Page 2 of Flirt Like A Pin-Up

I melt into the aforementioned pile of goo as soon as he sucks my earlobe between his teeth. “Oh, God, Camden.”

He kisses my neck and along my jaw, his hand sliding up my hip and over my corset to rest underneath my breast. “I want you, Margot, and you want me. Tell me I’m wrong.”

Sighing, I hear my mother’s voice in my head. By the time I turned thirteen, I was fully developed with curves that a twenty-two-year-old only dreams of having. My mother, who at one time was even more statuesque, resented me for stealing her youth and figure. She’d been a burlesque dancer and pin-up model with dreams of making it big on the Hollywood screens when she’d gotten pregnant with me. Her talent agent, my absentee father, settled her in Spring City with his parents before I was born. My grandparents never wanted much to do with me—not that my mother gave them a reason to take us in with open arms—but I guess they didn’t have much of a choice when she left me for weeks at a time.

After I was born, she started dancing at a high-end strip club in Denver, searching for a rich guy to date. I don’t know if she was ever an escort, but I do know she landed herself a rich husband looking for a trophy wife by the time I was two. That relationship lasted nine years, during which I did everything I could to stay out of their way on the rare occasions I lived with them. He was an awful man, egotistical and narcissistic, trading her in for a younger model when she turned thirty, but as it turned out, he was better than all the boyfriends that came after him. I kept myself locked away from those who paid me more notice than appropriate, my mother’s hatred for me growing any time I took attention away from her.

On my sixteenth birthday, she said this to me: “No man will ever love you, Margot. Men covet beautiful women, but they don’t love or marry us. They want to fuck us and show us off to their friends, but that’s it.”

I lay my palms flat on his chest and push him back. “You’re wrong.”

“Liar.” He chuckles. “The truth is in the flush of your cheeks.”

“What can I say? I’m a born flirt.”

His gaze slides down to my cleavage, which is almost always on prominent display. “With everyone else, you’re a flirt, but with me, you’re a cock tease.”

My cherry red lips part as my mouth hangs open. “I am not.”

“Yes, you are, but it’s okay.” Camden trails his fingertips over the top of my breasts. “I watch you, and I see the difference. I’d rather you be teasing me and flirting with others than vice versa. I don’t think I’d maintain my decorum around the office if I saw you teasing anyone else.”

“Exactly what, in your superior estimation, is the difference?”

“Smiles, winks, and cute pet names are nice, but you only put an extra swing in your hips around me. You draw attention to your plump lips around me. Your back arches and breasts heave around me—for me, which is exactly how I want it to be.” Camden takes several steps back and touches a hidden button embedded in the bookshelf. There’s a clicking sound and then the shelf pops forward, revealing a hidden doorway. “Now, back to my original question. Do you want to see something cool?”

Holy shit, he does know me. And dammit, yes, of course I want to see something cool. All my life, I’ve been intrigued by secret doorways and hidden rooms, but I can’t admit that to him. “Are you planning to lock me up until I agree to go out with you?”

“Or fuck me.” He grins.

“Figures.” I roll my eyes.

Chuckling, he offers me his hand. “Come on. Coulter and I used to play hide and seek within these walls. You’ll love it.”

I give him my hand and let him pull me into a barebones hallway between the rooms, my five-inch stilettos clicking against the concrete floor. Even though it is sparse, framed walls with only the back of drywall and rudimentary overhead fluorescent lights, it’s remarkably clean with not one spider web in sight—thank god. “Do you have the maids clean in here when they aren’t fluffing your pillows?”

Okay, that was catty, especially since I know he doesn’t live in this mini-mansion anymore.

“Actually, we have pest control and a cleaning crew come through here every six months, just in case.” Camden stops and turns to face me. “As far as pillow fluffing goes, if you’d like to see my pillows, you’re going to have to be a lot nicer.”

I roll my eyes, which makes him chuckle.

We continue on, stopping at another hidden door with a lever that Camden pulls. It opens into the sitting room filled with people where a small bar is built into the wall. He grabs a bottle of champagne and two glasses before closing us back into the hidden space. “When Coulter and I were teenagers, we’d steal liquor all the time by using these hidden hallways.”

“Did you have to steal it?” I raise my brow, following him back toward the library.

“No, but it was a lot more fun when we did.” He stops along the way, sliding a panel in the wall to the left. “Check it out.”

I look through the panel, which I think is a two-way mirror, into the main living space where a dozen more wedding guests mingle like I should be right now.

“I’ll admit, it’s pretty cool,” I say begrudgingly. It’s like something out of a movie. Opulence and intrigue, but thankfully, no murder. It makes me wonder, though, about the man who built a house with hidden passageways and peepholes. Everything I’ve ever heard about Mr. Manning—the man who started all of this—he treated everyone like family.

Camden slides the panel shut and lifts the champagne bottle. “Should we take this back to the library or the guest bedroom?”

I narrow my eyes.

He laughs and leads me to the library, setting the champagne on a small desk near the window. He pops the top and pours two glasses, handing me an expensive crystal flute. “Here’s to the happy couple.”

“To Brooklyn and Coulter.”

---