Chapter 17
“Well,” Cami said, trying for levity, though she was still too breathless to manage it. “That was an experience.”
Des smiled against her cheek, and a pleasant tingle dripped down her spine as the pads of his fingers sifted through her hair.
“It certainly was.”
He waited a few more moments, allowing her to savor the bubble of afterglow around them, before he withdrew and stepped back to dispose of the condom. Now aware that she was still clothed and uncomfortably damp, she slid off the sofa.
“The bathroom’s there,” she said with a gesture.
He responded with a grateful nod and ducked into it.
She raked her fingers through her hair, hoping it would make her look less freshly fucked.
When he returned from the bathroom, he’d pulled his pants back up and was looking mostly put together. The only sign he’d been buried hilt-deep inside of her a few minutes ago was the slight swell to his lower lip. He looked infuriatingly perfect.
She allowed herself the luxury of staring her fill.
Though he was fully clothed, she now had a much better idea of what he had going on under all that fabric.
She’d seen him shirtless before, but feeling him against her, his body heat sinking into her sweat-damp skin, was a sensation she wouldn’t have been able to imagine without reality’s help.
It was a hand she was ecstatic to have been given.
Now if she could just get him naked, she could retire her imagination.
“Do you want to relocate?” she asked, glancing at her bed. It was a modest double slotted into the corner of the apartment. Not big enough for two adults to sleep in, but she wasn’t expecting a lot of sleeping.
His smile was slow and seductive. “Absolutely.”
She crossed to the bed, peeling her clothes off as she went.
Her tank dropped to the floor near her little two-person dining table, then her skirt fell off somewhere near the foot of the bed, catching on one of the drawers that slid underneath to house her socks.
As she lifted one knee to the bed, she cast a glance at him over her shoulder and found him only in a pair of shockingly yellow boxer briefs. The color made her snort with surprise.
His eyes narrowed at her, even as a smile flirted at the corner of his lips. The coloboma in his eye was a slit of darkness running through the color like a hairline crack in stained glass. “Do you have a problem?” The low tone of his voice sent a shiver of anticipation down the back of her neck.
“No,” she squeaked, trying to stifle her laugh. She didn’t succeed well enough, though, and he crossed the space between them, grabbed her by the hips and flipped her over until her butt bounced on the edge of her mattress. “It’s just a startling color.”
“Right.” He sounded doubtful, but she didn’t have time to come up with another defense before he hooked his fingers into the edges of her panties and stripped them off her. He tossed them over his shoulder, then dropped to his knees between her legs.
Unlike when he’d used the Lulu on her, there was no teasing or hesitation here.
His lips honed in on her clit and wrapped around it, suckling.
His hands, broad, warm, and strong, curled around her thighs from the outside, holding her open for his sampling.
When he’d used toys, she hadn’t cared how much she moved, but now it was a struggle to keep herself still at the risk of dislodging him.
He held tight, though, and at even the slightest hint that she might buck against him, his fingers flexed and squeezed, sinking deliciously into her skin.
He lapped at her clit like it was candy held carefully between his teeth, and she was, at first, trapped in the mindset of their arrangement, unable to let herself do as she desperately wanted.
But as he breathed against the damp skin between her legs, it occurred to her that she was an idiot, and she clasped her hands around his, fingers digging into the meat of his thumbs pressed against her thighs.
Just that much, just the flex of his hand under hers, was unbearably erotic, and she clasped her ankles behind his shoulders, pulling him closer.
He made a noise of approval against her, then shifted his hands so he could lift her hips against his mouth.
His tongue delved between her lips, lapping at her entrance, teasing the edges.
When she tried to squirm, unable to contain the shock of pleasure that wracked her body, his grip only tightened, fingers digging in her hip bones.
He growled into her, the sound rippling through her body, and slid his tongue in far enough that his nose butted up against her clit.
She cupped the back of his head, holding him there, his hair luxurious against her fingers.
He licked up all the way back to her clit, then the pad of his index finger started circling her opening. The gentle friction of it, even lubricated by his spit, made her hand fall away as she gasped.
“Cami.” He looked up at her from between her legs, his finger continuing its important work as she struggled up onto her elbows.
“Mmhmm?”
“I have a confession to make.” His finger delved inside of her, only up to his first knuckle. Given the relentless way he’d fucked her less than fifteen minutes earlier, she didn’t understand his gentleness. She was still wet from the first time, he didn’t need to coax her into the mood.
It felt good, though. Having him stroke her inside, the way she’d wanted him to for so long. His fingers could manoeuvre the way a rigid silicone toy never could, pressing and nudging and circling in all the right places.
“Uh huh,” she exhaled, trying to sound like she was listening.
“I only had one condom.” He was smiling again as he lowered his mouth to her clit, and only as the mental image conjured did she realize she’d laid back and closed her eyes again.
