Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
natalie
IT HAD BEEN NEARLY a week since I last talked to Cameron.
He called me after his deposition with Korey to discuss how it went, evaluate further how my deposition went, given the results of Korey’s, and go over next steps.
He hadn’t asked me to come into the office.
He didn’t mention the night we spent together or speak in a way that was even remotely flirtatious.
His tone had been even and his cadence patient as I wrapped my head around the details I needed to know.
Nothing like how he’d spoken to me while I was splayed out on his bed.
He said the judge might order a mediation to avoid the case going to trial. But he then followed up by saying it was possible the judge would skip it, considering this wasn’t our first custody case rodeo, and Korey and I had clearly been unsuccessful with coming to terms on this.
I also suspected Korey didn’t want to come to terms.
He wanted to play this little game for as long as he could, keeping us tangled in his web.
When Cameron and I hung up, I felt…lost.
And turned on?
Everything he’d said was entirely professional, but just his voice was like a wet dream, especially when it brought back reminders of the other night when he’d called me baby and given me hot little commands like “Suck” while watching me wrap my lips around his cock with a burning, bright gaze.
God, I wanted more.
He’d pushed me to the brink of ruin on Thursday night, so I wasn’t surprised when he turned off the lights, wrapped his arms around me, and hadn’t initiated sex. I was spent, and I suspected he knew it.
Now, though? Now, I wanted it.
But Cameron hadn’t called again, and it had been over a week since we last saw each other.
Was I supposed to be the one who reached out to him?
I’d never had a sex arrangement before. I didn’t know how it worked, how I was supposed to go about scheduling these…
lessons. Or whatever they were. All I knew was that I wanted another one.
I’d already learned that my body could apparently come three times in a row, that I was capable of squirting, and that I oddly really liked being told what to do.
It was a lot to wrap my head around, if I were being honest, but I still wanted more.
“Put your helmet on,” I said to Chloe. For the fifth time.
The flower-printed helmet was in her hand, but my daughter kept finding other things to do other than actually putting it on. Adjust the seat on her bike, test the brakes, ring the bell on her handlebars.
This girl. I loved her, but damn was she stubborn.
She swung her leg up and over the bike, mounting it.
“Chlo,” I said, and she threw me a scowl over her shoulder before I could even finish my sentence.
“I hate my helmet,” she whined.
“They save lives,” I pointed out. “You know how I know that?”
I’d seen what happened to skulls both when helmets were on and helmets were off, and there was one option that was better than the other.
Chloe was unfazed by my factual rebuttal, still making a disgusted face at her helmet.
“We’re not even crossing any major roads,” she pouted, but I just pointed at the helmet and then pointed at her head, and she gave in.
“If you want to go shopping for a new one you like better, we can,” I offered, the only consolation I could think of. Wearing a helmet was not negotiable, but I’d buy her a new one if she wanted.
Chloe sighed and accepted my olive branch with a mumbled “Yes, please.” Then she buckled her straps and started riding down the sidewalk toward the park a few blocks from our house.
I followed behind, keeping her in my line of vision as best as I could. We’d gone to this park countless times, so I wasn’t worried. Chloe knew not to get too far ahead of me.
Using the rare few minutes of uninterrupted time, I pulled out my phone and called Ellie.
“Nat!” she answered after the first ring. “You are alive.”
“Sorry,” I groaned, remembering I hadn’t responded after she texted me last week.
It had been the middle of the shift, and then afterward, I’d been so focused on getting ready to meet Cameron that it completely slipped out of my mind.
“Things have been…” I waffled, trying to find the right words. “You know.”
“No, I don’t. Tell me more.”
“Just busy,” I said vaguely. “Nothing unusual.”
Nothing like climbing into your lawyer’s bed or anything.
“Uh-huh.”
Unfortunately, I was terrible at delivering lies, and Ellie was excellent at catching them. Not just with me, but everyone.
“Are you still coming next weekend?” I pivoted before she could dig deeper into my life. It wasn’t that I didn’t want Ellie to know everything that had been going on, but it was really a conversation that would be better in person, glasses of wine in hand.
“I think so,” Ellie replied. “Work trip is still on, so…yeah.”
I grimaced at the hesitation in her voice.
“I told Noah you would be in town, and he would love if you came,” I ventured. “To the party.”
“Oh, no,” Ellie immediately huffed, and there was a nervous stumbling to her words. “I wouldn’t, you know, want to…impose.”
