Uncovering Camila (Wildflowers Book 3) (10 page)

The invitation makes Marshall moan into her pussy. He lifts himself off the ground and brings her with him to the chaise. Without hesitation or question, he plunges himself so deep inside Camila she calls out his name. The sound is incredible to him. It makes him want to live inside her, to melt into the sensation of being in her wet cunt.

He lifts her legs over his shoulders and pushes himself deeper. He watches her head roll back and her eyes close. It’s gratifying to make her feel the way she makes him feel. The depth to which his physical body has experienced pleasure has known no bounds since he met her. And he wants more. So much more he feels like a selfish bastard.

Marshall pulls out completely then plunges inside her again, stretching Camila, making her feel every inch of his hard length. He’s so deep now, and she’s so wet. He takes more champagne, pouring some into her mouth from his. He chases it with intense strokes of his tongue, mingled with tender kisses between their lips. With each stroke she cries out. He watches her, waiting to see how much more of him she can take.

When she lowers her legs around his waist, he moves slowly, his thrusts deliberate and unhurried. Marshall raises his torso and brings up her thighs with his arms, elevating her hips. He watches her pussy in awe, the way it opens for him, her clit becoming more swollen with his touch. Their cries are no longer muted. Both are intense and coming from some place deep and profound where only mutual bliss can reside. Together they’ve found it and together they’ll both remain as they venture beyond into that boundless abyss.

Camila reaches up and pulls Marshall to her, her lips and tongue searching and finding his. Everything is forgotten and nothing else matters but the feelings which are taking over them. Camila’s heart pounds against his as he moves in and out.

Heat envelopes the two lovers as they make their climb. Marshall continues to push himself in and out, fusing his body and lips with Camila’s. She bites down hard on his lips, tearing the thin flesh and whispers that she’s there, ready and waiting for him. The sound of her voice and the taste of her on his tongue sends him with her. He doesn’t want this to end. He’ll edge a bit longer if he can, yet her cries, the trembling in her voice, the pulsing of her cunt makes it impossible. He can’t hold back anymore. Two more jagged thrusts and he joins her in her ecstasy, calling out her name from some undiscovered depth of his being.

Chapter 25

Camila’s muscles feel thoroughly worked when she wakes the following morning. She runs a hand over a dark mark on her wrist from the rope and smiles to herself. She’d embraced her dare and feels stronger for having faced her fear. Just because Eliseo had disappointed her doesn’t mean every man she comes across will. He didn’t take away her ability to decide who’s right for her and whom she can trust. Only she can do that. And being with Marshall proved that.

She slides quietly out from under the duvet. The cool morning air makes her shiver as she pads to the bathroom, careful not to disturb her sleeping lover. The idea of having a lover makes her smile, although it disappears when she realizes how impossible it would be to maintain any kind of relationship, however casual, with him. He doesn’t do casual. She can tell. He’s too fixated on doing what’s right or correct. The gray area of being lovers who see each other whenever it suits isn’t for him.

Camila examines the marks and stains over her thoroughly fucked body. Most of the food was washed off, but she notices traces of red around her neck and lips.
Must be from when I bit him
, she smiles to herself. Her sex wakes up at the memory. She splashes warm water on her face and regards herself in the mirror. Her skin appears plump and more radiant than it had in recent weeks.
Sex does a body good
, she affirms as she walks out of the bathroom, shutting off the light as she goes.

A sudden noise from the direction of the kitchen startles Camila. She peers out onto the terrace and sees a still sleeping Marshall. Adrenalin starts to pump through her. She throws on his shirt that had been lying in a crumpled heap on the floor and heads toward the muffled sounds that are becoming more distinct the closer she gets to the kitchen. Her heart stops when she sees a woman crouched down rummaging through the cupboards.

“Marshall, help me up,” the woman says, holding out a hand without bothering to look up. “I’m sorry to wake you so early. I just ran out of . . . .”

Words fail her when she looks up and sees Camila standing at the entrance to the kitchen dressed in nothing but her son’s coral linen shirt, the same one he’d been wearing when he left for the Baron’s White Party. The very party she’d promised Poppy she would never again attend if her good friend wasn’t going to be there. And it now seems Poppy won’t live long enough to see another party. The thought casts a shadow over her thoughts, and she turns back to this young woman before her.

She pulls herself up and says, “I’m sorry for intruding.” Her eyes move over Camila in a flash, but not so fast that she doesn’t notice.

Camila folds her arms in front of her, instantly aware she’s being scrutinized. She clears her throat. “Not at all. It’s your house,” she says, suddenly feeling like the one who’s invading the space. One minute in this woman’s presence and she’s managed to feel judged and intimidated. She can only imagine what it’s like to be in her courtroom.

