Billionaire Lumberjack’s Bargain (Lumberjacks in Love #5)

Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

DALTON

B y the time the water cools enough that Camille reaches over to add more from the hot tap for the third time, I grab her arm to stop her and shake my head. “I’m good.”

Some of the pain and tension may linger, but it’s light-years better than the constant spasms and agonizing sharp, stabbing torture I was experiencing before Camille arrived and forced me into this tub.

She offers me a concerned look, her dark brows furrowing. “You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

Her gaze drifts to my hand wrapped around her arm, and I let it linger there a little too long. The feel of her smooth, soft skin under my rough fingertips might be the most decadent thing I’ve ever experienced.

But it isn’t right for me to be so selfish when it comes to this woman.

Shit.

I release her quickly, and she reaches down to pull the drain plug.

Water starts rushing away from around me, and I watch the woman I’ve sat here with for the past hour in a comfortable silence—yet somehow, still one filled with a thousand unsaid things.

Very serious things that aren’t going to remain unsaid forever.

She saw the way my body reacted to her, the way I reacted when she mentioned leaving, but she doesn’t know the half of it.

How the panic welled instantly at the thought of her and Davey not being here.

How I wanted to scream that she better not ever leave and had to rein myself in from doing just that.

I have no right to say it.

No right to ask it.

Camille Bower isn’t mine, no matter how much I may want her to be.

She retreats to grab a towel for me, and I take the opportunity to push off the sides of the cast iron tub to get to my feet without her being able to see my grimace at the twinge of electric pain that radiates across my back and down my right thigh.

My legs shake, but it isn’t the violent, barely holding-me-up type of quaking that it was an hour ago when I thought I might collapse before I ever even made it up here.

She twists and hands it to me, keeping her gaze on my face rather than at my nearly naked body and soaked boxer briefs that cling to everything they cover.

At least my cock is cooperating now.

Though I don’t know how.

I’ve had enough dreams about this woman that I’ve woken with it hard and in my hand to last a lifetime, and in the tub, she kept looking at me in that way that she always did in those fantasies.

This is reality.

And reality is always stark and cold.

Not warm and inviting, the way Camille’s arms would be.

I dry off my torso and wait for her to turn around again before I slide the soaked underwear off, letting them remain in the tub. Because there’s no way in hell I’m bending over to grab them.

It can wait ‘til tomorrow…

Wrapping the towel around my waist, I hold my breath for a moment, trying to ready myself for the inevitable jolt that will come with climbing over the edge.

Just do it.

I grit my teeth and swing one leg over, then the other, to stand on the bathmat she kneeled on. Keeping watch over me for so long. Ensuring I would take her advice, even when I never wanted her to see me like this.

Her stubbornness helped me today—something I’m sure she won’t ever acknowledge since she can’t seem to see that it isn’t a fault. Not by a longshot.

She finally turns to face me and leans against the counter, examining me with a keen, practiced eye that I’m sure sees everything I want to hide. “How are you feeling?”

I offer her a half smile that I hope does a good job of hiding my continued discomfort. “Better.”

“Pain level?”

“Six.”

Her eyes widen slightly. “Still?”

“But considering I was definitely at a ten plus , I’d have to say your little home remedy worked.” I move toward her cautiously. “This is bearable .”

Each step might send a little spark of agony up through my spine, but it’s not like I haven’t lived in constant pain for twenty years, anyway.

This is more of my normal end-of-the-day level.

One I’m used to and can manage .

Her mouth twists, her lips pressed together in a way that screams she isn’t happy about the current situation. “What do you normally do when you’re like this?”

I lift one shoulder and let it fall as nonchalantly as I can. “Climb into bed. Getting horizontal and keeping the pressure off helps.”

“Then that’s what you should do.”

I nod. “That’s the plan.”

She watches me carefully for signs that I might be downplaying how bad it is, but I’ve been honest with her since I finally gave up trying to hide it. “I have a suggestion.”

My eyes drift over the sink. “I hope it’s not related to the bottles of pills that are in that cabinet.”

Camille shakes her head, shifting on her bare feet awkwardly. “No. Another pretty basic home remedy.”

“Okay…”

Why is she being so weird about this?

“If you’ll let me—”—she glances down at her hands, resting on her belly, and then back up at me—“if you’ll let me massage you, I could get more tension out of the muscle.”

Fuck.

My throat closes with the sudden dryness, and I try to swallow through it, willing my cock to stay down at the thought of her hands on me. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea…”

The corner of her lips twitches slightly. “I didn’t think you spending all this time and energy helping me on the homestead was a good idea, either. You ignored me, and look where it got you.”

Fuck is she quick and smart.

