Almost Just Friends Read online

  “You’ll make a great physician assistant.”

  She wasn’t sure she’d get the chance now, but she played along. “How do you know? You’ve never seen me in action.”

  “Actually, I have.”

  She laughed. “In your bed doesn’t count.”

  “Hell yeah, it does.” He smiled, but then got serious. “But I’ve seen you in action on the job too. The other day, you arrived on scene for a guy who’d had a heart attack at the little diner in town. Caro’s. I was across the street getting gas when you and Jenna arrived. You dropped to your knees and began working on him, and you were amazing. From a hundred feet away, I could see your determination, could tell you wouldn’t give up on him, on anyone.”

  She didn’t know what to say to that, so she turned back to the sky, then pointed to a cloud. “That one looks like an elephant. I love elephants.”

  “You really will make a great PA, Piper. You can do anything you want to. I know it.”

  She sighed. “Maybe I should hit on you again.”

  “So we’ll stop talking?” he asked, sounding amused.

  She glanced over at him. “You make me sound like a better person than I am. Because what I didn’t say was that I wasn’t all that sorry to be getting away from Wildstone for a bit.”

  “Past tense?”

  “Well, obviously I can’t go now. Winnie’s going to need me.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short. You’ll find a way.”

  She let his words wash over her. She’d told him her deepest, darkest shame, that she wanted to run away, from the house, her siblings, everything. And he hadn’t judged her, not even a little bit. “Cam?”

  “Yeah?”

  She came up on her elbow and met his gaze. “It turns out that I am going to hit on you again. You should brace yourself because I’m going to be very convincing.”

  “I brought you out here so you could get away.”

  “Captain, my Captain,” she whispered. “Whatever you say.”

  He sucked in a breath. “You’re fighting dirty again.”

  “I get it, you don’t want to take advantage of me, blah blah. But . . . how do you feel about me taking advantage of you?”

  His eyes went heavy lidded, his expression smoldering as he lay back, interlacing his fingers behind his head. “You know what? You’re my neighbor, and your life choices are yours to make, and I’ll support you no matter what . . .”

  She was laughing as she climbed him like a jungle gym.

  Chapter 21

  “Sucks to be the one left behind.”

  Later, much later, now in the small interior of the boat, Piper and Cam dozed, lulled by the heat they’d generated. The windows were steamed and night had fallen, blocking the outside world, creating an intimacy that she wasn’t sure she was ready for.

  Cam was terrifyingly amazing, and it wasn’t just because he knew his way around a woman’s body. Even out of bed, he was a distraction, and she enjoyed spending time with him.

  Which wasn’t good.

  But it didn’t stop her from sighing in pleasure as he murmured something inaudible in his sleep and tightened his arms around her, as if to keep her from sneaking off.

  Which had been her plan.

  But there was nowhere to go unless she wanted to swim back. But even if she could do that without drowning, she’d misplaced all the bones in her body thanks to the orgasms. Content for now, she pressed her face into the crook of Cam’s neck. Just for a few minutes, she told herself, and let herself float away.

  She awoke sometime later, violently aroused, with Cam’s mouth working its way down her writhing body. Her fingers were digging into his shoulders and she was making the same “yummy” sounds she made when she ate ranch-flavored popcorn with extra butter.

  She already knew he was as incredibly instinctive in bed as he seemed to be everywhere else. He knew exactly when and how to effortlessly take her to the very edge and hold her there just long enough to make her slide her fingers into his hair and tug.

  The bastard just huffed a soft laugh against her and then . . . sent her flying. She came back to herself to feel him right there, kneeling between her thighs.

  “Open your eyes, Piper.”

  It took her a moment to find the right muscles, but she finally managed to meet his dark, wild gaze.

  “I didn’t expect you,” he said. “You open me up.”

  She might have argued that she was the one opened up at the moment, but she couldn’t joke, couldn’t tease, couldn’t do anything but soak in the sincerity of those words, which filled her both emotionally and physically as he pushed inside her. She gasped his name in a shockingly needy voice, exposing a vulnerability she never liked to reveal. But he was right there with her, laid bare, letting her see everything he felt.

  It didn’t take him long to shove her over the edge again, but this time she took him along with her. As she closed her eyes and let herself float away, she smiled, because it seemed she’d found the one thing to make Cam Hayes lose his famed control.

  Her.

  A fact that was both thrilling and utterly terrifying.

  CAM WOKE UP to a low but fervently uttered “Shit!” and opened his eyes. His arms were empty of one warm, soft, sated woman. And yeah, he didn’t have any doubts on the sated thing, because he’d heard every single sexy sound she’d made when he’d been deep inside her.

  They hadn’t slept much. It’d been midnight when he’d taken them back to the marina, gliding into a slip without the motor so as not to wake anyone at either house. Docked, they’d started to dress, then gotten distracted by naked bodies under moonlight, and afterward had fallen asleep again.

  Now, given the light slanting through the window—or the lack of light slanting through the window—it wasn’t even dawn. When another low feminine oath sounded, he rose from the bed, grabbing his jeans as he did. Pulling them on, he found the source of the cursing.

  Piper, trying to get off the boat.

  She’d apparently been going for stealth, which, considering she’d gotten out of bed without waking him, was impressive. The fact that she’d put on the life jacket to go from boat to dock made him smile.

  It’d snagged on a hook, leaving her trapped and fighting to free herself. Damn. He was going to fall for this woman hard if he let himself. Trying not to laugh, he came up behind her. “Sneaking out without a good-bye?”

  “Hey, I said good-bye.” She was tugging on the vest for all she was worth. “You just didn’t hear me.”

  Taking mercy, he untangled her and turned her to face him, holding on to the straps of the life vest. “Nice touch.”

  “Yeah, well, I figured it’d be just my luck to fall in and get eaten by a lake monster,” she muttered into his chest. “That adventure is most definitely not in my journal. Which, by the way, is in my pocket. There are whole days I fantasize about tossing it into the lake, but it’s going to be on my terms, and not because I was stupid and fell in.”

  He laughed and shook his head. “Tell me why you’re sneaking off.” He bent his knees a little so he could see her face better. “Let me guess. Things got so good you got scared. Am I hot or cold?”

  Her pretty eyes narrowed.

  Yeah, he was hot.

  She lifted her chin. “Maybe it was so bad that I couldn’t do it again, you ever think of that?”

  “I’ve got ten fingernail indentations in my ass that say otherwise.”

  She blushed. Cute. “Okay, fine, whatever.” She tossed up her hands. “It wasn’t . . . bad.”

  He laughed, and she huffed out a sigh and a reluctant smile. “You’re an ass.”

  “Noted,” he said. “Now tell me why you’re running away.”

  She turned her head and eyed the lake, gorgeous and smooth as glass at this time of morning. “I like you,” she said to the water, quietly, as if admitting a state secret.

  “Piper.” He waited until she looked at him. “I like you back.”

  She bit