Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 94630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Joy pooled at the bottom of her soul and bubbled up until she couldn’t contain it. It spiraled through her chest and erupted from her lips. She slid her fingers into Cam’s hair, holding him still while she possessed him. Licking into his mouth, kissing down his chin, sucking at his neck. Marking him as hers.
“Let me stay tonight.” His voice, dark and husky, settled around them in the gazebo, harmonizing with the quiet swoosh of the river just beyond the bank.
“I’d like that.” She kissed down his neck, brushing his hair behind his ears. “Just so you know, I’ve never, um…it usually takes more than that for me to…well, let’s just say I’ve never been that responsive.”
Cam’s chuckle vibrated into her chest. He pulled up the straps of her camisole, leaving a chaste kiss on each shoulder.
“Good to know.”
“Cam, I’m serious. I’ve never…What was that?”
“That is what I was afraid of.” Cam brushed his fingers down her cheek, across her lips, down her arm. He lifted her wrist to his lips. “I knew it would be like that for us.”
Jo slapped his chest, causing him to rear back, wearing his what-was-that-for face.
“And you wait seventeen years to give me that?”
Cam grinned, passing his hands up and down her arms.
“I suspected it would be intense for us, but I didn’t ever plan to find out for sure.”
“Cam, why?” Jo scooted off his lap, landing beside him on the bench, grabbing his hand and studying his profile. “Why waste so much time?”
Cam looked down at their joined hands, stroking Jo’s thumb with his.
“I have a lot to tell you.” He looked up, the plea forming on his face before he voiced it. “But not tonight. It can wait. I just want us to enjoy tonight.”
After that little episode, so did Jo. She hadn’t dry humped anyone in a long time, and it had never been like that. She stood to her feet, eager to clear the dishes and get Cam in her long-too-cold-and-lonely bed. He stood and grabbed around her waist from behind.
“I’m staying tonight, but I want us to take things slow.” He kissed behind her ear. “I mean…with sex.”
Jo turned in his arms, tucking away her disappointment.
“Of course. What’s the rush?”
“Don’t you want to ask why I want to take it slow? I mean, after what just happened? And considering how it’s always been for me…I mean, with women.”
“You’ll tell me when you’re ready, right?” Jo traced the lettering on his T-shirt with her index finger.
“Sex is complicated for me. There are times when I can take it or leave it and times when I have to have it or I think I’ll die.”
“Um…extreme, but okay.”
“It’s not about the sex itself, or even the person. It’s usually connected to something I’m running from. Or hiding from. It comes from the wrong place. With you, I just want it to be…right. And the frame of mind I’m in now, I’m not sure what it would be about.”
He wrapped his fingers around the back of her neck and stretched his thumb up to trace her eyebrow and stroke across her cheekbone.
“And I just want it to be about you. To be…pure. Does that sound crazy?”
It sounded perfect and so sweet. In her fantasies of them together, it had been nothing like this. Hot, yes. But this tender, no. The way Cam looked at her like she might break. The way he pressed his hand to the small of her back when they went down the gazebo steps. And peeled her camisole and shorts off her without even copping a feel. Just pulled her nightie down over her naked curves and pulled her to the bed. And spooned her, his sinewy arms wrapping around her and his chin tucked between her head and her shoulder. He was sweeter and more tender than even she had suspected or known.
And it made her wonder—was Cam right about her not really knowing him? What else didn’t she know?
Chapter Twelve
Cam massaged his temples, seated on the floor with his back to the love seat in Jo’s suite, elbows to knees and head in his still-trembling hands. It had been so real. Like it was happening all over again. The cheap, pungent cologne trapped in his nostrils. The big, calloused hand pressing his neck into the weathered wood of the table beneath his cheek. The steady scratch of the table legs scraping across the linoleum floor with each violent movement, all the more vile because of the sun shining through the kitchen window. In broad daylight.
And the pain.
God, the pain, splintering up his back and puncturing him from behind.
Cam curled his bare toes into the plush area rug. He knotted his fists at the base of his neck, rubbing the tight muscles there, and brushed the sweat from his face.