Chapter 11

O f course I didn't go. There was no point tempting myself further down this road, when all I really needed was to reestablish my professionalism, keep the boundaries clear, and close Cameron on the sale.

At least, that's what I would have liked to be able to say. But somehow, I found myself stepping in through the doors at Club LIV, my heart pounding but trying to look cool as I pushed through the crowd, scanning for her.

The music rattled my teeth in my ears, a thumpy synth EDM hit, and the crowds—they weren't as bad as the Sunday party, but they still squeezed in around me as I headed for the dance floor and made my way to the bar on the side. As luck would have it, they had the same bartender there as before, and he gave me a nod.

"Cosmo?"

"Something more adventurous." I shrugged. "Sex on the beach? I'm not much of a fruity cocktail person."

That got a smile out of him, maybe the first one I'd seen. "But she is."

It was very unseemly of him to call me out like this. I flushed, but after a second, I nodded.

"Let's try it light on the Schnapp's, then," he said, stooping for a shaker. Before long, he had a colorful drink in front of me, and I slapped down my tip. He nodded to the side. "Same table. Still eyeing you."

What the hell. No point in being subtle. I took the drink, standing up. "You know how to make a customer happy."

Stoic guy, he didn't acknowledge I'd said a word, just turned to the next person. I kind of liked him.

I felt giddy and a little floaty, as if I'd had the whole drink instead of just a sip, as I slipped around a crowd and spotted Cameron—or Amelie, long and straight dark hair, blood-red glasses. Now having seen Cameron so… closely, it was obvious. I felt like laughing.

She was dressed like sex on legs in a tight-fitting red dress with a deep neckline, black pearls giving it a dark-tinged sophistication. She met my eyes as I came out towards her table, and her whole expression shifted, a hunger in her eyes. A primal desire in the way she looked me over.

"Lovely of you to join me… Cara," she said, as I sank down in the seat next to her. "Sex on the beach? Are you trying to tell me something?"

"It was just the fruitiest drink I could think up in the moment."

She licked her lips, shifting in closer. "You couldn't have texted me to let me know you'd be here?"

"I said I might. That I'd consider it."

"Hm. That doesn't quite feel like letting me know."

"Be honest. It gets you excited when I'm coy. Besides, you've been sitting here, watching, waiting. Who would I be to kill the anticipation?"

The hunger in her eyes flared up to the point where I thought she might just take me here at this table. "Tell me you're still wearing it."

I bit my lip, nodding. She laid her fingertips on my collar, brushing up to my chin.

"That's what I like to hear. It feels good, doesn't it, Cara? "

Something about it sent a thrill racing down my spine—the illicit rush of the hidden identities, even though mine was just a name. The implicit promise that everything we did like this was secret, would be hidden once we were Cameron and London again—it had me drawn tighter than a violin string and just as ready to sigh at the touch.

What was I doing? This was all over all kinds of lines, breaking all kinds of boundaries. But no part of me that I could pull up had any inclination to care.

I wanted Cameron. That was the only thing that mattered right now.

"You know—" I started, giving her dress a quick glance, "coming to a place like this, dressed like that… don't you just get a lot of men hitting on you?"

"Mm-hm. So you know for sure I only came here to wait for you."

It sent chills down my spine, but I wasn't bending that easily. Cameron wouldn't want that. "Smooth as that may be, what about before that?"

"Mm." She ran her finger around the rim of her drink—the woman had gotten a martini, after all that talk about adventurous drinks. Unbelievable. It suited her well, though. "When I first started coming here, I thought it wouldn't matter if it was men or women approaching me. I just wanted to explore. But… after I'd taken a woman back with me, I'd tasted the forbidden fruit. There was no going back from that. And—well, by now, I've just established a reputation for myself here. If any men try it, I politely let them know they missed the memo." She pointed off into the crowd, spotting a man with a solid build and dark hair with stubble, mysterious mister movie star looks. "The one there tried it. I told him I had a perfect little fantasy of a woman I was already waiting on."

