Chapter 14
It had only been a couple of days since Des had last seen Cami, but the way his body craved her presence made it feel like months. He’d never even had her, never touched her outside of their agreement, but he still hummed for her—a full-body sensation that was as unwelcome as it was distracting.
It was Tuesday afternoon, and Cami got off work early, so Des didn’t waste any time getting ready for their toy fest. He didn’t know what else to call it. Calling it a session sounded too much like the kind of thing you had to pay for. In any case, he prepared himself by jerking off in the shower.
The memories of the last time he’d seen Cami seemed to creep into his mind whenever he let his guard down.
He’d gone for his morning jog and wound up remembering the way she gasped his name.
When he’d made lunch, he replayed the vision of her thighs trembling when she came.
It was maddening, and he’d spent most of the weekend semi-hard as a result.
The ride to the store was a quick one, and probably the last moment of peace he’d have until Cami left his place later that night.
She locked the shop’s front door and climbed onto the bike behind him, an unmarked paper bag in her hand.
She clasped her hands around his waist, clutching that bag.
The soft floral scent of her shampoo mixed with the salty Santa Monica air, sending his thoughts into a tormented tizzy.
That same fragrance was permanently embedded into his pillowcases, and had been the source of his unrelenting morning hard-ons.
He tamped down the unmistakable tightening of his jeans and set off for his place.
It wasn’t the nicest or most expensive house on Ocean Park Boulevard, but even the cheapest place on that street was upwards of a million dollars.
When he’d bought it, he hadn’t been looking for anything flashy, just a home he could be comfortable in, in a good area close to the beach.
He might have continued renting if it hadn’t been drilled into his head growing up that renting was a waste of money.
Why pay someone else’s mortgage when you could be earning equity in a place of your own? his parents had droned.
He’d had women over before, but not more than a few times.
Never long enough to bother worrying much about his décor, despite what Olivia and his mother said.
It had no personality. It wasn’t inviting enough.
It needed a woman’s touch. All a bunch of nonsense.
Still, when he parked the bike and led Cami into his house for the second time, he couldn’t help but wonder what she thought of it.
He hadn’t thought about it before, when he’d been half-hard and his pulse had been racing with anticipation.
This time, he was calmer. This time, there would be a whole dinner to get through before Cami’s clothes came off.
The tantalizing sizzle of steak wafted toward the entry from the kitchen as they removed their shoes.
“You left dinner cooking?” Cami frowned.
“Oh, no.” He took the brown bag from her and started toward the bedroom to stash the bag for later use. “Sam’s making dinner.”
“Sam?” she repeated.
“Say hi, Sam!” he called, ducking through the bedroom door.
He plopped the bag onto the dresser, and from the kitchen he heard, “Hi, Sam!”
“Very funny.” He led Cami, who’d stalled in the hallway, into the kitchen. “Cami, this is Sam. She keeps things tidy around here.”
“And sometimes, I feed him.” Sam winked.
On the other side of the counter, Sam was frying asparagus.
Her graying brown hair was pulled back from her face, and her pale cheeks were flushed from the heat of the stove.
Sam had been with him for nearly two years.
She was in her mid-forties, a single mom with a teenage son, and worked as a housekeeper for hire.
She came in to clean up his place once a week and made dinner for him.
If she wanted supplementary cash, she made extra food and froze it for him to defrost later in the week.
It was helpful when he was too busy at the office to cook.
“If you want to take off, Sam, I’m sure I can finish up,” he said as he pulled out a chair at the dining table for Cami to sit. He crossed into the adjoining kitchen to appraise the state of the food.
“You just want to take credit for my cooking,” Sam teased.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I would never get away with it. Nobody can cook a steak like you.”
“Hush, you kiss-ass.” Sam sighed, rolling her eyes at him, then wiped her hands on the tea towel she’d tossed over her shoulder.
“Just let me chop these veggies for you, and I’ll leave you to your date.
