Wright that Got Away, page 15
I squeezed his hand. The increased tempo of my moans urging him on.
“Don’t stop,” I gasped.
“Fuck,” he said.
Then, I dropped, plummeting into the great nowhere. And he followed me. We cried out together. Passion and pleasure releasing all at once. Until there was nothing left. Until I was utterly spent.
Campbell slumped forward over my body. “Fuck,” he gasped. Then pressed a kiss to my shoulder.
As he withdrew, I shuddered all over at the loss of him in every tender and sensitive bit of my body. He tossed the condom as I curled into a ball on the bed. Then, he crawled in after me, cradling me against him.
“You’re perfection,” he whispered into my shoulder.
I rolled over to look at him. With my hand on his cheek, I stole another kiss. “Don’t go.”
He drew me in closer. “I’m right here.”
And I wanted nothing more than to believe him.
Part IV
Tightrope
22
Campbell
Blaire was still in my arms the next morning. I’d had her several times before we passed out, utterly exhausted sometime in the early hours. And yet I woke up, starving for her.
“Babe?” I murmured against her bare skin.
I kissed her shoulders, shifting lower to press a kiss to her side, stomach, waist.
“Mmm,” she muttered incoherently. She reached for me in her sleep, and I kissed her again.
“Babe?”
Lower. Still lower.
She groaned but said nothing.
I hooked one of her legs over my shoulder as I settled myself between her legs. My body ached for her in a way I hadn’t remembered was possible. When I thought about me and Blaire in high school, I’d always assumed it was just the rush of hormones that made everything so intense. No one had known about us, and we had been insatiable.
And now, here I was, all this time later, and I still couldn’t get enough of her.
If I had it my way, she’d be in my bed every night. No panties ever again. Just like she was now as I buried my head between her legs. I licked gently at her clit and spread her lips with my fingers. I stroked at her opening to find that she was already wet for me.
Had she been dreaming about us? Or was she still wet from everything that had happened last night? Either way, I liked it and wanted it for always.
“Babe,” I muttered again as I worked her clit with my tongue.
Her eyes slowly fluttered open, and I met her gaze as I slid two fingers inside of her. She came fully awake then as I stroked her body.
“Oh. Ohhh,” she gasped. “I thought I was still dreaming.”
“What were you dreaming about?”
“You.” Her mouth opened on a moan as I fingered her again and again. “You were inside me.”
“We can remedy that,” I told her.
I licked her one more time before grabbing another condom and sliding it over my already-aching and heavy cock. I’d woken up hard. Clearly, I’d been dreaming the same dreams.
I scooped her up into my arms as I fit our bodies together like a puzzle. She arched into me as I slid deep into her.
“Campbell,” she groaned.
I kissed her. “I like the taste of you on my lips in the morning.”
She shuddered, a blush coming to her cheeks. “You’re dirty.”
“I don’t hear any complaints.”
“And you won’t hear any.”
I had her cradled against me. Our bodies moved to a perfect tempo, as if following the buildup of a song. Our fucking was the only music I needed right now.
“Fuck, that’s the best sound,” I said as the slapping of our bodies together created a wet smack.
“Oh God, I’m going to come.”
She tightened her arms around me. We could barely move with how tangled we were together. And still, somehow, even though the movements were smaller, they became more intense, more powerful. I was right on the cusp as well.
And as she came all over my cock, I lost it, too. I came fast and hard, buried deep inside of her. My body went boneless, and I collapsed forward over her.
“Well,” she murmured, kissing my temple, “that was quite a wake-up.”
I grinned at her lazily. “Good morning.”
“Better than my dreams.”
I sprawled out across the bed and sighed. “Definitely.” I glanced over at her. “You hungry? I could pop downstairs and get coffee and bagels.”
“Coffee,” she said with an excited smile. “Yes, please. Iced coffee preferably.”
“Excellent. Feel free to use the shower or whatever you need.”
I kissed her one more time, pulled on jeans and a T-shirt, and then padded downstairs. I ordered drinks and pastries at Coffee and talked to the barista for a few minutes. The employees had been starstruck the first couple weeks I was in here, but by now, they all knew me, and I was just a person to them. I preferred it that way.
Despite not ever posting to social media, I did have it on my phone. So, I scrolled my feed for a few minutes before I stopped on a video Blaire had posted last night. When the hell had she found the time?
It was of her walking toward the dinner I’d set up. Red carpet, fancy lights, rooftop view, and all. It had over a million views. She’d posted a videos of the band that had gotten a couple million views. Nothing like our “I See the Real You” challenge video. Probably because I hadn’t shown up in any of the other ones.
There was plenty of speculation about us. Some people thought we were dating. Some thought we were just friends. Most people thought the whole thing was a publicity stunt. As much as I wanted to scream from the rooftops that she was all mine, I saw the wisdom in letting it ride on social media. The press would have a field day if we confirmed anything. And sometimes, it was easier to just say nothing than to let them in a fraction of an inch more than they were before.
