Chapter 6
Cameron
Three hundred and fifteen pounds.
That was the weight on the bar resting across my shoulders. It was heavy, cold, and unforgiving. It was simple physics. Gravity pulled down; I pushed up. There was no grey area. There was no negotiation. There was only success or failure.
I inhaled, filling my diaphragm with the stale, chalk-dust air of the varsity weight room. I braced my core, locking my spine into a neutral position.
Down.
My hips sank below parallel. My quads screamed. The weight threatened to fold me in half, to crush me into the rubber matting.
Up.
I drove through my heels, exploding upward. The bar rattled as I locked out at the top.
One.
Down.
I needed this. I needed the pain. I needed the burning sensation in my muscle fibers to drown out the sensory loop playing on repeat in my brain.
Her skin. Soft, hot, flushed pink.
Her sound. That broken, desperate whimpering.
Her taste. Sweet, like vanilla and sin.
Up.
Two.
It had been twelve hours since the "lesson" in the kitchen. Twelve hours since I had pinned Camila Sterling to my marble island and completely lost my mind.
I was supposed to be the teacher. I was supposed to be the one in control. I had set the rules: structure, discipline, boundaries. And then, in the span of five minutes, I had shattered every single one of them because she looked at me with those wide, defiant eyes and challenged me.
“Make me.”
The memory hit me harder than the weights. My concentration wavered. My knee buckled slightly on the descent. The bar tipped.
"Whoa, easy!"
Spotter arms grabbed the bar, stabilizing it before I could decapitate myself.
I racked the weight with a loud clang and stepped back, ripping the Velcro belt off my waist. I was drenched in sweat. My heart was hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs.
I turned to see Jagger Cole standing there, looking concerned. He was wearing his practice jersey and holding a protein shake like it was a holy relic.
"Trying to kill yourself before the scouts get here, Cap?" Jag asked, his voice lacking its usual levity. "That’s three plates. You usually rep two-seventy on recovery days."
"I needed to clear my head," I muttered, grabbing my towel and wiping my face.
"Clear your head or lobotomize yourself?" Jag leaned against the squat rack. "You've been in here for two hours. You missed the team breakfast. Coach Miller was asking if you were sick. I told him you were having 'girl trouble'."
I froze, the towel halfway down my neck. I lowered it slowly. "You told him what?"
"Girl trouble," Jag grinned, though it didn't reach his eyes. "You know. The Princess. Rumor has it you two are getting pretty... domestic. Saw you at lunch with the Dean yesterday. Holding hands. Gazing into each other's eyes. It was nauseatingly cute."
"It's optics," I said sharply. "It's for the scouts. You know that."
"Do I?" Jag took a sip of his shake, watching me over the rim. "Because I know you, Cam. You don't hold hands. You don't do public displays of affection. You barely tolerate human contact. But yesterday? You looked like you wanted to eat her alive."
I turned away, walking over to the water fountain. "I'm selling the narrative, Jag. That's all."
"Right. Selling the narrative." Jag followed me. "And does the narrative involve you looking like you haven't slept and trying to bench press a Buick?"
I slammed my hand against the button on the fountain. The water arc was weak. Everything in this building felt weak today compared to the storm raging inside me.
"Drop it, Cole."
"I'm just saying," Jag lowered his voice. "Be careful. Sterling is... she's a lot. And you? You're barely holding it together as it is. If this thing with her goes sideways—if it stops being 'optics' and starts being real—it's going to wreck you. And we need you in the net, not in therapy."
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.
"I am in control," I stated, the words tasting like ash. "Camila is a project. I am tutoring her. I am stabilizing her. It is mutually beneficial."
"Mutually beneficial," Jag repeated, shaking his head. "Sounds romantic. Just remember, man: even the Titanic was unsinkable until it hit the ice."
He clapped me on the shoulder and walked away toward the dumbbell rack.
I watched him go.
The Titanic.
I looked down at my hands. They were trembling slightly. Not from the weight. From the withdrawal.
I wanted to touch her again.
That was the terrifying truth. I didn't just want to control her; I wanted to consume her. I wanted to go back to the penthouse, drag her out of whatever class she was in, and finish what we started.
I was an addict. And she was the needle.
I grabbed my gym bag. I needed a shower. I needed to scrub the thought of her out of my skin before I saw her in class.
Because if I looked at her today and saw even a hint of that surrender in her eyes, I wasn't sure I could stop myself from claiming her right there in the lecture hall.
