It was none of those things.
It was her.
Well, it was them. She sucked in a sharp breath. It was the shot from Nightmares Fear Factory, the one where he was carrying her, shielding her face from the terrors. She’d seen it only momentarily, projected on a screen on their way out of the haunted house. At the time, she’d been embarrassed, had thought the message the image conveyed was fear. She had been ashamed to see herself so weak.
But now, she looked at it with different eyes. Cameron’s high school girlfriend. His fellow soldier Becky. It wasn’t only that he hadn’t done the things that everyone accused him of; it was more than that. They had each been opportunities for chivalry—unseen, unacknowledged, unrewarded chivalry, chivalry for its own sake.
So when she looked at the picture through that lens, looked at it as a whole, instead of focusing on only herself, she saw it differently. Instead of fear and humiliation, she saw protection and bravery. Caring. He had seen her when she was at her weakest, and he’d helped her. Just as she had done with him earlier today.
She let the picture flutter back into the drawer.
Screw it. She needed those strong arms around her again. She’d worry about any consequences for her heart later. Right now, she was going to take a big slug of this vodka, and then she was going to proposition Cameron.
Emboldened, she got out her phone and typed a text.
I’m in your room, and I need some help.
Cam took the stairs of the B&B two at a time. She was fine, he told himself. It’s nothing. He’d been repeating that phrase like a mantra, in fact, since her text arrived and he tore out of the reception hall, nearly knocking the door off its hinges.
It’s nothing.
He didn’t like the vagueness of her note. If it was nothing, why had she summoned him? Why hadn’t she come back to him as planned? Or been more specific with her text, if, say, she couldn’t find the flask?
He couldn’t imagine what kind of harm could have befallen her in the few minutes since they’d parted ways. But that was the problem: he couldn’t imagine.
So all he could do was give in and let his growing unease propel him up to the third floor, prompt him to practically break down the door, all the while repeating to himself: It’s nothing.
Which it was, if by “nothing,” he meant Jane Denning naked in his bed.
She sat up, alarmed, as he panted, his back pressed against the inside of the door. “What’s the matter?”
The sheet that had been covering her fell, exposing her full, heavy breasts with their perfect, pink rosebud tips. Her hair was disheveled and her color high. She looked like she’d already been fucked. His dick rose, as if in protest, staking its claim.
“Nothing,” he groaned, and for the moment, it was the truth. That was the incredible thing about Jane. His life was full of problems. But somehow, through some strange alchemy he didn’t understand, all that shit just disappeared when she was around. Earlier, when she’d come to him in the woods, when she’d come for him in the woods, he would have said that she brought him back to himself. Because that’s what it had felt like. He’d been in the throes of panic, being carried further and further from reality, and she had brought him back to himself. But now he felt the opposite: she was taking him away from himself, from the jobless, lonely, disgraced soldier with no plan. She was a respite, an escape. An oasis.
And what else was a man dying of thirst supposed to do when he saw an oasis shimmering in the distance?
The scene snapped into focus, like putting on night vision goggles in what had been pitch-black. He turned around and locked the door, part of him protesting for the brief moment he had to break eye contact with her to do so. Then, after reestablishing it, after claiming her with a look, he broke it once more, this time to pull off his T-shirt.
When his eyes found hers again, she smiled, slowly, triumphantly. Like she had made this all happen. Like even though he was beginning to stalk toward her, she was the hunter and he the prey.
Maybe so.
He could live with that.
When he reached the edge of the bed, which put her at eye level with his waist, he slowly unbuttoned his jeans.
Her eyes glittered as she watched him. God, just the sight of her watching him made him painfully hard. When he’d freed himself and stood before her with his dick at attention, she licked her lips.
Slowly—he forced himself to move slowly because he wanted to torture her more than he wanted to soothe his own ache—he walked over to a dresser on the other side of the room on which he’d placed his toiletries bag. Thank God he had condoms in there. Carefully, shaking with the effort of moving slowly, he ripped one packet off the row. Turning, he tossed it the few feet to the bed, where it landed on her lap.