” As Des uncorked a bottle of wine to pour a glass for Cami, Sam looked over at her.
“For a guy who knows his way around a scalpel, the man can’t chop veggies to save a life. ”
Des stilled. He could feel Cami’s eyes lock on his shoulders as she processed Sam’s comment.
“What do you mean?” she asked Sam after a moment.
“He chops them from the stem up, like some kind of freak,” Sam continued, oblivious. He stepped around her to pass Cami her wine glass. “It’s just better to let me—”
“She’s referring to the fact that I dropped out of medical school,” he explained.
Cami’s eyes were wide and attentive as she accepted the wine, but her only response was a slow nod. She didn’t ask follow up questions or try to probe. Nor did she react with gasps of shock or dismay. She just looked like something in her mind had clicked into place.
It was best to get Sam out of there before she started spilling all his secrets. He doubted Cami would be down for any more toy review if she found out he was after the store.
“All right, Sam, that’s enough. The veggies taste the same no matter how you chop them.”
“Just trying to help,” she insisted, though she laid the knife down and let him shoo her toward the hallway. “You never bring anybody home, God forbid we try to impress one when you do.”
“Out. I’ll see you next week. Goodbye.”
He returned to the adjoining kitchen and dining room, casting a sheepish smile in Cami’s direction. “Sorry about that. Sam’s sweet, but she sometimes talks too much.”
Cami shrugged. “It’s fine. Your life is your business. I’m not going to pry.” At her assurance, a knot of tension in his shoulders began to release.
“I appreciate it. I just prefer to keep the past in the past.”
“Understood.” After taking a sip from her wine, she pushed her chair back from the table. “Do you need a hand finishing dinner? Unlike some people, I do know how to chop vegetables.”
“If you like.” He let his lips slide into a smirk of promise as he watched her. “Though I’d prefer you save your energy for later.”
She smiled and cast her eyes down at her knees, like she was embarrassed she found him charming.
Amusement and affection flooded through him.
He wasn’t sure he’d ever found someone adorable and sexy at the same time before, and the sensation confused him.
Madilyn had been sexy, sure, but so serious.
Everything she did, every word that came out of her mouth, was calculated for maximum sex appeal.
Cami was reactive in such a genuine way that he doubted anyone would believe she calculated anything she did.
In his life, that was such a rare quality that spending time with her was unexpectedly refreshing.
She opted to help him set the plates and carry everything to the table.
He accepted the help; the faster they got through dinner, the sooner they could enjoy dessert.
But as they settled at the table across from each other, Des rolling the stem of his wine glass between his fingers, it was easy to allow himself the distraction of her conversation.
“So I know you’ve only lived in Santa Monica for a year. Where were you before that?”
She gave a small, one-shouldered shrug as she sliced into her steak. “A little town in Tennessee.”
“Tennessee?” He didn’t know what he’d expected, but it hadn’t been somewhere so far away. He was vaguely impressed. “That’s the other side of the country, Cami. That’s a hell of a move for someone to make spontaneously.”
She seemed to take his surprise as a compliment. Her cheeks flushed with a combination of the wine and her pleasure. “Santa Monica was the only place that made sense at the time.”
“That’s odd,” he said, and she glanced up at him with curiosity. He smiled. “I don’t think anyone’s ever said California makes sense before.”
She returned his smile, but hers was more thoughtful, and her head tilted in consideration. “I...was under the impression I have family here.”
It was such an odd way to phrase a simple statement that he was taken aback. For several beats, he said nothing as her words sank in. She arched one sleek, blonde eyebrow at him.
“Sorry, just—was that not true?”
She gave a little sigh that sounded almost wistful. “I guess I’m not sure? It’s kind of a weird story.”
“We have kind of a weird arrangement,” he countered. He hoped his smile was as supportive as he tried for. “I’ll listen if you want to tell me.”
“It’s not a big secret or anything. Lenny knows.
It’s just... I grew up with my grandmother.
