Aimee pushed open the wooden door to her childhood bedroom. The hinges let out a faint, whining creak. She walked in, her movements stiff and robotic, and waited for Cameron to follow.
The moment Cameron's massive frame crossed the threshold, the room instantly shrank. The space was barely ten square meters. There was a small wooden desk, a battered wardrobe, and pushed against the far wall, a tiny 1.2-meter-wide single bed.
Cameron stood in the center of the room. His broad shoulders seemed to take up all the available oxygen. He looked around at the faded pop-star posters on the walls and the worn, slightly warped floorboards. His jaw tightened.
Aimee quickly reached behind him and locked the door with a sharp click. She spun around, rubbing her sweaty palms against her thighs.
"I'm so sorry," Aimee whispered frantically, keeping her voice low so her father wouldn't hear. "I'll take the floor. You can have the bed."
Cameron looked down at the old wooden floorboards. He could practically see the decades of dust trapped in the cracks. His germaphobia violently rejected the idea.
"I am not sleeping on the floor," Cameron stated, his voice flat and uncompromising.
"Then I'll go sleep on the couch in the living room," Aimee countered, taking a step toward the door.
Before she could reach the handle, Cameron's hand shot out. His long fingers wrapped around her wrist like a steel vice. The grip was tight enough to make her gasp, sending a jolt of electricity shooting up her arm.
He pulled her back effortlessly. He leaned down, his face inches from hers. His breath, smelling faintly of the beer he had forced down, brushed against her cheek.
"The walls in this house are paper-thin," Cameron hissed, his eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. "If your father wakes up and finds his newlywed daughter sleeping on the couch, the entire illusion is destroyed. You will stay in this room."
Aimee yanked her wrist out of his grasp, her chest heaving. She looked at the tiny single bed, her stomach twisting into painful knots. There was no escape.
Desperate for a distraction, she dropped to her knees and yanked open the bottom drawer of her wardrobe. She dug around until she found an oversized, faded grey t-shirt and a pair of loose gym shorts that belonged to her father.
She stood up and shoved the clothes into Cameron's chest. "Here. Sleepwear."
Cameron looked down at the cheap, worn cotton as if she had just handed him a dead rat. His upper lip curled in disgust. But without a word, he snatched the clothes and stepped into the cramped, attached half-bathroom, shutting the door behind him.
Aimee heard the loud, rattling groan of the old plumbing as the shower turned on. She immediately sprang into action. She stripped off her overalls and pulled on the most conservative pajamas she owned-a thick, long-sleeved flannel set that buttoned all the way up to her neck.
She sat rigidly on the very edge of the bed, her hands tightly clasped in her lap. The sound of the water hitting the shower floor was deafening. Her mind raced, conjuring up terrifying scenarios of how she was going to survive the next eight hours.
Suddenly, the water shut off. The bathroom door handle turned.
A cloud of steam rolled out into the bedroom, carrying the scent of cheap bar soap. Aimee instinctively looked up.
Her breath caught in her throat. Her lungs simply stopped working.
Cameron had not put on the t-shirt.
He stepped out of the bathroom wearing only a small, faded white towel wrapped precariously low around his hips. Water droplets clung to his broad, muscular shoulders, tracing slow paths down the deep, defined cut of his chest. His abdomen was a washboard of hard, sculpted muscle, leading down to a sharp V-line that disappeared beneath the terrycloth.
He looked like a Greek god who had accidentally wandered into a Brooklyn slum.
Aimee's face ignited. The heat rushed to her cheeks so fast it made her dizzy. She slapped both hands over her eyes, turning her head violently toward the wall.
"Why aren't you wearing the shirt? !" she squeaked, her voice cracking in panic.
Cameron casually ran a smaller towel through his wet hair. "I do not wear unwashed, second-hand clothing that belongs to another man," he stated, his tone completely unapologetic, almost arrogant. "My skin is highly sensitive to cheap detergent and unknown fabrics."
He took two long strides toward the bed. The intense, radiating heat of his body and the overwhelming scent of male pheromones hit Aimee like a physical wall.
She scrambled backward, crawling across the mattress until her back was pressed flat against the cold plaster wall. She pulled her knees to her chest, looking at him with wide, terrified eyes.
Cameron stopped at the edge of the bed. He looked down at her defensive, shrinking posture. A dark, unreadable emotion flickered in his icy blue eyes. A strange urge to tease her, to break her composure, flared in his chest.
He leaned forward, placing one large hand on the mattress right next to her hip. He lowered his face until they were eye level.
Aimee squeezed her eyes shut, her eyelashes trembling violently. She held her breath, waiting for the impact.
But Cameron simply reached past her. His fingers brushed against the switch of the old desk lamp.
Click.
The room plunged into absolute darkness.
"Go to sleep," Cameron's voice rumbled in the pitch black, low and gravelly.
The mattress dipped drastically as his heavy frame climbed into the bed. He lay on his back on the outer edge.
Aimee lay stiff as a board on the inside edge, pressed against the wall. The bed was so narrow that there was barely two inches of space between them. She could feel the heat radiating off his bare skin. Every time he took a breath, his arm brushed against the flannel of her pajamas.
Outside, the storm raged. The wind howled, rattling the old windowpanes.
Inside, the silence was deafening. Aimee was terrified to breathe. She stared into the darkness, her heart pounding a frantic rhythm against her ribs. To stop herself from hyperventilating, she began reciting the preamble to the United States Constitution in her head. We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union...
Minutes dragged into hours. Cameron's breathing eventually slowed, deepening into a steady, rhythmic cadence.
Aimee's exhausted body finally betrayed her anxiety. Her eyelids drooped. She carefully rolled over, turning her back to him, curling into a tight fetal position.
As the sound of the rain lulled her into unconsciousness, she had no idea that in the darkness behind her, Cameron's eyes were wide open, staring at the ceiling, his jaw clenched tight.
