Twister: Party Games, Book 3 (13 page)

Perhaps it’s the tension from last night causing that, Winters, and
not
George’s best song, do you think?

With another twist on the bed, this one with a tad more oomph and a grunted groan of protest, she rolled onto her belly and snared her phone from the table.

Not recognizing the number, she slid her fingertip across the bottom of the screen, dropped her head back to the mattress and pressed the phone to her ear. “Hello?” she muttered out of the side of her mouth not squashed against the mattress.

“Holy shit, Cam!” Lil’s voice slammed into Cameron’s ear, an excited little-girl squeal that any other time would have made Cameron laugh—the voice of a child uttering the words of a sailor, coming from the body of a sex-kitten. Right this second however, laughing was the last thing on Cameron’s mind. “Have you seen the papers? The news?”

Cameron’s stomach—pressed flat to her bed’s mattress—clenched. Papers? News?
She squeezed her eyes tighter shut, her fingers gripping her phone.

The images. They were out there already.

“I mean,” Lillian went on, the level of her joyous excited rising with each word, “I
knew
you and Lochie would be perfect for each other, but I didn’t expect you to get it on in
public
! Holy shit! And on a
soccer
field? When you decide to play, you
really
play, don’t you?”

Cameron’s mouth turned to dust. No, the desert was dust. Cameron’s mouth was drier than dust. Oh boy, how bad was it?

“And I’m sorry some prick followed you—” Lillian was saying, only the slightest hint of sorrow cutting the claim, “—and took the photos. But holy shit, Cam! You and my brother? You and my brother? You have no idea how happy I am.”

With a silent groan, Cameron rolled her head and pressed her forehead to the bed. To her left, Lillian was still talking through the phone, babbling words that were probably meant to make Cameron feel wonderful. Words that, if her ears were hearing correctly, included
sister
,
in
and
law, wedding dress, bridesmaid, sex
and
paparazzi
.

But they didn’t make her feel wonderful. Not when all she could think about were the images. Images she needed to see. Now. To prepare herself for the damage to come.

She shoved herself off the bed, snatched up her robe, returned her phone to her ear and hurried from the room. Lillian continued to babble the whole way, nervous excitement like a note in her voice, telling Cameron about how the party didn’t go exactly to plan, how things were so different now, so amazing, and oh, while Cam was at it, could she tell Lachlan not to yell at his sister.

The last bit made little sense to Cameron, but she didn’t have it in her to tell Lillian. She also didn’t have it in her to tell her friend there wasn’t a chance in hell she was seeing Lachlan again. She liked the young woman too much to do so while Lillian was on such a high. For now all she could do was make
uh-huh
noises at Lillian through the phone as she scooped up her iPad, hurried over to the living room and dropped into the old armchair opposite the carcass of the Triumph.

“…should have told Lucas to get one of his guys to watch out for photographers,” Lillian was saying, part worried, part angry, “but I was too pissed at Mac for…”

Cameron tapped on her favourite news app, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth as she waited for it to activate.

And let out a groan when the first page came up on her iPad’s screen.

Dirty Play on the Field!

McDermott Caught With Reclusive Model.

The headline was enough to make her throat squeeze shut, but the accompanying image…

Cameron couldn’t help but stare at it, unable to draw breath.

There they were, her and the country’s most influential businessman, captured in grainy black and white with, by the looks of it, a telephoto zoom lens so powerful the dusky shape of her bare nipples were there for the world to see, two dark smudges on what were obviously her breasts, one almost hidden by Lachlan’s hand, the other all but covered by his lips.

Every molecule in Cameron’s body began to burn.

Oh Lord.

She’d never felt so exposed. What was a moment of absolute pleasure and private rapture was now flaunted for anyone with access to the net, or a newspaper, to see.

And yet, despite her horror, despite her shame, underneath it all, something else unfurled in the lowest pit of her belly. Something far more primal and instinctual and…and…confusing.

Arousal.

The sight of Lachlan making love to her, the sight of the raw pleasure on her shadowy face, the sight of the telltale tension on his body, the possessive placement of his hand on her breast…it stirred in Cameron a familiar ache. The very ache she’d experienced the second she’d laid eyes on the man.

Desire.

“Cam?”

She slid her finger over the iPad’s screen, staring at another news story from a different source with a different image, this one just as dark and shadowy and grainy as the last, but taken earlier when Lachlan’s lips were travelling her bowed throat, his hand kneading her breast through her shirt. Her spine was arched, her lips parted. The headline for this one read:
Lachlan McDermott Just Like Old Man?

“Cam, are you—”

The next page on the news app gave her another headline—
Media Mogul Caught With A Handful of Kole.
Not as snarky as the previous, but catchy nonetheless, especially when attached to an image that, despite being darker than the others, no doubt had Lachlan’s hand buried between her thighs as he sucked on her—

“Cam? Will you freaking well talk to me?”

Lillian’s shout pierced Cameron’s roaring mind. She blinked, gaping at the image of her and Lachlan in such an erotic position. Her pulse pounded in her tight throat, her nipples straining tips of sensitive flesh pushing against the silk of her robe, her pussy…

Oh Lord, help her.

She threw her iPad aside, not wanting to see what it told her. Not wanting to believe her reaction to it. Turned on. She was turned on by the images of Lachlan making love to her. More turned on than she could imagine. So turned on if she slipped her fingers to her sex, they’d come back slicked with her juices.

How could that be?

“Will you speak to him, please? Or if he’s asleep—”

The last part of Lillian’s question smacked through Cameron’s stunned confusion. She blinked again, frowning at the Triumph. “If who’s asleep?”

