“That says more about how muchyouhave slept than me, biker boy.”
“Will you eat?”
For him, yes. Anything to stop him looking at me as though his heart would break if I didn’t. “If you let me go, I will take a shower and eat whatever you wish.”
I meant it in a way he did not yet understand. Regardless, Cam released me and ambled onwards to the kitchen, shedding his jacket to reveal the cut lines of his shoulders, the bullet scar lurking beneath his clothes. Though I couldn’t see the mark, the mere thought of it threatened the peace my heart needed if I was to give up my Bristol penthouse for good. I ran my tongue over my molars, latching onto Cam’s muttered curse instead, following him into the kitchen to where he stood by the bi-folding doors that had not been there when I’d first come to this place.
He faced a freshly dug hole in the garden, a frown creasing his face. “The fuck is that?”
“Saint did it.”
“Don’t suppose you know why?”
“I am afraid not.” I opened the utility room and claimed a clean towel. “I saw him marauding around with a shovel on the security footage, that is all.”
Cam sighed, and if he hadn’t made fun of me in the car, I might’ve felt bad for him, but I was not so kind. I kissed his neck and left him alone to ponder the fate of his garden.
Upstairs, I ignored the urge to clear a path with bleach and stood beneath the hot spray for as long as I could without Cam feeling the need to rescue me.
It was not a surprise to find him waiting in the darkened bedroom, though. He watched me gather the clothes I had taken off and fold them. Unlike Saint, he’d never commented on my habit of throwing them away after one wear, so I did not know if he’d noticed how hard I’d tried to stop.
I noticed himmovebehind me, the solid heat of his body close enough that I felt his warmth kiss my skin.
Cam caught a bead of water running down my bare back. “I still can’t believe you’re really here.”
“Where else would I be?”
“I don’t know. But when I met you... there were moments, even when we were fucking that first night, when I thought I knew for sure I’d never see you again.”
“You very nearly didn’t.”
“I didn’t turn your head as much as you turned mine?”
“The opposite. I was afraid of this thing”—I touched my chest—“that you had awakened in me. I am still afraid of it now.”
“Why?”
“Because you have shown me how it would feel to lose you.”
“You’ve given me my fair share of heart attacks.”
“I know.”
“You love me, Lexi?”
I opened a drawer, found the matches we kept there, and lit the candle that was perhaps my most precious inanimate thing in this house. Then I turned to face him—to face Cam, the soul who had shown me the way to my own. “More than I ever knew such things were possible. You did not already know?”
Cam’s lips rose to a shadowed grin. “I like hearing you say it.”
“What else do you like?”
The candlelight flickered around us, dancing in Cam’s molten gaze, the energy we shared as charged as it had always been. Cam closed the inch of space between us and released the towel at my waist.
It fell to the floor, but he kept his eyes on my face, gauging my mood. With Cam, I craved his rough touch and natural dominance as much as Saint sought to fuck him a different way. But how we got there was not a given. Sometimes I needed himonme, over me, more than I knew. Other times Saint would not allow it.
Saint was not here.
I brought my hand to Cam’s chest and splayed it where his heart beat against my palm, steady and strong beneath the cotton shirt so white and clean. “Have I ever told you how much I like this?”