Novels by Gem

I slid into my chair, my hand tightening around the pen they’d placed at each setting. He didn’t glance at me, not once. Not when I sat down. Not when I said, “Hey.” Not even when I leaned slightly closer and muttered, “Guess they ran out of places to hide me from you.”His only reaction was this tiny twitch at the corner of his mouth. Could’ve been annoyance. Could’ve been… something else.The keynote speaker started, but I wasn’t really listening. I could hear Cameron’s breathing. I could see the way his fingers tapped lightly against his notepad when he was trying not to fidget.I leaned back, whispering just low enough for him to hear. “You look good.”His pen froze mid-word. He didn’t look at me. “Don’t.”“Don’t what?” I asked, even though I knew exactly what.“Don’t do this here.”I smiled, even though my chest hurt. “I’m literally just sitting.”He finally turned to look at me, and wow, bad idea. His eyes were sharp, all control and ice, but I caught it—the flicker. The one tha

Brandon’s POVI didn’t even want to come to this convention.Like, at all.But Coach said it would be “good exposure” for me and the team. Networking, PR photos, the whole fake-smile package. And here I was — wearing a stupid badge with my name in bold letters like anyone needed a reminder of who I was.The ballroom was huge. Too many people, too much chatter, and the kind of hotel carpet pattern that made you dizzy if you stared too long. I was halfway through a lukewarm bottle of water when I saw him.Cameron.It was like the air shifted. My grip on the bottle tightened, and my pulse did that annoying jump it always did when I wasn’t ready to deal with him. He was across the room, talking to some guy in a navy suit. Sharp jaw, perfect tie, hair done like he had a personal stylist — which, knowing him, he probably did.And then, like the universe hated me, the event organizer appeared beside me with a clipboard.“Brandon, right? You’re at Table 14. Oh! And you’ll be sitting next to—”

Cameron POVDad’s home office still smelled like him.That mix of old leather, expensive cologne, and the faint tang of ink from his fountain pens. The heavy curtains were half-drawn, muting the late afternoon light into a dim gold. Dust motes floated in the air like the room was holding its breath. Everything was still in place—his glasses next to the ledger, a pen left uncapped, the coffee cup with a faint ring of dried black at the bottom.It felt wrong being here without him.Like I’d stepped into a shrine.I was flipping through the latest reports, trying not to let my eyes glaze over, when the door burst open.“Why haven’t you canceled your engagement with Brandon?”Drake’s voice cut through the room like a knife. No hello. No knocking. Just him, storming in like he owned the air I was breathing.I didn’t even look up. “Nice to see you too, Drake. How’s your day going?”He ignored that, striding up to the desk and planting both hands on it. “I’m serious, Cam. This should’ve been

Brandon’s POVI didn’t even realize I was pacing until Mom leaned against the kitchen counter with her arms crossed like I’d just told her I got someone pregnant or something.“Brandon,” she said slowly, like I was some bomb she didn’t want to set off, “you’ve been wearing a hole in my floor for the last ten minutes. Either sit down or start paying rent.”“I can’t just sit down,” I muttered, running my hand through my hair for the hundredth time today. “He won’t even talk to me, Mom. He just… looks at me like I’m the enemy.”“Maybe because you’re acting like a stalker?” she suggested, raising her eyebrows.I flinched. “I’m not— okay, yeah, maybe showing up outside his apartment every day wasn’t… ideal.”“Not ideal?” she said, tilting her head. “That’s what you call camping in front of someone’s place like you’re auditioning for a bad romance movie?”I groaned and dropped into the chair, my knees bouncing. “It’s the only way I can see him. If I don’t show up, he disappears. He moved ba

Cameron POVI thought moving back home would fix it. Or at least numb it.But it didn’t.The first morning back, I dragged myself to the bathroom, still half-asleep, toothbrush dangling from my mouth as I stared out the window.I could feel my heart pounding against my ribs and I just wanted it to stop.And then I saw him.That stupid fucking Brandon.I choked on the foam and nearly spat toothpaste all over the glass.What. The. Hell.There he was. Right outside our fucking gate. In the pouring rain. He had his hoodie up and his legs were crossed like he had every right to be parked there, like this wasn’t the tenth day in a row he had been trailing me.Just sitting on the hood of his car, headphones in, like he lived there.My blood boiled at his audacity . My hand shot up and I yanked the curtain shut so hard the rod almost came off the wall.What was his problem?Was this some kind of punishment? Some slow-burn, wet-sock, freezing-core-of-my-soul kind of apology?I stormed out of t

Cameron The storm didn’t wait.By the time I left the office that night, the sky was already the color of bruises, clouds heavy and swollen, like they were just waiting for the right second to fall apart.I pulled my hood up and walked fast, ignoring the way the rain started spitting in my face. The streets were loud—honking, people shouting, taxis splashing through puddles—but it all felt far away.I needed quiet.I needed space.I ended up at the hospital.Don’t ask me why. I just… needed to see him.The elevator ride to Dad’s floor felt like forever, the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead like they were annoyed I was there. When I finally stepped into his room, it was dim, just the soft beeping of monitors and the slow rise and fall of his chest.He looked smaller somehow. Like the bed had swallowed him.I sank into the chair by his side, pulling it closer.“You missed a hell of a day,” I said softly. My voice sounded stupid in the quiet.I leaned my elbows on my knees, staring a