Against my better judgment, I clicked on the comments for the video. Many of them were her followers congratulating her, but even more were people wondering who exactly had set this up. And at the very top, with twenty-eight thousand likes, was Nate King with a comment that said, Secrets, secrets.
Well, if that wasn’t a fucking pot-stirrer comment.
Blaire had still been posting videos she had of her and Nate. She posted two, sometimes three times a day. So, it wasn’t surprising that she’d used the content she already had. But now, people thought that Nate had done this for her. Not only that, but a large portion also apparently thought he was proposing.
A spot of jealousy opened in my stomach at those comments. See, this was why I didn’t read any of this shit.
Nate wasn’t proposing. They weren’t even dating. Blaire was upstairs in my bed. Why did I care what a bunch of people thought of it?
I picked up our coffee and headed back upstairs, trying to shake that feeling. If I hadn’t read the stupid comments, I’d still be in that blissed-out place. Not with my head all fucked up.
“Blaire?” I called as I walked into the room.
The shower abruptly cut off, and she came out in nothing but a white towel. My jaw dropped as I caught sight of her shapely legs and the tops of her breasts. Her hair was wet and dripped as she towel-dried.
“Hey,” she said.
“Fuck the coffee,” I said, dropping the coffee and pastries as I grabbed her and threw her back on the bed again.
She giggled but didn’t protest as we went at it again. Fuck, I would never, ever tire of her. Only after we were both panting and spent did I finally release her.
“Coffee is going to be cold,” I breathed against her skin.
“Mine was already cold. You’re the only one suffering here.”
“Oh, yeah, I’m really suffering.”
She laughed. “I can see that.”
She kissed me again and then came to her feet, stepping into panties and one of my T-shirts. She took a sip of her coffee and peeked into the brown paper bag full of pastries and bagels.
We went back into the living room and ate.
“When did you have time to upload that video last night?”
She blinked at me. “What video?”
“Of the dinner.”
She looked at me, confused. “I didn’t upload it.”
“Uh…it has a million views.”
In a second, she snatched up her phone and was staring at it in shock. “I mean, I’d planned to upload it in a few days but probably to my Stories. That way, it wouldn’t be the same day that it happened.”
“Then, what happened?”
She shook her head and then sighed. “Oh fuck, I didn’t even think. I added it to the shared account I have with Honey for content. She usually handles when and what goes up unless it’s something I say specifically. Clearly, I did not say anything yesterday because I was busy.” She bit her lip. “Is it bad?”
“Well, apparently, half of the internet thinks Nate is proposing.”
“What?” she asked with a giggle. “Why would they think that?”
“Probably because he commented.”
She scrolled. “Oh, I see it. He’s ridiculous. That comment could mean anything. And anyway, I see your name nearly as much as his.”
“So, your followers don’t know you broke up?” I asked, trying for calm and levity, but by the look on her face, I hadn’t managed it.
She was smirking at me. She put her phone down and climbed into my lap, straddling me with her powerful thighs. “Campbell Abbey, are you jealous?”
“Why would I be? You’re in my bed.”
“That I am,” she agreed with a teasing smile.
“And I am the first person to be like fuck the press, fuck social media, fuck followers wanting to be in my business. Whatever you want to share is up to you.”
“But…”
“But I don’t like seeing his name on your posts like that.”
“Nate and I are just friends. We were never emotionally invested. It was always more business than it was anything else. We ended on good terms. In fact, he’s supposed to be in town this week to record some more videos.”
“Even after the breakup?”
“It was more a mutual understanding that it was going to be strictly business from now on. He was cool with it. I swear.”
I had doubts that a guy like that took to losing someone like Blaire that easily. But maybe she was right. I was still friends with some of my LA exes. They had always been temporary things, and ending the sexual side of things hadn’t affected the friendships.
“You could meet him,” she offered.
“I’m sure he’d fucking love that.”
She shrugged. “Who cares?”
I chuckled at her nonchalance. I wasn’t threatened by Nate King, but a part of me knew LA was beckoning in a few weeks, and Nate was here. I didn’t want to think about the future, but it suddenly felt like I had no future without her.
“Fine. But you’re mine.”
She pressed her mouth to mine. “No question.”
23
Blaire
I had been shoved into a time machine.
Eight years ago, every waking moment had belonged to Campbell Abbey.
And now, eight years later, my entire existence belonged to him again.
I stayed at his place every night. We ate all our meals together. We texted all day when I wasn’t at the studio with him. My friends smirked behind their hands, but not a one of them complained that I had been spending all my time with him. How could they when our time was entirely limited?
This was the first break I’d had in days and mostly because I’d promised to do these videos with Nate. No matter what I was feeling about Campbell, I couldn’t let my work suffer. I still had to be on top of things. And I hadn’t seen Honey in almost a week. She messaged me constantly about work stuff, but I’d been working from Campbell’s hotel room or the recording studio rather than at home.
I met her at my place when I went home to get ready to record videos with Nate.
