Page 69 of Lucky Star

Chapter Twenty-Six

Sarah

The first couple of days after word had gotten out that Cameron was gallivanting in the wilds of Canada with some red-headed harlot proved a bit tense while we waited for the inevitable calls or emails to descend.

When none did, we settled in to a relaxed routine that had us up early each morning so that I could paint while Cameron took a quick run up and down the shore. After breakfast, we’d go for a hike or drive into town to chat with Drea and Alex over coffee and a maple bacon donut, and then for dinner we’d either cook at the house or head to one of Eagle Harbour’s many restaurants.

After several days of living in our perfect little bubble, Alex declared us too disgustingly in love for our own good and promised to introduce us to her friends so that we could do something other than stay home and fuck like bunnies. (Her words, not mine.) We weren’t quite that bad, but we’d put in a damn fine effort. Alas, after three days of near-constant nakedness, we were both pretty much worn out.

Well, me more so than him.

Cameron was a machine who didn’t seem to need to eat or sleep.

In fact, he’d woken me up that morning at dawn, the sky bathing our bedroom in muddled shades of purple, gray, and red, to tell me how much he loved me and how he couldn’t wait to become my husband. Groggy with sleep, I’d smiled at him in agreement. And then he kissed me so thoroughly that I almost melted into the mattress before he slid his thick, hard cock into me. Before long I was fully awake, panting and sighing and moaning right along with him.

Now, I was beginning to think a woman could only take so much before it was time to give it a rest. And by “it,” I meant my vagina.

Hence, spending our evening among the locals.

“We should have done something like this ages ago,” Cameron said, pulling a long, fitted thermal over his chest.

“We didn’t have a reason to run off and hide from the world before now,” I reminded him, pulling boots on over my leggings.

“No, but it still would have been nice to get away from everything. Just you, me, and Duke. I don’t know why you never said ‘yes’ all those times I asked you to go camping with me.”

“You really can’t think of a reason why that would have been a bad idea?”

“Nope, not a single one.” He leaned toward the mirror to inspect his facial scruff, which was dangerously close to becoming a beard.

I pulled my hair into a messy bun at the top of my head and put in my earrings. “There’s no way I could have spent time alone with you in a tent and not had you guessing at my feelings for you.”

“Would that have been such a bad thing?” he asked, catching my eye in the mirror.

Would it have? Probably. “I wasn’t ready to go there, and neither were you. It would have been a disaster.”

He mumbled something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like, “I was ready,” and my heart kicked in my chest. I still got a little breathless whenever he reminded me he’d been into me from practically the start of our friendship. It just seemed so implausible that we could have been something more to each other all this time.

If only I’d said something.

Then again, he’d had plenty of chances to speak up as well.

“You and me alone in a tent with no one there to act as a buffer sounds like the best idea ever.”

When I panted out a sigh of agreement and my body heated in recognition, he chuckled. Kissing me softly, he stepped back. And then his face turned serious. “When I asked you to go with me to Joshua Tree last year, I planned on telling you then.”

Quickly, I did the math in my head, but the numbers didn’t add up. “That was almost fourteen months ago, and you were dating … Sheila or something.”

“I went on three dates with Shayna because Mike was trying to sleep with her roommate. The second he locked that down, she and I happily parted ways.” He scratched his chin and looked thoughtful for a moment. “Come to think of it, he locked both of them down at the same time.”

“What!”

“Remember the weekend we all went up to Vegas and stayed in those baller suites at the Bellagio?”

Of course I did. Early on a Saturday morning, Cameron and Mike had stopped by unannounced invite me to tag along with the four of them. I’d tried to decline, but Cameron had known my plans for the weekend included going to Costco and getting a pedicure, so he and Mike had strong-armed me into going. I’d spent the five-hour drive in the back of Mike’s SUV trying not to stab the perfectly blonde, perfectly tanned Shayna as she’d laughed at all of Cameron’s jokes while tangling her long, red nails in the hair at the nape of his neck.

Once we’d arrived at the hotel, the six of us were split into two rooms, with me being assigned the couch in Cameron and Shayna’s suite. There was no way in hell I was going to share space with Cameron and one of his flings, so I’d grabbed my purse and overnight bag, walked straight out of the hotel, and gone across the street.

“If you recall, I stayed at The Flamingo because while you’d been given a bedroom, I’d been offered the couch. Right outside the door where you’d be sleeping with another woman. Not my best weekend ever.”

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