On My Knees (Bridge #1)(47)
Author: Meredith Wild

He shoved a hand through his hair. “Wow.”

A short laugh at his reaction escaped me, and I took a step back in my now dangerously high heels. I blinked, wanting the room and Cameron to appear to me more clearly. Fuck, I hated when I got this drunk. How did I get so far gone again? Fucking fuck.

I cleared my throat. “I’m not your pristine virgin anymore, Cameron, so maybe we should just call it a night. Sorry you had to witness my fall from grace tonight. What can I say? I’m full of surprises, like you said.”

“Will you stop? All I’m saying is I wish you’d value yourself more. You’re out on the dance floor dressed to kill, with all these strangers grabbing at you. Are you trying to bait yourself?”

“You were out there grabbing me too. What does that say about you?” I poked at his shirt, my fingertip stopping abruptly against the rock hard muscle beneath.

“I’m not a sex-crazed stranger. I’ve been inside you, Maya. I’ve loved you. Does that give me no license to touch you, especially when you want to be touched? Wouldn’t you rather it be me than someone you don’t know from Adam? Or is this part of your weekend routine? Go clubbing and pick up some random guy, or girl, to fuck.”

The sorry way he looked at me when he said the words made me ill. I loathed the idea of being judged by someone who had no right to judge me. Tears pricked my eyes as a vile mix of embarrassment, shame, and outright rage coursed through me.

“I’d rather have a random string of one-night stands who took what they wanted, gave me what I needed, and didn’t judge me in the morning than be looked at the way you’re looking at me now, like I’m some kind of slut for dancing and looking good doing it. Fuck you and whatever self-righteous horse you rode in on.”

I had every right to be as sexually liberated as I damn well pleased. I clung to that tenet as I tried to pick myself self-esteem up off the floor. I spun, vaguely aware of having dropped my purse somewhere on the way in. I needed to find it and be on my way.

“I’m going home.” I scanned every surface, making my way farther into the spacious mostly finished bedroom. The small tableside lamp cast a warm light over the white bed, off the white walls and warm wood floors, sparsely covered with a few pieces of old furniture. This was where Cameron slept every night. I closed my eyes a second with the thought that he’d spent hundreds of nights here, so much closer to me than I ever thought he was.

“No way. You’re drunk. You’ll stay here, and I’ll take you home in the morning.” His voice was rough.

I found my tiny purse and spun back toward him. “I’m not so drunk that I can’t take a cab home.” I kept my voice steady. My anger was giving me new clarity, thank God.

“At this hour on a Saturday night, no. It’s not negotiable. Here.” He reached into his closet and tossed a white T-shirt on the bed. “You can wear this to sleep in.”

I scoffed at the cool delivery and his assumption that I’d stay simply because he demanded that I do. “You can’t hold me hostage here, you smug prick.”

He crossed his arms over his muscular chest, his jaw setting with a ghost of smile, as if challenging me. He was a smug prick.

My growing irritation was sobering, but my head spun a little as I appraised the large bed beside us. The thought of finding my way home was unappealing, possibly more so than relenting to his demands. I stiffened my spine so I wouldn’t lose balance on my heels as I considered it.

“Where are you sleeping?” I asked, trying to sound uninterested.

“Here, with you.” He nodded toward the bed.

I laughed. “Like hell you are. I’ll sleep on the couch then.”

I peeled off my tight dress and kicked my heels across the floor, too pissed and inebriated to care about being naked in front of him. Clad in my tiny black thong, I circled the bed and reached for the T-shirt. He caught it before I could, tossing it back into his closet.

“Make yourself comfortable.”

“Are you going to give me that damn shirt or do I have to parade around here like a naked marionette?”

The corner of his mouth lifted and he caught his lower lip between his teeth. “Will you calm the fuck down?”

“I will not.”

I went to move around him into the closet when he circled me around the ribs and tossed me back onto the bed. I propped up on my elbows and opened my mouth to protest. The words caught in my throat when he tugged off his shirt, revealing the awe-inspiring details of his anatomy that I’d try to imagine so many times before.

Sweet Jesus.

His pectorals were flat and sculpted, the skin tight and pinched where they met the nook of his arms. I want to lick him there, and over light disks of his nipples. The walls of my sex clenched at the thought of my mouth on his skin, tasting every delicious inch of him. Because every inch was delicious. I knew this from experience. The pack of taut abdominal muscles flattened into the most pronounced vee I’d ever seen. Jesus Christ, did he live at the gym? No one—no one real anyway—looked that good.