“Ah.” His finger crooked up inside of her. Her lower lip pulled through her teeth and her toes curled in toward the bottoms of her feet. “That’s, uh...that’s...unfortunate.”
“It is.” He sounded almost contemplative, his finger stroking in a circle just inside her. “I don’t know how we’ll manage.”
“I’m sure we’ll—ahh—think of something.”
The early morning light seeped in through the gaps in the blinds that hung on Cami’s east-facing apartment. The bed faced north, but the rays still somehow managed to hit Des right in the eyes. He’d have been irritated if he hadn’t been awake.
Cami was fast asleep next to him, using his forearm as a pillow.
Her cheek was mushed up against his skin, and when she shifted the air temperature was so different it felt like ice compared to her.
She was breathing shallowly, evenly, and though she’d never struck him as a snorer, she occasionally made snuffly little nasal sounds that he shouldn’t have found as cute as he did.
He didn’t know what the fuck he was doing.
Sleeping with Cami had never been the plan.
Hell, the whole toy thing hadn’t factored in his strategy, but this, right here, was so far off course, that he might as well have not planned at all.
It had been one thing to play around with toys, though even that had been a sketchy move morally speaking.
Fucking her, taking her apart with his tongue, letting her suck him dry and swallow him after.
.. It was an objectively shitty move given that his job was to put her out of one.
Especially when, as he’d come to learn, she truly needed it.
He’d seen the inside of her fridge the night before.
She wasn’t living off rice and beans, but she was definitely on a paycheck-to-paycheck budget.
He had to tell her. He couldn’t keep lying to her if he intended to keep this thing they had going.
But was that what he intended? He didn’t even know.
It had happened so fast, all of it, from his surprise proposal of toy review to the upgrade to sweaty, naked sex.
He’d never intended to end up here. If he could have kept his hands to himself, minded his own business, he would never have had to fess up.
God, this was Madilyn all over again. How could he have not noticed earlier? Except—fuck, except this time, he was the one lying, the one in a position of power. Cami was the one with everything to lose.
He was so fucking stupid.
His heart thumped relentlessly in his chest, almost accusatory in its rhythm.
Carefully, he tried to lean up, to pull his arm out from under Cami’s sleeping form.
His stomach turned to lead as she stirred, rolling toward him in her sleepiness.
He grabbed her pillow, trying to ease it under her to replace the arm he was removing.
The sweet, softly floral scent of her shampoo floated toward him, and it implored him to relax, calm down.
But the longer he let this go on, the worse it would get. She deserved better.
She murmured as he pulled his arm out from under her. He thought, for one hopeful second, that she might just roll over and go back to sleep, but the dark blonde of her eyelashes fluttered.
She blinked her eyes open, looking blearily up at him. “Des?”
“Hey,” he whispered. The thudding in his chest stuttered, stopped, and resumed. “I have to go. I have a work thing. I’m sorry, it’s really early. You should go back to sleep.”
“You’re going?” she repeated. There was a sleepy gravel in her voice that was endearing, and he couldn’t help but reach out and smooth a tangle of hair back from her forehead.
“Yeah.” But he leaned down and pressed a kiss first to her forehead, then to her lips when she tilted her face up to his.
“I’m sorry.” She pouted, and when she reached for his arm to try to pull him back into her embrace, he deflected the motion into laying a third kiss to her palm. “We’ll talk later. Get some more rest.”
This time she didn’t reach for him when he slipped out of the bed, instead grabbing hold of the pillow he’d lain on and pulling it against her, a makeshift cuddle buddy.
It wasn’t cold in her apartment, but there was a chill that ran through him as he dressed, quickly and efficiently, avoiding looking at her as she fell back asleep in her second-hand, too-small bed.
It had been so clear, seemed so easy, to slip out when she was asleep, nestled in the blankets they’d warmed together, but the second she’d blinked up at him, lips pushed into an inviting, adorable sulk, it had become much more complicated.
He had to get out of here, put some distance between them. He couldn’t think right around her.
Once he was dressed, he grabbed his wallet from where he’d dropped it the night before, haphazardly stuffed the ardor-strewn contents back in the cash flap. Then he checked his phone—two new messages, one from Gabriel, one from Olivia, both of which he ignored—and ducked out of Cami’s apartment.
Outside, in the hazy light of the Santa Monica sunrise, it was easier to breathe. He ran a frustrated hand over his hair, approaching his bike. Then he slammed his helmet down over his head. This morning, the protective foam was unusually stifling.
The motorcycle roared to life under him.
He started to back it out of its parking spot, just across from the closed-up storefront of Sex on the Beach.
When he came around and it was in view, he cast a furtive glance at the windows, masked with posters and protective window clings for the modesty of passersby.
Then he risked one glance at Cami’s window, and drove away.