CAMILLA LEANED against the frame of the hallway entry, and scrubbed her palms over her eyes in an effort to rid them of sleep. The watch on her wrist said it was close to noon, and she wasn’t even surprised that she had slept damn near all of her morning away.
After the night before with Tommaso, she was lucky that she still wasn’t sleeping. That man was a workout, but in the best of ways.
She had only woken up because of the constant murmurings that kept filtering through her dreams. It seemed like Tommaso was making or taking one phone call after another. It was the first time in the three days that he had been in New York where he actually spent any time at all on his phone. Mostly, he kept it tucked away in his pocket, and it rarely rang.
Tommaso’s next words drew Camilla out of her thoughts, and back to his current phone call. With his back to her as he looked out the window of her apartment, and chatted on the phone, she knew he likely didn’t have a clue she was there listening in.
Camilla knew better than to eavesdrop.
Spying never did any good.
She still didn’t move.
“Shit, I would have to leave in …” Tommaso glanced down—likely at the watch on his wrist. “Well, a couple of hours to make that flight.”
Camilla stiffened.
He was leaving?
Tommaso hadn’t mentioned a thing to her the night before about him leaving again. In fact, she had asked him every single day since he came back when he had to leave, and he never seemed to be able to give her a proper answer.
Camilla wasn’t sure why that bothered her as much as it did, but she didn’t like it at all. Like maybe he had been purposely keeping something from her. But why, she didn’t know.
She didn’t have time to think on it for long. Tommaso’s conversation with whoever was on the phone continued.
“I mean, he wants me back as soon as I can get there,” Tommaso said, “so just book the flight for me. Email me the boarding pass once you have it, all right?”
A beat of silence passed. The other side of the conversation that Camilla wasn’t privy to.
Then, “Thanks, man.”
Tommaso hung up the call, and tossed the phone aside to a nearby stand. One Camilla used to rest her coffee on while she read or worked on a laptop. Still facing the windows, Tommaso scrubbed a hand down his jaw, and sighed heavily.
She could hear his stress in the exhale.
His disappointment.
Maybe he really hadn’t known at all when he would need to go back, and that was why he hadn’t given her a proper answer these past three days. She decided to at least give him the benefit of the doubt.
“You’re leaving?” Camilla asked.
Tommaso’s shoulders stiffened briefly before he turned around to face her. His posture relaxed, and one of his sexy smiles welcomed her. It didn’t matter—she had seen and heard enough to know something was going on. No amount of charm and sex appeal was going to change her questions now.
“Are you?” she pressed.
He flicked a hand as if to wave it off. “Yeah, I got a call this morning. I’m needed back in Chicago.”
Camilla nodded, but something still didn’t sit right with her. “All right.”
“What’s wrong, Cam?”
“I don’t know. Nothing?”
Tommaso lifted a single brow. “You sure?”
“Why wouldn’t I be sure, Tom?”
“You just don’t sound like you are, that’s all.”
Camilla hugged her lower half, and stayed leaning against the frame of the entry. “No, it’s fine. You’ve got to go back, so go back. New York isn’t your home, right?”
“I hear you saying nice words that seem like you understand why I’m leaving, but the way you’re saying them is a little … defensive.”
“No, it’s not.”
It totally was.
Tommaso simply stared at her. “Cam.”
“What?”
Very defensive.
Jesus, what was wrong with her?
“Are you pissed at me or something?” Tommaso asked.
Camilla scoffed. “No, not at all.”
“Okay, again, your words say no, but your tone says—”
“It’s fine, Tom. You came to see me, and now you have to go back to where you actually live. Don’t worry about it. I’m not. It’s not a big deal.”
“Is that it?”
“Is what it?”
“That I only came to visit, and now I have to go. That maybe it’ll be another six months before we can get a couple of days together. That you’ll be stuck waiting and missing somebody when that’s really not your style. Is that what it is?”
Camilla blinked, silenced.
