forehead to hers without bending down too much.
“I know something that will help more,” I whisper.
Her lips are inches from mine. “What’s that?” she whispers back.
I kiss her. A full on tongue-heavy If I Can’t Fuck You Then I’ll Fuck Your Mouth kind of kiss. Camden melts and she kisses me back with every bit as much hunger. It’s fucking unreal how bad I want her. She could make me forget my own name. Both the real one and the pretend one. I might be willing to shave years off my life if I could have her right now.
When we both finally get to the point where we need air she breaks off and sighs into my neck. “Ben, I thought about you all day yesterday.”
“I thought about you too.” I kiss her jawline. I inhale the fruity scent of her hair. I’m about to move to her neck and suck the skin until I leave a mark when I see movement and realize we have an audience.
Mrs. Copella is gawking at us with her mouth open. No wonder. She’s here at the bus stop nearly every day and probably hasn’t seen me and Camden exchange two words with one another. Now here we are, ready to start banging on the street corner before her very eyes.
Luckily there’s no reason to explain this because the bus shows up.
“WE’RE WALKING IN A WINTER WONDERLAND!” shouts Rita the bus driver and Camden giggles as I pull her with me onto the bus after Mrs. Copella has huffed and puffed her way up the steps.
We take a seat in the back and Rita swivels around to ogle us in surprise. Then she grins, turns up the Christmas music and begins moving the bus.
I curl my arm around Camden, a move that clearly pleases her. She snuggles closer and we look outside to see the snowflakes begin to stick to the smudged window glass. It’s like a scene out of a damn Hallmark Christmas movie and, to my surprise, I’m into it.
She wants to hear about what I did yesterday and I entertain her with tales of the worthless Brian, who clogged up the soda machine with coffee grounds and took seventeen smoking breaks.
“I wished you were there,” I tell her and tug playfully on a few strands of her hair.
“You mean because I can tell the difference between coffee and soda?”
“Yup, that’s exactly what I mean.”
“Did Brian mess up my immaculate stockroom?”
I put my free hand on her knee. She’s wearing thick wool tights today and I run my palm over her thigh, pushing the hem of her skirt up just enough to get my point across. “I like to think of it as our stockroom, Camden.”
Her breath hitches and she squirms. She’s remembering the stockroom and the way she got off in my hand. I’m remembering it too. And holy fuck, I’m so hard. This Hallmark movie needs to take an X-rated turn. I wish we weren’t on our way to a long school day. I wish we were alone.
We’re almost in Black Mountain when Camden removes a notebook from her backpack and scribbles furiously.
“You taking notes?”
She wrinkles her nose and clicks her pen. “Just a reminder to follow up with my sports writer about the hockey team article. Looks like they might win the state championship.”
“With Kent and Corby King on the team they’ve got a shot.”
“I forgot that Corby used to live in Devil Valley.”
“Yeah, he did live there for a while. But I don’t see him much since he moved to Black Mountain.”
Camden is chewing on her lip. She’s got something on her mind and it has nothing to do with Corby King and the hockey team. “Ben, I need to ask you something important.”
I feel my muscles tensing. I thought she understood that we wouldn’t be conducting an in depth interview. “What is it you want to know, Camden?”
She clutches her notebook more tightly to her chest and takes a deep breath. “Nothing. But can you please avoid broadcasting to the Black Mountain crowd that we hooked up?”
I look out the window, slightly hurt that she’d jump to that conclusion. “I wasn’t planning to broadcast jack shit. So don’t worry. Your pristine reputation is safe.”
“Oh, please don’t get mad.” She touches my arm. “Ben, look at me. I’m not ashamed and I’m not sorry. But you know how people are at school. They can be mean and they can be gossipy. And we haven’t had a chance to