight, he was the least problematic one here. Which was ironic as hell, because the whole point of rejecting her had been to protect her from him. But despite his many faults, Cam appreciated Jane—her quirks, her insecurities, her humor. He knew how to make her loosen up.
He would regret this later, but not as much as he would regret watching her leave with one of the other assholes here.
When he came up behind Jane and Captain America, the dickhead had his hand on her lower back as he propelled her toward the door. Cam reached out and took hold of the guy’s cuff between his thumb and forefinger and lifted his arm away from Jane like it was a bag of stinky garbage. He was wearing a long-sleeved pinstriped button-down, for fuck’s sake. Even if she was only in it for a hookup, this banker-wanker was not the right guy for the job.
“Excuse me?” The dude turned with a kind of amused superiority that drove home Cam’s point.
“Time to go, Janie,” he said, placing his hand firmly against her lower back, aiming for exactly the spot where Captain America’s hand had been. She raised her eyebrows and opened her mouth. Before she could issue the protest he knew was coming, he closed his mouth over hers, a quick kiss, but a deep, decisive one. One that made his point to her admirer. To her, too. Then he pulled away and said, “Your eggs Benedict awaits.”
Chapter Twelve
Jane might have changed her mind in the taxi if Cameron hadn’t rested his hand on her thigh as soon as he gave the driver her address. She was sober—she hadn’t been lying about that—but once they got outside, away from the weird fairy-tale-hopped-up-on-sex hormones that had been the bachelorette-meets-bachelor party, she started to wonder if someone had roofied her Diet Coke.
Because what in Xena’s name was she doing? She was not a reckless risk-taker. Never in her life had she picked up a guy at a bar. That alone would have been enough, but did she stop there? No, she did not. Forever an overachiever, she had picked up one guy, then left with another.
One who had, not twenty minutes previously, rejected her. If she had any pride, any self-respect to speak of, she would have left with Brian. Bryce? Dang, what was his name? Whatever. Heck, she would have left by herself.
If she had any sense at all, she’d put a stop
to this now.
But that hand.
The way it had sought out her back at the bar, with a calm air of possession, like it belonged there.
The way it sat on her thigh now, heavy and solid, spreading heat up her leg and to her center. They were almost at her house, and they hadn’t spoken yet. But they didn’t need to. That hand communicated volumes.
He’d been right, before. She was horny. And it was his fault. He’d planted the idea of this “human touch” nonsense, and she hadn’t been able to get it out of her mind. Maybe he—and Gia, and everyone—was right. Maybe she and Felix simply hadn’t been compatible. Yeah, she’d felt his rejection as a major burn, but maybe she’d been letting it have too much power over her. She was older now. She knew what she wanted and what she didn’t. She was capable of compartmentalizing.
Well, maybe. Regardless, it’s what she wasn’t capable of that was ruling the evening. And she wasn’t capable of shaking that hand off her thigh. She needed that hand.
She needed it all over her.
The taxi pulled up to her house, and she heaved a shaky sigh, feeling like she was one big exposed nerve masquerading as a bridesmaid. Felix had always been frustrated with her because it took her so long to come, if she did at all, but tonight she felt like a box of gunpowder that might explode if Cameron looked at her the wrong way. Or the right way. Or at all.
“You can send me home,” Cameron said, low into her ear, crowding her from behind as she unlocked her front door.
She shook her head, too embarrassed to say anything out loud, to claim her desire for him.
“I can’t be your boyfriend.”
“Oh my God, no!” she answered, suddenly finding her words, then laughing at his mock-offended face as she flipped on the entryway light. “Sorry! It’s just that…I told you I don’t want one of those.” Baby steps—she had only just talked herself into the idea of casual sex.
She kicked off her shoes and—“Oh my God, what are you doing?” He had dropped to his knees.
“I’m looking at these toes that have been tormenting me all night.” He ran a hand from her ankle down over the top of her foot, and she shivered. “One photo of them, and I’ve been thinking about them nonstop. These are some powerful toes.”
“Hmmm. You might even say they have brought men to their knees,” she said, biting back a grin. Damn, she was bad at flirting. But she was rewarded anyway when he barked a laugh, and smoothed a line on the top of her foot where her shoe had dug into her flesh.
“This looks painful.”
“Nah,” she said, wondering if he was planning to stay there on the floor, at her feet. “That’s nothing. Have you ever tried high heels?”
“Can’t say that I have.”
“Well, don’t. They’re torture devices. I am morally opposed to them.”
He looked up at her, and she was startled to find that she’d placed her hand on his head, without even realizing it. His buzz cut was growing in a little, and the fuzz of his hair was surprisingly soft. They stared at each other, and for a moment, fear flared in her belly. The idea that anything could happen. That she’d brought him here planning to invite him into her body. What had she been thinking? It was…too much.
But then he moved his head a little so her hand slid down to his cheek. His breath hitched and his eyes closed as he leaned into her hand, as if he wanted to rest a weary head on her palm.
Was he afraid, too?
He opened his eyes, and she could see that the answer was no. But there was something there, some emotion beyond what she would have expected, that she couldn’t quite identify.
He must have seen the question in her eyes, because he whispered, “It’s been a long time.”
“Since you’ve been back, you still haven’t…”
“No. Well, that’s true, but beyond that, it’s been…since before I last deployed.”