The Lecture Hall
Sports Management 301 was held in a tiered lecture hall that smelled of stale coffee and desperation. The professor, Dr. Aris, was a drone of a man who spoke in bullet points.
I sat in the back row. My usual spot. High ground. Full view of the exits.
The room was buzzing. The usual pre-class chatter. But today, the frequency was different. People were looking at me. Whispering.
“Is it true?”
“I heard they live together.”
“I heard her dad cut her off and Vance is paying for everything.”
The rumors were mutating, feeding on the carcass of our privacy.
Then, the door opened.
She walked in.
Camila.
She wasn't wearing her usual "look at me" attire.
No neon furs, no sequined skirts. She was wearing jeans—tight, distressed denim that hugged her legs—and a white cable-knit sweater that looked soft enough to sleep in.
Her hair was pulled back in a claw clip, loose tendrils framing her face. She had glasses on. My reading glasses.
My breath hitched in my throat.
She looked... soft. She looked like she belonged in a library, or in a cabin by a fire, or in my bed on a Sunday morning.
She scanned the room. Her eyes found mine instantly.
For a second, the rest of the room vanished. The connection was a physical tether, pulling tight. I saw her cheeks flush pink. I saw her throat bob as she swallowed.
She remembered.
She remembered the marble. The heat. The way she had come apart in my hands.
She walked up the stairs. Every eye in the room followed her. I felt a surge of irrational, violent possessiveness. Look away, I wanted to snarl at the linebacker in the second row who was staring at her ass. She’s mine.
She reached my row and slid into the empty seat beside me.
"Hi," she whispered, not looking at me. She started unpacking her bag. Notebook. Pen. Tablet.
"You're wearing my glasses," I said. My voice was low, a rumble only she could hear.
She touched the frames nervously. "I... I couldn't find my contacts. And the prescription is close enough. Do you want them back?"
"No," I said. "Keep them. They look better on you."
She froze. She turned her head slowly to look at me. Behind the lenses, her eyes were wide and vulnerable.
"Are we..." she hesitated, licking her lips. "Are we okay? You left this morning before I was awake. You didn't leave a note."
"I had to lift," I said. "I needed to burn off some energy."
"Oh," she breathed. The implication hung between us. Sexual energy.
"Camila," I said, leaning closer. The sleeve of my arm brushed hers. The contact sent a shockwave up my shoulder. "About last night. In the kitchen."
"We were studying," she said quickly, repeating the lie I had given her. "It was... motivation."
"It was a mistake," I corrected grimly.
Her face fell. The light in her eyes dimmed, replaced by a guarded hurt. "A mistake. Right. Of course."
"Not because I didn't want it," I added intensely, needing to fix the damage before she walled herself off. "But because it compromises the arrangement. If we do that... if we cross that line... the lines get blurred. And I need lines, Mila. I need structure."
"You need control," she whispered, turning back to face the front of the room as Dr. Aris started speaking.
"Yes," I admitted. "I do."
"Well," she opened her notebook, her pen hovering over the paper. "Don't worry, Vance. I won't ask for extra credit again. I'll stay on my side of the line."
She began to write.
I watched her hand move across the page. I watched the way she bit her lip when she was concentrating.
She was staying on her side of the line.
But as the lecture droned on about Risk Assessment and Liability, I realized something.
I didn't want her on her side.
I wanted to erase the line. I wanted to burn the map.
I reached under the desk. Slowly, deliberately, I placed my hand on her knee.
She stopped writing. Her pen froze mid-sentence.
I didn't move my hand. I just let it rest there. Heavy. Possessive. An anchor.
She didn't push me away.
Slowly, imperceptibly, she leaned toward me. Her shoulder pressed against mine.
We sat there for an hour, touching in the darkness under the desk, while the professor talked about how to avoid disaster.
We were the disaster. And we were happening in slow motion.
The Penthouse
The package was waiting for me when we got home.
It was sitting on the sleek, black console table in the foyer. A plain brown envelope. No return address. But I knew the handwriting.
Spidery. Erratic.
Cameron.
My stomach dropped through the floor.
Camila was behind me, shaking the snow off her boots. "God, it's freezing. I think my toes have officially divorced the rest of my body. Do we have any tea? I feel like we should have tea."
I didn't answer. I couldn't speak.
I picked up the envelope. It felt heavy. Not heavy with paper—heavy with history.
I walked into the living room, tearing it open.
Photos.
Dozens of them. Polaroids.
Me as a child, sitting in a pile of garbage, crying. My mother, passed out on a mattress with a needle in her arm. The eviction notice taped to the door of our trailer.
And a note.