Seductive Secrecy (Shadows series) (29 page)

“
More
painful?” I didn’t know how I’d stand it.

“You’ll learn…soon enough, you’ll learn.”

“No more learning.”

His smile grew even wider. “To learning!” he said, a bit too
cheerfully for my mood.  “And to Cameron—and to love, even if you say ‘no’.” He knocked back his shot and slammed the glass on the table. “And to you being happy…because when you’re happy, I’m happy.”

“Whatever you say.” Since he’d already drank his, I threw my
head back to take the full shot. Unlike the first few, it didn’t even
burn when it went down. Nothing burned. I had completely lost feeling in my body.

And I liked it.

“CHARLIE, BABY…CAN YOU HEAR ME?”

There was a heaviness behind my eyes that extended all the way to my sinuses and around the back of my head. Every few seconds, the dull throb that ached in those same places increased to a sharp stab. Then the process repeated. I stayed as still as I could. Swirls of gray and silver mixed with the blackness behind my closed lids, circling and rocking like the swaying of a boat. I heard my name; my stomach just didn’t want me to respond to it.

I had a feeling it wasn’t even morning yet and my hangover was already taking over my whole body. I never wanted to drink again.

“Charlie,” the voice repeated.

It sounded so much like Cameron: his deep tone, the heat from his breath. Maybe he was the reason I didn’t want to open my eyes. Maybe I wanted to really believe he was with me, his love keeping me still and calm.

“Charlie, I’m starting to worry…open your eyes for me, baby.”

I gave in, allowing the light to slowly trickle in and the pain to
intensify. The dull throb was gone, replaced with the full-time
stabbing. I wiped the corners of my eyes and scanned the floor in front of me. But I didn’t get far before I met those familiar icy irises.

Cameron really is here...

My whole body stiffened. I sat up quickly and wrapped my
arms around my knees. I wasn’t just trying to protect myself; I was trying to keep down all the liquor as it was threatening to rise. “What are you doing here?”

He exhaled heavily. “I need you back, baby. I can’t live without
you.”

My vision became a little clearer when I heard that. I saw the kitchen light shining on the pizza box that Dallas and I had picked up on our way home. I didn’t remember eating any of it, but I could taste the sauce and pepperoni in my mouth. I didn’t even like pepperoni. It was making me gag a little. The lamp on the end table
shone directly onto Cameron’s face as he kneeled on the floor in
front of me. He was dressed in my favorite dark jeans, and a black T-shirt that clung to his tight, defined chest.

My stare briefly left him to travel around the room in search of
Dallas. He wasn’t in here. I leaned up in the seat to check his
bedroom door. It was closed.

“Why...?”

Cameron’s hands went to my knees. “Dallas called me.”

“He did
what?
” I couldn’t help raising my voice. Why Dallas
would have taken that step without asking me, especially after I’d made my feelings clear last night?

Maybe I hadn’t made them as clear as I thought.

Or maybe I’d made them clearer than I wanted to.

A furrow formed between his brows; his hands began to push a little harder against my skin. “You’re not happy that he called me?”

Happy
.

There was that word again. The theme that had surrounded our evening.

It suddenly made sense. Dallas wanted me to feel that again, even if he was the one who had to initiate it.
When you’re happy, I’m happy
. I wanted to be angry that he’d disregarded my feelings on the subject, but I couldn’t. He wanted what was best for me, and he knew that meant Cameron. And he knew I wouldn’t make the first move to bring us back together.

He really was a good friend.

But in my current state, I couldn’t form a proper thought. “I
don’t know how I feel about anything, Cameron. I’m really confused at the moment.”

“I’m not confused at all. I know exactly what I want now, and that’s you.”

“How can you say that now when you ignored me for weeks? You spent every night in the studio or you went out…you brought Lora to our place
our
place. And you painted her…naked.”

“I
”

“I saw that painting you did of me, too. What was that supposed to mean?”

He looked troubled. “I have no excuse for the way I acted,
Charlie. It was wrong. You didn’t deserve any of that, and everything Ryder said was true; I fucked up. I can’t apologize enough for it.” He
wouldn’t look at me now. “If you honestly want nothing to do with me, then I understand, and I’ll respect that. But I had to tell you how
I feel.”

“
Now
you have to tell me how you feel?”

“I’ve been trying to all week…you haven’t answered your
phone.”

He was saying everything I wanted him to, everything I had
been
waiting for. But it didn’t predict the future, and it didn’t define
anything that we both might be learning from this.

There it was again—
learning
, the other topic Dallas and I had discussed in our drunken haze.

Cameron’s fingers gripped the edge of the couch, squeezing down into the cushion. I could feel the pain emanating from him, the sadness and uncertainty hovering behind his eyes. “I went too far. I
know that.” He took a deep breath and shook his head. “Fuck,
Charlie, I really do know that. I’m sorry for it.”

