Secondhand Heart (8 page)

Cam dug right in. “Awesome. It’s been a while since anyone’s cooked for me who wasn’t on my payroll.”

“Like how long?” Cam’s personal life was still a mystery to me. We’d talked about his professional life, but that was it. There had to be something else that brought him home. More than Bree’s reports of the record deal falling through and the divorce. Plymouth wasn’t exactly a hot bed of country music activity. What made him go from the confident celebrity walking on red carpets with his gorgeous wife to here? You bet I’d been Googling every picture of Cam Hunter I could find since our “interview.” And now he was taking me out? I had a lot of questions.

He sighed, then took a long sip of his beer, and leaned back into the cushions. He looked up instead of at me. “I’ve been separated since March.”

Separated? That didn’t sound promising. “Are you totally divorced?” I asked.

“Not yet.” His thumb rubbed the neck of the beer bottle. “Ashley, that’s my wife, she keeps playing games to put off signing the paperwork that would make it final, even though she says it makes her sick to even look at me. So I don’t know.”

My whole body went numb. “Do you think you guys will work it out?” I didn’t even want the answer to this question, but I was kind of on a need to know basis here.

“I’ve given up trying to predict the future.” He had the actual nerve to smile at me, then took a bite of his sandwich. “This is amazing.”

“Thanks.” I still hadn’t touched mine. Although, if I puked it up all over him, he’d deserve it at this point. I was basically on a date with a married man. How gross was I? Was he?

“Like probably the best sandwich I’ve had in a long time,” Cam continued, oblivious, and talking with him mouth full. “Do you cook a lot?”

“I know you’d think the answer was yes, but not really.” I stared at my sandwich, not at him.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Cam asked, still oblivious.

My mother had given me such a complex when it came to food, I assumed everyone thought like her. “I like to cook, but I don’t do it very much. Any time I set foot in the kitchen, my mother harasses me. Kind of takes the joy out of coking.” Shit, I was going to ruin this date, too.

“That sucks.” Cam said. I met finally met his eyes, blinking back the emotion. I knew I’d just made Cam uncomfortable again. But he was still technically married. And that made me uncomfortable. “She doesn’t know a good thing when she sees it.”

“Like what? She drinks her meals. She thinks that’s the way to salvation.” I shrugged. “Like with these, she thought it was sacrilege that I didn’t use any vegetables.”

He looked down at the sandwich. “It’s full of pickles.”

I laughed. “I know, right? That’s what I told her.”

“Well, first of all, you’re talented. And you’re absolutely gorgeous.” He smiled and my cheeks reddened. “So she’s got no idea what she’s talking about.”

“Thanks, but it’s just a sandwich.” I finally took a bite of mine. The rumbling of my stomach overruled my stubbornness.

Cam peaked in the cooler. “There’s more in here, too. Brownies?”

“From a mix.”

“So what? You actually gave a shit enough to do something cool, and thoughtful, and I think it’s delicious. No one’s done anything like this for me in a long time. What’s the matter?”

It took me a minute to answer him. I was actually going to swallow my food before I spoke and killed date two. Only one more before I struck out. And he was right. The sandwich was pretty bomb. “I wish you’d told me about the wife thing.”

Cam’s mouth fell. “It was all over the news, and the internet. I just figured everyone knew everything there was to know about me.”

As if on cue, his statement was punctuated by a group of guys walking back from the concession stand, or the porta potty, who knows, and yelling “Cam!” and throwing their fists in the air in solidarity. Cam mirrored the guys’ motion in response.

“I haven’t been watching gossip shows.” I took a deep swig of beer.

Cam chewed on his lip, I could tell he was upset. “Daisy, I don’t know what you were expecting.”

He was one hundred percent right. I was assuming things that he hadn’t even put on the table. “I just thought we’d have fun and see a movie. And now we’re talking about…feelings and shit. I just want to forget all of that.”

“Me, too,” Cam sighed. “Me, too.”

