Page 34 of Best Laid Plans (Rock Harbor #1)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

ELLE

E lle had never been so thoroughly fucked in her entire life. Every muscle in her body ached in the most delicious way, and she already missed the feeling of Cam inside of her, a strange emptiness that she refused to examine too closely.

Their night had ended as the sun was coming up, both of them passing out in Elle’s bed, sweaty again even though they’d started their evening in the shower.

It was still early–entirely too early to greet the day and all of its inconvenient realities–but after dozing off, Elle had woken up again, her frenetic mind keeping her awake.

Something had shifted between them. That was where her mind kept coming back to, regardless of where the thought started.

She hadn’t believed that she was holding back with Cam before, but last night had been different.

They’d connected on a level deeper than just the insane sexual chemistry that had been there from the moment he’d come barging, literally, back into her life a few weeks ago.

She peered over at Cam, sleeping soundly on his stomach, his long forearm draped above his pillow. Elle traced the scratches she’d left down his back lightly, loving how the pink lines contrasted to his skin. Liking how she’d marked him… like he was hers .

“Idiot,” she said quietly to herself, looking quickly in his direction to make sure that he was still asleep. But all she got in response was his steady, rhythmic breathing that punctuated the silent room, like he was having the best sleep of his life.

Maybe, she’d just never come so hard, over and over again, that all the dopamine and oxytocin were throwing her off, making it feel like this was bigger than it was. Which would be for the best. Because this couldn’t be anything. Not really .

Cam had made that clear from the start, which Elle had wholeheartedly agreed to–and meant –a few weeks ago.

And she wasn’t exactly in a stable place in her life.

She’d only been applying to jobs in Boston, but if Reynolds Consulting didn’t work out, which was a pipedream at best anyway, it may be time to think about looking at New York or other major cities.

At least if she was serious about her future.

Which… she was. Wasn’t she?

She pulled her comforter up higher and leaned her head against the fabric headboard. Her brother really did have surprisingly good decorating taste.

And ugh… Wyatt. She knew that if her brother got even a whiff that she and Cam were sleeping together, he wouldn’t like it. Which, at worst, said just as much about Wyatt’s taste in friends as Elle’s taste in romantic partners, but she knew that he wouldn’t see it that way.

Scratching at her forehead, she pushed the thoughts away.

She had way bigger problems than Wyatt right now.

Namely the beautiful, six-foot-something-tall adonis in her bed, whose bruises had finally healed on his now-unblemished face.

His head was facing Elle, and she took a moment to appreciate his eyelashes, long and thick and giving him this almost child-like quality when he slept.

He looked so peaceful. So comfortable that for a second, Elle considered burrowing back into the covers and snuggling against a body that produced an ungodly amount of heat, which was perfect for how cold she liked to keep the apartment.

Living with roommates, she always had to be conscious of the electricity she was using, her bedroom always a few degrees warmer than she liked.

But this, right now. It was perfect.

She’d only been home for two weeks, in a place that hadn’t even been her home in a long time, so why did Boston feel like a world away already?

She slunk down a little lower as she considered it, loving how the warmth enveloped her.

Cities were fickle things. Living, breathing organisms that were always shedding their skins, just like the people who lived in them.

Elle had moved apartments, like a hermit crab outgrowing its shell.

Her favorite Indian place had been replaced with her favorite Thai place when she’d moved neighborhoods.

Regardless of whichever building she’d lived in, tenants–she couldn’t really call them neighbors–had been a revolving door of new faces who’d done an exceptional job at never making eye contact.

Elle had been gone for weeks now, and she doubted that anyone in her little microcosm of life had noticed.

Maybe Raul at the corner store, but that’s just because she, like clockwork, had stopped in at the same time every day for a snack.

A ritual during her study breaks when she’d been finishing up her MBA.

But even that she hadn’t been doing for months.

She had no co-workers anymore. And friends?

Those had been gone since the days of Chelsea and Grant, except for an occasional MBA study group.

But still, Elle had liked her routines and schedules, at least for as long as she could keep them. She liked predictability. She liked planning and organizing and seeing things come together when she achieved whatever it was that she’d set her mind to .

