“You mean it was great fun to have sex in?”
Emory let out a surprised laugh and tilted his head back and forth. “I mean, yes, but actually I was more remembering Ronan sleeping over and us pretending we were pirates going on a?—”
Cameron burst out laughing and didn’t stop, even when Emory flopped onto the bed.
“Alright, yes, laugh it up,” Emory grumbled. “Also, please feel free to rib Ronan about that. It was always his idea.”
“So, when did the waterbed stop being fun?”
Cameron walked over to sit down next to his fated mate—who he was absolutely falling in love with, thank you Sabrina for so unhelpfully pointing it out.
“Sometime during college, it turned from fun to incredibly inconvenient, and by the time I graduated, it had started to hurt my back. I replaced it about a year out of college.”
Cameron laughed even harder at this, making fun of his ‘advanced age’ until Emory tossed a pillow at his head and excused himself to use the bathroom.
Cameron took out his phone and opened his chat with Ronan. “Just so you know,” he wrote, “Emory’s mother is amazing, and we’re heading to bed. But just to be clear. It’s not the bed you pretended to be pirates in.”
His phone screen dimmed, then went black, with no response. Cameron was just about to text again when Emory emerged from the bathroom. He stalked towards the bed and climbed on top of Cameron.
Their eyes met, and Emory let the tension build, staring down at Cameron before unceremoniously flopping down on top of him, catching most of his weight on his elbows.
Cameron loved how open they’d become with each other in the bedroom. Breaking the seal on their sex life with Emory’s rut had apparently been exactly what they needed.
Cameron wiggled around underneath him until he was just barely able to skim his lips over Emory’s jaw. Emory turned his head as if to give him what he wanted, but then Cameron’s phone vibrated. Emory shifted onto one arm so he could swipe open the text thread, and he let out a bark of laughter. Ronan had sent back a picture of his middle finger.
Cameron downloaded the photo, went to his photo editor, and added an emoji of a pirate hat on top of the finger before sending it back.
This made Emory laugh even harder.
He nuzzled his face into Cameron’s neck, nibbling and kissing down his throat. By the time Ronan responded, Cameron was grinding up against Emory, his phone long forgotten. He didn’t end up texting Ronan back until the morning.
The first daystarted with a tour of the estate, and he and Emory visited all the aunts’ houses. Cameron hadn’t quite known what to expect, but for the most part, they were all very respectful of Emory and approached Cameron with curiosity or, at worst, aristocratic disinterest.
The questions were nearly nonstop, ranging from Cameron’s family to his career to his favorite things to do in the city. Emory did his best to remain by Cameron’s side, but quite often one relative would begin interrogating Cameron, and another would pull Emory aside to ask questions about Jonathon, the company, or how his mother was doing.
Cameron kept his customer service, charming persona on for the first several houses, managing to evade questions that hit too close to home about his past. He did his best to turn the conversation around to flatter and engage with whoever he was talking to.
Before they entered the fourth house on the tour, Emory shared that it was actually the house of his two favorite aunts, Corin and Ariel. They were absolutely lovely, showering Cameron with praise and asking him how Emory had been treating him, and if there was anything they could do to make his visit more comfortable.
Unfortunately, things took a turn for the worse when they arrived at Aunt Leslie’s house. She was Emory’s father’s youngest sister, but she looked like she was closer in age to Emory than she would have been to his father.
Cameron’s neck immediately began to tingle as they walked in, and it only got worse as she began asking him rapid-fire questions, barely giving him time to answer before launching into the next one. She never responded in an overtly nasty way, but there was something about the way she phrased each question that began to crawl under Cameron’s skin.
Emory had been allowing Cameron to take the lead, making good on his promise not to be overbearing or controlling in their relationship. However, as Leslie became increasingly pointed with her questioning, he sort of wished Emorywouldstep in.
When Emory’s phone rang, Cameron couldn’t help but hope for some sort of reprieve. As Emory stepped into the other roomto take the call, Leslie turned her beady eyes on Cameron, and his octopus went up onto all eight tentacles in alarm.
He hadn’t done that since a particularly bad evening with Thomas. It had been one of the few times Cameron had actually been scared of him. Leslie had that same look in her eyes. Like she knew everything there was to know about Cameron and not only found him wanting but found him disgusting.
It must be nice working at a small nonprofit,” she said. “You get to act like a big fish, flopping around and taking up space in a tiny pond. I bet you feel justsoimportant, toiling away at your do-gooder little job, attending all your tiny events, wearing suits that are so clearly a knockoff, I doubt you even know who the original designer was.”
Cameron shrank back in his chair, surprised more than anything else.
“I was afraid of this. Emory is clearly blinded by the shiny fated mate bond and can’t see the truth about you and your relationship with him. It’s a good thing I followed you on social media—or more accurately, I had one of our maids follow you,” she said, and Cameron’s stomach sank.
He was pretty careful about who he allowed to follow him on social media. He kept it mostly professional, but sometimes his sister would post things on his wall, and Ronan and Christopher had begun tagging him in photos they took around town.
“As I figured, your online presence really says it all…but I’m not worried. I’ve already gotten reports from the other aunts that no one is fooled by this little show you’re putting on. It’s clear you don’t have what it takes to keep up with our family, and I’m not sure why you’re even bothering,” she spat. “This company takes a toll on those who lead it. I know how busy Emory is, and he doesn’t have time to playhouse with someone who’s too busy playing dress up in women’s clothing to maintain a household.”
