12. Ada
It was only when no one appeared in the doorway and my heart stopping sending my blood roaring through my ears that I was able to connect the sound with what it was. My cell phone. In my shorts pocket on the floor, I could see if lighting up in the dimly lit room. I had to nearly flip myself out of the tub to grab it from my clothes but when I did, I settled back in the hot water with a grunt.
Camden. I’d been ignoring his calls. For a good reason, I thought, but he didn’t seem to agree. He seemed content to blow up my phone all day and all night. I ignored his call again and then saw that he’d messaged me.
Camden: You haven’t answered your phone in days. If I don’t hear from you by tomorrow morning, I’m filing a missing person’s report.
I swore under my breath and opened the messaging app to tell him what a waste of resources that’d be but he called at exactly the right time and I ended up accepting the call by accident. I thought about hanging up and pretending like it hadn’t happened but then I heard his muffled voice shouting through the phone and sighed.
“What, Camden?” I ground my teeth together until I realized I was doing it and made myself stop.
“Jesus, Ada! I’ve been worried sick about you. Where are you?” He didn’t sound all that worried. He sounded annoyed.
“Why does it matter? I’m fine.” I thought about my stuff. “My parents are coming to get my stuff. Don’t throw it out, okay?”
“I’m not going to have a choice, Ada! They’re evicting us! I need you to come back and help me deal with this.” He was whining, his voice pitched higher than it normally was. “Please, Ada. I know I fucked up. Beth seduced me. She invited herself in and… You don’t want to know the details. Just know that I would never cheat on you, baby. I love you. You know that.”
I made a face. “You did cheat on me. I caught you, remember?”
“Come on. I need you. Come home. Wherever you are can’t be better than being here with me, fixing this.” He changed tactics. “We’ve got a good thing. I don’t work without you, though, babe. I’m a mess. I think they turned the water off. I can’t do this alone.”
I twisted around in the water and rested my elbows on the tub. Staring out at the woods beyond the side of the house, I figured there was nowhere better I could be. “Camden, you’re a grown man. I’m not coming back. I’ve moved on. You should, too. You should also start paying your bills.”
“You’ve moved on?” His voice took on an angry tinge. “With who? Who are you with? You can’t have moved on that fast, Ada. What the hell?”
I didn’t mean to laugh. I just found it funny that he was getting angry at the thought of me with someone else when I’d walked in on him screwing the neighbor. I hadn’t meant to imply that I was with someone else already but with that ammunition, I decided to use it. I also considered that I might need therapy at a later date because I was really getting into revenge.
“Well? Tell me!”
I sighed. “Yeah, I’ve moved on. It happened out of nowhere. I left the apartment that morning, ran into this guy, and now I’m with him.”
“You’re staying with him? Are you screwing him?” Camden’s voice had gone full out angry and he seemed to forget that he’d cheated on me and that I’d caught him in the act. “What the hell, Ada?”
“Yes, I am screwing him, Camden. He’s huge and makes me come like I never have before. Is that what you want to hear? That my new boyfriend makes me scream his name? Because he does.” I felt rather than heard the movement behind me and gasped as I spun around, sending water flying.
Collin stood just outside of the hot tub, his eyebrows raised as he listened to me and his mouth tilted in a smirk that made me want to smack him. His eyes moved down my chest but I hurriedly sank deeper in the water so he couldn’t see that I was naked.
“Are you with him right now?!”
“Gotta go.” I hung up as quickly as I could and covered my face with the hand clutching the cell phone. The other one was torn between covering my boobs or vagina, just in case Collin could see through the water. I groaned and contemplated sinking into the water and drowning. “How much did you hear?”
Collin remained silent until I looked up at him. He was slowly unbuttoning his shirt and shrugged it off as I watched. His chest was a whole lot of yummy, I quickly cataloged. He unsnapped his watch and dropped it onto the pile of clothing forming at his feet. “I heard plenty.”
Panic scorched through my brain and I watched him push his slacks down and off. When he was in just a pair of black boxer-briefs I snapped my eyes shut when I saw him hook his thumbs through the waistband. “What are you doing?”