“Yes, I guess that’s true,” she replies.

Camila shifts under the woman’s impenetrable gaze, the same one that Marshall has.

“You and Marshall have been friends long?” She asks, although her tone implies she thinks she knows the answer.

Camila shakes her head. “We met last night.” Seems reasonable enough a lie. To imply they knew each other longer would only complicate their story.

His mom raises an eyebrow. “I would’ve thought my son had better judgment than that.”

Camila clenches her jaw. She isn’t surprised by the woman’s quick assessment as much as she is by how open she is about it. “Perhaps, but given the skanky women at the party, I guess he did the best he could,” she replies.
How’s that for honest
?

The judge narrows her gaze at Camila then resumes searching the cupboards.

“Can I help you find something?” Camila asks.

“I doubt you would know where it is,” his mother says.

“Try me. I’d be happy to help,” she offers, hoping it will make her leave sooner.

“I was looking for honey. When I went to make my tea this morning I realized I’d run out.”

Camila abruptly walks out of the kitchen and returns a minute later with the jar of honey left on the nightstand and places it on the white marble countertop.

“Do I even . . . .?” She stares down at the jar then looks back at Camila.

Camila shakes her head.

Marshall’s mother clucks her tongue. “Well, I guess it’s good to see him meet someone so
fun
. Although I doubt his fiancé, Ellen, would agree with me.”

Camila doesn’t react, knowing that’s exactly what the woman is expecting. Deep down she can feel the too familiar pang of disappointment, followed by its old friend, dread, that’s starting to spread from her chest to her stomach. But she refuses to give the judge the satisfaction of having made her point so succinctly.

Camila’s silence is response enough though. Norah Douglas highly doubts she’ll be seeing her son’s poor-choice of a one-night stand any time soon.

“Well, I’ll let you get back to whatever you were doing.” She clears her throat. “And in case you need it, there’s a Jitney schedule in the guestroom.”

As soon as the door closes behind her, Camila closes her eyes and takes two deep breaths. One to release the embarrassment of having stood half-naked in front of the Chief Judge of New York’s highest court and the other to let go of the anger she wants so badly to unleash on Marshall. She reminds herself she to chose to come home with him. Of course she wouldn’t have if she’d known about Ellen, but still, she made a choice and she won’t allow regret to overshadow what she’ll chalk up to yet another life lesson. It seems her whole summer has been about those, and she can only imagine Shoshana pointing that out to her.

A quick succession of questions pour through Camila’s mind as she heads to the bedroom to dress and pack. She pushes each one away as they come.

“There you are,” Marshall says, emerging from the bathroom as naked as she’d left him in bed twenty minutes ago.

How quickly things can change between two people who up until this moment had been entwined in something so intense and personal. It dawns on Camila then that it doesn’t take much to break the bonds of intimacy when they’re this tenuous.

He tries to encircle his arms around her, but she steps away. “I’ve got to go.”

“So early? What about breakfast?” Marshall asks, confused by her cold demeanor. “It’s your favorite meal.”

“I’m not hungry,” Camila replies, tossing her mask and rope into her bag.
So much for daring
.

“What’s changed C.C? You’re not flying back until tomorrow. Why can’t you stay a little longer?”

Marshall tries to swallow the desperation that’s spilling out in those words. He can’t shake the dream he’d had this morning about being with Camila. Although maybe it wasn’t a dream. Perhaps it was a fantasy he wants to become reality.

But Camila can hear it in his voice. He’s scared, and she won’t try to figure out why. All she can assume is that he’s like so many guys who want it all, a woman who will commit and then another he can fuck. Maybe he’s not as black and white as she believed him to be. She shakes her head. At this point she doesn’t know what to believe. She thought she could trust him. Actually, she thought she could trust herself and her own judgment, which she believed had failed her with Eliseo. This merely shows her that she was wrong again.

“Shosh will be here in a few minutes,” she says, already heading toward the door.

Marshall scrambles into his clothes from last night and rushes after her.

“Tell me why you’re leaving then. Did I do something to offend you?”

Camila shakes her head. She can hardly look Marshall in the eyes. She wants to though. She wants to show him that he doesn’t have the power to hurt her, to defy the nagging feelings of disappointment that are beginning to drown her with every passing second.

“No, I’m not offended,” she replies.

“Then what?” He reaches out touch her arm, but again she steps back.

“I think we’ve maxed out our time together. Let’s leave it at that.” She looks over his shoulder at the tree in the driveway, still unable to make eye contact.

Marshall clenches his fist in frustration. “I didn’t think you’d be this obtuse.”

Something inside Camila snaps when she hears him say that. “Obtuse? I’m trying not to make things worse.”

