Both of Her Read online

  “So soft,” he whispers. “Do you feel this? How you deserved to be caressed, then devoured.”

  “Mmhmm,” I state through my foggy haze.

  His hands feel rough against my delicate skin. They are controlled and sensual. He startles me when he brings my toes in his mouth, nipping and sucking them. A divine sensation shoots from my toes to my very center. He hasn’t even touched me where I want him, yet all I want to do is slide my own hand down to relieve the pressure building inside of me. I lie still, letting him move from one leg to the other.

  Fingers gliding, hands kneading into my flesh.

  “Fuck, you’re just as sweet smelling as I remember.”

  I’m in such a state of euphoria. I had no idea he had dropped to his knees on the floor, my legs over his shoulders and his mouth inches away from my bare pussy.

  “Oh god, Camden,” I choke out when his tongue swipes up my center.

  “Not a word, Luca. All I want to hear are the sounds of when you come.”

  His glorious tongue enters me, moving slow lazy circles against my inner walls, scratching an itch I never knew I had. As I release a moan, he removes his tongue and I holler out and whimper at the loss, but it’s quickly replaced with a finger. His mouth moves to my clit, biting the hard bud. It’s zero degrees outside, but here in my apartment it feels like a hundred. Sweat forms between my breasts and across my brow.

  One finger starts to pump in and out, while his mouth works my clit. His tongue is licking and sucking, then he stops and blows a breath across my hypersensitive nub, before repeating the process all over again. I feel his other hand squeezing one cheek of my ass, moving closer to the small puckered hole. He gives me no warning before sliding a finger inside my backside. I arch my back at the arousal this causes me. The sensation of him sinking one finger in my pussy and the other in my ass, while his mouth is on my clit takes me to a state of sexual euphoria I have never felt before. It’s a feeling I cannot even begin to describe. I let myself feel and I feel like I’m building up to float freely in the air. My muscles clamp down around his finger in my pussy. I moan and I nearly come out of my skin when my orgasm seizes me by surprise, in speeds as fast as my racing heart is beating. He’s relentless and I pray to the sex gods above for him to never stop his venerations on my pussy, because holy hell, he’s an exceptional idolizer of my body. He does stop though, but only to grab me by my limp arms, hoist me up, and disrobe me of my shirt and bra.

  “I need to touch you.” I reach out to him.

  “You will, but not yet, baby. The minute I have my cock inside of you, that’s when you can touch me all you want,” he says, starting to unbutton his shirt. When he sheds it and pulls his t-shirt over his chest, I gawk, my mouth watering at the thought of licking those abs. He’s beautiful. I mean, if a muscle can grow over the top of another muscle, then his do. Holy Christ. My fingers clench in anticipation to slide over them, my mouth drier than the sandy beaches of Lake Michigan, eager to suck his nipples and trail my fingers down that line of hair to his cock. His pants and boxers go, leaving Camden Steel, the man who has entered my thoughts so many times over the past ten years, a man I never thought I would see again, standing gloriously naked in front of me. “Lay back, Luca.” His voice sounds just as edgy as I feel.

  I move to the center of my bed. Camden grabs all my throw pillows off, two at a time. He yanks my covers out from under me until I’m bared before him on top of my silk sheets.

  Never in my life have I seen a look so predatory, so full of want and need as the look on his face when he climbs on top of me, locking his eyes with mine. “You may not understand this and we can talk more about it later, but I’m telling you know, I will not take you, Luca, until you tell me you will be mine. Until you tell me Lucia is dead. She can no longer exist.” This ultimatum sounds so absurd. Ridiculous even. We haven’t seen each other in years. Hell, we don’t even know each other, yet I can’t help but wonder what it would be like to belong to someone and have them belong to me. Do I really want this? Does he?

  “I… I can let her go.” Words I never thought I would say stumble out of my mouth. Where I can’t believe what I just said, I know that I did say it and mean it. I also know we will talk, because I need to know why – why he wants me.

