I wake slightly disoriented but warm. A strong, naked body is wrapped around me as though I might disappear in his sleep. It makes my heart flutter in my chest. I tilt my head to look at him. His normally gelled hair is messy and all over the place, a lock fallen into his eyes. Long for a man, but super sexy, eyelashes fan over his cheeks. His mouth is parted as he sleeps, his hot breath tickling my chest.

He’s beautiful.

Looks as though he’s an angel when he sleeps.

I’d thought he looked like a devil. Like his father. But the more I peel back Camden’s layers, I realize he’s still an angel. An avenging angel. Something about me and the people I know has him all riled up. Hell, he’s named his boat Lady Revenge. I didn’t tell him I took Latin and remembered what Vindicta meant. It was just another piece in a complicated puzzle. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize it has something to do with my dad, though. He hates him. I can see it in the way his icy eyes always flash with fury. The way his jaw clenches and he fists his hands.

What did Dad do to him?

I know my dad and Camden’s father had a falling out not long after my mom died. I’d walked in on the argument and worried I’d have to call the cops. My mind drifts to that day.

* * *

“If I find out you did anything, I will hire every motherfucking hitman on this planet to hunt you down at the same goddamn time!” Eric Pearson roars.

I stand in the doorway to my father’s office, my hand covering my mouth in horror. Eric has my dad pushed against the wall, his hands around his throat as he yells in his face. My dad’s eyes are wide and his face is purple.

“Dad!” I cry out. “Eric, let him go!”

Eric’s hate-filled glare snaps to mine, and I stumble as I walk toward them, fear skittering up my spine. Being a public official, I know Dad has enemies. But Eric Pearson? I thought they were friends.

“Go, Poppy. This doesn’t concern you,” Eric hisses at me.

I swallow down my fear and rush over to him. Reluctantly, he releases my father when I pull him away. As soon as my dad is free, I throw myself into his arms and hug him.

Eric’s glare is evil and deadly. Solely for my father. “You so much as step foot near anyone in my family, you will regret it.” He then glowers at me. “I will come after everything you own, Marshall. Everything.” Eric licks his lips in an openly salacious way that insinuates he means me. Dad hugs me tighter.

“Understood, but whatever it is you’re thinking, you’re wrong,” Dad huffs. I can hear the fear in his voice. Like when Mom killed herself. It scares me that he’s afraid.

“I’ll pry it out of him. I know you fucking did something.”

“You’re poorly mistaken,” Dad snaps back.

Eric narrows his eyes at my father, and then he’s gone.

“Oh, Dad,” I cry out, hugging him tight. “He’s such a dick!”

He strokes my hair and kisses my head. “He won’t get my girl,” he assures me.

All Dad’s words sound like lies. Shaky and weak. I hope the last one for sure isn’t a lie. Eric looks like he’d be the type of guy to eat a girl like me for dinner.

* * *

My memory fades as kisses drag me back to the present. Kisses on my breast. A tongue on my nipple. When I look down, piercing blue eyes meet mine. In this moment, they’re missing their edge and hatefulness. He looks happy. Happy on Camden is beautiful. I find myself tearing up.

What happened to you?

What did my father do to you?

My father is stern, but he doesn’t hurt people. Surely Eric was jumping to the wrong conclusion. Dad’s friends are sleazeballs, but not Dad. Senator John Ham, on the other hand, is the worst. On more than one occasion, John has made advances on me. Not all of those advances were on this side of eighteen either. I remember clearly when I was sixteen and he slapped my ass when I walked by. All he did was wink at me, like it wasn’t a big deal. I remember feeling shocked and grossed out. He was so old. Then, years later, when I was home for the holidays, he tried to kiss me. John was drunk and over for one of Dad’s parties. He got his tongue down my throat before I managed to push him away.

“What are you thinking about?” Camden asks. “It’s not about me. You’re trembling.” His intense eyes bore into mine. “Talk to me, Beckett.”

With a huff, I let it out. “John Ham forced a kiss on me once. He’s a pervert.”

