Page 25 of Best Laid Plans
“Nope,” she said before drinking the remainder of the bottle. When she looked toward the recycling bin and threw it, Cam took a second to adjust himself, praying that she couldn’t see the way his underwear was already starting to bulge.
God, what type of spell had Elle cast on him?
“So we’re good?” He knew that he sounded dubious, even as he wanted his words to be true. Because if they were good, he could stop worrying that there was a world in which he would actually get to have Elle, to know the sounds that she made when she was coming so hard she couldn’t remember her name.
Turning sideways toward him, she crossed her legs, and Cam couldn’t help but follow the movement with his eyes. “I was pretty worked up today when I got home, but I took care of it.”
His eyebrows rose curiously. He couldn’t consider a world in which Elle was implying that she’d come home and gotten herself off because she’d still been so turned on. “Is that so?” he asked, knowing that he was taking the bait but not being able to stop himself from taking the bait.
Elle was teasing him, just like she’d done the day he’d been getting out of the shower. Only this time, he’d now let himself fantasize about her, and it was harder to get those thoughts out of his head.
“I mean, we’re unexpectedly living together in close quarters. Lots of stressful things are happening. And judging by earlier today, you seem to be as attracted to me as I am to you. So, yeah… once you told me that you had no interest in finishing things, I finished them myself.”
He cleared his throat, resisting the urge to put his hands down to cover his growing erection. It would only draw attention that he absolutely didn’t need. Instead, he pointed to his chest. “Elle, you know that anything between us would be a bad idea. You don’t even like me.”
Elle cocked her head to the side at the same time she tugged her bottom lip between her teeth. “I don’t need to like you to want to sleep with you. In fact, I’d argue that it makes things a lot easier this way.”
The air around them was suddenly still, Elle’s words hanging between them.
Finally, he broke the silence. “A casual lay isn’t enough for me to start World War 3 with your brother.” And that was the damn truth. Or, at least, part of it.
Elle’s face scrunched up adorably. “Eww. Don’t bring him into this.”
He shook his head in disbelief. “Easy for you to say. You’re not the one he’d want to kill if he found out.”
Big, dark eyes looked over at him. Instead of answering, she hopped down from the counter and closed the two feet of space between them, stopping so close that if she exhaled she’d brush against his cock.
Elle looked down, the focus of her stare clear, before she met Cam’s eyes again. “There seems to be some mutiny afoot towards your words, but have it your way.” She was trying to kill him. For real this time. Her words were more effective than any baseball bat. And then, she reached up and pressed her hand to his chest, feeling the insistent thrum of his heartbeat against her palm. “We’re going to be working together this weekend, so I’ll be on my best behavior. Promise,” she said, making a criss-cross symbol with her fingertips.
It felt like fire against Cam’s skin.
CHAPTER NINE
ELLE
Elle sat in the local coffee shop she’d been meaning to try, Sips, but hadn’t gotten around to until Thursday morning. She was waiting for Becca, now that they’d managed to find time when Becca was free. Between Zoe and her job at The Rock Harbor Inn, it didn’t seem like Becca was flush with time for extracurricular activities.
Elle couldn’t sympathize with the feeling, and given her current living situation, she was looking for any excuse to get out of the apartment.
Sips was a cute shop, with vibrant splashes of color against muted walls and deep-set chairs around small tables. Elle had arrived over an hour before their scheduled meeting time to continue painstakingly tweaking her resume and applying to any new jobs that had been posted in the last twenty-four hours.
The cafe was sandwiched between an antique store on the right and a stationary store on the left, the front facade one giant window that let in great natural light. How the stationary store would survive in a town of tourists was none of Elle’s business. What was on the other side of the antique store interested her the most, though she hadn’t ventured over yet. Shewas still debating whether she would at all. Heads & Tails, the seafood restaurant, was exactly where her father had said it would be.
She’d missed it a few days ago on her run, like she would have missed it today, had it not been close to eleven a.m., when it opened. When she’d searched Rock Harbor seafood on her phone this morning, it was the first result that came up, along with hundreds of glowing reviews and photos snapped in front of the very Instagrammable interior brick wall with a coastal motif.
There was already a line of people standing in front of Sips, queuing for another twenty feet to get to the Heads & Tails entrance.
“Am I interrupting something?” Becca stood next to Elle’s table, an amused look on her face. Elle had been so focused on looking out the window toward the line of people that she’d completely missed Becca’s arrival.
Becca was wearing her work uniform, black pants and a black shirt, like she’d been the other day, and her blonde, unruly hair was tied up in a ponytail again. There was a small sparkly purple unicorn sticker above her right breast, which Elle eyed.
Following her stare, Becca spotted the sticker and quickly plucked it off her shirt. “Courtesy of Zoe during our ride to her grandparents’ house.”
“She has good taste, I’ll give her that.” Elle smiled and gestured for her to sit down. “I was looking at the line for Heads & Tails.”
Becca nodded, knowingly, meeting Elle’s eyes with her own dark blue ones. Becca had never been one to back down from hard truths. “How’s everything going with the restaurant?”
Elle shut her laptop and stood up. “I’ll grab us coffees and then regale you with the whole tale. Iced?”
