Chapter 24
Chapter twenty-four
James
Camelia smelled like sex and Omega and salty sweat, and the scent grounded James as he buried his face deeper into her skin. Her fingers carded through his hair gently, soothing him and keeping the anxiety that plagued him at bay.
Evan was only gone for a moment, and James felt the bed dip behind him as he knelt back down on the bed. A touch on his inner thigh made James tense a little, and Evan's voice was soft when he spoke. "Just gonna clean you up, James. Spread. Come on."
James obeyed, letting out a soft groan at the soft touch of the cloth, sweeping up his thighs. His hole ached, a reminder of what they had just done. Evan hadn't gone easy on him, but James hadn't wanted him to.
Not when it had made his mind calm down, at least for a little bit.
"You too, baby girl. Spread." Evan's low command made Camelia shuffle under James, a soft whimper escaping her as Evan cleaned her up as well.
James could only imagine what the pair of them looked like, entangled and dripping in arousal and sweat and fluids while their lover cleaned them up with a careful touch.
Debauched, that's how they looked. And the only care that James could find in himself for that was the fear that it was all about to be taken away.
Evan tossed the rag to the side with a wet sound, and he gently pulled on James' hip until he rolled onto his side, letting out a low, discontented sound as Camelia was pulled away.
Evan slid behind him, pressing his front to James' back and holding him close, pressing a kiss to the back of James' neck as Camelia shuffled until she was facing the pair of them, her eyes pleasured and sleepy but aware.
"What happened, James?" Evan's breath was soft against the back of his neck, and James' stomach clenched at the question.
God, it was the last thing that he wanted to fucking talk about.
Still, he knew that he wasn't going to get away from this conversation. Not when he was so uncertain and scared and didn't...fuck, didn't know what to do. What could he do?
"Dad cut me off, effective immediately." James' voice was hollow when he spoke, and some of the pleasure haze cleared from Camelia's dark eyes as she looked at him.
He let out a low laugh, fear making his throat tight as he continued, "He even had them pull me from my classes.
I don't know how he managed that, but he always did know the cruelest way to gut a fish.
" James shook his head, and Evan's arms tightened around him.
"Guess it's a good thing that I haven't been studying for finals. "
Evan didn't say anything, but his breathing changed. James knew him well enough to know that Evan probably had some choice words for Drake Devin that he was saying in his head, but he respected James too much to talk shit about his dad directly to him.
No matter their complicated relationship, he was still James' dad. Though that mere fact was starting to matter less and less, if it still mattered at all.
"But...why?" Camelia's eyes were wide, confusion and flashes of anger reflecting in them as she looked at him.
I thought..." She reached up, dragging her fingers along James' jaw, and James couldn't stop himself from leaning into her touch.
It sparked dark possession and need in him, and his cock twitched despite the fact that he'd just come deep inside of her.
James shook his head, cutting her off. "I guess that ducking out for a week to fuck my Omega during her heat wasn't on my father's approved list of activities for my college career, no matter if it was excused or not.
" His voice was bitter, and Evan's hand tightened on his hip when Camelia's eyes widened a little.
"James..." Evan's voice was a low warning, but Camelia cut him off.
"It's my fault," she whispered. Immediately, James felt a stab of regret as her eyes started to sparkle with tears, and he shook his head firmly, reaching up and wrapping his hand around the back of her neck.
"No, sweetheart," he said, his voice cracking a little.
Camelia stared at him with wide eyes, and he tried again, his heart feeling like it was splitting a little at the hurt on her face.
The hurt that he'd inadvertently caused.
"My dad has been looking for an excuse to do this for years.
He almost cut me off in May when I didn't graduate in four years like he thought that I should.
It is not your fault. He doesn't even know about.
.." James swallowed, his heart pounding a little harder at the idea of his father finding out the truth about Camelia.
"He doesn't know about our relationship, and I have the feeling if he did. .."
Evan nodded against James' neck. "He wouldn't have let things get this far if he suspected anything, baby," he confirmed. His thumb stroked comfortingly against James' hip, and some of the guilt that drenched Camelia's features faded.
She trailed her fingers across James' lips, and he couldn't stop himself from kissing her fingertips, feeling the spark of their connection down to his bones. "What happened between you and your dad?" she asked softly. "What made your relationship so...complicated?"
James swallowed, everything inside of him screaming for him to run, to walk away from this conversation. But Camelia was looking at him so openly, Evan supporting him from behind, and James couldn't...he couldn't tell her no.
"I was thirteen when my mom died," James started, his voice hollow.
"She was...well, basically a single parent in the house the entire time that I was growing up.
Dad was gone all the time, and when he was around, he didn't seem very interested in being a father.
