She let out a huff of air, her cheeks beginning to flush.
Something told me it wasn’t from the wine.
“Marketing is going great. I just got promoted to senior account manager, and my book of business is triple from when I first started with the company. I’m working with the dreamiest brands, and within a year or two, I should have enough to buy my first condo.”
“Impressive.”
She drew in a deep breath. “My dating life … not so impressive.”
“Why is that?”
She held the glass near her chin, watching me, but not drinking. After several seconds passed, she tilted the opening, allowing some of the wine to trickle in between those invitingly plump lips. “Are you sure you want to hear this?” She let out a small giggle. “This is my second glass of wine. I don’t know what’s going to come out of my mouth at this point.”
Now, wasn’t that an interesting question?
And description.
“I don’t see why I wouldn’t,” I told her.
“My last boyfriend, Trevor, he recently ended things for the stupidest of reasons.” Her hand moved to her hair, running her fingers through a curl. When she reached the end, she started over, this time going much slower. “At least, I think it’s stupid.”
“Let me be the judge of that.”
“It’s because …” She looked away, her skin turning even more flushed, her teeth grinding across her lip before she continued, “I wouldn’t sleep with him.” She locked our stares. “Lame of him, right?”
“You mean, you didn’t want to do it every day? Or weekly? I … don’t understand. It’s not like you’re a virgin.”
The corner of the couch hugged her so tightly that she looked half-swallowed, and so did her face while she stayed completely silent. Blinking. Looking at me like a deer in fucking headlights.
“Wait, you’re a virgin? Oaklyn, how is that even possible?”
Her chest rose, staying high as she said, “Oh, it’s possible.”
A fucking … virgin?
That response vibrated across my throat as I repeated it silently in my head.
How the hell can this woman, one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen, still be a virgin?
“I don’t believe it,” I replied.
We’d gone to the same private school. Many of my friends had tried to hit it, and I knew she’d graduated without sleeping with any of them. But the fact that she’d held out through college and beyond was fucking mind-blowing.
She gazed at me through her long, thick lashes. “Camden, I am.”
That confirmation took my brain on a journey. One that began with re-breaking rule number two—imagining peeling those jeans off her legs and dipping my tip into that snug, untapped pussy.
What that would feel like.
What that would sound like.
Shit.
My cock wasn’t just throbbing. It was dying to burst through my zipper and soak into that wetness—wetness no one had ever felt before.
Still, I didn’t get it.
“Are you saving yourself for marriage?”
“No.” She tucked the curl behind her ear. “I’m saving myself for someone worth having sex with.”
“And the ex wasn’t worth it?”
“When we first got together, I hoped he would be. I mean, I wanted him to be.” She drained the rest of her wine. “But it quickly turned into one disappointment after another, and then he dumped me after he didn’t get what he wanted.”
She glanced at her empty glass. “I’m not looking for Prince Charming. I’m just looking for a man who isn’t going to constantly fib to me. Or when he invites me away, he doesn’t get his credit card declined, so I have to pay for the weekend he planned for me. Who follows through with the things he promises.”
She refilled her glass and snuggled back into the couch. “I’m not looking for a man who’s rich or model hot. Looks and money, honestly, don’t really mean much to me. I just want a guy who’s going to treat me with respect and kindness.”
She sipped from her full glass and then continued, “That’s part one. Now, for part two.” Her face winced. “I’m terrified I’ve hyped up losing my virginity to the point where I’m worried I won’t be good at it. Camden”—her eyes widened—“I can’t be bad in bed. That would be the biggest tragedy ever.”
A woman who cared about her performance.
God, she was fucking adorable.
“Oaklyn, you’re good at everything you do. Sex won’t be any different.”
“Says the expert.” She wiggled even deeper into the corner. “Neither of us knows if that’ll be true or not.”
My mind couldn’t stop reeling from this news.
Twenty-four years old, drop-dead stunning, and she’d never had her cherry popped.