The thought of Cameron Mercier herself turning someone down saying she was waiting for me was enough to send me reeling. Calling me her perfect little fantasy in the same breath winded me.

Still, I picked up my drink, taking a sip, looking away. "Which I'm sure you say to all the girls."

She laughed, leaning towards me, resting her elbows on the table. "You don't even believe that anymore, do you? At this point you are just saying it."

She was completely right, but neither of us wanted me to admit that. "How'd he take it?"

She made a face. "A little too well when I mentioned it was a woman."

"Ah. That kind of guy."

"Not the first time… you get used to it."

Something compelled me to stand up, and I offered her a hand. "I've kept you waiting so long, you must be getting stiff. I know you like this song."

She gave me a playful smile, rising with me, slowly, before she put her hand in mine. "You've done well getting to know me, haven't you?"

"Salesperson's job."

She laughed. "Whatever it takes for you not to admit to it… Cara."

She could read me like a book. I didn't mind.

I'd never even remotely wanted to dance in a club before, but I'd do anything if it was with Cameron—or Amelie—dressed like this. It was a hazy dream sequence, moving with the rhythm, Cameron syncing up with my steps, the music and lights so overwhelming that it shut off my conscious mind and pushed me into a trance where the only thing that existed was Cameron.

I didn't know how long we went like that, moving between the table and the dance floor, exchanging playful remarks and loaded gazes. Two drinks in, sinking back into the seat, Cameron shifted closer to me, and she slipped a hand down to my hip, and then leaning in far too close but also not close enough, she trailed her fingertips down until they played along the hem of my dress, ghosting over the skin on my thigh.

"I am not going to lie to you, London," she whispered into my ear, her voice husky, stained with want the same way it had been at the first property. "I have not stopped thinking about you for one second all day. Thinking about the way you looked at my lingerie. You're driving me mad."

"I haven't… either." I didn't have any control—the words just slipped out. It was deliriously good to let go, and I didn't know what to do with that.

She licked her lips slowly. "Leave with me. My place is close."

"I…"

"I want to have you in my bed. Against the wall. I want to spread you out on the kitchen counter and taste every inch of you."

"C-Cameron, we're in public," I blurted, my face heating, but she didn't hesitate. She bit her lip through a wicked smile.

"Oh, now you have reservations? You've licked my pussy on an open rooftop and you've been grinding on me all night, but now you're shy?"

I swallowed, hard. I knew I wasn't supposed to. But I couldn't not. I'd signed this contract in blood the moment I'd stepped into the club.

"Your place," I whispered, standing up. She moved with me, smiling wider.

"You know how to make a girl happy."

∞∞∞

We staggered tipsy on the drinks and drunk on each other out of the elevator, Cameron looking deliriously sexy mussed with my lipstick on her neck in one spot, and she slipped a key into the lock at one door, pulling me inside before she pressed a hot, open-mouth kiss against me. My whole body burned with anticipation, a craven animal needing release—needing to be pursued, dominated, fucked. Nothing had ever made me feel this before. I didn't know how to let go of it.

She pulled back and unpinned her wig, tossing it over a granite counter that shone in the city lights from outside a full-wall window, and she flung her glasses after them, her blonde hair falling out in an artful mess as she pressed back to me for another kiss, slipping her hands up my dress, feeling the garters on my thighs.

When she pulled away again, slipping my dress slowly higher, holding my gaze with those deep, shimmering sea-green eyes, she spoke in a voice dripping with desire. "Stay the night."

"Stay—" I flushed. "I have work tomorrow—"

"Take off. You've been a good girl for so long. They'll let you. Be selfish, London. Take off, and let me have you until you pass out hot and sweaty in my bed and wake up to do it all again."

I bucked my hips forward without meaning to, my voice crackling over my lips. Suddenly nothing else mattered—the briefing for the headliner presentation, María's practice session for it, it was all unimportant. I didn't belong to them. I belonged to myself. And for right now, all I wanted was to belong to Cameron Mercier.