He sounded closer as he stepped into the tub and settled on one of the corner benches. “While I appreciate that you’re going through whatever you’re going through, this is my nighttime routine. If you don’t want to be a part of it, you can leave.”
I glared at him, our roles reversed as he smiled back. “I can’t.”
“No?” He let his eyes drop. “I’ll close my eyes.”
“I don’t trust you.”
“You shouldn’t.” He smirked and stretched his long body out. I saw a shadow of what looked to be a very large penis and looked away so fast that my neck pinched.
“Can’t you just-” My ringing phone interrupted and I grabbed it a split second too late. Instead of getting my phone, I got Collin’s hand as he got my phone. When I didn’t let go of it, he tugged me closer to him. “Stop. Don’t-”
“Who is this?” Collin’s deep voice was full of authority as he answered my phone with his eyes glued to mine.
I motioned for him to stop, for him to hand me the phone, but I knew it was no use when his eyes narrowed and his jaw hardened.
“I don’t think you’re her boyfriend anymore.” Collin paused as he listened to whatever Camden said back. “Why? Because she’s currently got her mouth full of my dick. She’s mine now.”
My jaw went slack and my mouth fell open about as wide as my eyes did. He did not just say that, I thought with a quiet groan. I went to move away but I realized our grips had switched. I was no longer holding Collin’s hand, he was holding mine and holding me where I was right next to him.
“I can’t imagine why you ever looked elsewhere, kid. Sure, it took her a bit to get used to my size, but now she’s fucking glorious at it.” Collin lowered his voice and groaned. “Right there, baby.”
My entire body and face flushed bright red. I burned hotter than the water. I’d never heard anyone talk about me like that, so dirty. Even though it wasn’t real, it sent shockwaves through me.
Collin grunted and held the phone out to me. “Huh. He hung up.”
I reacted without thought. I splashed water over his face and growled at him. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
He wiped his eyes and shrugged. “No? I think I just ended your problem with him. Or were you just teasing him by telling him that your new boyfriend makes you come like he never could?”
I dropped my head back and stared up at the sky. “Why’d you have to make it be me going down on you? You could’ve at least been pretending I was doing something empowering. Like…I don’t know… What’s an empowering sex move?”
He laughed and the unexpected sound made me laugh, too. I looked back at him and that laugh froze in my throat, though, when I saw that the shadow I’d spotted earlier was standing straight up in the water. Collin Carrington had a very large erection. For me?
He saw me looking and reached out to tuck a single finger under my chin and lift my eyes back to his. “Trust me, Ada. Him thinking another man’s dick is in your mouth is worse for him. If you want, though, next time I’ll go down on you.”
My exhale squeaked out of my mouth and I licked my suddenly dry lips. “Yeah, that feels empowering…”
“Think he’ll call back?” Collin didn’t so much as shift in the water but I was a lot closer to him in a blink of my eye. The water moved around us from the force of his tug.
My bare skin brushed against his bare thigh and I squeezed my eyes shut. My nipples hardened and my chest felt heavy with anticipation. My core slickened and I swallowed around an excuse to leave. I knew I needed to leave. I hated the Carrington brothers. I wasn’t sexually attracted to them. I needed to climb out of the hot tub and sprint back to my room, where I’d dream of my fair man and wake up just as horny as I was right then. “He might.”
The corner of Collin’s mouth tipped up and from that close, I could see that his dark blue eyes were speckled with lighter blue around the pupil and that his nostrils flared as he studied me. “Should we practice to make sure our performance is authentic?”
My tongue felt thick as my mouth watered. “You’re being very generous.”
A sexy, wicked smile twisted his face into something devastatingly handsome and I was doomed. His grip on my hand slowly moved up my arm and over my shoulder. “I was selfish in our last act. It’s only fair.”
When Collin’s hands roamed down my back and then tugged me into his lap, I threw caution to the wind. I was already doing a dozen things I would’ve never done typically. Why not sleep with my boss who thought I was someone else?