“And he said no.” Cameron was clearly working to control his voice.
“To be fair, he tried not to be mean about it, but yeah. He said he was happy having a girlfriend and didn’t really see that changing. And it wasn’t like I was pushing for marriage or kids,” she added. “I just thought…well, I don’t know what I thought.” It seemed like another lifetime ago.
“But then you dumped him.”
“Not right that moment. I was too…mortified. Trying not to cry and all that.”
Was she mistaken, or had Cameron just growled?
She looked at him, giving him a moment to speak if he wanted to, but when he didn’t say anything, she continued. “I talked to Wendy that night, and she said, ‘You’re not happy with him, and you haven’t been for a long time. So why are you still doing this?’ And it dawned on me that she was right. I hadn’t even told her about the vibrator stuff—it was too humiliating. But I started thinking ‘I never get off with this guy and he doesn’t really want to be with me in any meaningful way. What am I doing?’ It took my heart a little longer to get the message. We met when we were twenty, so in some ways, we grew up together. It was hard to let go. But, yeah, I listened to my brain and not my heart and broke things off the next day.”
“And where is this motherfucker now?” Cameron spoke quietly but there was barely controlled rage in his tone.
Jane shivered but tried to cover it up with humor. “Why? So you can go beat him up?”
“Seriously. What’s he doing now? You said he was a surgeon?”
“Let’s not talk about this anymore.” She appreciated his outrage more than he knew, but now that she’d told him her sob story, she felt light. Happy. She wanted to stay that way, to prolong this extraordinary night. “I think we’ve given Felix enough airtime, don’t you?” Her stomach rumbled audibly, and she laughed. “I’m starving. Should we make sandwiches? Are you hungry?”
He kept her pinned with his intense, borderline-angry gaze for a long moment, but just when it had started to become awkward, he dropped her foot and licked his lips. “I am hungry.”
She started to get up, but his hands clamped down on her thighs, one on each, at the widest part of them. Then, very slowly, he lowered his head until his mouth was inches from her mound.
“Open your legs,” he said.
And she did.
Chapter Thirteen
SUNDAY—SIX DAYS BEFORE THE WEDDING
Cameron.”
There was a voice penetrating Cam’s consciousness.
And someone tapping his shoulder.
His first impulse was to pull a pillow over his head and ignore it, because he was so exhausted. He actually thought for a minute that he was back in Iraq, being roused at who knew what ungodly hour for who knew what drill or exercise.
“Don’t wake up all the way. Stay asleep,” said the voice, and it all came flooding back.
He reached for her. They’d moved to the queen-size bed in her bedroom after round two last night—after he’d eaten her out and she’d jacked him off in her office. But the bed beside him was empty, the sheets cool.
Christ, what a night. Who knew Muddy Jane had it in her? He smiled. Finally, he’d ticked the number one item off his return-to-civilian-life list. And he was going to need a new name for her. Wicked Jane, maybe?
“Sleep in,” said the voice. She was nearby. She must be in the bathroom now. He was only too happy to comply, so he scooted over to make room for her when she came back. They would need their strength for later.
Please let there be a later.
Probably they’d have to have the “I’m not your boyfriend” conversation again, to assuage his guilt, but maybe not even. His mind roamed back over the conversations he’d had with Jane, last night and earlier, about her vibrators and her waste-of-space ex. It seemed entirely possible that she was using him as an experiment. He let his eyes slip closed. Sleep was so close. He wanted to wait until she was back in his arms, but it was taking all his strength not to succumb.
“Hey.” The voice was louder now. He turned toward it.
She was standing next to the bed, towering over him.
No, correction: Xena: Warrior Princess, was towering over him.
His breath hitched. His dick hitched. Everything hitched. Because she was stunning. The knee-high boots—flat, he noted with amusement; she’d picked the right character to cosplay—the leather skirt, the armor, the black wig, the arm bands. All of it. Maybe the name he was looking for was Warrior Jane.
