Is everything ok?

She didn’t send a reply text.

What’d she get caught up in now?

Cameron combed the house. The housekeeper had been through earlier, so it wasn’t a total sty. Once the house achieved a passable state of cleanliness, Cameron jumped into the shower. He’d just finished dressing when a festive carillon of bells pealed, announcing his guest.

Grinning, he answered the door.

An angry streak of red and white plaid whirred past him before he could open his mouth. “I swear, you can bend over backwards for someone and still end up getting stabbed in the back.”

He blinked, failing to follow her logic. “Happy Thanksgiving to you too.”

Tess rubbed her eyes. “I’m sorry, Cam. Happy Thanksgiving. I didn’t mean to just barge in you on like this. I’ve just had twenty-something blocks to stew on this.”

“Twenty blocks?” He scowled, taking in her windblown hair and red, chill-stung cheeks. “You walked?”

She shrugged. “I left in a hurry and didn’t bring money for the train.”

“Or a coat.” He dragged her into him and touched her jaw. Her skin felt like ice. “Jesus, Tess. You’re freezing.”

“And you’re so warm.” He flinched as she tucked her cold face into his neck.

“Come on.” Snaking an arm around her waist, Cameron led her to his room. He swiped a blanket from his closet and secured it around her shoulders. “I’ll be right back.”

Taking a seat at the head of the bed, she nodded and blew through her cupped hands.

Cameron loped down the stairs to the mini bar. Although his parents owned the place, they rarely stayed over. His mother preferred the house in Nassau for entertainment purposes and his father had a bought an apartment closer to his firm’s Midtown office a few years ago.

He prepped her drink and made his way back upstairs. Swaddled in a sea of blue cashmere, Tess was where he’d left her.

Cameron handed her the mug. “Watch out. It’s hot.”

“Thanks.” She held the cup under her nose and let steam perforate her shriveled pores. “What’d you put in it?”

“Amaretto, Kahlua, vanilla, and cocoa powder.”

With a cooling breath, she brought it to her lips. Her approving moan jolted straight to his cock. Her eyes closed as her mouth hooked into a serene smile. “This is amazing.”

Cameron adjusted his line of sight, and his pants, before sprawling next to her. “What’s wrong?”

Her shoulders curled inward defensively. Cameron listened as she recounted the sordid details of the dinner. By the end, moisture clumped her lashes. “I just don’t understand what she wants from me,” she warbled and placed the empty mug on his nightstand.

Cameron tugged her down. She collapsed into his arms without protest. “If you want my unprofessional opinion, I think your mom just wants you to accept who she is.”

“I have.”

“Really?”

“Mostly. It’s not like I say anything about her sham marriage.”

“Ah, ah, that’s judging. You wouldn’t do that if you really accepted her.”

“I guess.” Tess rubbed her eyes. “I just can’t believe she told me to move out.”

“It’s not like she kicked you out.”

“She may as well have,” she intoned.

“What do you want?” he asked. “Do you want to move out?”

“I can barely afford to pay the college’s room and board. I’m not really in a position to fly the coop just yet.”

“Whatever you choose to do, you know you always have a place here,” he said offhandedly.

She looked up at him. “I couldn’t impose on you like that.”

“I don’t care. And it’s not like my parents are ever here.” He nuzzled the juncture of her shoulder. “It would just be us,” Cameron mouthed into her skin.

She shivered, his lips burning through her faster than the alcohol. “Don’t you think it’s a little soon to be moving in together?”

“I’m just saying. Worst case scenario.”

“So me living with you would be a worst case scenario,” she teased.

“I don’t know.” He rubbed his chin. “A live-in maid doesn’t sound like a bad deal.”

Tess laughed. “I’m not washing your dirty boxers.”

Cameron brought her forward until their noses bumped. “I’d pay you. In sex.”

Her breathing became ragged. “I don’t know. I’d need a demonstration first.”

Smiling, Cameron closed in. Her mouth was petal soft, just like the rest of her, including the parts she hid. He loved that she entrusted those pieces of herself to him. He alone knew the girl beneath the tough exterior.

Their lips moved lazily against one another, languishing in drowsy warmth. His hands sifted through her glossy curls as their tongues mingled.

She tasted of chocolate, toasted almond, and sweet liqueur. Heat rode hard through him. The cells in his body expanded, hard wiring every synapse to her. She called out to him in the most natural of ways: the rapid tattoo of her heartbeat fluttering against his chest, the wandering course of her hands, the wild, heady scent of wild berries.