“Okay,” Honey said, staring down at her iPad when I finished blowing out my long hair, “this is the list I have for videos with Nate. We have ten planned for the next couple hours. Plus, the additional behind-the-scenes footage that I’ll take care of.”
“Sounds good, Honey.”
I applied a full face of makeup, knowing what my skin would look like otherwise under the glaring lights. For most of my live videos and such, I just wore mascara and maybe some concealer. I liked to be as natural as possible for my viewers to normalize acceptance of skin texture and the like. But these videos were different.
“You’ve been busy the last couple days.”
“Yep.”
“Are you and Campbell…” Honey trailed off.
I couldn’t hide my grin. “I’m not ready to talk about it.”
Honey arched an eyebrow. “Not ready to talk about it or you’re going to move to LA here soon and leave me behind?”
I laughed. “Definitely not the latter.”
“You sure? You two seem serious.”
“I don’t know what’s going to happen. Kind of just living in the moment.” I puckered my lips, making a red kissy face at the mirror. “Okay, I’m set.”
Honey and I piled into my Lexus and drove to downtown Lubbock. We were surprisingly close to Campbell’s building. I’d spent an hour in his place learning one of the dances we were doing today. Most of the other videos were trends, where we mostly lip-synced songs I’d already known or comedians that I’d listened to on repeat so I knew my part. It wasn’t that hard. It was mostly just forcing myself to record them. That was why it was nice to have recording days with Nate. There was no backing out.
“Blaire!” he said, scooping me up and twirling me around in a circle when he saw me.
I laughed and stepped out of his embrace. “Hello, apparent fiancé.”
He chuckled and winked. “What can I say? I move very fast. So fast in fact that I made a beautiful rooftop dinner for us without even being present.”
“Shut up.” I smacked his arm.
“We are so using this footage,” Honey said.
I hadn’t even realized that she had her phone up. “Oh my God, did you capture our hug?”
“Yessss. We should absolutely set this to music. Your fans will eat it up.”
Nate arched an eyebrow at me. “And how would the new beau feel about that?”
“Don’t be an ass, King.”
He winked at me again. “Just seeing if I still have a chance.”
“You’re ridiculous.” I snorted and strode away from him to watch the footage on Honey’s phone.
When Honey played it back in slow motion, it looked like one of those old movies where the soldier came back from war. She was right that we should post this. But Nate wasn’t wrong that Campbell probably wouldn’t like it. He’d been cool about Nate showing up again after our talk about it just being business. And Campbell was supposed to be here at the end of filming to meet him. Maybe that would help.
“All right,” I said, “let’s get started.”
A few hours later, we had the ten planned videos and who even knew how many additional videos we’d managed to get. When Nate and I got together, ideas just spilled from a fount. Whatever we started with, we almost always doubled because we couldn’t stop from coming up with more and more. There was a reason we’d both increased our audience since working together.
Not that anything had done for my audience what one video with Campbell did. I’d never seen numbers like that. And I’d never see them again. Well, not unless we went very public with our relationship. Something neither of us was keen on doing. Not to something this new and special. I wasn’t even ready for my assistant to be in the know. I couldn’t imagine the rest of the world.
“That was a great day,” Nate said.
“It really was. I feel so accomplished.”
He leaned back against his yellow Jeep Wrangler Rubicon that he’d driven up from Midland. “So, are you going to tell me what’s up?”
I shrugged. “Sorry about the video. Honey posted it without my knowledge, and then I didn’t know that everyone would think you were proposing.”
“Yeah, I don’t care about that.” He laughed and pushed up the sleeves of his white button-up. “It was kind of fun.”
“Shit stirrer.”
He pinched my arm playfully. “So, I’m guessing that was Campbell?”
I bit my lip and nodded.
“Are you two an item? How did that even happen?”
“Would you believe me if I said that I got mobbed?”
His eyes rounded. “What?”
“Yeah, on the Fourth of July, right after the ‘I See the Real You’ challenge video.”
“That video fucking blew up. But seriously, mobbed? Are you okay?”
I nodded. “I’m kind of claustrophobic. So, some of it was just that. I got away and ran, but all my friends were at the fireworks already, and no one was answering. So, I called Campbell.”
“Ah,” he said with a knowing smirk.
“So, it kind of happened like that.”
“Well, lately, I’ve had some crazy-ass shit happen to me, too.” He raised his eyebrows. “Involving you, actually.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. There was this girl who kept messaging me. I thought she was hitting on me at first, but then I think she was snooping for information on you. She wanted me to confirm whether or not we were dating.” He shrugged. “It was bizarre. I wonder if it was like how you got mobbed.”
“Yeah. Campbell Soup girls.”
Nate blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Uh…that’s what Campbell’s fans are called.”
“That’s a terrible name.”
“Tell me about it.”
We both burst into laughter. It was nice and comfortable. I’d been a little worried that there would be some lingering…thing here with me and Nate. But it just wasn’t there. We looked great on camera. We were entirely authentic because we enjoyed each other’s company. But there wasn’t anything else there.
