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)
“I won’t.” Tears made her voice shake. “I promise.”
“I grew up in hell, and I’ve lived my whole life…not quite sure. You are the safest place I’ve ever known.”
Jo couldn’t take any more. She had spent half her life searching for the edges of this love, but she couldn’t ever find where it began or where it ended. This love was everywhere. She pressed a finger over his mouth, knowing she would explode if she didn’t expel these words running over from her heart.
“I have waited so long.” She had to stop because emotion strangled the words in her throat. The tears blurred his face in front of her. He grabbed her hands so she couldn’t cover her face. She couldn’t hide any of it from him. She didn’t have to anymore.
“I have waited so long for you to love me back.” The tears coursed down her face freely, smearing into the blue paint around her neck.
“No more waiting,” Cam whispered, standing and pressing his lips to hers, kissing her with tender ferocity.
Jo pressed into him. He laughed against her lips, pulling away to wipe the tears from her face with his thumbs. He reached into his back pocket for his phone.
“Let me capture this.” He aimed his phone at her, a tender smile on his face. “I have a feeling we are about to ruin all my hard work.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Jo scooped up a handful of bubbles, blowing them in the air like a child. That’s how light her heart felt. How free. She still maintained the same grueling schedule at the foundation. Still carried the weight of so many children’s futures on her shoulders. Still felt saddled with people’s impossibly high expectations, but here? With Cam? The moments she spent with him seemed insulated from all the burdens beyond the bliss waiting here for her every day.
Cam leaned against the doorjamb, arms folded over his chest. Affection softened the rugged beauty of his face. She blew him an air kiss, laughing when he grimaced but rolled his eyes and caught it. He stuffed the imaginary kiss into the pocket of his jeans before coming to sit on the edge of the tub.
“Hey, you.” He leaned down, brushing his lips over hers. “Feeling better?”
It had been a hard day. Two of the couples committed to adopting had reneged. One couple had just filed for divorce; the other had been trying to have a baby the old-fashioned way for a long time and had just found out they were pregnant. Jo was happy for them, but that left her with just a few weeks to find replacements. With some members of the board holding on to their reservations, the last thing she needed now was to lose parents.
“How could I not be better?” Jo leaned back, resting her neck against the bath pillow, stretching her arms above her head. “A bath waiting at home for me. I smell a delicious steak dinner, if I’m not mistaken. My beautiful man can’t take his eyes off me.”
Cam lifted his eyes from her suds-tipped nipples to the grin waiting for him on her face.
“Sorry. I got distracted.”
“It’s okay.” Her eyes strayed over his strong, lean body. “I get distracted sometimes myself. Is that steak I smell?”
“Maybe.” Cam lifted his girls-would-kill-for lashes and laughed, crossing the room to rub at a blue spot on her arm. “The paint didn’t all come off?”
Jo smacked the water, sending a tiny wave into his face. He reared back, falling onto his butt and pulling his knees up, shaking water from his hair.
“No, it didn’t all come off.” Jo pushed back the suds covering her stomach, pointing to the faint traces of the Heineken six-pack he’d drawn there. “I walked around with a beer gut all day thanks to you.”
“As long as you keep running ten miles a day, I don’t think you have to worry about a beer gut.” His eyes remained on her stomach, and something soft and curious replaced the laughter.
“What are you thinking about right now?” Jo laid her forearms on the lip of the tub, resting her chin on top. “Gun-to-the-head answer.”
A microscopic smile barely curved his lips. He shook his head, a dismissal of his thoughts.
“Let’s see.” Jo tilted her head on her arms, biting her bottom lip. “You were staring at my stomach, so…”
She couldn’t bring herself to voice the thought persisting in her mind. What if she was wrong? How embarrassing that would be.
“Never mind.” She sat back in the tub, gathering suds to cover her stomach and breasts.
Cam crawled across the small space to the tub and stood on his knees beside her. He pushed the bubbles away again, exposing the lean muscles of her stomach, tracing a finger down the center, lingering at her belly button.
“I was wondering how you’d look pregnant.”