Had she watched it tonight? Was she watching it right now? As Des jogged toward the oceanfront, was Cami’s hand sliding between her bare legs, seeking soft, warm, wet flesh?
He forced himself to breathe. The heart rate monitor on his watch flashed at him.
He should put a stop to whatever this was. Cami’s orgasms weren’t his business, no matter how much he might wish they were, and by letting this continue, he was putting himself in a position where lying to her was morally wrong and not just something he had to do for the sake of his client.
Maybe he could talk Lenny into telling her the truth...
Probably not. It had been four months since he’d started working on her, and she’d shown no sign of softening. He knew Gabriel had faith that he could get this job done, but Adrien clearly didn’t. He wouldn’t have given Des a deadline if he thought he could pull this off, and that knowledge burned the base of his throat like churning stomach acid.
The beach was in view now, and he turned toward it, picking up his pace. He could almost feel the soft warmth of sand under the soles of his bare feet.
There was a time when the feeling of sand under him was the only thing keeping him sane. That was when he’d picked up running, after the disaster with Madilyn had blown up in his face and he was left with no career, no prospects, nobody to turn to. Something about the beach, the way it was so solid but so soft at the same time, had been grounding for him. It still was. He didn’t do it every time he went running, but on nights like tonight, when his brain was full of fog, he’d get to the beach, take off his shoes and tuck his socks inside, and then sift his toes into the sand and let it pull him into the earth. It never failed to help him focus.
He wasn’t sure how much focus would help him with regards to Cami, but it couldn’t hurt.
The beach was only a block away now. He could taste the salt of the evening ocean on his lips.
A notification tone interrupted the music in his ears, and though he didn’t break pace, he grimaced and glanced down at his smart watch.
A text from Olivia. He didn’t need to read it to know what it said. It would be one of two things: either she was nagging him about getting together with Mom and Dad for dinner, or she wanted him to feed her cat.
He ignored it. Neither of those things was pressing enough to warrant an interruption.
He reached the beach, passing the food cart that sold the corn dogs he liked, and his pace faltered as his feet went from concrete to sand. He jogged three more strides to get further away from the road and then stopped, reaching down to pull his shoes off his feet.
His toes sifted eagerly into the sand, still warm from the day’s sun, but rapidly cooling now that it had gone down.
He took several long, deep breaths, filling his lungs with the salty air and then exhaling as he counted in his mind. As he’d known it would, everything melted away, leaving him with just the sand and his music. Mom and Dad and Olivia were distant worries, and Cami and her orgasms were fantasies for another time. He could do his job and do it well, because that was who he was. As long as he remembered that, everything else would fall into place.
He exhaled and sank to a sitting position, folding his arms across his knees, and then pulled the airpods from his ears so he could hear the lap of the gentle waves against the shore.
As long as he did his job, the rest of it would work itself out. Maybe, after he convinced Lenny to sell the store, he’d even ask Cami out. He hadn’t wanted to date anyone in years. His parents would be thrilled.
Des stayed sitting on the beach for close to an hour before he finally decided to head home.
Cami refusedto look at her phone for the rest of the day. Just the knowledge that Des’s porn was waiting for her there made it feel too hot in her hand, almost radioactive. But the idea of rushing home to furiously masturbate because Des suggested it made her feel weird and squiggly inside, so she stayed planted in a chair at Starbucks longer than her tailbone was happy about. The upside of her aching butt was that she managed to completely finish the assignment she thought she’d have to finish in the morning before class.
When she finally left Starbucks (with her third iced coffee and fingers that were twitchier than normal), she returned to the apartment. Once upon a time, it had probably been storage space, but it was converted to a bachelor apartment even before Lenny had bought the building and set up shop downstairs. It was small, but serviceable, with a kitchenette, a living area, and her double bed in the corner. She didn’t need any more space than that.
After she’d put her shoes away, she moved to the small garbage can she kept under the kitchen sink, and pulled out the hard plastic that had, several days ago, contained a vibrator. She scanned the packaging, and then her eyes snagged on the word she’d been looking for: waterproof.
She forced herself to take it slow. She had a snack. She put away her messenger bag and laid her laptop carefully on the kitchen table where she liked to work. She began to draw herself a bubble bath, and pinned her hair up on top of her head. While the tub was filling, she poured herself a glass of wine from the boxed cab sav that sat on the counter next to her fridge. She retrieved Des’s vibe from the drawer in her bedside table. Then she lit the lavender candles she kept on the bathroom counter, turned off the light in the bathroom, stripped, and climbed into the bath.
The resulting atmosphere was warm and soothing, dim but not so much that she couldn’t see, and she left the bathroom door open so the fading daylight filtered in.
This isn’t going to work,said a nagging, petulant voice at the back of her mind, but she shoved it down. Then Cami carefully picked up her phone from the floor and navigated to the first of Des’s tabs.
She knew almost immediately it wasn’t her style. It was better than most other porn she’d seen, that was for sure, but the man in it was big and beefy, and though the video promisedgratuitous cunnilingus, he went at it so vigorously that Cami doubted it felt like much more than a particularly slippery washcloth trying to get into all the nooks and crannies.
Did Des like going down on his partners? She shouldn’t try to draw conclusions about his sexual predilections based on the porn recommendations he’d picked specifically for her, but she couldn’t help wondering.
If he did like to eat out, she had to imagine he was better than this guy.
She exited out of the video and tried the second. The candles had burned enough that the soft scent of lavender effused the warm, humid air around her. As she tabbed to the second video—the massage clip she’d noticed in Starbucks—she sank further down in the bath, letting the hot water draw the tension from her shoulders, and carefully placed her phone on the edge of the bathtub, propped up by the kickstand on her case. She hit play.
The video started with an artistic shot of smooth, bare skin over a pleasant soundtrack of gentle piano. Cami watched as a large, strong hand traced down over skin, followed by a drizzle of oil, and then firm massage. She never saw the man’s face, or more of him than his hands and arms—which were very nice—as he worked the muscles of the woman on his massage table. At first, there was a modesty towel folded over her butt, and she was face down so her breasts weren’t exposed. Her breath would hitch when his thumbs skated to her lower back and pressed into the dimples on either side of her spine. It looked like it felt amazing.
Des had picked this for her. He’d thought to himself, ‘What porn would Cami enjoy? What would get her off?’ and he’d thought of this. He’d loaded it into her phone knowing, or at least suspecting, that she would watch it with her hands between her legs. Had he watched this video himself? Had he been hard when he did?
