Twelve Truths and a Lie Read online

  “And graham crackers,” I mumbled. “Don’t forget about those.”

  He kissed my ear, his tongue darting out briefly to swipe along the shell, and the whole world fell away. Though I’d told him earlier that we shouldn’t do any of this, I couldn’t stop myself. I didn’t want to stop myself.

  My breaths were releasing in fluttery wisps, and I had the urge to scrape my cheek against the stubble on his chin and then kiss him full on the mouth.

  Tracing my fingers along the muscles of his back, I reciprocated by feathering my lips against the hollow of his neck.

  His breath hitched as his thumb dug into my lower back. “You keep that up and I’m going to drag you back to the car.”

  “You started it,” I said, quirking an eyebrow. “All your sunshine talk.”

  He threw his head back and laughed, and I loved seeing that light in his eyes. He spun me around the floor some more as the song changed to another tune I recognized. Normally this song made me feel melancholy, made me ache for things I’d never had, but being in Cameron’s arms in that moment helped dissuade the fleeting gloom.

  “You are so pretty,” he said, twining my hair in his fingers, and I was glad for the second time that I had worn it down. “I thought so the first time I saw you.”

  “When was that?” I asked against his neck, wishing we were alone so I could devour his skin.

  “Last year sometime,” he replied, dragging his forehead back to look at me.

  I bit my lip, thinking it through. “At Flanagan’s?”

  “Yeah, come to think of it,” he said. “You were dating somebody; he was sitting at the table with you. Some short and buff sports dude.”

  I playfully smacked his arm and snickered. It had probably been Phil, who had been into rock-climbing big time, undoubtedly still was. I still remembered the twinge in my thighs as I attempted to keep up with him one afternoon, miserable the entire time.

  Cameron looked off into the distance. “And I was involved with somebody, too.”

  “You were dating Dessa?” I gaped, looking behind me, as if trying to spot her in the crowd. So strange to have that realization hit now, after all this time. After all that we’d shared. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” he said, his thumb lifting my chin. “You make me feel like I can finally breathe.”

  23

  Cameron

  It was as if we were drunk on lust. At least that was what I was telling myself. But there was just something about being with Aurora that made me want more. To hold her and keep her close, see her and talk to her everyday—but she didn’t want that.

  She was trying to prove to herself that she could make it alone, and I didn’t want to ruin that for her, so I’d pull back. After tonight. Because tonight I had her all to myself and I wanted to see her smile and make her laugh. And maybe even make her shudder again.

  We stayed another hour or so and then headed to the hotel. I held her hand in the car the entire trip back, and she didn’t resist or question my needing that contact. The reunion was completely over and I had made it through with her help. I didn’t even give the ballroom a second glance as we left. She did that for me and I’d be eternally grateful.

  The relief was immense. I lived through seeing my ex-girlfriend and best friend this weekend. I didn’t even know if they were truly happy, and I found that I didn’t even care. That was a huge load off my shoulders.

  On the way up the elevator, we stood on opposite sides of the small space watching each other, as if we couldn’t chance being any closer or clothes would come flying off. I noticed how her breaths released in heavy gusts and her eyes were glassy with desire.

  When her floor pinged open, she looked at me with such longing in her eyes before stepping over the threshold. “Well, Cameron, I—”

  “Wait.” When she turned, I grabbed for her hand. “I’ll walk you to your door.”

  She raised an eyebrow at me. “We’re in a hotel, goofball.”

  I continued down the hall, ignoring her protest, and she easily followed along.

  At her door, I inched toward her. “I just wanted to say thank you for making this weekend bearable. If you hadn’t been here…”

  “You would’ve been fine on your own,” she said in a breathy voice. I could see her pulse fluttering at her throat.

  I stared into her eyes and then shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not.”

  I stepped closer, unable to help the draw I felt toward her. “Can I…kiss you good night?”

  She moaned a little in the back of her throat. “Yes, please.”

