Page 10 of Be Mine Forever

He looked at her, his eyes hiding more from her than usual, before they dropped and slid down the length of her body, pausing at her breasts, caressing the line of her waist. She felt that look like a hand skimming over her and shuddered at even the thought of Cam’s intimate touch. Something heated up between them, fogging her judgment. It felt like attraction. Felt like chemistry. Felt like something she had hoped for before with Cam but knew she’d never have.

Jo shook off the effects of that look, wondering if she was going a little crazy. Maybe her feverish mind, always hot and usually bothered around Cam, had conjured that moment. It wouldn’t be the first time she read too much into a look or a feeling with this man. For example, at Christmas, she had sensed…she had thought…she had hoped…but nothing had materialized. Cam had gone dark, and she hadn’t heard from him until today.

She was just about to clear her throat, but he beat her to it.

“I’m staying at the Chevalier.”

Wow. Jo knew that between the inheritance Aunt Kris had left him and the money his art had generated over the last year or so, Cam had to be sitting pretty, but hearing he was staying at the Chevalier still surprised her. People like Walsh wore wealth. Not as clothing, but as skin. As scent. It had been woven into the fibers of who they were since birth. Walsh could walk into a room naked and you’d assume he came from money. It was in his bearing. In the way he looked at the world like he owned most of it, because in some ways, he did. Jo knew this because she was the same.

Even though Jo, with her trained eye, recognized the fine Italian leather of the boots hiding under Cam’s weathered jeans, she knew Cam didn’t carry wealth the way she and Walsh did. He never seemed uneasy with it. More like he’d simply added it to all the other baggage he was carting around.

“The Chevalier, huh?” Jo turned down the corners of her mouth and offered a ladylike grunt. “I’m impressed.”

“Don’t be. A…uh…friend has a suite there, and she’s letting me crash.”

Thatwas more like it. The sizzling moment she had imagined with Cam moments before fizzled into nothing. She’d watched a parade of women march through Cam’s life for more than a decade. Not shocking that some woman was so enamored she’d offer him a suite at one of the most luxurious hotels in the world.

“You sure it’s okay for me to stay?”

“Yeah, of course. She’s in Paris.” Cam pushed away from the glass, linked his arm through Jo’s, and started toward the elevators. “She’s not coming to the States until next week, and she wouldn’t mind anyway. There’s two bedrooms in the suite.”

“I’ll just call Pierce, Uncle Martin’s driver.” Jo pulled her phone from her bag. “He picked me up and has my things. We can bum a ride to the hotel if you want.”

“Sounds great.” Cam glanced once more over his shoulder at the infants behind the glass. “I need a drink. I didn’t see my day turning out like this.”

Seeing Cam after he’d ignored her for the last six months. Witnessing Walsh’s twin girls come into the world. The day had held more than one surprise. And she couldn’t prove it, but she felt like there might be more to come.

Chapter Four

Cam followed Jo down the silk-wallpapered passageway toward the Chevalier suite he’d occupied the last few days. How could he not notice the way her ass corrupted the straight and narrow line of the dress so beautifully, her body firm and cursive beneath the clinging fabric? Jo had never been a small woman. Five feet ten shoeless, and looking him right in the eye in her four-inch heels. Her breasts, just enough to overflow his palms. Her legs, infinite and sleekly muscled. Everything was tight and lean. But her ass? A lush anomaly. An exaggerated curve from the trim line of her back. You couldn’t help but marvel at it. You would have thought it was Stonehenge the way his cock responded. Hard and ready and in awe.

It was torture and it was foolishness to ask her to stay with him tonight.

Notwithhim. In the suite. Thetwo-bedroomsuite.

He’d known this thing was stirring in him at Christmas. This compulsion to look and to wonder how things would be with Jo wasn’t a new fight. He’d fought it at fifteen when Jo invited him to the Sadie Hawkins dance. When she’d suggested they attend senior prom together. When with every look she told him he had a chance. He wasn’t oblivious to what Jo felt. He just knew better. Would it be good with her? Probably addictively good, but Jo had always been, besides Ms. Kris, the stalwart supporter in his life. The one he could count on to think the best of him, even at his worst.

Cam had a special talent for ruining beautiful things. Like the dark, beautiful images he painted on the sides of condemned buildings, destined for the wrecking ball.Hewas the wrecking ball. He had wrecked his marriage to Kerris. He had killed Amalie.

And so much more. So much more. Things he’d never confessed but couldn’t forget.

He wouldn’t destroy the person who had embodied unconditional love to him. Jo was the one beautiful thing he’d spare.

“Which one is it?” Jo looked over her shoulder, just in time to see his eyes trained on that glorious derriere. Her raised brow asked the question she didn’t have to voice.

“You have something right, um…” This was lame, but he dove deeper into the crap pile. “Right here on the back of your…dress.”

Jo peered over her shoulder, down the line of her back, and then back up at him.

“A stain?”

“No, a, uhhhh…” He reached to pull some nonexistent fluff from her dress, flicking uselessly with his empty fingers. “Just lint.”

“Lint.” Skepticism dropped her chin into her neck, leaving her silvery eyes staring at him from beneath the dramatic arch of her dark brows. “Okaaaay. Do I need a compass or are you planning to tell me where we’re going?”

“Sorry.” He glanced ahead, nodding toward their destination. “There. Only a few suites on this floor. That’s hers.”

Jo leaned up against the wall while he opened the door, slim hand on the handle of her Louis Vuitton roll-on. She closed her eyes and dropped her head forward until her hair obscured her face. The color of the milkiest chocolate and streaked with caramel, it had grown past her shoulders. The thick, silky waves were the wildest thing about Jo. Cam had always marveled at her discipline. Her control. She was a woman of limits and boundaries. He was the kind of wicked guy who wanted to blur all her lines, kiss her until her inhibitions melted and her walls fell away. That wild hair tempted him to do it.

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