sweat.
“Do you think this whole thing was a set up?” Camden asked me after a few moments. He was breathing heavier now, the rising elevation and intense humidity breaking him down as well.
“I don’t know how it could be,” I said honestly. My lungs were burning, my feet aching in my boots. I stopped wiping the sweat off my face a long time ago. “What would be the point of bringing us out here?”
“Maybe we’re supposed to be a diversion. Maybe Javier is setting you up to distract them while he swoops in and takes over. Maybe that’s why you were left behind.”
I shook my head, droplets of sweat flying. “I don’t think so. Why were you left?”
“I’m a diversion too.”
“But if we’re a diversion, then it means we are being set up to fail. They’d want Travis to take us … worse, kill us. Javier wouldn’t do that.”
He stopped and turned to look at me. “You just said that you wouldn’t put it past him to set you up.” His voice was ragged and unmistakable anger burned deep in his eyes.
I threw up my hands and sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to think. I …” I remembered what Violetta had said about Javier throwing me under a bus if he had to. I swallowed hard. “I think he’d use me, use us, to get what he wants. But I don’t think he’d ever put my life in danger.”
He raised his brows then laughed wickedly, looking up at the sky. “Wow. You have got to be kidding me.”
“What?” I asked, my heart began to thud loudly in my ears.
“What? Ellie, from the start he has been pulling all the puppet strings and you’ve been pulled willingly. You say he wouldn’t put you in any danger but he sent you to Travis’s house to kill him. He made you cozy up to the sick bastard. If that’s not putting you at risk, I don’t know what is. I would never do that to you.”
“And then he saved us. He also saved you again. On the roof. He didn’t have to do that.”
“Didn’t have to save a human being’s life? Who would?” he scoffed.
“Why are we even arguing about this?” I said. My pack was feeling too heavy so I put it on the ground. I hated fighting with him though I knew where it was all coming from. There was a lot of truth in Camden’s words and still a lot of resentment. Toward me.
“Because …” He sighed and turned away. “Because I can’t help it. I can’t stop thinking about … what we did.”
My lungs were definitely working overtime now, my heart feeling as if it were being squeezed by icy fingers. I didn’t like where this was going. Why couldn’t we get over this? Why couldn’t my heart stay intact for a fucking minute?
“What we did?” I asked carefully. “You mean when I fucked you in the bathroom? Or was it what I said?”
He gave me a dirty look. “Was that what it was to you? Just a fuck?”
“Oh my god,” I exclaimed. “What is wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with me?” he repeated. His smiled coldly. “Excuse me if I have problems taking your words at face value.”
That fucking hurt. No, that fucking killed me, knife to heart.
Another hit of thunder slammed through the sky and in seconds the clouds broke open. Heavy rain pounded down on us, soaking us in seconds. The forest roared with the sound of raindrops hitting the leaves. Just perfect.
I didn’t even know what to say to that. My mouth fumbled for words, the rain streaming down my face. If I started crying he wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.
“Why can’t you just forgive me?” I pleaded. “I’m not lying, Camden. I’m being more honest than I’ve ever been.”
“How could you sleep with him so easily and then do the same to me?”
I put my face in my hands, trying to contain myself. I took in a shaky breath and looked at him. He was barely visible through the sheets of rain.
“I can’t take back what I did,” I told him, my voice raw, threatening to crack. “I have my reasons and you know what they are. I can only control what I do from now on in. I slept with you because I love you. I told you the truth in that bathroom. You can decide to forgive me or not, but it’s not my problem anymore if you don’t. I gave you my heart. You have it. You should know you have it. If you can’t find it in yourself to give me another chance then that’s your problem. Stop punishing me for the past when the only thing we have is right now!”
“I’m not punishing you.”
Oh, that did it. I stormed over to him, nearly slipping in the mud and shoved my hands against his wet chest, pushing him back a step. I was unable to contain the stream of words that had been dying to come out. “Now you’re the fucking liar here. You’ve wanted me to suffer the minute you found out about Javier and I. And you’ve been doing a bang-up fucking job about it. You think I don’t hate myself already for what I’ve done? Now I just hate myself even more because every time I look at you I see a man that once loved me, a man whose love I should have believed in, should have had faith in and I didn’t. So I lost that love and I lost you all for nothing! All because I’m a stupid, scared little girl with scars on her leg that never deserved anything good in her life and who believed it. Now for the first time, I think I might be better than I thought, better than I ever gave myself credit for and you’re the one who won’t let me believe it.” I blinked hard, trying to control the tears. They stayed put but the pain in my chest was unbearable. “You told me I was good, Camden. I know you want to believe in me but you’re stopping yourself. Why can’t you just love me again?” I grabbed his face with my hands, his skin slick from the rain that continued to fall steadily. “You own my heart. Please let me have yours.”
He closed his eyes, his lashes dark and wet. He breathed hard, his mouth open. I kept my hands on his face, trying to hold onto him even though I felt him slipping away.
“I don’t want to love you, Ellie.”
All air left me. I was nothing inside but bones and blood. I was hollow, scooped out, unlovable. Undeserving. I was dying in the jungle, holding on to the one with the knife.
A small sob escaped me. His eyes flew open, a blue ocean of pain. He swallowed hard and put his hand behind my head, staring at me with stark determination. “I don’t want to love you, Ellie, but I
Oh Jesus. I was melting in his hands.
He gazed at me, so close, rain drops hanging from his lashes. “But the pain … oh please, I can’t go through that again. I look at you and I see him and I just want to see you again. I want to know that this can work. I want you and I to go home and become a home. I just want my heart to be safe in your hands because yours is safe in mine.”
“You’re safe with me,” I told him, my voice choking up. “Camden, you’re safe with me.”
I kissed him, wet and slick and his fingers pressed harder into my face. I pulled back and whispered, “Please believe that you’re safe with me.” I stroked his lower lip with my finger. “I gave you pain and I can take it away, if you let me. If you let yourself love me.”
His eyes went soft and dreamy for a few moments before they flared with a wild hit of lust. The look made my blood hot. He placed his lips on mine, drawing out a deep hard kiss, pressing himself into me, his tongue warm and feverish against mine. He moaned, the vibrations sinking into my core, heat radiating between my legs. Inappropriate, once again so fucking inappropriate.
But fuck it.
And fuck him. Literally.
“Camden,” I murmured into him, wanting him right there in the rain, his body and soul and heart.
He went for my neck, his tongue swooping up just behind my ear, licking the rim then sliding back down my jawline. He grabbed my hair hard with both hands, tugging sharply, and looked me dead in the eyes. He was all
