Page 76 of Tempt Our Fate

PIPPA

I’mbusy plating our dinner when Camden casually looks up at me from across the island. I haven’t told him this, but he’s got a smear of flour across his forehead from when we were making the noodles. It’s too cute to have him wipe it away. I like the little imperfection across his face. It makes him look less cold and intimidating and more boyish.

He couldn’t look cold to me right now either way. Not with the way he’s looking at me. Everything about the way he’s watched me cook has been lit with passion. His stare isn’t cold. It’s hot, burning my skin even from across the room. I almost asked him to fuck me right in the middle of rolling out the dough for the noodles because the ripples of his forearms were turning me on too much. Even when I’d asked him to try the pasta sauce, his lips had sucked the sauce into his mouth so seductively that I’d imagined the other places his mouth had been. All the places along my skin he’s licked, kissed…bit.

A small laugh from deep in his throat pulls me from my dirty thoughts. I look down to find a little too much cheese grated on the dish in front of me.

“Shit,” I mutter, trying to pinch some of the cheese from this plate and putting it on the noodles from the other. It doesn’t look as good as it was supposed to, but it’ll do.

“You were licking your lips like you were having dirty thoughts about me, shortcake.”

“Maybe I was.”

He raises his eyebrows, pouring more wine into my glass at the table. We haven’t even eaten dinner yet, and tonight has been the best date of my life. The sex before the date really even started helped. But it was also the easy conversation as we prepared the three courses I’d planned for the night. He’d listened intently as I told him how to help prepare a salad and crab cakes. He was an excellent student as I taught him how to roll out the noodles and feed them through the noodle attachment on my mixer.

I thought things would get awkward after we finally had sex. Like maybe we’d both learn that our intense connection was only physical. Tonight taught us it isn’t. The more I’ve learned about him, and the more random conversations we had on what NFL team is the best—the Broncos, obviously—and what the best Adam Sandler movie is—his answer ofClickshocked me—the more compatible we seem.

All of it is adding up to me falling for him little by little. I can easily imagine making him coffee in the morning before he lays me out and hasmefor breakfast.

“Are there security cameras in here?” Camden’s question brings me back from my daydream.

I cock my head, wiping a smear of sauce from the corner of the plate. “What?”

His eyes look to the ceiling, scanning the place. “Are there cameras in here?”

“How did you know we had cameras anywhere?”

“Because your employee, Lexi, caught me enjoying that perfect pussy of yours on camera.”

My hand drops in shock, hitting the corner of the plate and sending smears of pasta sauce all over. “Excuse me, what?” I shriek.

There’s no way Lexi saw us. Right? Oh my god. Has she seen my vagina?

The asshole doesn’t look embarrassed by it in the slightest. If anything, he looks proud as he continues to look around the room. “Yeah, I forgot to mention it to you. Figured it was best you didn’t know. But after tonight, I just needed to know if we just accidentally made an amateur porno.”

“Camden!” I yell, my face heating with embarrassment. Thank god there aren’t any cameras in here. I haven’t found it necessary—and haven’t really wanted to put the funds into getting an additional camera—so this and my office, which used to be a closet, don’t have cameras. “This isn’t funny,” I continue, thinking about whether I should text Lexi to apologize for whatever she saw.

He shrugs, his shoulders rising and falling. “I’m not laughing.” He coughs, totally lying because he’s absolutely laughing.

“Yes you are. My employee saw my bits! This is terrible. Is there some kind of law against this? Am I going to get sued?”

He brings my glass of wine over, handing it to me. I suck down a large gulp of it to try and ease my mortification. “She stopped it before she saw anything. She was only looking because you’d forgotten to lock the door, and she wanted to make sure no one broke in.”

I take another drink, squeezing my eyes shut as I pray to god that I didn’t ruin Lexi forever. I’m going to have to have a very awkward conversation with her and apologize for whatever she did end up seeing.

“God, I can’t believe you didn’t tell me that. I’ll never be able to look at her the same.”

“It’s okay. She didn’t see anything. And even if she did, I bet my face covered anything intimate, anyway. I was very dedicated to making you…”

“Okay, that’s enough,” I interrupt, not wanting to picture it again. I don’t want to think too hard about everything she could’ve seen.

“So are there cameras in here?”

“No.”

He whistles, watching as I take another drink of my wine. At this point, I’ve almost sucked down the entire glass in under a minute. “What a shame.”

I almost spit my wine out at his words. “What?” I wipe at the corner of my mouth from where the wine drips from my lips from the shock.

---