  I gathered her face in my hands, my thumbs brushing across her cheeks. There was a smoky smoldering in her gaze that I hadn’t seen just a minute before. When I grazed my mouth against hers, her breath caught and then fanned across my lips.

  Fuck, my heart was thundering in my chest from one simple kiss.

  My lips rested against hers as if we were suspended in time, and when she reached up and grasped onto my hair, she brought me back into the moment. She panted softly as her tongue darted out and swiped at my lips. I groaned and applied more pressure. She parted her lips and I slid my tongue inside slowly, so slowly, trying to savor her taste, her smell.

  We stood in the hallway, arms wrapped around each other, full-on making out. When the elevator doors chimed open, we broke apart and laughed. She waved the key card in front of her door to open it, and just when I thought she might turn and say good night, she yanked me inside instead.

  We resumed our make-out session on the other side of the door.

  “Fuck, do I love kissing you,” I said, wrenching my mouth away.

  “Me, too,” she mumbled against my lips, drawing me toward her again.

  My mouth glided along her jaw to the hollow of her neck, licking a stripe down to her collarbone. “I just want to make you feel good.”

  “You already are,” she moaned into my shoulder.

  Clutching a fistful of her hair, I drew her lips back to mine. “I want to kiss you in other places, too.”

  “Oh, God,” she said, licking into my mouth. “You don’t even know what you’re doing to me.”

  “I think I have a good idea.” I grabbed hold of her fingers and slid them against my erection. “I’ve pretty much been hard for you all night.”

  “Cameron—”

  I released her fingers and clutched her neck, staring into her eyes. “Will you let me taste your skin?”

  I brushed her long and curly locks over her shoulder, locating the zipper of her dress. My hand froze in place, waiting for permission.

  She gasped and then shuddered, closing her eyes tight. “Yes,” she whispered, barely audible.

  I unfastened purposefully and she slipped out of the sapphire blue material that had made her eyes stand out all night. She was wearing a simple pair of black underwear and bra beneath, but I nearly swallowed my tongue. “Oh fuck, are you sexy.”

  She was trembling, and I had the need to make her feel so good she’d remember my mouth on her for weeks to come. I loosened my tie to make myself more comfortable, and when I looked over her shoulder, I spotted a chair across from the bed. “I want you to sit over there for me.”

  She did as I asked, uncertainty blazing in her irises as she settled into the seat.

  I knelt down in front of her and I could smell her arousal now. My mouth watered, I wanted to taste her so badly.

  I patted the arm of the chair. “Put your leg up here.”

  “Oh, God,” she whispered as she moved her thigh into position, exposing her wet cotton crotch to me.

  I swallowed roughly. “Do you even know how unbelievably hot you are?”

  I feathered my thumbs over her bra and her nipples pebbled beneath the fabric. I leaned over and sucked straight through the material, and when I moved to the other breast, she moaned and clutched at my hair.

  “Take your bra off for me,” I said, looking into her eyes, which were glassy with lust. She peeled one strap down her arm a
nd then the other in such an unassuming, sexy way that was quintessentially Aurora.

  She reached around her back to unclasp the hooks, and I couldn’t draw my eyes away from this erotic show even if I tried.

  Damn, Aurora belonged in a painting. Her breasts were flawlessly curved, her nipples cinnamon colored, matching the hair on her head, and now they were standing at attention. I was desperate to put my mouth on them as my dick attempted to spring straight through my zipper.

  My fingers skimmed across her smooth hips, up her ribcage to her breasts. I held the globes in my hands and circled her stiff nipples with my thumbs before pulling one of them into my mouth.

  I took my time licking and sucking her warm crests while Aurora whimpered and arched her back. “Cameron,” she murmured my name and I thrilled to the sound of it. I’d have kept going if only to hear her throaty pleas.

  I drew back and took the opportunity to look at her laid out for me like this—her breasts were round and bare, her buds rigid and wet from my mouth and tongue and teeth. Perfection.

  She wasted no time as she leaned forward, unbuttoning my shirt and kissing my skin as she went. She ripped the fabric from my shoulders. “Off now,” she said, in that breathy, needy voice. She sucked at a patch of skin on my collarbone and traced her fingers over my arms and chest and then down the trail of hair above my belt loop.

