FIFTEEN
If I thought Cameron McGregor tasted good with his mouth shut, he becomes the most succulent, delicious bonanza of flavor when his lips part and my tongue touches his.
His mouth is sweet, hot, and plush. He applies gentle pressure, sucking lightly on my tongue, and makes a low sound in the back of his throat.
That sound—combined with the taste of his mouth and the hard heat of his body pressed against mine—sends an electric current of pleasure shooting through my veins.
“Oh!” I jump, startled by the shock of it, and pull away. I stand in front of him with wide eyes, my heart thumping, my mind a writhing snarl of dangerous thoughts like a box full of snakes.
Cam’s eyes drift open. “Easy, lass,” he says softly, pulling me back to him. “We’re not done yet.”
Before I can decide if I want to keep going, he decides for us both by taking my mouth again and easing his tongue between my lips.
Boy, he’s being a really good friend.
“Think of pretty boy,” he whispers when I stand there stiff as a board, uncomfortable because I’m liking this little experiment a tad too much. “Pretend I’m him. Pretend it’s his mouth on yours. His body against yours. His hand in your hair.”
Cam’s hand is in my hair. When did that happen?
I discover with a twinge of terror that I don’t care because I like it so much. He holds my head in place as we kiss with his hand fisted at the scruff of my neck, an action so wholly and unexpectedly erotic my mind blinks off-line. I sag against him, desperately drawing breath through my nose.
Oh God. Oh that. Oh yes, that. Do that again. You’re a genius. My nipples could cut glass.
He’s so big, and hard, and hot as a furnace, but his mouth is the softest thing in the world. It’s a cloud. A sweet, delicious cloud that’s impairing my thoughts and kicking up the release of eggs from my ovaries until I’m sure I could make omelets on a hotel brunch’s buffet line with all of them.
Somehow my arms have wound around his shoulders. Somehow his other arm has become an iron bar around my waist. Somehow I’m making desperate growly kitten noises and grinding myself against his body.
Somehow he’s making desperate growly wolf noises and grinding back.
The doorbell rings.
We break apart like we’ve been caught plotting the overthrow of the government and stare at each other.
“Someone’s at the door.” My voice sounds like I’ve swallowed a toad.
“Are you gonna answer it?” His voice sounds like he’s swallowed a handful of gravel.
I wheeze out an asthmatic breath. “It could be important.”
Cam’s gaze drops to my lips, then flashes back up to my eyes. The heat in his eyes almost incinerates me. “More important than this?”
Whoa. Was that an earthquake? No, we don’t have earthquakes in Manhattan. Then why is the ground moving?
Sounding irritated, the doorbell rings twice more. It breaks the weird spell I’m under, and I’m able to jerk away from Cam and draw a breath before I throw myself back into his arms and beg him to do naughty things to me.
I wonder if his ChapStick is drugged?
I grab my glasses and shuffle to the door with a jolting, stiff-kneed gait, like a zombie. When I open it, Mrs. Dinwiddle stands there in a royal-blue lounging robe with peacock-feather trim at the sleeves and hem, a martini in one hand and an unlit cigarette in a long black holder in the other. Her turquoise sequined headband sports a spray of seed pearls on one side that bob as her head moves.
I’m too discombobulated to bother with small talk. “Since when do you smoke, Mrs. Dinwiddle?”
“Good gracious, Ducky, I don’t!”
I look pointedly at the cigarette holder in her hand.
She waves it around like Hermione casting a spell. “Oh, this! Isn’t it elegant? I found it in a trunk yesterday afternoon, packed away in the back of my closet with some of my old stage costumes. I had Blessica run to the store for a pack of cigarettes, because it looked quite sad without one. Ducky, did you know a pack of cigarettes costs thirteen dollars? Shocking!”
She doesn’t look shocked. She looks positively giddy. I wonder what number martini she’s on. “How can I help you, Mrs. Dinwiddle?”
She sails past me into my apartment on a cloud of Chanel No. 5, shedding peacock feathers. Mr. Bingley scampers over and starts batting at the feathers, his tail bristling with excitement.
“I had a thought, my dear, since you’ve embarked on your program of self-improvement.”
I close the door behind her. “Who told you I’ve embarked on a program of self-improvement?”
She spins around, chin lifted at a regal angle, cigarette holder with its ridiculous unlit cigarette held aloft. The cat scurries around her floating feathered hem with insane-o hunter eyes.
“Cameron did, my dear.” She notices him leaning against the counter in the kitchen. “Oh! Hello, Cameron!”
“Hullo, Mrs. Dinwiddle.”
She squints at him. “Are you all right, my dear? Your face looks funny.”
At the same time, Cam and I say, “Intestinal gas.”
