Page 34 of Bad for Business (Pembroke Hills #2)
THIRTY-FOUR
CAMILLE
I wake up to the feeling of fingers running through my hair. It feels incredible.
I smile, nuzzling into the warm body next to mine.
The last day comes back to me as I’m pulled out of my deep sleep and into consciousness.
Waking up yesterday—at least, I think it was yesterday—feeling like death.
The pain and energy it took just to go pee.
Sleeping the entire day.
Ryker.
The worry in his eyes when he found me.
The way he took care of me. Last night, he brought me medicine and food, making sure I drank plenty of water in between bites of soup that he insisted on spoon-feeding me.
The way he effortlessly took off his clothes, until he was in nothing but a pair of boxer briefs, and climbed into bed next to me for the night, like it was something we’ve done countless times before.
Sleeping in his arms all night.
I open my eyes, grateful that I finally don’t have the same pounding headache that I’ve been dealing with. It doesn’t hurt when the light from the sun shining through the windows meets my eyes.
The first thing I see is Ryker. His lips turn up slightly in a sleepy smile.
It makes my entire body feel warm, and it has nothing to do with the fever I just had.
“If you’re about to tell me to get out of your bed, I’m not going to listen.” His voice is raspy, and I can’t help but think how much I love his morning voice and how I wish I heard it more often.
I open my mouth to respond to him, but before I can say anything, he keeps going.
“I’ve been up for an hour, dreading the moment you wake up because I’m so scared you’re going to tell me to leave, and we’re going to go back to pretending to hate each other, and I’m just so fucking sick of preten?—”
Before I can overthink it, I cut him off by pressing my lips against his. It’s a soft kiss, barely a brush of our lips against one another, but it feels like the right thing to do.
When I pull away, I try to keep my heart in check as I watch his lips turn up into the biggest smile.
“I don’t want you to leave,” I whisper, my heart hammering in my chest. I’m not someone who enjoys being vulnerable.
Acceptance by those I care about is extremely important to me, so letting people in is hard.
Sometimes impossible. So, admitting to him that I want him here with me today could backfire and do a lot of damage, but I’m just as tired of pretending.
At least for today, I want to stop the fighting. I want the comfort he’s bringing me, no matter what might happen after.
“You don’t?” There’s a hopefulness in his tone, and I don’t know how to feel.
I shake my head. “I appreciate you taking care of me last night. It means a lot to me that you were there for me, Ryker. That you stayed.”
“Of course I stayed,” he responds, his voice thick with emotion.
“I mean it when I say I don’t hate you, but?—”
It’s Ryker’s turn to cut me off with a kiss. He presses his lips against mine because it’ll keep me from telling him that we shouldn’t be doing this.
And yet, I don’t move. There’s been so much back-and-forth between me and Ryker since we got here that I can’t seem to care about anything other than this right here.
The kiss is slow and lazy. There’s no urgency to it. It’s like a silent agreement from the both of us that, at least for today, neither of us is going anywhere. That we’re not on borrowed time, at least not right now.
Finally, I pull away, unable to hide the smile on my lips. “I’m sick. You probably shouldn’t kiss me.”
“If I’m going to get sick, then I’m going to get sick. It’s too late to go back on that.” His gaze focuses on my lips for a moment before he meets my eyes once again. “Plus, now that I have you wanting to kiss me, I’m not going to waste my chance to do it.”
I swallow, wondering how much I want to share with him.
I don’t know if I can even explain to myself the shift that’s happening inside me as I look at him, let alone explain it to him.
All I know is that the moment he walked through my bedroom door last night, I felt immense relief. I wanted him here to take care of me.
I just…
I wanted to be around him.
I try not to think too hard about what that means because then I’ll start to analyze it. If I analyze it, I’ll talk myself into running before I can get hurt, and that’s just not something I want to do right now. One day of giving in won’t hurt.
Right?
Once I feel better, I can figure out what to do from here.
I reach up and press my hand to his cheek, wanting to feel even more of a connection with him.
I’m still trying to figure out if this is real or if I’m having some sort of fever dream.
While I’m feeling better than last night, my head still has a dull ache to it, and my body still feels sore.
Whatever sickness I’ve caught hasn’t fully run its course.
My fingertips press against his cheek. He’s very real. This is real.
“Thank you,” I whisper. I’ve gone so much of my life being the only person to ever take care of myself that I thought it’d feel weirder to allow someone to be there for me. But it wasn’t weird at all.
At least not with him.
His brown eyes roam my face. There’s so much warmth to them that it makes my heart race. “You don’t have to thank me,” he responds.
I trace my thumb over his bottom lip. “But I want to.”
He smiles before pulling me into him. I tuck my face into the crook of his neck, savoring the smell of him. The scent of his cologne from yesterday is still faintly there, and I love the way it mixes with the smell of his skin.
My eyes go wide. “I need to shower,” I say, my words hurried as I realize I probably smell. Because of the fever, I kept waking up sweaty.
Oh my God, even the sheets probably smell.
I finally got Ryker to stay until morning with me, and of course, it happens to be when I’ve been sick and disgusting.
Before Ryker can respond, I crawl out of bed and head right to the bathroom. I stand up too fast, my hand having to reach out and grab the wall to steady myself from the sudden movement.
“Easy there, princess,” Ryker says from behind me, his voice closer than I was expecting. His hand finds the small of my back, the feel of it gentle but firm against my skin.
I look over my shoulder and give him a smile. “I’m fine. I just moved a little too fast.”
“Let me help you,” he offers.
I shake my head. “What? No. You can’t help me shower.”
His lips twitch with the beginning of a smirk. “Why not? I’ve seen you naked before. You’ve seen me naked before. Let me shower with you so I can make sure you don’t…I don’t know…slip or something.”
I lift an eyebrow. “I’ve taken plenty of showers in my life. I promise I’m capable of taking them alone without slipping.”
“Just because you can do something alone doesn’t mean you have to.” He presses one of his large hands to his chest as his smile breaks out into a wide grin. “I promise I won’t try anything. You’ve been sick, and I’d just feel better if I was in there to make sure nothing happens to you.”
I purse my lips as I think about the offer. Although I’ve already been more vulnerable with him this morning than I was expecting to be, something about taking a shower with him just so he can keep taking care of me feels more…intimate.
This is so much at once, and I don’t know how to process it.
“Please,” Ryker adds, his eyes softening as he looks at me.
I sigh because he knows exactly what he’s doing. “Who knew you had manners?”
I didn’t know it was possible, but his smile gets even wider. “Keep being a good girl and you’ll find out that I’m actually very polite when I want to be.”
I rub my lips together in an attempt to fight a smile. “Fine. But it’s just a shower.”
He nods before taking a step closer to me. “Yeah. Just a shower.” His smirk makes me wonder if he means what he’s saying at all.
“I’m serious, Ryker,” I tell him, unable to fight smiling any longer. Despite my words, my entire body heats at the prospect of seeing him naked again. It’s been months. I can’t pretend to not be excited to see all of him again.
“Mm-hmm. Me too.”
Before I can say anything else, he sweeps me off my feet and carries me toward the bathroom. I laugh the entire time, forgetting all about how miserable I felt only hours ago.