C
am placed the steaks on plates, accessorizing the perfectly grilled meat with a rainbow of grilled vegetables. Unc had taught him well. If painting didn’t work out, there was a future for him in grilling. Hopefully, Jo would agree.
He’d called her a few minutes ago on the intercom and gotten no answer. As much as he dreaded it, he would have to go to her room and wake her up. He still needed a cold shower after seeing those stripper shorts she’d worn earlier. He pleaded with the patron saint of erections that she had changed clothes. He wasn’t sure how much more he could “down boy” his cock before things got embarrassing.
How many times had he entered her bedroom without a thought? Now he’d rather perform a root canal
on himself
than open this door. He knocked¸ leaving his hand on the doorknob while he waited.
No answer.
Well, damn.
Cam opened the door a centimeter at a time and padded across the huge area rug. Jo’s suite included an elegant sitting room, decorated in clean, modern lines with the cool colors she favored. Pictures of him and her family topped the surfaces and graced the walls. He paused in front of the fireplace where a photo of Jo and Ms. Kris hung. The two faces, so much alike, outshone the sun setting into the river behind them. If there was a God, and sometimes Cam believed there had to be, He had loaned these two angels to the earth.
To him.
He’d already lost one, and Jo’s light in his life dimmed more every time he shoved her away.
He could see into her bedroom through the open door. She lay curled into a scantily clad knot on the huge bed. Her hair rioted around her, like hot chocolate spilled against the cool green of the divan. He glanced around at the personal minutia of her space. The dress she’d apparently worn to work today lay on the gray-green leather love seat, and a pair of strappy heels stood at attention on the floor.
He made his way into her room and just watched her for a few moments. She must be exhausted to sleep through the intercom, his knock on the door, and him walking around. She worked too hard. He suspected everyone had shoved her feet into Ms. Kris’s impossibly large designer shoes, expecting her to take up where her aunt had left off. With more competence and grace than even she had probably known she possessed, Jo had stepped into those shoes and impressed everyone. Expanding programs Ms. Kris had started. Venturing into vistas the board hadn’t even considered. Jo handled things. She took care of people. And for the first time, Cam admitted to himself how much
he
wanted to take care of
her
. To be a person, a place where she could relax and refuel and receive the unconditional acceptance she had always extended to him.
Cam shut his eyes, castigating himself for even the thought. He kept leaving that gate open. The gate locking away his emotions, his thoughts…his dreams about Jo. He’d known since he’d first met her at camp all those years ago that someone like Jo needed a guy he could never be. And he’d been stuffing these damned urges away ever since. He’d dated other girls, fucked other girls. Hell, even married one. But this had never really gone away, as much as he’d hidden it from everyone.
Most of the time, hidden it from himself.
But things kept slipping. Not only the guard he’d kept on his feelings for Jo, but also the horrors of his childhood visited him now every night. That monster, that demon, had been consigned to hell, but he somehow kept slithering into Cam’s dreams.
Yeah, things kept slipping. No way could he give in to these feelings when his hold on…things…on himself was this shaky.
Jo stirred, drowsiness clearing from her eyes. She didn’t realize he was there yet. She sat up and the strap of her camisole slipped down her arm. She bundled the wild hair tumbling around her shoulders into a fist. Glancing to the right, she jumped and yelped a little when she saw him.
“Cam, good grief! You scared me. Geesh.”
“Sorry.” He took a cautious step in her direction. “I called you on the intercom and I knocked. Guess you were pretty tired.”
“Yeah.” She threw her legs over the side of the bed, feeling around with her bare feet for something. “The time difference in Kenya is killing me. We had another really early call.”
Cam spotted a pair of leather flip-flops under the love seat. He grabbed them and squatted in front of Jo, slipping them onto her feet. His fingers skimmed the smooth skin of her ankle, lingered at her soft heel before he stood back up. Her eyes, wide with surprise, locked with his.
