Page 53 of Be Mine Forever
Jo nodded, leaning up on her toes to press her lips to his, freezing at the musky sweetness lingering on his lips. She jerked back, but Cam pressed his lips into hers again.
“You’ve never tasted yourself?”
“What…when…no. Of course not.”
“This is me and you. Taste us.” He eased his tongue into her mouth, tracing the silky lining inside her cheeks before pulling back. “See how good we are together?”
“Not yet.” She gave him a wicked grin and a wink before heading toward the door and her shower to wash the veggies off. “But I will soon.”
Chapter Seventeen
Jo had lived so long with pressures, with deadlines, with demands that she sometimes forgot weightless moments like these existed. Stretched out on a blanket in the middle of a field, no one in sight. She observed the languorous trajectory of a bee a few feet away, zigzagging from flower to flower. She raised her head to catch the rare August breeze in her hair and drew the smell of nearby honeysuckle in through her nose. She could be dozing at any point in history—medieval England or Revolutionary France or Rivermont during the Civil War. A field was a field was a field. No social media. No iPad. She’d even left her cell phone at home.
So this was a lazy day. It was all coming back to her. Long summer days she, Walsh, and Cam had spent at the river, fishing, tubing, swimming. Soaring in an old tire swing across the water, nothing more exhilarating than the possibility of falling.
That’s what she felt every time she was with the man asleep beside her. The lovely threat of falling. The gorgeous certainty of gravity. What comes up, must come down. Wasn’t love inherently law-defying? Trusting that the feeling, the connection, the promise between you and another would never come down? Would never drop you and split your heart wide open?
Cam stirred beside her on the blanket. She swatted at the bee buzzing around his head, disturbing the little bit of sleep he’d probably get. They’d only spent a few nights together, but there was a pattern. He painted at night while she slept. She’d fall asleep in his arms and wake up in an empty bed. There were demons in his dreams, and she wanted more than anything to charge in with crosses and holy water, but Cam wouldn’t let her in. If there was an exorcism, he’d have to do it himself.
Cam jerked on the blanket, straining away in his sleep, like a cattle prod poked his back. A frown pinched the skin between his brows. His lashes almost disappeared his eyes squeezed so tightly together. Something that was a half cry, half growl, a bastard of fear and fury, broke past his lips. A muscle strained in his jaw like it might punch through the stubbled skin.
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?
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