Chapter 29
CAMDEN
As hard as this month has been without my parents, being with Nadine, Paisley, and Erik has made it a bit easier.
My best friend has always been open, inviting me to hang out with his family, even before the accident, and having him and his family around now keeps me from sinking into grief.
Though I suppose we’ll be spending all of our holidays together, once the truth comes out about Nadine and me.
Kai claps, his giggle infectious, after I’ve thrown him into the air for the fifth time. Molly laughs. “He’s not going to want you to leave since you’ve become his personal carnival ride.”
I blow a raspberry into Kai’s neck. “Yeah. Uncle Cam is your favorite, right?”
Kai’s giggle ratchets up when I tickle him as Nadine returns to the living room, sitting on the floor by my feet.
She props her elbow up on the couch cushion, head in her hand, smile radiant.
She looks stunning tonight, even in her simple sweater and dark jeans, her dark hair down and shining, river-blue eyes sparkling.
She hasn’t taken off the jewelry I gave her yet, and while I’m not able to tell the world about us, it makes me feel better to know she’s wearing something that shows she’s mine. Even if only we know.
Kai smacks at my cheeks, and I laugh, forcing my attention away from Nadine to the baby in my hands, tossing him in the air again. “All right, all right, you tiny tyrant.”
He kicks his feet, enjoying my roughhousing, but I realize his father has yet to return from when he said he was going to grab a drink. “Where’s Erik?”
“I don’t know.” Nadine flicks her hand. “Cleaning up or something.”
From the eye roll, I can only assume they’ve had an argument and that I might be at the center of it.
I’m proven right an hour later, when we’re all about to leave. As I slip on my coat, Erik yanks me around the corner. “I feel like something is going on between you and my sister.”
I try to play it off with a laugh. “Nah, man.”
“She’s never home anymore.”
I shrug, shoving my hands in my pockets. “You know how it is with play-offs coming up. By the time I get home at night, I’m not comfortable with her driving back here. It’s just easier for her to stay at my place.”
He eyes me suspiciously, but looking after his sister’s safety earns me some points, and he agrees eventually. “Yeah. She doesn’t need to be driving when it’s pitch black out.”
I nod. Exactly.
But also.
I have her tucked safely away in bed.
“You sure you’re not, like, developing feelings for her?
” Erik asks, and for a moment, I wonder if my memories are playing out on my face.
If he can recognize that my favorite way to sleep is with her next to me, her hair tickling my neck, restless feet accidentally kicking me in the middle of the night.
I’ve developed a preoccupation with his sister.
She is everything: my calm, my inspiration, my future.
But he doesn’t have to know that.
“The only feelings I have are about finishing strong. We’re two games away from securing the first seed in the conference. That’s where I’m focused.”
Which is true. I am focused there. Because I know I have the support at home to do so.
I’ve never been more focused, more in tune with my body and mind. It’s amazing how security in personal matters can change a person’s entire outlook.
“We get the ring this year,” Erik says, holding his hand out to me, and I clasp it.
“Fuck right.”
We hug, patting each other on the back before moving to the door where Nadine and Paisley are saying goodbye to Molly and Kai. I give them both hugs and kisses, ignoring the lingering suspicion at my back when Nadine comes with me. There is no good reason she should.
Besides that she lives with me in all but name.
But he doesn’t say anything, and she barely acknowledges him with a wave.
“Everything okay?” I ask once we’re in the car.
“My brother asked if something is going on between us, but it was more like an accusation.”
I blow out a breath, shifting behind the wheel as I pull out onto the road. “Yeah. He’s not stupid. He knows.”
“I’m sorry about not believing you before when you said he’d be upset. I…”
Assuming she needs it, I reach for her hand, placing our woven fingers together in my lap as I steer with one hand. The car’s hum fills the silence between us as Nadine finally finds her words.
“You have nothing to prove to me or anyone else. Only yourself. Prove to yourself that you deserve me. I already know, and I don’t care what anyone else thinks about us, including my brother.”
I don’t react, her words stunning me. She’s close to her family, especially Erik, and to hear she puts me above them is staggering.
“Camden.” She tugs on my hand for my attention, and only when I glance her way does she continue, “I know how bad you feel about everything—your parents, the game, all of it. But you need to give yourself some grace. Be proud of who you are.”
“Proud?” My heart twists a little, hitting an uncharted part that seems to beat only in her presence, a sliver of vulnerability that is solely for her.
“You want me to be my arrogant self?” I deflect, trying to drape some humor over my discomfort, but it barely hides anything, and she sees everything.
“I want you to be the man I love.”
I swallow the tangle of emotion in my throat. She wants me to be proud of myself, of my accomplishments, of how I’ve overcome indescribable pain and faced unmerciful animosity. And I can be.
I can drop the final shield, the last mask of the facade that I’d put on to keep anyone from finding out how worried I was that I didn’t belong. I was so scared they’d discover I wasn’t meant to be there, that I built up an aloof image to keep anyone from examining too closely.
But all that is done now. I’m finished playing the arrogant fool.
I skim my thumb over her knuckles. “As soon as the season is over, I’m telling him. Everything.”
“Everything?” she repeats with a laugh. “I hope not.”
“Everything, meaning my intentions.”
She leans into the console. “And what are they?”
As if she doesn’t know. But I play her game anyway.
