Chapter 10
I blinked several times, as if my brain was busy snapping mental photos of the face in front of me, desperately running it through some internal facial recognition software.
Surely I wasn’t seeing this. Please tell me I was not seeing this.
Because if I was, then something was very, very wrong – like my brain had glitched.
But it wasn’t a glitch.
It was Cam.
‘Cam, what the f—’
Before I could finish, he lunged forward and slapped a hand over my mouth.
My fight-or-flight response kicked in immediately – well, it was more fight or fight – enhanced by the sheer audacity of this man touching me, and without thinking, I threw a punch.
Unfortunately, my fist simply grazed his shoulder . . . but oh, what a shoulder.
Broad.
Muscular.
Much more so than I remembered. My fist felt like it had ricocheted off steel. I shook my head. Nope. Not going there. Not thinking about how those muscles once felt under my fingertips. Those thoughts needed to be banished. Immediately.
Cam winced and rubbed his shoulder, which I derived a sliver of satisfaction from. But then he gave me what looked suspiciously like a smirk.
‘Bastard!’ I hissed, balling my fist up tightly and throwing another punch. This time he intercepted it with his big hand. God, it had been six years since we’d been sparring partners, and yet this asshole still anticipated my every move. And that just made me hate him even more.
‘What the fuck are you—’ My frustration boiled over, but he quickly silenced me by throwing a sock my way and gesturing at his mouth, a clear command for shove a sock in it.
I grabbed the sock and flung it straight back at him, and he caught it mid-air. Of course he did. Those stupid reflexes. I hung my head and that’s when it hit me, the very inconvenient truth of this moment, just how close we were, and how much of our bodies were pressed up against each other.
Touching. Skin to skin.
This cupboard wasn’t designed for two people.
And certainly not for two people who despised each other but had also had incredibly hot sex once upon a time.
An image that had just unfortunately flitted through my mind when I looked down and noted his legs braced on either side of mine, holding me in place.
Fuck, no. I did not like this. So I reached down and gave each of his thighs a hard pinch, though there was hardly anything on them to pinch, since they were just pure bulging muscle.
God, why did he have to have so many muscles?
Why couldn’t he be a soft-around-the-middle average-looking man with a receding hairline and back hair?
Why did he have to look like . . . that!
My pinches did not get the desired result though, so I grabbed both of his knees and began to push.
‘Move your legs,’ I whisper-shouted at him.
He looked around the cupboard dramatically and then spread his arms, palms up, making the universal Where? gesture.
I looked around too, and of course there was nowhere else for him to put his legs, unless he could detach them from his body and fold them up like a deckchair.
And then he did something that really pissed me off.
Not that I wasn’t pissed off already, but this, this tipped me over the edge.
He caught my eye and gave me a sarcastic, knowing smile – the kind that said he knew exactly what I’d just realised.
That sarcasm sparked something primal inside me.
I didn’t just want to punch or kick him, oh no, I wanted to twist his arm until I heard it snap.
And I certainly wanted to tell him exactly where he could shove his legs – preferably up his own arse.
But I didn’t. Instead, I simply flipped him a zap sign.
Childish? Maybe.
Satisfying? Absolutely.
But when I saw the way the corners of his mouth twitched into another irritating smirk, I nearly lost it.
He thought this was funny, did he? Being crammed into a cupboard with me was amusing?
Well, after this, he was going straight to sparring practice with me again; no headgear, no gum guard and certainly no mercy.
That was always Cam’s thing, though: always amused, always the joker, never serious. And as if I needed any more reminders – which believe me I did not – I remembered all over again why I hated him so much.
And then a sudden loud giggle rang out. I needed to see what was happening outside, so I leaned towards the keyhole, but clearly Cam had had the exact same idea, and our heads collided with a hard bang.
‘Are you trying to kill me?’ he hissed, rubbing what would definitely be a bruise tomorrow.
‘Oh, believe me, it’s tempting,’ I shot back.
‘What was that?’ Victor’s voice cut through the air like a knife.
We froze.
Our eyes locked, his stupid blue ones now holding mine.
God, why were they still so stupidly blue?
Why hadn’t they faded like an old photograph that you threw away or relegated to the bottom drawer, or better yet, the recycling bin?
