Sixteen
I shouldn’t have said it. I meant every word of it, but I shouldn’t have said it, because it wouldn’t work out. It couldn’t. Just because I was willing to risk my life to be with him didn’t mean he should be willing to risk his.
Then he was kissing me, and everything else just kind of melted away. It was as if I’d never left. As if I’d never lost him, or my friends and family. As if I’d never worked as a Tracker, or been stabbed on the job. As if I’d never even met Ruben Cavazos and lost a good chunk of my free will.
But it wasn’t real. We were both six years older, and about a century wiser and more jaded. The world had kept turning in my absence and slung us onto opposite poles, though Cam didn’t know it yet.
What we wanted didn’t matter. What mattered was what we’d sworn. What we couldn’t undo.
“Wait.” I pulled back, but couldn’t quite make myself step out of his arms. They felt too good. Too familiar. Cam stared down at me expectantly, and I forced out more words I didn’t want to say. “I just…I need to know that you understand what you’re getting into.”
He grinned, and his hand slid over my hip. “I think I remember how this part works….” He leaned down for another kiss, but when his lips trailed down my neck, I stepped back reluctantly.
“I want this as badly as you do,” I insisted, but he shook his head, reaching for me again.
“That’s not possible….”
“But we’re making a choice here,” I continued. “And I need to know that you understand that. We’re choosing a short life together, rather than potentially long lives apart.” I was weak. He felt too good. And at the moment, theoretical death seemed too distant and vague a concept to worry about. But death would come, and I didn’t want either of us to regret our decision when the end came.
“Olivia, I’m not going to kill you. Okay?” he demanded softly, and I could only nod. “And you’re not going to kill me. There isn’t a single doubt in my mind about that. Why would you go to all this trouble to keep us safe, only to turn around and kill me down the road? Our future is whatever we make of it, and that’s nothing to be afraid of.”
I wanted to believe him. I wanted to silence that cynical voice in my head and embrace the cheesy optimism Cam had always been prone to spout when he got emotional. But he didn’t know about the mark on my thigh, and he didn’t know what would happen if I failed to fulfill my contract with Cavazos. “It’s a nice sentiment. It really is. But it’s just not practical. Didn’t you ever read Oedipus Rex? Trying to avoid our fate could damn well be what causes it.”
“This, coming from the woman who’s been trying to avoid it for six years.”
I shrugged. “I didn’t know what else to do. Doing nothing felt like slow suicide. Or homicide. But my point is that no matter how good this feels now, it isn’t going to have a happy ending. I need to know that you understand that.”
“No, I don’t.” He took me by the shoulders, careful of my bandaged arm, and stared down at me with that infuriatingly stubborn hopeful streak. We used to argue opposite sides of the same coin all the time—usually waxing pathetic on the state of human kindness—and I was always the skeptic. I used to think that was because he was gullible. Not quite naive, but just a little too trusting of people in general. But if that were the case, the Tower syndicate would have beaten the optimism out of him years ago.
No, Cam was neither gullible nor truly optimistic. He was desperate. He needed to believe that there was some kind of greater good out there to give his life meaning. Even when his life was currently chained via blood to one of the largest, most dangerous Skilled crime families in the country. And that desperation—that need to believe—was what stared down at me, when I was ready to die for him, and he was ready to live for me.
“No, Liv,” he repeated. “Don’t give me any of that ‘cruel fate’ bullshit. I don’t believe in it, and neither do you. We don’t know if Noelle was seeing the etched-in-stone future, or just one possibility. There aren’t enough Seers around for us to really know any of it for sure.”
He was right about that. Seers were so rare the Skill often skipped entire generations. Elle was literally the only Seer I’d ever met, and the only other one she’d ever known was a dead grandmother on her father’s side.
“There’s so much we don’t know. So much we may never know. But I do know this—we can make this work. We will make this work. And all you have to do is stay. That’s it, Olivia.” He eyed me expectantly, his heart not merely on his sleeve, but in his entire bearing. In every breath he took, and in the one he held, waiting for my answer.
So I kissed him.
Then I kissed him again with everything I had stored up from six years without him. With all the love, and fear, and parts of myself I’d kept boxed up and thought I’d never feel again.
And suddenly kissing wasn’t enough. I didn’t realize I’d taken off his shirt until it fell from my fingers. Then his chest was warm beneath my hands, and I realized all over again—feeling the differences I’d only seen earlier—that he’d changed. He was stronger. Harder. And I hoped with every breath I had left that those changes were limited to his physique. Was it possible that the syndicate could have made him this tough on the outside, yet failed to harden him on the inside?