“Touché.”

She pushes from the counter. “This is my opportunity to make up for it, for all the pain you must have been going through for the last several months while you were helping us.”

“Camille…”

She’s so close to me that I can smell that faint orange blossom scent that haunts my dreams.

Her shampoo?

Her lotion?

Or maybe it’s just her.

I lean even closer, knowing full well I shouldn’t, given the tension permeating the room and the fact that my cock was hard for her less than half an hour ago. “You don’t owe me anything.”

When she looks up, I can see the determination in her gaze and know I’ve lost. “I do, though—whether you want it or not. And I’m far from a massage therapist, but Dave used to have some issues in his back and shoulder, so I know how much I can help, if you’ll let me.”

Shit.

Denying her the opportunity to do something like this for me is just as selfish as allowing it.

She doesn’t just want to help. She needs to.

I draw in a long, slow breath and release it, gathering the strength I know I’m going to need to handle what’s about to happen. “Okay.”

One thing I learned quickly about the woman standing beside me is that she doesn’t back down easily, and she also clings to her guilt like an old friend. Unfortunately, I’m more than familiar with that sentiment.

If helping me with this will help ease some of that for her, I can’t say no.

I slowly walk to my room, keeping my right hand against the wall to steady myself rather than risk collapsing onto the floorboards. Things may be better, but I don’t trust my legs not to give out on me again at any moment the way they did out in the barn earlier.

Camille stays at my side and slightly behind me, like she’s waiting to catch me if I should lose my balance—or worse.

But she doesn’t touch me.

She lets me do it on my own.

And Christ, do I appreciate that about her.

By the time I finally lie down on the bed, I release a relieved groan at the almost instant release of pressure.

Thank fucking God…

Camille steps in and pushes the door closed behind her as she eyes me spread out on top of the quilt. “Are you okay to lie on your stomach?”

I nod.

Maybe that will make this easier.

Not having to look at her.

Not having to see her perfect, soft, pink lips or the way her blue eyes roam over me like they do now, taking in every inch of my exposed skin like she’s taking stock.

I know I’m not imagining the pull between us that’s developed over the last several months. I’m not just seeing what I want to or reading into the situation because she’s vulnerable.

Camille isn’t in any place to want anything from me other than my help on her homestead—and I may have offered her more, but I won’t bring it up again.

Never.

Not even when she finally lays her hands on me.

Pushing up on my elbow, I roll over onto my stomach, turning my head to one side so I can watch her out of the corner of my eye.

She moves toward the bed slowly, cautiously, like I’m a wounded animal who might strike, but I am far from it. If anything, she’s like a fucking lion tamer who has somehow managed to wrangle me into submission just by being kind, by doing something no one else ever really has, forcing me to take care of myself.

Her knee hits the mattress, and she shifts closer to me.

The towel still lies wrapped around my waist, covering my lower back to mid-thigh.

She clears her throat. “I’m going to have to move this down a little.”

I nod my approval, afraid of trying to voice my consent when it feels like I’m hanging on a razor-thin edge of something I can’t fall off.

Her soft fingers brush against my skin as she slides them beneath the terry cloth. My whole body twitches, then tenses at the electrical current that buzzes through every nerve ending with her simple caress.

Not pain.

Far fucking from it.

She tugs on the towel hard enough to release the loose tie at the front and nudges it down until I can feel the cool air of the room brush against the top of my ass.

Her eyes linger on my lower back, on the scars crisscrossing it, and she worries her bottom lip between her teeth and looks like she’s fighting something she wants to say.

Part of me wants to know what it is, but more of me just needs her hands on me again.

My cock stirs, pinned between my pelvis and the mattress beneath me, just anticipating that soft caress again.

“You’re going to have to tell me if it’s too much, if it hurts in certain places, what feels good and what—”

“Camille…”

She glances at me, and I push up on my elbow so I can turn my head fully back to her.

“I will be fine.”

I hold her gaze for as long as she allows it, trying to ensure she sees how much I mean it.

How not worried I am that she could inadvertently hurt me.

She finally gives a little bob of her head and reaches forward, pressing her palms flat against my back, drifting over it in a way that makes me release a sharp hiss before I drop my forehead into my pillow.

Camille thinks this will help, but it’s going to be absolute fucking torture at the same time.

* * *

CAMILLE

Dalton trembles under my touch, and I push my thumbs into the tense muscles along the base of his spinal column, feeling along the rigid bone and metal hardware there.

God, these surgeries must have been agonizing…

He issues a low groan with the increased pressure, a sound that sends a rush of heat between my legs embarrassingly fast.

Hell.

