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“You are so beautiful,” he whispered.
My nerves had drawn tight as piano wires, and those words—the way he spoke them—thrummed each of them one by one. I was vibrating. Burning. And in that moment, my young, inexperienced mind was certain no other boy could ever make me feel the way Cam Shepherd did.
His head dipped slowly, time suspending when his lips touched mine.
It was a mistake, right? We didn’t belong together. We didn’t make sense.
But that kiss…
It was as if my heart rearranged itself, and suddenly his kiss was all that kept it beating.
My timid, never-been-touched lips grew greedy, and any tentative gentility he might have started with went up in flames as the match struck true. His hands on my body pressed tighter, and then he was walking me backward, fetching me up against the wall, crushing us together.
I clutched at him, aching to be closer, and every touch of his hands on me woke sparks along my skin, hovering the border of pleasure and pain. Any barely formed attempts at forethought disappeared as a wanton, desperate creature took my senses. The creature wanted his hands on my body. She wanted him gripping hard enough to leave marks. She wanted me to tear into his clothes and let him have every piece of me.
His kisses moved to my jaw, and a raspy “Honey” emerged from his mouth with a breath across my ear.
“He’s probably hiding in the bathroom,” echoed a male voice down the hallway. “Did you see how Penny has been hanging on him all night?”
Cam pulled his mouth from my skin and looked down at me, eyes dark. Laughter followed the remark, moving away from us.
“They’re looking for me,” Cam’s hand ghosted down my side and curled around me, pressing us together.
Staring deep into the blue, I hitched a small breath. “Cam, what is this?”
His thumb brushed my cheek. “You feel this too, right?”
“But what—”
“What if we could be—”
“Camden!” barked a crisp older man’s voice from down the hall.
Cam’s body snapped straight, his grip on me loosening.
“Come on out, son. You promised Ivy a dance, and she’s pouting.”
“Is that your dad?” I mouthed.
Cam’s gaze dropped to mine for three heartbeats, full of something I couldn’t discern. “He can’t know,” he whispered, then kissed me hard, burning his imprint into my psyche. I stood breathing fast against the wall as he fled the room, my skin still feverish.
He greeted his father with something like, “Sorry, Dad. I needed a moment to myself.”
Their conversation continued, and I remained in that room for several more minutes.
He can’t know.
Why couldn’t he know? Not that I wanted him to know, but what was that look in Cam’s eyes before he left?
Eventually, I pushed off the wall and wandered, dazed, into the hallway. I was almost to the bathroom when Maribel caught up with me. “There you are!”
I focused on her with some difficulty. “Hey, Maribel.”
“I thought you’d snuck off with Cam Shepherd or something.”
I sobered at once. “What? Why?”
“Oh, you know.” She waved a perfunctory hand, then her brows drew together as she peered closer at me. “I thought maybe you…liked him?”
