Chapter 31
‘So please tell me that while I was having my face peeled and prodded and comparing toe-crushing torture devices with Amber, you at least made a new best friend?’ I asked. I was out of the shower and tucked around the corner so I could change out of sight of Cam. Even so . . .
‘Shit,’ I muttered under my breath. Why could I still feel his eyes on me?
Not just in an ‘oh, he’s watching me’ kind of way, but in a ‘his gaze has the audacity to feel like a full-body orgasmic caress’ kind of way.
Like invisible fingers – or worse, a tongue – tracing every inch of my skin, leaving behind a phantom feeling that no amount of scrubbing and exfoliating could erase.
And believe me, I’d tried. I’d scrubbed so hard in the shower that I was sure I’d removed a layer, or ten, of skin, and yet it still felt like he was touching me.
‘You make it sound like you didn’t enjoy your facial,’ he said.
‘Well, I . . .’ I stuttered.
‘Because to me, it looked like you really, really enjoyed it. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so relaxed.’
‘Uh . . .’ For some reason, I didn’t want Cam to know that I’d actually enjoyed myself, and certainly not how relaxed I was.
‘There’s no shame in admitting you’re human. Even the great Lizzy Brown could do with some relaxation from time to time,’ he went on, as if he knew exactly what I was thinking.
I stuck my head around the corner and shot him a glare, but he had his back to me. He was sitting at the desk in the corner of the room on his laptop.
Relaxation. What did that word even mean?
Because it barely registered with me. I’d spent most of my life in this low-grade state of anxiety, stuck constantly between fight and flight.
As a kid, I’d learned rather quickly that things fell apart at the drop of a hat.
Security was an illusion. You could never relax; bad things were always just around the corner.
And then in my job, being physically relaxed could actually get you killed.
So I never let my guard down, never let myself loosen up.
In fact, now that I thought about it, I’d probably only felt relaxed twice in my life, now and . . .
That one night with Cam.
He was still sitting there with his back to me, oblivious to the fact that I was watching him, and I took a moment to study him.
Same broad shoulders, wide neck and muscular back.
Deeper tan, though. Messier hair. And the beginnings of what would probably be full-fledged holiday stubble in a few days.
Fuck, it was sexy. Any boyishness he’d once had was all gone, and he seemed more manly, mature, despite the stupid smug grins and the irritating habit he had of deliberately riling me up.
Had it really been six years since I’d looked at him like this?
I remembered trying so hard not to look at him back at the academy.
It had taken so much energy that it was a miracle I had any left at all.
I used to have to physically force my eyes to look elsewhere.
Some days it had felt impossible, and they would be pulled towards him, as if totally out of my control, and there they would stay, reading the shapes and angles of his face as if I was squinting to read the tiny print on that giant piece of paper you pull out of a medicine box.
I felt something stir in my chest. An old familiar flutter I hadn’t felt in years.
Only one person had ever made me flutter.
Only one person had ever caused this feeling that was now creeping up my spine.
And that person was currently sitting across the room, still completely unaware of the fact that I was—
‘Take a picture, it lasts longer,’ Cam said suddenly.
‘Shit!’ I yanked my head back around the corner.
‘I could see your reflection in my screen.’ He sounded amused.
I hesitated, my mind scrambling for a way out of this, but I didn’t think there was one, so I might as well lean into it. ‘So you caught me looking at your computer screen. So what? You would’ve done the same.’
Silence. I waited for a while, expecting him to say something in reply, but he didn’t. Then, the soft scrape of a chair. Footsteps getting closer. I swallowed. Closer still.
‘Come on, Lizzy.’ Cam’s voice was low, almost teasing. ‘We both know you weren’t trying to check if I’d paid my bills on time. Which I have, by the way.’
I could feel him now, standing right behind the wall.
‘Well, if not that, then what was I looking at? Because it certainly wasn’t you,’ I lied. Badly.
‘Let’s call it even, shall we?’ he said, his voice dipping still lower. ‘I was checking you out earlier, and now you’re checking me out. Fair’s fair.’
‘I was not—’ I shot my head around the wall, ready to argue, only to be met with his face.
Right there.
Inches from mine.
Shit.
I sucked in a breath.
He tilted his head, an amused expression etched into his face, but also something else.
We weren’t touching, and yet it felt like we were.
And suddenly I wasn’t in this villa any more; I was in his room six years ago, just like I’d been this morning at breakfast. Neither of us moved.
