father. Right?” He nodded. I went on, “He trusts you then. He’s young. Kids are impressionable. I couldn’t tell you the things that were probably done to me when I was young, the ways I was used for bait, to con people, to steal, and I don’t even remember.”
“It won’t be easy but Ellie’s right,” Gus said. “Obviously we don’t want to make a scene or do anything that would endanger or mentally damage the boy. But I think if we take him, in the right way, and if you can find a way to face your guilt that I have no doubt you’ll feel for some time, he can grow up with no damage. He’ll be resilient. And he’ll have the life he needs.”
Camden looks up, face newly determined. “So when do we do this?”
Gus scratched at his mustache. “We find Sophia. We stake out her place. We start planning our moves. The three of us, we can do this together. We can do it quickly. No fuss. In and out. It might take a few weeks for everything to roll into place.”
“We don’t have a few weeks,” Camden moaned.
“Camden,” Gus said sternly. “You have a few weeks. A few weeks is nothing compared to a lifetime of being together – or not being together. My god, you and Ellie are both as impatient as Chihuahuas. No wonder you belong together.”
Camden and I exchanged a coy look. We did belong together. We all did.
Once dinner was over, we made our way back to the small hotel we were staying at, right on the beach. Gus retired to his room, said he wanted to continue watching this Telemundo show he got hooked on when he was being held hostage, and Camden grabbed my hand, leading me to the sand and crashing waves. The moon was in a perfect quarter, its reflection shining on the black-blue water.
He brought me to the ocean’s edge and stood behind me, wrapping his warm arms around me.
“I love you,” he whispered in my ear. “Every minute that goes by, you fill my heart. I don’t know what I’d do without you, Ellie. I’ve been so close to losing you.”
I gripped his hands over my stomach and leaned back into him, my head settling into the crook of his arms, and let that beautifully light feeling sink into me. “I love you. You have me. I think, deep down, you always did, even when I didn’t know it.”
We stood like that for quite some time, our feet in the cool, soft sand, just watching the waves crash, the stars shining, the moon so far, so close, so constant. Every night it appeared, no matter where in the world we were, even hidden by clouds, it was still there.
“You’re my moon,” I said quietly.
“Then you’re my earth.”
He turned me around, ever so mindful of my leg, and kissed me deeply. It was a kiss that reached right into you, stirred you around until you were effervescent and sparkling and deliriously happy. It was soft, warm lips and silken, skilled tongue. It made you hungry and thirsty and longing for more, for it to go on forever, satisfying yet insatiable. It turned me on, flipped the switch, awakened the passion that wouldn’t stop until we could fully devour each other. It was a kiss of the earth and the moon, all gravity and pull, a prelude to many forevers.
I don’t know how long we made out like that, just feeding from the love and the lust that we could only consume from one another, me surrendering in his arms, his arms that kept me close and kept me safe. Finally he pulled away and rubbed his thumb over my lips.
“I’d suggest sex on the beach,” he said, his voice husky, my mouth feeling empty without his. “But I think the two of us deserve a bed for once.”
That, and sex on the beach was highly overrated.
He bent down and picked me up in his arms. I let out a small laugh, wrapping my arms around his neck and burying my face below his ear. I breathed in his smell, absolutely intoxicating, and let him carry me all the way to our hotel room where he lay me down on the white, shabby-chic bedspread.
This was the first time we’d really been alone, been intimate, since we left the compound. I had something to tell him, but I wasn’t quite sure how to phrase it. I loved him beyond all doubt and I knew the man loved me. I knew we were the moon and the earth and each other’s future, revolving and evolving. But I was still scared to tell him what I knew, tell him what I wanted.
He bent over me, hands at the drawstring on my pants, but I pushed him back, hand on his chest and said, “I’m always getting naked first. Drop your clothes.”
Camden grinned wickedly and I bit my lip in anticipation, leaning back on my elbows to watch.
He took off his wifebeater first, the tats on his stomach and chest now on full display, then slowly started to unbutton his shorts.
“Are you doing a striptease?” I asked playfully.
“I’m stripping and I’m teasing,” he answered as he very deliberately rolled the zipper down before looping his thumbs on the waistband and inching them off. Bit by bit, until the ink faded into the hard Vs of hip bones and I saw the hard, glistening tip of his erection appear, flush to his pelvis.
He let the shorts drop and he took my breath away.
“Derek never got me any briefs,” he explained, as if I cared that he was going commando. Fuck me, he was a man who would never stop giving me the chills. I’d never seen a cock so large and beautiful as the one on Camden McQueen. My man. My moon. My everything.
He slowly walked toward the bed, growing larger as he came closer, so tall, so strong, so ready for me. His eyes held assurance and lust, drive and desire. He knew what he looked like, he knew what he was offering me, his perfect body and his perfect soul.
“When I saw you, I fell in love,” he said to me as I lay back against the bed and he crawled on top of me on all fours. “And you smiled because you knew.”
I grinned lazily as he bent down and slowly kissed along my neck. “Quoting Shakespeare, now?”
“If only Juliet had been a scowly faced teenager,” he murmured against my neck. “Because while I’m pretty sure you knew I loved you, I don’t think it made you smile.”
I jerked my head away from him and held his face in my hands. “Camden. You always made me smile, even when I didn’t show it. You were my only friend and I was too young to know what your heart was worth.”
“And you know now.”
I ran my hands through his thick hair. “I knew then, now and always.” I pulled his face to mine and kissed him softly before looking deep and hard into his eyes, trying to figure out how to say this. “Camden … I was on the pill until, well, until we left Veracruz. I’ve only been with you since.”
He frowned, a look of wonderment and fear in his eyes. “Are you pregnant?”
I shook my head. “No. I don’t think so. I’m just …” I chewed on my lip. “I’m just thinking … I don’t want to go back on them.” There. I said it. The weight of it all hung in the room.
He blinked, his dark brow still furrowed, and suddenly I was unbearably frightened that I had scared him off. My heart felt like lead.
“I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “I—”
“You want a baby?” he asked gently. His face was softening, his eyes searching mine, pulling truth from me.
“I don’t mean right now,” I managed to say. “Or maybe I do. But yes. With you. I want a family of my own. To start new. To give us both what we never had.”
“Oh, Ellie,” he whispered. His face crumpled slightly and he brought it to my neck. He whispered into my ear, “Oh, Ellie. I will give you that. It’s all I’ve ever wanted for us. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
And suddenly I was all love.
“Really?” I asked.
He looked at me, glassy-eyed, and grinned so wide, so amazing. “Really. A brother or sister for Ben.” He swallowed loudly, taking a moment to contain himself. “My beautiful Ellie, I want this. I want this. We need this.”
He reached down and slowly unbuttoned my blouse until my breasts were bare and spread before him - he wasn’t the only one going commando. He trailed his fingers over my flesh, goosebumps rising in his wake, and tugged lightly at my nipple ring. I groaned and arched my back, offering myself to him, needing more.
But he wasn’t in a hurry, not tonight. He slowly made his way from my breasts to my abdomen, kissing and licking over my stomach, concentrating his mouth there as if willing his seed to be planted. He finished untying my pants and cautiously pulled them off, taking it slow around my leg.
