Illicit temptations, p.20
Illicit Temptations, page 20
Easy enough. Work comes first—end of story.
He had absolutely nothing to worry about.
* * *
Trish paced from one wall to the other and back again. “I can’t do this. It’s going to blow up in my face.”
“It might be helpful if you explain exactly what you’re not doing.”
She glanced at her almost-sister-in-law, Becka Baudin. She sat on the couch with Summer propped carefully on a pillow, nursing away. When Trish pictured her big brother with someone, it was some straitlaced woman who probably thought doing taxes was fun and drank expensive red wine and vacationed to exotic places with topless beaches.
On second thought, Becka probably fits the last one.
She didn’t fit much else when it came to expectations. She was a blue-haired beauty who was both a personal trainer and led a bunch of hard-core fitness classes—at least before her pregnancy got too far along. She was also hilarious and nice and loved Aaron to distraction. In short, she was perfect.
Trish wasn’t here for perfection, though. She needed advice. “I’m traveling with Cameron. To London. Alone. For as long as it takes to secure this account.”
“I know it’s not super normal for the guys to travel but...” Becka trailed off and her blue eyes went wide. “Oh. Oh. You and Cameron?” She leaned forward and winced. “Sorry, Summer.” A quick adjustment and the baby was nursing happily again. Becka frowned. “Why didn’t I know about this?”
“Because there’s nothing to know about.” Nothing except she kept throwing herself at him and he kept setting her gently back and trying to explain why he would never touch her. Nothing except her pride being bruised beyond all repair because of her impulsiveness.
It was the height of insanity to still want him after he’d turned her down—more than once—but apparently her self-control had taken a vacation somewhere along the way. She couldn’t be in the same room with Cameron without ogling him, and it didn’t help that he kept wearing those fitted faded T-shirts that clung to his body like Trish wanted to.
Oh my God, I’m jealous of a piece of clothing.
“That tone of voice says there’s definitely something to know about, but okay. Nothing to know about.” Becka shook her head. “If you’re worried about doing something to screw up the account, neither Aaron nor Cameron would send you if they thought you weren’t capable. So they obviously think you can handle it.”
“I’ve been working there like two weeks. I heard Aaron say that Concord Inc. can boost Tandem Security up to the next level. If I botch this, they won’t get to that next level.” She’d already failed so many freaking times. There was absolutely nothing in her track record that should cause everyone around her to give her yet another vote of confidence.
Not everyone.
She’d bit the bullet and told her parents last night that she’d be out of the country for a while on work and they’d reacted about as well as she would have expected. Oh, her dad was supportive, if worried about his little girl out in the big world without someone to protect her. She didn’t hold it against him—he treated both his daughters like that. Her sister just never gave him cause for worry. It seemed like all Trish did was worry him, even when she tried not to.
And her mom...
She sighed. “My mother had some choice words on the subject.” Choice words that ended in tears, and demands to know what she’d done as a mother to drive Trish to cross an ocean to get away from her. It had taken two hours and a promise to visit over the weekend once she got home to calm her mother down and get her back to some semblance of normality.
“Oh.” Becka made a face. “Look, I’m hardly the authority on healthy parent-child relationships, and your mom is a nice lady, but she really needs to get a hobby that has nothing to do with her adult children. Knitting. Charity. Pole dancing classes. Doesn’t matter, but it might distract her from the whole empty nester thing she’s got going on.”
Trish stared. “You did not just list pole dancing classes alongside charity and knitting as activities my mom should try.”
“Why not?” Becka gave a wicked grin. “It’s great core work.”
“I’m going to tell Aaron you said that.”
“It’s been a couple days since I shocked him, so I’m about due for another one.”
Trish burst out laughing, and the sound drained out the anxiety that had been building since Aaron called her with instructions for the trip. She sank onto the chair across from the couch and shook her head. “Thanks. I needed that.”
“I know.” Becka shifted Summer to the other side and adjusted her clothing. “Here’s the deal—you’re not going to fuck up. Thinking you might is just going to undermine your confidence and ensure you do screw up. So do that brilliant shining thing you do and just power through it—fake it until you make it. They’ll be so relieved not to have to deal directly with Cameron, they’ll fall all over themselves to give you whatever you ask for. Aaron already negotiated a preliminary contract, so it’s just a matter of ensuring the actual contract is laid out to his specifications.”
She made it sound so easy when she put it like that. Nice and simple. Trish ran her hand over the smooth fabric of the chair. “Why is everyone so down on Cameron? He’s kind of gruff, but he’s not a total asshole like everyone says.”
Becka shrugged. “Cameron is a difficult personality. I know because it takes one to know one, though we’re different flavors.” She shifted back and sighed. “I think the real question is, why are you trying so hard not to jump to his defense?”
She shouldn’t talk about it. Positivity was Trish’s gig, and there was nothing positive about the shame she’d been carrying around since that first kiss. Maybe she could have recovered if she hadn’t dropped the towel and had him turn away in response. Maybe. Either way, it wasn’t fair to dump her issues on her brother’s baby mama and fiancée.
