Be Mine Forever (19 page)

“My heart is in your hands.”

Before she had time to respond to that, he spread the paint over her chest, his fingers being extra tender around her nipples. Her chest heaved waiting for him to touch her and take her, but he didn’t. He finally met her eyes, not even looking away while he wrote across her heart with his index finger. Jo closed her eyes, focusing through just her skin on the letters he engraved there.

First came the
I
.

Jo’s heart raced from zero to a hundred.

Then the word
LOVE
.

The hope swelling up inside could only escape as a gasp through her lips.

He took his time writing the last word, slowing the motions of his fingers until she wasn’t sure he’d ever finish those three letters.

YOU

Jo gripped Cam’s shoulder, afraid her weak knees would buckle. The force of those words etched onto her chest with his love almost made her stumble. She opened her eyes, and it was what she saw in his face that shook her. Even if he hadn’t just written it there over her heart, she would have known from that look alone.

“I love you, Jo.” Cam’s voice dropped to a reverent whisper, and you would have thought he was in a church instead of standing in front of a naked woman. “I’ve been running from that for a long time.”

“Cam—”

“Baby, let me get this out.” He looked down at the words scrawled across her chest and gulped. “I didn’t want to love you.”

Jo tried not to hurt when he said it.

“Let me explain.” He reassured her with a look, with a finger drawing a heart over hers. “You are the best thing that ever happened to me, but I’m afraid I’ll be the worst thing for you. There are still things I haven’t told you.”

His eyes bore holes in the tarp under their feet.

“Dark things that I wish you’d never have to know, but one day I’ll have to tell you.”

He looked back up at her.

“If I hurt you, Jo, it will drive me out of my mind. Sometimes I already feel like I’m losing it. While I’m in my right mind, here with you, I am going to do something really selfish. I’m going to ask you not to give up on me. Sometimes I run, and if I think I’m a danger to you, I know I’ll run. Don’t give up on me.”

“I won’t.” Tears made her voice shake. “I promise.”

“I grew up in hell, and I’ve lived my whole life…not quite sure. You are the safest place I’ve ever known.”

Jo couldn’t take any more. She had spent half her life searching for the edges of this love, but she couldn’t ever find where it began or where it ended. This love was everywhere. She pressed a finger over his mouth, knowing she would explode if she didn’t expel these words running over from her heart.

“I have waited so long.” She had to stop because emotion strangled the words in her throat. The tears blurred his face in front of her. He grabbed her hands so she couldn’t cover her face. She couldn’t hide any of it from him. She didn’t have to anymore.

“I have waited so long for you to love me back.” The tears coursed down her face freely, smearing into the blue paint around her neck.

“No more waiting,” Cam whispered, standing and pressing his lips to hers, kissing her with tender ferocity.

Jo pressed into him. He laughed against her lips, pulling away to wipe the tears from her face with his thumbs. He reached into his back pocket for his phone.

“Let me capture this.” He aimed his phone at her, a tender smile on his face. “I have a feeling we are about to ruin all my hard work.”

J
o scooped up a handful of bubbles, blowing them in the air like a child. That’s how light her heart felt. How free. She still maintained the same grueling schedule at the foundation. Still carried the weight of so many children’s futures on her shoulders. Still felt saddled with people’s impossibly high expectations, but here? With Cam? The moments she spent with him seemed insulated from all the burdens beyond the bliss waiting here for her every day.

Cam leaned against the doorjamb, arms folded over his chest. Affection softened the rugged beauty of his face. She blew him an air kiss, laughing when he grimaced but rolled his eyes and caught it. He stuffed the imaginary kiss into the pocket of his jeans before coming to sit on the edge of the tub.

“Hey, you.” He leaned down, brushing his lips over hers. “Feeling better?”

