Seductive Secrecy (Shadows series) (7 page)

I couldn’t ignore the coolness in his voice or the way his
movements
had completely halted. Or Lilly’s voice that crept into my head
between everything else.

You’ll never be good enough for him, Charlie. You’re just like me.

“No…it probably wasn’t,” I said, trying to block her horrid tone from my ears.

He leaned his forehead against mine and closed his eyes again. My lids shut as well and I took in the silence that was finally in my head, and the one that passed between us. Despite how each of us felt about Dallas and Lora on a personal level, they were hindrances in our relationship. Cameron had given me his assurance; I needed to give him the same.

I lifted my hand from under the blanket and set it on his leg,
inching my way up his thigh until it reached the bulge in his jeans. “You have nothing to worry about.”

His lids shot open, the expression in his eyes told me I’d just given him all the reassurance he needed.

“While I was with Dallas, this is what I thought about,” I
whispered, closing the gap between our mouths until our lips finally touched. I briefly pulled away. “Touch me, Cameron.”

I immediately felt the tension in his muscles dissolve, and the tips of his fingers slowly crawled up to my naked chest and clamped the tiny mounds. A little pain was always involved in our intimacy; it heightened my passion. But I knew this was more than him just giving me pleasure. He was reminding me that my body was his. I responded, arching my back, giving him full access to whatever he wanted to pleasure…or hurt.

“I need more,” he breathed. “I need to taste your pussy.”

The orgasms his mouth gave me were some of the best I’d ever had. I thought about his tongue almost as much as I fantasized about
his cock. But tonight there was an urgency in my body and it
hungered to be filled. Filled with all of him, not just a prolonged flicking from his tongue.

Sitting up in bed, I reached for the bottom of his shirt and began to pull it over his head. I didn’t notice if it was a sweater, a button-down or a long-sleeve. I just wanted his chest free from it. A tight beanie covered the short, shaved strands of his hair. I yanked that off as well. I stood in front of him, his legs dangling off the side of the bed as I tore at the thick metal buckle of his belt and hauled his jeans down his legs.

“They look better on you,” he said, his head pointing toward my boxers.

I glanced down, remembering that I was dressed in his clothes, the boxers loosely hanging from my hips, the T-shirt sagging around me. When dressing for Cameron, I normally wore something much more revealing, silk or lace and extremely fitting to my body.

“I was freezing and just grabbed something
”

“I’m serious. Seeing my clothes cover the spot that I want to lick is sexy.” His tone changed. “I like you like this: natural…a little innocent, even.”

An innocent girl wouldn’t stare her man in the eyes and slowly strip the clothes off her body, moving her hips to a silent beat. She wouldn’t straddle his naked lap, placing his tip at her entrance and her breasts against his mouth. But that’s exactly what I did. I didn’t ignore his request to lick my pussy
I fully intended on giving it to him. I was just planning on taking him at the same time.

His hands went to the middle of my back while he ate his way across my chest; my fingers landed on his shoulders, digging into his skin as the ache became almost intolerable. My nails dug into his ink; with each nibble from his mouth, I bounced a little farther and let the tattoos sink even deeper into my mind. They covered the top half of his upper body, branches from the tree on his back crept over his shoulders and down each bicep. It reminded me that no matter how
well we knew each other by now, there was still a layer of
secrecy…the mystery was seductive, powerful. Erotic. But so was my desire to know the truth behind his tattoos; they served as a reminder that I still had so much to learn about him.

When my eyes reached the end of his ink, they took in all his
strength, the power I felt from him as he pushed against me. Cameron didn’t work out for as many hours as Dallas; he didn’t drink protein shakes and monitor every bite of food that went down his throat. He didn’t need to. He went to the gym in our building every morning; he ran. And he spent a great deal of time pumping into me. All of it was
enough to keep him in perfect shape. His outline was molded by
muscle and it was a hardness that easily held my weight and protected me whenever I was near. It dominated me in a way that I needed.

“Take it, baby,” he mumbled with a full mouth.

As I looked down, he glanced up and his hand moved to my lip, pulling it out from between my teeth. I didn’t realize I had been chewing it. It was my signal of surrender. I knew how close I was to giving into his demand. I may not have wanted the prolonged tease from his tongue, but I was definitely up for more of the temptation below that pressed against me.

And as much as I lusted over this man, relived in my
imagination the things he could do to my body when I wasn’t anywhere near him, it was more than just wanting to bury myself, my thoughts or my fears in an orgasm. What we had was deeper—much deeper than
I’d ever gotten with anyone. Our connection was real; I had a
genuine desire to be closer to
him
, to feel the presence of his skin without it rubbing on me, and to hear the words that poured from his mouth. And I tried to show him that by being less aggressive than I had been with everyone else, by controlling my constant urge to reach for his dick. Because of his past he only liked calculated movements, not surprised ones. I tried to honor that at all times. It meant that I let him lead our fantasies for the most part, taking the pleasure he gave me instead of initiating it.