When I walked into that bathroom and saw him like that, I certainly never expected I’d end up like this with him, mostly naked under my hands. Or that my body would react so damn inappropriately to it.

The man is in pain , he’s suffering , and I’m starting to feel like a bitch in heat.

I squeeze my thighs together and shift on my knees, trying to work out the ache forming there without being obvious.

It’s the hormones.

It has to be.

You were the same way when you were pregnant with Davey…

I keep telling myself that.

The same way I did a thousand times while I sat beside Dalton in that bathtub after I glanced into the water and saw how hard his cock was straining against the wet fabric of his boxer briefs.

After I heard the break in his voice, when he begged me never to consider leaving again.

It was all too much.

Too overwhelming when I’m already a hormonal and emotional mess.

And now I have my hands on him.

His hot, smooth skin and raised scars.

The hard, rippling muscles.

Stop thinking about it and just help him.

I shake my head to try to clear the images running through it, then reach up and press my hand against the middle of his shoulder blades, urging him down fully. “You need to relax.”

If he stays so tense, this isn’t going to benefit him at all. And since that’s the entire reason I’m putting myself through what is turning out to be both a test of my own strength and proof of how little control I have over my own body when I’m in this condition.

The dull throb between my legs continues as Dalton releases a deep sigh and collapses onto his chest, letting his arms fall out to his sides. He turns his head to the right, and his eyes drift closed.

Thick, dark lashes flutter against his cheeks, and I shift to the sides of his spine, digging into the tight muscles across his lower back that cut out across his ass.

Dalton winces and clenches his eyes and fists.

“Is it too much?”

He shakes his head, and his hands relax on the bed. “No”—he swallows audibly—“it feels so good. You have magic hands…”

I laugh lightly at his comment, and it feels so fake, so wooden, considering the tension building in me and in the room around us. “You’re not the first person who has said that.”

That thought helps cool my heated body slightly, but I don’t let myself go down the road that will lead to memories of the man I thought I’d spend the rest of my life with.

Just keep working on him .

I’m careful not to press too hard in the places where I can feel the hardware, where his body was literally pieced back together after it was shattered.

An image of him as a child flashes through my head. A mop of sandy-blond hair. Green eyes rimmed with red from the constant tears of loss, pain, and fear.

It quickly morphs into Davey in the same situation.

Tears blur my vision, and I blink them away, trying desperately not to let my concern and my feelings that have grown for this man overwhelm my common sense. But he shifts under me, moving his hips in a way that makes my core clench around something that isn’t there.

“Are you all right?”

He glances back at me again, his eyes hooded. “Just trying to get in a more comfortable position.”

I do the same, transferring my weight and inching my legs together to better gain control of what feels like an utterly uncontrollable ache between my thighs.

Dalton resettles, and I breathe through my reaction to him the best I can. Working his taut muscles until I start to feel them give way and relax under my fingers. Digging into places that feel exceptionally tight, where his body has compensated for the injury and the ways he abuses it on a daily basis in order to complete the tasks necessary to keep this place—and ours—running.

The occasional groan and gasp that slip from his lips as he practically melts under my touch only coil me tighten, make the aching need unbearable, until I feel like I’m going to snap if I don’t get relief.

My body is shaking by the time I’ve worked on him for almost half an hour, and I finally have to pull my hands away, resting them on my own quivering thighs before I act and do something I know I shouldn’t.

He pushes up on his elbows and looks back at me. “Thank you, Camille.”

Our gazes lock, and the heat I see in his matches that searing through me, threatening to consume me alive.

All logic tells me that this is my cue to leave.

To slide back off the bed and to walk away from him.

To let him relax and sleep.

Allow his body to calm down from the trauma it experienced today.

But I can’t bring myself to move, not when my hands still tingle with the feel of his hard, hot body under them.

His green eyes darken in a way that makes my heart flutter, and my clit does the same.

Hell…

I shift restlessly, pressing my thighs together against the growing need for release. “Don’t look at me like that, Dalton.”

It isn’t the first time I’ve issued him the warning, and the last time I did, he didn’t heed it. That only led to a more complicated situation. To both of us walking on eggshells around each other, afraid to do or say anything that might be taken the wrong—or right—way.

“Why not?”

His voice comes out in a deep rasp I’ve never heard before.

Full of so much need that clearly matches my own.

I shake my head, swallowing through the emotion clogging my throat. “Because I can’t.”

“Why can’t you, Camille?”

It’s such a stupid question when he knows the answer, when it’s glaringly obvious. But when I open my mouth to answer, the words won’t come out.

All those reasons seem less important when my body is thrumming and desperate for this man’s touch.