Cam was the antithesis of a good plan.

Together, they were a spark that threatened to burn everything down. Including themselves, in the process.

But right now, she was all warmth and soft afterglow, as she snuggled lower to bask in the sensation for as long as she could, laying back down.

And when Cam’s arm wrapped itself around Elle and pulled her in close, flush with his solid body, it was too much to fight as she drifted back to sleep.

“Lucy, I’m home!”

So loud , was Elle’s first thought as she heard Wyatt’s obnoxious voice booming across the apartment.

Her brother couldn’t just let her have nice things. A sleepy morning. A warm bed. A perfect, solid body spooning her like that was how they’d always been meant to fit together.

If Wyatt would just shut up–

Everything, especially her mind, was working slowly until it all sped up at once, her life flashing before her eyes.

Oh. Oh fuck .

“Cam,” Elle hissed quietly, already jumping out of bed like the building was falling down around them.

Cam opened a sleepy eye, squinting adorably at her. The hair on top of his head was mussed, a combination of sleep and Elle running her fingers through it as they’d fucked for hours. It had been–

No. She was not going there right now.

Wyatt would kill Cam if he caught them together. And she wouldn’t let that happen to Cam. The one thing that Cam had seemed serious about before he’d finally given into them was keeping the rest of the Pierce family out of their sex life which… fair. Elle didn’t want them involved either .

“Cam,” she said again, throwing a pair of shorts toward him.

“ Wyatt is home. You know, Wyatt. Your best friend and my big brother. About two-hundred-pounds. Remember that guy? About yay high.” She held up her hand at least a foot above her own head.

“Whose house we fucked in all night,” she finished with a hoarse whisper, her anxiety ratcheting up a notch.

“Elle? Are you still sleeping?” Wyatt’s voice was closer now, somewhere in the living room.

She watched as cold recognition dawned on Cam’s face. He sat up quickly, shaking his head and running a hand through his wild hair. Elle would have laughed and maybe even made a joke about how cute he looked if panic hadn’t taken over his whole face, his cheeks becoming a sickly, ashen color.

“Fuck,” he bit out. Gone in a moment was the familiarity of the last few hours.

Cam’s posture was rigid and uncomfortable as he stood up, grabbing the pair of shorts that she’d thrown his way.

Planning for not getting caught by Wyatt hadn’t been high on her list of priorities when they’d fallen asleep last night, something she was deeply regretting right now.

“I can tell him you left for the day already,” Elle suggested, hoping it could at least solve their most pressing problem. “If you can get out of my room without him noticing, we can pretend that you were down at the restaurant.”

Cam gestured down to his now shorts-clad body, still naked from the waist up.

Elle tried not to stare more than the appropriate amount, given the time sensitivity of their predicament.

A fruitless endeavor, she realized as her gaze caught on the v of his abdomen, noticing a new line of scratches she hadn’t been able to see when he’d been sleeping on his stomach.

“I’m a walking Board of Health violation,” Cam whispered before adding, “And for as much as I know your brother and what he’d do to me if he caught me in here, he knows me, too. He’d never believe that I was cooking shirtless in a restaurant kitchen. ”

Elle let out a frustrated puff of air. “Okay, fair.” She ran a hand through her tangled hair, trying to think of a better plan.

Nothing was springing to mind, which was so not like her. Suddenly, the phrase, ‘fucked someone stupid,’ made a whole lot more sense.

“Eleanor Pierce, I am going to Kool-Aid man in there in about ten seconds. We’re going to be late for lunch with Mom and Dad.”

Cam winced at the sound of her brother’s voice, and Elle couldn’t take seeing him like that anymore.

“I’m waking up, asshole,” Elle bit back loudly, her brother’s booming laugh clearly audible from outside the door.

She caught Cam’s eye, leveling a smile in his direction, but she was met with a dour look in return, like he wished he could be anywhere else.

“Do you know where Cam is?” her brother yelled again, because of course he couldn’t shut the fuck up for two minutes and give her room to think.