But tonight, I was in control and he was giving me the freedom to do whatever I wanted. So I ran my tongue over my lip, tasting the spot where his thumb had just rested. I swallowed his taste as it swirled with the small amount of liquid in my mouth. And then I
placed my hands on his thighs, bearing my weight, my heels
pressing into the mattress behind him, and I lowered my body, taking him completely within me.

His head briefly fell back as I went in for my second thrust. “Your pussy is so tight. Damn, Charlie. Damn…”

I bowed into him as his words coursed through me, resonating in the bottom of my stomach where the pulsing had begun.

I wasn’t good at handling jealousy. I didn’t know how to truly understand and process my emotions. I wasn’t really sure what love felt like outside of what I had experienced with Emma.

But sex? That was something that just came to me naturally.

My hips didn’t just bob; they ground forcefully, circling him inside of me. And as my wetness spread over him, an overwhelming
flutter palpitated in my core. His responses were groans. Mine
matched
his…though they were much higher pitched and much, much louder.

“Fuck…me,” he breathed and his hands moved to my hips. They weren’t there to steer me; he knew I had this. A cadence came from me whenever I was on top of him, a deep steady climb and fall with each stroke. They were there for the same reason I had stabbed his shoulders earlier. It was a reaction from a feeling that took me to a place where I was no longer in control.

He tilted his hips upward, giving me a new angle that filled me even more. It was as though he was reaching the end of me. We both felt it, the tightness when he buried himself up to his base and the emptiness when I reached the top.

To keep me close, he wrapped my face in his palms and covered
my lips with his, in a slow, passionate dance. Even when our
movements
were fueled by a pounding desire, he always showed a bit of
softness. His lips took what they wanted from mine before wandering to my breasts. The combination of the two sensations pulled me closer. I had felt the nearness before his teeth had even found my skin.

“Cameron…”

His eyes dragged up my body until they reached my stare. “Say it again, baby.”

I broke contact, my nipple submerged in his mouth, and the site jolted the sparks of warmth from my stomach. I dug my nails into
his thighs, my feet pushed even harder into the mattress and I
arched my back, preparing for the build that was only seconds away.

“Cameron,” I moaned, and I squeezed him inside of me.

“Come for me.” His words trickled over me at the same time one of his fingers touched down on my clit. My body was already at that place, the foundation, and I didn’t need either to break through the barrier…but they did anyway. He met me halfway, pumping with the same intensity as my thrusts.

His hands quickly gripped my arms and he pulled me to him. I wrapped my fingers around his shoulders, cradling his head against my chest; his then went around my back, and we clung to each other, our bodies shuddered in sync.

I WENT TO THE POST OFFICE EVERY TWO WEEKS
to pick up my father’s most recent letter. I’d opened the post office box shortly after coming out of hiding. My father had suggested I do it, just before he left. Since I hadn’t had his contact information at the time, I gave the number to his attorney. Less than a week later, his first letter arrived. Below his signature, he had given me his address in Switzerland. I knew that wasn’t where he lived; the letters I received from him always had a different country in Europe stamped on each envelope. But mail was the only way I could reach him and our only method of communication.

The post office I used wasn’t the one near our apartment; it was on the other side of the city. It wasn’t because I believed I would be followed, or that I was a target for anything. It just felt better to keep
this part of my life out of my neighborhood. I had to take two
different trains to get there and walk several blocks from the station. It was a smaller mailing center, with only one attendant. He was helping a
customer and didn’t notice when I slipped in. There was a single
envelope waiting inside the box. I tucked it into my pocket and
didn’t open it until I had taken a seat on the bench that was right outside the train station. It was where I always stopped to read his notes.

Like all the others he had sent, there was no salutation at the top of the notebook paper; just black ink scripted over the light blue lines, like his thoughts were picking up where they’d left off last.

***

The sky never changes, regardless of how far away you are from home. It’s always the same blue, and the sun is the same flavor of warmth. Their consistency is something you can rely on, unlike the stars. For some reason those aren’t as bright on this side of the world. Some might disagree, or dismiss it altogether; they would give anything to be here, to experience these tastes and culture and dip their bodies into this water. But not me.

I feel like a part of me is still there, in Boston.

I’ve been following the news, and it sounds like the trial is going to take
longer than I thought. I know we both want an end, for very different
reasons. I
can’t make those memories go away for either of us, as much as I wish I
could. The best that can happen now is that the nightmares are put to rest. For you at least, I hope.

Promise me he’s treating you well. Promise me you’re treating yourself well, too. Promise me you haven’t taken a pause
that you’re throwing yourself into your classes, that you’re creating. That you’re believing.