“No One’s Gonna Love You” Band of Horses
“Are we going to talk about it?” I should keep my mouth shut. Cam’s wearing my flannel as she brews her special coffee. I should shut up and just watch her.
But I can’t.
“Of course.” She bites her lip and sinks into my shirt.
Fuck.
“But do we have to do it right now? Can’t we…?” she trails off, and it’s more a plea than anything, her voice makes it obvious.
“So that’s a there’s nothing to talk about then?” My heart shudders and I’m convinced it might give up.
“No, it’s an I honestly don’t know what to say yet thing. This,” she gestures between us, “is too important to say the wrong thing again.”
That’s an answer I can accept even if it feels like a dark cloud looming. After all the hope in her voice is a beacon of light. Cam is no longer an evil specter in my life; Camilla is happily stirring cream with a cinnamon stick in my kitchen.
I wrap my arms around the living, breathing beauty and nuzzle into her wild hair. It smells like a mix of my laundry and coffee. It smells perfect. She leans back into me and I’m treated to the delicious view down her shirt—my shirt—and her sexy as hell breasts are peeking out.
“Question for you.” I lean in and kiss her exposed shoulder.
“Okay…” she hesitates as she sprinkles in a little spice and a little sugar.
“You remember the flannel shirt you stole in high school?” I kiss her again as soon as I ask, convinced that if I mark every inch of her, I’ll get to keep her forever.
“Of course,” she laughs and switches off the kettle. “I wear it almost every day.”
“Really?” I automatically pull back to see the look on her face.
“Yeah, really. It’s one of the most comfortable things I own. I wear it like a favorite hoodie around the house.” She’s smiling this irresistible shy smile like she just admitted something scandalous. “I tried to get rid of it.” Her voice is barely audible over the cascade of water.
“I tried to get rid of the quilt.”
Her shy smile spreads and she hands me coffee. I’m pretty sure my smile is just as dopey as hers when I take the mug. I can’t help but purr when I sip it.
“Come on.” I grab her by the shoulder and the two of us fold into each other as we walk to the living room.
I plop onto the couch and pull her into me. Just to prove a point, I drag the blanket from over the back and tuck us in. She’s more than happy to lay down against me. And we talk. We talk about bourbon and spices and Scotland. And cedar trees, welding, and animal shelters. When my first cup of coffee is gone, I rub her shoulders.
We keep talking, though her words are punctuated by light little moans of pleasure. And about my dad no less. I haven’t talked about him in years. But it feels right to share memories with Camilla. She understands on a different level.
She understands everything on a different level.
A text chime interrupts our leisurely conversation, and I reach for my phone where it’s shoved in my pocket. My screen is still a solid picture of the mountains. Camilla pushes away from me and tiptoes toward a plug-in I hadn’t noticed.
She bends over the phone Trigg returned today and I focus on the alabaster curve of her ass where it peeks out from under her new adopted flannel. Another chime cuts through my wayward thoughts. And another. Then a mail tone. And a phone ring. Reality hits me like a boulder. No, whomps on me like a boulder.
Camilla is slow to turn around and the tension radiating from her shoulders is obvious.
“Mom figured out where I am. Good news travels fast, I guess.” Her voice says this is anything but. “She wants us to come over. She said bring your mom for dinner if you want.”
She hasn’t turned back toward me yet and I know why. The very question she’d been unable to answer in the kitchen is slapping her in the face from a different angle. Judging by the number of tones that had spliced open our morning, a lot of different angles.
“Christmas dinner with the Collins,” I say softly. “I’m on call but we’d love to.”
She turns back around and looks between me and the phone cradled in her delicate hands. With a halfhearted smile, she holds the power button up top then swipes across the screen.
“It’s Christmas, right?” She shrugs then walks back to me.
There are a million things I can say, a million things I want to, but they’re already reflected back in her eyes, so I lift the quilt and let her nestle in. I breathe her in and flip on a movie. Macaulay Culkin is the only one speaking in the room and even his punches aren’t landing as hard as the ones reality seems to keep pummeling into me.
Camilla Collins is a successful entrepreneur that lives half a country way. She owns a home, and a business, and has a life there too. She’d gone off and conquered the world just as she was always meant to. The crazy phone, the sexy fucking stilettos, and the dark raven hair are just reminders that we’re on borrowed time.
“Can we not do this?” Her voice is quiet and she’s tucked down in my flannel when she comes back to the living room with more coffee, her beautiful eyes are staring intently at me.