Never experienced mind-bending sex.
Never dug her nails so hard into a man’s back that she struck blood.
I swished some vodka around in my mouth before I said, “You want me to read the verdict?”
She nodded. “Please.”
“Sounds to me like you haven’t picked a dude who’s even worthy of dating you, never mind being your first.”
“But, Camden, I want to experience that first.” As she sighed, her head tilted back to stare at the ceiling. “I want to feel intimacy. Pleasure. All the things that are exchanged when you share something like that with a man.”
“You will. I fucking promise you that.”
“But when?” Her head straightened, and she twisted the stem of her wineglass, the dark burgundy liquid sloshing against the sides of the glass. “I’ve waited this long, and it hasn’t happened. At this point, it feels like it never will.” She held up her hand. “I don’t expect you to have an answer for that.” She moved those same fingers to her mouth. “I can’t even believe I told you all this.”
“Listen, if this were an NFL game and the spread was a year, I’d take the under.”
Her stare intensified. “You really think it’s going to happen within the next twelve months?”
“Yes.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
I sucked an ice cube into my mouth, smashing it between my molars. “I’d be shocked.”
Silence ticked, and then, “I’m going to put something out into the universe, and I’ll possibly regret it later, but the wine has certainly taken over everything I’m saying now.”
“You have my full attention.”
“Good, because I have a proposition for you, Camden Dalton.”
The way she’d said my last name made my dick clutch hard.
I kicked my feet onto the table and set my tumbler on my lap. “Just what I’m good at. Hit me with it.”
“I’ve seen the movie, and I refuse to become that main star—in other words, I will not be the forty-year-old virgin. I also don’t want to give myself to just anyone and, at the end of it, be regretful because it was dismal at best. I want my first time to be amazing.”
“What are you saying, Oaklyn?”
“I’m saying”—she untucked her legs and crossed them in front of her, leaning forward to bring us closer—“if I’m in the same situation a year from now, I want my first time to be with you. And I want you to teach me all the things I need to know, so I can be good at it.”
A full laugh wasn’t what came out of my mouth. This was more of a half, followed by me chugging the remaining vodka in my glass. “Let me get this straight. You want me to take your virginity and teach you how to please a man? That’s what you’re asking me?”
A series of images instantly played in my head—the tasting of that beautiful body, how wet I could make her pussy. The hugging of my dick, a type of virgin tightness that I hadn’t felt in a long time.
The fucking moaning.
Jesus Christ.
“Yes,” she responded.
My feet dropped to the floor. “Oaklyn, do you know what my sister would do to me if she found out? We shouldn’t even be having this conversation right now.”
“Camden—”
“No.” I shook my head. “You’re so fucking off-limits.”
