My nails bite into his skin, his back flexing against my hands as I yell out his name. My thighs tremble as I run my hands to his ass, feeling it tense as he spills himself inside me.
Every muscle in my body contracts, quivering from the orgasm that catapults its way through every piece of my being. I can’t focus on anything but the intense sensation that starts in my belly and soars through my veins.
I sag as I come back to my senses, totally spent from both the physical and emotional rush. He guides my back to the table and I lie on the spot where we eat breakfast, my dress shoved to my chest.
He braces himself on the table, panting as hard as I am. “That was worth the wait.”
“The wait?” I giggle, completely sated. “It took you like three minutes from when I walked in the door.”
“I’ve waited on this a lot longer than that.” He takes my hand and pulls me up. “Now make me a sandwich.”
“Go to hell,” I say, kissing his lips. “You make me a sandwich.”
He nips my bottom lip, making me yelp. “How about this? You go get cleaned up and I’ll stick the food in the microwave. Then you can get it out.”
“That’s a messed up compromise,” I laugh.
“But a compromise no less.” He smacks my butt as I head towards the bathroom. “You better hustle or I’ll haul your ass off to bed.”
Instead of hurrying, I pull my dress up to my waist and sway my hips back and forth as I walk across the room. “So not like th—Dominic!”
I don’t get the words out before I’m hauled over his shoulder, one hand cupping my ass as he holds me in place and carries me down the hall as promised.
Dominic
THE PAPER-THIN WALLS OF THE apartment make it clear Nate is home. The door squeaks open and latches, the locks twisting, before I hear him shuffle down the hallway. He’s shushing what I guess is a sleeping Ryder before the door to the guest room down the hall pulls closed.
Releasing a breath, I try to close my eyes but they pop open again. Sleep isn’t my friend on a good night. I’ve battled with insomnia my entire life. I can remember lying in bed and listening to my parents fight it out upstairs above me. The walls would shake before a thud would hit the ceiling. I’d squeeze my eyes and hope my dad wasn’t hurting my mom.
Of course he was. Her eye would be black, sometimes her lip cut, in the morning. She’d make up some bullshit excuse and pour our cereal and laugh it off, a cigarette dangling from her cracked lips.
The older I got, the more often it happened. I’d wait up and listen, wondering if that would be the night hell would break loose and he’d end up killing her. I’d go to bed with a knot in my gut, and by the time the sun came up, I was just drifting off to sleep.
It’s a habit I can’t break. When the sun goes down, those demons wake up and begin their ritual of torturing me with all the bad that can happen . . . and all the bad I’ve done.
“Shh . . .” I whisper to Camilla as she stirs next to me.
The shower kicks on, the pipes squalling in the walls, and I squeeze her tighter. My palm sinks in her curves, her breath hitching as I run my hand down her side, over her hip, and onto her thigh. She squirms closer, her head resting on the spot where my arm meets my shoulder with a little contented sigh.
Watching her asleep next to me puts thoughts in my head—crazy, unwarranted ideas that I have zero business toying with. The longer this little charade goes on between us, the harder it is to separate fantasy from reality.
Fantasy is this. Reality is what tomorrow morning will bring. She’ll go home and take a bath or go shopping and I’ll put in my eight hours, see if I can get some overtime, before putting in a few more at the bar.
Lying here in the darkness makes me think about coming home to a wife, falling asleep with her every night. When Cam cuddles up with me like I could defend her from the world, it fills me with the best feeling I’ve ever had. Like I matter to her. Like I’m capable of one thing that counts. Sometimes I don’t even try to go to sleep. I just hold her and watch her and think . . . and pretend this could be, and should be, real.
If she’d just fucking get this out of her system and move along, I could move on. But God knows I won’t be able to walk away from her.
“Why do you do this, Cam?” I whisper.
“Do what?”
I flinch, startled that she answered. “I thought you were asleep.”
“I was,” she whispers, but doesn’t open her eyes. “Why do I do what?”
For a split second, I consider telling her to go back to sleep. But something about the shroud of darkness gives me the courage to repeat my question. “Why do you do this?”
“Because you won’t stay at my house.”