Then my fingers found sudden roughness among the smooth, hard ripples low on his stomach. I pulled away from his kiss and looked down to find the round, puckered scar. “You got shot looking for me.” I traced the thick scar again.
“That doesn’t make it your fault,” he insisted, pulling my chin up until our gazes met again. But didn’t that make it my fault?
“If I’d never left, you wouldn’t have come looking for me.”
Cam groaned. “Don’t start playing the what-if game, Liv. That one never ends, and it’ll drive you crazy.” I must have looked unconvinced, because he grinned like he used to when we had plenty of time and nothing to lose. “I know a much better way to drive you crazy….”
Crazy had never sounded so good.
We wound up on the couch, making out like college kids. Like we had all through our first year together, when no touch was ever enough, no taste ever quite satisfying. We’d weathered the drought, and now we danced in the rain. And it felt good.
I left my shirt on to keep from aggravating my wounded arm, but his hands wandered beneath the material, and they were so warm, and just rough enough to feel real. I ran my fingers over his chest and arms, exploring the new planes and ridges, while his hands slid beneath my borrowed skirt. And that did drive me crazy, just like it used to, only worse. I mean, better. Had I just forgotten how good he felt, or had he learned a thing or two in the past few years?
I had one bitter moment to wonder who he’d learned from, then I pushed that thought aside. Just as he pushed my skirt up and slid down the length of my body. My head fell back in anticipation, and too late I realized the problem. Too late, I sat up and pushed the borrowed material back into place.
But he’d already seen.
“What. The fuck. Is that?” he demanded, voice low and hard, anger and betrayal dulling the shine in his eyes.
“Nothing,” I lied out of habit, stretching the material so that it covered not just the mark on my thigh, but both of my legs, now curled beneath me. My pulse raced so fast my vision was starting to go weird, but there was nothing I could do. I couldn’t take it back. Couldn’t make him unsee what he’d seen. And I sure as hell couldn’t get that mark off my thigh just by wishing.
“Nothing!” Cam threw the copious, gauzy material back and grabbed my left ankle, then pulled my leg out straight so that I slid onto my back, my stenciled secret bared once again. “That is not nothing! That is hypocrisy, and lies, and fucking betrayal. Are you spying for him? Or recruiting? Is that what this is?”
I tried to pull my leg free and when he wouldn’t let go, I kicked him square in the chest with my other foot. Cam fell back against the arm of the couch, grunting in pain and surprise. I rolled onto the floor on my knees, gasping at the pain in my arm, and was on my feet in an instant, backing across the room. “Don’t you ever touch me like that again. Not ever.” I used the anger burning bright inside me to dry up tears I couldn’t let fall. “I may have to take that from him, but I don’t have to take it from you.” And if Cam didn’t think I could defend myself, he hadn’t been watching me closely enough. If I weren’t contractually prohibited from seriously injuring Ruben Cavazos, I’d have ripped his balls off and fed them to him a year ago.
Cam stood, his expression a tangle of horror and remorse. And anger. “I didn’t… I would never…”
“I know.” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, fighting for calm. Cam wasn’t the enemy. He would never even try to hurt me. In fact, he’d kill to protect me. But lying on a couch, on my back, forced to bare my mark… It all felt too familiar. And I’d never wanted so badly to take back a single minute of my life. Not the moment I’d bound myself to Kori, Anne and Elle. Not the moment I’d left Cam. And not the moment I’d signed with Cavazos. Hell, taking that one back would make things sooo much worse than they were now….
Which was only one of the reasons I’d never wanted Cam to see that mark.
“Cedo nulli…” He laughed harshly, and I wanted to die, just a little bit. “What is that, a joke? ‘I yield to no one.’ It’s bullshit!” he roared. “You yield to the fucking enemy!”
“It’s not bullshit, and it’s not a joke. It’s a goal.” I took a deep breath, grasping for calm. “I’m sorry, Cam, but this is really none of your business. So you need to just let it go.”
“None of my business?” He crossed his arms over his chest, and I got my first glimpse of what he must look like when Tower used him as muscle. He was solid and broad. A brick wall. Or maybe more of a hammer. Either way, I couldn’t imagine anyone messing with him, armed or not. But I had no choice.
“Yes. It doesn’t have anything to do with Anne or her family, or with…us.” At least, us as we’d been a few minutes earlier. Us, as I wanted us to be.
