Page 97 of His to Seduce
My nose twitched as I breathed heavily. I just wanted a taste, needed to see how she was.
After the party. I wouldn’t ruin this for Suzanne or Jackson, who, when I looked at him, was watching me with intensity. Guarding me, testing me…examining to see if I was good enough.
I wasn’t. Camden and I were a freaking mess apart. Individually, we had a lot of shit to figure out. Together, I knew we’d conquer anything.IfI hadn’t screwed everything up.
Ifshe could handle being with the man who would someday run McGregor Motors. Because I’d done it. I’d gone to the office last week, stepped inside Grant’s office, toured the building, clapped hands with men who had known me since I played pee-wee football.
And I’d felt at home. Back to exactly where I’d known I belonged since the first time I walked into that building, holding my mom’s hand, my dad’s face beaming with pride when we’d surprised him for lunch on a day off from school.
Everything settled into my chest that day and soon, I’d return. The prodigal son. The lost sheep.
Who gave a fuck about labels? None of it meant shit if I didn’t have Camden to come home to after a day of work. If I didn’t have her silky skin next to me, behind me, beneath me…
Hell.I was getting hard just thinking of the possibilities. The things I still wanted to do to her.
A door sliding open jarred my attention and I jerked to it…hoping.
Deflategate had nothing on me when all I saw was Paige. “Boys…present time.”
She sang the words, excitement ringing loud and clear in her lyrical voice.
Like pigs to a slaughter, every one of us groaned as we walked single file to our doom. To diapers and tiny outfits and swings and breast pumps. I shuddered and followed the rest of the men, hanging back when they went to their women.
I searched for Camden first, unable to help myself, for another glance of her.
Her eyes met mine when I entered the room. Her hands went to her hair, brushing it off her shoulders. Exposing her neck, and I wanted my lips on that neck again.
A faint pink crept up her neck to her cheeks. I followed the wave of heat on her skin knowing it was me, from so far away, making her feel that.
Her lips parted. No sound came out. A simplehimouthed in my direction. A flicker of a finger wave just above her waist.
She might as well have told me she loved me. Two little letters. One simple word.
A fucking declaration of love if I’d ever heard one.
I pressed for more, scrubbed a hand down my scruffy face, and wished I would have shaved. She liked my smoothed cheeks.I miss you,I mouthed back.
Her lashes fluttered, long and thick. She nodded, like she’d known that anyway, and stepped back, turning to Chelsea.
Metal fork on glass tinkled through the air and Chelsea raised a glass of champagne. “Let’s get this baby party started!”
—
It was hell. So close and yet so far away. I clung to her timidhilike it was a lifeline and tried to enjoy myself, but who was I kidding? Sitting next to Declan and Trina on a couch while all the women oohed and ahhed and cooed over every tiny, pale-blue and -green outfit along with every crazy baby-rearing device to known to man was a certain hell no man should suffer.
Where had we gone so wrong?
Every time Camden shifted, I noticed. Every push of hair behind her ear, ankle crossing and recrossing, every laugh she made, and every clap of her hands and squeal of excitement cemented one thing.
I wanted her knocked up. Mine. In a home we bought for us and with the largest rock I could find on her finger.
She had made me crazy.
I didn’t care.
As the shower finally came to an end, she bent down and began scooping up wrapping paper. Wadded it into balls and tossed it in garbage bags while Chelsea, sweet and good and kind Chelsea, turned into a sergeant, barking orders at everyone with a dick. She directed us with precision, and by the time the last present was loaded, the living room was spotless.
“You taking off?” I asked Jackson, shaking his hand as he met me at the door.