But under those sympathetic eyes, she found herself speaking. Trish shifted her gaze to the pattern on the rug because it was easier to spill her secrets there than to the woman across from her. “I kissed him. And after he politely—for him—told me that it wasn’t going to happen, I faked my way through being totally professional and okay with it. Right up until I forgot to set my alarm, slept in and had him show up on my doorstep. I, uh, panicked and it ended up with me naked and him once again explaining that it most definitely wasn’t going to happen.”
A muffled snort brought her head up. Trish glared. “Are you laughing at me? I’ve been rejected twice and even if he’s right about it being a bad idea to bang like bunnies, it still stings. And if he’d stop looking at me like he does, it would make it a whole lot easier to bear.” Sometimes she would turn and catch such heat in Cameron’s gaze that it was a wonder she didn’t turn into a pillar of lustful flames right there in the office. But he turned away.
Every. Single. Time.
“Oh God, you poor thing.” Becka let loose a peal of laughter that filled the room to the brim. “Like running headfirst into a brick wall, isn’t it?”
“That’s not...inaccurate.”
Becka grinned. “I’m familiar with the feeling. You’ve got freckles all over, right?”
The change in subject made her frown. “Sure. Why?”
“Tell me one thing—actually, tell me two things. How long did it take him to turn away when you dropped the towel?”
“Um...” Trish’s skin went hot at the memory. “It wasn’t instant, if that’s what you mean.”
“Mmm-hmm. And when he looks at you... Is it possible he’s retracing your freckles all over mentally?”
Now that she mentioned it, his gaze did tend to take a specific path when he thought she wasn’t looking. A very similar path to the one he’d traced in the air above her skin that day. She cleared her throat. “It’s possible.”
“That’s what I thought.” Another laugh. Becka’s smile promised all sorts of wicked things. “Have fun on your work trip, Trish. I sure as hell would in your position.”
8
THE FLIGHT TO London was both heaven and hell. Cameron had never had a problem feeling cramped or caged in when he flew first class. The seats there hadn’t fallen victim to the desire to cram more paying passengers into the same amount of space that the rest of the plane had. He usually didn’t have to worry about his broad shoulders crowding out the person next to him and could relax and work through however long the flight was.
That was before he sat next to Trish.
Even with the space between them, he couldn’t shake his awareness of her. Every shift where she crossed and recrossed her legs. Every time her mass of curly hair brushed his shoulder. Every breath. She fell asleep halfway through the flight and ended up slumped against him, her little body curled in the seat and her head halfway in his lap.
He loved every agonizing second of it.
Though he managed to keep from touching her more than strictly necessary, it was all too easy to imagine they were traveling together, jetting off to some exotic island or snowy peak to spend a week tangled up in each other and blind to the rest of the world.
Instead, he went over the preliminary contract for the tenth time since Aaron had sent it over. It didn’t matter that the terms were standard with a few small exceptions. They’d handled overseas clients before, but Concord Inc. was unique in the way that they had an independent server for all their internal workings. Something like that wouldn’t normally need Tandem Security’s expertise—impossible to hack what someone couldn’t get to in the first place—but Concord Inc. did need access to public servers for outside communications.
And that could be breached.
Cameron kept himself busy mulling over the possible options as the plane finally landed. Trish managed to sleep through the entire thing, so he gently squeezed her shoulder. “We’re here.”
She opened those big blue eyes and blinked at him a few times as if she couldn’t quite place where they were or who he was. Awareness rushed over her expression between one breath and the next and she licked her pretty pink lips.
He went rock-hard, and then silently cursed himself for reacting at all. He couldn’t seem to stay in line when it came to this woman, but that wasn’t her fault. No, the blame lay squarely on his shoulders, and after his dickhead comment that day at her apartment, he’d been careful navigating the minefield that every conversation between them had become.
His fault.
Trish sat up and pushed her hair back from her face. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to take over your space.”
Since what he wanted most in that moment was for her to take over his space—and his cock—fully, he gritted out, “No problem.”
He managed to get control of himself by the time they deplaned, got through the custom’s process and grabbed their luggage. It was still relatively early in local time, but they wouldn’t meet with Nikki Lancaster until the next day. “Food?”
“Please.” She looked a little...wilted...after all the traveling. Trish’s hair was fluffier than he’d ever seen it, and she huddled within her large coat, her eyes seeming larger than normal. It was obvious that, despite her nap, what she needed was food and rest and some time to adjust to their new location.
Cameron got them to their hotel—a little boutique place strategically placed a few short blocks from Concord Inc. They’d ended up with a two-bedroom suite, which was what he and Aaron usually booked when their work required travel, but it took on a new significance with Trish.
They were staying behind the same locked door in this place.
For fuck’s sake, get ahold of yourself. This is business. This has only ever been business.
Except nothing when it came to Trish felt like business.
