“I wanted to talk a little bit about the wedding if you don’t mind,” Elise said. “About your specific duties.”
Bingo. That would be perfect. He shifted so Jane was out of his field of vision. “Hit me. I’m all ears.”
* * *
“Does anyone want to go on the Body Blaster with me?” Jane asked, trying to will Cameron to say yes and everyone else to say no. She’d cooled off enough from her little freak-out that she was ready to take him up on his promise-slash-threat.
Either that or she was crazy. Because it was only two o’clock and the girls were talking about going out to dinner after they were done at the park, so it was going to be hours before…stuff could really happen. She had, however, selected the slide that seemed best suited for Cam’s, uh, stated purpose. It was a good thing her suit was already wet.
“I will!” Gia jumped up, adjusting the tiny white triangles that barely covered her boobs. Jane sighed. It was hard not to hate Gia sometimes. Even though she knew with one part of her brain that Gia’s body was the result of genetics, and that it happened to coincide with the body ideal of the day, another part of her brain was hella envious.
“I will, too.” Cameron unfolded his long limbs from his chair and took off his mirrored shades, and the envious part of her brain flew the white flag of surrender. Because the phrase “he only had eyes for her” applied. It was like the size two supermodel wasn’t even there, and how often did that happen? Jane smiled to herself and allowed a little extra sashay in her step as she turned and led the way. Sadly, though, even though Gia wasn’t, apparently, going to steal Cameron’s attention, her presence was going to end up tanking their plan. Sneaking kisses was one thing, going down a water slide cozied up against the bad-boy brother of the groom quite another.
When they got to the top, though, it was moot, because the park’s regulations didn’t allow two riders to slide together. The guy manning the top was leaving a good ten seconds between riders. Which made sense, assuming most people didn’t want to dry hump their way down. Or wet hump.
She was more disappointed than she should have been.
There were two slides to choose from, and Jane went to one.
“After you,” Cameron said to Gia, which prompted Gia to move to the other one.
Which in turn left Cameron in line behind Jane. As the attendant nodded at Jane and Gia that it was time to go, Gia took off, but Cameron held Jane back with a hand on her arm. Then he leaned over and whispered in her ear, “Use your imagination.”
It wasn’t, on the surface of things, an untoward thing to say.
But it made her gasp all the same. Use your imagination.
And when the attendant gestured again for her to go—she was holding up the line—she plunged into the cold water and did just that.
Chapter Sixteen
They made it into the elevator at Jay’s building before they launched themselves at each other.
The evening had been interminable. It had basically been a repeat of the afternoon, forcing Cam to watch Jane shriek with delight while partaking in the thrills offered by the amusement park. Except the afternoon version of Jane had been wet and wearing a bikini.
And then there was the sexting.
They had established a rhythm by which they would hit a few waterslides and then rest for a while on their lounge chairs, the girls enduring re-application after re-application of sunscreen. (Ushers, apparently, were allowed tans.)
The adorable thing was that Jane wasn’t actually that good at sexting. She would start things with a vaguely suggestive topic like:
Do you have condoms in your possession today?
And he’d write back:
I do.
He figured out pretty quickly that she didn’t want him to leave it at that. She wanted him to escalate things, even if she couldn’t quite make herself respond in kind. She kept prodding, asking flirty-but-benign questions until he hit her with something like:
I got a jumbo box actually, because I’m going to fuck you so many times before this wedding that you’re not going to be able to walk down the aisle properly.
And then she would blush hard enough to send Elise into a panic.
Then she would get into the pool, come out drenched, announce her intention to hit one of the water slides, and the whole damn cycle would start again.
And then there’d been dinner, a never-ending meal at some kind of bullshit “small plates” place. They must have ordered thirty tiny plates of poached quail’s eggs, thimble-size chicken pot pies, and other assorted hipster bullshit, yet Cam left the restaurant as hungry as he’d arrived.
Then they’d dropped the girls off one by one, ending with Elise, because they’d made the trip in her car. Jay had been at her house, which had meant they’d had to go inside for a drink and lots of discussion about who among the relatives was going to be ushered into the wedding ceremony in what order. Then, finally, finally, he and Jane had hit the road, intending to take the subway to Jane’s house, where his car was parked. It was endless, logistical torture.
But then, when they hit their transfer point, where they were meant to change trains, Jane said, “Do you think Jay will spend the night at Elise’s? When we were at her place it sort of seemed like he might be staying over.”
“No doubt,” Cam had answered, gesturing for her to precede him up an escalator. “This is one of their last nights together before the wedding. Elise has this thing—”
“The sex palate cleanser,” Jane interrupted, turning toward him as she stood on the step above him.
Cam laughed. “Yes! She says they can’t have sex a certain number of days before the wedding.”
“Believe me, I know all about it. I just thought it would have kicked in already—I thought it was a weeklong ‘cleanse.’”