Wow. Wow. She had kind of imagined him sleeping his way through Iraq, though that was probably stupid since she’d just found out he’d had a girlfriend during the deployment. And even though it had only been a day since their trip to Niagara, when he’d assured her he hadn’t reneged on their various bets, they hadn’t made another one to cover the time since then. There had been nothing stopping him from spending all day today working on his stupid “list.” Knowing that he hadn’t caused a surge of emotion. Guilt for having thought so poorly of him that she’d even entertained the notion. But also pride, as if he’d somehow been faithful to her, which was ridiculous.
Lust. There was also lust.
And it was stronger than the fear.
So she used her hand to gently tug upward on his chin, communicating her wish that he rise.
He did. She took his hand and led him toward her bedroom, but at the last minute he surprised her by stopping at the threshold of the office. “The good stuff’s in here,” he rasped, pulling her inside and then against him.
She buried her face in his chest, embarrassed in a way she hadn’t been when they were discussing her vibrators before. That had been a theoretical discussion, and this was…not theoretical. “We don’t need those,” she whispered, but she very much feared that she did.
She felt rather than saw his shrug, since she was still hiding her face. “Maybe we don’t need them; maybe we do.” His warm palms came to rest on her cheeks, and he gently tipped her head up to force her to look at him. “Regardless, we might want them. Either way, a man likes to be prepared.”
It was the perfect thing to say. The kindest, sexiest, most astonishing thing, and those few sentences somehow tipped a giant weight off her shoulders. Men were the ones who were supposed to have performance anxiety, but she’d been tied up in knots. The idea that he didn’t have a particular vision in his head of how their encounter would unfold, that there was no script, was strangely liberating. Insanely sexy.
She lifted herself up onto her tiptoes, intending to kiss him, but he didn’t seem to be getting the message. He still had his hands on the sides of her face, so she put hers on his in a mirror-image gesture and tried to tug his head down. But he resisted, stared at her with a small smile.
“Kiss me, you idiot,” she said.
He laughed. “I’m going to. I just need…a minute.”
“For what?” To change his mind? Like hell. She was standing there, panties wet and nipples almost painfully tight, a caricature of sexual desire. She hadn’t confronted her big emotional block about casual sex only to have the proceedings derailed now. She pulled harder on his head and bounced a little on her toes. Maybe this was one instance in which high heels would actually be worth the pain.
The smile disappeared, and for a moment she feared she’d offended him, that he was going to call the whole thing off. “To pause and take things in. To pause and take you in. Because once this starts, Jane…”
“What?” she whispered.
“We’re going to set this fucking house on fire.”
He didn’t wait for her to respond, just lowered his head—finally!—and oh, if she thought she’d been turned on before, she hadn’t realized. If she’d thought their kiss at the falls had been hot, she’d had no idea.
His tongue plunged into her mouth, but it might as well have been between her legs, because the shot of desire through her core was almost painful. She hissed against his mouth, and he started to pull away, but that wasn’t happening. So she slid her hands, which still rested on his cheeks, around his neck and hitched herself up on his body, wrapping her legs around his waist, and oh, her aim had been accidentally perfect. It was his turn to hiss as the very center of her slammed against his erection.
He didn’t miss a beat, though. His hands came around to cup her bottom, and he took two steps until her back was against the wall and pressed his hips against hers even as he returned to working her mouth with his. She arched her back, seeking more pressure, and he knew what she was after, because he ground into her, making tight circles with his hips, never letting up in the way a thrusting
motion would have.
And then…“Oh God!” she bit out, because she had forgotten that he had hands and that she had breasts. She had forgotten, or maybe she’d never really known, how good hands could feel on breasts.
His hands slid up under her T-shirt, deftly undid the clasp at the back of her bra, then came around front and plucked her nipples, summoning a cry of pleasure from her. She wanted to arch away from and into his touch at the same time, so intense was the sensation. But it was gone as quickly as it began as he ripped his mouth from hers and spread his palms, pressing and kneading, cupping, as if he were trying to get as big a handful of her as possible.
Dear God, she was going to come right here with his hand up her shirt. That seemed, suddenly, not okay, so she lowered her feet to the ground and shoved him away. Or tried to—he grunted, resisting, renewing his assault on her until she managed to say, “I need to get my clothes off.”
She almost regretted her words, because that was all it took. He sprang away from her, and the loss of sensation made her breasts ache, and her vagina…it actually hurt. He whipped off his shirt, and oh God, those tattoos. The idea that she could openly look at them, that she could touch them. Put her mouth on them. He bent over to remove one leg from his pants but paused to look up at her.
“Naked,” he rasped. “I need you naked.”
She stared at him, stunned. His pupils were dilated so there was only a slim ring of blue around them. His breath was ragged, and she could see the thrumming of his pulse in his neck. He wanted her, and he wasn’t trying to hide it. She moaned, and he wasn’t even touching her.
“Please,” he added.
She was always going to obey; she had just been caught momentarily in him, helpless in the tractor beam that was his obvious desire. But the combination of the gruff command followed by the polite entreaty was like a fast-forward switch. She pulled her shirt and already-undone bra off together. She gave a passing thought that she should have started with her jeans because now he was going to see her muffin top, but it was forgotten when he closed his eyes, let his head fall back, and ground out, “Awww, fuuuck.”
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