“I’m sorry.” He took another step back. “I just realized you were looking for your shoes and I…”
You knelt at her feet like a servant and put her shoes on for her. And then you copped a foot-feel. Perv.
“It’s um…it’s fine.” Jo pushed off the bed, tugging at the shorts, which couldn’t be much longer than her panties. If she could even wear panties with those.
Please change clothes. Please change clothes. Please change clothes.
He wouldn’t ask again. That would alert her to how turned on he was.
Like your dick at half-mast won’t send that memo.
He turned toward the door, crossed the sitting room, and tossed words back to her.
“Dinner’s ready.” He paused at the threshold into the hall. “It’s cooled off outside some. Thought it’d be nice to eat in the gazebo by the river.”
Silence answered him. That had been Ms. Kris’s favorite way to eat dinner, especially on summer evenings.
“I haven’t eaten down there since Aunt Kris got sick.” Jo’s voice barely cleared a whisper. “I’d like that a lot.”
* * *
If he had hoped perfectly grilled red meat, crisp summer vegetables, and the quaint setting would ease things between them, he had been wrong. The fairy lights decked the gazebo in twinkles, but nothing about their conversation sparkled. Clanking dishes. Chewing and swallowing. Sipping. Those were the only sounds. The gazebo was a lovely cell and awkwardness their warden.
Jo finally laid down her steak knife, pushed her plate away, and took one more sip of her cabernet before standing and moving over to the gazebo bench. She folded her legs up, wrapped her arms around them, and laid her forehead against her knees.
“I’m tired of this, Cam.” Jo’s words were smashed against her knees, but the message was still clear. “So tired.”
“Of what?” He was coward enough to hold on to these last few seconds before she forced him to make hard choices. To say hard things.
“Of this thing that we almost are, never were.” She turned until her back was against the gazebo wall and she faced him, feet flat on the floor. Eyes pinned to him. “That we could be, if you’d let us.”
“Jo, that can’t happen.”
She blinked a few times in quick succession. Maybe she hadn’t expected him to face it head-on. Couldn’t blame her when he’d been running from this conversation, from this moment for months. Maybe for years. He had to stop running long enough to let her go. To really let her go so she would realize he wasn’t for her.
“Why not?”
The fairy lights teased out the caramel streaks in the dark hair falling past her shoulders. Her posture, always so straight, bent toward him. Begging him to bend, too, like a displaced goddess asking a mere mortal for permission. For direction. He couldn’t stand it.
“I’d hurt you, Jo.” He swallowed, throat and mouth dry despite the wine he still tasted.
“You mean…sexually? Like you’re into kinky stuff?”
An ill-timed laugh slipped past his lips. With her flushed cheeks, licked-wet lips, and want-wide eyes, Jo looked like she might be up for that.
“No. Well, maybe sometimes, but that’s not what I meant.” He caressed the blade of his steak knife, contemplating how much he should say. “There is a lot you don’t know about me, Jo.”
“I know you.” She leaned her elbows on her knees, her face so earnest and sure. “I’ve known you over half our lives. We’ve known each other since we were little more than children.”
Cam hadn’t been a child by the time he’d met Jo. He’d mimicked innocence. He’d domesticated himself to fit in, but he had always known a full-grown beast lurked just beneath the surface. And lately, that beast had been scratching at the lining of his belly. Clawing to get out. Famished. Feral. Furious.
On a leash that kept slipping.
He had hoped to keep Jo. To have her on his terms. Friendship. Relegating her to the edges of his life. To a safe periphery, but she kept coming. Kept pushing. Kept
loving
him. He knew that. He could admit to himself that he knew. That it frightened and thrilled him equally.
He got up and walked over to the gazebo bench, squatting in front of her. Taking her hands between his. He looked into her watching, waiting eyes.
“Jo, you want something I can’t ever give you.”
Pain tweaked her features, making her mouth tremble and her eyebrows bunch up.