“Do what?” I want to look away so she can’t read me quite as easily but I can’t peel my eyes from her. From what may be one of the last times I get to watch her.
“Think about the next few days. Think about Seattle. Please?”
“Camilla, I have to. We have to.” I sigh. “We barely survived it the first time.”
“Not today. We can do it tomorrow, or the next day, but not today.” She closes her eyes and pain twists her up. “I just got you back.”
“I can’t lose you again,” I say it a bit more forcefully than I intend and she shoots down further into my shirt. “I can’t…” I sit up and reach for her.
“I know. God, do I know. But I don’t know how to fix it. It’s Christmas. And I love you. Can’t this be our gift? To each other?” Her words speed up as her bottom lip trembles.
“You love me?” I ask as I cave. Completely. She hadn’t said it last night when I did.
“Yes,” she breathes.
I use the buttons of my shirt to pull her closer and start undoing them one by one. “Twenty-four hours.” I breathe in deeply. “But only if I can give you this.” I lean in and kiss the bare skin below her bellybutton.
She wobbles on her feet a little then clings to my shoulders. Her hands curl in but she doesn’t pull me. I have no desire to rush with her either. And the idea of her wanting it, wanting me, enough to yank me between her thighs, is damn near inspirational. So I sit. And wait. Barely brushing my nose against her flesh. She jerks away as if I’ve tickled her but otherwise all Camilla does is whimper.
I pull away from her and reach for my cup of Christmas on the coffee table behind her. I take a big gulp, letting the spices swish around and coat my mouth. I can smell the cinnamon wafting back against her skin when I turn back to her and whisper, “I love you, too, Camilla.” I seal those words with one ardent, open mouth kiss at the apex of her thighs and she groans.
But then I pull back.
And I take my fresh coffee with me as I slump back into the couch. Camilla bites her bottom lip, plumping it where it peeks out behind bright white teeth. Sitting here, even in the stark morning light, her edges blur into the beautiful smoke winding up her side. The tendrils are gorgeous but it’s the way they highlight and accentuate her body that I study.
“Jay…” she says shyly as she stares at me and recaptures that beautiful lip. “You’re staring.” And her hands tentatively move to cover herself.
“No, Camilla, don’t.” I reach for her, but saying her name, her real name, coaxes her hands to drop. I’m emboldened enough to push her toes apart with the tip of my toe. I cock my eyebrow and evaluate every inch of flesh before me. Her hands move again, this time to cover her eyes, once again becoming my girlfriend of all those years ago. Her curves barely hidden are anything but.
What I’m about to do to her isn’t straight out of high school either.
“AJ,” she moans. “Please.”
“I don’t even have to touch you.” I zero my focus in between her legs.
“It would be a lot better if you did.” Her breathing is shallow and she’s hiding, but she hasn’t shut her legs. Arousal glistens on her thighs in the bright light. “Please touch me,” she whines.
I take a sip of the coffee and let it wash through my mouth. The second I swallow, I’m down on my knees and wrapping her little clit in my tongue.
Her hands drop as she gasps. I grasp her wrists and yank them behind her back. I pin them to her backside and use them to leverage her hips further onto my face. When I gently scrape my teeth along her most delicate parts, she screams. It’s the only sound I ever want to hear again, too.
I collect her wrists in one hand and use the other to throw her knee over my shoulder. She loses her balance for a moment but I hold her tight enough that she stays upright. Her perfect little bud of nerves notches back into my mouth.
And I eat her like she’s my death row meal.
I try not to think about my impending execution.
My nose, my tongue, my hands rove wildly over her, and frantically in her. Her knees are quaking against me, adding a small vibration to my movements. Adding vibrations that make my hair stand on end. And hers… goddamn, those goose bumps.
I wrap my arms up around her and carefully lay her back along the coffee table. When I follow her up onto it, I thank God I built it and it’ll support two. Her tattoo is calling my lips, begging me to taste her. I swear I can taste her bourbon lingering on her skin. It’s a taste I hope I remember for the rest of my life.
Her wild moans as I finally latch onto her big, beautiful breast sears into my brain. My body moves on autopilot to take her. I can’t stop, even if I wanted to. Being with Camilla is too important, my need is too urgent, consuming her is more vital than food or water.
And when I slide into her, I no longer breathe air, I exist because I breathe Camilla.