When He's Sinful (The Olympus Pride 3)

His eyelids drooped. “You wanted it. More, you liked it.”

She spluttered like an idiot. “Y-yeah, well, you liked it, too.”

“Yeah, I did,” he easily admitted. “I came so hard my fucking knees shook.”

Aspen clamped her mouth shut, but her lips trembled. He’d been wrong. She hadn’t liked it. She’d loved it. So it sucked to know that it hadn’t meant anything to him. For Camden, it had simply been a matter of his control fraying while his anger sought an outlet—hence all the biting and clawing and marking.

She lightly stroked her throat, feeling lost and adrift. Her panic grew because, shit, they’d crossed a line she’d always feared crossing. “This doesn’t need to change anything, right? I mean, friends can have sex without it messing everything up.”

His face softened. “You’re stuck with me, remember?”

A knot in her stomach fell away. “So … we’re still good? This was just a one-off, nothing has changed. Right?”

“Right.”

She gave a jerky nod. “Okay. Good. Cool.” Cool? Oh, she needed to go before she embarrassed herself any further.

He curled his hand around the side of her neck. “Stop thinking so hard. Go to bed, and get some sleep.”

What, and pretend she hadn’t just been ruthlessly fucked by her best friend?

Preferably.

It would be practice, really. Because she’d need to carry on as if this never happened. She couldn’t allow it to mess up their friendship.

It wasn’t a huge deal, she told herself as she padded into his bedroom. People had sex all the time. Friends were known to have sex without letting it change anything. She could do the same. She could pretend that tonight hadn’t meant anything to her. She’d have to. Because she couldn’t lose him. If she could only ever have him as a friend then she’d be content with that.

As the bedroom door closed behind her, Camden swiped his hand down his face. His cat wanted him to follow her, stay with her, mark her all over again.

Camden softly cursed. For too long, he’d kept a firm hold on his ever-growing need for her. But he’d always known that it would only take a single moment of weakness on his part for that need to take over. After all that fuckery with Jerome, the pressure in Camden’s chest had swelled to epic proportions, leaving his control a precarious thing. And the tight rein he’d kept on his hunger for her had eventually just … snapped.

Reason and logic had flown out of the window. He’d been oblivious to everything but her and the need that pounded in his blood. He hadn’t cared about anything other than getting inside her.

Christ, he’d bitten and clawed her in too many places to count. He couldn’t say he regretted it. He didn’t. Which made him an asshole.

He didn’t like that she wouldn’t want his marks on her body. Didn’t like that she’d no doubt try to cover them up. The mere idea of it made his tiger snarl.

Really, it shouldn’t surprise Camden that he’d lost control like that. He’d felt on shaky ground for months now. Add in Grant’s behavior and the danger that clung to her like a bad smell and, yeah, maybe it had only been a matter of time before his composure failed him.

Although she’d often claimed she thought him “pretty to look at,” Camden would never have expected that she’d fucking ignite for him. Her mouth had been every bit as greedy as his own. Her touches hadn’t been light or tentative. She’d grabbed, pulled, scratched. She’d been with him every step of the way, making her own silent demands.

Her orgasms had been no short, gentle ripples of pleasure. No, she’d goddamn imploded in his arms. Twice. Screamed, bucked, shook, jerked, dug her heels into his lower back.

And he wanted her again.

It seemed, however, that she planned for it to be a “one-off.” He got why. One of Aspen’s biggest fears was being left behind. Her clan had let her down before she’d even been born. Her father had died, leaving her with only one parent. Her mother had essentially chosen death over a life with Aspen—if his bearcat hadn’t escaped the vehicle, the fumes would have killed her too. Her foster parents had been good to her, but the human assholes had later given her up.

In short, she was used to losing people. He could relate. The difference between them was that he didn’t care who came and went in his life so long as he had her. She was wrong to doubt that he’d never leave her side, but he had no way to make her believe it.

He also had no way to carry on as if tonight never happened. He couldn’t un-know how good that plush mouth felt against his own, or how soft those full breasts were, or how perfectly the her ass fit in his hands, or how her eyes glazed over as she came all over his cock. All of that was now etched into his memory.