Neither of us spoke. I should’ve stepped back. Should’ve looked away.
But I didn’t. And neither did he.
Instead, he lifted his hand and reached for my face. My instincts kicked in immediately, and I grabbed his wrist, twisted it and pinned it to the wall. His body followed, his back slamming into the wall with a thud.
‘What the hell are you doing?’
‘I could ask you the same question. What were you doing?’ I shot back.
‘What did you think I was doing?’
‘I just . . . I thought maybe you were gonna do some kind of move or something.’
‘Jesus, Lizzy. I was just going to say you have something on your face.’
‘What?’
He lifted his hand again, and this time I didn’t stop him. His fingertip brushed my cheek and lingered there for a moment before he pulled it back and showed me what was on it.
‘An eyelash,’ he said. ‘Make a wish.’
‘That’s an old wives’ tale.’
‘Humour me! I’ll even make one too.’
‘That’s silly,’ I said, but for some reason, despite myself, I closed my eyes and blew. When I opened them again, he was still watching me.
‘Let me guess. You wished you’d catch Victor red-handed and then throw him in jail and lose the keys?’
‘Obviously.’
‘It wouldn’t be you if you weren’t thinking about something like that.’
‘Well, it was either that or wishing you dead,’ I quipped.
‘Wow. You really know how to keep a guy on his toes.’
‘It’s a gift,’ I said playfully.
‘You know what I wished for?’ he asked.
‘You weren’t supposed to make a wish.’
‘Well, I did. And you know what it was?’
‘What?’ I asked.
He leaned closer, and I could almost see the red flags being waved in the air above his head, but I ignored them.
‘I wished for this.’
His hand slipped around the back of my neck and he pulled me towards him.
He hesitated for a second, maybe waiting for some kind of confirmation from me.
I gave it by not smashing him to the floor or punching him in the face, and he understood.
It was all he needed to bring his lips crashing down onto mine.
I gasped, but the sound was swallowed up by his mouth. His other hand found my waist and he gripped me tightly. His fingers dug into my flesh, and I felt like I was about to totally come undone under the pressure of them kneading into me.
I clutched at his shirt, his shoulder, his arm, trying to find something to hold on to in the chaos of this kiss.
His tongue tangled with mine in a way that sent thoughts ricocheting around my head.
Our bodies pressed together so tightly that any space that had once existed between us had been demolished, just like this kiss was now demolishing me.
Somehow he’d managed to manoeuvre things so I was the one with my back to the wall now, and he pushed me against it.
I felt a hand on my thigh, followed by a squeeze, and then a hard, firm push as he forcefully parted my legs.
I moaned loudly, so loudly that it couldn’t be drowned in the kiss.
My moan was even more confirmation. It said, More, more, more, fucking yes.
And then—
HE. PULLED. AWAY.
‘What the . . .’ I gasped, trying to catch my breath. ‘What are you . . .?’
Cam took two big steps backwards, and looked at me. It took me a moment to recognise that look, and when I did . . . shit! He’d done all this to get back at me for the shower incident.
‘You fucking . . .’ But I didn’t finish that sentence. I didn’t need to. There were about a million words that could be added to the end of it, all of them bad. ‘So I guess the truce is off,’ I asked, fairly rhetorically.
He shrugged. ‘You’re the one that broke it, so I guess it is.’
‘Then game on, Cam. Game on.’
He smiled at me. ‘Well, I guess it’s one-all, since that round was definitely mine.’
I narrowed my eyes and glared at him.
‘I think I’ll go take a shower now.’ He turned and started walking towards the bathroom, peeling his clothes off as he went. The asshole. He’d gotten everything off except his underwear. I watched as he replayed exactly what I’d done moments ago.
‘Oops,’ he said, kicking his underpants across the floor like I had. I rolled my eyes at him.
‘The game is so fucking on, Cam. So on!’ I turned and walked off just as the sound of the shower started.
She thought I’d kissed her just to get even. And then pulled away to win. And sure, maybe that was what it looked like.
But the truth?
No.
Because that had not been a round. Kissing her again, after all these years apart . . . that had been real.
The feel of her under my hands, the sound of her moan in my mouth, the way her body melted into mine – that wasn’t about one-upping her. That was about having her. For a moment. For real. Not in my memory. Not in the thoughts and dreams I’d had about her over the last six years.