Scratch the Surface

He kissed me, right there in the middle of the sidewalk. It wasn’t gentle, it was possessive and dirty, and his hand around my throat, making sure I couldn’t move, the dominance and yearning at the same time, like he’d been waiting for those words, brought on a full-body shudder I was certain no one could have missed.

When he broke the kiss, his molten honey-brown gaze was all I could see under the streetlights. “The idea of flying home alone made me sick to my stomach, but I don’t wanna be the guy who takes you away from your family. I want them to like me.”

“It’s not like I’m moving far, and it’s only until you finish school,” I reminded him. “We’ll visit in the meantime. And it’s not like I spend every night with them anyway. All I want is to live with you.”

“Are you sure?”

“I…well, I don’t want you to get sick of me,” I confessed.

“I think it’d be more like the other way around, Cam. You’ll be the one suffocating, not me.” I could hear the worry in his tone. “But thinking about you being there when I got home every night from work—that’s…”

“What?” I asked softly, brushing a bit of hair that had fallen against his cheek back behind his ear, unable to keep from touching his beard as well. “What was it?”

“I can’t remember being so happy or excited or—I mean, I unlock the front door and you’re there in those adorable pajamas and––”

“Not hot pajamas? The pajamas aren’t hot?”

He bent and kissed me, wrapping me in his arms, holding me tight, pressed to his hard muscular frame, taking his time, leaving me panting and aching by the time he unsealed his lips from mine and stared down into my eyes.

“Please come back to Sacramento with me,” he rasped. “Don’t stay here. Come home. I want you, and I need you, and I promise to make sure you know that every day. I will never take you for granted, I swear to God.”

I swallowed around the lump in my throat. “No one else has ever broken my heart, because I’ve never loved anyone before you.”

“Even Troy?”

I took a quick breath, girding myself for the confession. “At first, I thought it was time. Everyone I knew was either getting married or was married, so when he asked, I accepted.”

He was waiting, listening to me, his gaze on mine.

“But then I found out he was cheating. A lot. Repeatedly, using my father’s word.” I groaned, not feeling as stupid as I used to, more resigned now to what had been my blindness. “And after lavish promises and an agreement to begin couples therapy, we agreed not to resume the engagement but to see each other again.”

“Resume the engagement,” Jeremiah repeated. “You sound very clinical, Cam. I don’t hear any love or lust in your voice.”

“Well, no, there wouldn’t be any left now, but it’s doubtful there was any then either.”

“Then why start up again?”

I shrugged. “It felt safe, grown-up, I guess.”

“Sorry, go on.”

“This was in December, and we decided to throw a lavish New Year’s party to sort of announce that we were back together, and in the middle of that, he proposed to Derek.”

“Holy shit,” he whispered, and I saw how stunned he was, read it easily on his face.

“Well said,” I agreed.

“Oh, Cam,” he murmured and reached for me, wrapped me in his arms, holding tight, comforting me. “Oh, baby, I’m so sorry.”

I loved being crushed against him, soaking up the heat and power in his frame as well as protectiveness and nurturing. He wanted to make it all better. The thing was, I’d been over Troy Fortney for a long time. My heart was healed and ready to love when Jeremiah Wolfe walked into my life.

“And to answer your question,” I said, easing back so I could see his face, “it’s no. I never loved Troy, and I know that for certain, because how I felt about him pales in comparison to how I feel about you.”

His smug grin was all heat. “That’s fast, Cameron. So fuckin’ fast.”

It was, and somehow, at the same time, it wasn’t. “I love you,” I husked, throwing caution, and maybe my pride, to the wind. “Please stay with me and be mine. It’s supposed to be you.”

Watching his face, his smile, the softness in his eyes, I could see the last of his walls come down. I could see him reach for me and our future. “I told you before, I’m yours as long as you want me.”

“Then I want you forever.”

“Don’t say it if you don’t mean it, ’cause ya can’t take it back.”

“I’ll never take it back, I swear,” I whispered, barely able to speak.

“Then you have to live in Sacramento with me until I’m done with school, and you can’t bitch about it. You can’t whine about it being hot in the summer, ’cause it is fuckin’ hot in the summer.”