My mom’s mom. She raised me after my mom and grandfather died in a car wreck when I was little.
” He opened his mouth to offer condolences, but she waved him off.
“You don’t have to apologize. It was shitty, but it was a long time ago.
Anyway, my dad was never in the picture.
He ran off after my mom got pregnant. They were teenagers at the time, and both lived here in Santa Monica.
When he bailed, she dropped out of school and moved back to Tennessee to be with her parents. ”
“I see.” He kept his tone careful as he tried to follow her logic. “So you came back here looking for your dad?”
“Yes. My grandmother died about... I guess it was about a year and a half ago.” Contrary to how she’d talked about her mother’s death, now Cami’s voice was thick with grief, and the shine started to glisten in her eyes.
“It seems like so long ago now, like I’ve been in Santa Monica for years.
But she was my last tie to Tennessee, and I didn’t have any family left— none worth talking about anyway.
” When she interrupted herself, he could have sworn her voice turned curiously bitter, but the tone was gone when she continued.
“So I figured I’d come here. Where it started.
Where I started. Maybe I could find my dad, find out what kind of man he was.
” She drew in a long, deep breath, then let it out slowly.
“That’s how I met Lenny. The only address I had for my dad was her apartment.
I turned up on her doorstep asking for him, and here we are. ”
Silence stretched between them as he absorbed her story. “That’s...quite a story.”
“It is,” she chuckled. “Sorry. It’s not the kind of story you want to use as foreplay.”
He wanted to reach across the table, to take her hand and give it a reassuring squeeze.
But when he lifted his arm, she pulled her hand off the table and placed it on her lap.
Her little smile didn’t waver, so maybe she just hadn’t noticed his motion.
Or maybe that much intimacy was a no-no for them.
He shouldn’t have asked about any of this.
Their arrangement was the definition of superficial; they didn’t need to know anything about each other, and it was shitty of him to ask her to open up when he’d shut down her curiosity about his med school drama.
And that was to say nothing of his blatant lies and subterfuge.
Fuck, he was a dick.
“Look,” he said, “I appreciate that you were willing to share all that with me. You’ve been through so much.
If you’re not feeling up to any of our product review tonight, I’ll completely understand.
But there’s nothing you could tell me that would make me want to back out of this.
” He gave her a smile that felt tentative, but he hoped was encouraging.
“That’s sweet,” she said after a moment.
The hell of it was, what pulsed through him wasn’t sweet.
He might not technically be the one trying to shut down Sex on the Beach, but he was working with the man who was.
He was facilitating the sale, and if that sale went through, Cami would lose her job.
Maybe not right away, but she would. And it would be his fault.
They finished dinner while sticking to more palatable topics.
He considered it a blessing that she didn’t ask about his line of work.
He’d done his best to portray it as boring, to avoid people asking too many questions, but he hated doling out the half-truths or blatant lies sometimes required. It had started out so innocently, too.
Initially, he’d just gone along with it, because it’s what Lenny had said.
He didn’t know what made her lie to Cami about his job, had never wanted to ask.
His job was to get Lenny to sell, and she was more likely to do that if she liked him.
So he’d gone along with her lie, without even thinking about it. The choice was easy.
He hadn’t expected the lie to matter. He hadn’t anticipated ending up here.
“You look pensive,” Cami observed. She swallowed a mouthful of chocolate pudding, and when she pulled the spoon away, there was a smear of chocolate on her bottom lip.
He itched to lean over, to wipe it off with the pad of his thumb, but wondered if that would be out of line.
Before he could decide, she noticed his line of sight, and wiped her mouth.
“You could have said something instead of letting me sit here with pudding face.”
He laughed. “Sorry. It was just so cute.”
“I’m sure,” she scoffed. Then she balled up her napkin and threw it at his face. It bounced harmlessly off his nose and into his lap.
He blinked at her. “I can’t believe you just did that. You have horrible table manners, Camille.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest in what he could only take to be a challenge. “Are we going to get this show on the road?”