Page 53 of Best Laid Plans
“He didn’t change my sheets before he left this morning.” Wyatt’s tone was more confused than anything, and she watched as Cam’s shoulders hunched forward, like he’d actually committed some cardinal sin.
Elle scrunched up her face, quietly mocking her brother’s words, hoping to elicit a laugh from Cam that was nowhere to be found.
“Maybe he ran down to the fish market,” Elle lied. Triumphantly, she pulled on a shirt, pleased that she was finally orienting her and Cam to a safer place. Because the thought thathad been nagging in her peripheral since Wyatt had shown up unexpectedly, she realized, was that if they were discovered, they couldn’t keep doing this. And that was the last thing that Elle wanted.
“Yeah, maybe.” Elle could picture her brother so clearly on the other side of the door, like a dog with a scent. She knew that Wyatt was very likely standing with his hands on his hips, mulling Elle’s words over. She needed to give him less time to think.
“I’ll be out in a second. Can you make me a cup of coffee?” she asked sweetly before flashing Cam a confident smile that also went unreturned. In another minute, it was all going to be okay. And in the meantime, she’d get her brother as far away from her room as humanly possible, not taking the chance Wyatt the bloodhound could ferret his best friend out by scent alone.
“No wonder Cam isn’t here. Do you treat him like your personal servant, too?” Wyatt’s voice grew distant, his steady footsteps disappearing as he hit the living room rug.
Elle scoffed even as she heaved a sigh of relief. And in spite of the close call, it still took a lot for her to bite back her words, lest it brought Wyatt back in her direction. She was a fucking treasure as far as she was concerned, and it didn’t seem like Cam had any complaints about her either.
She turned toward her mirror and put her hair up in a haphazard bun, hoping the tangles were obfuscated with the low-effort look. And then, given what she’d seen on Cam, she turned toward both sides, making sure that she didn’t have any visible marks on her own body that would lead to unwanted questions. That was the last thing she needed at a family lunch.
Cam was visible in the reflection, and he was making it look infuriatingly easy not to meet her stare. It was glaringly clear to her that this was about so much more than just keeping them a secret for the sake of simplicity. Usually, if a guy tried to keepthe fact that he was sleeping with a woman hidden, it was a red flag the size of Texas. But with Cam, she knew on some deeply instinctive level that wasn’t the case. What exactly his fear was, she couldn’t be certain, but he was wearing it like a second skin.
“Are we good?” Elle asked quietly when she’d turned around.
Some of the color had returned to Cam’s face, and he nodded. “Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “Thank you, by the way.”
Elle refused to give him time to feel embarrassed, especially when he didn’t need to be. “I’ll leave with Wyatt, and we can talk about this later?”
Cam’s head bobbed up and down. “We probably should.”
Elle had been expecting a rebuke or a deflection, heartened when his stare finally met hers. Quickly then, before she lost her nerve, she walked over to where Cam stood, so that she didn’t have to raise her voice. Gently but insistently, missing the feel of Cam’s body already, she pressed her hands against his chest, her fingertips massaging into solid skin. “I don’t regret last night, so let’s just get that straight. Got it?”
Cam nodded then, the smallest hint of a smile appearing on his lips. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Coffee’s done, princess,” Wyatt’s voice called from outside of the bubble Elle had found herself back in. A place she never seemed to want to leave.
“Looks like Prince Pierce himself is in royal form today,” Cam teased, his voice surprisingly playful, and Elle’s whole body lightened.
Without overthinking it, even though she’d always been a woman with a plan, she stretched up on her tiptoes and placed a light, quick kiss on Cam’s lips. “Sorry we didn’t get another round in, but I’m sure you’ll make it up to me later,” she said, already walking out the door and shutting it closed behind her.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CAM
Cam’s lungs heaved as he and Wyatt careened down the gravel path that ran flush with the ocean. If he could keep his best friend out of breath enough, maybe he could stave off the conversation that he knew was coming.
The specifics of what Wyatt wanted to talk about weren’t important, just that every sentence would be a minefield of different ways that Cam could blow himself up.
How’s it been at the apartment?Great. I fucked your sister.
Have you and Elle been getting along?Yeah, sometimes she looks at me and I forget how to breathe.
Liking being back in town?So much that I don’t know if I’ll ever leave, especially if Elle’s here.
Not that he’d admit any of those things to his best friend, under duress or otherwise.
And he definitely wasn’t going to admit that the more he tried to stay away from Elle, the more he was drawn to her. That she was unlike any woman he’d ever met. That after last night, even with what was on the line, he still couldn’t keep his distance.
If Wyatt almost catching them in bed together this morninghadn’t been enough to scare him straight, then all he could really do was bulk up his body against Wyatt’s fists and bulk up his heart against whatever the hell it was that Elle was doing to it.
While Wyatt and Elle had been out, he’d found a motel about twenty minutes away from the restaurant. He could get a room there for the next few weeks, just until Mr. Pierce got back on his feet. Thinking about anything beyond that was a fool’s errand. He hadn’t made it this far in life by having big hopes about anything more than what was right in front of him.
The sun was still high in the sky as the bits of rock ricocheted off his calves, but he wouldn’t focus on anything except keeping enough energy up so that he didn’t need to stop moving.