She started to open it.
He shook his head and said, “Later.” He was gonna stick with this slow thing, even if it killed him.
The maddening thing about Cameron was that you could never get him to do what you wanted him to do. Well, that wasn’t precisely fair. In a broad sense, he was actually really good at what she wanted, which was, she supposed, to be seduced. To be racked with pleasure.
But he rarely did it precisely the way she wanted.
Like right now, for instance, when she wanted him to come over, put on the damn condom, and slide into her already, he was just standing there staring at her, pupils dilated and a sly smile spreading across his face.
“Come here,” she said. She had been covered to the waist with his bed sheet, so she kicked free of it, hoping the full monty might serve to move him along.
He licked his lips. “Oh, I’m going to, Jane. I’m going to.”
He still wasn’t moving, so she spread her legs for him. Let them fall open as he stood there, to give him an eyeful. It might have been the boldest thing she’d ever done, and it made her hot. Hotter.
He groaned, and moisture rushed between her legs. “Then what are you waiting for?” she whispered.
“I’m just…” His voice broke, and she looked up, startled, from where she’d been admiring his chest. He cleared his throat. “I’m taking you in.”
What did that mean? Suddenly suffused with self-consciousness, she started to close her legs.
“No,” he said sharply. Then he gentled his voice. “Please keep them open.”
Taking a shuddery breath, she complied.
He closed his eyes for a moment and bowed his head. When he looked back up, he smiled, but he still didn’t move.
God, she was dying for him to touch her. She opened her legs wider and drew her fingers over her clit, hoping to draw his attention there, to inspire him.
“You are so impossibly gorgeous,” he said, setting his knees on the bed on either side of her as she laid back on it, but still not touching her.
She reached for the condom again. She was going to scream if he didn’t take her right now.
“Not yet,” he said, laying one finger on her stomach, above her belly button, and slowly drawing it up her body, coming to rest in her cleavage.
She sucked in a breath, arching her back to try to get more pressure from him. He didn’t comply. In fact, he let his hand float up so that it was no longer touching her, making her cry out her frustration.
“Goddamn you,” she whispered.
“I’m pretty sure that’s already taken care of,” he said, and she would have argued the point, but he let the finger float back down and settle on a nipple, teasing it with the lightest of touches. She twisted her torso, chasing after him as he removed his hand once more. Her breasts ached. Her vagina ached. Every part of her needed him.
“Oh!” she said aloud, then laughed at herself as his eyebrows lifted inquisitively. She’d been lying here like she was half dead, but didn’t she have hands? Ha! She could make him do what she wanted. Triumph-spiked lust surged through her, and she went straight for his dick with both hands.
He hissed as she made contact, but before she could really get a grip, he grabbed her hands and pushed them away. Kept pushing them until her arms were above her head on the bed. Keeping one hand pressed down firmly on her wrists to keep her immobilized, he said, “Patience, baby, patience. Don’t I always give you what you need?”
The words alone were almost enough to send her over the edge.
He didn’t wait for a response. Keeping one hand on her wrists, he let the other trail slowly down her body, stroking the side of her face, her neck, sliding over her breast and stopping to tease her nipple. But as soon as she’d resigned herself to enduring that particular brand of sweet torture for a while, he was on the move again, his hand trailing down over her soft belly and into the hot moisture of her opening.
“Oh God,” she moaned, because he knew. He always knew. He knew that by denying her, by not giving her what she thought she wanted, he was actually giving her what she needed.
She bucked wildly, chasing his hand, even though she knew it was futile. As expected, he removed it.
He’d been kneeling over her this whole time while he worked her over, but now he lowered his body enough that he could whisper in her ear. “Was that what you needed?”
She nodded violently. But no, that wasn’t right. She needed his cock. So she switched to shaking her head equally adamantly.
He stopped her with a kiss. Oh, his lips! She’d forgotten about them. Her world had shrunk to the size of the fingertips he had been using to conduct his masterful assault. But now his lips were on hers, hard and demanding—but only for a moment.