“Can I admit something to you?” she asks.
I nod.
“Matt healed me. I was still in mourning over your mom, fearful of getting close to someone and seeing them taken away again. Your mom was my best friend, my business partner, and I never wanted to trust another person with my heart after I lost her. But I did, and I’m so happy with Matt.”
“But you didn’t kill her.”
A strangled noise comes from deep in her throat. “Chevelle.” There are those sympathetic eyes again.
I shake my head. “It’s okay, I don’t… I mean, I’ll always have my what-ifs. But it’s not on a daily basis like when I was little.”
She sighs. “You like him though?” She doesn’t continue the conversation about my mom because she knows she’ll get nowhere there.
“Yeah. I’m not sure I’m ready yet though.”
“Then you give yourself some time. If he really likes you and wants something long term, then he needs to understand that you need time.”
The bell rings, and from the sound of the number of people, I know Zoe’s gotta go help them. She gives me a look to ask if I’m okay.
“I’m good. You go.” I wave her off.
She leaves me, and I sip my coffee. Her radio is playing the local station, and Nikki and Chip’s Scandals of Sunrise Bay is replaying from earlier this morning.
“I know everyone sees it, Chip,” Nikki says.
“I saw her helping him with the fish costume the other day,” Chip adds and I sit up straight in my chair. Was Nikki talking about me on her show? “He’s still staying at her place.”
“We’ve all seen them walking to work together, laughing and enjoying one another’s company, when before they used to be at each other’s throats. Was it all a facade?” Nikki flares up the dramatics.
“Playground crush?” Chip says.
“I did hear something this morning that I didn’t know if I should share here, but I’ve always promised my listeners the truth. There have only been a few times over the years when I didn’t report on something having to do with my family. I won’t talk about how Chevelle and Cameron got into the situation they’re in, but I do have something to share.”
Thank God she’s not going to talk about Derek. As the weeks have passed, I feel less and less shaken over what happened and grateful I was able to extricate myself from the situation so quickly, but I don’t want everyone talking about it.
“So what’s the gossip?” Chip asks as if he’s salivating.
“Cam might or might not have sat down with all the Greene brothers and asked for permission to date Chevelle.”
My eyes widen and my mouth hangs open. I look around the room, but it’s all tourists who don’t know that I’m the Chevelle my stepsister Nikki is talking about.
“Bye, Zoe.” I wave and dispose of my coffee on the tray she has by the trash can.
Everything I just said about Cam vanishes from my mind because he does not get to go ask permission from my brothers. I’m my own person.
Ugh, that man pisses me off.
I slam the front door and Cam peeks his head out from the kitchen. He’s wearing an apron and holding a wooden spoon.
I narrow my eyes. “Where do you get off involving my brothers in my business?”
He steps out of the kitchen. “I told you I had to ask their permission to date you.”
I throw my hands in the air. “There is no dating going on between us. I was clear. The sex was a mistake.”
He disappears into the kitchen again and comes out without the wooden spoon but has the apron on. “I think you need to stop denying what’s happening here.”
I strip off my light jacket and put it on the coat hanger. Then I untie my boots and put them by the door. “There isn’t anything happening here. You’ve had sex before. What happened on that boat was just sex.”
His jaw tightens. “Bullshit.”
I clench my fists and glare at the ceiling. “From now on, leave you and me out of your mouth when you’re with my brothers. We were on Scandals of Sunrise Bay!” I throw out my arms again.
“I respect your brothers too much to not go to them.”
I walk by him into the living room, but he swings his arm around and grabs me by my waist.
“When are you going to stop denying this?”
I struggle to get out of his grip, and he allows me. “There is nothing here.”
“Come on, I made you dinner. Let’s sit and talk. Want to make a pro and con list?”
“A pro and con list?” I ask with my eyes crinkling. What is his deal?
“If you’re not going to listen to what your body and heart are telling you, we can look at the facts.”
“What do you not understand? I’m mad at you right now. You went to my brothers to ask permission. This isn’t the eighteenth century, Cam. I make my own decisions.”
He widens his stance and unties his apron. “I’m not apologizing for what I did. Your brothers are like my brothers. I’m not going to blindside them.” He tosses the apron on the couch. “Dinner’s ready.”
He walks by me, but this time it’s my hand grabbing his. He doesn’t look back at me, still facing the stairs.
“I know,” I say. “But I don’t ask my brothers’ permission when it comes to decisions I make in my life.”
“You don’t have to, but I do.” He glances over his shoulder, then finally turns around. He takes my hand, threading our fingers together.
“What if they’d said no?”
“Then I would’ve talked them into it. I’m not saying I wouldn’t have done anything with you, but I would have fought for this.”
I look up and his piercing eyes reveal so much emotion, I become lost.
He inches closer, his hand cradling my cheek, and I tilt my head, pressing into his palm. “I can’t apologize for what I did, but their decision wasn’t going to be the end of us.”
“Cam?”
“Yeah,” he whispers.
I inch closer and rise on my tiptoes, placing my lips on his. His hand tightens on the side of my face, keeping me in place. Our kiss starts gentle and sweet, but his other hand comes up and holds the other side of my face. His tongue licks the seam of my lips, and I open for him.
With our bodies flush to one another, I wrap my arms around his neck. He moves his hands to my waist, walking me backward, and I fall over the arm of the couch. I laugh, staring up at him. He strips off his shirt and tosses it on the chair, looking at me with a heated gaze that makes me ache between my legs.
“You want this?” he asks with a tone that says if I say no, he might just die right here.
“You don’t have to ask me.”
He unbuttons my pants and lowers my zipper. “Until you’re mine, I do.”
I lift my ass off the couch, and he pulls my pants and panties down my legs, tossing them in a pile with his shirt. He swings my legs over his shoulders and drags his knuckle down my center. A million electric currents rush through my body at the same time.
“So wet already,” he says and lowers his mouth to my pussy.
My fingers weave through his hair, gripping it when his tongue twirls my clit. The man knows what he’s doing down there, and my head falls onto the soft cushion, my hips rocking up and down, desperate for the friction of his mouth to take me to a place I’ve rarely gone before with a partner.