  I closed my eyes and basked in the feel of her hands on me. They were soft and smooth and warm. And when her nails scraped across my nipples, my breath hitched. It felt so incredible I let out a shaky breath before I opened my eyes and crashed my mouth against her lips.

  I kissed her with all that I had—it was reckless, practically indecent, and I fucking loved every minute of it. I’d keep my tongue in her mouth for hours if she’d let me. But I had a feeling she had other things in mind.

  When I moved along her jaw and pinned her earlobe between my teeth, her fingers braced against the front of my pants. She gripped me through the silky material, and I strained against her hand, wanting to strip down for her. But not yet. I needed to make her feel good tonight.

  Panting, I removed her hand from my slacks and then leaned forward to kiss her stomach, which quivered at my touch. Her eyes were filled with so much longing, it was all I could do not to throw her on that hotel room bed and sink myself to the hilt inside of her. Lose myself in her. Declare her as mine.

  But she wasn’t mine. And the idea of that made me falter.

  I didn’t want to break this spell we were under, so I kept going, kissing down her abdomen to the elastic of her underwear. When she cried out I wanted to tear straight through the material, she looked so damn edible.

  My fingers skimmed up and down her thighs and then thumbed beneath the edges of the black cotton panel. I was desperate to taste her. Savor her. Get lost in her scent.

  I tugged her panties past her knees and then over her ankles, depositing them on the floor. I met her glittering blue eyes before I studied her stunning body, all laid out for me. Her hips and boobs weren’t curvaceous, but they were real and gorgeous and hot as hell.

  I repositioned her legs on the arms of the chair, opening her up to me even further as I licked and kissed her thighs. They quivered with eagerness, and it excited me even more that I could stir Aurora so much. Her fingers gripped my hair, and her head sank back on the headrest with a low moan.

  Shifting my hands to her thighs, I hauled her to the edge of the chair, closer to my mouth. And damn if that didn’t almost do me in right then. I looked up at her just as I positioned my lips close to her mound. Her mouth parted and her eyes clenched tight in anticipation.

  “I want you to watch me,” I murmured. “Watch me taste you.”

  Her eyes snapped open, as if she couldn’t believe the rawness of my words. Quite honestly, they had astounded me, as well. I could be so open with Aurora. So damn free. She brought out this steadfast hunger in me, and I was desperate to feel even more connected to her.

  My tongue was about to make contact with that gorgeous patch of skin in front of me. Her lips were swollen, her mound perfectly trimmed, and her eyes blazed with the same intensity I’d seen the night before.

  When I opened my mouth to taste her, she quaked against me. I licked her gently, stroking her outer lips before flicking my tongue against her opening and then trailing it up her center.

  She squirmed and moaned, her chest and cheeks flushed with a pretty crimson color, her skin hot and pulsing beneath my lips.

  I adjusted my hold on her ass and spread her legs wider so that my tongue could taste her mercilessly. Her scent infiltrated my senses and made me nearly ravenous for her.

  I lapped at her folds voraciously as she whimpered and thrashed, sexy noises bursting from her mouth. She grasped at my head, and when I sucked on her clit, she nearly flew apart right then and there.

  But I drew away, keeping her right on the edge. Her dark blue eyes were glossy and unfocused, but she kept her gaze on me, watching me in earnest. She bit her lip and inhaled through her nose as my tongue continued to map its pattern, sucking and swirling over her folds. And then thrusting inside her.

  “Oh, God.” Her voice was husky and rasping as she reached her breaking point. “Please don’t stop.”

  She shuddered against my mouth when she broke apart, her legs shaking, her fingers tugging at my hair. I slowed my licks, tasting everything she had to give me and more, as my fingers drew soothing patterns over her thighs.

  “Mmmm…incredible.” When she finally stopped quivering, she fastened her wide, and round and glassy eyes on mine, solid as steel.

