“Of course I do, Dom. It hurts me when I’m not a part of something you’re doing. Like I can’t be a part of your life because it’s off-limits to me. But then I see Red and she certainly can, and I don’t mean to bring her up because I know she’s nothing to you, but it makes me jealous that she can have that part of you in any way at all and I can’t.”
“I guess I always thought you shouldn’t or wouldn’t really want a part of it. It’s a dirty, nasty world. Why would you want to be in it?”
“Because you?
??re in it. And I want to be wherever you are. Don’t you see that?”
He rubs a small circle on the back of my hand, a sexy smile drifting across his face. “Come here.”
My favorite words fall on my ears, causing a spatter of goosebumps to dot my skin. I stand and walk around the table to him, sitting next to him but facing the other way.
He takes my hand and laces our fingers together, resting them on his thigh. “Let’s do this. For real this time,” Dom says. “And by that I mean no excuses. We’re all in. If you don’t think I’m good enough for you, tell me now. Because once you commit, I’m holding you to it.”
“Hold me to it, please.” I look at our hands. “And if you think I’m too much of a liability to you, tell me now. Because once I commit, I’m definitely holding you to it.”
“Please do.”
We exchange smiles, like we used to before the fight, and I feel my insides melt. He leans forward, his lips hovering over mine. His breath is hot and spicy and I can taste the desire in the air.
“Cam?”
“Yeah?”
“Can I tell you one more thing?” he asks, brushing the pad of his thumb over my bottom lip.
“Yeah.”
“Make it two.”
Laughing, I pull away, squeezing my legs together to dull my pulsing core. “What is it?”
“I cleaned out my locker today at Percy’s. I told him I wouldn’t be back in, at least not for a long time.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” I tell him.
“I did. It’s time to find other coping mechanisms for things. Guess it might have to be your body,” he shrugs.
“Oh, darn,” I deadpan.
Laughing, he looks at me with that killer smile. “The other thing?”
“Yes?”
He takes a deep breath, the smile on his face the widest I’ve ever seen it. “I love you, Cam.”
“I love you too, Dom.”
One month later . . .
Camilla
“DO YOU HAVE TO GO?” I hold my sister in my arms. We’ve done this before, said goodbye as she heads out on a new adventure, but this time feels different. “Stay here. Please.”
“Oh, stop it,” Sienna laughs, pulling away. “You can come visit me anytime. The next time Dominic turns into an ass, just hop a plane and come to Illinois.”
“I still don’t get the whole Illinois thing,” Lincoln says. “What do they know about fashion there? Isn’t it like cornfields or something?”
“Soybeans, I think,” Ford adds. “Either way, get going or you won’t make it far by nightfall.”