Page 100 of My Sweetest Agony
He holds my gaze, the sharpness of the blue in his like piercing ice straight through my soul. It shreds me, so easily getting down to the core of everything that’s been billowing inside of me since I learned the truth.
All the emotions that want to smother me and bring me back to that horrible place I was in before Cam appeared in my life.
I finally let my fork clatter to the plate, giving up the pretense of actually eating when he clearly knows I’m not. “I just don’t…” Dropping my face into my palms, I rest my elbows on the table and release a long sigh. “I just don’t know how I’m supposed to… I don’t know”—pulling my head back, I throw my hands up with a frustrated noise in my throat—“process any of this.”
Last night and this morning were…a beautiful distraction I let myself drift away in so I wouldn’t have to deal with the hard things. The questions and feelings that I knew would end up making me like this—a quivering mess.
I let myself give in to this attraction to Cam, submitted to whatever this magnetic pull is that keeps bringing me back to him—apparently from the first fucking second we met.
But now, in the bright light of day, sitting across from him, knowing the truth, my whole life looks different.
Every single word that was spoken. Every shared kiss and touch. Everything that happened over the last four years with Drew seems like it was a lie, like it was something else entirely than the life I thought I had lived.
So much of what made my relationship with Drew so special, what I loved so much about it and him, was that he was always so open. So honest with his emotions. And he had the ability to pry out what was bothering someone so they could talk about it and move past those things that held them back.
And now, even that feels like a lie.
When he was keeping something so big from me…
Cam reaches out and grasps my hand, squeezing it gently, and that simple touch sends a little thrill racing through me as every inch of my body remembers that touch.
The way he worshipped me last night.
Not just with his hands.
But with his mouth.
His cock.
Every fiber of my being still buzzes from it.
A relentless, pulsating thrum that seems to rush in my blood and heat me from my core outward to every limb.
Yet all of it, everything we shared, is now tangled up in the lie that started that night. The lie Drew maintained for so long so he could pretend like it hadn’t happened.
Cam brushes his thumb across my knuckles, and I watch his lazy, comforting strokes. “Just because it was me that night doesn’t change anything that happened between you and Drew after it.”
I jerk my head up to look at him. “How can you say that?” My mouth opens and closes a few times as I try to make sense of any of it, but the longer I attempt to find reason in the lies, the harder it becomes to rein in my emotions. “Of course it changes things.”
It changes everything.
Each day we spent together. Each night in bed. Each and every one of them was built on that lie that he perpetuated.
I pull my hand out from under his and shove it back through my hair, unable to concentrate on anything rational when he’s touching me, even so innocently. “He knew, Cam.” A little mirthless laugh floats from my lips. “He fucking knew that something had happened between us out in your mother’s yard, and he never told me. He never came clean and told me it was you. He never told me the truth.” I scan the diner around us to ensure no one is at the tables close by and dip my head closer to him. “We slept together that night.”
Cam flinches slightly at my confession but does his best to try to hide it.
“It was our first time together and…” I squeeze my eyes closed, trying to stop myself from spiraling the way I want to into all the questions, all the lies he must have told. “I mean, was that all because he was trying to…one-up whatever happened between the two of us?” That thought seizes my chest. My breaths come in hard, short pants, my vision blurring. “Was…any of it even fucking real or just some game he had to win with you?”
Pure panic clutches at me.
Threatening to make me lose control of myself in this very public place.
“Stop.” Cam’s command comes low, deep, filled with the absolute potency to end my spiraling with that simple word. His hard eyes bore into mine, holding me captive, preventing me from looking away. “Nothing that happened between you and Drew was a lie. None of it. When I walked into the yard that night, I already knew all about you. I had already seen all his pictures from your first several dates. He had sent me your goddamn social media links so I could check you out because he was already falling in love with you. He told me that he knew you were the girl he was going to marry after he met you the first time, remember?”
I nod.
Cam had told me that the last time I melted down about the secrets Drew was keeping, and I believed him then.