Suddenly just kissing wasn’t enough.

They kicked off the blanket and struggled laughingly to divest each other of their shirts.

Cameron drizzled kisses along the centerline of her flat abdomen. She giggled as his tongue swiveled into her navel. Grinning into her skin, he ran a hand up her smooth leg. “Mm, prickly.”

She laughed. “Shut up!” He evaded her weak attempt to hit him. Mouth latching back onto her skin, he shifted operations northbound.

His eyes lifted to hers in askance when he came to her bra.

“Allow me.” In no time, Tess shed the lacy contraption and pulled him on top of her. Although they’d passed second base weeks ago, the electric shock of her bare breasts pressed against his chest made his erection swell hotter, tighter.

He sucked softly on her bottom lip before nipping a path down her neck.

He drifted over the delicate arch of her collarbone. For a second, another man’s marks mottling her skin filled his vision. Tamping the dark, primitive urge to mark his territory, Cameron redirected himself to her bare breasts.

Ample and perky, they’d haunted his fantasies long before they’d gotten together.

His mouth closed over her coral-tipped nipple. Hissing, her hands plunged into his hair. He coaxed the curious bud until it hardened under his tongue before biting and tugging lightly. Her body trembled under him.

He ignored the painful throb of his arousal, intent on driving her to the brink. Cameron kept his eyes centered on hers as his hand ventured between her satiny thighs. Her erratic breaths seized. Her tendons shuddered with anticipation as he drew closer to her dark, welcoming heat.

His phone’s ringtone disrupted the moment.

“Ignore it.” The need garbling her voice nearly led to his undoing.

“Planning on it.” Cameron reached over to silence the cell. Paralysis delayed the action at the name aglow on the screen. If she was calling it could only mean one thing. He answered without preamble. “What is it?”

“Where are you?”

“In the city. Why?”

“He’s out of control and I don’t know what to do.” Despite the measured cadence of her words, he sensed the undertone of desperation. “Someone already threatened to call the cops. He won’t calm down. Maybe he’ll listen to you.”

Was it so much to ask that Adonis behave himself for one night? “I’m a little busy at the moment. Can it wait?”

“No, Cam. It can’t. Please.”

The sonorous plea booted his lethargic conscience from inertia. Maybe Adonis would be better off in police custody because he was two seconds from killing the man himself. “Fine,” he gritted. “Stay put. I’ll be there in fifteen.” Cameron hung up. “I’ve got to go.”

Tess burrowed her fingers into his hair and grazed his scalp with her nails. “What’s wrong?”

Aggravation puddling under her touch, he dropped his forehead against her stomach. His body ached to finish what they’d started. God, he wanted her more than anything, but fate seemed cruelly determined to shorthand him.

“It’s nothing I can’t handle.” With a gargantuan amount of willpower, Cameron pried himself away. “Stay here until I get back?”

“I’ll think about it.”

He threw on a shirt and stole one last kiss. “I’ll make it up to you. I promise.”

“You’d better.” Her smile vanished the instant she heard the front door slam.

Body wound tight, Tess wanted to break something. Of all the times to be interrupted. Her only consolation was that Cameron had been equally pissed off, if not more.

How, after all these weeks, was their relationship still floundering within the bounds of the PG-13 category? It was just unnatural. If it wasn’t one thing, it was another: wrong timing, mismatched schedules, et cetera. She was beginning to think they would never have sex.

If she were being completely honest with herself, a part of her was relieved they’d yet to venture beyond the point of no return. As much as she craved it, apprehension lingered in the back of her mind. Sex always changed things. Once they did the deed, there’d be no turning back.

What if they didn’t work out? At least now there was still time to back out.

Or maybe she was being a coward.

Sighing, Tess snapped on her bra and reached for the remote. There was nothing like a little mindless television to put her uncertainties to rest. She was twenty minutes deep into a documentary about meerkats when the doorbell rang.

Who could that be?

Tess fumbled for her sweater and spryly hopped off the bed. “Hold your horses,” she grumbled as the doorbell continued its obnoxious refrain. She opened the door to an empty stoop.

On the other side of the sidewalk, Cameron’s visitor argued with the cabbie that’d presumably dropped him off.

Her eyes narrowed as the guy flung a fistful of cash and expletives in the driver’s face. There was only one person with that much audacity.

“Hey, fuck you, crazy asshole!” Snatching the money off the ground, the cabbie flipped him off.