I hated how blue his eyes were and right now I had a desire to pluck them out of his head and toss them right back at him.
Maybe play padel with them even, or one of those other racket sports that had become so popular of late.
‘Nothing, baby. Come here, I haven’t seen you for days,’ purred the female voice, that really was the only way to describe the noise coming out of her mouth.
This must be the mistress. Finally she was here, but my equipment wasn’t set up properly, and I couldn’t see her.
I put my palm firmly against Cam’s forehead, holding him back while I put my eye against the tiny keyhole.
I felt him prise my hand off his forehead, finger by finger, as if doing it as slowly as possible proved some kind of point.
We had been in this cupboard together for less than five minutes, and already we were back there.
The constant power play. I would punch; he would catch.
He would push; I would push back. And so it would go on and on and on.
He gripped my hand tightly, so I squeezed back and added a little something extra, digging my nails into his palm.
He crunched my fingers, flattening them in his hand.
If I hadn’t been trying to spy through the keyhole, I would have gone for an elbow strike to the nose.
But I was more concerned with the yellow toenails that had just entered my small field of vision.
Who painted their toenails luminous yellow?
I ripped my hand away, pulling back from the keyhole at the same time.
Seriously!? Was this really happening? I shook my head.
This was a nightmare come alive, and in that moment, I understood how people could sell their souls to the devil or make pacts with evil forces.
Because I would have done anything to be out of this cupboard and away from this man, including striking a deal with the demon-down-under himself.
I slowly lifted my head, and my eyes locked with Cam’s – stupid tropical-sea colour that they were. I suddenly fantasised about drowning him in the ocean. Sharks would be a bonus. We stared at each other for a while until something made us both sit up straight.
A loud moan pierced the air. Loud and definitely female.
And it very quickly became obvious that this was not a moan of displeasure or irritation.
I had heard too many moans in my life to confuse this one with any other kind.
I dropped my head into my hands and shook it as the moan turned into a long, loud grunt, followed by . . .
‘Yes, Vic, aah, just like that.’
I clutched my head tighter, wishing I could disappear but knowing that unfortunately that was just not possible.
‘Smack my naughty ass, baby.’
Yup. There it was. Confirmation.
I glanced up again. Cam’s eyes were like saucers. Clearly this wasn’t in his job description. As a police detective, I doubted he ended up on many sexual stakeouts. And yet here he was, which begged a very good question: what on earth was he doing here?
‘Smack me harder . . . Yes, just like that. Give it to me, big boy . . . Ride me, Vic. Faster. God, GOD . . .’
Cam shoved his fingers into his ears, as if that could block out the sound. Because no amount of fingers in ears would drown out what was happening outside. This woman was about to shatter the sound barrier. Her high-pitched cries reverberated through the cupboard and rattled my very soul.
‘Eat me, bad boy! Just like . . . Yes . . . YES . . . YESSSSSS!’
Cam’s head whipped up, and he stared at the door in what could only be described as utter horror as the mistress began what sounded like a five-hour orgasm.
She screamed. She roared. She let out noises not dissimilar to that tree frog.
I’d seen and heard every type of orgasm there was to hear and see.
I once heard a man shout in the lispy voice of Daffy Duck as he was coming.
I heard a woman break into an opera aria mid orgasm, another man crowed like a rooster, and then there was one who screamed random fruits while on the verge – pineapple, pineapple, banana.
I’d even seen a man beat his chest like a gorilla while making the corresponding sounds. But this was something else.
There was a pause in proceedings, and relief washed over Cam’s face. I smiled to myself, because I knew it would be short-lived. This was not over; in fact, it was just getting started. I’d seen the bottle of blue pills Victor had tucked away in his bedside cupboard. And I was right . . .
‘I’m gonna fuck you like the naughty slut you are!’
Cam’s eyes widened once again. It looked as if he was having a hard time reconciling the chunky red man by the pool with the moaning, dirty-talking sexual powerhouse outside. I suspected he was wondering how that kind of man was now giving this woman her second screaming orgasm.
‘Yeah! Harder . . . You’re so big, baby, yes! Fuck me! Fuck me HARD! I’m naughty, naughty, NAUGHTYYYYYYY!’