Beneath Cameron's Sleeping Gaze
# Echoes of Her The private jet hummed with a low, metallic purr, a sound Jordan McCullen usually associated with conquest. Tonight, it was the backdrop to a singular, aching deprivation. His gaze was fixed not on the scattered city lights
Chapter 1
The private jet hummed with a low, metallic purr, a sound Jordan McCullen usually associated with conquest. Tonight, it was the backdrop to a singular, aching deprivation. His gaze was fixed not on the scattered city lights thirty thousand feet below, but on the man sleeping diagonally across the aisle: Cameron Trusting. Cameron, his business partner, his friend. The brother of the woman whose ghost was currently burning a hole through Jordan’s resolve.
For a month, he’d been starved. The deliberate, self-imposed exile from all other company had left his nerves raw. It wasn’t just sex he craved; it was the particular electricity of her, of Avery. His mind, a traitorous cinema in the dark, replayed the illicit reels.
It began in the chaotic aftermath of Cameron’s infamous Hotel Macerate Halloween party. The air had been thick with spilled liquor and synthetic fog. They’d found Cameron passed out, a fallen Viking in a cheap crown, and between them—Avery’s strength surprising him as they hauled her brother’s dead weight—their hands had brushed, lingered. In the sudden quiet of Cameron’s guest room, with only the distant bass thumping through the walls, the look they shared wasn’t one of shared burden. It was a collision. Her green eyes, the same shade as her brother’s but holding a secret wildfire his never did, had locked onto his. It was a drunken, frantic coupling against the doorframe, all muffled gasps and the frantic rustle of her angel costume’s torn wings. He’d fled before dawn, a rule etched in stone the moment he’d tasted her: *Never stay. Never complicate.*
But the rules had crumbled. The conference room hotel rendezvous, where she’d arrived smelling of motor oil and defiance, her back against the cool glass overlooking the city as he devoured her. The “chance” meeting at her gym, where sweat-slicked skin on the weight bench became an altar. Her garage, the scent of gasoline and her arousal an intoxicating mix as she rode him on the hood of a classic Mustang, her tattoos stark under the fluorescent light. His penthouse, her slender, muscular form a silhouette against the panoramic night view. And finally, her own cramped apartment, the last time, where the usual playful dominance in her touch had been tinged with something quieter, something that made him leave faster than usual.
Cameron snored softly. *Clueless Cameron*, who’d nearly walked in on them in the garage, who’d called Jordan’s penthouse minutes after Avery had slipped out the service elevator. The danger had been part of the high, a spark to the kindling.
Avery thought it was just fun. A mechanic playing in a league far above her station. She didn’t see the way her scars told stories he wanted to trace with his tongue, how her serious focus in the garage unraveled into a breathtaking, submissive surrender in his sheets. She didn’t know he’d exiled himself from all others, that the memory of her full lips forming filthy, whispered promises in the dark was all he’d had for a month.
The jet banked slightly, a gentle shift in the universe. Jordan’s jaw tightened. The deprivation was over. The rules were ash. As the lights of their home city glittered into view, a plan, dark and single-minded, crystalized in his mind. He wouldn’t wait. The game was changing. The tension of the secret had been exquisite, but the ache of absence was a sharper blade. And Jordan McCullen was done with being cut.
Chapter 2
The sleek black town car slid away from the curb, its purr fading into the city’s night breath. Jordan stood on the sidewalk, his gaze locked on the third-floor window where a single, warm light glowed. Avery’s light. His hand tightened around his phone, the screen still lit with her last message: *I heard every word. You better not be thinking of sleeping. Come wreck me.*
He took the stairs two at a time, the burn in his muscles a welcome echo of his deprivation. He didn’t knock. He didn’t announce himself. He simply turned the knob—she’d left it unlocked for him, a dare and an invitation—and pushed the door open.
She was right there, leaning against the short hallway wall, a smirk playing on her full lips. She wore only a thin, worn tank top and boy shorts, her tattoos a stark map on her pale skin in the low light. “Took you long—”
He didn’t let her finish. Jordan crossed the threshold in two strides, his hands finding her hips with a possessive force that slammed her back against the wall. The framed picture beside her rattled. The air left her lungs in a sharp, surprised gasp that quickly melted into a sigh. He leaned in, his bearded jaw grazing her temple, his voice a low, rough scrape against her ear. “A month without you is too fucking long.”
Before she could form a word, his hands spun her, his body caging hers from behind. One palm flattened against her stomach, pinning her to the wall, while the other hooked into the waistband of her shorts and yanked them down her thighs. She shuddered, her forehead coming to rest against the cool paint, her back arching in immediate, submissive offering. He freed himself, the rigid heat of his cock pressing against her, and with a single, unyielding thrust, he was inside.
Avery cried out, a sound of pure, shocked relief that dissolved into a moan. Her fingers scrambled against the wall. He set a punishing rhythm from the start, each deep drive a reclamation. “You think I could sleep?” he growled, his hips snapping forward. “Hearing you lie to him? Hearing you tell him you were going to bed?”
“I was,” she gasped, the words breaking as he filled her completely. “I was… waiting for you.”
