Page 18 of Worth the Wait (Worth It All #2)

He moves closer, not stopping until he’s standing in front of my desk, close enough that I can smell his cologne and see the intensity in his eyes. Close enough that I’m reminded of how it felt to wake up pressed against his chest, listening to his heartbeat beneath my cheek.

“It’s not about the timeline.”

My mouth goes dry. “Cam...”

“Do you know how long two weeks is, Lianne?”

The question catches me off guard, partly because it’s not what I expected him to say and partly because I know exactly how long two weeks is when you’re trying not to think about the way someone’s hands felt mapping every inch of your body.

“Fourteen days,” I answer automatically.

“Three hundred and thirty-six hours.” His voice is lower now, more intimate. “Twenty thousand, one hundred and sixty minutes of trying to convince myself that what happened between us that night didn’t matter.”

I stare at him. Has he been counting time the same way I have, marking the passage of days since we made love, since I felt more connected to another person than I have in four years?

I stand up, needing to put some distance between us. “Cameron, we agreed?—”

“We agreed to one night,” he says, moving around my desk before I can retreat. “And it did happen, Lianne. But avoiding me for two weeks hasn’t changed the fact that I can still feel you in my arms.”

He’s right, and I hate that he’s right. I hate that he’s standing close enough to touch, that my body is remembering exactly how it felt to give myself to him completely, that two weeks of careful professional distance is crumbling in the space of a single conversation.

“This is complicated,” I whisper, the same thing I said in that wine cellar, in that hotel room, every time my defenses start to crumble around him.

“I know it’s complicated.” Cameron reaches out to touch my face, thumb brushing across my cheekbone in a gesture that’s achingly familiar after our night together.

“But I’ve missed you. Not just working with you, not just your professional expertise.

I’ve missed the way you feel when you’re sleeping in my arms. I’ve missed you. ”

The admission breaks something open in my chest, something I’ve been trying to keep locked away for fourteen days.

Because despite everything—despite the blond at the country club, despite our different worlds, despite all the logical reasons why giving him my body was a mistake—I’ve missed him too.

“I’ve missed you too,” I confess, the words slipping out before I can stop them. “But that doesn’t change anything. We can’t?—”

“Then stop avoiding me,” he says, stepping closer until there’s barely any space between us. “Stop pretending that what we shared meant nothing.”

“Cam...” I start to argue, to list all the reasons why this is a bad idea, why we should maintain professional boundaries, why letting him back into my life is dangerous for my heart and my sanity.

Instead, I find myself reaching up to touch his face, fingers tracing the line of his jaw the way I used to when we were together.

“I’ve been going crazy these past two weeks,” I admit. “Trying not to think about you, trying to convince myself that what we had in Santa Barbara was just... proximity and wine and bad weather.”

“And what conclusion did you reach?”

“That I’m a terrible liar.”

Cameron’s smile is soft and triumphant and completely devastating. “Good. Because I was starting to think I was the only one losing my mind.”

When he kisses me this time, there’s nothing tentative about it.

This is two weeks of pent-up longing and frustration pouring out in the space between one heartbeat and the next.

I respond immediately, my hands fisting in his suit jacket to pull him closer, my body melting against his like I’ve been waiting my entire life for this moment.

The kiss is desperate and hungry, enhanced by two weeks of missing each other and trying to pretend we didn’t.

Cameron’s hands are in my hair, at my waist, running down my back like he’s trying to memorize every curve.

I press closer, needing to eliminate any space between us, needing to feel the solid warmth of him against me.

“God, I’ve missed this,” he murmurs against my mouth.

“Me too,” I breathe, then kiss him harder, pouring two weeks of frustration and longing into the connection between us.

We’re pressed against my desk now, my laptop pushed aside to make room for Cameron to lift me onto the surface. His mouth moves to my neck, and I arch against him with a soft gasp that makes him groan low in his throat.

This is madness. We’re in my office, anyone could walk in, and I don’t care about anything except the way Cameron’s hands feel as they slide down my sides, the way he whispers my name like a prayer against my skin.

I pull his mouth back to mine, kissing him with an intensity that surprises us both. His response is immediate and overwhelming, hands tangling in my hair, body pressing closer until I’m surrounded by him, overwhelmed by the heat and scent and solid presence of him.

“Lianne…” he says against my lips, and my name sounds like everything I’ve been missing for two weeks.

I answer by deepening the kiss, by letting my hands explore the muscles of his shoulders and chest, by allowing myself to get lost in the feeling of being wanted this desperately by someone who matters this much.

We’re so absorbed in each other that we almost miss the sound of the elevator in the hallway, the jangle of keys that signals the arrival of the cleaning crew.

I break away from Cameron abruptly, both of us breathing hard as we listen to voices getting closer to my office.

“The cleaning staff,” I whisper, scrambling to slide off my desk and put some distance between us.

Cameron runs a hand through his hair, trying to restore some semblance of professional appearance, though his kiss-swollen lips and slightly wild eyes make it clear what we’ve been doing.

“Good evening, Miss Peralta,” comes a cheerful voice from the hallway as the cleaning crew begins their rounds.

“Good evening, Rosa,” I call back, hoping my voice sounds normal despite the fact that my heart is still racing and my lips feel swollen from Cameron’s kisses.

We stand in my office, breathing hard and staring at each other, the interrupted moment hanging between us like an unfinished sentence.

“We should...” I begin, then stop because I’m not sure what we should do.

“Yeah,” Cameron agrees, though he doesn’t move toward the door.

The spell is broken, but barely. I can still feel the ghost of his hands on my skin, still taste him on my lips. Two weeks of careful distance undone in the space of ten minutes, leaving us both disheveled and wanting and completely unsure how to move forward.

“This is...” I start again.

“Complicated,” Cameron finishes, echoing my favorite word for whatever this thing between us has become.

“Very complicated.”

“But not going away.”

I look at him—really look at him—taking in his mussed hair and intense eyes and the way he’s looking at me like I’m the most important thing in his world.

“No,” I admit quietly. “It’s not going away.”

The cleaning crew’s voices get closer, and Cameron straightens his tie with movements that are almost normal.

“I should go,” he says, though he doesn’t sound like he wants to.

“Probably.”

“But Lianne?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m done pretending this isn’t real. I’m done avoiding what’s between us because it’s complicated.” His voice is firm, determined, every inch the alpha male who’s decided what he wants and isn’t going to let anything stand in his way. “Two weeks was long enough.”

Before I can respond, he’s walking toward my office door, leaving me standing by my desk with kiss-swollen lips and the lingering scent of his cologne and the absolute certainty that everything between us just changed.

Again.