Chapter 22
March
“Go back to your castle. Find someone else to fuck because I’m no prince. I’m the monster you should be afraid of.”
“Earth to, Camryn.”
Blinking away Stone’s parting words from a few months ago, I refocus on my best friend, Kingsley. “Sorry, what?”
“Your mind is a million miles away.” King peers at me before crossing her arms. “What were you thinking about?”
Sex. Sex that I won’t be having with the broody, hot asshole who rejected me. “Nothing.”
“So ‘nothing’ makes you blush and your nips perky?”
Gasping, I cover my chest and splutter out a laugh. “King!”
“What? I’ve known you since we were nine years old. Our periods are in sync. I’ve smelled your gas. I’ve helped clean up your drunken vomit. So yeah, I know when you’re horny.”
“I’m not horny.”
Her lips tilt up, and she scoffs. “Yeah, okay. Well, you’re something.” She ticks off her fingers. “You’re more moody. I’ve heard your vibrator buzzing a lot. Like a lot, a lot.”
“Are you listening through the wall? That’s weird, King.” I try to hide my guilty expression.
She shrugs. “Kinda hard not to hear that gigantor monster vibe you bought.”
“You have one too!” I protest.
She ignores me and continues. “And, 365 Days is like always in the recent watches on Netflix.”
“You should work for the FBI.”
“Comes with the territory of being a Governor’s daughter.
We notice things. So yeah, I call bullshit on the not horny thing.
Just admit that you’re still thinking about him.
” She closes her dresser drawer and drops a handful of colorful underwear in her open suitcase before flopping down next to me on her bed.
“Fine. I’m still thinking about him.” I lie on my back and stare at the ceiling.
The memory of riding home on the back of his bike, feeling his hard body between my thighs, and strong vibrations between my legs from his bike is still alive and well, especially when I’m alone, my fingers buried deep inside me.
And it’s stupid. Ridiculous to even continue thinking about him, masturbating to his smell and the sound of his voice, when he essentially told me to fuck off.
His rejection stung. Not because I think I’m some sort of femme fatale, but because I thought there was something there, an energy between us.
“And I need to stop because he told me no.”
“I get it. He’s not exactly an easy guy to quit.”
“How would you know?” I sigh, turning to her.
“Well if he’s anything like the biker men in my dark romances, he’s built, hung like horse, brooding, and has a voice that makes your pussy quiver when he calls you ‘good girl.’”
Yeah, he’s all of that and more. “He told me that he doesn’t do pretty. That he likes pain, and a willing woman who’s ready to be hurt when he fucks her.”
Kingsley sits up. “I’m sorry what?”
I sit up with her, leaning away from the manic look spreading across her face. “You heard me.”
She squeals and stands up on her bed, pointing down at me. “He said that! To your face? Holy shit! Now that’s hot. It’s so…domineering and delicious.”
“Not when he followed up that statement by basically calling me a spoiled brat,” I grump. “He was borderline insulting.”
“It’s hot if you ask me. A sexy man calling you a brat?
Cam, that is the stuff of dreams and is a hallmark of every dark romance on my shelf.
” King flops back on the mattress. “But look on the bright-side. Now you know what kind of men get your engine going. Not the cheating nerdy artistic types like Reed. Just find another man like Stone. A biker with tattoos and a bad attitude.”
Is there anyone like him? It’s depressing to think he may be some kind of unicorn, just like the other men in my new circle of friends. Each and every one of them is off the charts.
But it seems like the only ones getting swept off their feet by a sex god are Dru, Sophia, Meela, and now Lara.
I like Onyx and Riggs, but there’s no sexual attraction to them, and the last time I checked, there are no other sexy men I know.
There is Ben, Sophia, and Dru’s male best friend, but I haven’t seen him in months.
Maybe Sophia’s cousins? No, wait, her cousin Renz is hot, but off limits.
He’s still in love with his ex. Her middle cousin is hilarious, but he’s more like a silly brother. Her oldest cousin is married.
I’m officially out of options. Maybe I should try a dating app? Kill me.
You know what? Fuck Stone, whatever his last name is anyway.
I’m going to move on. He doesn’t want me.
I probably won’t see him again much, given that everyone is so busy in their lives.
Lara is doing ‘fake boyfriend’ with benefits shit with Sloane Alexander.
Dru is ready to give birth. Sophia is pregnant with my brother’s baby and totally in love.
Meela just got into a full-time relationship with a man she’s been in love with since she was 19.
