Challenge (41 page)

“Does that mean you want to score right now?” I ask and shoot him a lascivious smirk.

“Let’s shoot for a turkey.” He winks and tips me onto my back, moving over top of me on the cab seat. The feel of his mouth on me is heavenly as he kisses and licks my neck in the most delicious ways possible.

When he comes up to claim my lips, I stop him mid-action and whisper, “I have no idea what a turkey is.”

He laughs. Really laughs. And it’s my favourite Tequila Sunrise moment, ever.

After having the cab circle around Camden’s flat to ensure there are no paparazzi, we leap out of the car, both vibrating with a need to touch each other. It’s been only a couple of weeks since we were last intimate, but I already feel the build between my legs for what I know he can give me.

By the time we tumble into his lift, he’s already slipped his hand inside my knickers. “God, Cam!” I brace myself on the side of the lift wall. He’s standing behind me, and the reflection of his hand buried in the front of my scrubs as he nibbles my ear and does that thing to my clit again has me nearly tipping over the edge. “You have to stop. I’m going to fall.”

“I’ll catch you,” his warm breath chuckles in my ear. “God, I missed you, Specs. It’s been too long since I’ve touched you like this,” he says, continuing to defile my vagina with his expert fingers.

“I missed you, too,” I moan and tip my head back on his shoulder.

“I’ve never missed anyone like I missed you. When we were apart, I smelled lemons everywhere I went.”

I close my eyes and drink in his sweet words like the best cup of hot tea.

“I’m going to make you happy, Indie. I’m going to show you there’s more to me. I can do the boyfriend bit if that’s what you want. I’ll show you what we can be together.”

My hand reaches down and stills his movement. I turn my head and look into his eyes. The vulnerable gleam staring back at me has me turning in his arms. He removes his hands from my trousers and holds me around the waist. I can feel his strained erection, but I ignore it because he needs to hear what I’m about to say. “I just want you. I already know there’s more to you. I saw more the day you came rolling into my hospital.”

The corner of his mouth tilts up. “You’re really mine?” he asks, a sad flicker on his face as he awaits my answer.

I cup his face in my hands and press my forehead against his. “As long as you are mine. Now please, make love to me so I can say those words back to you this time.”

He inhales my words with a deep, swirling, simmering kiss that leaves me breathless. When the lift chimes open, he walks me backwards, never detaching his lips from mine. He manages to unlock the door and then pulls me up so my legs wrap around his waist as he carries me to his bedroom.

Everything feels different. Now that I’ve embraced this closeness that I feel for him, it’s as if my heart can finally accept what he’s been showing me all along. Those moments of vulnerability in the hospital; how tender he was with me when we had sex for the first time; how he looked at me when I walked barefoot on the Tower Park pitch.

Before I know it, I’m naked in his bed and he’s on top of me, dropping searing hot kisses on all of my naughty parts. When he comes back up, I wrap my legs around him and grip him between us, stroking the smooth skin of his head against me and staring deeply into his eyes. I have a moment of realisation over how beautiful our first time together really was. He was there for me, just like this. Tuned in to me, tender and caring.
Loving
,
even though neither of us even knew it yet.

He slides into me, and I stare at him despite the overwhelming fullness and wonderful pressure we’re creating between our bodies. His eyes are locked on mine, too. The passion displayed there for me makes my heart expand.

More than I’ve ever felt before.

T
HE NEXT MORNING,
I
’M
not surprised when I come out of my room to find my dad, Booker, Tanner, and Gareth sitting in my kitchen. Booker is propped on a stool at the counter. Tanner is perched on the counter, and Gareth and Dad are occupying two seats at the table. Everybody has coffee in hand.

“It’s not even the day after a match,” I say, striding over to the coffee pot and pouring myself a cup. I empty the last bit and immediately begin making a new pot. “To what do
we
owe this pleasure?”

Tanner’s brows lift knowingly. “Is Indie still here?”

I hit the coffee to brew and turn, leaning back against the counter. “She is. Out cold still.”

