alive. And fear because he wasn’t dead.
I climbed into the middle seat, still dazed but feeling everything sparking back to life, like I went from black and white back to Technicolor.
Javier didn’t turn around to acknowledge me. In fact, as Camden closed the door and Dom drove the Escalade down the street, no one said anything. The five of us were silent though apologies were dancing on my tongue. I wanted to tell Javier I was sorry about Violetta. I wanted to tell him it was all my fault. I wanted to beg for forgiveness.
But I didn’t. Because it wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t bring her back. It wouldn’t make anyone feel better. Not even me.
Camden reached for my hand and held onto it tight. His skin was warm, firm and soft all at once. I raised my eyes to his. He was here with me, a simple fact in an unsimple world.
We stared at each other for a few beats, my thoughts lost in those baby blues, in the hardness that surrounded them, and the soulfulness deep inside. Violetta’s words from last night swirled around in my head. Her wish for love, to love and to
I couldn’t be sure I had the latter. I certainly didn’t deserve it. But I had the former. I loved this man who was sitting next me, who had been by my side, on my side, from the beginning. I had to hold onto that. I had something that Violetta died without – knowing that someone completely owns your heart. Camden owned my heart and the blood it pumped through me. He owned every atom and inch of my body, every crevice and dark shadow of my soul. From now on, he would possess it freely, easily. I was his. And if I blew up the next day, if I met my death trying to get back Gus and my mother, at least then I could die knowing my heart was put to good use. It wasn’t wasted. And if it wasn’t wasted then perhaps I wasn’t wasted either.
I squeezed his hand back, silent thanks for his comfort and devotion. Then I carefully leaned my head on his shoulder and tried to forget about the pain that the morning had brought me. The lives it had changed.
We sped south in a car full of love and death.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Hold still,” Camden instructed.
He had an alcohol soaked cloth poised at the corner of my head, ready to sting the shit out of me. The pain that came with healing.
We were in a gas station bathroom, the floor sticky with unknown fluids, the walls crawling with winged creepy crawlies that would occasionally make a go for the bare light bulb before falling to the floor. I was sitting up on the sink and Camden was trying to treat my wounds while he had the chance.
We had driven pretty much nonstop all the way from Aguascalientes until just outside of the border to Guatemala, 12 hours in one stretch. During the drive, Javier hadn’t said a single word, only stared out the window as the landscape of his country rushed past us. Dom and Este did all the talking, telling us the plan for the next few days as we went into the jungle. Apparently we were meeting another “friend” of theirs in Guatemala City who’d be joining us.
No one talked about what happened to Violetta or who was shooting at us. I assumed it was Travis and I guess from their silence the assumption was right. There was nothing to say, I suppose, except that his people wanted us dead and they were a lot more clever than I had given them credit for.
“Ow,” I moaned as Camden gently pressed the cloth to my head.
“Sorry,” he said, eyes soft as he gazed at me.
I watched him as he did this, wincing through the pain. He dabbed it on my cheekbone where I had another large gash that hurt if I smiled. Luckily, there wasn’t much to smile about.
“How are your eyes?” I asked him.
He paused, cloth in hand, and peered at me inquisitively. “What do you mean?”
“Can you see me?”
He went back to stinging the wounds. “I told you I can see you clearly from up close.”
I swallowed hard and swung my legs up and down, suddenly very aware that as I sat on the edge of the sink, I was pretty much straddling him. “Do you like what you see?” I asked quietly. My words sat in a fine haze over the room, my chest constricting from the silence.
His mouth dropped open, lower lip full and inviting, his pink tongue moving in his mouth, trying to make words that would not come.
“Am I still beautiful to you?” I whispered, feeling my heart slowly leak open. I was raw and wounded and in his hands.
His face crumpled, such vulnerability in its strength. The cloth dropped out of his hands and into the sink and he sucked in his breath before saying, “Ellie Watt, you’re more beautiful than you’ve ever been.”
And then his lips, his soft, full, warm lips were on mine, sending sparks up my face, to the back of my head, trailing down my back like brushes from angel wings. His mouth was greedy and mine wanted, needed, craved more. He made a fist in the back of my hair and I grabbed onto his, tugging it until he moaned, the intoxicating sound of his lust filling my mouth, my throat, my lungs. I couldn’t get enough, I was afraid I’d never get it again.
It was wrong, it was wrong, it was wrong to be doing this with him, in here, when the whole world was dying out there, but I didn’t care. I loved him and I needed him more than I ever needed anyone. I loved him and love had to be good in this life full of bad.
He put his lips to my collarbone sucking and biting and making me forget everything, the worries coming off of me like the tank top I quickly pulled over my head and shed to the floor. He cupped my swollen breasts with his hands, his thumbs teasing my nipples until he pulled back the bra and exposed them to the humid air, pinching them with his teeth. I cried out from the pain, the beautiful pain that rocked through my body, making every centimeter of my skin feel absolutely alive. For the first time in a long time, I felt like I was living, breathing, present. Here.
“Please don’t stop,” I begged him between groans. “Please don’t stop.”
“Baby, I’m just getting started,” he said, voice husky with unadulterated lust. He went for my neck, licking in long smooth strokes that set off nerves all the way down to my clit, racing across my body like shooting stars. My legs spread wider for him, wrapping around his waist, tugging him close to me, desperate for friction.
He pulled away and quickly pushed my legs together. With a hard tug he undid the zipper of my jeans and I quickly kicked off my hiking boots. He pulled down my jeans and underwear, the sink cold against my ass, as I reached for his belt, fumbling to let him loose, like if I didn’t free his cock fast enough, I’d lose the opportunity forever.
When my legs were bare and wide for him, I brought him in closer with my calves, hooked securely around his back. The belt finally came free and his pants dropped to his ankles with a single snap of a button.
And here we were, naked from the waist down, his cock hard as concrete and silky soft against my opening, his hands gripping my shoulders as if I would try and escape. But there was no escape for me, I was in this deeply and I needed him to be in me just as deep. If he couldn’t feel something for me in his heart the way that I did, then he could feel something in his balls. I would take what I could get, even here, in this dirty gas station bathroom, because I never wanted Camden more, never needed him more, than I did right there.
“Ellie,” he whispered, pressing his hard ridge against me, rubbing ever so slightly. The pressure on my clit made me wetter than water. I felt myself spreading open, eager for him, feeling so fucking empty and hollow until I had him inside of me.
I grabbed his face and kissed him, my mouth wanting more than he could give me, my tongue coaxing his until they melted into each other, that insatiable thirst that was plaguing me once again, driving me to devour him, consume him.
He took my lip between his teeth and pulled back on in, biting down in sweet sinful pleasure.
“Ellie,” he whispered again and I reached down for his cock, stroking it smoothly, every hard, long inch of him. The illicit grunt that came out of his mouth, the way his eyes rolled back in his head, those gorgeous eyes of his, caused my hormones to flare up into overdrive.
