Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 96513 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96513 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
His lips landed on the soft spot between my neck and shoulder. My legs nearly buckled under the force of that one kiss. The possessive way he held me and owned me in that touch. Camden Percy did something to my body that I could never explain. He could make it war against me. He could make it succumb to him. He played a pied piper, and I danced to his tune.
And yet, the thought… scared me. To be that vulnerable with him again. To give him the chance to break me again.
So, I took a step back. Enough for him to release me and not meet my questioning look with an answer.
“We’re going to the resort club tonight,” I told him, offering an olive branch. “Maybe… you could meet me.”
I hadn’t used those words with him in months. He knew what it meant. How it used to be between us. Camden and I never showed up anywhere together. Recently, it had been out of necessity. I hadn’t been able to stand being in his presence for much longer than necessary. But before… when things had been more open between us… when he found me, he could claim me.
Recognition sparked in his dark eyes.
“I think I should do that,” he said with a smirk.
* * *
Before we went dancing, I’d met the girls for dinner at a local restaurant that Paulo had recommended. We went all in, ordering the local pork mofongo, which was delicious. Though I could barely touch it or the flaky passion fruit pastry dessert that English had ordered for the table.
Nerves bit into me. What was I thinking? Did I really want to start a sexual relationship with Camden again? I wanted to have sex with him. But sex wasn’t just sex with Camden Percy.
Sex was control. Primal, passionate, and addicting. It wasn’t just a fling in the afternoons after the pool. It would never, could never be something that flippant. I’d known it before I’d married him. But I hadn’t really known. Not until our honeymoon when I’d left the Maldives with welts on my legs and ass and my pussy aching for more of whatever he’d give me. The sweet torment of his touch and his absence. Something that should have made me run the other way but somehow felt… safe.
I shook my head out of my thoughts of those weeks of blissful sex. I didn’t have to decide right now. I could figure it out as I went. It was a lie, but I held on to it for dear life.
Lark nudged me as we headed toward the club. “You barely touched your food.”
I bit my lip. I hated to admit this, but it was Lark. “I’m actually… nervous.”
“About what?” she asked with a laugh. “You’re on vacation.”
“I invited Camden tonight.”
“So? Wasn’t he already going to meet us with the rest of the guys?”
“Yes,” I said softly. “But I invited him to meet me.”
“There’s a distinction?”
I nodded. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m overreacting.”
“Just be careful,” Lark said softly. “I remember how you were after you and Camden… stopped.” She didn’t have to remind me. I knew the shell of a person I’d been. “I don’t want you to go through that again.”
“Me neither,” I whispered, but the words were drowned out by the pulse of the nightclub as we stepped inside.
English wove us through the crowd to an unoccupied booth nearest the DJ. Latin music blasted through the speakers with an intoxicating beat that made me want to move my hips. Couples ground against each other on the dance floor, just like back at home, but there were enough who were spiraling together, as if their movements were a choreographed salsa routine, and it was hard to pull my eyes away from them. They were fantastic and utterly sexual. Foreplay in the form of a dance. Erotic in nature but with rules unlike most of what I saw in America. It was a nice change of pace for our usual haunts.
Rum was the drink of choice. Some I’d heard of, like Bacardi, but others had names that I’d never seen—Palo Viejo, Don Q, and Ron del Barrilito. Our bartender was a saucy woman with long black hair nearly to her waist and a smile that made Whitley lean in. She poured drinks that were fruity and delicious and strong. So strong that my head was fuzzy after just one. Fuck, I really must not have eaten much at dinner.
I watched a couple dancing like they’d been born for it. I’d wanted to dance so freely once. Not any form of ballroom, of course. But I’d done ballet growing. I’d always been tall and willowy, and ballet had suited my frame. It had been years since I’d longed to put my pointe shoes back on. Even though Lord knew my ankles were not ready for that anymore. I would have never given it up if I hadn’t ended up in the hospital right after graduation. That had changed everything.