“Just say it, Reggie. It won’t kill you. If you’re going to be with the three of us.”
“If I’m going to be with the three of you, there has to be trust and openness between all of us, not just between you and me and then between me and Sawyer and me and Hutch.”
“I understand. We all do. Believe me when I say discussing my sexual history with two other guys is not something that thrills me, but what each of us do or have done affects the others. All of us. So we have to address it. But, Reggie? It’s not going to be a long conversation.”
She lifted an eyebrow in question.
“There hasn’t been anyone else for me in a long time. Not since I came to terms with my feelings for you. I don’t know for certain, but given what I know about the way Hutch and Sawyer feel about you, I can’t think it’s any different for them.”
“Are you trying to say you’ve all been celibate? That there hasn’t been anyone in the last year?”
“Not just the last year. Years.”
Shock rounded her mouth. And close on the heels of that surprise came swift and agonizing guilt. Oh God. While she’d been off having her one-night stand and doing her best to prove she didn’t need him, he’d been waiting for her.
Cam let go of her shoulders and turned to the side, shoving his hands into his pockets. “I’m not a saint. I can’t speak for the others. There were women. Especially in college. One or two afterward. But when I realized I was in love with you, other women ceased to exist for me.”
Love. The word sizzled through her brain like a fire fueled with gasoline.
She knew they felt deeply for her. Even loved her in a way. It was hard not to love one another when their friendship had run so deep for so long.
But to hear him say, so matter-of-factly, that he was in love with her weakened her at the knees. It called to a long buried need in her that blossomed and strained to be set free.
She wanted to be loved. Maybe she’d always wanted it. But it was something she’d learned to live without.
“You love me?” she whispered.
He gave her the strangest look. The longer he looked at her, the more complex his expression became.
“You don’t know, do you? You really don’t know what I feel for you?”
He moved in close, still staring at her with those intense brown eyes, so dark they made her shiver.
“I’ve always loved you, Reggie darling. Always. But I realized I wasinlove with you two years ago. I watched you being sworn in to your position as a police officer, and I can still remember the panic that hit me right in the chest as I realized the risk you would be taking. I broke into a cold sweat when I realized that this was something I couldn’t protect you from. And then I contemplated the possibility of losing you, and that’s when it hit me that I didn’t just love you, didn’t feel some deep affection reserved for a long-standing friendship. I was completely and utterly, hopelessly in love with you.”
“I don’t even know what to say,” she said in a lost and confused voice she couldn’t control.
“You don’t have to say anything,” Cam said in his gentle, understanding way. “That’s what’s so great about love. It’s freely given. It doesn’t require understanding or a response. Just know that you have mine.”
She buried her face in his chest. She quaked against him, unable to stanch the raw emotion that raged through her heart.
He rained tiny kisses over her hair as his hands smoothed up and down her back.
“I—I love you too, Cam,” she said quietly. And in that moment, she knew she meant it. She only hoped to God that it was enough to get them through the difficulties that lay ahead.
His arms tightened around her, and he shook as he slowly pulled her away from him again.
“Tell me . . . tell me you don’t regret what happened between us last night,” he said.
She gazed intently at him, not holding anything back. “I don’t regret it, Cam. I won’t run this time.”
He laid his hand against her cheek, and she nuzzled into his palm, rubbing her face over his smooth skin.
“No matter what happens . . . with the others . . . it won’t ever change the way I feel about you, Reggie. I need you to know that.”
“I know,” she said softly even as her chest gave a little squeeze. What he didn’t say, however, was how they could possibly have a future together at the expense of two people they both loved.
It had to work. It was an all-or-nothing situation. One that frightened the hell out of her.