“Lachlan,” Lillian said, her brother’s name clear and unmistakable. “If he’s asleep, don’t wake him, but when he does wake up, can you tell him I’ll clean the house? Top to bottom?”

Cameron frowned. “He’s not here.”

“What do you mean he’s not there?” Surprise laced Lillian’s voice. “He’s not at home. I just called there. So I kinda gathered he’d be with you.”

Cameron swallowed. With her. Oh, if only it was that simple. Her cheeks prickled with a disturbing heat. Her nipples pinched harder. She shook her head, gripping her phone tighter. “He’s not, Lil. In fact, I don’t think—”

A sharp buzz made her freeze. Someone was at her front gate.

“Hold on, Lil,” she muttered, scrambling to her feet. Her home’s state-of-the-art security system meant no one could get past the high wrought-iron gate without her releasing the locking mechanism, and she wouldn’t do that unless she knew them. Like her phone number, five people knew her private address. One of them was on the phone to her now and the other four people were her lawyer, her green grocer—who had no idea she was anyone apart from Cameron Winters, grime-covered car freak, the young teenager girl from down the street who watered her plants whenever she was out of town on an extended photo shoot and a very special police officer stationed at the Inner Sydney City Command. It was too early for any kind of delivery, ignoring the fact it was Sunday, which could only mean one thing. The press had tracked her down.

Cameron’s chest squeezed tight. She crossed to the one-way video intercom at her front door, hitting the button that would let her see who was at her gate.

She let out a shocked whimper.

Lachlan stood there, his hair a tousled mess, his jaw dark with growth, his eyes looking straight into her soul through the video link.

He was here. At her home. He was at her home.

“Is everything okay, Cam?”

Lil’s voice jerked Cameron back from her hypnotized inspection of the media mogul. She swallowed, unable to tear her gaze from him. “Err…”

She watched Lachlan raise his hand and press a finger to the intercom and flinched when the buzzer sounded again.

She flinched. Caught her breath. Pressed her thighs together in a lame, futile attempt to stem the wanton, damp throb growing between them.

She stared into his face through the CCTV fed, her heart racing.

And, before she could stop herself, or even consider her actions, she pressed the button on the security system’s primary control panel that released the gates lock.

“Tell me who the fuck it is?” Lil almost screeched.

“It’s…” She couldn’t say his name. Not yet. She gripped the phone like it was a lifeline. And it was. At the moment, the only thing stopping her from throwing herself at Lachlan the second she opened the door was his half-sister on the other end of a phone connection.

Lord help her, here she went again with the lameness.

“Who is it, Cam?
Please
tell me?”

“It’s…” She stopped. Swallowed. Her breath was rapid. Shallow.

What was she doing? What was she hoping to achieve?

Cameron didn’t know.

And then there was a single knock on the door in front of her and her heart smashed into her throat, her blood roared in her ears and she didn’t have any longer to consider an answer.

She pulled on the handle.

His stare was on her face before she could finish opening the solid steel door, his nostril flaring, his eyes burning. “Who are you on the phone with?”

The question, uttered with calm control, made Cameron’s pulse race faster. Or perhaps it was the raw hunger in his eyes, the undeniable desire. Or maybe it was the way he looked this close—like he’d been through hell and back, his hair as disheveled as his shirt was crumpled, his jaw unshaven, his Adam’s apple jerking up and down in his throat. A man of contradiction.

“Lillian.” His sister’s name slipped from Cameron’s lips.

“What?” Lil asked in her ear. “Who is…”

Cameron didn’t hear the rest.

Jaw muscles bunching, Lachlan destroyed the distance between them in one step, gently plucked the phone from her hand and pressed it to his ear. “You have some explaining to do later, sis. As does Harris.”

Whether Lillian answered, Cameron didn’t know. Lachlan disconnected the line with a swipe of his thumb and deposited the phone on the table beside the door. All without breaking eye contact.

Oh Lord, had she really thought talking on the phone to his sister was going to protect her?

She had. Which was stupid.

“This is never going to work, Lachlan.” She shook her head, gazing into his eyes. Her belly twisted. Her pussy contracted. Oh, the promises she saw in his eyes. “The press and paparazzi will never leave you, never leave
us
alone.”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he took the last remaining step into her home, a place so few people had ever entered, and closed the door behind him.

Cameron’s heart slammed harder against her breastbone. She wanted to be angry at his arrogance, but she couldn’t. She was too damned aroused. Too damned happy he’d come for her.

Too damned stupid.

“You’ve seen the images?” His question sent squirming tension through her body. The junction of her thighs grew damp. His gaze didn’t let her go.

She nodded, wishing she had the strength to step back. No good could come of this. She knew that. But she couldn’t move.

His nostrils flared. “And did they turn you on?”

Her breath slipped from her in a low moan.

“Because they sure as
hell
turned me on.”

An exquisite spasm claimed Cameron’s pussy at his guttural proclamation, so powerful, so wanton, it was all she could do to stay on her feet.

“I came here with the intention of telling you all sorts of things, Cameron.” His voice was a low, deep caress on her senses. “Things that need to be said. Things like how I’ve wanted you since I was a teenager, but now I’ve had you, I know it’s the real woman I want, not the model. Things like how narrow-minded I’ve been about your work, about Lil’s career and how sorry I am for behaving like a wanker last night. Things like how clear and dry my future was, my goals were, until I met you. But the second you opened the door, in that robe…” He stopped, his throat working as he raked a slow inspection over her body, the skin around his nostrils tight as he sucked in a ragged breath. “God help me, babe, I want to be a higher mammal here, I
want
to be an evolved member of my gender, but when you’re standing in front of me looking like that…”

The rest of the sentence was lost to a choked groan. He stared at her, torment and desire and something else she couldn’t fathom, an inferno in his eyes.