  Dipping his head, he takes my mouth in his, controlling and owning it. I taste my essence on his tongue and lips. He growls like a madman, plunging his magical tongue in my mouth, twisting my insides into a knot. In this moment, Camden consumes me. All that matters is him.

  “Oh god,” I groan into his mouth when the tip of his dick slides across my over sensitive clit. He chuckles, grinding against me more. He leaves my mouth hanging wide open, panting, as he pulls one of my nipples into his mouth, tweaking the other with his free hand. He spends minutes on each one, driving me to the verge of another orgasm.

  “I need you,” I say.

  “I want you,” he says, right before he guides himself into me. He’s so big. So thick. I’m stretched to capacity. Indulging in a sexual, carnal bliss when he slowly begins to move. This isn’t about fucking or an instant orgasm. This is about how we both make each other feel. I feel safe, secure, willing to lose myself in this emotional moment.

  My hands run down his spine, navigating to cup his firm ass, pulling him deeper into me. His strokes long and slow. My eyes are closed from allowing myself to feel, but when they flutter open, he’s gazing down upon me, watching me intently with his piercing eyes. He thrusts into me hard and I gasp, my hips moving up to meet his.

  “Fuck, babe, I’ve dreamt of this moment forever, never once thinking it would happen. Never did I think I would see the woman who captivated me and never left my mind all those years ago.”

  I’m speechless. Unsure how to respond, I bring a hand up to cup his square jaw. He never forgot me either; his words uncovering memories of pleasure only the two of us share.

  Our movements synchronized from slow and steady to fast and hard. Grinding, groaning, and centering on each other’s pleasure. I’m on the cusp of coming when he picks up his speed. Tilting my pelvis higher to increase the friction, I explode at the same time Camden Steel spills himself inside of me.

  ***

  “I remember this sweatshirt. I wanted to bring it up when I first walked in last night, but your ass in those jeans distracted me.” He lifts a catchy brow. He tosses the sweater at me after his appraisal, knocking me off guard. We both fell asleep shortly after I wound my legs around his waist as he took me hard and fast, while he sat straight up against the headboard of my bed. I rode him just as hard, pulling up and crashing back down repeatedly until it felt like our bodies were somehow joined together in an unending way.

  “I remember it too,” I say, folding it neatly across my lap. I’m happily sore in all the right places, but my mind is sullen, not from regret over what happened between the two of us, but more over the fact that I feel like I gave in too easy. I told him I would give up one of the things I cherish most. It’s not giving up the sex with other men I’m concerned about. I know Camden can fulfill every fantasy and carnal act I can conjure up. It’s the thrill of it that I’ll miss. The idea of someone catering to my every need. The touch of silk sliding across my body as I slip into a gown bought for me. To trace my neck with my fingers, admiring the way an emerald necklace lays perfectly at the base of my throat. It’s a craving like any drug; I need it. I want it and unquestionably desire it. To give in is so unlike the woman I am. I feel lost this morning, like I don’t even know who I am and that outweighs the attentiveness of Camden Steel.

  ELEVEN

  “It’s snowing and blowing hard out there. How in the hell can you stand it here?” he scowls, lifting his hands in the air. I twist my lips at him and he looks back out the window.

  “I can’t,” I strike back harshly. Those are the first words I’ve really spoken to him since I stepped out of the shower an hour ago. I’ve been avoiding him the best I could by making coffee, before excusing m
yself by going into my home office stating I needed a little time to make a few phone calls.

  I collapsed against my door, dropping to the floor, and made a single call to Carl telling him everything. I told him I can’t do this, I can’t do what I promised the night before. I cannot fly out on a whim and expect to have a relationship with a man I barely even know. A man I only spent a few days with ten years ago. It’s ludicrous. I’m not a fly by the seat of your pants woman. I like order. I need purpose. I need both of her. Not a man. And what did my best and oldest friend in the world tell me? The opposite of what I expected him to say. He told me this was a sign. I laughed at that one and then repeated his words back to him.

  “A sign for what exactly?”

  “A sign that you need to stop. For some unknown reason the two of you have found each other again. Don’t you find that to be a coincidence?” he questioned.