“I happen to know that Jay’s condo is going to be transformed into a dance studio today,” she whispered. “Elise decided to make Jay and all of the wedding party she could manage to get a hold of—the ones who weren’t previously committed to Comicon, mind you—to practice some kind of choreographed recessional she’s become obsessed with. So I suggest you hide out here today. I’m leaving a spare house key on the kitchen table. If you go, lock up and then shove it through the mail slot. But stick around as long as you like. If you’re still here when I’m back, maybe we can grab dinner.”
He tried to answer, but he was still struck dumb by the sight of her.
Also, he had no fucking idea what to say. He wanted to have dinner with Jane tonight. Like, seriously wanted it. The prospect of watching Jane eat food was now all he was going to think about for the rest of the day. But was that a good idea? He could hardly condemn Felix for leading her on and then turn around and do exactly the same thing.
She wasn’t waiting for an answer, though. She tipped the cardboard weapon she was holding so he could better see it in the low light. It was the one he’d made for her, and she’d painted it. “I did what you said with the chakram, and it’s perfect. Thank you.”
Then Xena saluted him and spun on her heel, leaving him alone with a boner the approximate size and hardness of the acropolis.
He stayed.
There were plenty of ways he could have filled the day without going back to Jay’s. He could have taken his overpriced rental car for a spin. He could have called his goddamned mother. Hell, he could have signed up for a campus tour at one of the universities in town. Not that he’d remotely made any decisions in that regard, but it couldn’t hurt to check things out.
Instead, he went to the grocery store and got the ingredients for eggs Benedict.
Also condoms.
He told himself that he needed to give Jane some credit for knowing what she wanted. It was entirely possible that he could make Jane eggs Benedict for dinner and then sex her up some more without her getting all starry-eyed and imagining them in a cozy domestic happily-ever-after scenario.
Cam might not be boyfriend material, but now that Jane had decided she liked having sex with humans, someone was going to get tapped for the job, right? All he had to do was think about that douche bag she’d been hitting on at the bar last night to decide that he was the best candidate. He cared about her pleasure. He cared about her. So what was the harm in giving her a few more screaming orgasms while they passed the time until the wedding? And, hell, maybe he’d find some more buildings for them to dangle off of while he was at it. Anything to induce “goddess mode.”
He would just have to keep his own emotional shit on lockdown. He could do that. If the army had taught him one thing, it was discipline.
It turned out that hollandaise sauce was really damn hard. Fussy. Easy to ruin.
Which he did twice while he practiced. He ended up locating a diner nearby that did all-day breakfast and had decided that taking her out for eggs Benedict would be close enough.
He spent the rest of the day fixing shit in her house. It started when her smoke alarm went off. He initially thought his hollandaise disaster might have been the cause, but upon further inspection, he realized that he was actually hearing the alert that signaled dead batteries.
So before heading out to buy new ones, he took an inventory of the other alarms in her house, and sure enough, their “low battery” lights were all blinking.
While he was at the hardware store, he thought he might as well pick up some caulk and redo her bathtub—he’d noticed it desperately needed it.
And the hinges on all her doors were squeaky, so he grabbed some oil, too.
So began his home repair spree. Once he started, he just kept going. He’d moved on to pruning back an overgrown hedge in her front yard when she appeared, still in her costume. She was pink-cheeked and smiling and…gorgeous.
The warrior princess was in full-on goddess mode.
“How was it?”
“It was amazing. I went to a bunch of awesome panels. I spent a small fortune on some rare early Wonder Woman comics.” She produced said comics from a bag she was carrying, and did an adorable little unveiling gesture that reminded him of Vanna White. She sighed happily. “The best part was I got to see my comics nerd acquaintances who I pretty much only see at conferences.”
Damn, she was positively glowing. It was easy to see what the day had meant to her. He only wished he could have been a fly on the wall, because clearly, she’d spent the entire day in goddess mode.
“Hey,” she said, belatedly taking in the sight of her tidied yard. “What are you doing?”
He was suddenly embarrassed. She had been so delighted with the stupid chakram he’d made her that he’d only been thinking of other ways to make her life easier. He’d had time to pass anyway, and it had been nice to putter around and attack problems that were actually solvable. But suddenly, all the home repairs and garden improvements seemed very boyfriend-like. He was glad, in retrospect, that the hollandaise had been a bust.