It had been a hard day. Two of the couples committed to adopting had reneged. One couple had just filed for divorce; the other had been trying to have a baby the old-fashioned way for a long time and had just found out they were pregnant. Jo was happy for them, but that left her with just a few weeks to find replacements. With some members of the board holding on to their reservations, the last thing she needed now was to lose parents.

“How could I not be better?” Jo leaned back, resting her neck against the bath pillow, stretching her arms above her head. “A bath waiting at home for me. I smell a delicious steak dinner, if I’m not mistaken. My beautiful man can’t take his eyes off me.”

Cam lifted his eyes from her suds-tipped nipples to the grin waiting for him on her face.

“Sorry. I got distracted.”

“It’s okay.” Her eyes strayed over his strong, lean body. “I get distracted sometimes myself.
Is
that steak I smell?”

“Maybe.” Cam lifted his girls-would-kill-for lashes and laughed, crossing the room to rub at a blue spot on her arm. “The paint didn’t all come off?”

Jo smacked the water, sending a tiny wave into his face. He reared back, falling onto his butt and pulling his knees up, shaking water from his hair.

“No, it didn’t all come off.” Jo pushed back the suds covering her stomach, pointing to the faint traces of the Heineken six-pack he’d drawn there. “I walked around with a beer gut all day thanks to you.”

“As long as you keep running ten miles a day, I don’t think you have to worry about a beer gut.” His eyes remained on her stomach, and something soft and curious replaced the laughter.

“What are you thinking about right now?” Jo laid her forearms on the lip of the tub, resting her chin on top. “Gun-to-the-head answer.”

A microscopic smile barely curved his lips. He shook his head, a dismissal of his thoughts.

“Let’s see.” Jo tilted her head on her arms, biting her bottom lip. “You were staring at my stomach, so…”

She couldn’t bring herself to voice the thought persisting in her mind. What if she was wrong? How embarrassing that would be.

“Never mind.” She sat back in the tub, gathering suds to cover her stomach and breasts.

Cam crawled across the small space to the tub and stood on his knees beside her. He pushed the bubbles away again, exposing the lean muscles of her stomach, tracing a finger down the center, lingering at her belly button.

“I was wondering how you’d look pregnant.”

Even though that had been her guess, hearing him say it aloud set windmills spinning in her chest.

“And this imaginary pregnancy, where I get fat and unsightly.” Jo captured the finger tracing her stomach, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Is the baby yours?”

Cam intertwined their fingers across her belly, tracing the wet skin with his thumb.

“You’d go half in on a kid with me, Jo?” Cam’s voice was deliberately light, but the question weighed so much it took both of them to hold it, and she didn’t hesitate with her response.

“I’d throw my pills out tonight if you asked me to.”

Cam hauled himself over in the water with her, fully clothed, boots and all. He settled his chest on hers, pushing the damp hair away from her face. The water sloshed over the side of the tub, but Jo didn’t care and Cam didn’t seem aware of anything but her.

“When the time is right, then.” Cam rubbed his lips across her collarbone, nipping the skin of her neck gently between his teeth. “Can’t remember. Did I mention that I’m in love with you?”

“It came up last night, yes.” Jo laughed, resting her elbows on his shoulders and scooping suds into his dark hair.

“If I don’t get out of this tub, that won’t be the only thing that comes up.” Cam thrust between her hips and leered playfully.

“Since when is that a bad thing?” Jo pouted, tugging on his hair to keep him in place when he tried to leave the tub.

“Since I’m behind on my deadline for this protocol. I really do need to get unstuck.” He dropped a kiss on her cheek and hoisted himself out of the tub. “Creatively, I mean.”

Jo enjoyed the show as Cam peeled his wet T-shirt over his head and discarded the jeans and boxers, standing without self-consciousness in nothing but the glorious olive-hued skin God gave him.

Oh, mercy, mercy me.
After dating Cam for a few months, she could quote Marvin Gaye backward and forward, and looking at the lean muscles of Cam’s arms and chest, the sharp cut at his hips, the well-defined abs—that lyric said it better than she ever could.

