Chapter6
Sleep took her, and she stayed asleep long into the next morning, having been so weary from all of the stress that she had been under and from the work she had done for the wedding. When she woke, her first thoughts were of him, and she reached her hand out to touch the pillow beside her, smiling with happiness at the memory of the passion that they had shared the night before.
She knew at the edge of her thoughts that she might regret what had passed between them someday, but just then, that morning as she laid in the bed where they had created a fire like she had never known, she didn’t want to think about what might come or what repercussions there might be; she only wanted to bask in the glow of the pleasure that had overtaken them both.
After a while, she rose and showered, dressing and getting herself a cup of coffee from the kitchen. She picked up her cell phone and called Ophelia, who had just gotten up herself, rested from the big party the night before.
“Girl, are you vertical? That was quite the party last night! I’m still not sure I’m over it completely! What a great time and a beautiful wedding!” Ophelia sounded as happy as Natalie felt.
“Yeah, it was pretty incredible, wasn’t it? I am so glad that my mom’s big day turned out so perfectly. Those kinds of things can go wrong so fast, but everything went really right for her and Wilson, and I am so glad about that.” She smiled, thinking of how sweet it had all been and how happy she was for her mother.
“So, what are you doing today?” Ophelia asked curiously.
Natalie grinned. “Well, that’s what I was calling you about. I was hoping that you’d have some free time to go and get lunch in the city. I was thinking sourdough bread bowls on the wharf. What do you think?”
“Oh honey, you know I never turn that down! I’ll meet you there; give me an hour?” Ophelia sounded as excited about it as Natalie was.
“Sure! That’s perfect. I’ll see you there.” Natalie smiled and ended the call. It was a favorite date of theirs to meet up on the wharf near Pier 39 for the best sourdough bread in the world, shaped into a round and then scooped out and refilled with creamy clam chowder. Nothing tasted as good as that to them.
They had been going to share the meal for years, always meeting in the same spot and usually getting the table they liked most. Natalie headed out to her car and drove away from the house, up to San Francisco, singing to the radio in the car all the way with the window down and the breeze blowing in tousling her hair and playing with the curls at the end of it flirtatiously as she drove.
She and Ophelia nearly arrived at the same time, and they got their bread bowls with clam chowder and sat down together at a table. They had a terrific view of the bay and the boardwalk. People passed by going every direction around them, sailboats and bigger boats cruised over the water before them, and puffy white clouds floated past in the big blue sky overhead. It was a perfect day.
“It feels like a postcard, doesn’t it?” Ophelia said with a grin as she looked around and took it all in.
“It sure does. A picture-perfect postcard. I love living near San Francisco. I really missed it while I was away.” Natalie grinned too as she soaked up the sunshine and atmosphere.
Ophelia turned and looked at her thoughtfully. “Are you going back out into the world again to do more photojournalism work or will you stay here and just work locally?”
Natalie shook her head. “I’ve got too much wanderlust in me. I love traveling. I love being out in the world. I will stay here for a little while because it’s nice to be home, but I know before too long I’ll want to go out again. So, I will work here locally while I’m here. I know I can submit things to the Chronicle and all kinds of other publications, but it won’t be too long before I’m out on the road again.” The idea of it pulled at her, as it always did, and she promised herself that it would happen again soon.
“I don’t mind you being gone because I know it’s what you love, and I want you to be happy, but I do miss you when you’re away.” Ophelia gave her a half sad and half proud smile.
“I miss you too,” Natalie answered, leaning over and giving her best friend a hug. “The online video calls are a big help though, aren’t they? And you know you are so welcome to come and visit me anytime no matter where I am in the world, though I know you’d definitely prefer some places over others.” She laughed, thinking of it. Ophelia would want to be near the ocean, and some of the places that Natalie went to were pretty far from the sea.
“I’ll think about that. Give me your destination list, and we’ll work on it.” Ophelia grinned and took a big bite of her lunch. When she swallowed it, she turned to look over at Natalie with a feisty grin on her face.
