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)
“Laugh now, Cam.”
And of course he did. He clutched his stomach and leaned against the wall, flour dusting the dark, silky hair and covering his broad shoulders.
“Peppers!” he managed to say, gasping between laughs.
This was not funny. Or maybe it was a little, but Jo refused to let him lighten this moment. Even when the corners of her mouth pulled up without her permission, she refused to gut bust laugh. Even when a giggle poked through her tight lips, she managed to hold it together.
“Flour!” Cam pointed to his head and slapped a knee. Literally slapped a knee. He could be so broody and secretive that when he laughed like this, free and silly, she could never resist him. Who was she kidding? She couldn’t resist him dark and broody either. Was there a state she could resist Cam in? It hadn’t been discovered.
So she grinned. She rolled her eyes, but her grin green-lit him to approach her again, albeit with his I come in peace arms up. He wrapped himself around her and shook his floury head over her like a wet dog, sending snowy particles all over her head and shoulders.
“Cam!” She laughed and slipped her arms around his waist, giving in to the irresistible force he exerted on her without even trying. “I need a shower.”
“We both do.” He pushed a flour-coated tendril back from her face, the laughter slowly leaking from his face. “I’m sorry if that came out wrong a few minutes ago.”
“It wasn’t the way you said it, Cam.” She brushed a little more flour from his hair, resting her elbows on his shoulders. “It’s the fact that you keep saying it. This isn’t about me being horny.”
Although there was a stack of crocheted muffs and a knitting needle in her bedroom that might beg to differ. Even so…
“This is about you trusting me with whatever is holding you back. Not just sexually. You’ve corded off all these parts of your life, of your past, that you don’t want me to access or to know about.”
“I’m trying, Jo.”
“No. Trying is talking. Trying is trusting me.”
Cam nodded, resolve taking full possession of his face, inch by inch.
“Can we just enjoy the day before we talk about my screwed up past? I promised you fun and rest this weekend.”
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.