  For fifteen minutes we bantered back and forth, me coming up with excuses why I should tell Camden to leave and due to our current circumstances, I don’t feel comfortable helping him market his business, but I would be more than happy to refer him to another firm. Then Carl pulled my feet right out from under me when he said for me to give it a week before thinking I’m not meant to be with Camden, so now, here I stand in my kitchen in another snow storm feeling like I’ve been struck by the Deja vu goddess.

  “You’ve been avoiding me, Luca.” Camden slinks up beside me. He’s close, but not close enough to touch me. He’s in a pair of dark jeans, a black sweater, and black socks. He looks so cozy, like this is his comfort zone. Even though seconds ago he basically stated he hated the cold.

  “Yes, no. I don’t know.” I shrug.

  “Hmm.” He cages me in again. This seems to be a habit, this caging me in so I feel the need to either swallow my pride and surrender or stiffen my spine and put a stop to it.

  “I did have to make a call. It’s done,” I say blankly.

  “What’s done?” He runs his hand down my cheek. God damn it, when he does sweet things like that, I lose focus. I shiver, not from the cold, but from his touch. I need away from him if we are going to talk about this. I duck under his long lean arm like a slinky sneaky cat. With an unladylike snort, I dodge from his grasp, twirling around, my hands held up in surrender. “Listen please.” I beg mercifully.

  “Alright.” He mocks me by holding up his hands in surrender as well.

  Taking a deep breath, I say, “You have to know how hard this is for me to walk away from a life I enjoy, Camden.” Instantly, his face turns pale. Camden looks like I’ve just struck him in the chest. I think of how my words must have sounded to him. He thinks I mean the sex and that truly isn’t it at all. Day one and I’ve already fucked it all up.

  I sigh. “It’s not what you’re thinking. It’s just, it’s all I know. She’s a part of me, Camden, and I feel like I’m grieving. I’m swallowing her for a man I barely know.” He gazes between me and the floor, remorse written all over his handsome face.

  “The life you lead is entirely my fault. I’m the one who showed you, told you about all the finer things a woman deserves in her life. I just never knew you would really take me up on it.” He scowls before continuing, “You deserve everything I told you a stunning woman like you should have, but not this way, Luca. Somewhere along the way you’ve lost yourself. The true you, the “carefree, I don’t give a shit about the way I look” Luca. The woman who stole my heart when I laid next to her peacefully sleeping in my arms. The woman I can give those things to. Me. Not someone else.”

  I pinch my brows together. I’m so damn confused. So exhausted, I don’t know what to think about anything anymore, except god I want to try. With him. “How old are you?” I probe, cocking my head to the side.

  “Old enough?” he smirks.

  “Seriously. Come on?”

  “I’m thirty-seven.”

  Thinking about our age difference, I wonder what the hell he’s been doing for the past ten years.

  “What is it?” he asks. “Why do you look like you are trying to come up with the answers to all of life’s questions?”

  I smile softly at Camden. It’s not something I want to think about. For some reason, it feels like we just picked up where we left off a decade ago, but that can’t be. I have to know what he’s done with his life. In an instant, he proved to me that I should stop my life as Lucia, for now, to see where this goes and yet, I know nothing about his life.

  “Who have you been with all this time? You couldn’t have been waiting for me all alone.” I urge him to talk with a little nudge to his side.

  He looks chagrined and I can’t help but cringe on the inside.

  “My life hasn’t been all roses, Luca. It’s been hard. I was a total playboy before I first met you. I didn’t care how many women I had been with. Then, that weekend with you was something I’d never experienced before. I felt powerful and in control. I felt like I meant something to someone. It was a trip that I’ll never forgot.” He sighs and I look at him with expectation.

  “So,” I say. “What did you do after we went our separate ways?”

  He rubs his chin with his palm and looks at me like he is a little boy.

  “I dated again. I went out with women, but for at least a year, I couldn’t…you know,” he trails off.

  “Couldn’t what?” I ask with a devious smile on my face. He grabs a comb off the table nearby and throws it at my chest. I laugh and his eyes melt onto mine. He loves me. I can feel it.