“So, that stepbrother of yours, the younger one, Cameron, he’s quite a pretty man, isn’t he! How are you two getting along?” she asked, prying somewhat.
Natalie felt a bonfire burst upward inside of her just at the mention of his name and the thought of him. She couldn’t hold back the smile on her face, and her cheeks warmed as she looked down at her bread bowl.
Ophelia didn’t miss it. “What? What is that look? What did I miss?”
“Well, things have been really tough between us, very hot and cold, and it’s been really frustrating, but then last night after the party, things kind of unraveled between us, and uh… we wound up spending most of the night in my bed.” She couldn’t believe that she had done it, let alone believe that she was saying it out loud. The words sounded wrong in her ears as she heard herself speak them. She had slept with him. There was no getting out of it.
Ophelia’s mouth fell wide open. “You slept with your stepbrother?” She gaped at Natalie in utter disbelief.
Natalie nodded her head slowly. “Yeah, I guess I did.”
“How on earth did that happen?” Ophelia asked in amazement.
With a sigh, Natalie thought back over the previous weeks. “I’m not sure, really. When we met, he was so cold, so awful to me, but then he got really hot with me right after, welcoming me to the family and kissing my cheek, getting close to me. Then, he was cold again, and he practically ignores my entire existence at the house anytime any of the family are around. Then, he got hot with me again, and I went to a party on his yacht, and while I was there, he kissed me. I mean… he really kissed me. In fact, if we hadn’t been interrupted, it might have gone all the way just then. There’s some serious chemistry between us, but he got called off and then…” She trailed off, thinking of the redhead who kissed him.
She didn’t want to think about the redhead. She didn’t want to tell Ophelia what a playboy her stepbrother was and how stupid she was probably being by having sex with him and letting him add her to his list of conquests. She decided to leave out the redhead.
“Then, we were at the wedding, and we were walking together; I guess things just clicked. He came to my room last night after the party, and then… well, he stayed a long while. I woke up alone this morning, and I’m good with that, but he was with me for a long time.” Natalie felt a bubble of happiness rising up in her, and she smiled wide.
“That’s wonderful!” Ophelia gushed. “I’m so happy for you, but I want you to think about this really carefully before you go any further.” Her face became more serious then, and Natalie cocked her head to one side.
“What do you mean? Think about what?” she asked, wondering what there could possibly be that she hadn’t thought about yet.
Ophelia turned and faced her, planting one of her hands on the table. “I just think you need to be really careful with him. I mean, this is a brand-new family dynamic, and there’s no telling what might happen, you know, where it will go or how both of you will feel. You don’t want to go causing big trouble right at the very beginning of a new life for everyone. Not that I mean you would be causing it on your own, but you two acting this way and carrying on, you two together might cause irreversible damage to each other and to the family as a unit. I’m just saying to take your time with it and be careful. There’s a lot more at stake here than just you having a fling with a guy. A super-hot guy, I’ll admit, but still. There’s a lot at stake.”
“I know you’re right,” Natalie admitted with some dejection. Her inner happy bubble deflated somewhat.
“I am right.” Ophelia nodded her head. “You live in the same house together, and he’s your stepbrother, and that’s just a little weird.”
“It is a little weird, even for me, and I’m the one who was with him last night. Being with him wasn’t weird, but our parents are gone on their honeymoon right now; when they get back, it might be very awkward to try and explain any of this.”
“Well, just give it a lot of thought, and take your time. Okay?” Ophelia gave her a smile and a big hug. “I’m here for you, honey. I’m looking out for you.”
“Thank you.” Natalie gave her a smile.
She didn’t know what it was going to be like at the house or with the rest of the family, but more than that, she wondered what it was going to be like between the two of them. They hadn’t talked about anything. There weren’t any rules. There weren’t any guidelines. It was just thrown into the wind, and they would have to see what happened.