She reached across the space, her hand gently touching my thigh. “Please listen to me, okay?”It was just fingers casually resting on my leg, but something about them felt so good.Too fucking good.“I’ve heard you out.” I moved her hand away, assuming that feeling would leave with it. But it didn’t. “And what you don’t know—or maybe you do—is that I made Hannah a promise in high school that I wouldn’t go anywhere near you or any of her close friends. Even though that promise was a long time ago, it’s good for a lifetime.”Back then, I had gotten around as much as I did now.The bachelor, the ultimate player—Hannah rotated between titles, depending on the day, but they meant the same thing. I was the guy who had no plans on settling down, and my sister didn’t want me to fuck her friends and then leave them right after, which was what I was known for.“Camden, Hannah doesn’t have to know.” Her voice was a little above a whisper. “And what I’ll get out of this will most likely be the be
“Cocky bastard. I’ve taught you well.”“Nah.” I shook my head. “I just know how good we are, and I’m not afraid to say it.”“We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us.”He clasped my shoulder with one hand, holding a thumb drive with his other, which contained every bit of data we would need for this case. Declan didn’t trust the mail or a courier to handle confidential information, so that tiny drive that was tucked under his fingers was the whole reason we’d flown to Boston.“And I know very little about tech,” I confessed.But in preparation for this case, I’d been studying, reading up on the terms, the process of developing an app, and the roles within Hooked. I needed to understand what I was really looking at and what had happened within the inner layers of their company.“I can’t say I know a lot more than you, but after this, we’re going to be experts,” he replied.“I don’t know if it’s because we share an alma mater or because they’re from Boston or what, but I feel like I’ve got a
THREEOaklynExactly one year ago, I’d told Camden I wanted him to take my virginity. The next morning, when my eyes flicked open and Hannah was curled up next to me in my bed, the urge to speak to Camden was far stronger than the guilt I was already feeling about my best friend.I loved Hannah more than anyone in this world. She was like a sister to me and had been since we were twelve years old.And every feeling that churned through my stomach, every alarm that went off in my chest, told me she would hate the idea of her brother and me sleeping together.But I wanted this.I wanted this for me.Even though I knew how wrong it was, I silently slipped out of my bed and hurried to her room with all intentions of sneaking inside and waking him up to talk.But the door was already open, and her bed was empty.Camden was gone.He’d left before I got the chance to tell him I didn’t want to wait a year.I wanted him to take my virginity now.When I crawled back into my bed, I took my phone
My foot was holding the door, and I dropped an arm from my waist to open the door a bit wider. “This was a good one.” My smile hadn’t faded at all. “Do you want to come in?”“I want to know something first.” His head still low, he looked at me through his lashes, an expression on his face, like he hadn’t eaten in days.“Sure.” My throat was heavy and tight. “Anything.”“Me. This.” He stalled. “Is that really what you want?”I didn’t have to think.I’d already done plenty of that over the last year.“Yes, Camden, it’s what I want.”His hand left the wooden frame and moved to his face, where he rubbed his fingers down the side of his short, trimmed beard. “Then, we’re going to do it my way.”“What does that mean?”He nodded toward me. “What do you have in there to drink?”I moved out of the doorway to allow him inside, and he walked into my kitchen. Since this was the same apartment I’d shared with his sister, he was already familiar with where everything was located. He opened the cabi
No one could assist Daisy like me. She needed my help, and I didn’t know how this opportunity would affect that. I wouldn’t be in LA if it wasn’t for her, and now, less than two months later, I was already debating on taking a different job.What am I getting myself into?“Are you ready?” Dominick said once he opened the door, startling me. I slipped inside the small crack as he continued, “Kendall, I want you to meet Brett Young.”I didn’t need the introduction. His fiancée was one of the most famous actresses in Hollywood, making Brett Young a household name. Pictures of them were on the pages of every magazine and online article. There were Instagram fan pages dedicated just to them.But professionally, Brett was one of the top agents in the world and one of the owners of The Agency, a company Daisy mentioned at least once a day since her agent worked for him. Having Brett represent her was Daisy’s ultimate goal.And now, I was standing in front of his desk.What the ever-loving fu
PROLOGUECamdenNine Years AgoOaklyn fucking Rose, I thought as I walked into my sister’s bedroom after having just seen Hannah’s best friend in a bikini for the last hour, a bunch of us hanging out in our hot tub. Holy shit, that girl gets hotter by the day.Tight body.Nice rack.At this age, I was sure she was a virgin—most of the girls in our sophomore class were.And that was the reason I’d come into my sister’s room after the little party we had. Everyone had already gone home, Mom and Dad were due back any minute, the empty beer bottles were hidden in the trash, and buried beneath those was a jar of water with all the cigarette butts swimming inside. We hoped the bath would drown out the smell of ash.My sister and I were always careful, hiding all the evidence.Except for now, apparently. Her drunk ass had a beer and was sipping on it while she sat on her bed, still in her wet bathing suit.“Wanna share that?” I took a seat next to her in my soaked swim trunks and held out