35. Nothing is Broken
THIRTY-FIVE
Avery floppedon the bed like a starfish and feigned a yawn. “This one’s my bed, and that one’s yours, right? I’m so sleepy.”
“I threw a ball like a million yards today,” Cam whined as he pushed her to one side of the mattress. “And a bunch of big, mean guys hit me and tried to take my ball. But I was very brave and tough and I didn’t let them.”
“You win.” Avery rolled into his open arms, smiling. “Today, anyway.”
He kissed her. “Every day. God, what a relief to have some space to ourselves and not be checking the time.” He unclasped both of their watches and set them on the bedside table, then moved to the buttons of her dress. “Stop time. I don’t want to take my hands off you all night.”
“I don’t want you to.” She wriggled the unbuttoned dress over her head, pushed a bra strap over her shoulder, and winked.
Cam pulled her back down laughing, and went to work on the rest of their clothes. “I love undressing you. Even when I’m impatient and just want to rip everything, I love finding you under all this, every time.” He drew her to his chest. “And holding you like this, with nothing between us. Avery, I’ve never wanted to be this close to anyone, and I can’t get enough of it with you.”
She responded with kisses trailing from his lips down his neck. “I failed miserably at keeping my hands off you tonight.”
“Fields seemed fine. Everybody’s fine.” Cam caught a quick breath when she took him in her hand and squeezed. “Totally fine.”
He hardened as she stroked him, and he closed his eyes to take in the urgency of her hand and the pressure of her lips on his skin, moving lower, down his chest and stomach. Sinking deep into the pillows, he breathed out a long, satisfied exhale as she took him into her mouth. “Yes,” he whispered, brushing his hands over her hair. “God, Avery, your lips…”
Tightening her mouth, she slid from base to tip and back again, sucking him in and wrapping him in gentle strokes of her tongue each time she pulled back. His groans matched her rhythm, and he fought the urge to push her head down. He leaned into it instead, rocking his hips to push further back in her throat.
Cam’s heart pounded as she dug her nails into his thighs. When she shifted her fingers between his legs and dragged them lightly up to meet her lips, the pressure mounted and pressed on his lungs like a weight on his chest. He grabbed his hair and pulled to startle himself out of the spiral.
“Get up here, or I’m going to lose it.”
She peeked up at him, eyes wide over glistening, parted lips that looked ready to dive back in. “If that’s what you want.”
“I want to see how turned on you get when you’re turning me on.” He pulled her next to him and spread her thighs, sliding his fingers over the slick warmth and pushing gently inside. “God, I love that. I love how wet you get just from teasing me.”
“It’s almost like your body is talking to mine and telling me what we need.”
“I love everything about how we work together,” he said, rolling on top of her. “I love pushing into you now, just like this, so wet already that it doesn’t hurt.”
“I want it.” She arced against him, grabbing his hips. “Oh, fuck, Cam. Just like that.”
He slowed his pace. “Like that?”
“No. Harder.”
He slowed even more, barely pulsing inside her. “Like that?”
She pulled him down as close as she could and whispered. “Either you’re going to go harder on me, or I’m going to put you on your back and go harder on you.”
He pulled out and flipped her over, and she bucked against him when he thrust inside. “Oh, I’ll go harder on you.” He slapped against her over and over as his hands roamed her body, and smiled when he felt her wobble as he slipped his fingers between her legs. “Or I could be very gentle right here.”
Avery gulped. “You really could.”
She squirmed beneath his tickling fingers while the weight of his body pressed her down. She gave up holding up her arms and settled on her elbows, a shift in angle that loosed a powerful moan from his chest and drove him in deeper. With each flick of his thumb and twist of his fingers, she spread her legs wider to welcome his touch.
“Cam, oh my God,” she panted, scrabbling on the bed to clutch the covers, “That’s so—so?—”
“Close?”
“Yes.”
He had to make her come before he did. A restless ache in his bones kept him awake at night with the guilt of never having done it before, and the drive to make it happen for her, now that he had the luxury of space and time to do what she needed, entirely consumed him. The very thought of it nearly set him off. He grabbed a fistful of hair and pulled her head back.