After her lunch with Ophelia, she drove back down to the house and worked in the library. She kept finding herself thinking of moments from the night before, and she kept having to push them out of her mind. She had to make herself focus on her work and not let herself think about anything else, especially Cameron.
Part of her wondered where he was and what he was doing, and another part of her, the more practical part, didn’t want to know. She worked a long while and then went to her room for a nap late in the afternoon. When she woke up, she stopped in the kitchen for a snack and a cup of coffee and didn’t see any sign of Cameron.
She thought about going to the other side of the house to see if he was in his studio, but then she decided against it. She told herself not to go chasing after anything with him, just to leave well enough alone. Perhaps it would just be a onetime thing. Perhaps they had blown off the tension and steam, and now that it was gone, they could be stepsiblings in the home with more ease. Except for her, it wasn’t really gone.
She had tasted paradise with him and more pleasure than she had ever known with any man, and even just the thought of what they had shared and experienced the night before was enough to make her sigh and moan softly, make her body warm, and make her feel a dull ache down low for him.
Going back into the library, she went to work and got another story submitted before dinnertime. At dinnertime, she wandered into the kitchen and found that the chef had left dinner for them both in there, rather than serving it, as she and Cameron were the only ones left in the house. Adam and Theresa had gone off on their own trip while Charisse and Wilson were away, and that left Cameron and Natalie with the whole house to themselves.
She ate a light dinner, salad and fish, and then went to her bedroom and changed into her bikini. She headed out to the pool in the golden sun of a summer evening and dove in, loving the refreshing feeling of the cool water against her body.
She swam for a while, losing herself in the cool blue water and feeling at peace there. She was more than surprised when he seemed to show up out of nowhere in the water beside her. She had been cruising around in the deep end and hadn’t heard him get in, and she hadn’t seen him until he was beside her, reaching for her.
Natalie surfaced and drew in a big breath as the shock of his sudden appearance struck her, and he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tightly to him, kissing her mouth hard and hungrily.
Everything inside of her reeled, and she grew dizzy and hot all at once. She wanted to ask him where he had been, she wanted to ask him what they were going to do, she wanted to ask him a hundred questions, but his mouth stole all of them away from her, and all she could do was cry out softly with pleasure as he pulled her to the shallow end of the pool and then slowly peeled her swimsuit off of her.
She stood there in the brilliant sunshine, nude and glistening in the water, her head back as his mouth moved ravenously over her skin from her neck to her breasts, and his fingers played havoc with her core, making her moan loudly as he brought his mouth down her belly to the soft feminine folds of her, devouring her there, until she could barely stand and surrendered to an orgasm swiftly in profound disbelief. No one had ever been as passionate and wild a lover with her as he was, and it only made her hungrier for him.
She realized as she was gasping for air and clinging to him, her lips parted, her eyes closed, that she looked exactly like the painting that she had seen him working on, and she wondered if she was a real-life fantasy for him.
When she had come once, he stood back up slowly, canvassing her skin with his mouth all the way, biting and sucking at her, taking her dark and hardened nipples into his teeth and toying with them with the tip of his tongue. When he was standing, she saw that he was nude as well and that he wanted her completely.
He faced her, kissing her lips, and then he turned her in place so that she was facing the ocean and he was to her back. Pulsing with need, he pushed himself into her, filling her cavern and making her cry loudly with intense pleasure as he began to move in her, hard and swift. He closed his hands over her breasts and squeezed them, teasing her nipples with his fingers as he rocked himself inside of her.
He had almost come when he hesitated and murmured softly in her ear, “Do you want more?”
She gasped for air and nodded. “Yes! Yes, god yes…” She trailed off, and he slowed himself, stopping from coming to his fullness as he lowered one hand from her breasts to the core of her and massaged her at the front while he moved in and out of her slowly, taking his time to make it last longer for her. She came hard for him again, pushing her head back against his shoulder, and when she had, he could no longer wait, and he began to move fast and hard in her again, closing his hands tight on her as he roared and came with a powerful force, filling her with his release.
