Page 30 of Rejected Mate Bride
“Oh my God,” Flora exclaimed, out of breath. “That was….”
She had no words to describe the experience, so she let the sentence hang in midair as Camden lay down next to her in his bed.
“Agreed,” he said.
He sounded exhausted, and Flora didn’t blame him. He had done all of the work this evening, and she had been merely the beneficiary of his attentions. When he tossed a blanket over both of them and reached toward the nightstand to turn off the lamp, Flora was happy to allow him the rest.
“Should I go?” she asked hesitantly.
In the darkness, Flora felt him reach for her, pulling her onto his chest in a comfortable embrace. Her eyes closed as she listened to his heartbeat slow and felt the small circles his hand was making on her back.
“Not yet,” he whispered.
She relaxed onto his chest, feeling the heat from his arm surrounding her.
“Thank you for tonight,” she whispered into the stillness.
“Thankyou,” Camden repeated.
Flora could hear the tiredness in his voice, and a few minutes later, his hand stilled on her back. He was nearly asleep. As much as she wished she could join him, she knew she needed to leave and go back to her own bed. When she heard the shallow breathing of his sleeping form, she carefully extricated herself from his arm and the blankets, found her clothes, and unlocked the door. The light from the hallway outside illuminated his face as she opened the door, and she took one last lingering look at him before closing it.
***
The next morning, Flora woke with a sinking feeling in her stomach. She remembered every second of what she and Camden had done last night. Every glorious, blissful moment. But in the harsh light of morning, she knew that it shouldn’t have happened like that. There was too much baggage between them for either of them to expect this to turn out well. They might be married and mated now, but she was still in danger from the Ironbrand pack, still under threat from her adoptive parents, and still the mother of a daughter who didn’t know she was living with her father. Everything was a mess, and their coupling had only made it messier.
“Mom!” Sofia said, bounding into the room in her princess pajamas.
Her hair was wild and untamed from sleep as she barreled into Flora’s bed to give her a hug.
“Good morning, baby,” Flora said, wrapping her daughter in her arms. “You hungry?”
Sofia nodded, and they went downstairs to grab some cereal, only to find that Camden had cooked pancakes. She hadn’t been expecting him to be home this morning since training was scheduled for seven a.m. Flora was taking the day off, but hadn’t expected Camden to have the same idea.
“Jasper is leading training this morning, so I thought I’d cook,” he said, seemingly reading Flora’s mind.
“Is that blueberry syrup?” Sofia asked, eyeing a bottle of blue liquid with fascination.
“Sure is!” Camden said. “I got it just for you. Grab a fork.”
“Want me to cut your pancakes?” Flora asked her.
She helped Sofia with her plate, and the three of them sat down. Flora was careful to avoid eye contact with Camdenas they ate, which proved difficult because he seemed intent on catching her gaze. All she wanted was to have a normal, nonconfrontational day. She didn’t want Sofia to realize that anything had changed before she had the chance to talk to Camden about what last night meant for them.
When she finished eating, Flora got up from the table and began to clear the food and plates while Sofia finished eating her syrup-covered pancakes. As she walked past Camden’s chair, he stood up and grabbed the plate of pancakes from her.
“I’ll take that,” he said.
Not wanting a repeat of the plate-breaking incident, she relinquished it and turned back to grab the butter dish instead. At the kitchen counter, they both set down their dishes and bumped into one another in the narrow space between the kitchen island and the opposite counter.
“Sorry,” she said.
“My mistake,” Camden said at the same time.
He reached out to steady her, placing his hand on her waist, but instead of removing it as he normally would, he allowed his touch to linger. Flora felt her heart racing from the contact and from fear that Sofia would notice.
“Stop that,” she hissed, low enough that Sofia wouldn’t hear her. “Don’t do that in front of her.”
“Do what?” Camden asked in confusion, leaving his hand on her waist.