He jerks away and sits up in bed. Rage radiates from him like heat from the sun. Overpowering. Deadly. “He touched you?”

“Just a kiss,” I groan, grabbing his hand. “It’s fine. I’m used to stuff like that.”

Fury morphs his features into something devilish for sure. “No one should ever have to be used to stuff like that.”

“Don’t get all sanctimonious on me now, Camden,” I grumble, embarrassed at his over-the-top response. “You did worse when you drugged me, stripped me, and then tried to blackmail me with pictures of us.”

The anger leeches from his features. “Poppy…”

“I’m just saying,” I tell him softly.

He blinks and frowns. “I’m sorry.”

I smile, because his words hit their intended mark. I feel them. “I know.”

“I wasn’t really going to show anyone,” he admits. “I just wanted to scare you.”

“You succeeded,” I breathe. “Scared the hell out of me.”

He presses a kiss to my lips, then starts kissing down my body. Between my breasts. Along my tan stomach. His strong hands pry my thighs apart, and then his perfect mouth is on my pussy. A low groan rumbles through me when his hot, wet tongue slides between my lips, licking all the good spots in one swipe. I jolt on the soft bed and cry out. My fingers grip his disheveled hair, and I urge him to continue. He chuckles, hot and breathy, against my most sensitive place, sending more thrills down my spine.

“I’m going to make up for that,” he tells me, pressing a kiss to my clit. “I promise.”

When he sucks my clit into his mouth and I lose all sense of reality, I realize he’s quickly been forgiven.

“It might take a few times for me to get past it,” I lie. I’m so past it. I’m nearly toppling over the edge.

“However long it takes, I’ll get us there.”

His words drift beyond sex and pleasure and blackmail. They needle themselves into my heart, and I feel them. Painful and exciting. I feel alive. Not just some robot on track to a career and a white picket fence.

He makes me bleed, and I like it.

But Camden Pearson is the type to keep stabbing away. I just wonder how much of his brutality I can take. My heart isn’t as tough as the exterior I put up for all to see. Camden has the power not only to poke holes in my heart, but to suck every bit of happiness I have left out of me.

Let’s just hope he fills me back up with something worth having in its place.

* * *

“You’re burnt,” he says as he saunters onto the deck in nothing but his swim trunks holding a bottle of water. From behind my sunglasses, I stare at his sculpted, tan chest. Beautiful golden boy. A perfect match for Tampa’s Golden Girl.

“Is that for me?” My mouth waters, but from an entirely different type of thirst.

He chuckles as he hands me the bottle and sits down next to me. “You didn’t have that back in your pageant days,” he says, motioning to a starfish tattoo on my hip bone.

I lift a brow. “How do you know?”

He smirks. “You were this hot college chick competing in swimsuit competitions. You better believe I printed that shit out and had it under my mattress.”

“Gross,” I say, snorting with laughter. “You did not.”

“I always knew Tampa’s Golden Girl was going to be my girl one day…” he trails off, the lightheartedness bleeding away. His body is tense beside me.

“You’ve been plotting against my dad since then?” I ask, my brows furrowing in confusion. “Did he hurt you?”

I try to recall any times we were all there at the Pearson house. Camden was always laughing and playing with his brothers. I don’t recall my father ever really even speaking to him.

“There’s a restaurant about five miles from here. I was thinking we’d go there for lunch today,” he says, ignoring my question.

“I have no clothes except the ones I wore yesterday,” I grumble. “And you’re avoiding my question.”

He rises to his feet and stalks off. Thankfully, the boat is small and he can’t get too far away from me. I chug the water, then go below deck to find him lying on his back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. I hate the anguish in his features. Crawling onto the bed, I straddle his waist and grab his hands to thread his fingers with mine.

“Please talk to me,” I beg. “You’re hurting. I know it’s something my dad has done, and I want to help. Maybe he doesn’t know he hurt you.”

He flips me hard and fast, making me cry out in surprise. Furious steely blue eyes bore into mine as he crushes me with his muscular body. “He knows, Poppy.”

