“I’m not sure,” I admit. “I’ve never had a boyfriend before.”
“Boy. Friend.” He pronounces the syllables one at a time, wrapping his lips around them. He doesn’t recognize the shape of the brand-new word in his mouth, and I don’t think either one of us likes the fit.
“I saved myself the day I left home, and I continue to do so every single day that I don’t go back. The worst parts—the parts I’m scared of the most, even after all this time and despite everything we’re going through, have already happened.” I rise on my knees, raking my fingers through his hair. He falls into me, and I drag my nose up his neck from his rapid pulse to the soft spot below his ear and say, “I’m a little less afraid of the dark when I’m with you. That isn’t failure. It’s a miracle.”
“I won’t be able to let you go,” he admits. His arms close around me, and the tingling, frantic feeling bubbles under my skin.
“Good,” I say, pressing salty kisses from his jaw to his lips. I whisper into his mouth, “Because the only thing that scares me now is losing you.”
“You don’t know what you’re asking for.”
“Then tell me what happens after they make you a gangster, Wilder.” My hands come to his sides, where muscles move under my palms as his breathing changes from slow and smooth to hurried. I trace his mouth with my tongue, kissing over his stubbled chin, and back down his neck. “Is it like the movies? Will we have to hide cash in the walls and have pet tigers?”
He laughs, following my journey down his body until I’m back on my calves, slipping my fingers under the waistband of his shorts. He says, “None of that is real. We don’t hide cash in walls anymore, we invest in legitimate companies and use offshore accounts. And tigers are on my HOA’s list of banned animals. My neighbors would have a fit.”
I hum, unleashing Wilder’s cock from its confines. Rubbing my cheek along the shaft, I ask, “Then what’s the point?”
The edge of his mouth curves up, and he blinks slowly over eyes that have turned into the color of thunderstorms. He wets his lips, running his thumb under my bottom lip, and we have the same idea. I lick from the base of his length to the head as he says, “I already told you. I’m going to kill them.”
Seconds, minutes, hours later, Wilder’s stretched across the bench press, flat on his back, and I can’t decide if I want him to come on my face or in my mouth. Toes tingling, my knees sink into the floor, and my legs are numb. I take him all the way down my throat as heat blossoms between my thighs, throbbing when Wilder lifts his hips to meet my lips.
His chest expands with breath, and his abs flex upon an exhale. I slide my hand up his body as far as I can reach, grazing his feverish heartbeat with the tips of my fingers before dragging my nails down his stomach. He captures my wrist before I pull away, lacing our fingers together as a stream of cum shoots across my tongue.
Taking him deeper, I close my lips around the thickness of his cock, inhaling through my nose not to choke on the size. The veins that run up and down his length fill up with blood and contract as he comes, coating my tongue, my teeth, and my throat. I swallow every ounce he spills into me, licking the last drop from the tip.
His arms hang from the side of the bench, knees apart, breathless and sated. “You’re fucking amazing, Camilla.”
I wipe my mouth on the back of my hand and say, “I know.”
We eat breakfast at the kitchen table, sharing a bowl of fruit and another pot of coffee before Wilder gives me an official tour of the house. He shares the code to the front door and shows me how to engage and disengage the home security system.
“I’ll add your name to the approved guest list at the gate,” he says. “That way you can come and go as you please.”
I’m sitting at the edge of the pool with my feet in the heated water when Talent calls. Wilder’s laptop is open and multiple files are spread out on a table under the pergola. There’s an ink pen over his ear and a whiskey on the rocks in his hand, still shirtless in his workout clothes. Depending on what job he’s working on from home today, he’s either a business lawyer checking numbers for the clients he represents or a mafioso drawing up a kill list.
Oddly enough, I’m at ease with both.
He puts the call on speaker, and Talent apologizes immediately. He knows Wilder wanted the day off, but John Michael Lucky III has requested dinner before his flight back to New York this evening. “To thank us for our hospitality,” Talent says with a laugh. “Mom’s rolling in her fucking grave.”
Wilder’s eyes shift from his laptop to his phone, frowning disapprovingly. “No.”
“Is Camilla there?” Talent asks. My heart rate quickens, and I kick my feet, stirring waves across the water. A non-answer is confirmation enough, and Talent adds, “You never stood a chance, Wild. I hope you now understand why I didn’t either.”
Another frown, another non-answer. Wilder only says, “I’m not leaving her.”
Today feels more like spring than winter. It’s an unseasonably warm December day, weeks away from Christmas. I’ve noticed the holiday decorations popping up around the city, strings of lights nailed around rooflines, and the rotation of Christmas songs on the radio. Television shows are broken up by commercials selling everything from new cars with big red bows on the hoods to Santa’s choice of soft drink. But Christmas is just another holiday I can easily forget, made easier by the sun perched high in the bleached sky. I turn my face toward the fireball, and everything behind my closed eyelids turns red.
“Trust me, I know,” Talent says. “It’s really fucking hard to leave them, especially during a time like this. But Lucky is one less thing we’ll have to worry about once he leaves. Get through this dinner and take the rest of the week off. Come back Monday, but I need you tonight. I can’t do this without you.”
I open my eyes one at a time, squinting against the glaring sunlight and hold my hand at my brow like a visor. “Take me back to the apartment.” Wilder turns his frustrated scowl on me, and Talent knows better than to interfere. “Drop me off and have dinner with your brother. I’ll pack some things to stay the weekend, and you can pick me back up on your way home. I don’t even have shoes here, Wilder,” I say when his frown deepens. “And Lydia’s mad at me. It’ll give me a chance to talk to her.”
“She’s so fucking pissed,” Talent says, adding fuel to the fire.
“Oh, shut up.” I laugh.
As if the entire conversation hasn’t happened, Wilder ends the call and goes back to his work. But his conscience gets the best of him, and it’s not long before the loyalty he carries for his brother and his obligation to Ridge & Sons triumph. He plucks the pen from over his ear and tosses it end over end across the table, slamming his laptop closed.
Wilder drops me off at the apartment a few hours later. We’re quite the pair, a spectacle that blogs, vlogs, and social media rags could have a field day with.
