Whoa.
There were very few instances in life that I’d been as shocked, as wholly and completely befuddled as I was in that instant. Was I imagining this? No, there was no way my mind could summon such perfection. My imagination really sucked. So Cameron had to be there, at the very end of the living room. Gloriously shirtless.
And he hadn’t lied.
Cameron Caldani wasn’t just good at yoga. He excelled at it.
And I apparently excelled at getting hot and bothered watching him.
Because all of my blood was rushing to my face at the sight of him shirtless. With his elbows on the mat, legs up. In a pair of loose workout shorts that gravity was pulling down his beautiful quads. My eyes got lost in there for a second, in that muscled section of his thighs shining with sweat. I could make out the edge of a design there. A thigh tattoo? Oh God, I didn’t think I could take that. It was bad enough that the arm he had covered in ink was now flexed. That his pecs—one of which was also covered in beautiful designs—were bunched up like I’d never seen muscles bunch in real life. It was…
“Ouch,” I yelped, the moment the foot I’d kept up in the air unconsciously touched the ground.
Cameron’s eyes blinked open. And before I could prepare to say anything, to do anything but gawk, his large, glistening, and ridiculously flexible body was toppling to the floor. Sideways. Landing on the mat with a loud thud.
I gasped, starting for him.
But he grunted from the floor, “Don’t move.” And I froze on the spot.
“Are you… okay?”
“Jesus fuck,” he half growled, half sighed as a response. “I was unprepared.”
I opened my mouth to ask unprepared for what, but a dash of orange shot past me, distracting me from my words.
“She’s going to give me shit for that,” Cameron said when I glanced back at him. He sat up with a groan. “That was Pierogi. She likes to lie down at the end of my mat when I work out.”
Pierogi. His other cat. Yeah, I think I’d like to do the same thing, considering the views. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
His jaw clenched and when he looked up, his eyes fell on my chest. Shoulders. Legs. His gaze was all over the place, as if he couldn’t decide where to look next. He swallowed. “No point in denying that seeing you in my jersey sent me tumbling to the floor.”
My eyes widened. His jersey. “I didn’t mean to sleep in this. Matthew sent it so you would—” I stopped myself. “I didn’t tell him about you. He found out accidentally. With a picture I took. He’s such a huge soccer fan, he recognized you from your profile. I—”
“I’ll give him a signed jersey,” Cameron offered. Simply. Curtly.
“He will appreciate it. No, he will love you for that.” And I had no idea why, but I remembered in that exact moment that I was wearing no underwear underneath. I tugged at the hem. “I… think we should probably talk? Last night was kind of a mess, and you must have questions.”
“Will you?”
I frowned in question.
“Appreciate it,” he said, standing up in a swift motion. He crossed the distance to where I stood in long determined strides and stopped right in front of me. Our eyes met. “Because I’m only offering for you.”
I honestly didn’t know what to do with that information. “Yes,” I heard myself say. “I would appreciate it.” I already did. More than he knew.
Cameron nodded. “What do you want to talk about, then?”
Everything, I should have said. But he was standing so close, with all that beautiful inked and glistening skin on display, looking at me so… intently, that I just babbled the first thing I could. “I owe you an apology. For last night.”
Cameron’s head tilted to the side. “You don’t, not really.” His arm rose and the back of his hand brushed my forehead. “How’s the pain, darling?”
My lips parted at the touch. The question. “It’s… I’m okay,” I mumbled. “It’s not that big of a deal.”
A hum climbed up his throat. “I wonder who made you believe you don’t deserve to be fussed over,” he said so simply and honestly that I could only blink. “I was worried last night and I am worried now.” His brows knotted. “In fact, I might be a little mad, too.”
“You might?”
The pad of his thumb moved, grazing my jaw very briefly. I felt myself melt under that featherlight touch. “You should have called me.”
The word left me in a whisper. “Why?”
“Because you needed me, and I wasn’t there with you, and I hated that.” His lips bent down, and my heart resumed at double pace from the weight of his words. “Then I get a trail of messages and I go to you and find you in my shirt. That some other guy sent you.” He dropped his hand. “And I was never a jealous man.”
A jealous man.
“I think I need to sit down,” I said, hopping back a step.
Cameron’s body followed behind mine. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“To sit—” I was lifted up. “Oh my God.” I snapped my legs closed, helpless to do anything else as Cameron whirled around with me in his arms. “You really need to stop picking me up like that.”
“I’d rather not,” he countered in a serious voice before planting me on a stool at the kitchen island. He turned around and produced a small pillow.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “What do you mean, you’d rather not?”
He wrapped a hand around my legs—one single hand—lifted them up and placed them on the pillow he had set on a second stool.
“Cameron,” I hissed. “You really have to stop that.”
“Go ahead and tell me why,” he said, ignoring me and coming to my back. I sensed his head closing in, his chin touching my shoulder. “I’m sure there’s some elaborate reason why I can’t help you to a chair,” his words fell on my cheek. Goosebumps erupted. “Feminism? A Taylor Swift song? Your twelve-step plan to drive me to insanity?”
“What—” The stool moved, with me in it, as I was pushed closer to the island. I felt the hem of the jersey ride up with the change. “Because I’m not wearing any underwear,” I blurted out.
Cameron froze.
He did so for a very loud and boisterous instant, if a moment could ever feel like that. “Oh,” he breathed out, the word falling on my neck. “How I wish you wouldn’t have told me that.”
“You asked the reason,” I countered, because he had.
“I’ll bring you a pair of shorts or sweats.” A long exhale left him, moving away. “After.”
“After what?”
“Breakfast.” He went around the island, threw open the fridge, and looked at me over his shoulder. “Sweet or savory?”
I hesitated for just an instant.
An instant long enough for Cameron to start pulling all sorts of things out. An assortment of fruits, milk, juice, butter, eggs, a few jars of jam, something that looked a lot like overnight oats, cheese, and even ham. Prosciutto, if I wasn’t wrong. And once everything was out, he moved along the cabinets and plucked a pack of sliced bread off a shelf and threw it on the now overflowing island.
I blinked at the display. “Are you like a human squirrel or something?”
“I might also have frozen croissants,” he said, nonchalantly, like he wasn’t confirming that he, in fact, had squirrel tendencies. He went to the freezer, giving me a panoramic view of his almost naked backside in those rather tiny shorts as he leaned down, and pulled out what had to be the frozen croissants.
I gawked at everything before me, including him, brain still fuzzy from looking at his ass in those shorts. I shook my head. “Is this… what you usually have?”
I watched him toggle with the oven controls. “I already ate.”