Page 65 of Best Laid Plans
She walked over and stood across from him, mirroring his pose. “Why not you?” she said without preamble.
Cam’s eyes narrowed, like he knew she was leading him into a trap but not exactly sure how. Smart man. “‘Why not me’ what?”
“If anyone should usher in the future of Pierce’s Lobster Co., it should be you. You should make an offer on the restaurant.” Elle had it all mapped out already, but she knew that too much too fast would just send Cam running.
His eyes flicked around the room before settling back on Elle, an impossibly dark green she’d never seen before. “I don’t know, Elle. I feel like your dad would have mentioned it to me if that was something he was interested in pursuing.” His voice was uncertain, but his words proved that maybe this was something that had crossed his own mind over the last day, too.
And most importantly, it wasn’t a no, and that’s all sheneeded right now to keep pushing. “Think about it, Cam,” she implored, gesturing around the space. “You want your own restaurant. My parents are thinking about selling anyway. You practically grew up here. Who would be a better fit for this than you?”
“I don’t think that I could make a competitive offer,” Cam said hoarsely, his palms now completely flat against the table.
This was a tennis match, and Elle was going to volley back every half-hearted attempt he made to dissuade her.
“I think you could.” Elle had done an extensive amount of research in the last few hours, sporadically pulling over on her meandering drive home whenever an idea struck her. Ideally, this planning would have been done at a desk with a computer, but she couldn’t control when inspiration would strike. Which, in her case, had been as she’d been driving up the coast on the scenic highway that took at least three times as long as usual to get back to Rock Harbor. She’d always found that the best way to avoid her own problems was to throw herself into someone else’s.
“I have a non-compete in place, and I told you that Michael has every intention of invoking it. Rock Harbor will still be on his radar. Honestly, anywhere I go will be on his radar. I don’t want to drag your family into that.” Elle was gearing up to speak again when he held his hand up. “Not that I’m agreeing with your idea in any way, shape, or form. To be clear.”
She smiled. It was hard not to appreciate that he already had her number. But that call connected both ways. “That’s why you aren’t going to buy this place.” She held for a beat, watching his eyebrows rise. “You’re going to invest in it.”
The small smile playing at his lips abated, as he scrunched his face in serious consideration. He scratched thoughtfully at his jaw, still not on board. “There’s still the Michael of it all. I don’t think you understand what a merciless ass he can be when he wants something.”
Elle waved her hand. Cam was acting like this guy was the Oprah of restaurants instead of a nepo-baby who’d gotten a serious injection of cash from his family’s company to start his first restaurant group. Michael Vittori had had zero experience and a fat blank check to hire people far more talented than himself. People like Cam. Because yeah, she’d done that research, too. “Let him try. I’m not saying it wouldn’t be annoying, but I’m fairly confident that it would belessannoying than Pierce’s becoming storage space.”
Cam’s eyes flashed with fire, like he was imagining that exact scene playing out. Good. She wanted him mad. She wanted him towantsomething. And even if the thing he wanted wasn’t her–at least not in the way that she wanted him–getting him on board with this was still the right thing to do. She just needed to get him to see that.
Pierce’s Lobster Co. wasn’t just her family’s restaurant. It was a Rock Harbor staple that had been good to this town and its people. It still had life left in it. Elle was sure of it.
There was something exciting crackling in the area, and she hoped that Cam felt it, too. It was possibility.Realpossibility that they could right this ship before Pierce’s was gone forever. Cam had to be able to see how important this was. Had to understand that if it wasn’t going to be her dad at the helm, it should be Cam.
She walked around the prep table, ready to shake him into seeing it her way. But when confronted with his solid, imposing form in front of her, her whole body vibrated with awareness as she honest-to-god went a little weak in the knees at being so close to him.
Because regardless of what happened next, it was already too late. Whether Cam made an offer. Whether anyone found out about them. Whether she ever got to wake up next to him again. None of that really mattered because the reality was, hewasn’t going to be someone that shegot overwith the passage of time or wherever their lives took them.
He was always going to be a part of her. And in some small, deep recess of her own heart, she hoped it was the same for him.
“Cam,” she said quietly, putting her hand on his chest, trying to find a purchase to cling to while she centered herself. But she had to make him understand. Not only for Pierce’s, but for him. He needed to know that it was okay to want things for himself. “If you want this, you can do it. I will help you put together a proposal to present to my parents.” She stilled her fingers against his chest and looked up to meet his stare. “So the real question is… do you want this?”
There was a moment of calm, where every feature of Cam’s face was as still as stone, like they were frozen in time.
She felt the coolness of the prep table through her pants before she even realized that she’d been lifted.
Cam fisted her hair in his hand, and she moved toward him, their lips meeting as sparks shot through her body. He slid between her legs, which she quickly bracketed around him, as much as his larger frame would allow. She could feel the bulge through his pants, both of them frantic for more with the layers between them.
“You’re driving me crazy, Elle. Making me want so many things,” he said between hungry kisses that moved from her lips to her jaw to her neck.
She didn’t have time to unpack his words because the wanting, desperate timber of his voice sent a pang of want to her clit, and she tried to push her body closer, needing to feel all of him against her. She was already unbuttoning his pants and pushing them down, and he’d managed to untuck her shirt with a single pull. “If you’re trying to distract me from this conversation, it’s working. For now.” How she’d managed those words, she wasn’t sure.
His ragged breath was the greatest sound that Elle had everheard when she lifted up his shirt and skimmed her nails down his torso, the muscles flexing underneath wherever she touched.
With one hand, he lifted her enough that he could pull her pants and underwear down with the other, and suddenly, Elle’s bare ass was against cool metal. But she barely registered it with the heat coursing through her own body, Cam’s arm still encircling her, keeping her close.
Cam squeezed one of her thighs, her hips opening wider. “I want you, right now. Like this. That’s what I want.” She wondered if she could come from the gruff sound of his voice alone.
Her whole body was buzzing, struck by what they were doing and more importantly, where they were doing it, but not really able to care. “Yes. I want this.” She reached forward to grab at Cam’s boxer briefs, the only thing he was still wearing from the waist down. “I’m on the pill,” she said as she pulled them off, his hard cock already thick and straining with need. She couldn’t wait to feel all of him, to take him inside with no barrier and feel every ridge thrusting into her.
She reached forward to take him in her hands, but he wrapped his own hand around his shaft and started moving it slowly, rhythmically, watching her with a focus that made her feel so vulnerable that she didn’t know what to do with it. Elle was hypnotized, the blood rushing in her ears as she could make out the panting, labored breaths coming out of her mouth. Her stomach bottomed out watching him, loving this more than she’d ever anticipated.
“Do you know that I think about you every time I come?” Cam asked, slotting in an inch closer so that his tip, already beaded wet, was almost touching her. She imagined that she could feel the heat from it, so fucking close to where she needed it.