“We wanted to talk to you,” Tanner says, shifting nervously on the counter. “I’ll start. We still want you to have the surgery, Cam. Not to play football, but to have the choice to play if you ever want to. I think you’re going to get to a point in your mind when things all click into place, and you’re going to realise this is all just a mental healing that’s happening. Then you’re going to wish you had the graft out so there’s no delay in chasing your dreams. I know what you went through sucked, Cam. I could feel it myself…in ways only a twin brother can. But I think you’re wrong to take football off the table entirely.”

He exhales heavily and looks around at everyone else like he forgot people were here.

“That how you feel, too, Gareth? Booker?”

Gareth replies first. “You’re too good of an athlete to be walking around with something foreign in your body, Camden.”

“I’d just hate to see something bad happen if you leave it in,” Booker adds.

“What do you think, Dad?” I ask, looking over at him and taking a sip from my mug.

“I’m not here to push you into having the surgery. This is something your brothers wanted to do. I thought we should give you space, but since they are all too thick-headed to listen to their old man, I’m just here to referee.”

“You don’t want me to sign that letter of intent?” I ask, quirking a brow at him.

He shifts in his seat, clearly fighting the inner manager inside of him. “Only if you want to.”

“Is that letter of intent even still valid? After that photo got leaked yesterday?”

He purses his lips. “It is…but with some conditions,” he clips out, clearly uncomfortable with this line of questioning.

My brows lift. “So you’ve spoken to them.”

“They rang me,” he replies, and his eyes cast down like he’s ashamed for taking the call.

“What are the conditions?”

He sighs. “Camden, we don’t have to discuss this now.”

“What are the conditions?”

He clears his throat. “They want you and Dr. Porter to do an interview with a high-level tabloid. Nothing sleazy.
Vanity Fair
or
Hello!
magazine to explain your relationship. Take the seediness out of it and put some good PR out there for the team and the hospital. That’s when you’d announce your new position as a Gunner.”

“Is that it?” I ask and all of my brothers’ heads snap to me in shock.

Dad shrugs. “Pretty much. There are some monetary negotiations I have to discuss with you, but…Camden, I’m sorry…What are you saying right now?”

I take a drink and set my mug down. “I’m saying that I’m already having the surgery as soon as they call me back with the new scheduled time. I’m even letting that prat, Dr. Prichard, do it just so they don’t look at Indie any more negatively than they already are.” I exhale a deep breath as what I’m about to say becomes a huge declaration in my mind and my heart. “And even though I’ll probably bleed green and white my whole life…red is a great colour on me.”

“Fuck yes!” Tanner exclaims, leaping off the counter and hugging me ferociously. “You’re going to be a Gunner? Bloody hell, Booker, Bethnal better move up next season because I’m ready for a chance to kick Cam’s arse on the pitch. Dad, I don’t want to be a striker anymore. I want to be a defender. Gareth, you lucky sod. You better crush him when they play Man U.”

Gareth does that whole shoulder-shaking laugh thing and Booker’s eyes light up like a Christmas tree. Dad watches me from the table as my brothers all hug me with congratulations. When they’re done being the dramatic footballers they are, he stands up and walks over to me.

Putting his hand on my shoulder, he eyes me hard and says, “Did you find your passion again, Son?”

I smile back and a softness creeps into my chest. “I think I found a couple.”

I
WAKE COMPLETELY WRAPPED UP
in Camden. His braced leg is tucked between my bare legs, and his arms hold me from behind. Every piece of my exposed skin is nearly encompassed by his.

I think I’ve got the hang of this spooning bit
, I think to myself.

I separate from his grasp and slip out of bed with a big naked stretch. I toss on the red Gunners jersey he gave me last week and make my way over to the hotel window. I pull back the curtains and admire the early morning view of Baltimore, knowing full well I could drive a truck through this room and it wouldn’t wake Camden.

It’s been two weeks since I kissed him in my OR, and now we’re on our honeymoon.

Of sorts.

Except for the whole surgery part.

And the fact that we didn’t actually get married.

So it’s not so much of a honeymoon as it is a getaway that involved an operation with a high-level surgeon at John Hopkins Hospital.