" London, " she insisted, driving her hands up higher to grasp at my hips, slipping under the band of my panties, and if I hadn't already given in, that hunger in her voice would have done it. The way she looked at me would have done it.

"I will," I whispered. "All night… I'm yours."

She pulled my dress up higher, lifting it over my waist. "Fuck, I needed to hear that," she said. "And I need to see you in that set. In my bed. And on my strap."

Jesus, Cameron could persuade a woman.

I whimpered her name, knowing the way it set her alight, and it didn't disappoint—her eyes narrowed with hunger, and she pulled my dress up over my head, throwing it over the sofa. Her lips found mine, and we moved in a trance, slipping back into the ecstasy of the dance at the club, my body lighting up like those neon shafts that cast the dreamy scenery there.

Her dress came off after mine, thrown into a pile on top of it, and her tongue found mine in between desperate gasps, cursing and whispering each other's names. Cameron pushed me into the wall, pinning me, controlling me, and I handed myself over to her as her hands gripped every part of me, like a starving person at a feast desperate and not knowing where to start. I caressed her hips, feeling the soft fabric of her lace, but it turned quickly into fingernails digging into soft flesh, broken moans slipping out through her lips and driving me higher, Cameron kissing down my body, worshiping every inch of me.

"London," she whispered, reverently, breathing my name like a prayer over and over as she roamed over hallowed ground of my body, dressed as sin. "Oh, London," she breathed, dragging her tongue along the edge of the bra, kissing my nipple through the coarse texture of the fabric, slipping her hand along my thigh. "To think someone could look so perfect in this…"

"Fan of your own work?"

She laughed, but it turned into a throaty growl, as she went up and pushed me down by the shoulders, guiding me to my knees. "You've got a bratty mouth," she said. "If you're just going to give me commentary, you might as well put it to better use."

She buried her hand in my hair, gripping the back of my head, and she pressed me into her, the fabric of her panties stained with her wetness. Driven delirious by the hunger, the aching need for her, I kissed at her clit through the lace, licking up along her shape, looking up at where Cameron stood over me like a fallen angel, mussed and dirtied under the halo of the ceiling light. The wild look of lust hazing over her eyes as she watched me kneel in front of her—maybe one night wouldn't be enough.

I slipped her panties down, and I let her press my face against her center, against where she was throbbing for me, and I reveled in the soft, crackling sounds of her voice desperate from pleasure. Her taste flooded me, but I still couldn't get enough—wanted to immerse myself in it, wanted to surround myself with it, wanted to become one with her, her pleasure.

It was all too soon before she came, her hips shuddering against me as she gripped me with both hands, crying out my name like a broken revelation.

"London…" She caressed my hair back with her thumb, looking down at me with the softest look in her eyes, leaning back against the wall. I bit my lip, looking up at her, wiping her wetness off my lower lip.

"You doing okay? You look like you're about to fall over."

"I wonder why on earth that might be." She pushed away from the wall, pulling me up to my feet, and she pressed a hot, delirious kiss against me, her tongue diving into my mouth. I found myself walked backwards, and I heard a door open behind me, and she didn't break free from the kiss until we were standing at the edge of her bed, Cameron looking down over my body, gripping at my bra.

"You were born to wear these things," she murmured, caressing her thumb over me. A distant thought panged somewhere in the back of my mind—that I'd never be able to have relationships after this.

How would anyone else ever make me feel this good about myself? How would I ever be with anyone without thinking of the way Cameron made me feel? This feeling like…

The thought was gone as quickly as it came, and I let her shove me backwards, falling with a gasp onto the bed. She stood between my legs, grabbing my knees and spreading them roughly.

"Strap-on. I'm going to fuck you senseless," she said. "Tell me if you want me to tie you down for it."

She brought things out of me I'd never expected. I nodded, mute, tingling with need.