“Let go,” he ordered. “Let me hold you up.”
He drew her up, both of them still on their knees, and pulled her back to his chest. With his fingers still teasing, he wrapped his other arm across her chest and thrust his hips to keep moving inside her. His back and core burned from the game that afternoon, a heat that set every muscle tingling as he held her up, her shoulders slumping against him.
“That’s it, Avery. Just let me take you.”
The trembling started in her knees and chased up her spine, shaking her against his chest as he smiled and tightened his grip on her. Her quickening breaths left her rocking against him and clenching him so tight he couldn’t hold back, and just as she cried out, he lost control and exploded inside her.
He lowered them to the bed, trying to catch his breath as she wriggled in his arms. “I thought I was going to fall over or pass out or both,” she murmured. “In the best way. Cameron, your hands…”
“Are all yours,” he finished. “I wanted to make you come. I feel like an absolute ass that I can’t do that more.”
“You couldn’t throw a spiral for a while, but you got better,” she teased. “Get your ass to practice, Porter.”
“All day, every day, if you’ll let me.” He slid a hand over her breast and down to her hip. “Maybe a little recovery time in there, but minimal.”
“And you need to eat about ten thousand calories a day, at some point.”
“We’ll order room service.”
She giggled. “I’m a little surprised we didn’t just skip the party.”
“I like showing off my girl. I failed miserably at keeping it quiet, though.”
“I failed with you,” she murmured, pressing her lips to his ears. “And if that makes me the roster whore, too bad for anyone who thinks so. People like that?—”
He sat up. “What did you say?”
“Those weren’t her exact words, but I got the gist of it.”
“Who?”
“Gia. I don’t know why I cared that she doesn’t like me. God, she’s catty.”
“But what did she actually say?” Cameron squeezed her hands to keep from balling his own into fists.
“Just some stupid shit about how it looked like I was being passed around. Oh, and she tried to frame it like a compliment, if you can believe that. What are you doing?”
Cam rolled to the side of the bed and reached for his phone. “I’m calling Hakeem and telling him his girl is a bitch,” he said.
“Get back here. She’s a bitch, but I’m not giving her any more attention. That’s what she wants.”
“That is so out of line, and if your brother?—”
“She had plenty to say about him, and about you and Isaac, too. I dared her to say any of it to your faces, and she shut up.” She stiffened. “I’ve dealt with plenty of people who don’t like me. I don’t need you to be my hero, Cam. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“I’m glad you did.”
“Why? What are you going to do, start swinging?”
He opened his mouth to retort and closed it without speaking.
“Now you’re just mad, and I ruined a nice night,” she said, clutching a pillow. “Please forget I said that.”
“Avery, I—you’re shaking.”
“I’m a little cold.”
Cam scooted against her and curled around her body, drawing her to his chest. The heat in her skin only moments before had already vanished. “Something’s wrong. If it’s not about what Gia said, then what?”
Her pulse quickened beneath his touch.
“Everybody saw me with Isaac and then two weeks later, they saw me with you. I know I don’t owe anyone besides you an explanation for that timeline.”
“Why would you owe me an explanation? You guys weren’t together when we got together. Were you?”
She shook her head, tickling his bare chest with her hair. “We weren’t. And the thing is, we never were.”
Cam’s breath hitched. “You and Isaac were never dating?”
“Never.”
“Then why did you tell me you were?”
“I didn’t. And when you said you could suddenly trust me and talk to me because I was one of the good guys if I was with him, I couldn’t bring myself to tell you the truth. I thought you wouldn’t talk to me anymore. I know Isaac and I were a little snuggly, and I asked if we could just do that for a few more weeks so I could see if there was something between me and you.”
“And he agreed to this?”
“He did. We knew right away we didn’t have anything romantic going on. So he agreed to play along for a few weeks as long as I promised I wouldn’t flirt with you and put you in a bad position thinking your friend’s girl was coming onto you. He liked the idea of me with you. Justin did too, so he agreed to play dumb.”
“Avery.” He shook her shoulder. “Come here. Roll over and look at me.”