“You sure considered my marks your business this afternoon.”
“Yours are standard syndicate marks, binding you to obey Tower’s every word,” I said through clenched teeth, trying to decide whether I even owed him an explanation. After all, I’d never actually said I didn’t work for Cavazos, had I? And I wasn’t bound to the syndicate—not the way Cam was bound to Tower’s, anyway. “My situation is completely different.”
But he wasn’t buying it. “How exactly is you having a mark different from me having a mark?”
“It’s different because I hate every minute of it. Every single second. I feel like I’ve rolled around in the mud and it’s oozed into my nose and ears, and other places I can’t even reach, and I’ll never get clean. I feel filthy. I fight the binding with every breath I take. But you’ve been bound to Tower for six years and until today, I bet you never even thought about trying to get out of it. Hell, you reenlisted and took an early promotion! That’s the difference, Cam.”
“That’s not a difference—it’s like looking in a mirror. You think I want to be bound to Tower? Or to anyone else? Believe it or not, I don’t like marching in their little rows, following orders like a tin soldier. But I don’t have any choice, and from where I’m standing the only difference between your situation and mine is that at least I’m serving on my feet.”
I felt my cheeks flame and fought to turn humiliation into anger, because then at least I’d be in control of my own emotions, if nothing else. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. This isn’t what it looks like….”
Cam stood, all puffed up with fury, but I could see the fear and pain in his eyes. He was hiding behind anger, just like me. “Well, that’s good, because it looks like that’s Ruben Cavazos’s live mark on your thigh!”
“Okay, that part’s what it looks like, but it doesn’t mean what you think it means. I’m not in the skin trade. This is nothing like what happened to Van. And I’m not spying on you, nor am I trying to recruit you. You and Anne came to me, remember?”
“Olivia, Tower’s men shot me, just so I’d need their help, then be in their debt. I know how this works. I know what the syndicate—either syndicate—will do to get whoever they want. And I know what a mark on the thigh means. If he’s not turning you out, he’s keeping you in.” His voice cracked on the last words, and my heart felt as if it was cracking along with his, one excruciating inch at a time. “You’re his personal whore, just like Nick said.”
“No, I am not.” Pain and anger coiled so tightly inside me that I could no longer tell the difference between them. “And don’t you ever say that to me again.” I stomped across the room toward him and propped one bare foot on the coffee table, then pulled Van’s skirt up so he could see the mark again. “Take a closer look,” I demanded, but his gaze never left mine, his eyes shiny with unspent, angry tears. “Look at it!” I shouted, and finally he did. One quick glance.
“It’s not red, Cam,” I pointed out. “I’m not his whore, or anyone else’s. In fact, that mark is like a fucking chastity force field. Thanks to our contract, he can’t go past it without my permission. Which he has never had, nor will ever have.”
Cam exhaled, his relief almost palpable. Then he frowned. “If you’re not…sleeping with him, why the hell is his mark on your thigh?”
“Because if you give him an inch, he’ll take the whole damn planet. Cavazos wanted the mark on my arm, but I told him I wouldn’t wear it where anyone else could see it. His compromise was that he got to pick the unseen location—and ink the tattoo himself. I consider myself lucky it’s not on my ass.”
Cam blinked, and the momentary confusion cleared. “He’s a Binder?”
I nodded slowly and lowered my leg. “He’s not very good with a verbal or written seal—though his staff is top-notch—but he’s a damn strong flesh Binder. Didn’t you ever wonder what his Skill is?”
Cam shrugged. “I just assumed that was privileged information. Tower would kill anyone who leaked details about what he can and can’t do. Not that any of us could actually blab, thanks to the binding.”
Hmm. Maybe that was in Cavazos’s boilerplate, too. Good thing my contract was custom…
“Flesh binding is how he got his start,” I said. “In his twenties, a couple of years before the revelation, he conned a few of his friends and cousins into signing unfavorable bonds of loyalty to him, and he inked the marks into their flesh himself. And the syndicate grew from there. He takes a cut of everything, and he still does some of the marks himself. His organization is older than Tower’s, you know.” According to Cavazos, his was one of the oldest Skilled syndicates in the country, and I’d found no reason not to believe that.
I sank onto the edge of the coffee table and Cam sat on the couch in front of me. “So what do you do for him?” But he still looked as if he didn’t really want the answer.