Tommaso only waited her out.
Something had already started making its way through her body like a weed. Its tendrils wrapping tightly around her soul and heart to squeeze tight and suffocate her from the inside out. She did not like how it made her feel. She did not like how it left pain behind.
It was the same thing she felt the first time Tommaso headed back to Chicago. It was the same thing she felt when her brother had left New York years ago. It was the same thing she felt whenever August wasn’t around and Camilla needed her.
Like something was gone.
Something important was missing.
Something Camilla cared about.
That’s what Tommaso Rossi had done to her without barely doing anything at all. That’s what months of missing him, and messing around, and late night conversations with him had done to her already fucked up heart.
A part of her kind of hated him for it. Another part of her was scared to death to admit she felt anything at all. She didn’t do this kind of thing, and she didn’t know where to begin anyway—not serious, not commitment, and certainly not love.
As it was, she didn’t even know how to do a relationship with a guy when he lived on the next block. And now because she caught some kind of feelings for Tommaso, her stupid ass heart wanted to try some kind of relationship with a guy in Chicago?
How the hell was she supposed to explain that to him when even she didn’t understand the mess her heart and feelings were when it came to him?
She chose the coward’s way out because she wasn’t ready to deal.
“It’s fine,” Camilla said.
It was not fine.
She was not fine.
Somehow, she managed to keep the confused chaos her heart was hidden from her tone. She bet her eyes told a different story—she couldn’t hide shit there. Tommaso didn’t call her on it, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that, either.
Camilla was a damned mess.
A real, honest to God, mess.
“All right,” he said quietly.
“Do you know when you’ll be back?”
Every part of Camilla that was not ready to deal with her new emotional reality screamed at her not to ask that question. Yet, there it was. Out there for Tommaso to hear, dissect, and answer with something that could break her apart even more.
His answer did just that.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Of course,” she replied with a wave.
Not giving him a chance to respond, Camilla headed for the kitchen. She was already turning on the electric kettle and pulling a cup and coffee from the cupboards by the time Tommaso came in behind her.
“Of course,” he echoed. “What’s that supposed to mean, exactly?”
“It doesn’t mean anything, Tom.”
“I think it does, Cam.”
She set the coffee mug to the counter a little harder than was necessary. She didn’t miss the way Tommaso cocked an eyebrow at the action. It probably wasn’t helping her whole I’m fine routine.
What did it matter now?
“I guess a little more time with you would have been nice,” she settled on saying.
There. Let him make of that what he wants.
Tommaso came closer, and his hand skimmed over her back until he was holding tightly to her side. Just his touch alone relaxed some of her overactive, angry nerves. She wasn’t sure what to make of that, either.
“You are on March break for another few days,” he pointed out.
Camilla went about pouring teaspoons of coffee and sugar into the coffee mug. “What about it?”
“You could come with me to Chicago.”
She stilled in place, freezing up instantly at his suggestion.
Tommaso let out a dry chuckle.
“Wow, that went downhill fast, huh?” he asked.
“I can’t go to Chicago with you, Tom.”
“Why not? You’ve got time.”
“Because I still have a couple of things for school that I need to work on even if it’s March break. My mother and father are here, and I don’t just up and leave without giving them some kind of notice.”
Not to mention her father was still having some health problems. She didn’t offer that information to Tommaso, however, as it was still something their family was dealing with privately.
“Plus, August and I have some stuff planned this weekend,” Camilla added. “I’m not going to blow her off just to head to Chicago with you.”
“Just for me,” he deadpanned.
His flat tone hit her like a nail straight through the heart.
“I didn’t mean it like—”
“Nah, it’s fine, Camilla. I get it.”
Tommaso let her go, and took a couple of steps back. Instantly, she wanted to reach out and pull him right back into her. Stupid pride kept her from doing it, if only because she thought this might be easier.
Like ripping off a fucking Band-Aid.
That Band-Aid being him.