He loved Mom, that much was clear, but I was more of an afterthought than anything. "
Evan's firm hold and Camelia's steady gaze as she absorbed the story was the only thing that kept James grounded enough to keep talking, dredging up the pain that he had spent so many years trying to bury.
"I didn't know what it was that Dad did for a living back then, I only knew that he wasn't around when Mom suddenly dropped dead, after being perfectly healthy up to that point.
Dad wasn't around at the time, and I had to be the one to break the news to him. Over the fucking phone."
James could hear the bitterness, the anger in his voice, but he forced himself to continue, one hand clenching into a fist. "Dad barely made it back in time for the funeral.
He hired someone to handle all the arrangements while he was out of the country, and when he came back.
..things were different between the two of us.
He couldn't ignore me anymore, and he couldn't very well go off on months long assignments when I needed someone there who could put up the facade of taking care of me. "
"Jesus." Camelia's teeth sank into her bottom lip, her eyes huge in her face. "That's fucking awful."
James chuckled humorlessly. "He didn't have any assignments to focus his energy on, and I didn't understand it before then, but Mom was the one who was mellowing his attitude towards me.
Without her around...I became his whipping boy.
" James swallowed, his heart thudding harder, and his voice broke when he continued.
"That was before I knew exactly what had killed Mom.
Some of the way my Dad reacted afterwards made sense when I found out. "
"What happened to her?"
"Dad pissed off the wrong person while out on an assignment.
" Camelia furrowed her brow, and James clarified, his voice dull.
"Dad works in covert ops. He's a mercenary for a private company, though he'll deny it until the day that he dies.
He's very good at what he does, from what I understand, but a mission went wrong and he killed the wrong person.
Still a bad guy, so it was no skin off his or his boss' nose, but other people took notice. "
"She was murdered." Camelia's voice was sad, so fucking sad, and James wanted to put an end to this conversation, to lean forward and kiss her and wipe that tragic fucking expression off her beautiful face.
"She was murdered," James agreed. Evan pressed a kiss to his shoulder, and James reached down and linked their fingers together, for something to hold onto.
"And Dad...he was different after that. He was paranoid, and even angrier than he had been before.
His temper was vicious, and I was the only person there for him to take it out on. "
"He abused you." Again, Camelia said it as a fact, and James couldn't stop himself from chuckling again.
"Nothing quite so simple, though yes, he was abusive.
He trained me. He thought that if I could defend myself, if I was able to protect myself and my surroundings the way that he did in his position, then I would be safe from meeting my mother's fate.
Sniping, survivalist training, poisons. Anything and everything that he could think of, he put me through. And not kindly.
"I didn't meet Evan until we were sixteen, and by then I was so closed off to relationships, to the world...I'm sure it was like pulling teeth for Evan to befriend me. Stubborn ass wouldn't let me go, though, not once he had put his mind to it." James squeezed Evan's hand, who chuckled behind him.
"Damn straight."
James nodded, a tiny smile tugging at his mouth before it faded away again.
Almost done. "By the time I graduated high school, Dad had decided that he didn't want my hard-earned training to go to waste.
He informed me the night before graduation that I was going to come and work with him at his company, and that the paperwork had already been drawn.
I had already been accepted to Ridgeview, and the last thing that I wanted to do was give up my future for one that he planned, one that would make him happy. "
Camelia's eyes flicked over James' shoulder before they returned to James' face, understanding dawning on her face. "And you didn't want to leave Evan."
The denial was on the tip of James' tongue, that he and Evan were just friends and that his insistence at going to Ridgeview had been because he wanted to choose his own fate.
But it would have tasted like a lie, and he was so fucking tired of lying.
"No, I didn't," James finally admitted quietly. He squeezed Evan's hand. "He was the only thing keeping me sane. For a lot of years." He fixed Camelia with an intense gaze, his heart swelling at the emotion that he saw in her eyes. "Until you. And now...now my Dad is going to take it all away."
His voice broke again, and to James' humiliation, tears burned in his eyes. One slipped down his cheek before he was able to swallow against the lump in his throat and force them down, and a look of determination crossed Camelia's face.
"We won't let that happen. Fuck that. Fuck him, and fuck everything that he did to you." She grasped James' face firmly between hers, forcing him not to look away as she firmly said, "We love you. I love you. If you think that a little bit of money is going to stand in the way of us keeping you..."
Evan stiffened behind James, and then he straightened up, running a hand through his hair. "Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck."
James looked at Evan, who was standing and searching for his pants on the floor.
"Get dressed, you two. Come on. Now." Evan turned to look at them, a slightly manic determination lighting his blue eyes. "We're going to go fix this. Right now."