Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
natalie
CAMERON WALKED AHEAD OF me to his office, his body tight as he moved through the hallways. His arms were stiff at his sides, his hands flexing and then balling into fists like he didn’t know what to do with them.
I was right on his heels, equally jittery. My skin felt stretched too thin, unable to contain the emotions that lived on the surface of my being at the moment. My heart thumped, both from the anxiety of the deposition and the feeling of Cameron’s palm on my inner thigh.
His touch had started as supportive. It anchored me, pulled me down to the ground and kept me there when I felt like I was about to float away in a flurry of nerves.
But then it became more. Explorative, sensual, needy but restrained—like it was killing him not to touch more of me.
And now my whole body ached, pulsed with a longing I didn’t fully understand.
Because I’d wanted him to touch more of me, too.
And without getting that, I felt on edge, dangling on the precipice of… something.
Cameron burst through his office door, striding into the small space and pacing the length of it once, like he couldn’t quite contain his energy enough to stop. Once I’d stepped inside, he made his way back to the door, shutting it firmly before rounding on me.
My stomach flew into my throat as Cameron’s large palms cupped both sides of my face, drawing us together.
I didn’t know what he was doing, but there was not a single ounce of resistance within me, not one part of me that wanted to stop it.
He dropped his forehead to mine, his breath fanning my lips as he groaned.
It was a guttural sound, dripping with a tangle of emotions that didn’t fit into words.
“You did so good, Natalie.” His deep voice pierced right through all my defenses and then spread, reaching every part of me. “So good in there. I’m so proud of you.”
“Thank you.” The words came out of me on an exhale. I should say more, do more, but I just let Cameron hold me for a second, closing my eyes as I sank into the moment. His touch, his support, the assurance. God, I needed this.
Actually, no, that wasn’t true.
I needed more.
Instinctively, I leaned in.
Cameron sensed it. His grip trailed down my jawbone, breathing becoming ragged.
“Natalie.” He gasped my name as his lips flirted with the corner of my mouth, and I strained for more, tipping my face in his grasp. “Fuck,” he cursed beneath his breath. “I’ve never—I can’t—” He broke off, struggling with words that heated my skin, sending shivers down my trembling body.
“It’s okay, Cam,” I breathed, needing him to understand that I was right here with him, right here wanting with him.
He could kiss me if he wanted to. I wasn’t going anywhere this time, didn’t want to go anywhere. There was nowhere in the world I’d rather be right now than here in his grasp.
I opened my eyes to see Cameron shaking his head, his lips once again grazing the upward curve of mine.
“It’s not.” He sounded tortured to admit it. “It’s not okay.”
I swayed toward him, placing a hand on his chest. I could feel the pounding of his pulse through his crisp dress shirt, the warmth of his skin. I had to hold myself back from slipping my fingers through the opening between buttons, wanting badly to feel more.
“Why?”
Even as I asked the question, reasons flooded in. He was my lawyer. We had the case to think about, and—
“You want something slow,” he said, a brusque reminder that surprised me.
“You want something in control. And that’s not how I feel right now, Natalie.
” His hands dropped to my shoulders, like he was going to force me back but couldn’t.
They just gripped tight, holding me in place.
“Right now…it’s not the time. Right now, I feel like if I kissed you, I wouldn’t know how to stop. ”
It took every ounce of restraint in me not to tell him that right now I really wanted that—for him to kiss me and not stop. Especially when he said things like that, when his concern for what I wanted was at the top of his mind, instead of all the obvious things.
Like we were standing in his office in the middle of the workday.
“God, it’s torture, though.” Cameron dropped his head to the crook of my neck. His lips brushed my pulse point, sending me back to that night in the back hallways of Mulligan’s. I closed my eyes, reeling from the sensation of past and present colliding. “You feel…fuck.”
The guttural curse vibrated through me, sending another shock wave of heat, and his name left my mouth on a gasp.
“Yeah?” he responded, and I felt the tip of his nose trail up the length of my neck, until his lips were grazing the shell of my ear, the warm panting of his breath hitting some erogenous zone I didn’t even know existed. My insides liquified as he murmured, “I’m right here.”