She could indulge the idea that they might possibly be something someday, or she could just face the hard facts head on.
Camilla didn’t live in delusions.
It was very unlikely that they would go anywhere together. Not being apart like they were, not with Camilla living her life like she did, and not when she was terrified to even admit she cared about this man.
It wasn’t his fault.
Not really.
This was all her.
“I can’t go to Chicago,” she told him one last time.
The hard set of Tommaso’s jaw told her that his defenses had come out to play now, too.
“Can’t or won’t?” he asked.
“Tom—”
“I mean, at least be honest with me, Camilla. Be fucking real with me. Tell me what it actually is so that I know, and I can make a choice where you and I are concerned. You could give me that decency. I would respect that, babe.”
She tried as hard as she could to let his words bounce off her. They were just words, after all. Not weapons, or something that should feel like they were physically assaulting her heart and soul. Still, they hurt.
It all hurt.
When she didn’t respond to him as fast as he wanted, Tommaso spoke again. His next words hurt just as much as the last because once again, he was making her take a hard look at things she wasn’t ready to see just yet.
“Why won’t you try?” he asked. “With us, I mean. Take a risk, Camilla, and figure out what this is, or if it’s going anywhere. If it’s not, then fine. We had some fun, and fuck the rest. We can go our separate ways, and let it be done. But we can’t even do that because you won’t—at the very least—try.”
“It’s not about trying, Tom.”
“I think it is.”
No, it really wasn’t.
It was about her restless heart and not being ready. It was the fear of the unknown, and a future that seemed uncertain because she didn’t believe stability was a real, tangible thing. It was about him pulling her in, and her pushing him out. It was the monster of her habits that liked to bite at her back, and the comfort of the familiar which never let her down.
It was a lot of things, but it was not about her inability to try for him. After all, she had been trying for six whole months.
Look where that got her.
Here.
Fighting with him.
In her fucking kitchen.
Like lovers; like they were something.
Instead of saying any of that to Tommaso, or explaining the swirling chaos inside her head, Camilla chose another coward’s way out.
It was just easier.
She turned away from the counter and her coffee, and reached for him. Fisting his shirt, she pulled him into her, and kissed him hard. It took a second, and then two, before he started to respond. Shocked, likely.
Camilla didn’t care what it was.
They were predictable—whether they were something or nothing—in the way that anything physical between them would always override the rest. Call it a connection, or some kind of manipulation right then, but it was just easier.
Easier than feelings, talking, and fighting.
Easier than fear, shoving him away more, or letting him bring her closer.
Camilla didn’t do hard. She didn’t do anything with anyone except for this right here. It was the only thing she could promise, and keep.
Sex was the only thing she knew well.
“Fuck,” Tommaso murmured against her lips.
In a blink, Camilla found herself lifted from the floor, and set down on the counter. The boyshorts she had slipped on after getting out of bed were tugged down her legs, and discarded somewhere on the kitchen floor.
Never once did Tommaso’s lips leave hers—a now familiar dance whispering along her mouth while a war waged in her mind. His hands skimmed over her thighs, and his fingertips pressed into her flesh just hard enough to make her sigh.
“Open up,” he demanded. “Take me.”
Two husky words that took her to a different place entirely. One where things like love didn’t get much of a say when pleasure and lust was on the table instead.
Camilla’s legs widened. It spread her wide, and flashed her pussy. Already wet, and already wanting. Not that it was anything new, really.
She bit his jaw while her hands made quick work of undoing his pants, and pulling his cock free from dark gray boxer-briefs. Already thick and hard in her hand, her fingertips couldn’t even touch when wrapped around his cock.
She loved the size of him. The weight of him heavy in her palm. How he filled her full, and stretched her open.
Tommaso dug in the pocket of his shoved down slacks, and pulled out an item that hadn’t even crossed Camilla’s mind in those moments—a condom. It wasn’t like her to be reckless, or stupid.