“Impose? Ellie, you’re practically a part of our family,” I said reasonably.
Because it was true; she lived down the street from us growing up, and she was always showing up unannounced on our doorstep, infiltrating our family gatherings.
And it was never weird, not…before. “Besides, a lot of people are going to be there. Friends from college. Some people from Gemma’s rink where she works.
Some of Noah’s teammates,” I emphasized, and Ellie laughed, already knowing where I was going with that.
“You could find yourself a hot football player…and totally avoid Sully if you wanted to.”
Her laughter died instantly.
“Who says I care about Sullivan?” she scoffed, and I rolled my eyes.
Despite what either of them said, Ellie and Sully cared an incredible amount about each other. But for some odd reason, they both continued to deny it and live their lives apart.
“We’ll figure something out,” I promised. “Do you want to stay with me and Chloe?”
“Work booked me in a hotel, otherwise I’d definitely take you up on that so I could spend time with my favorite nine-year-old.”
“Mo-om!” Chloe called, and my hackles rose, even though she said it with more of a whiny irritation than alarm. She’d disappeared past the corner I was just turning, and I raced around the bend to find her with her wheel stuck in the slats of a storm drain.
“Speaking of, your favorite nine-year-old has gotten her bike into a little predicament here,” I said to Ellie. “Gotta go. Talk more soon?”
“Talk soon,” she agreed before hanging up.
Pocketing my phone, I jogged toward Chloe, but before I could reach her, someone else appeared around the opposite corner and ran right up to her side. Someone shirtless, with sweat dripping down their front over rippling muscles. Abs.
Jesus Christ, I’d know those abs anywhere. I’d been thinking about them a lot.
Gulping, I observed as Cameron popped his earphones out and greeted Chloe with a grin. Then he gripped her handlebars with one large hand and yanked her bike out of the drain, wheel unstuck. The muscles in his arm twisted, and my mouth ran dry.
It wasn’t until I heard Chloe’s small voice thanking him that I realized I’d stopped dead in my tracks, entranced by the scene in front of me.
By Cameron wearing short shorts with a T-shirt hanging from his waistband.
By the indents on his hips and his toned thighs.
By the way his easy smile shone down on my daughter as he urged her back onto the safety of the sidewalk and then turned around, searching the vicinity.
For me. He was looking for me.
It only took Cameron a few seconds to find me, and then his gaze flared when it met mine.
My body responded, heat unraveling in my gut as my brain flashed back to the last time I saw him, when he’d given me a breathless kiss against the door of his apartment, smiling against my lips before we reluctantly walked out the door to his car, but not before a little smack on my ass that I’d been thinking about for a long, long time.
Once again, I wondered why he hadn’t called me.
He’d enjoyed himself, right?
“It’s my favorite mother-daughter duo,” Cameron said as I unstuck my feet and walked over to them, repressing the shiver that his smooth voice gave me.
He tugged his shirt out of the waistband of his shorts and used it to wipe the sweat from his forehead, and I tried not to stare.
But it was challenging, considering the raggedness of his breaths that I wouldn’t mind feeling against my skin again, preferably as he fu—
“Hi, Natalie,” Cameron said when I still hadn’t responded, a little smirk on his face like he knew exactly what I was thinking about.
Goddamn, was I really that easy to read?
“Hi,” I answered breathlessly. “I—you—” I flailed my arms in the direction of the park, trying hopelessly to find words and make conversation. “We’re going to the playground.”
“Ah,” Cameron said, and his lips stretched wider. “Over there on Camden?”
“Yup,” Chloe interjected.
Now that she had her bike free, she seemed eager to get going on it.
I was also a little eager, both to end this somewhat awkward conversation and to let it drag on forever.
I flicked my gaze over Cameron again. Shameless, I know. But I’d never really seen him not wear a suit, and while he knew how to wear the hell out of slacks and a dress shirt, this was an undeniably excellent look for him, too.
“Thanks for helping Chloe with her bike,” I said, wishing it didn’t sound like I was so…distracted.
Get a grip, Natalie. You’ve successfully removed portions of someone’s skull before to save their life. You can handle talking to a shirtless, handsome man.
“Not a problem,” Cameron replied with a wave of his hand. “Chloe’s such a champ, I’m sure she could have gotten it herself. But I didn’t want her standing in the street.”