Cam held my gaze a moment longer, then something broke in him and he hauled me to my feet, towing me out of the kitchen as if I were half his size.
He pulled me into the bedroom and shut the door. Darkness enveloped us until he flicked on a lamp, and then his arms came around me like a vice, hugging me tight against his big, warm body. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “Whatever it is, it’s okay.”
It wasn’t okay and it never would be, but the cage he’d built with his arms felt like a safe room. I wanted to sink into his embrace and never resurface.
But I couldn’t. Disassociation descended on me as fast as the gut-wrenching fear had before he’d reached me, and whatever words he spoke next, I couldn’t hear them. I couldn’t hearhim, and that scared me more than anything.
Still holding me, Cam walked me to the bed. I wondered if he’d strip me naked and fuck me into acknowledging him, but he did neither. He lay me down, stretched out beside me, and held me until I did something I’d neverdone with any other man.
I fell asleep.
* * *
It was still dark when I woke upinmy bed, not on it. I was dressed in the same drawstring trousers I’d been wearing all evening, no shirt, but Cam had shed his jeans and T-shirt and somehow manoeuvred us beneath the sheets. His arms were still around me and my head was on his chest, his heart beating steadily against my cheek.
Am I dreaming?
A quiet sigh escaped me.
Maybe I was, and the gentle hand combing through my hair was something I’d never known I wanted.
“You awake down there?”
Cam’s low voice rumbled through me. I raised my head and met his gaze, diving headfirst into it before I caught myself. I still had no words, but fuck, I felt him.
Ineededhim.
Energy pooled in my veins. I squirmed in Cam’s arms. He opened them, letting me go, and snatched a sharp, surprised breath as I claimed his mouth in a kiss that was too soft and sweet to be real.
I didn’t kiss like that.
I didn’t know how, and yet somehow, I was doing it, and Cam was kissing me back, and every part of me was powerless to stop the eclipsing epiphany that swallowed me whole.I can’t give him up.
Worse, I didn’t want to.
Cam pulled back. His hair was a tousled, dark mess and I let myself tuck it behind his ears.
He grinned a little. “Tidying me up?”
“It would take more than that.”
Cam blinked. “Fuck. I was worried you wouldn’t speak to me ever again.”
“Why?”
His smile faded. “You were gone.”
“I was right here.”
His silence was his counter argument and I didn’t have the mental capacity to combat it. I sighed again, pressing my forehead to his, soaking him up. “I’m sorry.”
Cam rubbed my back. “Don’t be. I don’t need that shit.”
“What do you need?”
“To know you’re okay.”
“Why?”