Cam shrugged. “They apparently had a discussion about it.” And a very forceful discussion it had been. He’d overheard them bickering in Elise’s kitchen on his way to the bathroom. Cam had a feeling his sexting with Jane was nothing compared to what went on behind closed doors with his brother and Elise, but he chose not to think too much about that. “The terms have been renegotiated, and the sex palette cleanser now officially kicks in when we move to the wedding site.”
They stepped off the escalator at the top. “So that means…” Jane paused under a set of signs. One directed them to another subway line, the one they needed to take to get to Jane’s house. The other directed them to the street above them.
The street that was a two-minute walk from Jay’s condo. The condo that Jay was not in.
“Let’s go,” he said.
He had to admire her restraint. She knew exactly what he was talking about. Hell, it had been her idea. But she walked calmly as she led them up the stairs to street level. Sailed serenely down the crowded street as if they had all the time in the world. Murmured a polite “thank you” when he held the door to Jay’s building for her. Nodded at the concierge as if she were a bored aristocrat.
And then, the instant the elevator doors shut behind them, that restraint shattered and she catapulted herself at him.
Damn. Their day had been one long, ball-busting bout of the most maddening teasing he’d ever experienced, and now it was finally, finally time.
He caught her with a groan and put his hands all over her. Mouths and hips slammed together as they fought to grab handfuls of each other. When the elevator dinged and the doors opened to the eighteenth floor, he staggered out, backward, relishing the momentary cry of displeasure from her that lasted until she realized what he was doing—that he was, in fact, dragging her along with him in an attempt to get them inside Jay’s place.
“This isn’t going to be some long-drawn-out thing the first time,” he said against her mouth as they fumbled their way down the corridor. “It can’t be. I have to get inside you now.” He felt bad about it, but there was nothing to be done because the day behind them, and the woman in front of him, had taken him to the very edg
e. He was a teenaged boy, ready to blow at any moment. No, actually, correction: he was a goddamned saint, a master of the Kama Sutra, given that he hadn’t already lost control half a dozen times today.
“Yes,” she said, panting as he pulled away long enough to stick his key into the lock. She took the opportunity to unbutton his fly and shove a hand into his pants. He grabbed her ass as he pushed the door open, then spun her around and pressed her back against it. She was grinning from ear to ear, trying not to laugh.
“What?” he asked, reaching up under her T-shirt to unclasp her bra.
“The first time?” she asked.
“That’s right,” he said, groaning as his hands made contact with the bare flesh of her breasts. He allowed himself one caress before going straight for her nipples, rubbing each between a thumb and forefinger. She gasped and arched against the door. He hadn’t been kidding when he’d said this was going to be fast, but he was still going to do his damnedest to make sure she kept pace with him. “After fast there’s going to be slow. Or fast again. Or whatever you want.” He paused in his assault long enough to slide her shirt over her head. “Take off your pants.”
She obeyed, and he had to close his eyes as he reached into his pocket to grab the condom he’d optimistically stashed there this morning. He needed a moment to collect himself because there was “fast,” and there was “over before it started.”
“Hurry up,” she urged, grabbing the condom and tearing it open. He shoved his pants down. They only made it as far as his knees before she rolled the condom onto his shaft.
“I can’t even believe how much I want you inside me,” she whispered, wonder in her voice.
He’d been going to take his clothes off, too. Surely there was time for that, he’d thought. But he had been wrong. So he did what he had to do, which was to swipe two fingers over her opening to confirm what he suspected. “Oh God, how can you be this wet for me?”
“How can you be this hard for me?” she countered in an almost confrontational tone that somehow made him even harder, which should have been impossible.
The image of her standing there, naked against the door while he was fully clothed with his pants around his knees, was suddenly too much. He took himself in hand and positioned his cock outside her entrance. She moaned and rocked her hips, grabbing at his chest like she was trying to climb up him, inside him. So he pressed his palms flat against the door behind her and slammed the rest of the way inside her, relishing the sharp, satisfied exhalation that resulted.
Then he did it again and again, harder each time, driving her higher and higher up on her tiptoes. And each time he was rewarded with a louder response from Jane.
He hadn’t been lying when he’d said this was going to be quick. He lasted only a few more strokes, but it was okay because by the time he exploded in ecstasy, she was screaming and her pussy was shuddering around him, squeezing out every drop of pleasure from him. His arms, still braced on the wall on either side of her head, shook and his heart felt like it was going to jackhammer out of his chest.
She was panting, too, as she slumped against him like a rag doll.
“Sorry,” he said. She had come, and rather spectacularly, too, but he still felt compelled to apologize for how brief their encounter had been.
A vague scoffing noise emerged from where her head was tucked into the crook of his arm.
Still. He continued to feel the need to throw out an excuse or two. “I guess that’s what happens when you meet a pretty girl after five months of celibacy.” Though he was pretty sure that wasn’t what was going on here. He and Christie had enjoyed themselves plenty when he’d returned from his first deployment, but he’d never had a sexual encounter that had been quite so…intense.
Her head popped up, which was good because after a day tromping around in the heat, he couldn’t smell very good. Her expression was hard to read. It looked like she was contemplating some big problem, trying to solve a riddle, which was impressive because his own brain was still firmly lodged in his pants.