“I don’t do anything for him on a regular basis. This is a one-shot deal. He needs someone found and once I fulfill my part of the deal, the mark goes dead, and I’m done with him. No extensions. No noncompete clauses. Nothing complicated.”
“If it’s so simple, why the binding? Why didn’t he just hire you, like everyone else?”
“The contract is simple, but he’s not. Ruben likes to own things. Specifically, people. Especially women. I needed to win this particular job, and he knew it, which gave him the upper hand. He wouldn’t hire me without a binding.”
“But you negotiated, right? You must have, to get out of the standard clauses.”
“Yeah. Under the terms we both agreed to, he can’t tell anyone I’m bound to him, or what I’m doing for him.” That one turned out to be a mistake on my part, because it meant he couldn’t tell Meika what his business with me really was, leaving her free to draw the obvious conclusions.
“But he can’t…touch you?”
Shit. This was the part I really didn’t want Cam to know. “He gets to…um…” I closed my eyes, trying to remember the exact wording. “‘Physically express either his pleasure or displeasure with my performance.’”
“Which means he gets to feel you up and hit you.” Anger bled into his features and the couch groaned beneath him as he leaned back.
“Yes, up to a point. But I get to hit back.” Also up to a point.
“Damn it, Liv!” Cam stood and stomped across the room, a spring coiled tight and ready to burst free. “Why would you agree to that?”
“Because he had the advantage and I needed the job.” Worse than Cam would ever know. “At the time, I thought I was being smart for insisting on limits, but it turns out I’m not as good with contract language as I thought I was.”
“I hear some people spend years in law school studying that very thing.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t have years and I don’t know any lawyers. But I think I did pretty well, considering what I had to work with. He can’t make me sleep with him or with anyone else, and he can’t use weapons against me or do any permanent damage. Those were my deal-breakers.”
“I’d like to break him.” Cam pulled me up and wrapped his arms around me, speaking into my hair. “I can’t stand the thought of his hands on you.”
That made two of us. And that part would only get worse—if he knew Cam and I were together again, Ruben would get possessive and start pushing boundaries, just to demonstrate his own power. But Cam didn’t need to know that.
“And he has to let me make a living, even while the mark is live,” I said, to redirect the conversation. “That’s why I needed a retainer from Anne. Without it, she’s not an official client, and he can call me away from this little project anytime he wants, to put me back on his.”
“Oh.” Cam’s brows rose in an almost-grin. “If I didn’t think it’d offend you, I’d offer to pay for your time permanently, just so he’d have to let you see me.”
I laughed, in spite of the circumstances. “As insulting—yet sweet—as that is, it only works with tracking jobs. I can track for other people, as long as they’re paying me.”
“Funny you should say that. I just happen to have lost touch with my kindergarten teacher. And my girlfriend from fourth grade. And the obstetrician who delivered me. In fact, I’m pretty sure I could keep you busy—and officially employed—for the rest of your life.”
I laughed again, and it felt good. “You’re just stupid enough to try it, too, aren’t you?”
“I think the word you’re looking for is brilliant. I’m brilliant enough to try it. And yes, I told you I’d do whatever it takes. Knowing about your mark doesn’t change that.”
I leaned forward and kissed him. And it felt so good, I did it again. And when he pulled me onto the couch with him, I went willingly, sparing a moment of pure gratitude for the fact that this stolen moment was even possible, in the midst of the violence and chaos defining both of our lives in general, and this job for Anne in particular.
“How long have you been bound to him?” Cam lay on his side against the back of the couch, and I lay on my back next to him. He ran his fingers slowly up and down my left arm, just brushing the lower edge of the bandage.
“A year and a half.”
His hand went still on my arm. “You’ve been looking for one person for a year and a half?”
“It’s pretty…complicated.” To say the very, very least.
“It’s busywork, Liv,” Cam insisted, frowning down at me from inches away. “He’s playing you. Whoever you’re looking for is dead. That’s why you can’t find him. Or her.”
I shook my head against the couch pillow, wishing we’d never have to move past that moment in time, with him pressed against me and the worst six years of my life rendered a distant memory, even if that meant having to talk about my work for Cavazos for eternity. “It’s a him. And he’s alive. Every time I try, I get just the faintest pull from his paternal middle name.”
“You’re name-tracking? Why would you even bother?” Cam asked. Then he realized what he’d said, and how I might take it, and shook his head, backtracking with an apologetic smile. “Not that you can’t track by name. But you’re so much better with blood…”
The story of my life…
“Unfortunately, we don’t have a blood sample, and even if we did, it’d be too old to be of much use. All we have to go on is one middle name.”
