Right now, he needed to drive out to his mom’s house to see if she’d loan him a few bucks or let him sleep on her couch. Life sucked for now, but he was still determined to get that money back. Nat had made it clear. It was either that or he was a dead man.
Chapter Sixteen
A scream was trapped in her throat, unable to escape as Camilla woke with a lurch and peered around the dark bedroom, momentarily disoriented. Her heart hammered in her chest as she lay there motionless. It was just a nightmare. At least I didn’t wake the guys this time. She still felt bad about waking them screaming at the top of her lungs, the last time she’d had a bad dream. The house was quiet, and her men bracketed her with their warmth, sound asleep on either side of her. She regulated her breathing and allowed the peace surrounding her to chase away the nightmare.
A faceless intruder had been stalking her in the club. She shuddered as she remembered the fearful chill that had raced over her skin when the events in the nightmare had been real the evening before. She took deep breaths, trying to dispel the dream. She’d been having a little difficulty with insomnia lately and needed every minute of rest that she could get.
She thought of the hours she’d been keeping, both at her club and at The Dancing Pony, and wondered once again if she was making the right move by having a partnership with Ben and Quinten. So far, with the exception of the security camera issue, they’d done just fine, letting her make most decisions and only offering opinions when she asked for them. But in the day-to-day running of the business, once they’d all relaxed, would that change? Would familiarity breed contempt?
Fifteen minutes later, she was still wide awake. The bedside table read four o’clock. Too early to be up. At least Ben had insisted that she went to bed early the night before, so she was technically doing better than she had the last few nights.
Careful to not disturb the men, she stole from the bed, grabbed a throw blanket from the rocker in the corner, and went to the French doors that led out onto the back deck, which she hadn’t spent any time on yet. She turned the doorknob and slipped out, feeling scandalously naked as she unfolded the blanket and wrapped it around herself. The day had been mild, and the air had only the hint of coolness to it.
She decided to sit out on the chaise and gather her thoughts for a while and see if she might grow drowsy again, or perhaps come wider awake. She had plenty of work she could focus on there at home, sorting through her belongings if the night air didn’t lull her back to sleep. She pouted a little because she knew that if Ben and Quinten had given her what she’d asked for at bedtime, she’d be conked out right then. But they’d put their collective, bossy foot down when she’d dozed off in the restaurant at supper and had put her in the tub and then bed soon after arriving home.
“Bossy men,” she grumbled, but she couldn’t resist smiling. She knew their pushiness was for her own good. Unfortunately she also knew what it was like to not have someone there who made her best interests a high priority.
“What’s that, grouchy girl?” Quinten asked before yawning as he quietly closed the French door behind him, also wrapped in a blanket. He slipped onto the chaise behind her and wrapped his arms and his blanket around her.
“My inner brat was just venting a little.”
He parted the edges of her blanket and pulled her hair off her shoulder to kiss a path up her throat. “Can’t sleep?”
“A bad dream woke me up. Then my brain kicked into gear. I couldn’t go back to sleep.”
“Are you worried about something?” His husky voice awakened her senses, renewing the need she’d felt the evening before. Her breath came out in a stutter as he delved further inside her blanket and stroked her belly, igniting desire inside her.
Realizing he’d asked her a question, she replied, “It’s all worrisome. Starting this business, wondering about whoever that was in the club with me last night, and…”
“And what, baby?”
“I love being here with you like this, and being a part of your lives. Do you ever worry that if we’re also working with each other that it might get…old…between us?”
“Are you worried we won’t get along after a while?”
She gave that some serious thought and then shook her head. “We’ve done well for the last few years, but we weren’t involved during that time. I don’t want the relationship to grow stale.”
His cock was hard, pressed against the crack of her ass, and she couldn’t believe she was having this conversation when her body was clamoring for what it really wanted. His cock, deep inside her cunt.