“Is this what you do now?” she inquired as the cab tore off into traffic. “Terrorize cabbies at all hours of the night?”

Adonis swung around at the sound of her voice, his expression a cross between appalled and indignant. “Why are you here? Fuck it. I already know. Just couldn’t wait to get into his pants, could you?” He surged past her into the house, reeking of booze and cigarette smoke. “Where is he?”

Her mind spun from the rapid-fire interrogation. “I don’t know. Something came up and he took off.” And now she had an idea why. He paced the foyer like a caged panther. “Are you ok?”

Aiming a venomous look at her, he disappeared down the hallway. Seconds later, Lamb of God’s Bloodletting crashed through the townhouse’s thin walls.

And this would be the whipped cream on top of a Thanksgiving trifecta of clusterfucks. Grinding her teeth, Tess locked up and searched him out. At least he had decent taste in music.

Behind the bar, he used a crystal carafe to fill shot glasses lined up in a row. “You want to play a game? Let’s play a game,” he babbled, sliding a few glasses in her direction. “How about it? Cups? Kings? What about bourbon pong?”

She didn’t know how he managed to fit so many sentences in one breath. This must be a manic episode: the elevated mood, excitement, and forced speech. And judging by the smell of him, booze had only exacerbated his condition. “How much have you had to drink?”

His head flung back with laughter. “What does it matter? Why does anything matter?” He chugged the shots one after the other without pause.

The lunatic! Was he trying to kill himself?

Tess lunged for the carafe. Foreseeing her intention, he snatched the bottle out of her reach and bared his teeth in a maniacal grin. She didn’t need a differential diagnosis. He was certifiable. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Do you want to end up back in the ER?”

“As long as it means you giving me mouth-to-mouth. Want to practice?” he husked, flipping the script. “You can pretend you don’t want another round, but I know better.” Adonis leaned over the bar on his forearms. “You two haven’t fucked yet, have you?”

Shock gusted past her barriers at his brazenness. “My sex life is none of your business.”

“What sex life?” he snorted. “I’m the only one you’ve been with for months.”

Red blotched her face. “Shut up!”

“Ha! I knew I was right. You’re all wound up with no way to come. What’s wrong? Cammie can’t get it up?” His grin darkened. “Or can you already tell he won’t be able to satisfy you? Not like I can. Why do you think his girls come to me? Ask and you shall receive.” He stalked around the bar like a predator cornering its prey.

Paralyzed, Tess held her breath as he stopped a hair’s width away, so close she could feel the electricity stitching through her body. “Any way, anywhere, and however many times you want it. He’ll never have to know. What do you want me to do?” Adonis whispered into her ear. “Eat you out until it starts to hurt? Fuck you so hard you black out?”

Liquid heat spilled between her thighs. His teeth snagged her lobe, sending an urgent jolt to her groin. She clenched her teeth as she tried to mentally fight off encroaching delirium. Engulfed by the dark, hypnotic undertow of his presence, her brain’s frantic signals were lost.

It would be so much easier to rebuff his advances if she didn't know he was good for it. As wrong as it was, she craved him. Memories of tangled, sweaty limbs and the sweet, stretching fit of him flashed through her, unearthing an ache she desperately hoped would abate in time.

Tess never gave thought to why Cameron failed to rouse the same response. She assumed that their taking things to the next level would resolve the issue. Yes, she was attracted to him, crazily so.

But he could never stoke this raw, this visceral of a reaction.

It had to be the forbidden aspect. Sneaking around behind everyone’s back, lusting for her former tormentor, there had to be some behavioral theory behind her response.

It was unhealthy.

It was sick.

And it only made her want him more.

"You want me so bad I can taste it. I can taste you, Tess." His eyes had taken a hungering, feverish glow, afflicted by the same malady. "I want you.”

Her throat was bone dry. The heat writhing between them was a tangible entity, alive and squirming in wanton entreaty. Her eyes fell to his forearms, the tendons flexing within the tight sheath of skin, evidencing his threadbare restraint.

But she couldn't. She refused to be a slave of desire, even if he looked ready to pick her up and slam her against the nearest wall. Tess retaliated the only way she knew how and lunged for the metaphorical jugular. "Unlike you, I try not to make a habit of betraying the people I love."

Like a thunderhead gathering momentum, black emotion stormed his features. Adonis spun around, cranked the music to a pulverizing decibel, and began refilling all of the shot glasses.

“Adonis, don’t!”

“Who are you to tell me what I shouldn’t do,” he spat contemptuously over the music.