I blink several times, my heart racing at his sudden fury. “I’m sorry, Camden. Whatever he did, I’m sorry. I want to fix it.”

“You. Can’t. Fix. It.”

“I’m here with you right now because you seem to think using me to torment him is a way to fix it. Don’t I get a say in it at all?”

“No, Beckett, you fucking don’t,” he snaps. “You’re a goddamn puppet in my production. Got it?”

He’s pissed and trying to push me out with his hateful words. Now that I realize there is more to Camden than just being a duplicate of his dick of a father, I won’t let him drive me away. For the first time in my entire life, I feel as though I’m burning from the inside out. I feel as though I’m doing what I want rather than what my dad has mapped out for me. Just knowing my dad would be pissed I’m sleeping with a Pearson, I get a thrill.

“Do you ever look back on your life and pinpoint a specific time when your life could have gone a completely different direction? Like had you just been brave for one second, you could be living your best life rather than some carefully constructed one?” I ask, changing the subject. Spending a weekend on a yacht away from my hectic life and with a man who sets me on fire, my life is beginning to unravel. It’s easy to see the parts I’ve been doing because I have to, not because I want to. I’m unhappy. I’ve been that way for years.

He buries his face into my hair and inhales me, his tense body softening. Where Mateo wasn’t a cuddler, Camden seems to always like to touch me in some way. Hugging me. Kissing me. Smashing me against the bed with his weight. I love it. I want to be crushed and consumed by him.

“I do,” he murmurs. “I fucking do.”

“Yeah?”

“There was a time with my dad…” he trails off. “I let fear cut off my tongue.”

My heart aches in my chest. Eric was a terrifying man when he wanted to be. It hurts me that Camden would have been afraid to tell his dad something important.

Running my fingers through his hair, I sigh. “I had a similar situation. With my Dad. He was pushing me toward politics like him. I wanted to teach school. He laughed and said teachers don’t make shit for money. That I needed to get my head out of my ass and make my mother proud. She killed herself, and I…” a sob catches in my throat, “I wanted to make her proud.”

His lips, through my hair, find my neck. “You think your mom gave three fucks about whether or not you went into politics?”

Tears well in my eyes, and I blink them away. “That’s the thing. At the time, I was still so heartbroken, I listened to my dad. But truth is, Mom would have wanted me to be happy. She bought me my first globe. We’d spend hours during the summer when Dad was at work talking about where we would travel one day and what we’d see. I could name every continent and every country. Since I was a kid. I’ve been obsessed with geography, and still am, but it’s just not a part of my life anymore.”

He sits up on his elbow and brushes a strand of hair from my face. The anger is gone. Instead, he regards me like I’m a gift he’s been waiting to open his entire life. I feel treasured and wanted, which is ridiculous considering I’m part of an elaborate scheme against my dad.

“You’re a good politician,” he says softly.

“Yeah. Because I have to be.” For my dad. Because Dad insists. The bitterness creeps inside me, and for once, I don’t squash it. I let it infect me. I’ve never told anyone how I felt before. Not even Mateo.

“You could get out.” His brows furrow as he unties my top and pulls it away. “It’s not too late. Go on and teach like you wanted.”

My heart flutters at his words. He leans down to suck on my nipple, and then lower to my stomach. “I’m in too deep now.”

He bites me hard enough that I cry out and tears form in my eyes. Then, he licks away the pain, his fierce blue eyes lifted to pin me. His hand strays south to yank at the strings on the bikini until I’m completely bared to him. I whimper when he strokes my clit in a way that he’s already perfected.

“I thought you were brave, Poppy,” he murmurs, then bites me again.

“I’m not, but I want to be.”

“Spend some time with me. I’ll teach you everything.”

He works me into a frenzy, and the moment I come, shrieking out his name, he frees his dick and pounces on me. With one hard thrust, he impales me and fucks me like there is no guaranteed tomorrow. All I can do is hold on and pray we’ll get a million tomorrows just like today.