I lifted the hem of his shirt and urged him to remove it. Any thoughts about going slow and trying to talk shit out first flew out the window when Ford ripped the shirt off and then looked down at me with his luminous eyes. His skin was flushed with color and he was panting. His hands came up to cup my face like he needed to study me in the same way. His thumb brushed over my lower lip.
“Show me what you like, Cam,” he breathed as he toyed with my sensitive flesh.
“I like you, here, like this,” I responded. I dropped a hand so I could rub it up and down his jean-clad thigh.
Ford leaned down and softly kissed me. “Can I take this off?” he asked as he slid his hands to the buttons of my shirt. The fact that he thought he had to ask me the question was proof that he had no clue what kind of hold he had over me.
I cradled the back of his head with my hand as I held our mouths together. But I didn’t kiss him. Instead, I said, “Ford, don’t you get it yet?”
“Get what?” he whispered.
I told myself to keep my response vague or I’d scare him off. Or, at the least, prove to him how much power he truly held over me. But when I spoke it was the truth that came out.
“You own me, Ford. You fucking own me.”
Chapter Sixteen
Ford
You own me, Ford. You fucking own me.
His words caused more tears to prick the backs of my eyes. I’d never met anyone as open and forthright as Cam. He said exactly what he meant and I knew it was the same now. I could see the vulnerability in his eyes as he waited for me to respond. I didn’t understand the connection he and I had, but it was like I’d told him.
It felt right.
I believed it was right.
I didn’t want to consider anything beyond that at the moment.
I just wanted to be with him. I wanted to feel safe and protected and needed and I wanted to give those things back to him.
After leaving the sanctuary, I’d been frantic.
Positively frantic.
I’d called the police station over and over but the receptionist had told me she couldn’t give me any information about Cam. Then I’d just started driving. I’d automatically made the assumption that an injured Cam would have been taken to the ER in Greenville, since that was the biggest medical center in the area. I’d once again run into people unwilling to give me information but fortunately Jodi, the nurse who’d taken me to see Walter the day he’d gotten hurt, had seen me in the ER. She’d told me that Cam wasn’t there but that she’d heard on the news about a police officer being shot outside Duluth, which was several hours away. I’d used my phone to read every single breaking news story I could find about the shooting while Jodi had tried to find out which hospital Cam had been taken to.
When she hadn’t been able to find any information at all, I’d been a wreck. The only information I’d found online had been about an officer being shot while assisting police in a small town outside Duluth called Elk River. The officers had been serving a warrant when they’d been fired on and the suspect had escaped into the woods. A foot chase had ensued for hours and the suspect had eventually carjacked a woman with two kids. Gun fire had been exchanged and the suspect had been killed. The mom and kids had been unharmed but I still had no clue what Cam’s role had been.
“What happened today?” I asked as I caressed Cam’s face. My body was crazy with need, but I couldn’t calm my racing brain as I considered how close I’d come to losing him. I’d had visions of him coming back to his house and me walking up to him only to find his body cold and stiff and unyielding. After what had happened to me at Fright House when I’d been a kid, I’d stopped believing in ghosts, but tonight I’d been so afraid that Cam was gone from this earth that my mind had started going to all the places it’d been when I’d been in that pond as a child.
Cam was still rubbing my thigh but his touch softened just a bit.
“I was helping the cops in Elk River pursue a suspect.”
I nodded. “He took a mom and her kids hostage,” I said. “I saw the story but it didn’t mention you… just an officer getting shot.”
“That was me,” he said. “The media has a tendency to jump to conclusions. I was shot but the bullet just grazed me. I was at the hospital only long enough to get a few stitches.”