“Camille…”

The way he says my name draws my focus back to him, and the pain there has been replaced with a searing lust that makes all the walls I’ve built up to keep my attraction to him at bay shatter far too easily.

“Roll over.”

Dalton’s eyes flare, his body tensing, but he slowly rotates onto his back, exposing himself to me fully. His hard cock lies thick and heavy across his stomach.

Fuck…

He is clearly just as affected as I am.

My clit throbs again, and I bite back a groan at the thought of what it would feel like to have him inside me.

Goddamn these fucking hormones.

It’s the last thing I should be thinking about.

He’s my friend—my savior, really—but he can’t be anything more. Still, the thought of climbing on top of him and letting him slip inside is far too appealing to simply erase from my thoughts.

His hand slides over mine where it rests on my thigh, and I jerk my gaze up over his perfectly formed abs and honed chest, built by years of hard, manual labor. That work may have destroyed what was already broken, but it has sculpted Dalton into an exquisite, perfect example of the male form.

My eyes finally reach his, and we stare at each other, tethered by shared need, while both of us are restrained by our own reasons not to act on what we clearly both want in this moment.

His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows thickly, watching me. “Maybe you should go.”

The words seem almost excruciating for him to speak, but the flash of distress that rushes through me with his suggestion says far more about what my choice is going to be than what my head wants to say.

This doesn’t have to mean anything.

It can just be relieving this tension that exists between us and that these damn hormones are building inside me…

That’s what I tell myself as I slide my hand out from under his and grip his hard length.

He hisses, his eyes drifting closed as I stroke him in one long, slow movement that takes my palm up across the head of his cock where a bead of pre-cum glistens.

“Fucking hell, Camille.”

The throaty groan only throws more gas onto the inferno already blazing inside me, and I shift impatiently on my knees, trying to find a position that helps alleviate the ache between my legs.

His eyes fly open and drift down to his hand resting on my thigh.

So close to where I want it.

Where I need it.

I tighten my grip on him.

His jaw clenches, a muscle there ticcing violently as his hand drifts low to the seam of the maternity stretch pants I never had time to change out of before I rushed over here today. “I don’t know what I’m doing, Camille.”

The painful-sounding admission should be a stark reminder of why we should stop.

He’s so much younger than me.

Completely inexperienced.

And in absolutely no position to be making these types of decisions.

Yet, I can’t bring myself to pull away.

I stroke him again and again, dragging my palm across the slick head of his cock as I turn slightly to give him better access.

He murmurs something under his breath I can’t quite catch, too focused on the heat building between my legs before he’s even touched me there.

I shift my knees wider, and his hand glides up between them until he’s cupping me. That flicker of contact is enough to make me buck against his hold, and he groans, then pushes his fingers up along the harsh seam of the material, rubbing it into my already-soaked underwear.

My eyes drift closed on a silent gasp, my hand tightening around his cock. His hips arch up into my fist, and he glides his fingers across me in a slow rhythm that creates the most beautiful friction but doesn’t quite give me what I need.

Practically panting now, my hips grinding against him in a frantic search, I release his cock. His eyes fly open with concern, and I reach down to the waistband of my pants and shove them down my hips far enough to give him better access.

I grasp his wrist and guide his hand right over me, where only a thin piece of already-soaked silky fabric separates us.

He groans again and starts gliding his fingers back and forth, but still not hitting the right spot to send me spinning.

Taking him in one palm, I place my other hand over his and start guiding his movements, teaching him what I want, what I need to find the release that’s been taunting me for what feels like forever.

I help press his fingers up against my clit and rub in harsh, quick circles, and he moans as my tempo stroking his cock increases. His hips roll up to meet my hand until he’s basically fucking it as I ride his.

It doesn’t take long for that low heat centered deep in my core to spread, and my mouth falls open on a gasp as those first little sparks start to fire off.

“Camille…” My name comes breathy, strangled, and I force my eyes open to meet his as my orgasm hovers on the periphery of reach. The green blazes with the type of need I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. “I’m going to—”

He swallows the final word, his body tightening and going completely rigid as he starts to come.

Hot spurts shoot from the head of his cock over my hand and across his stomach, every muscle in his beautiful form going completely rigid as my own release finally blasts through me.

My body jerks and twitches as he continues to stroke the wet fabric and glide across my clit in the motion I taught him until I can’t take it anymore, until I’m too sensitive to bear even a feather-light touch.

I whimper and tug his hand away with mine, then drop forward, pressing both my palms against his bare skin—one covered in his release, the other over his hand that just got me off for the first time in five months.

Tears well and start to trickle down my cheeks.

But it isn’t regret.

It isn’t pain.

It’s just pure, unadulterated relief.