28. Ivy
IVY
B y the time the sound of Camden’s motorcycle engine rumbles through the front window, I’ve paced enough that my bare feet ache, and I still don’t have any answers.
Still don’t have any clarity regarding any of the things I talked to Marlo about until I was hoarse and my eyes red and swollen from the tears.
And I still don’t know how to feel about the man who pulled up outside.
Each minute I’ve waited, wondering if he was actually going to appear, was one also spent considering the ramifications of what we did last night.
The potential fallout with Nancy has left me trembling, wondering if it’s really all worth it if it risks losing her place in my life.
I peek out the window into the night.
Cam sits on his bike at the curb, staring at the house, a lit cigarette dangling from his mouth, but he’s still poised, as if he’s ready to pull away at any moment.
The nearest streetlight casts a glow on one side of his face, the rest of him covered in shadow, a place where he seems more at home, anyway.
He remains still, other than lifting his hand to his mouth to take another hit from the cigarette.
I smoke so I don’t put worse things in my body.
My heart sinks into my stomach.
Cam just came from a meeting, from a place where he’s supposed to find support through his recovery, but he seems agitated tonight, his stillness belying the tension in his shoulders.
What’s he doing out there?
Maybe he’s having second thoughts, too.
Maybe all the things said last night can’t counteract all the reasons this is such a terrible idea.
Maybe it’s a sign that I should let this go, that I should let him drive away and never look back.
That would certainly make things easier for both of us and alleviate any worries about what this might do, not only to us but to the people we love. But like he said this morning, we’ve opened the floodgates.
All these conflicting emotions will continue to crash over us like waves on that beach where we stood and said goodbye to Drew. There is no putting that back behind a protective wall designed to stem the flow. There is no pretending we aren’t both drowning in this.
I’m desperate to come up for air, to take a full breath again without feeling that vise around my chest that doesn’t want me to, but I don’t know if that’s even possible anymore.
For Cam or for me…
My feet move toward the door, and I pull it open, stepping onto the porch as I flip on the bulb he replaced, which casts light out into the front yard.
His eyes meet mine from the street, and he takes a long drag off the cigarette, the smoke flowing out of his slightly parted lips in a slow trickle.
I walk toward him, the concrete cool under my bare feet, the crickets already chirping and filling the warm summer evening air with their song, but he remains silent. Watching me, gaze raking over me with an piercing focus that makes me shiver under his assessment. “What are you doing out here?”
“Thinking.”
He brings the cigarette to his mouth again, inhaling deeply as he continues to hold my gaze on my approach.
I stop in front of him on the curb, finally putting me at a height advantage since I met him, and he finally tears his eyes from mine to turn his head slightly and blow the smoke away from me.
I wrap my arms around myself, rubbing at the goosebumps that don’t have anything to do with it being chilly because the warm, humid summer night couldn’t be more perfect. “What are you thinking about?”
It’s probably a dangerous question to ask.
One I’m not entirely sure I want the answer to, given how tense and troubled he looks.
But it’s out there now, just filling the space between us.
“Everything.”
He doesn’t really have to expand.
That one word is enough for me to understand exactly why he looks absolutely wrecked because it’s the same thing I’ve been struggling with all day. Yet somehow, knowing that we even share this torment over the situation makes it easier to want to ignore it all.
I step down onto the street, not even caring how dirty my feet are getting, so that I can be closer to him. Needing to be. And that rich scent of his leather jacket mixed with citrus and a hint of smoke floats on the breeze ruffling his hair. “Are you coming in?”
His gaze flicks up over my shoulder to the house, and he stares at it for a minute before his stormy eyes return to mine. “I can’t, Ivy.”
My stomach tenses. “Why not?”
Despite my best attempt to keep the disappointment and hurt out of my voice, the hurt still leeches into my question.
Cam reaches out with his free hand and pulls mine into his.
“Because we both know what’ll happen if I come in there with you, and I can’t…
” He squeezes his eyes closed and shakes his head.
“That’s my brother’s house, my brother’s bed, and you are my brother’s fiancée.
I’m not a good man, Ivy. I’ve made a lot of really bad mistakes in my life and done a lot of things I’m not proud of, but that … I can’t do.”
His confession makes all the little pieces of my shattered heart drive into my ribcage, the pain so deep and so real that it makes me suck in a sharp breath.
It isn’t about him not wanting me, not wanting this; it’s about his loyalty to his brother and respect for what Drew and I shared in that house, and for some reason, that only makes me want him more.
He trembles and opens his eyes, revealing the depth of pain and conflict brewing in them. When he brings the cigarette to his mouth this time, it’s with a shaking hand, and he takes a long drag from it before tossing the remaining butt onto the street and crushing it with his boot.
Smoke curls from his lips as he watches me with so much trepidation.
I take a half-step forward until my knees brush against his bike, and I can lean into him, our entwined hands pinned between us. “That’s my house, my bed, and I don’t belong to anyone anymore.”
As painful as those words are to say, actually hearing them soothes some of the guilt over what happened on that couch the other night.
At least, for me.
Cam’s gaze softens, a sadness sweeping through it like a storm blowing across the sky on a summer night.
“You don’t mean that.” He uses his other hand to grip my chin and tilt it up toward him.
“You still belong to Drew in your heart, and you always will. And that’s okay.
