Chapter 13
CAMILLE
I didn’t stop pulling Jacob until we were past the deck lights and down the stairs, the river breathing beside us like it had opinions. He matched my pace, the canvas duffel still slung on his shoulder.
“What’s in the bag?” I asked, eyeing it because I needed a problem with zippers and not feelings.
He hitched the strap higher. “Stuff Marcus shoved at me for your team. Shade fly. First-aid. Bungees. A … tent.”
“A tent?” My pulse did a stupid little kick. “Useful.”
“Figured you’d approve.” His mouth curved. “You want a drive or a walk?”
“Drive.” I wanted the ocean close and the people far.
We cut across gravel to my SUV. The AC coughed out air that smelled like beach and old coffee.
My phone buzzed twice—night crew check-ins, both animals steady.
I thumbed back: On radio. Twenty out. Ping me if anything twitches.
“Work?” he asked, voice rough, curious without the kind of prying that made me bite.
“Always,” I said, rolling out of the lot. A nondescript SUV eased from the shadows two lengths behind us—Atlas’s detail. I let it be a comfort instead of a complaint. “Your friends keep good distance.”
He looked in the mirror, clocked them, and didn’t comment.
We ran Folly Road with the windows cracked, night air licking sweat off my neck. Neither of us spoke for a few miles. He rode quiet, hands loose on his thighs, the kind of stillness you learn when stillness keeps you alive.
“You pulled me like a grenade,” he said at last, not accusation, more inventory.
“Bar fights waste oxygen,” I said. “I have better uses for yours.”
A laugh, low and ruined. “Jesus, Camille.”
I shot him a look. “In French it’s ka-MEE. Not Cuh-MEEL.”
He tried it. “ka-MEE.” He made the vowel sit right in his mouth and my stomach flipped. “Good?”
“Good.” I took the turn toward the access lot. “At work it’s Dr. Allard.”
“Dr. Allard.” He tasted it, teasing. “Very official. Like you might write me up for something naughty.”
“I might,” I said, and smiled because I couldn’t help it. “What’s your last name, Jacob?”
He tipped his head, amused. “Let’s keep it Jacob for now.”
“For now,” I echoed, filing the non-answer with all the other Charleston mysteries. “You’re not a serial killer, cartel bagman, or secretly married to three women in Idaho, right? Blink twice if I should run.”
He laughed, hands up. “None of the above. Not married, not murderous. Just cautious.”
“Good,” I said, even though I was the one who should’ve been cautious. “Because I carry a knife and I know where to put it.”
“I noticed,” he said, eyes glinting. “And I believe you.”
We parked behind a ridge of sea oats. The ocean shushed at us.
Out on the sand, he swung the duffel down, crouched, and in three efficient motions shook loose poles, fly, stakes.
The kind of competence that made heat low in my belly: a man who knew knots better than compliments.
He snapped the frame together; I caught guy lines, our fingers brushing, a neat line of static running up my arm.
“Hold,” he said, guiding the nylon into my grip. Calluses, heat. He staked and hauled and the little dome tent breathed in the wind, taut and ready, the fly whispering like it knew secrets.
“You do that often?” I asked.
“Enough,” he said, straightening. “You okay, ka-MEE?”
No. I had a lot on my mind. And the man who’d said breathe like a priest last night stood in front of me, solid and inevitable.
“No,” I said truthfully. “But I will be.”
“Tell me what you want.”
“Sand. Hands. Something that isn’t a fight.”
“That, I can do.”
I ducked inside first. Canvas turned the wind into a hush, the ocean’s song threading through, anyway.
He followed, big and careful, zipping the flap most of the way to make our own weather.
Still—a murmur of voices carried on the breeze, a car door thumped somewhere up the access path, and the stupid, perfect fact pressed against my skin: this was a public beach.
Anyone could wander close, a flashlight could sweep the dunes, one laugh could crack our little world. The risk lit every nerve.
The dark in the tent was good dark—salt and heat and our breath coming faster than it should for two people fully clothed.
“Dr. Allard,” he said, kneeling, “last chance to kick me out.”
I fisted his T-shirt and dragged. “Show me why I shouldn’t.”
He stripped with rough economy—shirt, belt, jeans—until the tent had to relearn how to hold his size.
He was hard already, thick and heavy, heat I could feel without touching.
He didn’t rush my clothes; he watched my face and slid his palms up my ribs, under my tank, pausing when his thumbs grazed the weight of my breasts.
“These stay or go?” he asked.
“Off,” I said. “All of it.”