  Before I could decipher the emotion making my chest so strangely heavy, I swooped her up in my arms and laid her down on the bed.

  “Cameron,” she sighed. I kissed her temple and backed away as she stared at me beneath sleepy eyes.

  “Good night,” I whispered.

  When I got back to my room, I immediately jacked off but still couldn’t get her out of my mind. I fell into a fitful night of sleep.

  The following morning there was a knock at my door. Aurora was up bright and early and came baring coffee. There was something else about her I had trouble deciphering in that split second. Maybe an air of confidence. An edge to her that made me immediately snap to attention.

  “Morning.” Her cheeks were flushed, her lips still swollen, and just like that, I was sporting a half-chub.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled, adjusting the towel wrapped around my waist. “I was about to jump in the shower.”

  I’d been preoccupied checking my emails and thinking about one in particular that I received from another school district. But those thoughts flew right out the window.

  “What happens in Chastity Club stays in Chastity Club, right?” Aurora asked, depositing our coffees on the nightstand and turning my way with a smirk.

  I barked out an unsteady laugh not sure where this conversation was headed. “Um, okay.”

  “So, it’s my turn.” Before my brain could catch up with her words, her hand reached out and she snatched the towel from my hips. A gasp released from my lips as she watched the material pool in a pile on the floor, an appreciative gleam in her eye.

  I swallowed thickly as her gaze lazily slid down the landscape of my body, my cock thickening instantly at her perusal.

  “What are you—” my words were cut off when she stalked toward me and my shoulders met the wall with a loud thump. I groaned as my eyes met hers. I saw fierce determination in them and I was definitely not going to stand in her way. Not this time. Not ever. Fuck, she was sexy like this. All commanding and self-possessed.

  “Cameron,” she whispered, her fingers latching firmly onto my neck. This was a side to her I hadn’t seen, and I felt goose bumps swell across my skin as she stepped into my space, her warm breath fanning across my lips.

  “Aurora.” Her lips crashed against mine and she licked into my mouth with a tongue that tasted of toothpaste and coffee. I was completely lost to the feel of
her soft lips and her fingers bracing my jaw.

  Her lips left mine as they moved along my chin and lower, sucking and licking hungrily at my throat before dragging her tongue down my collarbone.

  Pausing to flick against each of my nipples, she watched as they hardened in response, satisfaction alight in her eyes.

  I thumped my head against the wall, ready to lose my goddamn mind. “Fuck.”

  When she sank to her knees and continued down my stomach, my breaths shot out heavy and fast. Her tongue licked the contours of my hipbone, as her fingers brushed up my thigh to fasten around me. I groaned as my shaft twitched involuntarily in her palm.

  “My turn to taste you.” I couldn’t even get any words out. My lips trembled as she dragged her tongue up and down my length. When she circled around the head and sucked me between her lips, I closed my eyes and huffed brusquely, my legs nearly giving out.

  Inch by inch she took me into the warm furnace of her mouth until I felt myself hit the back of her throat. She bobbed up and down my length in a drugging rhythm; her fingers gripping low on my shaft and stroking in time with her lips.

  “Jesus, Aurora.” I grasped onto her soft curls, careful not to press too hard and activate her gag reflex. “I’m already close.”

  She hummed against my skin, my cock stretching her lips, as her tongue flicked rousingly at my length. Gazing up at me with eyes as bright as a summer sky, her other hand reached up to graze against my sac. Goddamn.

  When she continued to lick circles around the crown, digging her tongue in the slit, my breaths grew frantic, as my spine prickled and my balls drew up painfully tight.

  “Fuck, I’m going to come,” I panted, my knees feeling like rubber. “Right now.”

  She hollowed out her cheeks and held steady as I shot ribbons of come down her throat. Stars danced in front of my eyes as I braced against the wall behind me—shuddering and heaving—my head a cloud of fuzz.

  She licked a final delicate line around my sensitive crown before standing up and wiping her mouth on her sleeve. I couldn’t even form the letters of the alphabet in that moment, but I held her gaze as a triumphant smile draped her lips.