Page 5 of Wanting Cameron

“Get off me!”

I can’t move. I don’t want to.

“Get. Off,” he growls through gritted perfect teeth.

This motherfucker.

I release him and push myself up slowly. He scrambles to his feet, glaring at me.

“What the fuck is your problem?” he asks.

“You,” I say again.

“Yeah, you said that already.”

“And I meant it.”

He shakes his head, disgusted, and turns away.

But I saw it.

Everything about the way he pushed back and the undeniable excitement in his eyes told me he wants to be close to me, even if it hurts.

I want to see that excitement again. I want to feel him push back. I want to shatter that charming, exquisite exterior to reach the real Cameron beneath. And then I’d break him. Maybe then he’d remember me.

The whistle blows, signaling the end of the game, and I walk off the field, my body aching, my mind racing.

I hate Cameron Rhodes.

But I can’t stop thinking about the way he felt beneath me in the mud.

2

CAMERON

I’m so drunk. Properly, completely, stupidly drunk.

The room lists when I walk, and the walls expand and contract like they’re breathing. I can’t quite remember whose Tudor mansion this is, but I remember I came to the party with a friend.

Liam Cross is another American student at St. Silas, and he’s somewhere in this maze of a mansion, probably equally wasted. The house sits on Culloden Moor, which is historically significant, but right now, all I can think about is how creepy it is. The paintings on the walls are old and faded, portraits of stern-faced men and pale women in tartan and velvet. Their eyes follow me as I stumble past.

The rugs are worn down to threads in places, the colors so faded I can’t tell what they used to be. Some of the rooms we passed through earlier were clearly unused, with furniture covered in dust sheets and plaster crumbling from the ceiling in chunks.

The place feels like it’s dead.

But the party is alive.

Boys from St. Silas are everywhere, loud and drunk and hostile in the way they always are when they’re together. There are girls here too, some from St. Anne’s, the sister school, and some local girls who seem to know half the guys here. Probably cousins, sisters, or childhood friends.

I’m leaning against a doorframe in what might be a living room, trying to remember where I left my drink, when I notice a girl standing alone.

She’s holding a glass of something clear and sipping it slowly. She’s pretty in a quiet way. Straight brown hair that falls just past her shoulders. Green eyes. Delicate features. She’s wearing a simple black dress, nothing flashy, but she looks held together in a way that makes everyone else seem sloppy by comparison.

I don’t know why, but I walk to where she’s standing near the fireplace.

“Hey,” I say.

She looks up at me, and her expression is polite but cautious. “Hi.”