He left the bathroom for a few moments, coming back unfortunately dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt.

“You’re going to be pickled if you don’t get out of there soon.” He rubbed a towel across his water-darkened hair. “And your steak is getting cold.”

“I knew it.” Jo fist pumped and climbed out of the tub. “You’re not eating with me?”

Cam’s emotions went into hiding. He turned away from her, but Jo noted the tighter shoulders and tenser tone of voice.

“No, I think I’m going back to my old neighborhood. Find a bridge or an alley to paint. Graffiti does it for me sometimes. Unsticks me. Inspires me.”

From what she could tell, his old neighborhood had been hell for him. If Cam was venturing back into hell, she was going with him.

“Can I come?”

“No way.” Cam shook his head and headed back into the bedroom. “I’ll see you when I get back.”

Jo speed-walked into the closet where she’d transferred a good quarter of her wardrobe from home, scrambling to find a pair of skinny jeans and a cropped hoodie. She threw on some flats, twisted her hair up into a knot on her head, and zipped to the studio. Cam was loading paints and spray cans into a saddlebag. He glanced up, a frown settling on his brow.

“You’re not coming with me, babe.”

Jo had never thought of herself as having feminine wiles, but she also hadn’t lived twenty-nine years as the Walsh “princess” without learning a thing or two about getting her way.

“I just…” Jo paused, leaning against the table and looking down at the floor, biting her lip.

“I just missed you today, and with the adoptions falling through…” Jo sighed, shrugged, blinked quickly as if she might cry. “I kind of need you right now is all.”

She kept her eyes stuck to the floor but noted Cam’s motions slowing until he stopped altogether and stared at her. He crossed the room, saddlebag slung over his shoulder. He tipped her chin up, searching her eyes. It really had been a hard day. She focused all her energy on looking like she was at the end of herself.

“It’s not the best place, baby.” Cam rolled his thumb over her cheekbone.

“But I’d be with you, so I’d be okay, right?”

She didn’t exactly flutter her lashes because that would tip Cam off right away, but she did this slow blink thing that she hoped might have a similar effect.

“Well…” Cam chewed the corner of his mouth and then blew a breath out. “Okay, I guess you can come.”

She followed him back into the living room, promising herself she would never underestimate the power of long lashes again.

“Great. Just let me grab my purse.” Jo scooped up the Birkin bag she’d carried to work that day.

“We should probably leave that here.” Cam plucked the bag from her hands, setting it back onto the couch. “Nothing says steal me like a seven-thousand-dollar purse.”

Jo wouldn’t correct him, but good luck finding an ostrich-skin shooting star Birkin for seven thousand dollars. Now that
would
be a steal.

An hour later, Jo assessed the neighborhood they rode through. So this was Barfield projects. The first thing she noted was the almost complete absence of green. No trees. No plants. No flowers. No
life
. Not even daylight would improve this neighborhood much.

Cam drove deeper in, weaving through streets and side alleys like he’d only been here yesterday. After a few minutes, he pulled alongside a building that looked like it literally might fall over any minute. If buildings had legs, this one would be on its last.

“It’s condemned.” Cam threw one leg over the seat and unstrapped his helmet.

“Looks the part.”

Cam turned to her, tipping his mouth up at a corner. With gentle hands, he pulled off her helmet and brushed his fingers through the loose waves spilling around her shoulders. Jo climbed off the back of Cam’s Harley (
he’d looked at her like she should be committed when she asked if they were taking his Ducati
).

“You sure you won’t get bored? We won’t stay long. I just need to get some of what’s in my head on a wall.”

“No, I’ll be fine.” Jo climbed off and dug into his saddlebag, pulling out her knitting kit. “See, I brought something to do.”

Cam looked from the knitting needles to Jo’s face, maybe four times before a laugh barged past his lips.

“Babe, you brought your knitting to Barfield projects? That’s what you’re going to do while I paint?”