“I’m sorry.” My fingers twisted in his shirt, feeling moments away from crumbling in his arms under the weight of everything—the roller coaster of adrenaline, the desire, the want, the need. “I’m sorry for making this so hard.”
I wasn’t sure I’d ever forgive myself, honestly. For messing everything up for us.
“Hard,” Cameron repeated, a husky chuckle in the back of his throat. “Yeah, you’re definitely the reason I’m so fucking hard right now, Sunshine.”
After that admission, he took a forceful step back, an undistinguished growl rising from his chest. I detached myself from his shirt, and he raked a hand down his face.
When he dropped it, his gaze flicked to mine, immediately tracking my eye movements, which were trailing down, wanting to see the evidence of what he’d just muttered.
“Don’t,” he warned, catching my jaw in his grip, tipping my chin up again. “Fuck, Natalie. I don’t think I could handle your eyes on me like that right now.”
Feeling guilty, I bit down on my bottom lip, tugging it between my teeth in a way that sparked a ferality in Cameron’s gaze, which was now trained on my mouth.
“I’m sorry,” I breathed again, meaning it.
“Holy hell, what are you doing to me?” The words were barely discernible.
He shook his head, trying to bring back some level of awareness, I was sure.
And then, said more audibly, “There’s no need to apologize, okay?
” His thumb trailed from my jaw to my chin to the lower curve of my lip, just barely tracing it.
“Okay,” I agreed, even though I wasn’t sure I believed it.
“When I can, I want to give you more, want to give you everything. I fucking know I could,” he said, voice so unbelievably confident.
I sucked in and then nodded, eager for it.
“I…I can wait for that.” Even as I said it, I wondered how the hell I would ever be able to follow through on that when the tension between us felt this palpable, this unbearable.
But still, I tried to make it sound believable, doable.
“We can wait until this is all over. It’ll be…
” The little confidence I had in my words quickly trailed away as Cameron’s thumb traveled the edge of my lips, like he was memorizing the shape of them. “Okay,” I finished lamely.
“No, it won’t.” Cameron’s lips tugged to the side, and his voice lowered. “But I find it really cute that you think it could be.”
My brows tugged together. “What are you say—”
He placed his thumb over my mouth, halting my words. “I’m saying I can’t do anything right this second, but that doesn’t mean I’m interested in waiting months for you. I’m saying I refuse to miss out on another chance, and I’m not letting you slip through my fingers again.”
“But I don’t want you to get in trouble.
The case…” I tried, attempting to think rationally.
It was hard to do when Cameron had let his touch linger on my jawline and then my neck, coasting down it like he was imagining the path he’d take with his mouth later.
Or maybe he was reimagining the path he’d already taken. “Can someone else take the case?”
“No.”
His answer was succinct, and I thought he was going to leave it there, but he seemed to snap back to reality when I didn’t say anything further, silence ringing through the small space.
With a sigh, Cameron took a step back, letting his touch fall away. I felt empty and bare without it, lost and aching, but I knew it was for the best.
He shook his head. “It’s too late. I mean, technically, if you wanted a different attorney, you are at liberty to arrange that, and I could help you find someone. But I’d really rather that didn’t happen.”
“Why?”
“First of all, to say I’m invested in this and you is an understatement.
” He pinned me with a meaningful look, one sparked with determination.
“I would like to personally ensure that your asshole ex has zero control over you or Chloe, and I feel confident I’ll be able to do that.
Second, I think my boss would kill me.” He deflated a little at that.
“She’s already got her eyes on this case because of Noah, and if I back out of it now, it’s going to look that much more suspicious. I’ve been working—”
He snapped his mouth shut, seeming to rethink whatever it was that he was going to add. Pressing his lips together, he took a few slow strides, closing the distance between us again.
“You said earlier that you trust me. Did you mean that?”
I nodded slowly, in time with the pace of his strides, like he was pulling the confession out of me with each step.
He stopped when there was still a foot between us. He flexed his hand, lifting it like he wanted to touch me, but then changed his mind, dropping it into his pocket.
“I want to acknowledge why that might have happened. I have to acknowledge it. And then I want to explain what that trust means for us.”
My brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?”
Cameron sighed, and I felt the deepness of it.