Reese

 

I had just finished telling Gemma and Syd about my little one-on-one with Cam at the lake. Gemma was currently chugging down her wine. Syd was just gaping at me.

“So, what does this mean?” Gemma blustered, sloshing wine out of her glass and all over the coffee table. “Are you guys, like, officially together?”

The three of us were sitting around the living room watching the newest rom-com we rented.

“I have no idea,” I admitted. “We weren’t exactly being specific. All I really know is that we’re sort of exclusive? And I’m supposed to keep it a secret. According to the rest of the world, I’m nothing more than Cam Donovan’s trainer.”

“But he did say he wanted you,” Gemma pointed out. “And he demanded exclusivity. That obviously means something.”

I swallowed a huge gulp of wine, willing the alcohol to hurry up and take effect already. Like it had with Gemma. Lucky.

“Yeah, he wants me for sex. He never said anything alluding to having an actual relationship.”

“Is that what you want?” Syd asked from the loveseat.

Gemma swung her arm around to me, toppling over a little on her cushion on the floor. “Yeah, because I thought we’d already discussed having only a physical relationship with him and you were fine that.”

“Should I be fine with that?” It was the one question that had been eating me up for days. “If that’s all he wants, should I be okay with being no different than dozens of other women?”

Once upon a time, I had been okay with that scenario. Now, after this afternoon in his Jeep and dealing with the fact that I had feelings for him, I wasn’t so sure I could handle a sex-only arrangement anymore.

Gemma’s eyes lit up. “Sydney, darling, I think our girl here wants more than sex with the handsome Mr. Donovan.”

A smile formed on Syd’s face as she watched me. “I think you might be right, Gemma, darling.”

I buried my face in a pillow. “I don’t know what I want. I mean, I like him. He’s nothing like the rumors you hear about him. He’s actually a nice guy. And he’s funny and he has a big heart.”

Gemma swooned. Syd’s smile just got bigger as she took a sip of her wine.

“Shut up,” I scolded them. “I’m not saying I’m in love with the guy. But I can’t say that if I start spending more time with him on an intimate level that I won’t develop stronger feelings. And he didn’t say anything about having actual feelings for me. I don’t want to make a fool of myself. I have too much pride to let a guy like Cam play me.”

Gemma crawled over to where I sat on the couch and put her hand over mine. “We know you do, sweetie. But who’s to say that the same thing won’t happen with him?”

“What?”

“That he won’t develop stronger feelings for you, too,” she clarified. “He wants you. There’s already a foundation. And it seems like he likes spending time with you. Maybe something more could grow out of this.”

“You’re saying I should give this a chance?”

Was I brave enough to risk it? To risk losing my heart to Cam?

“You never know,” Syd said. “You could be missing out on something great. But you’ll never know if you don’t try.”

I narrowed my eyes. “I didn’t figure you would approve of this. I expected you to tell me to keep my distance from him for my own sake.”

Her eyes went flat. “I just don’t want you looking back on this in the future, wondering ‘what if’? You say some of those feelings are already there. Well, we all know that that doesn’t happen all the time. We can’t wish to have feelings for someone and expect them to suddenly appear. They’re either there or they’re not. I say take advantage when they are.”

I so badly wanted to tell her to take her own advice because she was clearly speaking from personal experience. She obviously didn’t have those feelings for Caleb, never had, and she needed to drop him immediately before she wasted anymore time and missed out on her great opportunity.

But none of those words came out.

“Oh my God, you totally have to tell us what he’s like in bed,” Gemma said. “And get any details you can on his teammates. I’m dying to know if they all perform in bed as well as they do on the court. Particularly that Jesse guy.”

I dropped my head back and groaned. “I already regret telling you this.”

She cheered victoriously. “Can’t take it back now, sugar. Operation Get Cam Naked has officially commenced. We’ll be expecting regular reports.”

I was pretty sure getting Cam naked wasn’t going to be the hard part.

Getting Cam to actually want me for more than just sex?

That was where the real challenge would be.