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 plunged into her like she was the ocean and he was seeking the ocean floor, diving for the bottom. Drilling into her like he wondered where she ended, but she had no end. She was fathomless, depthless for him. She had no boundaries. She was as open as the sky for this man and as endless. She gripped his shoulders and locked her ankles around his back.
They were always wild together, but this was an atavism. It was the first man who had ever fucked the first woman. Ever felt her tighten and tremble around him. Ever felt her fall apart in his arms. And his love was the first heartbeat. The first time a man’s eyes met a woman’s. The first time one half ever found the other. The relentless pace of Cam’s body slamming into hers created fire, stoked to a flame so high it consumed her. Burned away fear and left only need. In those stolen seconds, only need.
Jo’s orgasm was an earthquake, a seismic wave dividing her into tectonic faults. Her head tossed against the wall, restless. One of Cam’s arms held beneath her butt. He slammed his other hand to the wall and dropped his head beside her.
“God, yes, Jo.” His breath came hot in her ear. “Shit, so…Fuck.”
He was hot and stiff, a desperate, wet slide in and out. He shuddered against her, tremoring through her like a ripple across water. Their breaths came heavy and fast, slowing with their heartbeats. He let her legs fall to the floor, brushing his hands over the muscles in her thighs. His hands wandered up her body until they reached her face, cupping it. Lifting her lips to meet his.
“You are the best thing I’ve ever had.” He set his forehead against hers, the muscles of his throat working against the emotion roughening his voice. “Please don’t forget I love you.”
“Keep telling me.” Jo slid her hand into his hair, scraping her nails across his scalp. “We can do this. Just let me help.”
Cam looked at her, neither confirming nor denying. He led her to the bathroom. In the shower, he didn’t leave an inch of her unattended. The last traces of the blue paint slid off her skin and down the drain. Jo wanted to chase the color. She wanted to wear his love as a stain over her skin, over her heart.
“Are you cold?” Cam asked, going to the drawers he’d cleared for the nightgowns she never wore.
“No, I don’t want anything between us.” She ran her eyes over the sculpted lines of his lean body. “Just us.”
He nodded, pulling back the covers and climbing in, opening his arms. She snuggled close, relishing the feel of his warm flesh. She placed her hand over his heart.
“Is this still mine? Is your heart still in my hands?”
“Don’t doubt it.” They’d turned off the lamps, and he left it to the moon to show her the truth on his face. “No matter what happens, promise me you won’t doubt it.”
She tried to stay awake, not wanting to lose a minute with him and afraid the demons in his dreams would return. She fought fatigue as long as she could, waiting for his breath to even into sleep. It never did, but she fell asleep in his arms, and she felt safe.
Chapter Thirty
Sometimes the heart knows first. Before the mind can formulate thoughts or the senses grasp, the heart immediately apprehends. A senseless intuition. Jo woke up the next morning with an ache in her chest. It wasn’t unusual to wake up alone. If anything, waking up with Cam hard and warm at her back was rare. This felt different. An electric storm crackled around Cam. His energy, sometimes dark and sometimes bright, but always inexorable, drew you in. They had magnetized each other, and when she awoke, she knew something was missing. Someone was missing.
She took her time sitting up in bed, her senses poking around in the quiet of the cottage for any signs of him. Cam was often painting by the time she woke up, so she slipped on her robe and padded barefoot to the studio. No sign of him. Sometimes he’d catch the sunrise by the river, taking photos he’d use later. Jo headed out to the patio, eyeing the patch of riverbank Cam usually claimed, but it stood empty. Even in his artistic throes, he would always have a pot of coffee brewed for her by the time she woke up, but no aroma drifted from the kitchen.
The October mornings were just getting cool, but a slow freeze started in Jo’s belly and circulated through her veins, sludging toward her heart. She stepped into the kitchen like it was a cemetery, heart heavy, feet tentative. Almost immediately she spotted the folded note propped against the coffeepot. With shaking hands she opened it, and with panic suffusing every cell, she read.