Chapter 3
Chapter three
Aria's questions lingered on Camelia's mind all afternoon as she returned to the house and continued unpacking. James and Evan were out, and the house was almost painfully quiet without the two of them around.
You don't need them around. This is just an arrangement between the three of you. Nothing more, nothing less.
The voice of reason in her mind was starting to feel more insidious and doubtful, less comforting than it usually did. It didn't matter how reasonable it was, how much she agreed in principle with her inner voice.
It didn't change how she felt. How much she...wanted this to be more.
"This is absurd," she muttered to herself.
She tugged the bottom hem of her tank top down so that it lay straight, and she turned and marched out of the room that was now hers.
She only wore the tank top and a pair of shorts since she had been unpacking and getting overheated, and when she got to the kitchen she determinedly went through the cupboards to see what food was there.
She wasn't the best cook, but she was more than passable after years of having to sporadically take care of herself. And she was going to make dinner for the three of them. They were doing her a big favor by letting her stay and...protect her, the least that she could do was feed them.
And it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that you want your Alphas to be pleased with you. Nothing at all.
Camelia steadfastly ignored her inner voice, and turned Spotify on her phone to an eighties mix channel.
She hummed to Bon Jovi and Meat Loaf as she started chopping onions and thawing some ground beef.
She made a mean fucking lasagna, and it took a while so it wouldn't matter when they came back home.
Though she hoped that they wouldn't be gone for too long.
Camelia got lost in the act of cooking and started dancing around the kitchen as she chopped tomatoes for sauce.
She was in the middle of an intense hip-swinging routine when she turned on her heel and saw Evan leaning against the wall with a soft smirk on his face, standing in the doorway to the living room.
Camelia yelped, and fumbled for her phone for a moment before she was able to turn the music off.
"You scared the shit out of me!" She pressed her hand to her chest, willing her racing heart to slow, and the amused expression that had been gracing his handsome features split into a full-blown grin as he laughed.
"Sorry, didn't mean to." He continued chuckling, and Camelia took the moment to look him up and down.
He was dressed up, wearing a gray button-down shirt tucked into a pair of slacks with shiny loafers on his feet.
His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows – a fact that made Camelia swallow against a sudden rush of saliva – and his dark hair was neatly combed back.
She pointed at him with her knife, gesturing up and down. "You look really nice. Where were you guys?"
"Lunch with my parents." Evan shrugged one shoulder. "They took me and James to the country club. They like to do that sort of thing." His eyes gleamed a little, and his voice was teasing when he continued, "I would have invited you along, but you were nowhere to be found."
He walked a little further into the space, and Camelia caught a whiff of his smoke pine scent, and her pussy clenched as she averted her gaze from his.
"Met with Aria for lunch. I'm sure that you had a lovely time without me.
" She peeked up at him, a hint of insecurity wrapping around her heart and squeezing as she mumbled, "Did you tell your parents about me, at all? "
"Of course." The immediate answer surprised her, and he raised an eyebrow at her even as he smiled a little. "Mom wants me to bring you along next time we meet. She says you sound like a delight."
Camelia bit her lip, ignoring how Evan's gaze dropped to her mouth. "You didn't..."
She couldn't finish the sentence, but a moment later realization dawned on Evan's face, and he stepped even closer to her. Directly into her space, where he could wrap his hand around the back of her neck. His thumb stroked the skin there, and Camelia knew that he could feel her pulse pounding.
"No, I didn't. And neither did James," he said softly.
His blue eyes were intense as he looked at her, and Camelia swallowed.
"We would never do something like that to you.
As far as my parents are aware, you're a new roommate that had a sudden change of living circumstances that necessitated our involvement. "
Camelia sighed, leaning slightly into Evan's touch at the relief that washed through her. Her instincts crowed at having his attention, his touch on her, but she ignored them. "Thank you. I...I know that it's not fair of me, to ask you two to keep things secret..."
Evan leaned down, pressing a firm kiss to her forehead before she could finish her thought.
"Don't be ridiculous," he said. His breath brushed against her skin, making goosebumps erupt up and down her spine as he continued.