And yet here she was …
Being all of those things.
Camilla shoved those thoughts aside, and let her needs and wants take over instead. Selfish, sure, but easy.
Familiar.
Once that condom was rolled down Tommaso’s length, Camilla reached for him again. She pulled him in for another burning, bruising kiss. She opened her legs to him, and dug her heels into his lower back as he slid his cock through the lips of her pussy.
He smeared her juices all over her pussy. He teased the head of his cock at her entrance, only allowing her to feel just a little bit of him there, and not nearly enough to satisfy the hunger beating against her ribs. His tongue struck hard against hers as his hips flexed forward.
One thrust.
One groan.
One cry.
She was home again—flying again.
High again.
A fast, unforgiving pace began between them. Her fingernails dug into his neck and jaw, while his hand cupped her throat and forced her head back to the cupboard door. That way, she was forced to look at him while he fucked her. This way, she could see it in his eyes that he knew exactly what she had done by trying to distract him.
No kisses.
No filthy words.
No teasing or fun or promises.
Just a hard fuck that left her aching in the best way, but hurting more in her heart.
But this was Camilla.
And she didn’t know anything different.
Camilla was still sitting on the counter and nursing her coffee when Tommaso came back into the kitchen. She hadn’t gotten down to grab her panties, or even bothered to fix her hair. She could still feel him hard between her thighs, and the stinging bite mark he had left on her lip.
At least he had the decency to fix his clothes, she guessed.
That made one of them.
Dangling from his hand was the duffle bag he’d come with. In his other hand, his phone. His gaze narrowed at the screen of his phone momentarily before he looked to Camilla.
“I’ve got to head out.”
Yeah, she figured.
Camilla waved a hand. “Give me a call, or something.”
Tommaso smirked, and shook his head. “So that’s it, then?”
“What else is there?”
Ripping that Band-Aid right off.
Tommaso nodded to himself. “All right, Cam. Just so we’re clear on this one thing before I leave this time around, I’ll get it out there for the both of us.”
She didn’t reply, simply waited him out.
Nursing her cold coffee all the while.
“I’m not disposable, Camilla.”
She hesitated on her next drink. “Excuse me?”
“I’m not some toy for you,” he said quietly. “I’m not something you get to play with and then dispose of when you’re bored, or had enough. I won’t be some new and shiny thing to keep your attention for a while before something else comes along to take my place. I’m not disposable. Just so that’s clear—you’re not to treat me that way, either.”
“I—”
“This little game you play was fun at first. I don’t mind a good cat and mouse chase when I know there’s something worth waiting for at the end of it all. Problem is, you haven’t shown me that there’s going to be anything at the end. Oh, you’re absolutely worth the fucking chase, sure, but you have to be there, too. I don’t think you’re going to be.”
Tommaso shrugged, adding, “So that’s where I stand, Cam. I think I could love you—fuck, maybe I already do, but you won’t give me the chance or time to figure it out—but love’s not a one-sided thing. Not for me. It can’t be.”
He kept staring at her, waiting.
She didn’t know what for.
Camilla looked away.
The coward’s way out presented itself once more. Only this time, she would really hurt him by using it. She knew it even before the words came out of her mouth.
“Have a good flight, Tom.”
“Have a good life, Camilla.”
She didn’t look away from the wall until she heard the door of her apartment click when it closed. She held it all together—kept all the hell inside—until she heard that one sound. She blinked, and the tears fell.
She cried, and drank cold coffee all the while. She let the pain out while she was alone, and no one was there to see it or help. The hollow space in her chest filled with the air from her sobs, and the ache it caused spread outward like an infection threatening to poison the rest of her.
She shouldn’t feel guilty.
She shouldn’t have regret.
Camilla looked for a fun time, not a long time because that was supposed to be easier. Wasn’t this supposed to be easier?
The Band-Aid was gone.
The pain should be over.
Or maybe it was just her.
Maybe she was broken.