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You son of a bitch. What the hell do you think you’ve been doing all these years?” Jo stood up, charging to the far side of the gazebo and swinging around to face him. “You think it didn’t hurt when you turned me down for the Sadie Hawkins dance? When you screwed one of my dorm mates? When I planned your
wedding
because I thought Kerris would make you happy?”
Cam had no words. It had all happened. It had all hurt. It was all true. He waited for more vitriol. More fire and fury, but like an invisible hand had swiped all the emotion from her face, Jo’s expression smoothed and hardened into a resin of resolve.
“You know what, you’re right.” She shook her head, hands retracted into tight fists at her side. “Get out of my life. We’ll do this exhibit and then have no contact. None whatsoever.”
He knew it was for the best, but having her
evict
him from her life stung like a wasp.
“And you know what I’m gonna do, Cam?” She held one finger in the air, a fake
Eureka!
all over her face. “I’m going to date Peter. I’m going to fuck Peter. I’m going to marry Peter. Would that make you happy?”
No. No. No.
Cam sprang to his feet, but stopped himself from walking to her. He just looked at her, allowing her the privilege of ripping more holes in him with her sharp words.
“But before you go, you’re going to do one thing for me.” The resolve slid around on her face for a moment before she locked it back into place. “You’re going to tell me something real.”
Something real might break him. The emotions, the urges, the desires under these protective layers would change everything. And if Jo scented any of it, she’d never let it go.
“Jo, I got nothing.”
“Well, let me tell you something real, you coward.” Jo’s words squeezed around his neck like a choking hand. “I would have done anything for you. I
have
done anything for you. I wanted you to be my first date. My first kiss. My first lover. And you could have been.
We
could have been, if you’d had the balls to take me. But you didn’t want me.”
“Jo, I’m sorry.”
“You know what I’m sorry about?” The anger in her voice slumped into a sob. A sniffle. A broken cry that wrecked her face. “I’m sorry I didn’t kick you out of my life sooner. I’m done with you. Done with this game you keep playing. You make me feel foolish. Like some idiot girl with a crush. I am
not
that girl. And you reduce me to that.”
“I don’t mean to.” The urge to hold her, to touch her, scalded his hands until his fingers twitched. He dropped his eyes to the gazebo floor. “I don’t want that.”
“I’m not doing this anymore.” Tears wet her words and broke his heart. “Just go. I finally got the message. You don’t want me.”
Her last words fell apart as the tears took over. Cam glanced up, and what he saw ripped his heart right down the blackened middle. Jo stood, shoulders shaking, lips clamped together imprisoning a sob, a hand covering her eyes like she couldn’t stand to watch him walk away. His heart and his will had been circling one another for so long over this girl, now a woman. His will had ruled, barely, pulling his heart into line. Cam felt the shift in power, and there was nothing he could do to stop this act of sedition. The weariness that sets in when you forget what you’re fighting for, or when surrender looks too sweet, was his undoing.
His heart rebelled and he turned and walked over to Jo. He stopped just inches from her, both hands taking hold of her face, hot with her tears. He dipped his head until his lips rested right next to her ear. He pushed one hand into her hair and slid the other down her arm, lacing their fingers.
“Not want you?” He inhaled the scent buried beneath her hair. “I fight myself not to take you.”
Jo stiffened, uncovering her eyes and blinking up at him, uncertain surprise flitting across her face. She pulled her lips into her mouth. She reached up, pushing a chunk of hair behind his ear, tracing a finger over his eyebrows before touching his mouth.
She rose on her toes, straining up until her breath, her words misted his lips:
“Stop fighting and kiss me.”
“I can’t.” Even as he said it, his hands, vagabonds wandering from her arms to her waist and her hips, cupped her butt, drawing her so close she wouldn’t be able to escape how hard he was. “I’m not good, Jo. There are things you need to know that I’m not ready to tell you.” Cam dropped his head to the velvety skin between her neck and shoulder. He feathered kisses up to her ear and whispered, “Be sure.”
Jo pulled back, gripping his face between her hands, resting her elbows against his chest, and holding his eyes captive with hers.
“I am.”
