Page 2 of SALT

"I'm sure you missed it since you decided to enter a stranger's tent to begin with, but there isn't exactly any place else for me to sit, and I'm not leaving. What would happen if you threw up and choked on it because you're too fucked up to help yourself? You can't even sit up."

"I'm not going to throw up, Cameron. Just stop talking and stay on your side and don't touch me." I lie down beside him, careful not to touch him. I'm perfectly fine with taking things slow. Tonight has already answered every birthday wish I have had since I turned seventeen. I feel like I've waited a lifetime for this. Everett and I are in the same bed and that's something I've fantasized about since I started having sexual thoughts. He shifts beside me, pulling me from my reflections, and I hear him mutter into the pillow, "Just stop spinning… Please stop spinning."

His world is spinning out of control while mine is falling into place. Best birthday ever.

I don't know how long we lay there. Time felt like it had ceased to exist. Everett's state of inebriation was not ideal, but his proximity was everything. With each groan and subtle shift throughout the night, his body inched closer to mine throughout the night, and I got my fill. As his inky dark eyes, which I've sworn countless times were plucked straight from the night sky, flicked between open and closed, I studied the rigid lines of his immaculate beard and counted every freckle. There aren't many. Only two. One is tiny and rests right below his left eye. When his lids are closed the thickness of his long lashes hide it away from the world. The other is small, but if one were ever to wish herself a freckle, it would be the one that sits to the left of his impeccable cupid's bow, one I've dreamt of pressing my lips to countless times. When his body finally went still, and his labored breathing stabilized. Slowly, I removed the pillow he had pulled over his face to drown out the noise outside the tent and shield himself from me. His slip was an anomaly. Everett Callahan is refined, never caught with a hair out of place. The Callahan name is respected and revered because he made it so. But sometimes, it's our imperfections that make us perfect.

Somewhere in the middle of the night, his face faded out, and my dreams moved in. The reality of him was replaced with a fantasy, one that felt too real. It was the best dream I'd ever had because, in my dream state, his warmth enveloped me. We weren't two strangers in the night. We were lovers. He pulled me against his front. His big, warm hand rested on my stomach, and his nose nuzzled into my neck. I was his. A treasure he didn't want to let go of, or at least I thought I was, until the firm hand that caressed my skin bit into my hip and the warmth that had engulfed me was replaced with cold. It could have been the cruel end to a dream I wished would last forever, the kind we never want to end but always do that woke me, or maybe it wasn't a dream at all. As I sit in my empty tent, I'm programmed to believe that the former is true until I hear a car starting up in the distance. It wasn't a dream.

Left with the deafening silence of his absence, I should feel dejected, but I don't. Instead, I pull his pillow to my front and lie back down with a smile. Everett Callahan touched me. He touched me once, and I will see to it that he does it again. Last night, I saw something else as I stared at his chiseled face, watching him sleep. I saw a man and not the untouchable God I've made him out to be. Men are flawed, even Everett Callahan, and now that I know he's not immune to weakness, I plan to be the hellion ready to exploit it.

But first, I have a letter I need to read.

Chapter 1

Everett

ALMOST ONE YEAR LATER

"You have got to be fucking kidding me right now," I say as I pull into my driveway.

When my flight landed at nine a.m., I hadn't intended to be gone all day. I assumed my meeting with Connor would be just that, a meeting to go over what he needed me to step in and handle while he was out of town. What I thought would be quick turned into a three-hour practice and another two hours discussing how things ran around the stadium daily. I did all this in my damn suit pants and long-sleeve polo, not realizing that's what my son had in store for the day. A suit is like a second skin to me, but not in ninety percent humidity, and even though I knew coming home wouldn't be quite the load off I was looking for, considering I knew my house wouldn't exactly be empty, I didn't think there'd be a rager going on either.

