Scratch the Surface
Cameron warned me that Thanksgiving at the house he grew up in would be insane. His father’s extended family would be there, family of extended family, and friends, as well as a few business associates, which is why they celebrated the day before the actual holiday. It was an all-day catered affair, complete with waitstaff, and the enormous circular driveway was filled with cars. When I glanced at Cameron as he parked his SUV, I thought he looked nervous.
“I am housetrained, you know,” I teased him. “I promise not to piss on the rugs and embarrass you in front of your family.”
He turned his head sharply. “Please, you’ve been running a restaurant and dealing with people forever. I’m not worried about you or what impression you’re going to make.”
“Then what is with you, all twisted up in your seat?”
Quick inhale of breath. “Every year I end up on the patio, or in my father’s den, reading. I don’t––”
“You’re an introvert, Cam, and there’s nothing wrong with that.” I didn’t need him to explain himself or make excuses to me, but then I glared, which startled him. “But so help me, you abandon me in there and I will tell Agatha we insist that she paints a mural inside our apartment.”
“Oh God,” he gasped, his eyes fluttering as he considered my threat.
“You’ll wake up every morning to cavorting satyrs and naked nymphs and whatever else she comes up with.”
His mouth hung open, and he stared at me.
“Terrifying, right?”
“You want to live in Pacifica?”
“Are you kidding? We can walk to the beach, Cam. I can’t wait to be here for Christmas and New Year’s. We can put up a tree in the living room, and it’ll be cool enough to sit by the fire and snuggle.”
He exploded into motion, scrambling over the console and climbing into my lap. His mouth on mine was frantic and devouring, demanding that I open and take him in. Finally. Hands on my face, my neck, fingers combing through my beard, clearly addicted to the feel of it, holding me still as he mauled my lips, kissing me deeply, thoroughly, grinding against me, his intent clear—he wanted me badly.
When I grabbed hold of his ass and squeezed tight, he whimpered in the back of his throat, and the sound, all aching, raw desire, made me break the kiss. If we weren’t sitting in his parents’ driveway, I’d pull him into the back seat with me.
“So we eat, visit a little, and then we’re out, because I want to go home and get in bed with you, like, right fuckin’ now.”
“Home?”
“Yeah. Home.”
“You’re going to move here, and get a job here, and this will be our home.”
“Of course.”
He nodded quickly, his voice gone.
“I’m going to get my degree and move here, and we’re gonna have a whole life together, Cam. Isn’t that what you want?” I held my breath, even though, judging from his expression, from his blown pupils and swollen, ravished lips and his hands clutching my shoulders, I knew what his answer would be.
“Yes, honey, that’s all I want.”
That endearment again, which I hadn’t heard from him since I was stoned on the good stuff while I was in the hospital. I hoped to hear it a lot. “Okay, then, we’re good. We’re set.”
“Yes,” he rasped.
“And”—I grinned at him—“from the way you were all over me, I’m thinking you’re not worried about me being hurt anymore.”
“I probably should be, worried I mean, but I can’t watch you sleeping beside me anymore and not touch you. It’s killing me and frustrating you, and…I need you to take me to bed when we get home, all right?”
“Kiss me again before we go in.”
He shook his head, smiling wide, his eyes glinting in the lights from the driveway. “If I kiss you again, we are not getting out of this car, and that is not the first impression I want you to make on my parents.”
And because the visual of that was particularly horrifying, I ordered him out of car. At least no one saw us climbing out of the same seat.
I understood, in a purely abstract way, that Cameron’s parents were rich, but there was understanding it, and then there was seeing it. Those were two very different things.
Their house was huge. We stepped into the foyer, hung up our jackets in the closet, and walked farther in, past a sitting room on the right and a smaller room—a reading room, maybe?—on the left. A long hallway dumped us out into a cavernous space with a coffered ceiling and a crystal chandelier.
“Are you kidding?”
“It’s really not that big a deal.”
He’d need to try a lot harder than that to persuade me.
It was the biggest house I’d ever been in, but I was smart enough to know that what made it expensive was its location. We were in what Cameron had described as Old Palo Alto. He’d told me the house looked like something you’d find in Santa Barbara, with more of a Mediterranean feel, but I didn’t know much, if anything, about architecture, so what I noticed was the Spanish tile roof, and inside, the archways, the hardwood floors, and the high ceilings. Cameron also pointed out the recently touched-up white millwork.