Page 34 of Be Mine Forever

Jo turned in his arms, tucking away her disappointment.

“Of course. What’s the rush?”

“Don’t you want to ask why I want to take it slow? I mean, after what just happened? And considering how it’s always been for me…I mean, with women.”

“You’ll tell me when you’re ready, right?” Jo traced the lettering on his T-shirt with her index finger.

“Sex is complicated for me. There are times when I can take it or leave it and times when I have to have it or I think I’ll die.”

“Um…extreme, but okay.”

“It’s not about the sex itself, or even the person. It’s usually connected to something I’m running from. Or hiding from. It comes from the wrong place. With you, I just want it to be…right. And the frame of mind I’m in now, I’m not sure what it would be about.”

He wrapped his fingers around the back of her neck and stretched his thumb up to trace her eyebrow and stroke across her cheekbone.

“And I just want it to be about you. To be…pure. Does that sound crazy?”

It sounded perfect and so sweet. In her fantasies of them together, it had been nothing like this. Hot, yes. But this tender, no. The way Cam looked at her like she might break. The way he pressed his hand to the small of her back when they went down the gazebo steps. And peeled her camisole and shorts off her without even copping a feel. Just pulled her nightie down over her naked curves and pulled her to the bed. Andspoonedher, his sinewy arms wrapping around her and his chin tucked between her head and her shoulder. He was sweeter and more tender than even she had suspected or known.

And it made her wonder—was Cam right about her not really knowing him? What else didn’t she know?

Chapter Twelve

Cam massaged his temples, seated on the floor with his back to the love seat in Jo’s suite, elbows to knees and head in his still-trembling hands. It had been so real. Like it was happening all over again. The cheap, pungent cologne trapped in his nostrils. The big, calloused hand pressing his neck into the weathered wood of the table beneath his cheek. The steady scratch of the table legs scraping across the linoleum floor with each violent movement, all the more vile because of the sun shining through the kitchen window. In broad daylight.

And the pain.

God, the pain, splintering up his back and puncturing him from behind.

Cam curled his bare toes into the plush area rug. He knotted his fists at the base of his neck, rubbing the tight muscles there, and brushed the sweat from his face.

He had to pull it together before Jo got back from her run with Meredith. If he was going to be with Jo, he had to fix this. Figure out how to get rid of these damn dreams. He sniffed at his T-shirt. Did he smell like him? Was it his imagination that the nasty, cloying scent had somehow crossed space and time and infected the fibers of his clothing again? Cam ripped the shirt over his head and tossed it across the room. He strode to the bathroom, shedding his jeans and stepping into Jo’s gargantuan shower.

The water wasn’t hot enough. Nothing could wash away the filth. Those hands on his shoulders. Sweat dripping from above into his hair. Spittle on his face. God, he couldn’t get clean. He barely noticed his chest and arms reddening under the scalding water and the vigorous scraping of his nails. He sank to the shower’s stone bench, pulling one knee up and enfolding it with his arm. The hot water wasn’t nearly as scorching as the shame these memories burned into him every time they paid him a nocturnal visit.

“Cam!” Jo’s voice, bordering on urgent, already concerned. “Are you here?”

Cam swallowed over his aching vocal cords. He’d awakened with screams running up his throat and fleeing his mouth. He turned off the shower, stepped out, and grabbed a towel from the hook by the door, knotting it around his hips.

“I’m in here. In the bathroom.” He prayed he sounded normal, even though he didn’t feel it yet. Couldn’t reach it yet.

Jo waved at the thick-as-soup steam filling the room.

“Good grief. Was the water set on hot as hell?” She stopped in her tracks, her eyes resting on his bare torso. “What happened to you?”

“Huh?” He looked down at himself. His arms and chest glowed red, angry lines striping him where his nails had dug in. “Oh, I guess I was…the water must have been too hot.”

“I have some ointment we can—”

“It’s fine, Jo. Leave it.”

“No, really.” Jo walked over to open the medicine cabinet. “I know I have some.”

“I said drop it.” Cam’s sharp voice sliced through the steam.

Jo looked over her shoulder, still facing the medicine cabinet.

“Jo, I didn’t mean to snap at you. It’s just…Leave it, okay?”

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