“What did you think I was going to do? A crossword puzzle?”

“I don’t know. Candy Crush?” Cam pulled out spray cans and started setting them on the ground close to the building. “It goes without saying that you are never to come around here by yourself, right?”

Jo observed the trash cans, the sole occupants of the alleyway. Her eyes drifted to the package store, just beyond the street, and the surreptitious hooker working that corner. Don’t come back alone? He didn’t have to tell her twice.

Cam found her a crate to sit on, propping it along the wall facing his stone canvas. There wasn’t much light, just what the streetlight provided a few feet away. She pulled up the pattern on her phone, determined to finish this scarf for her father. Knitting Harvard’s coat of arms was no easy task and required her complete focus. She concentrated so hard on getting it right, an hour had gone by before she realized it.

She glanced up, doing a double take at the colors and shapes overtaking the wall. How did he do that? Transform a slab of cement mediocrity into a Technicolor marvel? He’d painted a jungle war zone but occupied by demons and angels instead of wild animals. He’d depicted a battle, but the combatants wielded fruit and vegetables instead of weapons—hand-to-hand combat with bananas. An angel pulling the key on a pineapple grenade. A corncob held execution style to the head of a demon on his knees. It was a vivid courtship of whimsy and violence, so typical of Cam’s trademark style.

Only there was nothing typical about him. An imagination this rich. A gift this rare, and he barely acknowledged it.

He was shaking an orange can when he noticed she had stopped knitting and was gaping at the wall. The first time Cam had ever shown her one of his drawings on a napkin he’d worn the same look on his face as he did right now. Uncertain, vulnerable.

“So…what do you think?”

If she gushed, he wouldn’t believe it, so she tempered her awe, put down her knitting, and crossed over to the wall he’d transformed into an aerosol opus. She tilted her head as if considering. It was brilliant. It was museum-worthy. It was breathtaking.

“I like it.”

Those three words, not even a fraction of what she felt, wiped the anxiety from Cam’s face. He relaxed into a smile, stepping back to assess his work as if for the first time.

“You do?” He shook the can of paint but made no move to spray.

“What does it mean?” Jo scooted a few inches closer, linking their pinky fingers and laying her head on his shoulder.

“I guess it’s a commentary on how ridiculous and senseless most violence is.” Cam narrowed his eyes on the images he had sprayed on the wall. “A contrast between the foolishness of ego and agenda and all the twisted things that lead to wars and the actual cost of it. The lives. Growing up here, it was nothing to see someone shot for the sneakers they’re wearing or the jersey on their back. Sometimes I don’t think our world leaders are much more sophisticated than that when they make choices that cost people’s lives.”

Could she love him any more? Probably not, but she wanted to spend the rest of her life trying.

Jo turned her head in the direction of approaching footsteps. The alleyway sheathed the person in darkness. The closer the steps came, the tighter Cam’s hand wrapped around hers. He subtly positioned himself in front of her.

The streetlight carved the person’s features out of the dark until he was fully revealed. A man about their age or younger, wearing a Charlotte Bobcats jersey—Jo wasn’t sure which player’s—under a leather jacket. His jeans slouched dangerously low around his hips, the belt barely earning its keep. The brim of a Bobcats hat partially obscured his brown face.

“Whassup.” He flipped his chin at Cam, but his eyes inspected Jo’s curves in the skinny jeans and cropped hoodie. “Damn, girl. You ever want some dark meat, let
me
know.”

He reached out and touched her hair, which had been blown loose during the motorcycle ride.

Jo gripped Cam’s hand, stopping him from lunging at the man.

“And if you ever want your balls in a jar,” Cam said, the words barely making it through his clenched teeth, “touch her again.”

Jo had never heard Cam’s voice so low and deadly. Only moments before he had philosophized on the futility of war and violence but now looked ready to snap the stranger’s neck like a fistful of spaghetti.