"It isn't our secret to tell. Besides." His expression twisted with something that rang of almost-regret and possession.
His voice rasped when he spoke again. "It's only a few more days before those meds are fully out of your system, and then.
..you won't have a choice. You'll be outed to anyone with half a sense.
" He grimaced. "The least we could do was offer you your privacy while you still have it. "
Camelia pressed her lips tightly together, the truth of what he was saying more than she wanted to face in that moment. A banging sound above their heads caught her attention, and she frowned. "What is James doing?"
Evan smiled again, the seriousness of the moment passing. "Changing. He hates meeting my parents at the country club. Says that it makes him feel like a monkey in a suit."
Camelia personally thought that James would look delicious all dressed up, but she kept that opinion to herself as she turned back to the tomato that she had abandoned chopping. "Ah, gotcha."
She could feel Evan's gaze on her body, and she bit back a whimper when he moved close again, his chest brushing against her back. "What are you making?"
His breath teased over her ear, and she had to let out a shaky breath to stop herself from moaning. "Lasagna," she said, forcing brightness into her voice. "I...wanted to thank you both. For letting me move in. I'm a decent cook..."
Evan's body pressed firmly against hers, just for a moment as he wrapped his hand around her hip fully.
The sudden touch shocked her silent, and Camelia couldn't stop herself from whimpering softly at the contact.
Evan chuckled softly, his voice devastatingly close to her ear.
"You don't need to thank us for anything, Camelia.
But thank you. Let me go change, and I'll help. "
Then his touch was gone, and Camelia let out a shaky breath as she heard him retreating from the kitchen.
She continued cutting the tomatoes and tossed them in the sauté pan as she heard him moving around upstairs, and by the time he came back, she had her music playing again and the pasta water starting to boil, the cooked meat and onions set aside.
"What can I do?" Camelia's mouth dried up when she looked at Evan, his simple t-shirt and house pants almost doing more for her than his nice formalwear had done. She could see the soft outline of his cock in his pants, and averted her eyes before she got herself into trouble.
She pointed at the tomatoes that she had been chopping, turning her attention to the stove. "Dice those, please, and find me tomato paste."
For a while, the two of them worked in companionable silence. James continued to occasionally bang around upstairs, but he didn't appear in the kitchen like Camelia expected him to.
It was only when the pasta was cooked and the sauce was bubbling comfortingly on the stove that Camelia felt comfortable voicing a dangerous thought. "Is James okay?"
Evan pressed his lips together, leaning back against the stove. He wiped a stray splatter of sauce off the counter with a rag, and he sighed, shaking his head a little. "James sometimes has a hard time seeing my parents. He loves them, and they love him like they love me."
"But?" There was always a but.
Evan twisted his mouth in a wry smile. "James doesn't have the best relationship to the concept of family. Seeing mine...it reminds him of why. What he missed out on."
The answer was deliberately vague, and Camelia furrowed her brow, knowing that she was pushing the boundary. "Why?"
Evan reached out and cupped her chin, his thumb stroking gently across her cheek. "Ask him sometime, okay? If he wants to tell you, he will."
Camelia couldn't help leaning into Evan's touch again, and her curiosity about James' background faded away in favor of the thoughts that she had been entertaining while they had been gone.
Her pussy clenched, and she cleared her throat as she turned and eyed the sauce.
"I think that it's ready," she announced suddenly, ignoring how her voice had become three notes higher in the span of two seconds.
"Find me a glass baking dish and we can start putting it together. "
Evan's chuckle told her that he knew exactly what he had done to her, but he didn't press the issue.
Instead, he hunted out the dish that Camelia had requested, and the two of them assembled the lasagna methodically, their fingers brushing against each other as they lay layers of sticky pasta and meat and cheese.
Their fingers brushing made Camelia bite the inside of her cheek, but she tried not to project how hot she suddenly felt.
It wasn't until she gently pushed him away so that she could layer mozzarella on top of the finished dish that she finally let out a tiny sound, their shoulders brushing firmly together before she opened the oven and slid the dish inside.