Her own response came aggressively fast. “Haven’t seen him.

” It was becoming clear that the only way out was through, at least for her.

She started hunting around for a clean bra and a pair of shorts, desperately wishing that she had time to grab a shower.

But the best thing for Cam was to get Wyatt out of the apartment as fast as humanly possible.

“He didn’t change my sheets before he left this morning.” Wyatt’s tone was more confused than anything, and she watched as Cam’s shoulders hunched forward, like he’d actually committed some cardinal sin.

Elle scrunched up her face, quietly mocking her brother’s words, hoping to elicit a laugh from Cam that was nowhere to be found.

“Maybe he ran down to the fish market,” Elle lied.

Triumphantly, she pulled on a shirt, pleased that she was finally orienting her and Cam to a safer place.

Because the thought that had been nagging in her peripheral since Wyatt had shown up unexpectedly, she realized, was that if they were discovered, they couldn’t keep doing this.

And that was the last thing that Elle wanted.

“Yeah, maybe.” Elle could picture her brother so clearly on the other side of the door, like a dog with a scent. She knew that Wyatt was very likely standing with his hands on his hips, mulling Elle’s words over. She needed to give him less time to think.

“I’ll be out in a second. Can you make me a cup of coffee?

” she asked sweetly before flashing Cam a confident smile that also went unreturned.

In another minute, it was all going to be okay.

And in the meantime, she’d get her brother as far away from her room as humanly possible, not taking the chance Wyatt the bloodhound could ferret his best friend out by scent alone.

“No wonder Cam isn’t here. Do you treat him like your personal servant, too?” Wyatt’s voice grew distant, his steady footsteps disappearing as he hit the living room rug.

Elle scoffed even as she heaved a sigh of relief. And in spite of the close call, it still took a lot for her to bite back her words, lest it brought Wyatt back in her direction. She was a fucking treasure as far as she was concerned, and it didn’t seem like Cam had any complaints about her either.

She turned toward her mirror and put her hair up in a haphazard bun, hoping the tangles were obfuscated with the low-effort look.

And then, given what she’d seen on Cam, she turned toward both sides, making sure that she didn’t have any visible marks on her own body that would lead to unwanted questions.

That was the last thing she needed at a family lunch.

Cam was visible in the reflection, and he was making it look infuriatingly easy not to meet her stare.

It was glaringly clear to her that this was about so much more than just keeping them a secret for the sake of simplicity.

Usually, if a guy tried to keep the fact that he was sleeping with a woman hidden, it was a red flag the size of Texas.

But with Cam, she knew on some deeply instinctive level that wasn’t the case.

What exactly his fear was, she couldn’t be certain, but he was wearing it like a second skin.

“Are we good?” Elle asked quietly when she’d turned around.

Some of the color had returned to Cam’s face, and he nodded. “Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “Thank you, by the way.”

Elle refused to give him time to feel embarrassed, especially when he didn’t need to be. “I’ll leave with Wyatt, and we can talk about this later?”

Cam’s head bobbed up and down. “We probably should.”

Elle had been expecting a rebuke or a deflection, heartened when his stare finally met hers.

Quickly then, before she lost her nerve, she walked over to where Cam stood, so that she didn’t have to raise her voice.

Gently but insistently, missing the feel of Cam’s body already, she pressed her hands against his chest, her fingertips massaging into solid skin.

“I don’t regret last night, so let’s just get that straight. Got it?”

Cam nodded then, the smallest hint of a smile appearing on his lips. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Coffee’s done, princess,” Wyatt’s voice called from outside of the bubble Elle had found herself back in. A place she never seemed to want to leave.

“Looks like Prince Pierce himself is in royal form today,” Cam teased, his voice surprisingly playful, and Elle’s whole body lightened.

Without overthinking it, even though she’d always been a woman with a plan, she stretched up on her tiptoes and placed a light, quick kiss on Cam’s lips.

“Sorry we didn’t get another round in, but I’m sure you’ll make it up to me later,” she said, already walking out the door and shutting it closed behind her.