He held the door open for her, angling his body away to avoid her accidentally brushing against him. “Take whatever room you want.”
“Generous.” Trish shot him an arch look over her shoulder, as if she knew exactly why he was being so generous. She didn’t say anything else, though. She just dropped her bag in the middle of the small living space and went investigating.
Cameron forced himself not to follow her, but instead walked to the tiny dining room table and started setting up his computer. “If you want a shower, I can run down and grab us some food.”
She poked her head out the first bedroom door. “My kingdom for some genuine fish and chips.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” He left before he could think too hard about what Trish in the shower would be like. Her showering had almost been their downfall before, and Cameron knew himself well enough to know his self-control wouldn’t last through a third time of backing away from her. Better to avoid the temptation altogether by removing himself from the building.
He had no idea how they were supposed to get through the next few days without stepping all over each other. Challenging enough to be closeted in an office with her when they were able to retreat to their respective homes after hours. But being together 24-7 in the same workplace, the same hotel suite?
The odds of keeping his hands off her were not in his favor.
Cameron took his time walking down to the lobby and waylaid the bellhop to get recommendations for places with good fish and chips. The nearest one the guy recommended was more than a few blocks, but after being cramped in the plane for so long, he welcomed the chance to stretch his legs.
And it would ensure Trish had plenty of time to shower and get dressed again before he returned.
Satisfied he’d made the right call, he lengthened his stride and put some distance between himself and the siren call Trish Livingston represented.
* * *
Trish took her time in the shower, washing away the grit of traveling. She’d chosen the room with the smallest bed—Cameron needed more space than she did, after all—and it had the added bonus of the better bathroom. There was a claw-foot tub big enough to hold a party in and the shower wasn’t exactly orgy-sized, but it was generous for the square footage.
She shut off the water and wrapped a towel around herself. The fluffy fabric slid luxuriously against her skin, drawing out a shiver. Sitting next to Cameron on the plane had her all pent-up and needy. Even after the shower, she was sure she could smell the evergreen soap he used. Her body responded accordingly, skin going tight, nipples pebbling, the spot between her thighs increasingly achy.
God, she wanted him.
Trish padded to the door to her room and peeked out. The suite was silent and empty. She had no idea how long Cameron had been gone—or when he’d be back. A thrill went through her at the thought. I shouldn’t risk it. But on the heels of that, her innate stubbornness kicked in. That only makes it hotter.
She shut her door and tossed the towel over the low-backed chair situated by the window. Naked, she slipped between the sheets and stretched out. It wouldn’t take long. She’d been halfway there since she woke up surrounded by him. It didn’t matter that they’d been in separate seats and he’d barely touched her. Trish was so damn primed, all it would take was his breathing on her clit and she’d come screaming.
Her toes curled as she cupped her breasts, pretending it was his hands there. Not rough. Certainly not gentle. A firm touch. A freaking perfect touch.
It’s not perfect because it’s not the real thing.
She didn’t care. She’d come too far to go back now.
Trish rolled one nipple between her thumb and forefinger and ran her other hand down her stomach to stroke her clit. A moan slipped free as she pushed a single finger into herself. She arched her back, letting the sheets slide down to reveal her breasts. It didn’t matter that no one could see her. She felt watched, and that was enough to send her skirting along the edge of a truly great orgasm.
Imagining it was Cameron’s eyes on her?
She circled her clit once, twice, a third time, and as she came, she moaned his name aloud. “Oh my God, Cameron.” Her orgasm rolled over her, bowing her back and she could have sworn she heard him murmuring her name. Pleasure-induced hallucination, for sure.
Except when Trish opened her eyes, she wasn’t alone in her room.
Cameron stood in the doorway, his hand still raised as it must have been when he knocked. The door hadn’t even swung open all the way, but there was no way he’d missed the tail end of that self-love session. Especially not the part where she’d moaned his name as she came.
Shit.
She sat up, thought about clutching the sheet to her chest and gave it up as a lost cause. He’d already seen the goods—more than once at this point. The only person who’d seen her naked so many times without there actually being sex involved was her freaking doctor. And Trish didn’t want to sleep with her doctor.
Cameron didn’t say anything. Didn’t move. Didn’t seem to so much as breathe.
There was no brazening her way out of this situation. She didn’t know who’d cursed her that she seemed to be destined to perpetually humiliate herself in front of Cameron, but it was time to face the music.
She met his gaze directly. “I don’t suppose you missed any of that?”
“You said my name when you came.” His voice was deeper than normal, and each word rumbled in the pit of her stomach. Lower. “I’ve tried to stay away from you, Trish.”
“I know.”
“You’re making it fucking impossible.”
Was this... Could this actually be happening?
She couldn’t go to him. She’d already thrown herself at him too many times for her pride to survive yet another rejection. Trish licked her lips, half-convinced she could taste him there despite weeks passing since their last kiss. “Maybe it’s time to try something new, then.” Try me. Touch me. Fuck me.