"Damn it," I curse as I slam the door to my car. There are security cameras all around my property. There haven't been any parties here since I left town, and she decides to throw one the day I return. I hoped she would have grown tired of these games now that she has Parker Michaelson on her arm, but I should have known better, or at least I should have suspected it after the way she left the stadium today without so much as a shared glance. It's unlike Cameron not to make her presence known when I'm around. She's been doing it since she turned seventeen, or maybe that's just when I started noticing. Her world was turned upside down that year, so I gave her grace and dismissed her antics as a plea for attention from a young girl who was hurting, but that was five years ago, and now I'm afraid my dismissals have morphed into a silent acceptance. However, Cameron is not the young girl she once was. She's all woman, and over the past year, she's gone out of her way to ensure I've noticed.

Stepping through the front door, there are six sets of eyes on me, none of which I know, but it doesn't change my response. "Get the fuck out of my house before I call your parents!"

This is a small town, and the threat holds more weight than calling the cops. As I walk down the hall toward my kitchen, I hear music outside, but it will have to wait because the sight before me stops me in my tracks. Standing before me, wearing nothing but a thong swimsuit, is Cameron Salt. She's reaching for a glass on the top shelf with her back to me. I should clear my throat and announce my presence. I shouldn't be looking at long, lean legs or admiring the weight of her perfectly sculpted cheeks, and I definitely shouldn't be thinking about how good my best friend's daughter's ass felt pressed into my groin the night of her twenty-first birthday. I wasn't prepared for her living under my roof as a teenager, but back then, I had a wife. Now I don't, and she's no longer underage.

So, I say the only thing that makes sense. It's the only thing that can remedy this impossible situation."I think it's time you move out."

"Excuse me," she says as she turns around, my words not registering until she sees who's delivering them. Her hands grip the glass she's holding tighter than I'd like as she processes what I've said. The last thing I need right now is for her to slice her hands open. "You want me to move out?" She questions slowly as the light in her bright blue eyes starts to dim into shades of gray as they always do when she's upset. Fuck. Anger I was prepared for. Sadness I was not. This is the second curveball she's sent me since I arrived home today.

Not once has she acted like the girl I left behind, and I'm starting to think it's because she wasn't a girl at all. That's the box I created for her. It's the one that made me feel comfortable with our arrangement because the alternative makes me a wolf in sheep's clothing. I loathe the way this woman has crawled under my skin. That's why I stand firm in my choice.

"You can't stay here forever, Cameron. The deal was–"

"The deal was I could stay here until I finished school. I still have half a year, Everett." Her voice subtly cracks as she says my name, and while the despair in her tone might be minor, the punch it lands on my chest is anything but. I'm half tempted to take it all back. She started college a semester late as she worked through the grief of losing her parents. Damon entrusted her care to me, but to what extent? A loud crash outside pulls my attention toward the back window.

"This is why you need to go, Cameron. You intentionally push my buttons, and I don't understand why. I'm done with your antics."

That's not the whole truth, but it's enough. Some truths are never meant to see the light. It doesn't matter that I no longer see a girl, at least not in the way I should. I used to see my best friend's daughter, the one I've given roses to on her birthday ever since she was eight, but I haven't seen that girl since the night of her seventeenth birthday when she ran away with pieces of my sanity and maybe something more.

As I approach the back door, she says, "You're kicking me out because of the party?"

"It's one of the reasons, yes. I don't have time for these childish games. I'm an adult with grown-up responsibilities, which is something you clearly don't have a clue about. You have plenty of money to get your own place. If you want to throw parties like this, you can do it at your house, not mine. I'm done."

"Done?" she questions, her cheeks now rosy as the lids of her eyes redden.

Shit. The last thing I need right now are her tears. Seeing them once almost killed me, and I never want to be the reason for them. I drop my head, unable to bear witness to even one, should it fall, and say, "We'll discuss it in the morning, Cameron. Right now, I need to take care of your mess."

Without another word, I pull open the back door only to realize that as smart as I am, I'm still a damned fool, but better a fool than a demon. None of this was Cameron at all.

Chapter 2

Cameron

"Cam, what are you doing here so early today?"

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