The Real(50)

My lips were chapped from the cold and bruised from his kiss, so I put on some designer Chapstick that may have looked a little like tinted lip gloss.

In an attempt to keep things clean, I may have rolled on some of the deodorant I kept in my tote.

There was a chance I went through his suitcase and found a fresh button-down flannel shirt and slid it on. On a technicality, he did say he brought one for me. Cuffing the sleeves, I glanced back to him as he slept.

The man was a demigod, cut, etched, and completely at ease as he dreamed godlike dreams. He’d told me he’d lived a charmed life, and I believed it. As wrong as the thought was, I was sure his looks gave him a sort of advantage in his years.

And from what I’d gathered, he’d used that advantage, especially with women. But there was a difference between a man who was good looking and arrogant to a man who was good looking and had substance, and that difference was Cameron.

I loved that he didn’t ramble on about his hey-days, though I was sure he was a bit of a bad ass. It was smirk implied.

Those ramblings would only have turned me off, stories of a cocky and insecure man, but Cameron had shed those years and grown into a gentle giant. His beauty went further than skin deep and behind it, he was all heart.

Enamored, I stood staring for a stalker minute while his body rose and fell, taking and expelling even breaths. Even in his sleep, he was too much to take in.

The attraction I felt for him only grew stronger when I thought of how his full lips felt on mine, and how his eyes shone when he looked at me. I couldn’t get over it, no matter how hard I tried to play it cool. Everything about him appealed to me—his size, his strength, his beauty, him.

While I waited for Cameron to wake up, I decided to clean out my bag, and it was then that I brushed on a little blush along my cheekbones to make sure I still liked the shade.

Because I was in my tote, I grabbed my lotion bar to scent my wrists, what could it hurt to make a little bit of effort?

And then I got to digging in that bag and found some old diamond stud earrings that I loved in a hidden pocket. They were nothing special.

I may have played around with my phone, twisting my head at odd angles to make sure he didn’t wake up seeing my unpredictable and opportunistic double chin. In my defense, that secondary chin tended to flare out like a lizard’s neck without warning. I didn’t want to scare the poor man.

When I’d finished polishing my nails and toes with a shade I’d bought months ago and forgotten about, I decided that Cameron was going to sleep forever, so I may have borrowed his razor and shaved my legs a little.

By the time I was finished not getting ready for Cameron to open his eyes, I was exhausted and even more disturbed by the slow smile that covered his face when I made myself comfortable back in bed.

“You are not human,” I whispered, praying when he woke I’d see a hint of spinach in his teeth from last night’s feast. He cooked a mean steak and spinach salad.

Come on, give me one flaw!

“Are you all dressed up for me?” he asked, his sexy voice filled with sleep.

I snorted. Snorted and ruined every chance I had of looking like a sexy sophisticate.

“No, this is how I always look in the morning.” That was my story and I was sticking to it.

“Sooooo, you didn’t brush your teeth, fix your hair, put some shit on your face, use my razor to shave your legs, and pose for twenty pictures you didn’t take?”

I touched my forehead to his, my eyes wide and searching.

“What are you doing?” He chuckled as I climbed on top of him and peered at him closely.

I was sure I looked like a cartoon character as I pressed in. “I’m looking for your third eyelid, you lizard!”

He laughed and with the swipe of his arm, pinned me beneath him. It was then that I noticed his only flaw was a faint bruise on his chin.

“What happened?” I asked as I lifted to press my lips against it.

“Max caught me with an elbow on the court,” he said pulling away from my lips, “and don’t change the subject.”

“Fine. I can’t get away with shit when you’re around,” I grumbled while my cheeks flamed.

“I was forced to watch you for too long before I got to touch you. I’ve gotten good at it. And don’t get too comfortable with your I don’ts, either. I do seem to recall shower sex being a definite no.”

“Dick persuasion will not work on me, sir. That was a fluke.”

His beautiful lips twitched. “A . . . fluke.”

“Your job is to woo, not sway opinions,” I reminded.

“Well, after all the effort you just put in to dress up for me, I will woo, madam.”

Still slightly embarrassed, I shook my head and stared at the ceiling.

He trailed his lips from my neck to my ear. “I love that you did all of this for me. I loved watching you doll yourself up for my benefit. I got hard when you blew on your nails. Abbie, you are beautiful without all that effort, but it makes me feel so good that you do it for me.”

Pulling me to sit, he plucked one of the freshly cut roses from the small glass vase beside the bed and handed it to me. I knew the arrangements of pale pink stems placed strategically throughout the cabin weren’t a coincidence. Cameron had sent a few dozen roses in the same shade to my house in the last few weeks. I constantly filled my nose with their sweet scent.