Cameron scowled at me. “You let yourself in, and you’re eating my food?”
I smirked at him, forcing myself to act normal and pretend like my stomach wasn’t in knots over Joe. “Hi, Cam. Long time, no see.”
“What have you learned?” Angelo asked, ignoring me.
“Not much. I was going to talk to the detective who showed up at Santino’s, but you’re going to have to do that.”
“Why?”
“No big deal.” It was a huge fucking deal and hiding how shaken I was from Angelo wasn’t easy. “Detective Daniels is working the case. He and I… We’ve got some history.”
Angelo narrowed his eyes. He knew something was off, but he just nodded. I was usually way better at lying than this. Now Angelo was going to push me to tell him more later. I’d just had to hope his concern for Cameron would make him forget all about it.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to tell Angelo about Daniels. He’d always been my confidant, and I knew he might be able to help me get my head on straight, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell him I’d fucked a cop and wanted to do it again, that I couldn’t stop thinking about him even though I hated him and he hated me.
Cameron and Angelo had hated each other and gotten over it, but it wasn’t the same.
It was one thing for my family to accept a guy who had hated us in high school, but a cop, one who would have been happy to bring Lucien in on murder charges, one who would love to find a way to pin the fire at Santino’s on me, one who knew what I’d done when I was sixteen… There was no fucking way they would ever accept Joe. I didn’t even know how the fuck I could accept him. We were enemies, not high school crushes who didn’t know the difference between love and hate.
“I need to take Cameron home,” Angelo said.
I looked back and forth between Angelo and Cameron. “He’s moving in with us?”
“Yes.” Angelo gave me a stern look, and I shrugged.
“I can drive him to the house. In fact, I think it would be nice for us to have a little talk.” Having a chance to interrogate Angelo’s new man would provide a much-needed distraction.
Angelo reluctantly agreed.
After I took Cameron to our house, my aunt Sabrina wanted to talk to me, but I told her I needed to shower before I could do anything else. She always saw through me and my cousins when we tried to lie to her, and she was damn good at making us tell her things we’d rather keep to ourselves. I couldn’t risk her finding a way to make me confess about Joe. Besides, I wasn’t in the mood to talk. I was angry and horny, spoiling for a fight and craving something reckless.
I kicked the door of my room shut behind me, thankful to be alone and away from family members who could read me too easily. I couldn’t let anyone find out what I’d done months ago to get Lucien’s name cleared. Making a bargain with a fucking cop? No matter how well it had turned out, Lucien would be furious with me, especially now that Joe was involved in our lives again.
I stripped, leaving a trail of clothes across my room. When I entered the bathroom, I turned on the shower and waited until it was hot enough to feel like it was cooking me. I stepped in and let the water run over my body, focusing on the way it pounded against my skin. I took a long, slow breath, trying to dispel my anger. But without rage, all my restless energy morphed into lust. I tried to ignore it. I told myself I was done jerking off to fantasies of Joe.
I grabbed the shampoo, squirted some into my hand, and scrubbed my scalp so vigorously it hurt. As I hastily washed my body, my anger returned, but this time I was angry with myself. I scrubbed my skin, but my harsh touches only made me think of Joe. I imagined what would happen if he got the upper hand. What if I let him be the one in control? I thought about how he would hold me down, how he would hurt me and try to make me regret everything I’d done to him.
He probably hated me even more than he had the night I’d broken into his house. I’d gone further with Murphy than he wanted, and since he’d dug into my past, he’d seen the worst of me. He probably judged me solely on that now.
Hate had made for some incredible heat between us. Would we burn even hotter now?
I tried to wash my cock and balls quickly, but once I wrapped my hand around my shaft, I couldn’t make myself let go. I slid my hand up and down, slowly at first and then faster, thinking of Joe, of him shoving me against a wall. I imagined him cuffing my hands behind my back before yanking my pants down. He pulled my cheeks apart, groaning as he exposed my hole before driving into me for a hard, punishing fuck.