Our gazes meet across the room. I look away first because I’m not sure what my expression might be doing.
“I’ve got something for that, my dear. I’ll have Blessica bring it over, along with my makeup kit.”
“Your makeup kit?” I’ve got a bad feeling about this.
“We’re giving you a makeover!” she crows in glee, then turns practical. “Now that Michael is getting divorced, we have to move quickly. We don’t want another girl snapping him up. And forgive me, Ducky, but I thought you might need professional help with your hair and makeup. It’s Friday night, so we’ll have plenty of time to experiment with different looks.”
I form a terrifying mental image of me, postmakeover, with scarlet-slashed lips, heavy blue eye shadow, a fake beauty spot glued to my cheek, and false eyelashes so long they arouse Mr. Bingley’s hunting instincts when I blink.
“Um. That’s really nice of you, Mrs. Dinwiddle, but I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“Pssh! Poppycock!” She waves a hand in the air. The seed pearls on her headband quiver madly. “It’s a capital idea! Don’t you think so, Cameron?”
“Sure. We want her to look her best for Michael, don’t we?”
His tone is casual, but his jaw is tight, and his back is stiff. Is he mocking me?
Mrs. Dinwiddle is vindicated. “Exactly!”
“Well, fine. If Cam thinks it’s a good idea.” I didn’t mean for it to come out sounding like a challenge, but it does, and Mrs. Dinwiddle is befuddled. She looks back and forth between us.
“Why wouldn’t he, Ducky?”
Cam and I stare at each other. The sudden tension is excruciating. I’m so confused and just want everything to go back to the way it was before that stupid kiss. That incredible, delectable, stupid kiss.
Leave it to me to mess up everything.
“Actually, I was just about to make dinner, Mrs. Dinwiddle—”
“No,” says Cam abruptly, pushing away from the counter. “You girls have a good night. I’ve got things to do.”
His tone is like “I’ve got better things to do,” and now I’m unreasonably hurt.
Without another word, Cam strides out of the kitchen, pulls open my front door, and disappears through it. In a few seconds, his apartment door slams, and then his godforsaken rap starts up at full volume, like a big musical middle finger in my face.
The cat chasing her hem, Mrs. Dinwiddle minces over to the door and shuts it. She downs the dregs of her martini and turns to me with a mysterious smile. “Ignore him, Ducky. Men are children.”
I mutter, “Some of them are more like juvenile delinquents.”
Her smile grows wider. “Now, while we wait for Blessica, let’s go through your closet, shall we?”
The evening was about as pleasurable as having my fingernails pulled off and all my toes smashed with a hammer.
By the time Blessica showed up with the makeup kit and another martini for Mrs. Dinwiddle, I’d finished the rest of the bottle of wine while being subjected to an elderly woman’s shock and horror at the contents of my wardrobe. You’d think she’d stumbled across a mass grave the way she carried on. Horrified exclamations of, “Good God, what is this?” were regularly heard from the bowels of the closet, along with disgusted clucks and muttered choruses of My word.
A confidence booster it wasn’t.
Then I was treated to the unforgettable experience of having a makeover by a person who’d consumed approximately half a dozen martinis and didn’t have the steadiest hands to begin with. Clowns have more attractive makeup. By nine o’clock, my face looked like a Rorschach test, and I was drunk and miserable.
For the life of me, I couldn’t get that kiss out of my head.
“What do you think, Ducky?” asked Mrs. Dinwiddle at one point, peering over my shoulder at my reflection in the mirror as she breathed gin fumes into my face.
“I think it’s perfect. If I’m starring in a play about a Kabuki warrior.”
Eventually, Blessica carted Mrs. Dinwiddle off to bed, and I fell asleep in my blue dress, still in all my makeup.
I’m awakened by pounding on my front door.
“Ow.” There’s pounding inside my skull, too. I lift a hand to my head, wincing when I touch my forehead because even that slight pressure hurts. The clock on the nightstand reads five minutes after five in the morning. I wonder if there’s an emergency and the building is being evacuated.
More pounding, then the doorbell rings. I swat Mr. Bingley’s tail away from my face and attempt to sit up. The room swims woozily, and I clutch my stomach, groaning.
“Joellen! Are you in there? Open up!”
Oh God. It’s Cam. I’m late for our morning run.
I’d rather die than go on our morning run.
I shuffle out of bed, fighting nausea, and pad out of the bedroom in my bare feet. When the cat meows for his breakfast, it’s like steel spikes being driven through my skull. It takes all my strength just to pull the door open.
Cam jerks back when he sees me. “Sweet mother Mary! What the hell happened to you?”
I grumble, “Mrs. Dinwiddle happened to me.”
“Did you lose a bet?”
