“Everyone needs a little excitement,” I said, running my hands through his thick, soft hair. “Even cars.”
He smiled, soft and sweet, and studied me. I had seen that look before, one we’d shared on his trampoline. I never knew what that look was at the time, but I knew now.
“How can you still love me?” I asked quietly as I traced circles into the back of his head. “After everything I did to you.”
God, he was wonderful when he grinned like that.
“There’s no one else I wanted to love,” he admitted. “No one who deserved it more than you.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I didn’t know how to feel, other than my heart feeling like it was pressing against my chest, up my throat, until it was stretching my mouth into a smile. I let out a little laugh of joy. He stroked his fingers down my face, peering at me intently. He didn’t need his glasses on for me to see the honesty in his eyes.
“I hope one day I’ll deserve it too,” he said.
My heart broke, jagged and sharp mixed with the warmth that was flooding through me. I held his head tight in my hands and looked deeply at him. “You will, Camden.”
I couldn’t promise when it would happen. But I wasn’t going anywhere. We had time.
At least, I hoped we still had time.
I let go of him and he straightened up. “Time to go?” he asked, reading me.
I nodded. “I might as well get changed here.” I sat up.
“I’ll get your clothes,” he said. He zipped up his fly and dusted off his tux. Aside from his bowtie that I had yanked loose, he looked calm and collected and ready to take on the night. He went inside the car and came back with a pair of boxer shorts, a shirt, and sweater. “You should probably still keep the area around the leg loose. For now.”
When I was done changing, having left the ruins of the dress on the desert floor, we got back in the car and drove off, heading for our next destination, wherever that was. In the side mirror I watched the dress blow away in the night wind, black wings on a black sky.
Then
The girl hadn’t meant to go home early. Even though Javier was taking care of her, both physically and financially, she felt strange without having a job. She felt even stranger that he wasn’t some sugar daddy that had come into money, but that he got his wealth through criminal means.
In some ways, the girl could relate to her lover. After all, she had been conning him the whole time they were together. Sure, she never took any money from him, but she was still keeping tabs. She still wanted to get even with Travis, his boss, the man who ruined her all that time ago, but as the year went by, she felt she was less fueled by vengeance. Being loved by Javier—being in love with Javier—stifled the anger she felt inside. For the first time in a very long time, someone was able to take her hurt away.
So, because she didn’t like relying on Javier for everything, because she felt he was already giving her so much through his romantic gestures, constant attention, and charming personality, she had gotten a job as a waitress. It was just a local bar and she only worked weekends. It didn’t matter that her weekends were taken up when Javier didn’t work business hours anyway. Breaking fingers and running drugs could be done at any time of the week.
That day, the day that everything changed for the girl, she was sent home early. There had been a small fire in the kitchen and they were closing it down for the evening to assess the damage. The girl got into her Chevy truck, something she still drove despite craving Javier’s car, and went home. She stopped at a mini-mart, picking up a six-pack for them to split. Javier had been stressed out lately—why, she didn’t dare ask—and thought it might be nice to surprise him. They used to love taking drinks onto the white sand beach and watching the waves roll in, something they hadn’t done for an awful long time.
The girl was pondering why they hadn’t been together as much lately, doing the things that used to bring them joy, when she pulled up to the house. It was completely dark and looked like no one was home, though she had only left him sitting at his computer two hours earlier.
Maybe he’s napping, she thought to herself. He often went out into the wee hours of the night to do his business. She didn’t once have any suspicions. Why would she? Even though she and Javier weren’t spending as much time together as they used to, their sex life always kept them connected. He was a powerful and insatiable man in the sack—dominant, sensual, slightly kinky, and extremely vocal.