Chapter 7
Secret
Camille
Piper was absolutely right—she'd told me if I chatted up a random guy and started dancing with him, Beau would come charging in like an enraged bull.
Honestly? I didn't really believe her. Seeing Beau with his arm around four girls told me all I needed to know about him. If anything, I put Piper's theory to the test, just so I could say once and for all: Piper was wrong about this situation.
So I talked with Herbert. Herbert, the financial analyst who worked at Goldman.
And what did Beau do, once I started dancing with Herbert? Just like Piper said: he came charging over.
Not that it mattered much to me—I was still angry at him. For all the reasons.
But seeing Beau get all possessive of me? Seeing him tower over this guy and basically tell him to get lost? God, it was so primitive, so dumb, and just watching him in that moment gave me a nauseating overdose-of-testosterone.
So I knew better than to feel anything but repulsion.
Or at least, I thought I did. But thoughts don't always change raw feelings.
Seeing a jealous Beau chase that guy off, and then arrogantly claim me for a dance, made my insides churn with a complicated longing.
I'm not supposed to want this.
But once he turned on that dick-head charm that had claimed so many ladies before me? I was hopeless to resist.
Maybe it was the alcohol. I shouldn't have had those shots. Because holy shit, why was I dancing with Beau?
I couldn't stand the guy in almost every regard. The past we shared; the way he is; who he is. Everything about him.
But on the dance floor, none of that mattered. The only thing we had between us was pure animal attraction. I loved it—I loved being the center of his attention. His hungry eyes on mine. The way his gaze so often traveled down to steal a seconds-too-long stare at my breasts until I forced his gaze back to my eyes. His hands, always clutching at my waist, always trying to cop a feel and pull me closer.
He wanted me. I could feel it.
And then I could literally feel it. When my bottom touched his erection. His hard fucking cock.
I got so freaked out, I bolted.
I found Piper dancing with a couple new guys. Her cheeks were flushed—she'd had a few more drinks than I had tonight, and it was starting to show.
“Piper!” I grabbed her arm and yanked.
“What's up?” she asked, her words a little slurred.
“I just danced with Beau. And um. Things got weird.”
She cracked a smile. “Yeah—I watched it all from over here.”
I whispered into her ear. “I could feel him. I mean his cock. He got hard, Piper.”
She shrugged. “I'm not surprised! That'll happen when you shake your ass in a dude's crotch, miss booty dancer!”
My jaw dropped. “I wasn't booty dancing!”
“Yes you were!” She wagged her finger at me. “Max saw it. Right, Max?”
Max, whoever the hell he was, looked at me with a dopey grin and nodded. “It's true.”
I huffed.
Piper pinched my cheek. “Relax. Just have fun. What are you so worried about?”
And then her gaze flicked over my head. Somebody tall was right behind me.
“He's behind me, isn't he,” I muttered.
She nodded.
I turned around slowly. There was all 6'3 of Beau Bradford.
“Hey ladies. You wanna come hang out with us in the VIP lounge? We've got bottle service.”
Piper abandoned Max in a flash and launched herself right by my side. “We'd love to!”
I grumbled. Oh boy. What are we getting ourselves into?
Beau led us to the back. Five other men, all tall and strapping like Beau, sat around a giant, crescent-shaped, royal-purple velvet booth. Several women sat between them.
“Boys, this is Camille Kennedy and Piper--”
“Eaglestorm!” she chirped.
Beau scratched his head. “Really? Piper Eaglestorm?”
She explained it with those two magical words—“Hippie parents.”
“Ah. Say no more.” Beau started pointing out his teammates. “Anyway, this is forward Vinny DeMarco and Iggy Morrow, our goalie Leif Komarov, defenseman JT Kiernan, and his d-partner, Jack Cameron.”
I smiled and waved at all of them. “Hi guys.”
They answered with a grunted chorus of greetings.
Piper hopped into the booth and slid right next to Jack Cameron, who was easily the biggest and strongest of them all, even if his boyish looks suggested that he was also the youngest.
Piper immediately wrapped her hand around his thick forearm—or tried to, anyway. “Wow,” she muttered breathlessly, impressed.
The poor boy had clearly never met someone like her. He chuckled uncomfortably. “Uh, hey there, miss.”
