Page 33 of Four Night Stand

‘So for now,’ Cat says, ‘the new plan is sex and pillow talk. Got it?’

Jules nods, pinpricks fading from her skin.

‘Great. We’ll help you write a new list when you get back. “How to turn a conference fling into a real relationship in five easy steps.”’

Jules laughs, dropping her shoulders, tension unspooled. ‘I love you guys.’

‘We love you too.’

Jules hangs up feeling less like an overworked car battery. In amongst the teasing and the overtly sexual comments, her friends provided some solid advice. She and Cameron did agree to a fling, and if last night is any indication, it’s going to mean a week of incredible sex. She’s not going to shy away from that. She can’t be the only person in the world who’s tried to work out if a fling can turn into something more, and her friends will help her figure it out. After the conference.

Jules nods and climbs out of bed, heading to her wardrobe. For now, she’s going to be like the protagonist in one of her erotica novels—or like Tori—and get some. She’ll commit to the fling, focus on enjoying herself and catching up on all the sex she wasn’t having these past few years. And when pillow talk opportunities arise, she’ll grab onto those with both hands too.

Chapter 10

Cameron gulps down a glass of water as he waits for Jules in the hotel restaurant. He hasn’t been to this hotel before, but it looks like every other he’s been in for these conferences, with a continental buffet in the middle of the space and various sized tables spaced around it across the room. The host had tried to lead him to a table to the left of the buffet when he arrived, but he spotted Braden’s blonde head with some other Cable people and asked to be seated elsewhere. He hasn’t braved the buffet yet in case he ends up trapped in the loop with Braden.

Thankfully, his phone provides plenty of distraction. His sisters and Matteo have been texting him all morning. Questions about Jules from the former, and the promised ugly cat pictures from the latter. He ignores his sisters for the moment. He doesn’t want to trip Carrie’s lie-detector ability with some half-cocked text about Jules.

Matteo must have found a way to auto-generate the texts because there’d been half a dozen on his phone already when he’d woken up. Now, Cameron finds a picture of a python online, knowing Matteo’s deep fear of snakes, and sends a message.

Matteo: Finally! Thought you were abandoning me again. (A snake though? Really?)

Cameron: You deserve the snake for all those ugly cat pics.

Matteo: Haha. I’ve got a work call in a few minutes, but catch up later today?

Cameron: Sure. Is that Italian bakery in The Rocks still open?

Matteo: Hell yeah, it is. Meet you there. We’ll figure out a time later.

Smiling—and salivating already for a slice of apple cake—he closes out of the chat, then scrolls through his text chains. It’s not a pretty picture. In the past few months, he’s texted his parents and his sisters, a few colleagues, Steven, and someone from his bank.

Chloe can never see this. It’s damning evidence that he’s been doing exactly as he’s been accused – shutting himself off.

A tingle down his spine makes him look up. Jules walks toward him through the tables, a shy smile on her face. His gut clenches and heat shoots straight down to his crotch.

After last night, he wasn’t sure how he’d feel around her this morning.

Randy, as it turns out.

Is it any surprise, when last night was some of the best sex of his life? So raw, but fun too. It was like he was a kid let loose at a theme-park. So much to do and see and experience. Earlier this morning, after his run around Sydney Harbour, he’d knocked on Jules’s door to invite her down to breakfast. She’d opened it looking like a fantasy of the morning after. Dishevelled hair and sleep-flushed skin. He couldn’t help the once over he’d given her, and when he saw her nipples taut beneath her oversized Duran Duran shirt, it had been hard to keep from pushing her back into her room and down onto her mattress for more.

He’s having the exact same reaction now, his blood rushing loudly in his ears as his gut clenches again. He runs his hands through his hair. He’s got to get his body under control or he won’t last through today’s conference events before dragging her back to his room.

But work has to come first. That’s the whole point of this arrangement, that it won’t get in the way of his professional life at Infinity, or his goal to reclaim some dignity with his old Cable colleagues. Running away to Canberra gave him the benefit of ‘out of sight, out of mind’, but now that he keeps seeing people from his past, all the feelings of guilt and shame about his no-warning resignation are sitting on his skin again. He needed space from Braden, but his team bore the brunt of the fallout from his decision. His professional reputation must have taken a hit as well. Publishing isn’t a big sector, in the scheme of things. Word of mouth matters, and his abrupt exit would have earned him a mark against his name. It’s why it’s so important he nails his presentation. He’s got to wipe that mark clean.

His worries woke him this morning and it took reading through his marketing presentation twice for the emotions to settle. Now, seeing Jules pushes those feelings deep down inside him again, until they’re barely a whisper in the back of his mind. He could get addicted to that reaction. But a few days of being with Jules is the only way he’ll let himself be with her. A few days where he can help her tick ‘conference fling’ off her to-do list, then back to the office and the way it was before, where any pining happens from a distance.

Assuming this week doesn’t make that impossible. Even now, as Jules reaches the table, a little whirlwind starts in Cameron’s chest that speaks of emotions to come. He stops the sensation with a hard pinch to his upper thigh.

‘Sleep well?’ he asks as Jules sits across from him, hair brushed and tied back, dressed in a knee-length blue skirt and a simple black top. Stunning. And sexy. He can have those kinds of thoughts all he wants.

‘Yes. I normally don’t on the first night in a new place, but I think I was, uh …’ A flush spreads over her cheeks. Cameron knows it’s probably extending down her chest too.

‘Worn out?’

‘Let’s go with that.’

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