Looping her arms around his neck, she pulled him close. His eyes sparked.
"Take me," she commanded in a low voice. "Now."
He grinned. "Yes, ma’am."
Dipping his head, he set his mouth against hers and caressed her lips, then he pulled back, only to return again, licking her bottom lip and nibbling playfully.
Olivia loved his teasing, though she loved it when he turned serious too. Okay, so there was nothing Cameron Banks could do wrong in bed.
He leaned down, slid an arm around the back of her knees and lifted her off her feet, igniting a thrill in her stomach.
She sighed, which made him chuckle and kiss her again. He crawled onto the mattress, set her down gently, and started to back her toward the headboard, covering her with his body as he went and gathering sheets to shove them to the floor. When he tried to lay her down fully, she pressed her palms against his chest and shook her head.
He paused. "No?"
"No," she rasped, grasping his shoulders and rolling him onto his back.
He opened his mouth with surprise. But it didn’t take long for him to smile. "Well, okay then." After tucking the condom into her grasp, he clasped his hands behind his head and crossed his feet at the ankles. "Do your worst, Livy Love."
His lazy pose was just fine with her since she wanted to do all the pleasuring. But she only had to push up his shirt, unbutton his fly enough to pull him free, and lean over his dick, spilling her hair across his stomach for him to suck in a breath and sit up, reaching for her.
"Uh, uh, uh," she warned with a shake of her head, squeezing his penis in warning. "Lie back down and be a good boy."
He choked out a sound of denial as she took her time slipping the prophylactic on him. By the time she’d finished, he’d had enough. "Screw that. I’ve never been a good boy in my life."
She opened her mouth to argue, but he buried his hand between her legs and caressed her through her silk gown, finding her warmth instantly, like some kind of heat-seeking missile. She tightened her grip on him, and they both groaned.
He caught her eye. "You’re not wearing any panties again." She gave a slight shake of the head and he clenched his teeth before tugging her thigh over his lap. "God, I can’t believe you’re real. I can’t believe you’re here with—" He cut off with a low grunt as he aligned them and she seated herself fully. "Jes-us."
She lifted and came back over him, squeezing him like a glove, milking him, riding him. His eyes dilated and unfocused but he kept them on her. The contact was cosmic. He wouldn’t look away, and she couldn’t. Their bodies moved together, yet their gazes stayed fused.
The breath shuddered from her, and she knew she was going to explode any minute.
As if sensing her release, he pressed his forehead to hers, squeezed his lashes tight and choked on a single sob as he came. She followed, wrapping her arms around his head and trapping his face in the valley between her breasts. He held her just as fiercely, occasionally jolting as a leftover orgasm caught him unaware.
Feeling more shaken afterward than she had during, Olivia let go of his head to let him breathe, but he continued to hold her close, his face buried in her flesh. With trembling fingers, she brushed the hair off his forehead and glanced at the sheets on the floor to keep from thinking about how connected and close to him she felt. They hadn’t spoken one word throughout, but a full novel of feeling seemed to move between them.
"I guess we didn’t save your maid any work," she said, for lack of anything better to say, because it was either that, or,
Oh, my God, I love you. I love you. I love you. I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you
.
Cameron lifted his face and blinked, giving her the most bewildered look. For a horrified moment, she wondered if she’d blurted out the 'I love you' bit instead of the stuff about the maid.
"Huh?" he said.
She motioned toward the heap on the floor and reminded him of his earlier comment. "The sheets. You wanted me to sleep with you to save the sheets."
He turned and stared at them a full second before cringing. "Damn, I forgot."
Thirteen
The next day, Olivia filled her morning with shopping. She snagged Cameron’s credit card along with his little red Mazda Miata and headed downtown. It was hard to find a good selection in such an unfamiliar city. Since she had no idea where to go, she pulled into the first mall she came across. Ten outfits and fifteen pairs of shoes later, she decided she’d found enough to tide her over for a month or so. So she started home, only to pass a scrapbook store on the way.
Compelled to pull in, Olivia impulsively did so. She ended up spending more money there than she’d spent on clothes—shoes not included, of course–because she found some really awesome Las Vegas, Elvis, and Weddings stickers on the shelves and couldn’t help herself. Since she’d never scrapbooked before, she had to get a few new albums, plenty of paper, cutting tools, stamps, punches, trimmers, and pens.
When she arrived back at Cameron’s, she was so eager to scrapbook she barely took the time to dump her clothing and shoes on her guest bed before hurrying toward the room where she still had Cameron’s pictures laid out.
She started on their wedding shots first. Since she was in those pictures, she felt safe about cutting and pasting them into her book. Olivia had heard women talk about scrapbooking family pictures, but she’d never felt the need while living with Vivian. Why in the world would she want to preserve that part of her life with visual mementoes? So she’d never had the scrapbook fever before. Today, with Cameron’s pictures, the urge was insatiable.
