I almost drop the hairbrush I’d just picked up from the shock of his words. “Date?”
He stands to his full height, reaching his hands over his head to stretch. My eyes get stuck on the trail of dark hair that runs into his briefs. I remember my fingers sliding over it the other night, leading me right to his awaiting cock.
“Yes. A date. You, me, and wherever you think we should go in this town.”
“You have to earn it, but I’m the one planning the date?”
He closes the distance between us, watching me closely as I run the brush through my tangled hair. “I have no problem planning the date, but I figured you’d want to decide. You know what’s best here in Sutten.”
It’s the way he says Sutten instead of saying this town or putting some kind of negative connotation on it. He says it casually. I could get used to him saying Sutten in conversation.
“Am I right?” he presses.
“I have some ideas.” There are so many places we could go. My mind runs rampant with ideas, trying to decide where I’d like to take him.
“I knew you would. Is this part of your ploy to get me to see the beauty in Sutten?” He says “beauty” sarcastically but not in a condescending way. It’s more playful.
“I guess you’ll have to find out.”
“I think I’m already seeing the appeal.” His voice is gruff, his eyes boring into mine with what I think—or maybe hope—is affection.
“Yeah?”
He grabs me by the neck, pulling our lips together. He lazily kisses me, like he has all the time in the world. The kiss stops, but he only pulls away slightly. “I could get used to this town. This place. You.” The last word is said quieter, like he’s unsure if he should be adding it or not.
I rise to my tiptoes, planting another kiss on his lips, giving him the only answer I can at the moment. “I’ve got to get ready now, or my new boy toy is going to make me late,” I joke, my lips moving against his.
“Boy toy?”
“Yep.”
He pulls my lip between his teeth, biting down to create the slightest tinge of pain. “You better start getting ready for work.” He spins me by my shoulder, pushing me into my en suite bathroom. I let out a loud yelp when he slaps my ass. “Our date is tonight. As soon as you’re off, you’re mine.”
“Are you leaving now?” I ask, keeping eye contact with him through the bathroom mirror, watching him pull on his shirt from last night.
“No. We’re going to ride to work together, you’re going to make me a coffee, and then we’re going to both do our jobs before I get you after the workday ends. You decide what we’ll do for our date.”
“And then what?”
He slides his legs into his jeans, looking up at me with a sly smile. “By then, I’ll have earned your pussy, baby. After our date, I’m going to fuck you all night—making good on the punishments you’ve earned.”
35
CAMDEN
The day drags by achingly slow. Too fucking slow. It’s a shame I actually have to get work done because all I really want to do is walk next door and see Pippa. I want to steal her—even if she’s kicking and screaming—and pull her all the way back to her house. Or she can come to my place. I just need to be near her again. I want to feel her soft, warm body sleeping next to mine. I want to run my fingers along her bare skin, further exploring every single inch of her exquisite body.
I want to hear her soft moans in her sleep when my fingers play with the waistband of her pj’s. I want to see how many orgasms I can get from her until she’s begging for a break, her body too spent to take any more.
I want to sit on the living room floor and talk about life with her. I want to know about her childhood, to hear the silly stories of the trouble she got into. She seemed to be a rebellious teenager, and I want to know every detail from every day of her life from her very first memory to the moment she met me. I’m obsessed with knowing everything there is to know about her, and I’m afraid of what that could mean for me.
I’ve never been like this with a woman. Quite frankly, I’ve never cared about women. I’ve ended up in mutually agreed-upon relationships that were based on sex alone. The expectations were clear from the very beginning. Feelings weren’t supposed to get involved at any point in time. And if I ever felt like someone wasn’t holding up their end of the bargain by not developing feelings, I’d simply leave.
Now, it’s a terrifying realization that I want to stay. I don’t want to book a flight back to New York. I don’t want to run away from Pippa, even when her eyes soften and she looks at me like I couldn’t do a single thing wrong. I’m not terrified of asking her on a date. Usually, the thought of a date would put me off. This morning, I found myself holding my breath, waiting for Pippa to answer me. I wanted her to agree to it. I want to take her out, to show her off, to have people know she’s with me. That she’s mine.
And that’s never happened to me before. I don’t know how to handle it.
One thing I do know is I’d spend every second with her if I could, and that’s unlike me. I like my personal space. I like to be alone. I spent entire days and nights alone without someone talking to me as a child. I got used to it. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve found myself having to reset my social battery, getting overstimulated by being around others. It’s not like that with her. I’d be in a better mood if she was right next to me, not an entire building away.
The thought of her used to irritate me. She used to get under my skin in a way that I wanted to put states between us. Things have changed. Quickly and dramatically, in a way that I can’t keep up with.
I think I have actual feelings for this woman.
I don’t do feelings.
But I want to do feelings if they’re for her.
Speaking of feelings, I look down at my vibrating phone, finding Beck’s caller ID on it.
“Fuck,” I mutter under my breath. He’s texted me upward of ten times since our chat yesterday, which isn’t typical of him. He’s the friend that gives me space. He doesn’t send dumb memes all day and night or send weird-ass videos he found on different apps like some of our friends.
But he’s still apparently a nosy motherfucker regardless because even though I ignored his first call, he’s calling again.
He’s going to ask about Pippa. Which means he’s going to know about my goddamn feelings for her because why else would I be in a woman’s bed in the middle of the afternoon? We used to be cut from the same cloth until he met Margo. He knows the importance of what he stumbled upon yesterday.
I angrily swipe to answer it, annoyed he’s intuitive. “What?” I spit, already wanting to hang up the call.
“Someone’s grumpy this morning. Were you up late last night with that local friend of yours?”
“Fuck off, Sinclair,” I growl, angrily clicking my computer mouse to give myself something to do.
Beck chuckles on the other line. “You knew I’d bother you until you gave me details.”
“I don’t remember prying into your love life when you were pining after Margo like a goddamn lost puppy. Even when you talked about her all the time, although she was dating your brother.”
“We don’t need to bring Carter into this. Plus, I didn’t talk about her that much.”
“You talked about her all the damn time.”
“I don’t know why the conversation got pointed in my direction, but we’re going to circle back and talk about you, my friend. Don’t think I didn’t miss the fact you said love life. Is the Camden Hunter in love?”
I grunt. I’m not in love with Pippa. I haven’t known her long enough to love her—I think. I have no prior history to know what it’d even feel like to be in love. But I do believe I’ve developed feelings for her. Weird, foreign feelings I’ve never felt before.
“No, I haven’t fallen in love,” I snap. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about the fact that you were willingly lying on a pair of sheets that seemed to have a lower thread count than your IQ.”