Cocked: A Stepbrother Romance (11 page)

Or else maybe it really was that simple. Maybe Camden really did just get unlucky. He never meant to bring the Mexicans down on us. He was a victim, in some ways. He was also being chased by violent criminals, though he kept being so frustratingly vague about what actually happened.

But it was also his choice to steal cars and to run away to Mexico to begin with. He had a comfortable life in Hammond. He didn’t have to throw it all away for a thrill.

Conflicted, I finished off my coffee and went to brush my teeth. Being around him was one wave of emotion after another. One second I wanted to run my fingers down his perfect abs, and the next I wanted to punch him as hard as I could.

Once I was finished, I saw that Camden had already packed our things. Wordlessly, we headed out into the parking lot, got into our new car, and hit the road again.

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F
our hours later and I could barely take it anymore. I had spent the last few days in a car doing absolutely nothing but watching the miles pass by. There was so much to do and see, thousands of amazing things just passing us by, and yet we were too busy running from a drug cartel.

Still, we hadn’t even seen the Mexicans. I wasn’t entirely sure they were real, though the look on my dad’s face kept running through my mind.

“Let’s do something,” I said suddenly, not sure what I was doing.

“This not fun enough for you?”

“Believe it or not, but driving for hours on end every single day isn’t exactly the most exciting activity in the world.”

He grinned and shook his head. “Come on, just being near me should be exciting enough.”

“Camden, I’m serious. We need to stop and do something, just for a few minutes at least.”

“What do you want to do?”

I looked around and, as if by magic, a sign advertising something called Harpoon Gorge flashed by.

“Let’s stop there,” I said, pointing.

He glanced. “A gorge?”

“Yeah. It’ll be beautiful.”

“Since when are you the outdoorsy type?”

“Camden,” I said seriously. “Take me to that stupid gorge or I’ll scream.”

He laughed and then bit his lip, thinking. I felt a thrill run through my chest as I looked at his mouth, pursed in concentration.

“Okay, okay. Fine. We can stop for a few minutes,” he said finally.

“Great. Take me to the gorge.”

We drove for a few more minutes before exiting. The area was mostly scrub brush and large rocks, not quite a plain but not exactly mountainous, either. I’d never been in a place like it before as we drove farther, following signs. Ten minutes later, we saw a large banner advertising the gorge hung between two huge trees.

Camden drove up the bumpy gravel road. “Where the hell are we?” he muttered.

“Harpoon Gorge, duh!”

He laughed as we rounded a bend. The gorge appeared ahead of us, and it immediately took my breath away.

It was a canyon, not quite as big as the Grand Canyon, but still beautiful. The sides were sheer with plants and bushes clinging to the wall, somehow still able to grow despite gravity trying to pull them down.

We pulled over in a small parking lot. We were the only car around.

“Nobody here,” Camden commented.

“It’s beautiful,” I said.

He smiled and we climbed out. There was an observation deck overlooking the view, and it was absolutely amazing. The landscape spread out all around us, interrupted by the gorge itself. I leaned up against the rail and looked down at the bottom, at a small, slow-moving river winding away from us. Camden crossed his arms and took a deep breath.

“Not too bad,” he said.

“Better than the highway.”

“Yeah. I’ll give you that.”

After a second of silence, I looked up at him. He was staring out at the view with a strange look on his face.

“What are you thinking?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

“Come on. I promise not to yell at you for at least a few hours if you tell me.”

He smiled at me. “I was just thinking that I hope I can see something like this again soon.”

I bowed my head, biting my lip. “Tell me more about Mexico,” I said, changing the subject.

“What do you want to know?”

“Did you have any friends?”

“Mostly just Trip. The old man, that kid, and this stray dog.”

“You had a dog?”

He shook his head. “No. It was just a stray. I fed it sometimes, though. Seemed to like me.”

I smiled, imagining Camden feeding a dog. I moved closer to him, breathing in the crisp, clean air.

“I never took you for an animal person.”

“There’s lots you don’t know about me.”

“Oh really? I know you pretty well.”

“Maybe,” he said, nudging me. “I think I know you better, though.”

“Why’s that?”

“If I recall correctly, I got to know you pretty damn well.”

It took me a second to catch his tone. “Oh, this again?”

“I can’t help it. Looking at you brings back a lot of good memories.”

“Yeah,” I said, frowning at him, looking into his eyes. “It does, doesn’t it?”

“You’re absolutely fucking sexy, you know that?” he said, moving closer.

I took a deep breath, my heart hammering. “I’m sure you say that to all the señoritas.”

He smiled this smooth, cocky grin. “Only the ones that deserve it.”

“Why do you think I deserve it?”

“Because,” he said, inches away from me, “I know you, Lace. You’re good and strong and can hold a grudge like nobody else I know. You’re stubborn and sexy and smart.”

“Those are just words. What do they even mean?”

His face was so close to mine. I didn’t know what I was doing, but my mind was suddenly dizzy with him. Everything but the view and his body disappeared as his lips came closer. I wanted to put my hands on his chest and let his tongue touch my teeth, but I was frozen in place.

“I can show you what it means,” he said.

“Camden.”

His arms wrapped around me, pulling me tight against his body. I gasped as my heart did flips.

I wanted him. I always wanted him. I couldn’t get away from that fact no matter how hard I tried.

But he wasn’t telling me everything. And he had disappeared, tearing our family apart.

And he was my stepbrother.

“I can’t,” I said softly, turning my head and looking away.