She shifted in his arms but didn’t meet his eyes. “I’m so sorry, Cam. I never lied to you, and neither of them lied to you, but I wasn’t open. I did this all wrong. I shouldn’t have tried to rush anything. I rush everything, and it always goes wrong, and I?—”
He kissed her forehead to silence her. “Why did you do all that when I was so rude to you before? You should have written me off as a complete jerk. That’s all I ever showed you I was.”
She glanced up with damp eyes. “It’s so stupid.”
“I need to know.”
“I liked being quiet with you. That very first day, I don’t know what stopped me from leaning over your couch and demanding your name and the reason you were so unhappy. I always just barge in. But there was hurt all over you and I just… I knew that hurt, and I had tried to talk through mine for so long. It was sort of nice to have someone to share it with and not talk.”
“I was sort of glad we didn’t talk. It was good to have a quiet place and not be alone.”
“I’ve never held back from breaking a silence until I got lost in yours. I ruined so many friendships by being overbearing and needy and just too much. When we finally did talk, you said you felt safe with me, and I thought maybe the bright side of having to sort of weasel my way into your life was that if I could force myself to slow down, even for a couple of weeks, I could be the kind of person who doesn’t scare people when I get too close.”
Cam stroked her lower back. “Avery. You never scared me.”
“See? I didn’t even have to do this whole act.”
“Breathe. I’m not going anywhere. Slow down your breathing, and we’ll work through this.”
“I may not have lied to your face, but I lied by omission, and that was wrong. That’s the kind of thing that breaks people’s trust in each other.”
“Avery, nothing’s broken. I mean it.”
“You should be mad. This isn’t okay.”
“I appreciate that you and Isaac and Justin could have just let this fade away and I might never have known, and you chose to tell me anyway. Was that the plan? To just let it fade away?”
She nodded stiffly. “But when Gia said all that stuff, I thought it was just wrong to keep it from you. Anyone else can think what they want, but you should know the whole truth.”
“I’m not mad at you. I’m not mad at him. I’m… I’m confused as hell. I don’t know. If I’d just talked to you like a normal person when we first met, none of this would have happened.”
“If I had an ounce of patience or faith in either of us, I would have just waited until you were comfortable, but I had to bulldoze everything. It’s my fault, Cam, and I’m so sorry.”
“But you were right about how hurt I was feeling. You obviously thought I was worth some trouble to break down those walls.”
“Justin said I had good motives and a shitty method.”
“You’re an intense person with a lot of energy and passion for the things that matter to you. Maybe that’s what people mean if they say you’re ‘too much.’ But I love that about you, because you are so unabashedly yourself, and I never want you to feel you need to hide that from me again.”
“Cameron.”
“If you really thought I’d break up with you because of this, why did you tell me? Did you want that?”
“No.” She grabbed his thigh and shook it. “No no no, not at all.”
“Then I think deep down you already knew what I just said. This doesn’t break us.” He turned her face to his for a kiss. “A lot has changed in a short time. We’re not the same people we were when I was a crabby asshole and you wanted to jump me in the lounge anyway.”
“I never said?—”
“Whatever. You wanted to.”
Her voice wobbled. “Fine. I wanted to.”
“I wanted you, too,” he whispered. “I wanted to know everything about you when I saw you staring at my sketch, and that’s not normal for me, either. I don’t jump into getting to know someone, and I definitely don’t tell anyone all about my life. No one else in this state knows about my brother.”
He swiped an unspent tear from the corner of her eye. “I appreciate that you didn’t flirt with me. I know that must have been torture”—he tickled her ribs—“but you played it clean. I was miserable thinking you were with someone else, but maybe I deserved a wake-up call for how rude I’d been to you.”
“If I’d known you were miserable, I would have ended the fake thing. I didn’t want to make you upset or jealous. I just wanted you to talk to me.”
“And we talked, and I fell hard for you. It’s okay. We’re okay.”
He willed peace into her body, although his heart was still racing. Tucked safely in his arms, she felt fragile, her bones as light as a bird’s. She squeezed his hand and didn’t open her eyes.