I shed layers until air kissed my nipples and the night licked the wet heat between my thighs. His inhale went ragged.
“Christ.”
Then his mouth closed around my nipple, hot and greedy, and I made a sound I would deny under oath. He bit lightly, as his free hand slid down my stomach and between my legs. He found me slick and swore into my skin.
“Sirène,” he said—French wrong but beautiful. “You’re soaked.”
“Your fault.” My head tipped back, neck open. “All day.”
“Happy to take the blame.”
Two fingers pushed into me—slow, then deeper, curling like a question against that place that made heat spark behind my eyes. His thumb circled my clit, gentle and then mean, adjusting to the rhythm my hips gave him.
He watched me like I was a dial. I watched him watch me, shameless.
“Is this what Marcus had in mind when he sent a tent?” I panted, half-laughing, half-gone.
“Pretty sure he called it a liaison kit,” Jacob murmured, deadpan. “I’m just following instructions.”
“Uh-huh,” I breathed, rolling my hips into his hand. “Gold star for the teacher’s pet.”
He felt amazing. He was good at this.
“Harder,” I whispered, French bleeding out because I needed it. “Plus fort.”
“Fort,” he echoed, and did. The heel of his palm ground in a way that turned everything inside me to electric wire. I hooked my knees wider, gave him angle, took what he gave without apology.
“Good girl,” he said—field note, not tease—and it tipped me.
I broke around his hand, breathless, greedy, the tent a cave full of heat and canvas squeaks and the ocean clapping for us.
He worked me through it, relentless, until the aftershocks went soft and I pushed at his wrist, laughing once because it was too much and not enough.
“Come here,” I said, and shoved him onto his back.
He went easily, grinning like a wolf. I straddled him, knees in sand the wind had pulled under, hands flat on his chest—hard planes, a scar under my palm like a story. He reached for my hips. I swatted his hands away and lined him up with my fist.
“You’re bossy,” he said, pleased.
“I command incident scenes,” I said. “Stay still.”
“Not a chance,” he murmured, but he did, every muscle humming with restraint.
I sank down slow, a long obscene slide that made us both curse. He was thick—the last inch was a decision. My body took him like it knew him, stretch turning to fullness, to ownership. I bottomed out and stayed there a beat, breathing like a woman who’d been running.
“Fuck,” he said, voice shot to hell. His hands hovered on my thighs, not grabbing. “Cam—” He caught himself, corrected like a man who listened. “ka-MEE.”
“Again,” I said, and began to move.
Slow first—learn the glide, find the catch—then faster when want grew teeth.
The rhythm built itself—my hips rolling, his punching up to meet me with a precision that felt like training and generosity married on purpose.
Canvas ticked. The ocean threw itself at the beach and came back for more.
Every time I drove down on him, the breath ripped out of me.
Every time he drove up, my vision sparked.
He kept his eyes on me like my face held instructions.
“Hands on the tent,” he said.
“What?”
“Do it.”
I flattened my palms against the fly above my head.
The nylon bowed and whispered under my fingers.
Wind pressed it back so our bodies made a shadow-play of sin.
For a beat, thrill tangled with sense—could anyone out there see the slope of my breasts, the arch of my spine, his shoulders crowding me?
Would I scar some moonlit dog-walker for life?
Or give a couple something to talk about on the ride home?
The thought made heat prickle up my skin.
I kept going, anyway.
The position opened me, bared me, set my chest higher. He thrust up and the angle went from good to criminal. I made a noise I’d arrest someone for, if I had a badge.
“Right there,” he rasped, thumb coming back to my clit with unkind accuracy. “Take it.”
“Jacob,” I said, ruined, the name a prayer rolled in salt. “Mon Dieu.”
“I know,” he said, and gave me more.
The image flashed hard and hot—his body between Karl and me at the bar, the way he handled it fast and quiet. No chest beating. No speeches. Just control that said mine without a word. Possessive and protective in the same breath. It curled low in me and lit everything brighter.
I wanted that focus on me. I wanted all of it.
I came again, sharper, my body locking around him like I could keep him forever, stars going off behind my eyes.
He swore, caught my hips, ground me down to take him deep.
I shook apart on him, palms slipping on canvas, legs quivering, breath gone.
He didn’t let me float off. His mouth closed on my nipple again, his other hand slid to my throat—not choking, just claiming, thumb under my jaw like a man reminding me where my breath lived.
“Breathe,” he said, benediction.
I did, greedy. “Inside me,” I said when speech came back. “If you want.”
He stilled. “You’re sure?”
I took his wrist and pressed my pulse to his thumb. “I want you.”