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)
He mumbled something that sounded like “stop” and “no.” She should wake him. He wouldn’t want her to hear or see any of this. Cam’s face was usually a fortress, guarding his emotions and thoughts. Right now the gate was down and there was no hiding, no protection from the turmoil he wrestled with in his sleep. He ran a frantic hand over the blanket in the space between them, as if searching for something.
Jo touched his shoulder, a gentle pressure. His hand manacled her wrist in a grip so painful her fingers went a little numb.
“Ouch.”
His eyes snapped open when she cried out. Terror stretched his pupils until they almost swallowed the blue and gray, like brimstone filling the sky.
“What did…What…?” Cam noticed his hand caging the narrow bones of her wrist. “God, baby, I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?”
He loosened his fingers but left bright red impressions on her skin. He touched her wrist, his eyes latched onto the angry marks already forming.
“It’s okay.” She brushed back a patch of tangled hair from his forehead, damp with the heat of the day and the hell of his nightmare. “You were having a dream, I think.”
The door slammed shut over his face, sequestering his emotions again.
“Did I say anything? Or do anything, besides almost crush your wrist?”
“Crush my…Cam, it’ll just bruise a little.” She held back the question for a few seconds before she couldn’t hold it anymore. “What were you dreaming about?”
Cam pulled himself to his feet, brushing nonexistent grass from his jeans, and extended his hand to her.
“You ready to go? I thought we could grab some peaches from that roadside fruit stand on the way back.”
“It won’t work.” She accepted his hand up, tugging at the tiny denim cutoffs he had packed for her. “Ignoring it, I mean.”
“It has so far.”
She gestured toward the blanket where his nightmare had just leaked out into the open.
“You call that working? Cam, you should talk to someone, even if it isn’t me.”
Cam didn’t bother with words but just folded up the blanket and walked off toward his Ducati. She remembered the day he had gotten his Harley while they were still in college. She had given him a cigar as a gag gift because he acted so much like a new father. Flashier bike. Expensive clothes. Black card. So many upgrades in his life, but he was still the guy who knew exactly which buttons to push to make her laugh and loosen. He was still her best friend, and he knew how to unravel her in the best possible ways. Why wouldn’t he let her repay the favor? What was holding him back?
She would try again tonight. For now, she relished straddling a monster of growling metal between her legs and gripping Cam’s hard-as-rock abs from behind. Did it get better than this?
* * *
“Here you are.” Jo placed a bowl of peaches on the table and set the basket she carried onto the patio flagstones. “I wondered where you’d gone.”
Cam looked up from scribbling in his sketchbook. There were miles between the smile on his face and the look in his eyes.
“Sorry I disappeared after dinner. I just needed…” His words left a trail in the quiet Jo couldn’t follow. He rolled his charcoal pencils on the patio table.
“No problem.” She passed him a cream-covered peach slice. “Great idea stopping by that fruit stand, by the way. These are so fresh. You like peaches and cream?”
“Never had them together, actually.” He popped one in his mouth, licking at the cream lingering in the corner. “Hmm. Good.”
He rested his elbow on the patio table and watched her for a moment before reaching for another cream-slathered slice.
“Is this the moment of truth?” He passed a grin to her across the space separating them, the muted fairy lights leaving his hair and eyes inky. “You softening me up with fresh fruit?”
“And cream.” She popped a peach slice into her mouth, talking around the sweet juiciness. “Don’t forget the cream.”
Cam’s grin, halfhearted at best, fell into a somber curve, finally catching up with his eyes. He knew the time had come. She couldn’t let him go into one more night like the others. She needed to understand this hell-induced insomnia of his. They could only go so far with his secrets wedged between them. Not go so far just sexually, though she had reached for her knitting needles today.
Hor-ny.
But she hadn’t waited seventeen years to sleep with Cam. She had waited seventeen years to be with him. To peel away all the layers and lay naked with him, not just skin to skin, but heart to heart. Soul to soul. She needed him to bare everything, but she would go first.
“So the peaches aren’t the only treat.” She reached down into the basket by her feet, bringing out two lidded mason jars. “Ta-da!”