“I just want to help you,” she pleaded. “I know what you’re going through.” Which was why she would try and not hold it against him come morning.

“You don’t know anything so don’t presume otherwise. This is my life. I can do whatever the fuck I want.”

“What about what your family would want?” Tess batted back.

The comment seemed to cast off his nebulous mooring to sanity. Pressurized rage built behind his features until it erupted. “Don’t drag them into this! And stop acting like you give a damn about what happens to me. You’d be more than happy if I dropped dead. Then you could live out your happily ever after with your knight in shining armor. Isn’t that right?”

Talking to him was beginning to feel like a rollercoaster ride, one that she desperately wanted off. “You know that’s not true.”

Before she could stop him, he slung back the shots one by one and hurled each into the wall in sync with the sharp-edged, crushing peaks of the guitar riffs.

She stood by helplessly as he swept the liquor off the shelf with an all mighty roar. Whiskey, bourbon, and vodka cartwheeled midair and crashed onto the hardwood floor. Tess ducked as tumblers and lowballs whizzed past her.

Fear jammed her throat. For the first time, his illness wasn’t just scrolling paragraphs on a computer screen. It was real and in her face and she didn’t know what the hell to do.

Tess fought for calm although every instinct begged her to flee. But she couldn’t leave him. Not like this. Caught in the crossfire of conflicting urges, she screamed, “Why are you doing this?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know! What else do you want from me? What else do you want to know? How I come from a long line of suicidal nutcases? How my grandfather hung himself up in an asylum? How my fucked up mother drove herself and my brother off a cliff?”

Something cold roosted behind her ribs. “What?”

Adonis spun around and gripped the ledge when he caught his reflection in the bar’s mirror. Something about it set him off. With an animalistic snarl, he drove his fist into the mirror, again and again. Blood spurted from his knuckles, smearing the wood-paneled back and glass remains with red.

She’d had just about enough of this madness. Tess ripped herself from the relative safety of the alcove. “I’m calling Cam.” Or better yet, the cops.

The threat seemed to slow him down. He bent forward, a sallow, greenish tint coloring his features.

She recognized the telltale sign of impending sickness. Tess didn’t hesitate and ran to his side as he doubled over. With no small amount of coaxing, she took on half his weight and helped him hobble to the guest bathroom.

They made it just in time.

He dropped to his knees and spewed his guts into the bowl. Why had watching him vomit become a regular occurrence?

Ten minutes passed before he weakly pushed himself away and slumped against the tiled wall.

With him finally settled, her ragged pulse tapered from a hypersonic gallop to a spasmodic trot. Exhaling, she pushed the hair from her face. God, she felt as if she’d just finished a marathon.

Blood coated his right hand. He didn’t object as she carefully inspected the damage. Tiny shards of glass protruded from the open wounds. The scrapes were mostly superficial. They would probably leave nothing more than faint scars, if that, but the glass would have to be extracted.

Tess raided the cabinets beneath the sink for tweezers. She found the first aid box squeezed between bleach and a jumbo pack of sponges. Tess lifted the latch and peered inside. It housed all of the essentials, from cotton swabs to a miniature bottle of hydrogen peroxide.

Thank God for Cam’s dependability.

After removing the particles of glass, Tess grabbed a washcloth and soaked it in lukewarm water and soap. She glanced up, expecting to find him in the same state of semi-consciousness.

Glassy, golden eyes stared at her.

Unsettled by their vacancy, she severed the connection and carried on with the business of sterilizing his scrapes. “I don’t understand why you keep doing this to yourself,” she muttered more so to herself than him.

He surprised her by answering. “Why…why won’t you leave me alone?” he slurred listlessly.

Her patience splintered. “You think I like cleaning up after your messes? Lying to Cameron? All because you’re too much of a chickenshit to say you need help.”

His unblinking gaze continued to bore into her. “Then…why?”

Tess wavered. It was a good question. She should be carousing in his anguish. Turnabout was fair play after all. “I’ll let you know when I figure that one out.” Tess applied peroxide to a few cotton swabs and gently dabbed the cuts. “What happened to them? Your family, I mean” she clarified quietly, mindful of the thin ice she treaded.

Instead of copping an attitude, his voice retained the same robotic resonance. “Didn’t you hear? Psychosis runs in the family.”

Tess smartly switched tactics. “What was your brother’s name?”

“Nikolai.”

“Older? Younger?”

“Older. Two years.”

Tess removed the bandages from the first aid box and began to wrap his hand. “What was he like?”

