Page 5 of Best Laid Plans
CHAPTER TWO
CAM
Cam Devers only had a split second to react. When he heard a scream that could rupture his eardrum, loud as a fucking banshee warning of his impending death, he brought his arms upward to cover his face, twisting his tall frame so that he made a smaller target.
It was muscle memory, the way he dipped his head and rolled with the impact, the object knocking him squarely–and luckily–in the delt.
He grunted and moved away, trying to find a light switch in a house he’d been in hundreds of times over the years. “What the fuck?” he growled, pain reverberating down his arm. He opened and closed his fist, flexing his fingers. Features tight, he clenched his jaw and rubbed at his shoulder.
“Not in my house,” the voice screamed, and he could see the silhouette of a bat being raised again.
Had Wyatt gotten a girlfriend he’d failed to mention to Cam in the past few months? Because there was only one apartment at the top of these stairs, so he knew that he hadn’t walked into the wrong one.
“This isn’t your house,” he said through gritted teeth. Hisfingers found the light for the entryway and he flipped it on. What the fuck was happening?
His eyes adjusted, and he was confronted with a figure covered in a ridiculously oversized blanket. The material was pulled around them like they were doing some kind of poorly executed Jedi cosplay.
It was a woman. She was smaller than him–which most people were–and she wielded the bat like it was a lightsaber.
She stared at him with a crazed look, eyes that were suddenly so familiar it was like a punch in the gut. “Elle?” he asked, still keeping his arm up in case she wasn’t done with him.
And still holding that damn baseball bat that she looked like she was absolutely willing to use again.
Elle Pierce. All grown up.
Cam had at least half-a-foot on her, which she seemed to realize as her focus moved all the way up his body.
She studied him, her bottom lip pulled between her teeth as she warred with what to do next. He could see it happening in real time, recognition dawning as her gaze drifted from the hoodie-clad bicep where she’d hit him over to his face, her big, dark eyes locked on his.
He would have found the whole scene kind of hot, electricity crackling between them, if there wasn’t a fifty-fifty chance that she’d take another swing. And if she wasn’t his best friend’s little sister.
“Cam?” She finally responded, taking a step closer like she didn’t believe him. Granted, it had been at least a few years since they’d seen one another. And shockingly, these days, it was Cam that spent far more time with the Pierce family than Elle did.
“What areyoudoing here?” They both asked at the same time. Accusingly. It should have been funny, but neither of them laughed.
Cam was still too keyed up from everything that hadhappened tonight. He rubbed a hand over the closely cropped hair on the side of his head, wincing at the pain. His lip was a little swollen too, he noted, as he ran his tongue across it and felt the sting.
“Holy shit. Did I do that?” Elle asked, now standing directly in front of him. Dark eyes scanned his face, and he didn’t like how closely she was looking. He didn’t know what she’d see.
He thought about lying to her. Telling her that she was in fact the cause of his injuries. God knows, she could have cracked his skull with that baseball bat, and it would serve her right for what was an attempted assault in a home that he had a standing invitation to come to whenever he pleased.
And after the night he’d had, he’d needed to get out of Boston as quickly as possible.
She moved her hand closer to his injured forehead, but he pulled back. He stood up to his full height so that she would have had to stand on her tiptoes to reach his face “No. I had it when I got here,” he admitted gruffly.
Her chest was still rising and falling, and the blanket slipped as her fingers loosened around it. Cam was greeted with a view of her cleavage, a flush running up her neck like a vine before splotching flames of color across her cheeks. Her dark hair, pulled up and messy as hell, made her look like she’d just been thoroughly fucked.
The thought that he wanted to run his fingers through her hair and mess it up even more whipped through him, and he took a steadying step backward. Because that was not happening. In any universe. Elle had always been Wyatt’s younger sister to him–whip smart and going places in this world. He hadn’t expected seeing her like that to hit him like a freight train, and he pushed the feeling away. With a considerable amount of effort.
Elle stood up straight then, placing the bat down next to the door and putting her hands on what Cam assumed were herhips, though it was hard to tell through the blanket. “So, you’re telling me that you got into two physical altercations tonight?” she said, the judgment unmistakable in her voice.
Yep, that was more like it. Gone were the traces of arousal that he’d been feeling with the intensity of the situation–of the way Elle had looked at him like she hadn’t known if she wanted to fight him or fuck him.
He’d been looking at her the same way.
Elle Pierce didn’t know him. At least not anymore. And clearly, given how quickly she’d jumped to assuming tonight was his fault, he didn’t know her, either.
And hate fucking wasn’t his thing. He’d had enough anger and violence in his life. In his night, even.
