Enjoying the mix of contentment and excitement I felt in his arms, I pressed my body deeper into his, feeling his erection grow against my butt. I brushed his mouth lightly with my own, glorying at the hitch in his breathing. ‘You took a while to get to the point this morning.’
The glitter in his eyes was the only warning before I found myself thrown back on the couch. Cam gripped my thighs, pushing my legs open so he could settle between them. I wrapped my long legs around him and he kissed me, slow and deep. We made out for a while like two teenagers. It was bloody brilliant!
As his strong hand glided up my outer thigh, I breathed in his familiar scent and wished we didn’t have to go to lunch. Reading my thoughts, he finally pulled back, and I couldn’t stop myself from tracing my fingers along his lips. He really had the most distracting mouth of any man I’d ever met.
Continuing our conversation as if five minutes of lip-locking hadn’t just happened, I whispered, ‘I didn’t mean that as a bad thing. I meant it as a very, very good thing.’
‘Then I’ll make sure to take my time getting to the point in the future.’
‘I said I was cool with it, not that I wanted to see it,’ Cole grumbled above us.
We both jerked our heads around to see Cole standing by the couch, glaring down at us, a plate of sandwiches in one hand and a glass of Coke in the other.
‘Oi, what are you doing?’ I huffed at my brother, pushing Cam off of me. ‘We’re going to lunch. You’re going to spoil your dinner.’
‘Wow,’ Cam said lightly as he sat up. ‘I just got a glimpse into the future.’
‘What?’
He laughed, shaking his head as he turned to Cole. He gestured to the sandwiches. ‘I’ll take one of those.’
Cole held the plate out and Cam casually took a sandwich.
I stared at them both, munching on their snacks, ruining their appetites. ‘God. Now there’s two of them.’
That only made Cam and Cole share amused, secret ‘guy club’ smiles.
A sense of warmth – beautiful, relaxing, contented warmth – radiated out from my chest, enveloping my entire body in a kind of happiness I’d never felt before.
The feeling absolutely terrified the bejesus out of me.
I spent the bus ride to Stockbridge talking. I don’t think I stopped to breathe once. Cole sat behind us with his earphones in, listening to an audiobook, so he was completely oblivious to my record-breaking nonstop chatter at Cam as I laid out the benefits of keeping our relationship on the down low. I honestly didn’t know why I wanted to keep it quiet. I thought it might have something to do with making sure there were few witnesses to my heartbreak if this went south, but I wasn’t going to tell Cam that. Instead I rambled, and rambled, and rambled at him.
He may have been sick of the sound of my voice by the time we got off that bus, but at least I knew my point had been made. We were keeping our relationship quiet.
‘Jo and I are together now.’
Ten minutes had passed since we’d got off the bus and we were standing in Elodie Nichols’s living room with the entire Nichols family plus Adam, Braden and Joss staring at us. Cam had made that little announcement in response to Ellie’s ‘So how are you?’
As Joss would say, I felt sucker punched. I shot Cam a disbelieving look. ‘Did you not hear a word I said on the bus?’
He gave me that wide, appeasing grin that did naughty things to my insides. ‘I have selective hearing, baby.’ He clutched my hip, trying to pull me close. ‘Good thing too or my brain might have melted out of my ears. I didn’t know it was possible for a human to say that many words per minute.’
I looked at my friends, who were all staring at us with sly grins on their faces. ‘Cam and I just broke up.’
Cam laughed, hugging me even tighter into his side.
I huffed, trying to wriggle free. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Getting back together with you.’
The sound of barely stifled chortles made my cheeks redden. Oh, God, we were being ‘cute’ in company. My eyes slid to Joss. Sure enough, she had a superior smile on her face. There was no way to win this round, but I could lessen the cuteness. ‘Fine,’ I mumbled ungraciously, relaxing against him.
Elodie and Clark, who had been introduced to Cam only three minutes ago, started firing questions at him about being a graphic designer, about growing up in Longniddry, and about his parents, until I eventually left him sitting beside Cole and enlisted Hannah in making an escape. Since I couldn’t feel the heat of Joss’s stare, I took this to mean that she was just happy Cam and I were together and didn’t need to know the details. Ellie was a different story. She would want to know absolutely everything. Her eyes bored into me, and I could almost hear her telepathic orders for me to look at her. That was when I started shooting Hannah ‘save me’ looks.
My little saviour shot to her feet. ‘I have to show Jo something. Alone,’ she said pointedly, giving her sister a look that allowed no room for argument. She got that look from Elodie.
‘But –’