“Everything I’m not.” Self-recrimination darkened his words. “Loyal. Benevolent. People used to wonder how we were related.”

“I’m sure your brother loved you all the same,” she said, gently steering him away from negativity.

A mirthless half-smile tilted his mouth. “Nothing fazed him, even when I was being a brat. He wanted to be an artist. Like our mother.” His voice flattened. “My father never forgave her for it.”

So creativity did run in the family. “Why?”

The muscle in his jaw twitched and for a second silence reigned as he debated what to reveal to her. “He was grooming Nikolai for bigger things.”

“I saw a few of your projects. In your room.”

“Of course you did.”

“You’re not so bad yourself.”

He said nothing.

“And your mom? What was she like?”

Adonis inhaled deeply. “Beautiful. Volatile. A ticking time bomb. She could be a bundle of energy one minute and the next a sobbing mess.” His eyes fluttered close. “Everyone ignored it, but they all knew something was wrong.”

Tess hesitated as she recalled what he’d revealed earlier. “Why did she do it?”

He didn’t have an answer for it.

Ok, that was a no fly zone. She removed the bandages from the first aid box and began to wrap his hand. “There’s nothing wrong with being bipolar.” Her eyes flicked to his face.

Adonis redirected his attention to the shower. “I don’t have that shit.”

“Then why were you prescribed that medication?”

He didn’t respond immediately and for a moment Tess feared she’d been too aggressive in her probing. “Because they thought I might be cyclothymic.”

Tess had come across the term in her research. It was ‘softer’ version of bipolar disorder. The episodes didn’t last as long and weren’t nearly as destructive. “So why didn’t you take the meds?”

“I’m not like them. Like my family.” There was something heart-achingly vulnerable in the whisper. A truth he didn’t want to acknowledge.

“You can’t let that stop you from getting better,” she said fiercely. “Ignorance isn’t bliss, not in your case. If you leave it untreated, you’ll get worse.”

He graced her with a mirthless half-smile. “Doesn’t matter. They’re all gone. I don’t have anyone left to disappoint.”

Tess gripped his wrist. “You can’t think like that. You’ve got your friends. You’ve got Cam.” Stomach diving, she stepped out on a ledge. “And you've got me.”

His head rotated in her direction. Beneath the shaggy overhang of his bangs, the intensity of his bleared gaze made her suck in a sharp breath. “Do I have you?”

Loaded with subtext, the question immobilized her. Tess wasn’t stupid. Something else hid beneath the skirts of antagonism and sexual tension; a something else that was becoming inescapably evident the more time they spent together. In his incapacitated state, he appeared willing to overlook the invisible demarcation.

Tess fidgeted. On the one hand, loyalty to Cam prevented her from even considering the unimaginable. But there was more to him that met the eye. Despite his circus act of a life and its transient participants, he struck her as lonely. And if there was something she could relate to, it was isolation.

Tess made up her mind. “Yeah. You do.”

His eyelids drifted close. “But you’re not mine to have.”

He was not making this easy. “I can be friends with whomever I want,” she said tactfully.

“Is that what we are? Friends?”

“I guess so.”

He didn’t reject or accept her proposal.

Tess took a moment to study him. There was nothing innocent or boyish about him, even at rest. Clothes rumpled and coal-black hair askew, he looked like a devil glutted on the fat of sin. Everything, from the ruthless cut of his features to the mocking slant of his mouth, insisted that at any moment he’d awaken and shell her with patented contempt.

“You won’t tell him, will you?” The words came slow and thick, as if they had trouble parting from his tongue.

“I won’t.” Tess lightly skirted the puffed, pink skin knitted by several dissolvable stitches where his hairline met his temple. “I don’t know how you’re going to explain this to him.”

“I fell.”

She smiled. “Still sticking with that story?”

“S’the truth.”

She tested the downy softness of his hair. “You’ve got to want to get better, Adonis. Before it’s too late.” Her heartbeat stuttered as he attempted to lean into her touch. Instead, his forehead tumbled into her knee. He lay motionless and for a second Tess thought he’d passed out.

In the subtlest of motions, his head dragged up and down in a sluggish nod. “Ok,” he mumbled tiredly.

A gut-deep warning advised her she was getting too involved. She never should’ve become entangled in his personal drama, eavesdropped on his conversation with the doctor, and most definitely should’ve never shown, let alone felt, the slightest smidgen of empathy for this man.

There would be no turning back now, for better or worse.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-16