We finished our dinner in silence, and the previews started a few minutes later. Thank God. Things got so awkward, so fast. I had no right to be mad at Cam. He never insinuated anything more than being friends. Sure, he flirted a little, but I also did my best to keep him at arms’ length. Still, he should have been a little more forthcoming about his wife before we started going out.
Separated
sounded like if she deemed him worthy of her, he’d go running and leave me in the dust like road kill.

He had just said he needed a friend. Nothing more than that. I needed to get my expectations in check.

I loved slasher flicks. So much. The grosser, the better. I knew that they were all cheesy with questionable story lines. I loved the bimbos who ran in heels in the woods, or went down in to creepy basements by themselves. Everyone knows that’s where the boogeyman hides out. Survival of the fittest, baby.

Circus of the Damned did not disappoint. The movie was about a vampire circus leader who started doing live sacrifices on stage to satisfy his bloodlust. Instead of the crowd being disgusted by random people dying on stage, they ate it up. Pardon the pun. So the vampire had to come up with new and gruesome ways to top himself until he got caught.

One poor, unsuspecting girl got ripped in half, and then he pulled the bones from the sinew and licked them clean. I covered my eyes, squealing like a girl, and turned into Cam.

“So disgusting,” he laughed, and managed to put his arm around me somewhere in the exchange. After four beers and an hour of lying under the blanket, I’d softened a bit and didn’t pull away. I buried my head in his chest as the vampire deep throated an arm bone to suck it clean. Then, I just stayed there.

It felt so good to lay in someone’s arms again.

Cam’s arm fell from the top of my shoulders to my arm, and started running his fingers in lazy circles just below the end of my sleeve. His fingers felt almost hot to the touch, and the sensation sent electricity through my body, straightening my spine. I bumped against his chin, making him chuckle quietly, then pull me in closer.

It wasn’t hard to tear my eyes away from the bloodbath on the screen when I knew Cam was so close to me, the corners of his lips turned upward in a smile that didn’t need any explanation. The reflection of the movie played in his eyes, but I saw straight through that, to the guy who no matter how he got here, wanted to be laying in the back of his truck with me right now.

Without even realizing what I was doing, I licked my lips. Cam took that as the invitation he needed and tipped my face up to meet his. His lips brushed against mine, almost like a feather drifting against my skin. His teeth grazed my bottom lip, and I gasped, opening my mouth just enough to let him in.

I accepted his kiss, sweet and hungry, pulling myself up to his body. Cam pressed me against him while his tongue played with mine.

My heart pounded. This was so nice, and I needed it more than I ever even realized. I’d never kissed anyone but Jordan.

I pulled away too fast. Cam’s face followed mine before he had a chance to settle himself.

“What’s wrong?” His voice was low and husky.

“I…I haven’t done this with anyone but Jordan.” The words didn’t come easily.

Cam closed his eyes for a long blink, his lashes casting shadows just above his cheekbones. “I know I can’t compete with him,” he finally said. “If you’re not ready—“

“I don’t know.” I sat up, hugging myself. “I tell myself I’m not, but I want you in my life. And I’m trying to tell myself it’s okay to want that.”

His eyes lit up, even in the dark. “It is okay.” One corner of his mouth went up in that half smile that wrecked me every time he did it. “Of course, I am biased.”

“But you’re married.” Why did I need to keep reminding him? I was widowed and I couldn’t fucking forget it.

“My marriage is over. We just need to sign it on the dotted line,” Cam insisted.

“You didn’t sound so sure before.”

“Daisy, one thing I am sure of.” His hand was back on my chin, his fingers caressing my cheek. “Is that right now I don’t want anyone but you.”

This time, I was ready for his kiss.

D
on’t ask me how Circus of the Damned ended, because I have no idea. All I can tell you about was how good it felt to have Cam touch me, how he nipped and teased me for what seemed like forever before kissing me long and slow. How his calloused fingers felt against my rib cage, how I had to stop myself from begging him to touch my breasts, but it never got to that. Cam knew what I needed without me having to ask for it. And I was all too happy to return the favor.