“What’s next?” she said, still with that strange expression on her face.
“I’m thinking shower,” he said, watching her like a hawk to gauge her reaction. He couldn’t articulate why, but it felt like a lot hinged on his answer. “Shower, then slow.”
“Slow?” She sent that single eyebrow up, and he let himself relax a little. It felt like he’d passed a kind of invisible test.
“Yeah.” He leaned in, way in, wanting to recapture the sexually charged aura that had surrounded them all day. He put his nose right against her neck and inhaled the mixture of sunscreen and her. “Nice and slow,” he drawled. “Like we’ve got all night.”
Which they did.
It was a damn good feeling.
“My brother has shampoo and stuff,” Cam said a few minutes later as he shed his clothes in the bathroom and watched the still-naked Jane unload some miniature toiletries from her bag. “And Elise has some girly junk here, too.”
“I know, but I like my stuff,” she said, unwrapping the tiniest bar of soap he’d ever seen. “I brought a toiletries bag to the park because I wasn’t sure if we would be showering there. So since I have it, I might as well use it.”
“All right,” said Cameron, taking the soap and a travel bottle filled with shampoo from her. He lifted the soap to his nose and sniffed. Yep. Ivory. As he’d suspected that first night at the bar when he’d noticed how good she smelled relative to that chick whose name totally escaped him now. He flipped open the lid of the small bottle. “Watermelon,” he said with satisfaction. He’d called that correctly, too.
She shrugged as she tested the temperature of the water. “Elise’s stuff is much nicer than mine,” Jane said. “But I don’t care. You like what you like, right?”
He held both the bar of soap and the bottle of shampoo up to his nose at the same time and took a good long inhale. His senses filled with Jane. “I like it, too,” he said.
He liked it a lot.
* * *
After the water ran cold and Jane had another orgasm—there was something to be said for “slow”—she started to think she might have a problem.
It was just an inkling, a little unformed thought niggling at the corners of her mind, hinting that something wasn’t sitting quite right.
It was easy enough to shove out of her consciousness, though, once she was seated at the breakfast bar in Jay’s kitchen watching a shirtless Cameron make them grilled cheese sandwiches. “That hipster dinner was too small,” he proclaimed, and she had to agree.
She stared at his tattoos. It was so cliché, but they were the hottest thing ever, and when he was otherwise engaged like this, moving silently around the kitchen, she was free to observe them. She couldn’t imagine letting someone drag a needle across your skin in order to permanently mark it, and in that sense, they still sort of freaked her out. But she was starting to understand the power of being made to sit with your own discomfort. Roller coasters, tattoos…wild, animalistic sex. It was all rather exhilarating.
“Will you tell me about your tattoos?” she asked. She’d heard him say earlier to Gia that there was no story behind his ink, but she hadn’t believed him. He froze in place, his back to her, as he stood over the pan the sandwiches were cooking in. “You don’t have to,” she added quickly. He clearly didn’t like talking about the tattoos, so why had she thought she’d be the exception?
“Okay,” he said, flipping a sandwich but not turning around.
She waited a beat for him to start talking, and when it became clear he wasn’t going to, she said, “The one on your back is Flanders Fields, right?” The field of poppies was an iconic symbol of Canada’s war dead, something any citizen would recognize as such, and was probably a pretty logical tattoo for a soldier to have. She figured it was the safest one to inquire about.
“Yes,” he said after a beat. “The crosses at the top are for dead buddies.”
“What were their names?” she
asked, feeling like Cameron was the kind of guy who’d rather she skip the platitudes.
“Eric and Haseeb. They were our IED guys.”
“IED?”
“Improvised explosive device. They were the bomb squad.”
“Oh God.”
“That’s what the PTSD is from,” he said, his voice matter-of-fact, devoid of inflection. “We all watched them get blown up. We…couldn’t save them. Or the boy who was the bomber. He was so young.”
“Oh my God,” she breathed, feeling like a stupid broken record, but she realized with a thud that next to the crosses was a small crescent and star, the symbol of Islam. He’d immortalized his fallen comrades and the boy who’d killed them.
“I mean, who does that to a child?” he spat, his voice suddenly angry. “Uses a child as a weapon like that?”
There were a million more questions swirling around in her throat, but she swallowed them in favor of asking, “And the angel?”
He was still standing at the stove, so the tattoo in question, which was on his chest, wasn’t visible, but she could see it in her mind. It was an angel, all sleek and muscular and masculine—kind of like him. But its head hung, semi-obscured behind one of its mammoth wings, while the other extended to its full, fearsome wingspan. The image was huge—it covered most of his chest. It was hard to explain why exactly, but there was an aura of sadness about it.
“You don’t have to tell me,” she said when he remained silent and still. “It’s none of my business.”
“I was a bad kid,” he said, seeming to come to life as he used a spatula to move the sandwiches from the frying pan to a plate. But he didn’t do any more than that. Just kept standing there facing away from her.
To hear him call himself “bad,” so clinically and with such detachment, made her shiver.
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