Camellia’s thumb brushed along his wet cheek, that sliding caress that turned his heart upside down. “I’m in love with you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I’m not in the least afraid. I just have to know you’re willing to risk everything to be with me because you love me that much.”
Jonas stared down into her upturned face. He couldn’t imagine loving her more. The emotion was overwhelming. Risking his life was one thing. Risking hers was another altogether.
“Jonas, you have to trust someone.”
“I trusted Oliver and he trusted me. I let him down, Camellia. I could do the same thing to you.” His father hadn’t saved his mother, and he hadn’t been able to save his father or Oliver.
“But you didn’t let him down,” Camellia pointed out. “You saved Oliver. You found the strength to do what needed to be done. As for your father, he made his choice, and that was to gowith your mother. Jonas, you have to make a choice. You have to decide whether we’re worth the risk. I believe in us. Either you do or you don’t. But you have to be all in. All the way.”
There it was. His woman. Making her demands. Camellia was no shrinking violet. She was magnificent. And she was his. The connection between them was as real as the emotions he had for her. Nothing was ever black and white, the way he wanted the world to be. Issues always came in various shades, depending on the angle viewed. He wanted to spend the rest of his life looking at the world through the angles Camellia did.
He caught her chin and lifted it to him. “I’m choosing you. I love you, Camellia. You already know that. If you’re brave enough to take me on, then I’ll fight for us for the rest of our lives.”
He brought his mouth to hers and instantly lit a fire. The embers had to have been smoldering all along, because the moment her lips parted, it was as though he’d touched a match to a stick of dynamite. They both went up in flames.
He caught at the hem of her shirt. “Arms up, Camellia. This has to go.”
She obeyed him, arms in the air, her eyes on his. He dragged her tee over her head and tossed it onto the nearest chair. He slipped his arms around her to find the fastening of her bra.
“We could go inside, Jonas. I do have a bed,” she enticed. Her voice was breathy, a little ragged even, but there was that edge of humor he loved.
Her bra slipped into his hand, and he tossed it onto the chair, releasing her breasts into the open air. She was so beautiful to him.
“Out here, honey. Let me have you out here, where I can breathe.” The last thing he wanted to do was be inside four walls. He wanted her in his arms out in the open, surrounded by the fragrance of the exotic flowers with the cool breeze blowing on their bodies.
“You can have anything you want,” she assured him, her hands dropping to his vest.
She had it off him fast, and he managed to follow it with his shirt while she was coping with her boots and trousers. He did the same. Looking at his woman, Jonas wondered why women had a need for clothing at all. Camellia certainly didn’t. As far as he was concerned, she had the perfect feminine form.
Camellia’s laughter welled up, more felt than heard. “You just keep thinking that, Jonas.” Her arms slid around his neck again, and she tilted her face for his kiss. “Seriously, you can overlook all my imperfections and I’ll be happy.”
She didn’t have any flaws that he could see. Imperfections only made her that much more perfect. He kissed his way from the perfection of her mouth to her stubborn little chin, down her throat, to the luxury of her breasts. He could spend a lifetime feasting on her breasts. She arched her back, giving him better access, at the same time her hands cupping his heavy sac and then gripping his aching shaft with her tight fist, squeezing and pumping until he thought he might go insane if he didn’t have her soon.
Jonas lifted her, and she immediately wrapped her legs around his narrow hips to settle over the broad, very sensitive head of his cock. Catching her by her hips, he surged upward as he dropped her weight over him, driving her down onto him. She was scorching hot. Slick. A fiery silken sheath surrounding him, the friction unbelievable.
The cool breeze fanning their bodies and her little cries only added to the heat consuming them from the inside out. He didn’t know how long he spent plunging his body into hers. He did press her back to the column at one point, and when that got too crazy, he found the lounge, and they nearly tumbled to the porch floor.Neither cared. In the end, they clung to one another, fighting for breath, bodies scorching hot, dotted with little beads of sweat that the breeze dried on their skin before they managed to find their way inside for a shower and a longer, more subdued but no less satisfying time.
21
I can’t believe what you’ve done for me, Cami,” Marigold said. “I was able to hold my sons on my own without any help. I won’t say I wasn’t weak, but I did it, thanks to you. Lily came by this morning and checked me out thoroughly. No more internal bleeding at all. She took blood samples and asked me to reiterate how grateful she was that you managed to save some of the poison from the Zenith or whatever it was that my body was reacting to.”
Her words tumbled out one on top of the other, far too fast. Camellia didn’t know what to think. The Marigold she remembered never talked so quickly in any situation. She thought everything over carefully. Her husband threaded his fingers through hers and pulled her hand tight to his chest. His strange gray eyes moved over Camellia, and his face creased in a slow, genuine smile.
“We owe you so much. Thank you. No one knows how you managed to do what you did, but all the medical professionals who attempted to treat my wife’s condition believed she had no chanceof survival. They may not have said it out loud, but we knew what they meant.”
Ken Norton brought Marigold’s fingers to his lips and kissed them almost reverently. He had once been an extremely handsome man, but he’d been tortured, cut with precision and skill, until his face was a patchwork of scars. Those precise cuts appeared to sweep down his face into his neck and shoulders. What she could see of his arms bore them as well.
“I’m just so grateful I was able to help,” Camellia assured them, pouring sincerity into her voice. “Your boys are beautiful, Mari, and they definitely need you.” She sank into the leather chair facing the wide stone fireplace. “This room is amazing, Ken. I’m told you and your brother built this house yourselves.”
Ken nodded. “We did. We liked having a place to go where no one was around.” He winked at her. “Now we’re overrun with people. Makes Jack trigger-happy. He sulks because he can’t put out his traps anymore. He used to scatter them all around and then put up signs to scare any hikers away, not that we ever got any coming this way.”
Camellia laughed. It was impossible not to, especially since Jack glared at his brother and Briony nodded her head.
“Don’t look at Ken that way,” Briony reprimanded, then turned her full attention to Camellia. “Jack really did that. There were traps everywhere when I first came up here to tell him I was pregnant and Whitney’s men were trying to get me. They’d already killed one of the men I worked with in the circus and had made several attempts to kidnap me. I was terrified they’d kill one of my brothers and then force me to abort my baby. Jack was a very scary man back then.”
Jack gave a fake groan. “I’m still scary, babe.”
Briony rolled her eyes. “It’s kind of hard to be scary when you’reso good at changing diapers and you can quote pages of how-to-be-the-best-at-parenting books.”