Thank God for darkness, pickup truck beds, and blankets. Seriously, because otherwise we would have been arrested in the parking lot of the Wellfleet Drive-In. We were jarred back to reality when horns blared in the drive aisles, people anxious to leave.

Cam was lucky I didn’t bite him in a place where no dude ever wants a girl’s teeth to make contact with skin. I was nervous and shaky already, rusty as hell. Mutilating Cam’s man parts would have been the real scary movie: The Hummer Horror Show.

So what. I got a little carried away. And I was not apologizing for it.

Both of us were nervous and edgy, neither one having a chance to finish the job before it was time to go. The hour long ride home was torture. Both of us tried to make small talk, but really, what the hell do you say when you know if you make eye contact, you’ll be tearing each other’s clothes off in a moving car and probably wind up in a tree? I know French people call orgasms The Little Death, but I didn’t want to have a Little Near Death experience.

“So,” Cam let out a breath it sounded like he’d been holding the whole way home when he turned the ignition off in front of his condo. He looked at me, his eyes practically pools of fire illuminated only by the street lights. I didn’t wait for what followed, I cupped his chin in my hand and kissed him. I’d already unhooked my seatbelt, which only made it slightly less awkward for me to crawl as much into his lap as the steering wheel would allow.

Cam laughed as soon as I came up for air.

“What were you saying?” I asked as I smoothed my hair down.

“I was going to ask you if you wanted to come in.” That lopsided smile slayed me.

My eyes widened and I licked his taste off of my lips. My new favorite. “Really? It’s a question?”

“You could have decided you had enough of me on the way home,” he said.

I didn’t answer, just opened the door and slid out of the cab of the truck. Had I? Just moments before that kiss, I’d still been so pissed at him, and at myself about the divorce thing. Touching him changed everything. It erased every logical thought in my brain. Oh yeah, I still had my doubts. But I wasn’t going to worry about that any more tonight.

Cam waited for me in the parking lot, one quick peck before he took my hand in his and led me up the steps to his condo.

As soon as I got inside, Cam pushed me up against the wall of the entryway, and kicked the door closed. Now that I was inside, all I saw was the inside of my own eyelids. And a thousand little firecrackers going off in my brain. I didn’t give a damn what the rest of the place looked like right now.

Cam pulled my T-shirt up over my head and dropped it on the floor. We separated from each other just long enough to watch it fall on to a pair of his cowboy boots.

Cowboy boots? Really, Cam? It was summer and we were on the beach. In Massachusetts.

“Sorry.” He sounded like he could barely catch my breath. His fingers were drawn to the lacy pattern on my bra almost magnetically, tracing the outline of the flowers. Thank God I’d had the foresight to actually buy a decent bra, even though I hadn’t planned on getting undressed for anyone in the foreseeable future. My back arched as his fingers swirled closer and closer to my nipples, threatening to tear out of the sheer fabric like Clark Kent having a Superman moment.

“Don’t be.” I writhed under his touch. He was almost too gentle, driving me insane. It was like I’d been lost in the desert and been able to just catch a single raindrop on my tongue. My body had no idea how much it needed this until I’d had a little taste of what I was missing.

“Let’s go upstairs,” he suggested, and his eyes darted in the direction of his bedroom. When he looked back at me, flames still licking his eyes, he pinched my nipple and I gasped.

I nodded in response. My knees felt like rubber going up the stairs. Cam held me by the waist, maybe to steady me, maybe to keep his own balance. I tried not to think about my back fat, being squashed between my shorts and bra strap. Cam took care of that problem halfway up the stairs by unhooking the damn thing.

I caught it in my hands when I reached the top of the landing, shocked by the feel of my own nipples in my palms. Cam’s hands came around to cover mine and he kissed my neck. I turned around as slowly as I could, using all the sexy I didn’t even know I had, and lifted my bra with one arm extended and wrapped it around the back of Cam’s neck, all while kissing him, pulling him towards me.