11. Cami #2
“No.” The man was choking on the word. Stumbling backward. “No, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. Please, I didn’t...”
He fled.
Literally turned and ran, shoving through the crowd, champagne sloshing on the floor in his wake.
I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.
“Are you all right?” Sal’s hand found mine. Squeezed. “Did he hurt you?”
“I’m fine.” And I was. Shaken, but fine. More than fine, actually. “That was... that was...”
“Necessary.”
“I was going to say hot.”
His lips twitched. “That too.”
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Greta’s voice cut through the moment, sharp and sudden.
She was stalking toward us, her face twisted with rage, her eyes fixed on me with undisguised hatred. The broken wine glass was forgotten. The pretense of civility was gone.
“How dare you show your face here.” She was hissing, trying to keep her voice low but failing. “Are you trying to humiliate my son again? Crawling back to beg him to take you? Isn’t it clear that he doesn’t want you?”
I opened my mouth to respond but she kept going.
“Are you really so desperate?” Her voice was rising now. People were starting to turn. Starting to watch. “So pathetic that you have to parade yourself around like a...”
I laughed.
The sound cut through her tirade, sharp and bright and utterly unimpressed.
“I’m just here to have a calm, fun evening with my fiancé.”
The word slipped out before I could stop it.
Fiancé.
Shit.
Shit shit shit.
I hadn’t meant to say that. Hadn’t been thinking.
It just came out, a defensive reflex, a way to shut Greta down, and now she was staring at me with wide eyes and the people around us were staring at me and Sal was right there and he was going to correct me, he was going to say actually we’re not engaged and I was going to look the fool, a desperate pathetic fool who had to lie about her relationship status to her ex’s mother.
My eyes found his.
Please. Please don’t correct me. Please just go with it. I’ll explain later, I’ll apologize, I’ll do whatever you want, just please don’t make a fool of me in front of her.
I didn’t say any of it out loud. Couldn’t. But I begged him with my eyes, pleaded with everything I had, my heart hammering against my ribs as I waited for him to expose my lie.
Sal’s arm wrapped around my waist.
He pulled me against him, my back to his chest, his hand splayed possessively across my stomach. When he spoke, his voice was loud enough for everyone nearby to hear.
“You heard her.” His tone was pleasant. Conversational. Absolutely terrifying. “My fiancée and I are simply here to enjoy the evening. Is there a problem with that, Mrs. Caldwell?”
Greta’s mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
“She’s under my protection.” The words came out on a growl. Low and dangerous and utterly final. “Mine. And I’m still waiting on that payment, by the way. You and your son have been avoiding my calls.”
All the color drained from Greta’s face.
“Perhaps we should discuss it.” Sal smiled again, that terrifying smile. “Somewhere more private. Unless you’d like me to explain to everyone here exactly what debt your family owes. And to whom.”
Greta stammered something. An excuse. An apology. Something incoherent and terrified.
Then she turned and fled, just like the man before her.
I couldn’t help it. A laugh bubbled up my throat. Then another. Until I was actually chuckling, my hand pressed to my mouth, my whole body shaking with mirth.
Sal turned me in his arms. He was smiling too, a real smile, one that reached his eyes and made him look almost boyish.
“Better?” he asked.
“So much better.”
Then I saw Rosalie.
She was holding court near the dessert table, a little knot of older women gathered around her, and she was crying. Delicately. Prettily. One hand cradling her still flat stomach, the other pressed to her mouth as she dabbed at tears that somehow hadn’t touched her mascara.
I drifted close enough to hear, Sal’s hand a steady weight at my back.
“...didn’t even let me explain,” Rosalie was saying, her voice wobbling right on cue.
“She projected those photos for everyone to see. In a church. I was so frightened. The doctor says this much stress isn’t good for the baby, but Cami never thought about that.
She never thinks about anyone but herself. ”
A gray-haired woman patted her hand. “You poor thing. And in your condition.”
“I just wanted us all to be a family,” Rosalie whispered. “I never meant to hurt anyone.”
It was flawless. The tremble in her chin.
The brave little sniff. The way she made herself small and soft and sympathetic, the wronged girl instead of the woman who’d been in my bed with my fiancé for eighteen months.
Three of the women were nodding now, murmuring, casting dark looks across the room. At me.
She’d done this my whole life. I’d just never stood outside it before. Never watched from the audience while my sister rewrote the story with herself as the heroine and me as the villain.
Then she looked up. Found me across the room.
And for half a second the mask slipped. The tears, the tremble, the wounded sweetness, all of it dropped away, and underneath was that same flat, satisfied look she’d worn behind her hand at the altar.
She wanted me to see it. She wanted me to know she was winning the room and there was nothing I could do about it.
Then the mask snapped back into place and she turned to accept another sympathetic squeeze of the hand.
“She’s good,” Sal murmured against my ear. There was no admiration in it. Just a cold, clinical note, the voice of a man cataloging a threat. “People like her always believe the performance will save them. It never does.”
He steered me away before I could answer.
But the knife had gone in clean, and we both knew it.
We found a dark alcove near the back of the ballroom.
Hidden from the crowd. Private. The sounds of the gala muffled by distance and velvet curtains.
Sal pulled me against him. His hands settled on my hips, warm and possessive through the thin silk of my dress.
“I liked that,” I whispered. “How we shut her down.”
“You were pretty amazing yourself.” His thumb traced circles on my hip bone. “The slap was a nice touch.”
“He deserved it.”
“He deserved worse.” His eyes darkened. “I wanted to kill him.”
“I know.”
We stood there, barely inches apart, the tension building between us, a storm gathering low and electric. His eyes dropped to my mouth. Lingered.
I stepped up on my toes.
And kissed him.
This kiss was different.