She’s also having lots of enviable sex. Eleanor finally told us she’s pregnant and has been hiding out in Paris for the last four months.
She won’t tell us who the father is. Jacks swears it was some guy she left to meet up with in February when we all went to the club.
The same night, Stone basically told me to fuck off.
Suddenly, King jumps up off her bed where we are lying. Scratching sounds echo in her room, coming from under her bed. “What is that, Cam!? Is that the little monster?”
I laugh at her description of Jagger.
“How the fuck do you sleep at night with him just creeping around?”
“I don’t know. I kinda like it.”
“You like a cold-blooded animal skulking around?”
I bend down and crawl under the bed, picking him up and cuddling him before heading back to my room to put him back in his cage. When I return, King is frowning.
“You were always a weird goth bitch in disguise.”
I jump on the bed and tickle her. “That’s Ms. Goth Bitch to you!”
King screams as I tickle her, pushing my hands away. “Stop! Sorry I insulted your damn pet!” I stop tickling her and laugh as she rolls off her bed, falling to the floor, panting. “I could have pissed my pants. You know I have a weak bladder.”
She walks into the bathroom and starts washing her hands.
“What are you doing?”
“Washing off your bearded dragon hands! I’ll probably get salmonella!”
“There’s my dramatic bestie. Stop acting like you haven’t been feeding him extra meal worms and baby-talking him! I’ve heard you.”
She exits the bathroom, wiping her hands on a towel. “I’m not hard-hearted. He was looking thinner. I felt bad. Anyway, how’s the gallery?”
“Great. I have a ton of work to do, but it’s going to be great once I get it started.”
“When do you move into the upstairs apartment?”
“Another month.”
She starts to tear up. “That is going to suck. You’re leaving me.”
“I will never leave you, King. I’m probably going to harass you a few times a week and sleep over. My new place is run down and I’ll miss your expensive ass guest bed.”
“Why not just get a bigger place?”
“Because I want to do this. I want to build something of my own. I want to do it by myself. I want it to mean something.” I can see that the meaning behind my words is not lost on her. She offers me an understanding smile.
“Well, I’m proud of you.”
Her praise warms me. “Thanks.”
“Of course. You’re my sister from another mister.”
I smile at her phrase. It’s something she said just a week after we met. “How’s the world of fashion?” I ask, watching my best friend since I was nine years old, pull out her suitcase. I slump on her bed, reaching for the bag of pretzels on her night table, nibbling on a handful.
“Good. I’m leaving Australia to meet up with an up and coming fashion designer.”
“That far?”
“I couldn’t pass up on the opportunity. I’ve been eyeing her socials for over a year.
She does these amazing prints of the indigenous people of Australia and I want to collaborate with her.
It’s a chance to have my sustainable clothing line become more global.
And it offers me a change to get a break from all the bullshit going on with the campaign for my dad’s reelection.
I feel so hemmed in all the goddamn time and there is no escape in sight! Two weeks away is exactly what I need.”
Her being gone for two weeks won’t be fun since I hate being alone, but I remind myself that I need to get over the feelings of abandonment from my father, my mother, and yes, even my brothers.
“Then like the good dutiful daughter I am, I’ll jump right back into the fray and smile pretty for the camera.” She gets up and puts her right hand on her chest. “I pledge allegiance to the Shearer family. New York’s All American Black family.”
She giggles and returns to throwing clothes into her suitcase.
King’s words bring me back to the present and not the past of being left alone for weeks while my father was away and my brothers were in college. If it wasn’t for Maria and her husband, I would have been even lonelier. “Just tell him, King.”
My friend looks at me and brushes her tight curly blond hair off her brown forehead.
Frustration is written all over her beautiful pixie face.
“Tell him what, Cam? That I hate his guts? That I hate the pretense that we are some sort of loving family when in reality he is a cruel asshole who talks down his wife and child and keeps me hostage because he knows my mother’s mental health is precarious?
That I don’t give a flying fuck about his campaign and his business cronies who want to slip me notes with their hotel rooms numbers? Or should I tell them to fuck off too?”
“Well, yeah.” I’ve been there. The memory of all the times I dodged lascivious looks from my father’s friends.
“I’m not brave the way you are, Cam. He rules with an iron fist and I’m too used to the bruises.”
I scoff so hard that it sounds like a grunt. “Brave? Bullshit. I’m a fucking coward who needed her brother and soon to be sister-in-law to defy my father.”