That’s the way it should be. The way it was meant to be. ”
A tear trickles from my eye before I can stop it, because he’s right.
Drew was my future for so long.
The only thing I wanted.
And the sole path I could see myself going on in this life was with him at my side as my partner, as my other half.
But he was ripped away from me so violently in a way I still don’t understand.
Almost as if fate had other ideas and was playing some cruel, twisted game with all of us, starting with that very first night Cam showed up and kissed me.
I press my forehead against his and draw in a long, slow breath as I try to sort through the riot of feelings thundering inside me.
“You’re right. A part of me will always belong to Drew.
A huge part.” I drag my head back and meet his gaze again, seeing the pain there.
Feeling it. “But it doesn’t mean I don’t have room for you, too. ”
“Fuck…” The word tumbles from his lips on an exhale, and he grips my chin harder, holding me there, our lips a mere hairsbreadth from each other, sharing the same air, the same oxygen. “I shouldn’t want you like this.”
Agony sears through me, making my legs tremble, and I clutch his jacket tightly, fighting the pain that wants to take over and rule in this moment. “I shouldn’t want you. It doesn’t change the fact that it’s true.”
My confession makes him shiver, and it’s the warning I get before he crashes his lips to mine in that same all-consuming way he did last night that has my entire body heating in one split second.
He drags me up against him as much as he can while he still straddles his bike, my legs on either side of his thick thigh that now presses into my throbbing core.
Clinging to him tighter, I allow him to devour my mouth with a ferocity that makes my knees wobble. His hands tunnel into my hair, holding me in place so he can kiss me senseless out here in the street instead of inside, where we belong.
Where he is so reluctant to go.
And something clicks inside my head, a fear that rears up and lashes out at me, stronger than my grip on him.
Oh, God…
I tear my lips from his, an agitated pant slipping out as I search his face.
Was that a goodbye kiss?
There was something about it, something in the almost manic way he moved his mouth over mine that suggested I’ll never see him again.
“Please, come inside, Cam.” I drop my forehead to his again. “Please…”
I hate that I’m begging.
I hate that I have to.
And I despise how desperate I sound, but I have been desperate for the last two months. Desperate to find anything, any way to escape the pain of what my life had become once I lost Drew. And now that it’s finally here, in my reach, I don’t want to lose it for any reason.
Not because of guilt or misconceived loyalty or because of what I think other people will say when they find out.
I just want this, like I had last night.
The two of us entwined in each other and nothing else.
His warm breath flutters over me, and he feathers his lips across mine, his whole body trembling. “Okay.”
I slowly step back, releasing my grip on him and allowing him to swing his leg off the bike. As soon as he does, he tugs me against him, staring down at me as he cups my cheeks between his rough palms.
“You really are the worst kind of temptation, Ivy.”
Coming from a man who understands addiction so well, I don’t know if that’s a compliment, an insult, or a warning.
Maybe all three. But he still dips his head and kisses me deeply, that same explosive, whole claiming he did that first night on that bench when I apparently gave myself to him even though I didn’t know it.
I groan and fist my hands in his jacket again, and he reaches down and scoops me up, lifting me easily to wrap my legs around his waist. He stalks back to the house, throws open the door, and steps inside, kicking it closed behind him.
The sharp slam jerks me away from his mouth for a split second, but then his lips are skimming up my neck, over my cheek, at my ear, where he nips in a way that sends a shudder of anticipation through me. I shift my hips, aligning my core with his hardened cock encased in his jeans.
A gravelly moan falls from his lips, hot breath fluttering the hair on my temple.
“I’ve been thinking about you all day.” He kisses down my neck to my collarbone, pulling my T-shirt away to give himself better access to the skin there.
“The whole time I was at my meeting, all I could think about was coming here, doing this, touching you, tasting you again. I still can’t believe I can. ”
I whimper at his words, at the frenetic desire lacing them, and tunnel my hands through his hair, tugging his head back so he looks at me.
He pauses next to the kitchen, and I catch him glancing over my shoulder, down the hallway toward the bedroom, but instead, he turns and sets me on the edge of the counter, spreading my thighs wide and settling between them.
“I need you now, Ivy.” He tugs my bottom lip between his teeth, biting down sharply. “Like this.”
Cam rocks his hard length against my core, and flashes of pleasure course through me, making my hands tighten in his hair. He groans in response to my tug, grinding into me even harder.
And suddenly we’re moving too slowly.
There are too many clothes.
Too much time that has passed since he first crushed his mouth to mine outside.
My pussy throbs, already wet and wanting, rolling against him, seeking that delicious friction.
His hands come up to cradle my head, keeping me upright as he leans into me, bowing me backward slightly.
The glint in his eyes now isn’t trepidation or confusion.
It isn’t a warning that he’s about to walk away.
It’s a promise that makes me whimper. “I will fuck you on every surface of this house but one, do you understand me?”
I nod even as my heart aches for the reason he feels that way, and his mouth crushes to mine again, hot and heavy and desperate, stealing away any other thought and sending me spinning. Away from rational thought. Away from all common sense. Away from all reason.
How can reason exist where Camden Usher does?
He destroyed me last night, shattered me into a million pieces, only to rebuild me and do it all over again.
He will again now.
And I’m going to let him.