I opened my mouth to ask if there was something wrong, but all too soon, Cameron was releasing me and his hand was flying toward the clay.
He swatted at the ball.
Once, twice. Three times. And I—
Oh God. Was Cameron spanking the clay? My heart dropped to my stomach. Why couldn’t I stop staring at his hand? Why was my face feeling like flames were licking at my cheeks?
I brought one of my hands to my forehead, checking how my skin felt to the touch. I must be coming down with something. This couldn’t possibly make me so hot.
This wasn’t erotic. This was just clay.
“Seems good to go,” Cameron said next, grabbing a sponge I hadn’t even seen there. He wetted it in a bowl. “We can get started with the centering.”
“The centering,” I repeated in a wobbly voice.
He nodded, and when the man squeezed the sponge gently, letting a few water drops fall onto the clay, I was certain. I had to be sick. Something was going on with me. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be finding the way his wet fingers slid around the slick material so suggestive. My throat dried.
“Adalyn?” His voice made it through the insanity in my head.
I looked up at him. His eyebrow was arched. “Press the pedal, darling.”
“The… what?”
“Make the wheel turn,” he instructed, his tone gentle, so gentle it felt foreign. As if he was talking to somebody else. “With the pedal.”
My lips bobbed, my understanding of basic things stifled by those unexpectedly suggestive visuals of the clay. “What do you mean?”
Cameron sighed softly, and suddenly he was on the move, walking around the table.
He placed himself behind me. “You’re making this really hard, darling,” he said, and before I could process his comment, his palm landed on my thigh. Strong fingers wrapped around my leg, slid down to my knee. He lifted my now numb limb, letting my foot fall on something. That warm, large hand pressed gently, his body coming slightly over mine with the motion. “Quit looking at me all soft and sweet and focus on pressing the pedal with your foot, yeah?”
I was shaken—so overwhelmed by the sudden closeness of Cameron’s body and his words—that instead of pressing, I jerked my leg forward, hitting the pedal with uncontrolled force.
The wheel whirled, wickedly fast, splattering mud all over the place. Us.
“Christ,” Cameron growled, his arms coming around my body, as if to protect me from the splashing mud, and his leg swiftly replacing mine. The thing slowed down. “You have to start at a gentle speed,” he instructed, his mouth much, much closer than it had been a few seconds ago. Right beside my temple. His leg moved again, making me notice how it pressed right against mine. “See?” he asked, but I didn’t see a single thing. Not with Cameron wrapped around me. “We have the control of the wheel. Us.”
Us.
We.
I didn’t think I was breathing but I nodded. So enthusiastically that the back of my head collided against his collarbone. “I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “I… was distracted.”
By you. Your touch. The way you’re sandwiching me against the edge of the tabletop.
Cameron reached for the sponge again, and his jaw brushed my cheek.
My breath hitched.
His fell on my temple. “You shouldn’t be disrupting my train of thought this easily, either.”
Either. The fire in my face spread down my neck, sneaking into the neckline of the overalls. “Am I doing that?”
Cameron produced a sound that made his chest rumble. He grabbed my hands and placed them on the spinning clay. “If it’s not well centered,” he said, increasing the speed of the plate and keeping his palms over mine as the material slid beneath my skin. The inside of his thigh pressed on the outside of mine. He felt like a furnace. “The whole thing will be off balance.”
I gave him a nod. But I was no longer listening.
“Press gently,” he instructed, driving our hands upward and around the wet material. “This is the way we cone the clay up.”
That we again. I… liked it.
I also liked the hypnotizing motion of the wheel and the blanketing sensation of Cameron’s body around mine. I seemed to like one too many things about this. Things I shouldn’t like.
“Just like that.” His voice was now impossibly low, carrying the same quality I felt inside my chest. He moved even closer, his arms swallowing me up. “Good job, darling. Well done.”
Something in me stirred at the simple praise. I was vaguely aware of this happening before, but my heart still pounded. It banged against my rib cage, just like Cameron’s, and it felt good. So good that I leaned back, letting my head fall against his chest while we worked.