  “I never came with any of those women. I don’t know what you did to me, but after that, I stopped having sex with them once they were satisfied. When I realized there was no way I would get off, I found a reason to leave.”

  “Wow,” I say, my eyes wide and heart pounding from his admission.

  “After that, I met with women who only resembled you while I started to semi-seriously look for you. Sometimes, I called out your name during sex and sometimes those women didn’t really care when I did it. It wasn’t a life that I am proud of.”

  “You did that for ten years?” I ask in shock.

  He shook his head with an intense scowl on his face. “No way. I think my junk might have fell off if I did.”

  We both laugh.

  “I met a woman named Francis about three years after meeting you. She was amazing, but I fell in love with her for all the wrong reasons. She was a student, nearly fifteen years younger than me. She was a lot like you. Driven, sensual, and loved to have things that I provided for her. We were together for four years. We traveled and I even met her parents. It took a long time to warm up to those two.” He shrugs and I feel…jealous. So fucking jealous that I want to find this Francis girl and rip every hair out of her perfect head. He was mine first.

  “She was killed in a car accident about three years ago. She was traveling to see me in California and a semi clipped the front of her car and sent it into a tail spin.”

  My breath left my lungs as shock overtakes me. I feel like throwing up. Senseless and stupid I am for being jealous of a dead woman. How shallow am I really? What kind of fucking life have I been living? I feel like such a fucking bitch and there isn’t anything I can do to redeem myself.

  “What? How? Are you ok?” I stammer out my reply. I am lost in thought of whatever he must’ve felt at losing her, as he watches me with intensity, causing a stir of emotions like nothing I’ve felt from a man…ever.

  “I’m okay now. The first year was really tough. Her parents blamed me for her death, because if I wasn’t trying to start Steel Charter, I might’ve gone to her that weekend. We were living with one another, but we still kept separate places due to my company traveling. When I traveled, I didn’t always take her along, but once I was back in San Francisco, I stayed with her most of the time. That weekend I took a meeting in Los Angeles and instead of flying, she decided to drive to meet me. I have to believe she wanted some time to think on the drive. She loved quiet, alone time. She was an introvert in some way
s, but her brain was magnificent. She really worked hard to be independent.”

  I slowly approach Camden, lying my hand on his chest, and placing my lips to his chin. “I’m so sorry, Camden.”

  He wraps his arms around me and snuggles his face into the nook of my neck. He inhales and exhales over and over, relaxing into me. We hug for long, long moments and I feel his warmth flowing into my body. It was the thing I felt the most from him when I was younger. It was his willingness to take me into his arms and protect me. He loved on me in the short time we had together and made me feel like I was special. That never went away as his hold on me shows, and my God, if he is back here for me so he can provide that to me, then I am ready to be protected, loved, and cherished. In the same way, I want to protect him to and make him feel the things he makes me feel. Show him our love and commitment is a two way street.

  “Are you ready to be with me now?” he asks into the warmth of my neck.

  I nod.

  “Thank God,” he whispers, pulling me up into his arms and carrying me back to my bed, where we stay entwined in one another until long after the snow ends. The indescribable feelings I have for Camden are strong and for the first time in years, I am happy to finally stay put with one person for as long as he’ll have me.

  TWELVE

  Camden is reluctant to let me go back to work, but I know he is busy with Steel Charter and he knows I’m equally as busy. He says that his next step is to relocate the headquarters from San Francisco to Chicago, to be closer to me. He says he needs to be near me, wherever that is.

  When I open my eyes Monday morning, I find a cup of coffee on my nightstand and a wet, naked man coming out of a steamy shower.

  “Damn, Camden,” I groan. “Don’t you know I have to go work on numbers and projections all day? How will I be able to get the vision of you out of my head to get anything done?”

  “Aw, baby,” he croons as he starts to towel himself off. “I feel the same way. If I touch any part of you right now, we won’t be going anywhere today. I still have to fuck you up against the window in your family room. Watch those perfects tits of yours bounce up against the cold glass, your mouth open, screaming for my cock while I make that addicting pussy or delectable ass mine again.”