Beau turned to me. “Wanna sit?”
Not really, but I already came this far, didn't I?
“Sure … why not …”
We slid into the booth. The couch was soft and comfortable and, at least over here, away from all the craziness of the dance floor, it wasn't quite so scorching hot and ear-drum-shattering loud. But still, it was noisy enough that you had to get close to the person you were talking to. And looking all around the booth, I noticed all of Beau's teammates and friends retreated into their own private conversations.
Beau smiled at me. The smile that I couldn't trust, the smile that turned my stomach and put butterflies in it at the same time. I'd rather be sitting this close to Piper, but she was much more interested in trying to chat up Jack Cameron.
“So really, how've you been?” Beau asked.
“Good,” I blurted out, but I wasn't about to let him in on my personal life. “So where'd those girls of yours go?”
“Oh, they're out there dancing.” He pointed somewhere into the crowd.
“I see. So how'd you meet them?”
I expected him to spin some yarn about how those girls were just some really good friends that he'd made from this-or-that event—when really, it was obvious that he didn't know or care who they were. To Beau, the only thing that mattered was that they were hot pieces of ass.
But Beau didn't bother trying to lie. Instead, he fought back a coy smile and asked, “You really wanna know?”
“Sure, why not.”
He shrugged. “A dating app.”
I laughed. “You mean to seriously tell me that you date four girls at a time?”
“I'm not trying to actually date them. I just invite them out. Whatever happens, happens.”
“Ew, Beau.” I buried my face in my hands. “That's appalling. I can't believe they even put up with that.”
He laughed. “I don't get it either. But they don't seem to mind. Actually, it works better than if I only invite one girl out. Imagine that. They start competing with each other. It's like they don't even care about me—they just want to beat each other.”
“Wait. Competing with each other for what? For the right to sleep with you?” I asked, appalled.
Beau laughed. “Believe it or not.” He flexed his bicep, and the arm of his suit jacket bunched up all around the swollen knot of muscle.
“You're so full of yourself.” I rolled my eyes. “So, I'm curious, what's this dating app called?”
His smile grew. “MeatMarket.”
“MeatMarket! Beau! That doesn't sound like a dating app—that sounds like a hook-up app.”
He patted my head condescendingly. “Nothing gets past you, does it? Good to see you've still got the brains that made you valedictorian, Rach.”
My skin crawled. “Yeah, and it's good to see you're still a disgusting pig. You're worse than that, actually. You're a trashy fuck-boi now.”
“Fuck-boi!” Beau repeated, highly amused. His great upper body shook with laughter. And then he reached out and put his arm around my shoulders.
His repulsive touch made the tiny hairs on my neck stood straight up. “Oh my God, what are you doing? Don't touch me.”
Beau took it all in stride. He gently shook me with his massive arm. “I missed you, you know that?”
“Ugh.” I shrank under the oppressive weight of his heavy arm.
“No, I don't mean I actually miss you. More like, I miss how we always gave each other so much shit. Fuck, Rach, it was kinda—”
I threw an elbow into his ribs, hard. And I hoped it hurt him, too. “Camille. You will call me Camille.”
“Fine. Camille.” Beau soothed his ribs with his free hand. “I'm gonna let you in on a secret, 'cause I'm a little drunk. Here goes: I only called you Rachel all along because I knew it pissed you off.”
“No way. Really?” I gasped sarcastically. “This might blow your tiny jock brain, but I figured that out a long time ago, Beau.”
His smile grew. “It was actually harder to remember to call you Rachel than it was to call you Camille.”
“You're only making it worse, Beau.” Since he wasn't going to keep his hands to himself, I physically removed his arm from my shoulders myself. “And don't touch me again.”
Beau shrugged. He used his freed arm to reach across the table and grabbed the bottle of Grey Goose from an ice bucket. He refilled his glass and poured one for me, too. “Here. Got some juice if you want too.”
“Thanks.”
I grabbed the orange juice and poured myself a screw-driver.
Beau mixed his vodka with water.
“Vodka and water?” My lip curled with disgust. “That sounds heinous.”
“You get used to it. We all drink it.” He gestured at his teammates. “No carbs, no sugar—that's why.”
“Ohh. That's a good idea, actually.”
“Glad to win the valedictorian's approval,” he teased.