“What about your feelings for me?”

“They’ve been all over the place. There are moments that I’m
mad as hell at what happened and then there are times that a horrid sense
of guilt consumes me for feeling that way. I go back and forth. It’s
vicious.”

I shifted in my seat, straightening my back and tucking my legs
underneath me. I knew I needed to address it head on, like Dallas
had said I should. The hangover wasn’t going to make it easy. “I can’t undo what I did with Ryder in the mansion, and neither can he. It’s
always going to be a part of our history
my history with you and
him, and his with you and me. What’s going to stop you from treating me that way again when the thought of that becomes too much for you to take? Are you going to shut me out like that every time something
unexpected happens between us—because it will, Cameron; our
pasts are too fucked up for things to just go smoothly. Are you going to
withdraw and make me feel like I don’t matter just because you
don’t know how to deal with me face to face?”

“I can’t say that I’m not going to treat you that way again. I’m not good at this stuff; you know that. My brother has been the only
consistent person in my life and I shut him out, too. I want to do
better, for you and for him…and for me. I’m learning how to do this, just like you are. Are you willing to let me learn?” I didn’t know if I was. “And more importantly, are you willing to learn with me?”

We were two broken souls who had found each other in a world of shadows. We were held together by a connection of secrets, dark
and fearful and reluctant to leave. They recoiled whenever light
reached
them. Their depth was seductive and overwhelming, an endless
ocean of black that threatened to cover the brilliance we kept reaching for with each other.

But it wasn’t the only color on our palette.

Maybe it was time to explore a different hue.

It didn’t matter how somber or overcast my world had become, how sick my stomach felt, how the alcohol worked to rebel in my bloodstream. Here, with Cameron: this was the only place that felt
right. It would take time to forgive him, to trust that he wouldn’t resort to ignoring or avoiding me whenever those feelings decided to return. But I wasn’t about to deny what I wanted just because I was afraid.

I’d done enough of that.

“I’m willing to try,” I said. “I
want
to try.”

His hand reached for my cheek, his thumb hovering above my mouth and pulling my lip out from under my teeth. I’d missed him doing that. Then he took it between his, slowly inserting his tongue over mine. The taste was exactly the way I had remembered it, what
I’d thought about when I fell asleep…what I’d craved when I woke
up.

He pulled away and placed his forehead against mine. “I haven’t told you everything yet.”

I leaned back and searched his face. “Okay…” I realized I
couldn’t
do things half-way with him. If I trusted him, I had to trust him
entirely. “You can tell me. Whatever it is.”

His thumb dipped down to run the length of my lips. Then his eyes met mine. “I haven’t even spoken to Ryder about this…and I’m not sure if I will. I really just want to forget the whole fucking thing happened, but I can’t. I’m haunted by it.”

I reached for his shoulders, massaging the muscles and coaxing him into opening up.

“You and Ryder weren’t the only thing I was dealing with at that time. I honestly think I took all of it out on you when it wasn’t even half you.” I braced for whatever this other thing might be. “Larry called me one afternoon while you were at school and told me there was someone downstairs who wanted to see me. When I got to the lobby, he pointed outside to the sidewalk…where my dad was standing.” His eyes became a little glossy, his speech slowed. I could
hear the pain in his voice. “I haven’t seen him since I was six years
old… that was twenty-five years ago. But he looked exactly the same when I met him outside. I felt like I was that little boy again, looking up to
his father, clinging to his leg so he wouldn’t leave like he had
before.”

“Oh Cameron...” I didn’t know what to say. I knew what it felt
like to find my father after not knowing he even existed for my entire
life. But that was nothing like Cameron seeing his own father after
losing him so long ago.

He took several deep breaths. “But I’m not that little boy
anymore. I’m too strong, too self-aware for him to hurt me again. And we weren’t standing outside one of the filthy slums we used to live in. We were in front of my building, the apartment I’ve worked so hard to have, so I wouldn’t end up like my parents.”

I knew the things that had happened in his past were dark. I had run my fingers over the scars on his body, the ones on his chest and
hands that had come from cigarettes and belts and wooden
spoons
whatever had been available and within reach when his parents or his foster parents decided he should be punished. But it killed me that I couldn’t protect the little boy who had borne those beatings and was left with the marks forever. I knew that he had endured it all, that he had survived what had happened. That had to be enough for me. I also knew that he blamed his father for most of it. The man had gone to jail for armed robbery when Cameron was six, leaving the three of them to fend for themselves. And because it wasn’t his father’s first offense, and everything else had been drug-related, he’d been given a much longer sentence for it. Things only fell apart even more from there.