Page 62 of Echoes in the Storm
“Fuck, Cam.” I grit my teeth and jerk my hips, spilling my release into the sweetest woman I’ve ever met.
So sweet that as much as I feel our connection just now was the only natural way to proceed with what we have, I still can’t see how we would ever work.
The devil may have once been an angel, but there’s no room for Cam’s pure innocence in the circle of hell I’m confined to.
No room at all.
Cammie
“I can’t believe you convinced me to do this. I feel as though I should have a different car, be wearing a wig or something.” I glance around the streets as we wait to turn left, but nobody seems to pay any mind to my distinctive BMW.
“Relax,” Duke says with a laugh. “You’re so on edge all the time. What are your employers going to do if they find out you’re not actually sick? You’re entitled to use those days however you like, you know.”
“I know.” I sigh and shift the gears as we head toward the first stop on my fly-by tour of Burbank. “I don’t like letting people down, is all. I feel like I’m being dishonest.” I glance across at him as he reclines in the passenger seat. “This is paramount to shoplifting for me, you realise?”
“Chill, woman.” He rolls his head my way, gracing me with a wide smile.
To think that he would only give me a slight smirk at the start, and yet he hid that gorgeous smile all along. Makes me feel even more special that I get to receive one.
“What’s the plan, Stan?” Duke asks, straightening up in his seat as we turn into the public parking area next to the riverbank. “What are we going to do here?”
“Go for a walk.” I bring the car to a stop under the overhanging branches of an oak and switch it off. “It’s not far. Like, literally just to the riverbank.”
He seems satisfied with the idea, and gets out. I snag a bottle of water from my bag before locking the car, and then pocket the keys. Duke stands a little distance away from the car, hands in his pockets as he stares over his head at the branches of the tree.
“What are you doing?”
He breaks from his trance and reaches for my hand. “Something I used to do with Piata when we were bored on patrol.”
“Piata?”
He swallows, his jaw flexing as he stares ahead. “He was my best mate. We trained together, ended up in the same unit.”
“Was,” I echo.
He doesn’t say any more about the guy, but I get the distinct feeling Piata was one of the casualties in the attack that maimed Duke.
“Anyway,” he says, sucking in a deep breath as we head for the riverbank. “Because the sky was more often than not bluer than blue, we couldn’t fuck around making shapes in the clouds. So we’d make shapes between the leaves of the trees. Same principle.”
“You must have been bored to do that,” I say.
“Insanely so. There’s sweet fuck-all to look at in the more remote parts. We could travel for hours without seeing another person. It was eerie to begin with, like driving through a ghost town.” He jerks his chin at the river as we come to a stop where the gravelled car park runs out. “What’s special about this place?”
“Nothing really. It’s just pretty here. Peaceful.” I give his hand a squeeze, making him look down at me. “I thought you might appreciate the quiet.”
The smile that spreads across his lips and stays there is nothing short of heart-warming.
I end up taking Duke for a walk along the riverbank, pointing out where my friends and I would come as kids in school to swim in the summer months. He appreciates everything I tell him, listening intently as I recount happier times. Times when I was young and had the whole world at my feet, when I wasn’t so shaped by the choices I eventually made.
When I was simply me and not my mistakes.
The day disappears in the blink of an eye, our travels taking us back to Donna’s café. His company makes me relaxed enough to not care what anyone thinks if they see me on my day off. Like he told me, I’m entitled to them, so why not enjoy the day? We grab a bite to eat and take it with us, ending the tour of my home town at the lookout near the summit of the mountain everybody in Burbank has conquered at least once. The trek is like a rite of passage for anyone who grew up around here, to have made it to the top without passing out. Four hundred and seventy metres, damn near straight up. They don’t have ropes on the track for no reason.
Which is why today we drove to the top—took the easy option.
“I forgot how amazing the view is from up here.” I lean back against the windscreen, our afternoon snack laid out between us on the hood of my car as we kick back and enjoy the sight.
Duke stretches out, folding his arms behind his head to give me the best view of his incredible physique. “When was the last time you came and parked up here?”