“Worse, what do you mean?”

“Ask your mother.”

Camila notices Marshall’s jaw tense. “What about my mother?”

“She didn’t think your fiancé, Ellen, would appreciate you sleeping with some random ho you picked up at a party.” There she said it and not too soon. The wooden gate begins to slide open, and her cousin appears in her white Maserati convertible. Camila can’t help but think, here’s her proverbial white knight.

She opens the car door. “I wish I could say that I’ll see you later and not mean it.”

Chapter 26

Marshall watches the women drive off, still trying to piece together what she’d said. He spots his mom watching from the door of the main house.

“What the hell did you say to her?”

“Do you even know her name? Is she one of William’s common tramps?” She shakes her head in disapproval.

“Her name is Camila,” he replies. “And for your information she isn’t one of that man’s whores.”

His mother remains unmoved. “I thought you came here to get away and think things through. Then I see her dressed in your shirt.” She waves her hand at him.

“And what? It’s my business who I bring home.”

“My home, Marshall,” she corrects him.

“For half the summer. It’s dad’s the other time,” he reminds her, not caring if his words hurt. Clearly she’d managed to inflict far more damage on Camila, who didn’t deserve it.

It’s not as if Norah needs reminding about her time-share arrangement. The Hamptons property was the only one they both wanted and the one thing that kept the divorce proceedings going on longer than they needed to. His father refused to relinquish it, citing he needed it to maintain his business connections since many of his clients spend a portion of their summer there, while she argued that they needed continuity for their son, despite the fact that he was already in high school, and that she had spent a disproportionate amount of her time and money on it. In the end, they agreed to an equitable split during the summer season while the other months of the year it remains empty.

“Maybe your father would approve of you dragging random women through here, but it’s an affront to me. I expect you to be more tasteful about it.”

“I’m not going to get into this with you. I’ll leave for the City today.” He turns to head back to the guesthouse.

“So like your father, walking away when you don’t want to hear the truth.” She follows him.

“What truth, Mother?” He spins around. “The one that matters to you? You refuse to listen to me, so why should I stay and have this one-sided discussion? I’m not sorry I brought her home. I’m sorry she met you and had the displeasure of inadvertently offending you with her presence. If you spoke with her, you’d realize she’s a good person, far better than Ellen could even aspire to be.”

“Ellen is a fine woman. At least she had class. This Camila didn’t even offer to change out of your shirt when she saw me.”

“What were you even doing in the house?”

“I needed honey for my tea. You’re a sound sleeper. I thought I could slip in and out, and then she confronted me.”

Marshall raises an eyebrow. “Confronted?”

“Yes, well. Don’t get me started. And then when she brought me honey from your bedroom . . . .” She shakes her head again, not bothering to finish the sentence.

Marshall hides a smile. He can picture Camila doing that with her head held high. No excuses, no pretense. That’s why he likes her. And that’s one of the many reasons he could never be with someone like Ellen.

“I told you Ellen and I are not getting back together.”

“Just give it time. You two are perfect for each other.”

Marshall shakes his head. “No, we are not. You kept telling me we were, like you had to sell me on the relationship. And I bought it.”

“You two were made for each other. I felt it in my bones. There was nothing you two couldn’t accomplish in your careers being together. Between her political ambitions and your work, you two could go as far as the White House. I just know it.”

“Ellen’s the most self-serving person I’ve ever met. She’d cheated on me multiple times then told me just before we were about to get a place together.”

“That makes her honest.”

“No, it makes her calculating. She’s politically ambitious and wanted to make sure we had it all out there so there would be no surprises. That isn’t love, Mother.”

“Love blinds people to the pitfalls of marriage. You two would have a great partnership. That’s what your father and I were missing. Maybe you need to meet a few more girls like that Camila and then you’ll be ready for marriage.”

Marshall turns around and continues toward the guesthouse. This time his mother doesn’t follow. He should’ve known she wasn’t going to be supportive. As much as he loves his mother, she could never see how her own ambitions were just as detrimental as her ex-husband’s, condemning them both to their misery.

It was a wake-up call to Marshall when Ellen called him out of the blue and told him about her two affairs while they were living in separate cities. What made it worse was that she didn’t once say she was sorry or that she wanted his forgiveness. Instead, she said she wanted his support. Ellen was angling for a position in a certain Senator’s office, and she hoped he could pull some strings with his family’s contacts. All during the same conversation.

Marshall picks up his phone to call Camila, hoping to apologize for his mother’s crass behavior and to assure her he’s not engaged anymore. Not that it would make a difference. Whatever it was that they had last night is over, and by next week, he’ll still be a Professor and she the law student he can’t touch. However, as he unlocks the screen, he remembers he still doesn’t have her number.