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)
Move on? Like to what was next? Like next level? Like take the relationship to the next level? Like intimacy? Like sharing and trusting and getting serious next level? Did he want that enough to risk hurting her? To keep himself in check so he didn’t ever hurt her?
A menagerie of images from the last few weeks flashed through his mind. As vivid and real as if he were painting them himself in the air. Jo at the hotel, looking more like a college student than the all-grown-up philanthropic titan she was becoming. Pushing him to trust her. Jo crying in the gazebo, saying she was ready to let him go but still fighting with her last breath to hold on. Jo at a run-down skating rink, slumming with him. Laughing and falling and dancing and making a trip back to his old neighborhood less hellish than usual. Jo by the river, laying out her hurts like diary entries she’d never shared with anyone.
What an honor. Jo, who guarded everything so closely and trusted so few, was always offering him everything. Consistently, systematically, she had peeled away all the armor she usually wrapped so closely around herself. For him. He realized it now. Saw it clearly.
Just as he turned toward the house, ready to leave and hop on the next plane back to Rivermont, a middle-aged man walked through the glass doors, paunch first.
“Sorry to keep you gentlemen waiting.” He gestured toward the infinity pool. “Hope you’ve been enjoying the view.”
Seriously? Keep us waiting for days and we’re supposed to be placated by a freaking you-seen-one-you-seen-them-all domesticated waterfall? Cam checked his impatience. Sebastian really wanted this deal to happen, so he settled into his seat and pushed his lips into a smile for the producer’s benefit. He’d cooperate. He’d play nice. The sooner this was over, the sooner he could get home to Jo.
That really did have a nice ring to it.
Chapter Twenty-One
Jo settled into her bed, pulling the down comforter up over her legs. She shuffled her knitting kit on her knees and dug around in the bed for the remote control. Maybe TV would distract her from thoughts of Cam. He was still out in California meeting about doing graffiti art for a romantic comedy.
She pulled her hair into a sloppy bun on top of her head and thought of the pampering she had planned for tomorrow. A keratin treatment for this wild bush hair. Mani-pedi. And tending her lady garden. She planned to get lucky pretty soon, and hair down there was not to be tolerated. She’d have everything done by the time she picked Cam up from the airport tomorrow.
Jo plumped the pillows at her back and patted around in the bed to rediscover her knitting kit. She pulled up the pattern she had downloaded to her phone from knitpick.com. These tiny sweaters would be adorable for Brooklin and Harlim. Jo grabbed her glass of white wine from the nightstand, taking a sip before scrolling through the many neglected episodes of Vikings on her DVR.
“Come on, Lagertha. If you can hold battle formation in the morning and satisfy Ragnar at night, surely I can figure out a way to get Cam trusting me and into my bed.”
And past all those defenses. Yes, she was grooming herself like a prize mare tomorrow in ever-hoping preparation for some actual screwing, but it really wasn’t about that. She wanted to be as intimate with Cam as possible. On every level and in every way.
Sex was complicated for him? She was running ten miles a day and knitting in her nonexistent free time to manage this libido responsibly. It was complicated for her, too. She wanted, no needed, them to face all the complexities, all the secrets, all the fears together. Sex was basically her gateway drug to Cam’s trust. She crossed her legs in her yoga pants. She had dredged a shirt out of Cam’s hamper. So what if she was wearing his dirty T-shirt?
“I know I have some gum up here,” Jo mumbled halfway through the episode. The blackened salmon salad with fresh fruit Q left waiting for her had been delicious, but she still tasted it.
She paused mid-bloody battle scene to get up and brush her teeth. A few brushing, flossing, rinsing minutes later, she walked back into her bedroom, almost losing her dinner when she spotted Cam under her covers, holding the tiny, almost-done sweater up in the air.
“Cameron Mitchell, you have got to stop.” Jo clutched her chest through his T-shirt, stopping to stand at the edge of the bed. “What are you doing here? You’re not due until tomorrow. I’m picking you up.”
Cam reached one muscled forearm out, pulling her into the downy depths of the bed. He flipped her under him until one knee rested between her legs and the other was on the side. He slipped his nose into the nook between her neck and her ear.