He ignored his conscience, that voice that had told him from day one he could never be good enough for someone like Jo, and he did it.
He kissed her.
A
t thirteen years old, Jo had fantasized about her first kiss. In her mind, it would be with Cam. She had practiced on her pillow and French-kissed her hand. She had positioned herself just so during Spin the Bottle, but Cam’s bottle had never landed on her. He’d never even hinted that he’d wanted to kiss her, that he fantasized about her, too. So all she’d had were daydreams. And in those daydreams, Cam nibbled at her lips. Slipped his tongue into her mouth, shy as she was. He was gentle and careful.
This was not that kiss.
This kiss was made of sweet smoke and embers. It sizzled on her lips and seared her senses until she could only feel and taste and touch and see him. The whole universe whittled down to this man completely possessing her with a kiss. Sucking her tongue into his mouth. Pulling her lips between his teeth for tantalizing bites.
Cam walked them backward with slow, measured steps until he eased onto the bench, never leaving space between their mouths. He pulled her bare legs to either side of his hips, pressing against her back until her breasts were crushed against his chest. He lowered his head, nudging the straps of her camisole aside with his lips and sucking on her naked shoulder. Jo moaned, tipping her head back until her hair rained between her shoulder blades. Cam pushed the camisole down around her waist and pulled her breast into his greedy mouth. With every pull of his lips and tongue, she rolled her hips against him, a steady, sensual syncopation that shoved Jo over the edge. She took shelter against his chest, gripping his neck, huffing hot air into the collar of his shirt. Her thighs tightened around his hips, and her body released in shivers and whimpers and shudders.
She stilled little by little, falling against him, limp and pliant. Cam pushed her hair behind her shoulders, raining kisses over her collarbones and nipples until they peaked and begged for his mouth again. He suckled at her, sliding his hands inside her shorts, squeezing her butt and urging her against him.
“Cam, I just—”
“I know.” He looked up, anointing her nipples with his words. “It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I want it again and again and again.”
Joy pooled at the bottom of her soul and bubbled up until she couldn’t contain it. It spiraled through her chest and erupted from her lips. She slid her fingers into Cam’s hair, holding him still while
she
possessed
him
. Licking into his mouth, kissing down his chin, sucking at his neck. Marking him as hers.
“Let me stay tonight.” His voice, dark and husky, settled around them in the gazebo, harmonizing with the quiet swoosh of the river just beyond the bank.
“I’d like that.” She kissed down his neck, brushing his hair behind his ears. “Just so you know, I’ve never, um…it usually takes more than that for me to…well, let’s just say I’ve never been that responsive.”
Cam’s chuckle vibrated into her chest. He pulled up the straps of her camisole, leaving a chaste kiss on each shoulder.
“Good to know.”
“Cam, I’m serious. I’ve never…What
was
that?”
“
That
is what I was afraid of.” Cam brushed his fingers down her cheek, across her lips, down her arm. He lifted her wrist to his lips. “I knew it would be like that for us.”
Jo slapped his chest, causing him to rear back, wearing his
what-was-that-for
face.
“And you wait seventeen years to give me
that
?”
Cam grinned, passing his hands up and down her arms.
“I suspected it would be intense for us, but I didn’t ever plan to find out for sure.”
“Cam, why?” Jo scooted off his lap, landing beside him on the bench, grabbing his hand and studying his profile. “Why waste so much time?”
Cam looked down at their joined hands, stroking Jo’s thumb with his.
“I have a lot to tell you.” He looked up, the plea forming on his face before he voiced it. “But not tonight. It can wait. I just want us to enjoy tonight.”
After that little episode, so did Jo. She hadn’t dry humped anyone in a long time, and it had never been like that. She stood to her feet, eager to clear the dishes and get Cam in her long-too-cold-and-lonely bed. He stood and grabbed around her waist from behind.
“I’m staying tonight, but I want us to take things slow.” He kissed behind her ear. “I mean…with sex.”
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. And
spooned
her, 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?