He had family, and she could tell there was a lot of love between them. So she experimented. It took her nearly an hour to finish her first page. She went through every idea book she’d bought until she found the perfect layout. Then she mimicked it, putting her and Cameron’s wedding pictures in the open slots.
What she created had her sitting back and blinking in awe. It was perfect. And she and Cam looked like a normal, happy couple together. Seeing the two of them arm in arm and grinning goofily at the camera caused a twinge in her stomach. She missed their time in Vegas. That night had been so perfect and fun, she could almost understand the lure alcohol had on him.
Maybe she should join her husband’s drinking club. That way she could forget the fact she’d fallen for the man she’d accidentally married.
~ * ~
Olivia sat snuggled on the couch in the front room watching a cooking show when Cameron made it home from work.
She had pulled her bottom lip in between her teeth in concentration, furiously jotting down notes, when his voice asked, "Planning another disaster?"
She yelped, and the pen she was using jumped from her hand. When she whirled around, she found him grinning from the doorway where he leaned with his hands slipped loosely in his pockets.
"Cameron," she gasped, uncrossing her legs and coming to her feet. "I didn’t realize you were home."
He shrugged, watching the television as he drew near. "Learning anything from Emeril there?"
Suddenly bashful, she answered, "I just thought since I’m going to be on my own now, I should, you know, learn how to cook."
For a moment, he didn’t answer. Instead, his eyes drifted down her body. Feeling a spark of excitement at his hot gaze, she turned away and tried to concentrate on her cooking lessons, but she couldn’t get past the fact that he was just standing there, staring at her.
"I like your outfit," he finally said.
"Thanks. It’s new." She automatically lifted her hands and turned in a slow circle to model for him. It reminded her of the first night she’d met him and how she done this same move in her cat suit. "You like?" she asked huskily. "I bought it today with your credit card."
His eyes dipped down and back up again. "I’d say it was money well spent," he murmured before pushing from the doorway and strolling toward her.
Olivia laughed, even though her stomach tightened and every nerve ending running up the insides of her thighs tingled. "You might not sing the same tune once you get the bill."
Instead of responding, he caught her chin in his hand and lifted her face. Confused by his odd move, Olivia’s brows wrinkled in confusion as she caught his gaze. Her mouth opened to say something, but when their eyes met, she didn’t speak. A swell of emotion passed between them.
~ * ~
Feeling this strange urge to start talking, to tell her about his day, his life, his hopeless pain, Cameron kept his mouth shut and just stared. He hadn’t expected that air-headed pop tart in Vegas to move him this way. Then again, he’d never expected to see her again after their one-nighter
either.
Life had a funny way of turning out.
He couldn’t keep her. He knew that. She was leaving soon so he should take his hands off her. It’d only be that much harder to let her go when the time came. But he didn’t want to stay away. He wanted to pull her close and cherish every last moment they had left.
So he did.
Lowering his face, he touched his lips to hers and closed his eyes as he drank softly from her lips. She moaned. Or maybe that was him. When he lifted his head a minute later, he was surprised to see that his simple little kiss had turned the features of her face into pure rapture. Her long lashes lifted and she looked at him as if he were her everything.
Growling out a sound of need, he dipped again. This time, he wasn’t so soft or sweet. This time, he wanted her with every breath in his body. Though he wanted to race and hurry, Cameron took his time, unbuttoning each button on her new blouse with leisurely, unhurried strokes, making sure his knuckles grazed warm skin frequently. Without saying a word, Olivia reached up and pulled him back down, kissing him as he continued to undo the buttons on her shirt.
"All this talk about food," he murmured, "has made me suddenly ravenous."
Olivia chuckled. "Has it now?"
With her face tipped up, her dewy lips slightly parted and her eyes closed, she looked like a woman in love with the man touching her. It caused a ripple of pleasure and then a jolt of fear to pass through him. He wasn’t going to try the love thing again. He hated himself for failing Sienna in the end. For not saving her. He didn’t want to go through that again.
He knew he should stop. He should pull Olivia’s blouse together and explain this thing between them wasn’t going to go any further than sex. It couldn’t. But he didn’t want to stop. He wanted to bury himself inside her and forget the past. Just for a couple of hours.
Wrapping his hands around her hips, he picked her up and carried her to the couch. As soon as he sat her down, he lowered himself to his knees on the carpet in front of her and pushed up her skirt. Peeling away her panties next, he stripped them down her legs and turned the the brief piece of silk into a slingshot, snapping them into the air, not even bothering to watch where they landed.
Grinning, he wrapped his hands around her ankles and studied the strappy high-heeled sandals she wore. He was about to take them off when it struck him that it’d be a lot kinkier if she left them on. So, he lifted her thighs and draped them over his shoulders.
"You might want to hold onto something," he advised. "I’m a pretty intense cook."
And with no more warning than that, he dipped his head and plunged
his tongue inside her. Olivia jerked and cried out his name. He closed his eyes and breathed in her heady, musky scent. God, he loved tasting her. Murmuring his delight, he stroked his tongue up between her folds and boldly caressed the entire area, causing her thighs to clamp around his face.