Page 23 of Arctic Titans of Northwood U: Volume 1

Our past was way too complicated. We were on the same team. We lived in the same house. An entire year was still ahead of us. This was wrong no matter how good it felt.

I had to stop.

In less time than it took a butterfly to bat its wings, I slouched and stepped back. The disappointment was instant, filling the space between us. But, a fraction of a moment later, an alarm blared from his wrist watch.

We both looked at it.

Abnormal Heart Rate Detected.

Though it felt like a lifetime of weighing pros and cons, the next move had been written by the Fates and forged in a star an eternity ago. Cameron let go of my wrists and hurried to conceal what his watch had betrayed, but he didn’t get a chance.

My hands closed around his face. His eyes widened in a split moment that allowed him to react. Before either had a chance to change his mind, I let my wildest self take control of my body.

I leaped.

If there was any expectation of familiarity, it faded out of my mind as soon as my lips pressed against his. This was nothing like it had been years ago. Time and experience had taught us a trick or two; no teeth scraped and noses didn’t slam against each other. Instead, I was submerged in the ecstasy that came with such intimacy.

His lips were softer than I’d imagined. Had I been imagining this? Somewhere in the back of my mind, I had, this entire time. Every bark and snap of my jaw had been a symptom of the longing that his arrival had filled me with.

I sucked his lower lip between my teeth and leaned into him, still holding his face like there was a risk of him escaping. But his startled pose was soon melting into one of embrace. He didn’t flail. Instead, his hands rested on my upper arms and he thrust one leg between mine, preparing himself to take control.

I wasn’t going to make it easy.

His minty breath filled me with kinky aspirations. My heart stumbled over and over as I bobbed my head from one side to the other, sliding my tongue between his lips and tasting him like I hadn’t in forever.

Cameron’s throat released the gentlest of moans. My hands dropped from his face to his slender neck, then down to the collar of his T-shirt. I closed my fists around it, pulling him closer to me until our bodies were pressed so close it felt like I was about to tackle him.

It was as if Cameron needed a good, long moment for his body to catch up. His arms wrapped around me with viper swiftness, sliding down to the small of my back. The way he yanked me pressed our hips together, his crotch rubbing against mine. He was as hard as marble, his cock bulging out of his cotton shorts, stretching the fabric of his underwear. Mine throbbed hard at every touch, the pulse soaring through my body, pouring out of my fists as I tugged Cam’s T-shirt like I would soon rip it apart.

He spun us around until I bumped against the side of the sofa.

Cam’s hands moved lower, following the curve of my ass, until he cupped my cheeks and revealed all of his intentions. His teeth sank into my lower lip, pain almost dragging a whimper out of me.

I released his T-shirt, one fist sweeping around him and snatching locks of hair on the back of his head. I pulled him back, parting our lips and watching him growl. “You’ve made my life a misery, Cam,” I accused and watched the flicker of something dangerous burst to life in his eyes.

“Shut up, Riley,” he said, his voice huskier than ever. He squeezed my cheeks firmly, pinning me with his hard, fiery gaze. His lips hovered over mine as he slipped from my hold and leaned in.

“What if I don’t?” I whispered.

In reply, he moved one hand around my waist and lowered it between us, pressing his open palm against my painfully hard cock and forcing a choked whimper out of me. “You haven’t changed a bit. Not truly.”

I couldn’t tell if he was praising me for being constant or scolding me for never growing up. Whatever his meaning, I didn’t get to bite back. He pressed his lips against mine, shutting me up for good, and exploring my mouth with his tongue. It reached deep into me, sending a painful twitch to my cock that stretched Cameron’s lips into an amused smirk.

Every cell in my body combusted when Cameron moved his other hand to the middle of my butt, reached low under my cheeks, and dragged his fingers over the center. His left hand, firmly on my cock, closed tighter. I thrust my hips forward, rubbing myself through his hand, trapped in the excruciating pressure of my tight underwear and sweatpants.

Cameron pulled his head back just enough to speak over my thirsty, open mouth. “You have been asking for this since I came, Riley.”

My cheeks burst aflame at his words. Part of me had to concede. The other part, the one which knew how this dangerous game was played, did the opposite. “I fucking wasn’t,” I snapped, slamming into him just to provoke his firmness.

His lips stretched into a sinister grin that suited his dark features perfectly. “Liar.” And with that, he spun us around quicker than I could keep up with the movement. We crashed onto the sofa, Cameron sitting back with his arms coiled around my waist, dragging me off my feet and over his lap. When my head sank into the soft cushion, I found I was breathless. This grand and sweeping move brought back more memories than I could sort through. Bent over his lap, I moaned once and buried my face in the fold of my arm, narrowing my attention to Cameron’s hand as it rubbed my firm ass. I suddenly wished I’d untied the drawstring like I used to, but he didn’t seem to mind. “You knew,” he whispered accusingly. “You knew we’d get to this, Riley.”

I clawed at the cushions, incapable of speech. Just do it, I wanted to snap. Every breath I drew felt like the splitting of atoms inside my chest. My head was spinning as I squeezed my eyes shut and tensed for the first blow of his bare hand against my ass.

I had never admitted this to anyone since Cameron. Nobody knew how easy I was to leash and rein in. Nobody knew I had a total meltdown button but him.

Cameron’s fingers hooked inside the waistband of my sweatpants, then yanked them over the thick curve of my ass, when hollowness opened in my chest and a flood of despair poured in. The footsteps stumbling down the wooden stairs outside the door made me want to scream my throat off. Tears of rage shot into my eyes as Cameron pushed me off his lap, handling me as easily as if I was a goddamn sack of potatoes. I found myself internally raging while sitting still next to him the moment Beckett marched into the basement.

Cameron already had the PlayStation controller in his hands, pouting and feigning great interest in Fallen Order. And I, with my ears ringing, couldn’t get the image of ripping Beckett’s head off out of my mind. A howl was building up in my throat when Beckett examined the basement.