Cameron’s POVThe second we shut the bathroom door behind us, both Brandon and I jumped like we'd been caught making out by a teacher , which, to be fair, wasn't too far from the truth.I yanked my phone from the makeshift stand on the sink and stopped the recording with shaking hands. “Okay,” I breathed, “Let’s see who was the fucker creeping on us.”We hovered over my phone screen like it held the answer to life’s biggest mystery. I rewound the footage, skipping past the fake flirting, the water droplet kiss (yeah, still not over that), and paused the video at the exact moment the doorknob jiggled open.“There,” I whispered, pausing the video at the exact frame.Brandon’s brows pinched, his face leaning in close to mine as we both stared at the small screen. The faintest shadow flickered at the crack beneath the bathroom door,then, boom. A flash of someone holding their phone. Not a full face, but enough of a profile to piece it together.That jawline. That mop of curly brown hair.

Cameron’s POVThrowing a party under the excuse of an engagement was probably the dumbest genius idea I’d ever had. I told Brandon it was for us to get the blackmailer ,lure him and set the trap. But let’s be real: maybe I also wanted to see what would happen if we blurred the lines a little more.“You owe me for this,” Brandon muttered as we stood near the makeshift snack table, the diamond ring Brandon got me during our shopping date, glinting on my finger. The frat house was packed. Music thumped, people cheered whenever they passed us, and someone had already started a chant that ended with “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!”I gave them a smirk and winked. “Patience, children. Let the lovebirds breathe.”Brandon groaned and muttered, “I hate you.”“No, you don’t,” I said sweetly, then took a sip from my Solo cup and whispered, “Tonight, we catch the rat.”As the party wound down, the air thick with sweat, spilled drinks, and too much Axe body spray, I switched to phase two: pretend to be wasted.

Cameron POVI should’ve been angry. Furious. Hell, maybe even panicked.Someone was threatening me. Not from the outside, but from within our own circle. Someone who’d looked me in the eye, smiled like we were friends, and then turned around and stabbed me in the back with a screenshot. They were recording us—me and Brandon—and they wanted something. Control, maybe. Or chaos.But it doesn’t matter. Brandon has already caught this coward’s tail, and I will definitely use it to find out who this person is.I walked back into Brandon’s room with my shoulders squared, my mind already ten steps ahead. No dramatics. No flopping on the bed. Just quiet, directed intent.Brandon was still sitting on the edge of the mattress, phone in hand, head bowed like he was reading something important. He looked up when I entered, eyes scanning my face.“You okay?” he asked.“No,” I said flatly. “But I know what we’re going to do.”He raised a brow. “Go on.”I shut the door behind me and leaned against i

Brandon’s POVI wasn’t sure what I expected after last night. Maybe for Cameron to wake up tangled in my sheets, maybe to make pancakes and pretend like we were normal. Maybe for him to kiss me again, slow and lazy, like we had all the time in the world.What I didn’t expect? Him leaving first thing in the morning… to meet Erica.Yeah. Her.The girl he said he liked. The one he kept insisting was just a friend. I felt like someone had slammed a door in my chest and locked it from the other side. But of course, I didn’t let it show. I wasn’t that guy.So when he came back, hair messy from the wind and cheeks still flushed like he’d laughed too much, I just crossed my arms and asked, “You went to see Erica?”His eyes flicked up, like he was expecting a trap. “Yeah. I did.”Cool. No lies. That was something, right?“Just be careful,” I said, forcing my voice to stay steady. “If people see you two together, we’ll have to spin the narrative. PR will be all over it.”He blinked. “Oh. Right

Cameron’s POVI couldn't look Erica in the eyes without getting a full-blown flashback of last night.She’d called me this morning asking to meet for coffee, and honestly, I leapt at the excuse. Not because I didn’t want to be around Brandon , God, no. But because I needed a breather. His house had become this dangerous bubble of need and orgasms and whispered promises. My body still felt like it was floating, and I wasn’t sure how to plant my feet back on the ground.Every nerve in my body remembered him,vividly, achingly. His hands anchoring my waist like I might slip away, the tender graze of his lips trailing along my jaw, and the way he whispered my name… like it was something sacred. Like I was his favorite secret.The memory of his mouth on my skin,biting, marking, claiming,sent a shiver cascading down my spine. Not once. Not in one place. But everywhere. It was as if he had drawn a map of himself across my body, and now, every inch of me hummed with the memory of him. Of us.B

Brandon POV“Now it's time to take that ass of yours."The words are heavy with meaning. I feel it in the pit of my stomach, like I've swallowed rocks and shook them up. He needs to know he belongs to me and no-one else and if I had to fuck that into him, then so be it.Cameron steps into my space, backing me against the table. His lips hover over the shell of my ear."I want you to fuck me raw. Take my ass and fill it so good." He peppers the words over my neck, jaw, and mouth, kissing and licking the words from my skin once he's said them.He must either be high from jerking himself or still drunk from the alcohol.Whatever it was, I didn't care.I curse as most of my primary brain function shorts out. Tilting my head up, I lick and suck the skin under his chin and down his neck before pulling his head down so I can reach his mouth. Our tongues wrap around each other, flicking and caressing, until the kiss grows fevered. We become frantic and we fumble onto the bed, a mass of bare