And now… now I wanted more. I wanted more than just his attention. I wanted to feel like I’d felt tonight. Seen. Connected. Not to someone, but to him. Cameron.
Without really knowing how, I rolled off Cameron’s large bed, and my bare feet padded over the hardwood. I made it to the living room and immediately zeroed in on his shape.
He occupied most of the couch, and the blanket that had once covered him was bunched up at his waist. The urge to go to him doubled. The need to wrap myself around him and cover us both. It wasn’t a sexual thing, even though I knew the moment I touched him, my blood would once again swirl with need. No, this was something else.
I walked to the couch. There was barely any space by his side, but I didn’t care. I felt vulnerable, as if I’d been torn inside out, my rawest parts on display. I set a knee by his hip, and slowly curled beside him.
A grunt left his throat, and in a swift, smooth motion, his arms were around me and he was on his side. He looked down, eyes half-open, and pulled me into his chest.
“Hi,” I whispered.
He hummed, and I felt the sound against my belly and breasts. “Can’t sleep?”
I gave him a small shake of the head. Without a word, I moved my hands, reaching the hem of his sleeping shirt. Not breaking eye contact, I slipped my fingers under it. I set my palms against his smooth and hard skin, letting the warmth travel up my arms and down my spine.
Cameron let out a shaky exhale. “Love,” he said, and I knew it was a warning.
“I just need to touch you,” I confessed, moving my hands up, pressing the tips of my fingers into his skin. “I need to feel you close.” His eyes darkened, and his mouth pressed into a line. He was looking at me so seriously. So stern. As if my plea was a life-changing event. “I want you as close as anyone has ever been.”
His arms tightened around me, and he pulled me close, much closer, lodging me into his body and trapping me there. I could feel his heart, pounding in his chest. “Better?”
I nodded and closed my eyes, reveling in the feeling. “Can you touch me, too?”
A growl fell out of his lips, and I knew it was costing him part of his restraint, but he complied. Of course he did. Cameron pulled the blanket over us, and only then, moved his hands beneath the only thing I wore over my underwear—one of his shirts—and he wrinkled it up with his wrist as his palms traveled up my back.
I shifted against him, feeling him growing hard against my belly. A shallow breath left my parted lips. And before I could move again, Cameron stilled my body against his.
“Cameron?” I whispered. “Can I ask you something?”
“Don’t ask me to fuck you, love,” he said, his voice nothing more than a rasp. “Because I will.”
A breathy laugh fell off my lips. “I would love nothing more,” I told him, meaning every word. And he must have been shocked by my admission because his body froze beneath mine. Just for a second. Then, it resumed with a shake, and I could feel his blood pulsing under my touch, his need growing with mine. “But I know it wouldn’t be fair with my mother across that wall. I know…”
My throat worked with the unfinished thought.
But I knew—felt, deep inside of me, based on tonight, and based on an instinctive and intrinsic part of myself that only answered to him—that sex with Cameron wouldn’t be just a quick and silent affair. It wouldn’t be something I’d like to do with my mother on the other side of the wall.
“Hmm,” I murmured. “On a second thought, maybe we should put my mother in Sweet Heaven Cottage.”
“It’s not a cottage,” he grunted quickly. I frowned but he rearranged me, thrusting one of his knees between mine and distracting me. “And that we you said like nothing?” A pause. “It all but killed me. So ask me your question.”
“Do you think I’m a little like her?” A shallow breath left my lips, and Cameron waited, as if he knew that wasn’t what I actually wanted to ask. “Or do I fade away beside her? Am I not a little black-and-white and cold and dull?”
We’d always been so different, she and I, and sometimes… Sometimes I’d wondered if I couldn’t be a little more like her. Now, I also wondered if my father had seen me before that video at all. If the world had. If Cameron really did.
He nudged his forehead against mine until I looked at him. His eyes were so bright, so open and full of raw honesty, that it made my pulse waver. “You are all I can see,” he told me, his words falling right on my lips. “Even when I close my eyes, you’re all I see.”