“Ha. Go away—your voice hurts.” I try to shut the door, but Cam pushes it open and barges inside because he’s a pushy, obnoxious pain in my butt.
I shuffle away from him, waving a hand over my shoulder. “Do me a favor and feed the cat. I’m hungover. I’m going back to bed.”
“For how long?”
“Forever.”
“What about our workout?”
Bleary eyed, I turn around and stare at him. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m in no condition to exercise, prancer.”
He inspects my appearance, fighting a smile. “You have a point. It might be dangerous to allow you in public—you’ll frighten the children.”
I can’t be insulted, because it’s a legitimate observation. “Cat food’s on the third shelf in the pantry.” Without waiting for an answer, I head to the bedroom and crawl back into bed.
I hear Cam moving around in the kitchen, opening and closing the pantry door, murmuring to Mr. Bingley. Then he’s in my bathroom, running the water in the sink.
“What’re you doing?” I mumble with my eyes closed, irritated by his presence.
The edge of the mattress dips with his weight. He presses a cool wet cloth to my forehead. “Gettin’ this shit off your face.”
He starts to gently wipe the makeup off my skin as I lie there wondering if it’s weird that I’m enjoying it.
“Stop frownin’. I’m doin’ you a solid here, lass. I think your poor cat is traumatized from seein’ you like this.”
“Mrs. Dinwiddle had good intentions.”
“Or she secretly hates you.”
That makes me smile. “I’m glad to hear you don’t think it was an improvement.”
The washcloth pauses, then goes back to work under my jaw. “You don’t need makeup.”
I snort because he’s being ridiculous. “News alert: you need to see an optometrist. I don’t normally wear makeup, but I definitely should. My bare skin has caused many a man nightmares.”
Cam’s sigh is gentle and also disgusted. “You’ve got a head full o’ bullshit, lass. Your skin is beautiful.”
Beautiful? No, he can’t mean that. He’s screwing with me again. He feels pity. I’m so pitiful he’s forced to make up a lie to distract me from my pitifulness.
His voice turns dry. “Do you always freak out when someone pays you a compliment?”
“I’m not freaking out.”
“Oh, no? Then why did your entire body go stiff? And your eyes are rollin’ around under your eyelids. You look like you’re gettin’ electric shock therapy.” He returns to the bathroom and runs the water again, leaving me feeling exposed and vulnerable on the bed.
No one has ever told me I have beautiful skin. No one has ever told me I have beautiful anything. Well, there is Dr. Sternberg, my dentist, who always tells me how lucky I am to have such naturally straight teeth, but in the same breath he usually suggests a whitening product, so he can’t be counted.
When the mattress dips again, I crack open an eye and look at Cam. “Do you really think I have beautiful skin?”
He makes a face like I’m being an idiot. A bloody idiot, I’m sure he’d say. “You don’t even have pores.”
“But I’m so pasty.”
“Ha! You wanna see pasty, come to Scotland.”
“Oh. So that explains it.”
He looks at me warily. “I don’t know what kind of demented BS is about to leave your mouth, lass, but lemme just say this. Your skin isn’t the only beautiful thing about you. If you weren’t such a wee numpty, you’d realize what a braw bird you are.”
My other eye opens, and now I’m gazing up at him, wishing I had a translator handy. “Um . . . thanks?”
“Close your eyes,” he demands, sounding mad. “I’ve gotta get all the goop off your lashes.”
“I think you just pull those off. Be gentle—there was glue involved.”
He mutters, “Jesus.” It sounds like Jayzus and makes me giggle.
Cam carefully peels the fake eyelashes from my eyelids, making noises of disgust while he’s doing it. When he’s done with that and satisfied he’s gotten most of the goopy foundation off my skin, he says, “You didn’t eat last night, did you?”
I roll away from him onto my side and bury my face in the pillow.
His huge gust of a sigh stirs my hair. “All right, lass. I’m gonna make you somethin’ to drink, and then I’ll let you sleep.”
He rises and leaves. I don’t know how long he’s gone because I drift back to sleep, but then he’s there again, gently shaking me awake by my shoulder. I roll over to find him holding out a glass of poisonous-looking amber liquid.
“What’s that?” I ask groggily.
“Homemade hangover cure. Drink it all, sleep for a few hours, and you’ll be right as rain.”
I lift to an elbow, take the drink from his hand, and chug it, coughing at the end because it’s so vile it makes my eyes water. “What the hell is this?”
He winks at me. “Butt crack juice. Sourced fresh this mornin’.”
The faint taste of bile rises up in the back of my throat, hot and acidic. I slap my hand over my mouth.
Cam throws his head back and laughs. He takes the glass from my hand and rises from the bed, looking down at me with a huge grin. “I’ll see you later, lassie. Sweet dreams.”
I fall asleep within moments, smiling.