He was slow to let her go, pulling himself from her and then turning her toward him again. He clasped his hands around her face and kissed her long and slow, savoring her, and then he held her close to his chest for a long while before kissing her one more time, and then turning and walking away from her.
She watched him go, Cameron with no clothes on at all, emerging from the swimming pool as the water ran from his body and the sun shone on all of his tanned and toned muscles. She watched his gorgeous figure disappear into the house as he wrapped a towel around his lower half and then vanished.
He took her breath away. Everything about him took her breath away, from the nearness of him to his touch, most certainly the feel of him holding her and loving her as he did, filling her body with himself and being so hungry for her. The sight of him. The feel and scent of him. Everything about him stole her breath away.
Natalie took her time getting her swimsuit and putting it back on. As she did so, she thought of him out there with her, peeling it off, and of him staring at her in it when he had first met her. She thought of him mentioning it to her and asking her to bring it to the yacht, though she hadn’t even put it on there. She began to wonder if his fascination with her was because it was the first thing he had seen her in, and it wasn’t much of a cover. It was not much more than a simple string bikini.
She got out of the pool and wrapped herself in a towel, her mind so focused on him that she could barely think of anything else. She went to her own room and took a shower, washing herself clean and then crawling into her cool bedsheets to fall asleep. She did not know what she was going to do about him, if she wanted him to stop, or if she didn’t want him to stop at all. She had never felt so much fire, so much pleasure in her life, and thinking about telling him that it couldn’t happen again was almost painful to her. She wondered how she could give it up, but at the same time, she knew that she was probably going to have to, because their parents were going to come home, and Adam was going to come home, and there would be no way that they could carry on as they had been with the family around. There was just no way that it could continue, and that tugged at her heart and tinged it with a strange sadness.
There was something erotic and sexy as hell about the way that he made her feel, the way that he was with her when they were having sex, but at the same time, there was something else that bothered her deep inside, and she hadn’t put her finger on it until after she was lying in bed thinking so much about all that had happened between them.
It was completely casual for him. As their kisses had been on the yacht when she went to the upper deck afterward and saw him with two women under his arms, and after the first night they had been together, when he had come to her and taken all that he had wanted, giving her all that she wanted in return, at least physically, but then leaving her bed and sleeping in his own room that night. He could easily have spent the night with her and slept in with her until the morning, but he hadn’t. He had left her, as if it was casual and meaningless to him. He could come and go and not seem to put any kind of value on what they were doing. That bothered her the most. For her, it was a big deal, a very big deal, and to him, it just seemed much more like a hot playtime between two consenting adults.
Natalie spent so much time thinking about it as she laid in her bed that she made up her mind to wait and talk with him about what was happening between them before anything else physical happened between them. She needed to know just what was going on between them, to define it, to give her some sense of placement with it.
She spent a while thinking about what it was that she wanted from him. Her mind volleyed between various things from only wanting sex from him to wanting nothing at all from him other than for him to be her stepbrother. After some consideration, she even let herself consider the notion of the possibility of wanting more than just the sex. She wondered if perhaps it was possible that they could have a real relationship and that the sex would just be an exquisite part of it, but then she thought of their parents, and it all seemed too impossible to her.
She hated being confused, and more than that, she was miserable that her mother wasn’t there to talk with her about it. She had always gone to her mother for advice in every troubled time of her life when she couldn’t work something out for herself. While her mother knew nothing of the emotional tug of war that had been going on between herself and Cameron, she knew that she could have gone to her to talk about it, and her mother would have known just what to do to make it right, even if her mother was one of the pieces of the puzzle that was such a big problem.
After a long while of thinking it all over, she finally fell asleep, drifting so deep into slumber that even her dreams did not reach her, and when she woke many hours later in the morning, she felt more determined than ever to stand her ground and talk things out with Cameron to determine what was going on.