Not hurried or hungry or desperate. This was sweet. Tender. Unhurried. His lips moved against mine slowly, savoring, tasting, learning me all over again like we had all the time in the world.
He moaned against my mouth.
The sound vibrated through me, settling low in my belly. I pressed closer, needing more, needing everything.
His hands slid down. Cupped my ass through the silk. Squeezed.
I moaned back.
He broke the kiss to pepper smaller ones across my face. My cheeks. My nose. My forehead. The corner of my mouth. Each one soft and reverent, like I was something precious.
I was giddy.
Actually giddy. A teenager with her first crush. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. When this thing had started to feel real. When kissing him had become normal. Why I wasn’t questioning everything.
But I liked it.
I liked him.
“Wanna go?” His whisper was warm against my ear.
I bit my lip. Nodded.
“Yes.”
He grabbed my hand. Led me through the crowd, weaving between champagne flutes and designer gowns, heading for the exit.
We almost made it.
“Camellia.”
My mother’s voice stopped me cold.
She was standing by the front doors, like she’d been waiting. Watching for me. Her face was pale, her eyes red rimmed, her hands twisting together in front of her.
I sighed.
The sadness hit me without warning. I missed her. Despite everything, I missed my mother. Missed her hugs and her cooking and the way she used to smooth my hair back when I was upset.
But what was I supposed to do? I couldn’t just forget. Couldn’t just forgive.
“We need to talk.” My mother’s voice was pleading. “Camellia, please. Just for a minute.”
“We don’t.”
“Your father wants to see you.”
I shook my head. “No, he doesn’t. He just wants you to stop nagging him about it.”
Her eyes changed. Recognition, maybe. The truth hitting home. Her face contorted, shifting from pleading to something harder.
“How can you stand there after what you did to this family?” Her voice changed. Sharpened. The pleading replaced by accusation. “You humiliated your pregnant sister in front of everyone. You destroyed her relationship. You...”
“What I did.”
The words came out flat. Dead.
Her accusations still hurt. Of course they did. She was my mother. She would always have the power to wound me, no matter how many walls I built.
But I wasn’t going to show it. Not here. Not now.
Sal stepped forward.
My mother went pale.
“Her daughter was betrayed and abandoned.” His voice was cold. Precise. Every word a blade. “By her fiancé. By her sister. By her own parents. She was humiliated at her own wedding and then handed to a stranger like garbage to pay off someone else’s debt.”
My mother’s mouth opened. Nothing came out.
“If anyone should be ashamed tonight, Mrs. Brennan, it is not her.” He turned to me. His eyes softened. “Let’s go.”
He guided me away.
I didn’t look back.
***
The car barely cleared the gala before he had me against the door.
His mouth was on mine, hungry and demanding, his body pressing me into the leather seat. His hands were everywhere, sliding over the silk of my dress, tracing the curves underneath.
“Do you have any idea.” He kissed down my neck. Bit gently at my pulse point. “How hard it was to watch men look at you all night.” His hand fisted in the fabric at my hip. “And not kill every single one of them.”
“Possessive.” The word came out breathless.
“Absolutely.” He pulled back just enough to look at me, his eyes dark with desire. “Mine. Say it.”
“Yours.”
He kissed me again. Hard. Claiming.
His hand found the partition between the driver’s seat and the back. He pressed a button and the glass slid up, sealing us in privacy.
Then he was on his knees.
On the floor of the car. Between my legs. His hands sliding up my thighs, pushing the red silk higher and higher.
“What are you...” I gasped as his fingers found the edge of my underwear. “Sal...”
“I’ve been thinking about this all night.” His voice was rough. Reverent. “Let me taste you. Please.”
The please undid me.
I nodded.
He didn’t hesitate.
His fingers hooked in my underwear and pulled them down my legs. Tossed them aside. Then his hands were on my thighs, spreading them wider, positioning me exactly where he wanted me.
The first touch of his tongue made me cry out.
He licked through my folds slowly, deliberately, tasting every inch of me. His tongue was hot and wet and so fucking good, tracing patterns that made my toes curl and my back arch off the seat.
“God, you taste incredible.” He groaned against my pussy, the vibration making me whimper. “Like honey. Like fucking heaven.”
His tongue found my clit and circled it. Slow. Teasing. The same way I’d described in that bedroom when he’d made me tell him what he was doing in my fantasy.
He remembered. Of course he remembered.
“More.” I barely recognized my own voice. Desperate. Pleading. “Please, more.”
He gave me more.
His tongue worked faster, harder, his hands gripping my thighs to hold me open for him. He sucked my clit into his mouth and flicked it with his tongue, over and over, relentless, building the pressure higher and higher.
“Sal.” My hands found his hair. Fisted in the dark strands. “Fuck. Sal. I’m gonna...”
He growled against me. The sound vibrated through my entire body, pushing me right to the edge.
“Come for me, fiore.” His voice was muffled against my pussy. “Come on my tongue.”
I shattered.
The orgasm crashed over me, pulling me under. My whole body convulsed, my thighs clamping around his head, his name tearing from my throat in a scream that the soundproofed car barely contained.
He didn’t stop.
He licked me through it, gentler now, easing me down, drinking up everything I gave him like it was precious. Like I was precious.
When I finally stopped shaking, he pressed a kiss to my inner thigh. Then the other. Then worked his way up my body, kissing every inch of skin he could reach.
“Every place Logan made you feel small.” His lips brushed my stomach through the silk. “I’m going to cover with my mouth.” He kissed the valley between my breasts. “And my hands.” His palm cupped my breast, kneading gently. “And my voice in your ear.”
He reached my mouth. Kissed me deep, letting me taste myself on his lips.
“You are magnificent.” Kiss. “Devastating.” Kiss. “Mine.”
It was the best orgasm I’d ever had.
And we hadn’t even made it home yet.