“My intentions are that I’m going to marry you.
Retire at the end of this contract while I can hopefully still walk without too many joints cracking.
By then, you’ll be done with your graduate degree and have some big-time job, so I can stay home with the kids.
Of course, sometime in there, we’ll have found a house in the suburbs. Maybe next door to your brother.”
“And get a dog.”
“No.” I send her a bland look, but even if she can’t see it in the dark of the car, she laughs. “No way.”
“Don’t you want little Camden and Nadine Junior to have a furry playmate?”
“They’ll have each other.”
“Every kid needs a pet. Your sister has the guinea pigs.”
“Because you’re a bully and a bulldozer, and I never should have given you my credit card.”
“Too late to take it back now.”
“That’s for sure,” I murmur against the back of her hand. “Would never want to take it back.”
At home, I don’t waste any time. As soon as our bedroom door is closed, I peel Nadine’s sweater off, needing to show her my intentions.
I kiss my love into her throat, along her shoulders, and over the slope of her breasts after I unclasp her bra.
I prove how proud I am by getting on my knees, carefully tugging her jeans down her legs and helping her step out of her underwear then tugging her socks off so that she’s completely naked.
I show my appreciation by laying her on the bed and licking at the very center of her until she’s pulling at my hair, begging me to make her come.
So I do. I rotate my wrist, crook my fingers inside her, stroking over that swollen and sensitive spot inside.
The way she sighs my name never fails to send a ripple of goose bumps over my skin, and I give in to a shudder before latching my mouth on to her clit, letting her ride out her orgasm on my tongue and hand until she finally relaxes.
I suck my fingers clean and then drop a line of kisses along the arches of her feet and calves.
I massage her thighs and nuzzle the soft curve of her stomach.
“Six weeks,” I murmur as she combs her fingers through my hair.
“Six weeks until the championship.”
I nod. “Planning on going all the way to the end, winning it all, and then we’re going public. No more hiding.”
“No more hiding,” she agrees, and I lean over to kiss her mouth, though I don’t let her pull me down on top of her.
Instead, I stand and strip out of my clothes.
She watches as I stroke my hand over my hard length, and she is the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.
The way she lies in the middle of the mattress, hair splayed out, one hand by her throat, the other absently gliding back and forth across her thigh, legs spread open and waiting.
The picture is both beautiful and lewd. Completely shameless. And I love it.
I love her.
“I still can’t believe you’re mine,” I say. “It’s a miracle.”
“I think the miracle is you having lube,” she says as I retrieve the bottle from the side table.
“Why is that a miracle?”
She welcomes me next to her on the bed, eyes bright with lust as I squeeze a dollop of the translucent gel out to spread over my cock. “You’re the only man I’ve been with who has it, uses it. Isn’t afraid to.”
“As much as I love hearing things you like about what I’m doing for you, I’d really prefer to avoid hearing about other men.”
She snorts an amused sound. “You and your delicate ego.”
“You got that fucking right.” I pull her up on top of me, positioning her knees on either side of my waist, and smooth my palms around her hips, urging her to grind herself over the length of my erection. “You’ve shattered my ego.”
She releases a pleased sound from the back of her throat and arches away from me. I cover her breasts with my hands, molding them, staring at where she moves over me, her pussy sliding along my cock. She rocks back and forth, and I know whenever she hits her clit from the way her breath hitches.
“You’re gonna have to do some work to build it back up,” I tell her, smiling when she shakes her head at me like I’m a nuisance. I nudge her to lift up so I can position the tip of my length at her entrance. “Show me how much you love me.”
She places her palms on my chest and angles her hips, slowly sinking back down, sheathing me with her wet heat.
We both groan at how good it feels, how easy it is for her to move, rock on top of me with how slick we are.
The sight of her finding her pleasure sends my own ecstasy skyrocketing.
Adrenaline courses through my veins, igniting my skin.
She works herself up and down, using her hands on my pecs to steady herself, and I can’t help myself at the delightful sway of her tits right in my face.
I lean my head up, sucking one into my mouth, scraping my teeth over the tip, and she cries out, her inner walls clenching down on me.
“Oh fuck.” She hangs her head down like she can’t take it. Nails digging half-moons into my skin. I hope they’re permanent.
“Mm-hmm, that’s it.” I skate my hands from her waist down to her ass, helping her to move when she seems to lose it. I’m close too. “Come on, Riv. Get there.”
She does. A minute later, after I’ve laved both of her nipples to a shine, and she’s found a rhythm that has her breathing hard, eyes closed, low moans escaping her mouth.
As soon as I feel that flutter, I turn us so I’m on top and on my knees, her legs up and against my shoulders. I thrust into her once, twice, three times, and I’m coming inside her, panting.
I settle on top of her, between her legs, feeling the warm evidence of my orgasm leak out between her thighs, but I hold her tight so she can’t move quite yet. I place my head on her stomach, ear under her breastbone, her heartbeat a steady rhythm.
“I’m proud of you,” she whispers after a minute, and I shift, propping myself up on my elbows, so I can hear her better, her voice unencumbered when she says, “And I’ll be proud to tell my brother we’re together, to tell anyone—everyone—that we’re together. That I’m yours and you’re mine.”
That shattered ego I joked about before? It’s actually unbreakable. As long as I have Nadine Rivera next to me, there is nothing and no one who can bring me down.