His hand slid from her stomach up to her throat, not squeezing, just holding, a dominant claim that made her whimper. “You belong to me,” he whispered, the words a dark promise. “Not to early clients. Not to your brother. To me.” The pace intensified, the rough fabric of his trousers rubbing against her bare skin, the slap of their bodies a frantic, wet beat in the silent apartment. He could feel her tightening around him, her breath coming in ragged sobs against the wall. The coiled tension of a month alone, the memory of her in every forbidden place, crashed through him. He drove into her one last, searing time, his release erupting with a guttural groan, his body shuddering against hers as he spilled himself deep inside.
For a long moment, the only sounds were their harsh, mingled breaths fogging the wall. Slowly, gently, he withdrew, his hands turning her to face him. Her green eyes were glazed, her lips swollen. He cupped her cheek, his thumb brushing her cheekbone, the tender gesture a stark contrast to the claiming that had just occurred. “The rules,” he said, his voice hoarse, “are done.”
Chapter 3
The tenderness dissolved as quickly as it had formed. The possessive declaration still hung in the air, a visible shiver running through Avery’s frame. Jordan saw the flare of challenge in her eyes, the mechanic who refused to be tamed. It was a spark he needed to extinguish.
In one fluid, powerful motion, he spun her away from the wall. A small gasp escaped her as he guided her, not to the bedroom, but to the worn couch in her living room. He pressed her forward, her palms catching herself on the soft back cushions. The thin tank top rode up, baring the delicate wings of her shoulder blades and the bold ink that decorated them.
His hands found her hips again, his grip firm enough to leave faint marks on her pale skin. He leaned over her, his broad chest covering her back, his lips at her ear. “No more games, Avery. No more pretending this is just fun.”
He didn’t wait for a reply. He freed himself once more, the head of his cock nudging against her slick heat. With a raw, urgent intensity that brooked no hesitation, he drove into her, seating himself to the hilt in a single, claiming stroke.
“You’re mine,” he growled into the sweat-dampened hair at her nape, the words a dark vow.
Avery cried out, a sound of pure sensation, her back arching deeply as she pushed back against him. The rhythm was immediate and primal, a furious tempo born of a month of deprivation. Each snap of his hips was a punctuation to his words. *Mine.* The slap of skin, the creak of the old couch springs, their ragged breaths—it was a symphony of pent-up need. He held her hips steady, controlling the depth and pace, watching the muscles in her back tense and release with every deep plunge.
Her moans were muffled by the cushion, transforming into broken pleas. “Jordan… please…”
He slowed for a devastating moment, drawing almost all the way out, making her whimper at the loss. “Please what?” he demanded, his voice rough.
“Don’t stop,” she begged, pushing back frantically to take him in again.
With a groan of triumph, he gave her what she wanted, resuming the relentless rhythm. He could feel her tightening around him, her body coiling like a spring. The world narrowed to this point of exquisite friction, to the taste of salt on her skin as he pressed his mouth to her shoulder, to the absolute certainty that every gasp she made belonged to him.
Chapter 4
His words were a brand, searing through the haze of her pleasure. The deep, possessive thrust that accompanied them wrenched a cry from her throat, half-protest, half-surrender. Jordan’s grip on her hips was iron, his fingers pressing into the soft flesh with a force that promised bruises—temporary tattoos of his claim. He held her there, pinned between his body and the couch, filling her completely.
“You hear me?” he growled again, his voice raw against the shell of her ear as he began to move. Each withdrawal was a slow, deliberate torment, each return a punishing affirmation. “No more hiding. No more rules.”
Avery could only nod, her cheek pressed against the rough fabric, every nerve ending alight. The submissive curve of her spine was an answer in itself. He took her in a relentless rhythm, the wet, rhythmic sound of their joining a stark contrast to the quiet apartment. His dominance was absolute, a physical manifesto of the words he’d spoken at the door.
“Scream for me, Avery,” he commanded, his pace becoming brutal, focused. “Let them all know whose you are.” His hand slid from her hip up her side, skimming the edge of her tank top before tangling in her red hair, not pulling, just anchoring her to him.
The pressure built like a storm within her, coiling tighter with every deep, claiming drive. She tried to muffle her cries in the cushion, but he wouldn’t allow it. “Louder,” he rasped, the command punctuated by a particularly sharp thrust that stole her breath. She obeyed, a broken sob of his name tearing from her lips as the first tremors of her climax began to unravel her from the inside out. He felt it, the way her inner muscles clenched and fluttered around him, and it shattered his own control.
With a final, guttural groan of possession, he pressed deep and stilled, his release hot and endless as he spilled himself inside her. His forehead dropped to her sweat-dampened back, his broad body shuddering against hers as he rode the waves of his own climax, his grip on her hip finally easing into a trembling caress.
For long minutes, the only sound was their ragged breathing slowly syncing. Slowly, he withdrew, his hands turning her gently onto her back on the couch. He looked down at her, his blue eyes dark and satisfied, tracing the faint red marks his fingers had left on her pale skin. He leaned down, capturing her swollen lips in a kiss that was startlingly tender after the ferocity that had preceded it. “Mine,” he whispered against her mouth, the word now a soft seal on the truth they could no longer deny.