“Are you sure?” he said, practically a whisper. I felt his warm breath against my face and breathed in his deep scent. Shivers ran down my spine.

“Not until you tell me what really happened down there.”

There was a moment where I thought he might. I saw something in his eyes, this strange yearning, or maybe a specific kind of desperation. Instead, he stiffened and moved away, and the moment passed between us.

“I told you,” he said, looking out over the gorge again. “I got lost. But I’m finding myself now.”

“Why do they want to kill you?”

“I betrayed them.”

I blinked. Camden had betrayed the cartel?

“What did you do?”

He looked back at me. “Enough. We need to get going.”

“Camden. I deserve to know.”

His face got hard. “No. You don’t. You deserve to keep living, though, which is what I’m trying so hard to do.”

“I just want to know you.”

“You can’t know me. Let’s get going.”

He walked away, back toward the car. I watched him, my heart sinking slowly, my stomach a twisted mess of anger and confusion. He climbed into the car and started the engine.

I looked out over the gorge again, letting out a deep breath. After a second of gathering myself, I walked over to the car and got back in the passenger seat.

He pulled out and drove back toward the highway. We didn’t speak. I tuned the radio, found something good enough, and leaned back to try to fall asleep.

What was he hiding? It was clear there was something more there, something important he was holding back, but for some reason he couldn’t tell me. Was it because he was ashamed, or was it something else?

Could it be something worse?

As we drove, I knew I wanted to get to the bottom of him. I hated him, but I was beginning to see that there was so much more to him than just stealing cars and running away. He was complicated.

I wanted to unwrap him, and I was going to get my way.

I
nearly kissed her.

The memory of her body pressed against mine, standing over that gorge, replayed through my mind over and over during the next day.

Although things were still a bit strained, I could tell she was beginning to warm up a bit to me. We didn’t drive in total silence, and instead we talked about our lives. I stayed as general as possible and avoided talking too much about the cartel itself, but I gave her a pretty good idea about what it was like to live in Mexico as a white guy.

She slowly came out of her shell and began to tell me about her life since I left. She told me about college, about studying hard, about her friends and parties and the one not-very-serious boyfriend she had. She talked about classes and teachers and about her plans for after graduation. She talked about sitting on benches and people watching for hours at a time, about meeting friends drunk for pizza at two in the morning, about eating that leftover pizza while hungover the next morning. 

She told me what it was like to be a college student. That was one experience I wished I had. Sometimes it felt like I skipped being a young adult entirely and went right to the dark side of life. It felt like a whole world decided to pass right over me, and for some strange reason I missed it.

Probably because I knew I’d never be a part of her world. No matter what I wanted, the things she knew were so completely different from the things I knew. She lived in school, in safety and comfort, while I was scraping by, doing dark jobs for the mob, getting paid well but not caring much about the money anyway.

And despite all that, I felt my attraction for her growing even stronger. The more I knew the person she had become, the more I wanted her. Every time she moved toward me in the car, I felt my cock begin to stiffen in anticipation of her touch. I knew that wasn’t going to happen, not yet at least, but I wanted it. And I was going to have it.

Hell, all of me wanted it to. She was fucking gorgeous and sexy and stubborn and incredible. I knew she hated me, even though she used to love me, and that made me want her even more.

“It’s getting late,” I said around midnight that night.

“What?” she mumbled from her seat.

“I said, it’s getting late.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Were you sleeping?”

“I might have slept a little, yeah.”

“You know it’s rude to do that when you’re in the car with someone.”

“As opposed to sleeping in the car alone?”

“Yeah, exactly.”

“Well, too bad. You’ll survive.”

“I thought you were a nice girl.”

She laughed. “You thought wrong.”

I pulled off the highway and began to drive toward town, hoping there would be another ratty motel nearby. I got lucky and pulled into the driveway of the Lincoln Motel only a few minutes away from the highway exit.

As Lacey climbed out and stretched, I checked the map Trip had drawn for me. For some reason, I hadn’t told Lacey we were following a route set by him, maybe because I didn’t want to worry her. Trip had given me a specific direction to drive in before we left, mostly because he thought it was safest and fastest. I’d stuck to it relatively well and we hadn’t run into any problems. Even though I was still angry about his lapse, he seemed to be coming through for us.

I followed Lacey out toward the office and we ended up with a room in the front of the building with twin beds. Ever since the night with the queen bed, I kept feeling disappointed when we got separate beds, though it was nice not to have to sleep on the floor. Part of me was tempted to bribe the desk guy to say they were all booked up otherwise, but Lacey was always right there.

We got into the room and collapsed onto the beds. My legs were sore from sitting all day, which seemed like it didn’t make sense. But apparently just sitting in a cramped position could make your body feel like it had run a marathon.

“Why do my legs hurt from driving?” I said out loud.

“I don’t know. Mine are sore too.”

“That’s from running around my mind all day.”

“Good one.”

“Seriously though, sitting around and doing nothing is a lot of work.”

“So is running from Mexican gangsters.”

“Good point.”

“How close are we, anyway?”

“We should be crossing over into Canada pretty soon.”

She sat up. “How’s that going to work?”

I grinned and looked at her. “Glad you asked. We have a little pit stop to make near Seattle.”

“What for?”

“Documents. I know a guy that’ll make us some passable fakes. Worked with him about two years ago. We’ll use those to get over the border.”

She laughed and shook her head. “Seriously, you’re getting us fake passports?”

“I sure am. You better start thinking about what you want your new name to be.”

She stood up and walked into the bathroom. I flipped the TV on, idly stopping on a rerun of a football game.