Cameron’s exhale tickled the skin right beneath my ear. “Let’s take it back down now,” he said, interlacing our wet fingers and sending a rush of electricity up my arms at the sensation. He moved our hands and the clay changed shape. “That looks incredible.”
That soft spot in my chest batted its wings. I hooked my thumbs with his.
A grumble climbed out of Cameron’s mouth.
The flutter intensified, making me short of breath. I wanted to turn around and search his face. See if he was feeling like I did. But I didn’t, I didn’t want this to go away. Not yet. I was trapped by the moment. Captured by the solid presence of Cameron and the feel of his hands.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve held hands with anyone,” I heard myself admit out loud. “I can’t remember something so simple ever feeling this way.”
Cameron’s hands froze momentarily over mine. It was just a second, maybe less, but I’d seen it. Felt it. He hesitated.
I was spat out of the vacuum.
Just like that, I was no longer calm. Or peacefully trapped in whatever this was. The reins I was so busy keeping a tight hold of snapped right back into my grasp. Here I was, telling this man who was reluctantly doing this with me that he was the first to hold my hands in a long time. That he made me somehow feel like I’d never felt before. What was next? To tell him that besides that one-liner Matthew had thrown at me almost a decade ago, I’d never been flirted with? That my only serious relationship had turned out to be a lie? That the man I’d thought had been ready to propose once upon a time had never seen me as more than a bridge to get to my father?
She’s so frigid man. So… boring. I really dodged a bullet there. Too bad, because when the old man kicks the bucket she’ll probably inherit most of his money. But nah. I can only endure so much.
Nah.
As if I’d been nothing more than an insipid and boring side dish you passed on.
I’ll pass on the complimentary roasted veggies, thank you very much. But nah.
I hadn’t been hurt. I didn’t care that David had ended a relationship that brought little to my life. But as time had passed, I’d held on to the idea that I’d had at least that. That one relationship that proved that I wasn’t… cold. Dry. That I could be loved. Desired.
So how was I supposed to not crack? How was I supposed to hear David laugh and say that he’d dated me just to sneak into my father’s empire, that I was a bullet that was dodged, and not have something in me break? How was I supposed to not change when I heard everything he said right after that?
The image of Sparkles’s head at my feet crystallized in—
“Adalyn.” Cameron’s voice cut through the loud disarray of thoughts in my head. Again. Just like it always managed to do. “Snap out of it, darling.” It was angry. Rough sounding. “Come back to me.”
I forced myself to make sense of my surroundings.
The blob of clay rested at a weird angle.
Strong hands held mine.
Beautiful, crooked hands that had been injured one too many times. Where was the signet ring he wore around his pinky?
The sound of my own breathing crystallized in my ears. The vacuum I’d been sucked in a moment ago, spitting me right out. This wasn’t the first time. It wasn’t the first time I found myself close to hyperventilating in this man’s arms. I hated it.
“Where the hell did you go to?” Cameron asked. And when I didn’t answer, his thumbs started tracing idle circles on the top of my hands. “How long have you been experiencing panic attacks?”
My spine stiffened. “I don’t—I—” Panic attacks? “That wasn’t a panic attack.” It couldn’t be.
Could it?
Cameron hummed deep in his throat, and I didn’t know whether it was in agreement or complaint. He released one of my hands and snagged the flattened pile of material from the wheel.
“Is it ruined?” I asked him, hating how my voice sounded.
He discarded it on the side. “It is, yeah.”
Of course it was.
After a long moment he said, his voice still gentle, his tone kind, his arms around me, “Darling?”
“Maybe you were right,” I admitted, not even bothering to care I was not moving out of his embrace. “Maybe that was a panic attack.”
“Okay,” he said quickly. “But I was going to say something else.”
“That this was as therapeutic as a kick on the shin?”
A low chuckle left him, and the sound felt different from every other time he’d chuckled before. “I was going to say that everyone in here is staring at us. And as much as I don’t really mind, we either move, or we’ll be everything everybody will be talking about tomorrow.”