I slapped at his chest with my back-hand. But his chest was so sturdy and rock-solid, I might as well have slapped a brick-wall.
“I haven't approved you of anything,” I said, discreetly soothing my hand under the table.
Beau held up his glass. “Cheers to that, I guess.”
I touched my glass to his. Clink.
“So how is it, being a hockey player? Is it everything you dreamed of? Everything you imagined?”
Beau chuckled. “Sure. I get to play the game I love.”
“And you get all the money, and all the fancy clothes, and the luxury cars, and oh, all those women,” I added.
“Yeah, all that too.”
“I guess you win at life, Beau. Congratulations. Your life ended up picture perfect, just like you always said it would.”
Bemused, Beau raised an eyebrow. “What's this about, anyway?”
“What?”
“You were always so competitive with me.”
“Me! Competitive!” I blurted out a laugh.
“Yeah. You are.”
“That's rich, coming from you. You're the competitive one.”
“See? Now you're fighting me over who's more competitive.”
I don't know how, but if you went toe-to-toe with Beau, you always ended up falling into his logic traps. If I argued with him, I'd only prove his point. Instead, I folded my arms and gave him a dirty stare.
Beau, eager to smooth tensions over, scooted closer to me and his arm went around my shoulder again. This time, begrudgingly, I allowed it. I hated that he felt like he had a right to get near me and touch me, but it was always more work to fight him off. That's just how Beau operates. The harder you resist, the harder he comes at you.
Still, the subtle scent of his rich cologne was at least somewhat pleasant. If nothing else, you could say that Beau Bradford had good taste in cologne.
I sighed, resigning myself to try a different tact. “You just got all the attention. I don't know why you couldn't be pleased with that and leave it alone. Why do you have to rub it in my face?”
“You know what I think our problem was?” Beau asked rhetorically. “The teachers. They pitted us against each other—star student versus star athlete. They really didn't help, you know.”
I laughed. “Oh Beau, what are you talking about?”
“You never noticed? The teachers loved you. But me?”
I giggled. He was right about that, at least. “They couldn't stand you. They went out of their way to put you down. Even I thought they were mean to you sometimes.”
“Yeah. I mean, they had their reasons—I was a punk. But you couldn't do any wrong in their eyes.”
“Even though you were convinced that I had this dark side,” I reminded him.
Beau's arm, wrapped around my shoulder, gave me a tug. “You do, though.”
The goodwill we'd just built evaporated in a flash. “Really, Beau? This again?”
“Shit, remember your goth phase? You couldn't dress like that if you didn't have a dark side, could you?”
Embarrassed, I slapped my forehead. It'd been years since I'd had the misfortune to remember my six-month goth phase. But the truth was, the goth phase wasn't my dark side. If anything, it was my insecure side. I was convinced I was ugly, my body too awkward, my arms too gangly, my breasts too small, my legs too knock-kneed and bird-like. Somehow, dressing up like a goth gave me a way to hide all that and feel comfortable in my own skin … in a backwards sort of way.
“That was more of a teen rebellion thing,” I stammered.
Beau's eyes sparkled. “Can I tell you a secret?”
“Hopefully it's not as obvious as your last secret,” I said with sass.
“It probably is, actually. But yeah. I thought you were one smoking hot goth.”
“Beau!” I back-handed his muscular chest again. A heat rushed into my cheeks. I was glad the club was so dark, so he wouldn't see me turning pink. Was I embarrassed? Flattered? I didn't know. But Beau's secret wasn't obvious at all. I never would've guessed he ever thought I was attractive.
Beau pulled me closer, into the heat his large body radiated. “What? Can you blame me? The fish-nets, the lingerie? Shit was hot as hell.”
“You sure had a funny way of showing it …”
Beau noticed my glass had gone empty. He grabbed it and poured me another.
I eyed the glass suspiciously. Did I really want to keep drinking with Beau and his buddies? I was already good and tipsy.
Hell, I was tipsy enough that I could put aside my intense dislike of Beau for long enough that I almost enjoyed rehashing old times. I was tipsy enough that sitting so close to Beau, with his muscular arm around me, his scent all around me, was strangely comforting. Even though I knew I shouldn't feel that way.
Where was this road leading us?
Fuck it.
I grabbed the glass and took a drink.