“Oh yeah. Forgot about that.” She stepped into the soft denim and buttoned the waistband, then remembered she wasn’t wearing a bra and backtracked to the bathroom to put it on. By the time she returned to the bedroom, the door stood open and Cam’s towel lay abandoned at the foot of his bed. She found him in the kitchen, wearing another pair of his endless supply of sweatpants and no shirt.
As he busied himself with making yet another cup of coffee, she took the opportunity to study his hard-cut muscles, highlighted by the tribal swirls of his shoulder tattoo. Funny, she’d seen him shirtless plenty of times in the past, and never once had the thought “gorgeous sex god” popped into her head. Now, it wouldn’t leave. She considered walking up behind him and tracing the indent of his spine with her tongue…
No. Talk first.
Then, if it went well, they’d see about more sex.
“All right, what kind of boundaries?” Cam dumped his cold coffee from breakfast in the sink, then settled against the counter with the fresh mug in hand. His front view was even sexier than the back, flat copper nipples pebbled in the cool air, abs and pecs more often seen on fitness models than ex-homicide detectives, and an intriguing trail of hair pointing from his shallow bellybutton to the waistband of his pants, which tented when her gaze zeroed in on the bulge there.
He shifted and cleared his throat.
Shit, she had to stop doing that.
Eva returned to her seat at the island bar, pushing away the breakfast plate she’d left when she chased him into the shower. “Well, obviously things have changed between us since Key West.”
“Obviously,” he said, deadpan, and lifted his mug to his mouth. “You never used to eye-fuck me like you just were.”
Heat crept up the back of her neck. “Right. And we’re both single and unattached…”
“Uh-huh. So what are you saying?”
“The sex is…” God, she couldn’t think of a word. Amazing wasn’t high enough praise but, really, did she want to stroke his ego like that? If she did, she’d never hear the end of it, so she started over. “I wouldn’t mind continuing our physical relationship.”
One dark brow arched, and his lips twisted into a wry smile. “You wouldn’t mind?”
“Oh, hell. I want to continue, but we can’t let sex ruin our friendship. We’re friends first, and if this chemistry between us is going to change that, then I’m not willing to give up our friendship for a few good nights together.”
“I’d like a lot more than a few.”
Oh boy, so would she. Especially when he stood there with his hair still damp, looking…lickable, as Shelby would say. Yeah, it was the only term to describe him right now. Mouthwatering and gorgeous and completely lickable.
Pretending nonchalance, she shrugged. “We’ll have to wait and see how it goes, but if it ever starts to interfere with us, it ends. Deal?”
He considered it for so long, her stomach began to flutter with nerves. But, finally, he finished his coffee, pushed away from the counter, and stood across the island from her. “Before I agree, there’s something else we need to talk about.”
For the life of her, she couldn’t begin to guess what that something was, but the seriousness of his expression chilled her. “Okay.”
“I don’t know how to ask this tactfully, so I’ll just come out and… Aw, damn.” He rubbed his jaw, his beard stubble rasping against his palm, then met her gaze. “Could you be pregnant?”
She sat back, her head reeling as if he’d just dealt her a physical blow. “What?”
“I ask because if so, that changes everything. We didn’t use a condom in there.” He tilted his head, indicating the direction of his bedroom. “Honestly, it’s been so long for me, I don’t even know if I have any condoms in the house. And I don’t exactly remember, but pretty sure we skipped the safe sex discussion in Key West, too.”
She blew out a breath, taking the moment to calm her racing heart. “No, I’m not pregnant. I’m on birth control.”
“Even though you’ve been single?”
“Let me clarify, I’m always on birth control, single or not. I don’t make a habit of one-night-stands, but shit happens—like Key West, for example—and I refuse to end up like my mother with nine kids by eight different fathers.”
Cam’s eyes widened. “I didn’t know you had any siblings besides Shelby.”
“They were placed in foster care before Shelby or I came along. We’re ten months apart and have different fathers, but by the time we were born, CPS was sick of finding homes for Mom’s kids and decided she had settled down enough to raise us.”
Eva winced at the bitterness so very evident in her words. Some of her siblings had gone to good homes and were doing all right for themselves now. Others had ended up in worse situations than she’d grown up in and were either dead or in prison. She supposed she should count herself lucky she didn’t end up with foster parents who could care less about her—because for all of her mother’s faults, nobody could ever say Katrina didn’t love her children when she was sober.