Cam stretched to prop himself on his elbow. “Liv, that’s crazy. I don’t know that I could find someone based only on a single middle name. How can he expect you to?”
He expected it because I’d sworn on my liberty that I could deliver within two years. “I’ll do it. I have to.” Because I wasn’t the only one who would pay if I defaulted on my contract.
“I don’t think he really wants you to,” Cam insisted. “He put his mark on your thigh and he’s obviously been pushing the boundaries of what he’s allowed to do to you.” He looked as if the mere thought made him want to vomit—as it did me. “He wants you to fail, so he can keep you indefinitely. He’s probably counting on you wanting to renegotiate down the road, when you realize you can’t find whatever obscure goose he’s picked for you to chase.”
“No, that’s not it.” But damn, did I wish it was. “He’s desperate for some legitimate news. I have to report to him every week and he always grills me about my progress first thing. It’s personal, and he’s very, very serious about this tracking. It comes before everything else.”
“Is that where you were this morning?” he asked, and I nodded. “Then the whiskey shots in your office…?”
“A time-honored ritual and proven coping mechanism.”
“And I’m guessing you can’t tell me who he’s looking for?”
“Nope. Though I’m free to tell the whole world that I’m working for him in some unnamed capacity. In fact, he wants me to.” Because he wasn’t allowed to openly discuss our connection.
“So, I guess this mark is the source of the rumors that you’re bedding the boss….” Cam looked so relieved to have found a logical explanation that I almost hated to disappoint him.
“Nope.” I shook my head firmly and felt the couch material snag in my hair. “I can’t figure out where those are coming from, because no one’s seen the mark.”
“No one? You haven’t…?” He let the question fade into implication, flavored by the blatant hope in his eyes.
I propped myself up on my good arm and faced him eye to eye. “Didn’t we already agree not to ask that question? I don’t want to know who you’ve been with since me, and you don’t want the details of my personal life, either. But none of that matters anymore, right?” I said, and he nodded hesitantly. “All I’m saying is that no one’s seen the mark.”
I hadn’t been nude in a lit room for almost eighteen months. And I hadn’t had sex at all in nearly a year. Since word—inaccurate, of course—got out that I was working for Cavazos, everyone I might have considered going home with seemed more interested in proving or disproving the rumors. And no one would press past what they thought to be evidence of Ruben’s claim on me.
No one I’d want, anyway. Anyone willing to cross that mark was just in it to prove he wasn’t afraid of Cavazos.
Anyone but Cam.
“So, what you’re saying is that no one’s seen this—” his hand slid down my stomach and over the gauze material covering my thigh “—in a very long time.”
My breath hitched. No one had touched me like that in years. That was the touch of a man interested in more than a quick fix for us both. More than a story about sleeping with a woman who may or may not belong to one of the most powerful men in the country.
“Just you…” I breathed. And Ruben. But he didn’t count. In fact, he’d never counted less.
“I like that,” Cam whispered, sliding down next to me on the couch. “Say it again.”
“Just you…” I murmured, reaching up with my good arm to pull him closer. His mouth brushed mine, and I lifted my head for greater contact, pulling his lip into my mouth. Tasting him.
A thousand times I’d imagined this, blending memory and imagination to keep from thinking about what was actually happening—who was actually touching me. And now it was real. Cam was real, and this moment was real; surely the pain in my arm proved that. A gunshot wound was better than a self-inflicted pinch any day of the week, and the pain was minor compared to how good everything else felt. His hands. His lips. The rough stubble on his chin, catching in my hair when his kisses traveled over my jaw toward my ear.
Being with him was better than I remembered. Better than I’d imagined. The moment would have been perfect, except that…
“Wait. We can’t do this.” I put a hand on Cam’s bare chest and he stared down at me in amusement.
“Speak for yourself. I’m ready.”
And boy was he. But… “That’s not what I mean. We don’t have time for this right now.” We were supposed to be saving lives. Finding murderers. Making the world a better place, one mob boss at a time…
“According to you and Noelle, one of us will be dead soon. So if you think about it like that, we don’t have time to wait.”
“Don’t joke about death.”
“I’m joking about sex.”
“Cam, this isn’t funny!”
