Chapter 34 #4
Cameron’s mouth touches the mark at the base of my spine now that he actually has access to it, a slow kiss that sends the bond opening wider beneath my ribs.
His hand moves down my stomach and between my thighs while his cock presses warm and hard against the back of my leg.
He doesn’t rush either part. His fingers work slowly over me until the lingering ache of the last two knots turns back into want.
I push back against him, and his breath changes against my skin. That’s the only warning I get before he lifts my leg over his and guides himself into me from behind.
The angle is deep enough that my hand fists in the sheet. Cameron stops as soon as he’s inside, one arm wrapped around my ribs and holding me against him while my body adjusts, then starts to move.
There is nothing performative about Cameron fucking me. No commands, no commentary. He doesn’t need me looking at him or telling him he’s doing it right. He finds the rhythm that makes my breathing change and stays there, his hand eventually coming up to close around mine.
The bond settles around me the way it always does. Warm house. Open door. Home.
My eyes burn, and I know before the first tear gets out that Cameron is going to notice.
Of course he does, but he doesn’t stop or ask what’s wrong or make the other two look at me.
He only tightens his arm around my ribs and presses his mouth to the back of my neck while he keeps moving inside me, slow and deep and steady.
That makes it worse, because everything I’ve spent the day holding separately starts arriving at once.
Today was the best day of my life. I won a national championship. My father stood on the west bank and watched me do it. Coach Bennett told me I’d have a place beside him next year, and somebody from US Rowing put a card in my hand.
I also found out the last race of my college career was already over before I climbed into the boat.
I’ve been trying to decide which of those things I’m allowed to feel since Carmine called, and with Cameron wrapped around me, I finally stop trying.
His hand tightens around mine as his knot begins to swell. The tears come harder then, not dramatic or even entirely sad, just slipping sideways across my face into the pillow while the bond between us opens wider.
His mouth touches my shoulder. “You’re allowed to have this.”
That’s the whole speech.
His next thrust pushes his knot home, and the stretch pulls a broken sound out of me as Cameron holds me tighter and it locks us together. The pressure tips everything inside me sideways again. Not quite another orgasm at first, just too much feeling with nowhere left to put it.
Then his hand slides down my stomach and he touches me exactly where I need him.
My body gives up.
The orgasm rolls through me slower than the others, deep and shaking, my muscles tightening around his knot while Cameron groans against the back of my neck.
His bond floods warm through my chest, Zane’s and Beckett’s still there beneath it, three separate signatures that don’t crowd me or blur together.
They fit.
I lie there and let myself cry while it passes. Nobody asks me to explain, and for the first time all day, I don’t.
Afterward, the bed is not built for four people and we’re all in it anyway.
Beckett lasts maybe ten minutes before passing out with one arm across my waist and his mouth open.
Zane is on his stomach at the foot of the bed, one foot hanging off the mattress and the pretzel bag he never opened still tucked against his ribs.
I can’t sleep. Cameron’s awake too; I know without turning my head.
“Why are you still up?”
“Watching.”
“You’re not allowed to just watch. Beckett made a whole thing of it.”
“Beckett’s asleep.” There’s a pause. “Off duty.”
I turn over. In the dark, Cameron is mostly an outline and the faint shine of one eye. For a while I listen to Beckett breathing behind me and Zane shifting every time the air conditioner kicks on.
“I don’t get to race next season.”
It’s the first time I’ve said it lying down, without a gravel lot, eight people looking at me, or Bo’s face doing what Bo’s face did. Just the sentence.
“I know.”
“Everybody keeps telling me what we’re going to do about it. Bennett wants me coaching. Webb wants me at development camp if they’ll clear it. My father wants the bylaw. Tyler’s probably going to have six options by breakfast.”
“Probably eight.”
“Probably.”
I move a little closer, since there’s nowhere else to put my leg. “I don’t want to do anything about it yet.”
“Then don’t.”
Down the hall a door bangs, and somebody who is definitely not on our team yells something about a hot tub. A whole other hotel keeps having a night that has nothing to do with us.
Cameron is quiet for a minute before he says, “Best day of your life.”
I look toward the window. There’s just enough light around the curtains now to tell me it’s after midnight.
“It’s tomorrow now.”
“Then you got two.”
I put my head on his arm, and I’m asleep before I can answer.