He sighed and propped himself up on one elbow, running the fingers of his other hand lightly over my stomach. “Olivia, neither of us is going to die anytime soon. I’m not going to let that happen, so worrying about it is pointless. As for the rest of this…” His hand slid lower, and I caught my breath. “I make time for the important things, and you’re the most important thing in the world to me.” He leaned closer and whispered against my skin as he dropped kisses down my throat. “Besides…” Kiss. “Anne texted ten minutes ago.” Kiss. “They’re all fine.” Kiss. And when he reached my collarbone, I threw my head back. “That gives us fifty minutes to play with.” Kiss. “And I can do a lot in fifty minutes….”
His hand slid lower, and I arched into his touch. My body was alive every place my skin met his, and I craved more. And for the first time in six years, I could have more. I could have all of him. It might not be smart. It might even be the last time we’d be alone together, if whatever Elle had seen was related to this new working relationship. But no matter what had come before or what we would be made to do next, these stolen moments belonged only to us, a victory of faith and second chances.
I pulled Cam up for a kiss I never wanted to end, then he helped me get my shirt off without aggravating my injury. I lifted my hips so he could slide the borrowed skirt down my legs, trailing his fingers the whole way. His touch gave me chills, yet somehow stoked a growing flame inside me, and the conflict of fire and ice amplified every touch. Magnified every sensation.
I squirmed out of my underwear while he stepped out of his jeans, and then there was nothing between us. Nothing but memories, and the desperate hope that there’d be time to build a few more.
For one long moment, Cam stood in front of the couch staring down at me. Looking at me as if he was trying to memorize the sight. I looked back, aching to touch him, and treasuring that moment of anticipation, when possibilities abound and reality promises even more.
Then the moment was over and I had to touch him.
I pulled Cam onto the couch with me and indulged my greedy hands, my selfish lips. I wanted to touch all of him, and his desires mirrored my own, and the blaze between us burned so hot anyone standing near would surely have been scorched.
When I could stand no more teasing, no more promises without payoff, I arched into Cam’s touch, aching for more. Demanding it. His laugh was soft and deep in my ear, and his hand played a little deeper. A little rougher. “What do you want?” he whispered, and I groaned, overwhelmed by the possibilities. By needs I couldn’t put into words.
“You.”
“Anything more specific?” His lips trailed down my neck again, and I closed my eyes when he lifted my breast. My back arched when his mouth closed over my nipple, pulling gently, sending waves of heat to echo lower.
“You. Now.”
“Not yet…” he murmured, and I groaned. His tongue trailed down the center of my stomach slowly, leaving a hot, wet trail as he crawled down the length of my body. I writhed beneath him and sucked in a sharp breath when his hands slid beneath me, lifting my hips. His stubble scratched my thighs and I opened wider, breathing heavily, anticipation a wild blaze consuming me from inside.
With the first stroke of his tongue—fire given rhythm and form—his hand slid up my side and over my stomach to cup my breast. I gasped and arched into him, lost in need building with every pause, cresting with every touch. Pleasure coiled, so hot and fast nothing else existed in that moment.
“Wait!” I gasped. But he only pushed my hand away when I tried to pull him up. The strokes came faster, hotter, and I clenched the couch cushion beneath me. Then that single point of heat spilled over, and my entire body rocked with wave after wave of pleasure.
Cam groaned, and for a second, the air was cold where he’d been. Then his weight settled over me and I pulled him closer, clutching at him as the muscles in his back shifted beneath my hand. He slid inside me in one stroke, then stayed there, moaning, while aftershocks of my own pleasure clenched around him. Then he was moving inside me, and that heat built again with every stroke.
So familiar, yet so much better than I remembered, and the whole world funneled around me until there was only him, and us, and the rhythm that defined our reunion. And in that moment, as pleasure built between us, racing toward a conclusion I needed, yet was desperate to delay, it felt possible that there might never be anything else. That we could live like this forever. That I could subsist on Cam Caballero alone and never want for a thing in my life.
Then the rhythm changed. The strokes deepened. And I fell right over the edge of need into a wordless, thoughtless convulsion of pleasure. Cam groaned in my ear, and my legs tightened around him, and we rode the last waves together until electric aftershocks gave way to a pleasant numbness, and he collapsed on the couch beside me, his body stretched down the length of mine.
His hand splayed over my stomach, damp with our combined sweat, and his lips found my ear one more time. “I love you, Olivia,” he whispered, and my heart ached as if it would break in half. “You think we’ll die if we stay together, but I’ve been dying slowly for the last six years. I’m taking my life back, Liv. Our life together. And this time, I’m not going to let you go.”