Valentine (On Dublin Street 5.5)

“But you fucked up too.”

I stiffened.

“I know I should have noticed,” he said. “But I’m also not a mind reader. It should never have gotten to this point, Jo. You should have told me that you were worried I didn’t want to be with you.” He tugged gently on my hair, tipping my head back.

I could just make out his features but I didn’t need to see them clearly to know there was anger in his eyes.

“We’re stronger than this. What happened?”

Just like that the panic was back. “It… it was a combination of things I think. I’ve been feeling a bit … a bit off about getting older,” I admitted. “With Belle turning four this year and Cole getting married soon … and us not having sex in a while … it’s all just built up. Joss was right. I kept it to myself too long. Explosion was inevitable.” I sighed, miserable with myself.

“Jo,” he said, and I could hear the incredulity in that one word, “You are still the most beautiful woman I have ever known. I will never want anyone the way I want you.”

“You have to promise,” I curled my fist in his T-shirt, “Not to disappear on me again, and I will promise to let you know what’s going on in my head.”

“I promise,” he said immediately.

I tucked my head against his chest and closed my eyes. Things weren’t magically mended between us, but we’d get there. When we were younger and just starting out we’d had the argument to end all arguments and still we made it through it.

“I’m sorry about Ally,” he said. “You’re right. I should be taking whatever chance I get to be with you and Belle. If it had been you in that office, chatting away to some guy, and I walked in on that scene with the kinds of thoughts in my head that were in yours tonight, I would have killed the guy.”

“I know Ally was just a catalyst for our bigger problems… but I didn’t like the look in her eyes when she’s looking at you, Cam, and that’s not paranoia.”

“I will make it clear I am one hundred percent not interested. I promise you that.”

I gave him the words I knew he needed to hear. “I trust you.”

“Thank you, baby.” He hugged me harder. “I love you. I will never take you for granted again.”

He held me close until eventually the tension melted out of my body and sleep reached out to take me.

***

“Baby.”

I buried deeper against my pillow, shutting out the voice that was trying to wake me. Hadn’t I just fallen asleep?

“Baby, wake up.”

I slowly opened my eyes, blinking against the glow of light in our bedroom. My bedside lamp was on and the clock radio said it was eleven thirty.

We’d gone to bed at nine o’ clock. Less than three hours ago.

What the hell?

I glanced at Cam who was sitting beside me, fully clothed. “What are you doing?” I mumbled, rubbing at my eyes. They felt swollen from crying earlier.

He took my hand. “We only have thirty more minutes left of Valentine’s Day.”

Sleepy but intrigued, I let him tug me out of bed and I followed him through the cool, dark flat in my pajamas.

When we stepped into our living room I gasped.

Candles covered the mantle over the fireplace, our coffee table and any surface that would hold one. On the floor in front of the fire Cam had set up a picnic of snacks and wine. In the middle of it all was a huge heart-shaped box of chocolates.

I stared at him in questioning awe.

“I nipped out to the twenty four hour supermarket.” He smiled coaxingly at me.

Tears pricked my eyes and I grabbed his hand. “Thank you.”

He reached for me, tugging me toward him and pressing my body against his so there wasn’t even a speck of air between our torso. “I will never fuck up like this again. I promise you that.”

I nodded. “Me neither.”

He brushed his lips over mine, a seductive whisper of promises still to come. I shivered in anticipation. I’d missed him in more ways than one.

“Come on.” He led me down onto the rug and I laughed at the mini sausage rolls and quiches he’d heated up.

“It’s all they had. It’s not quite La Cour.”

I grinned, shaking my head. “It’s perfect.”

We started eating and I just then realized how hungry I was.

“So tell me about Dee,” Cam said, sipping on his glass of wine. “Is she okay?”

I frowned, remembering how scared she’d been as we waited for the results of her screening. She’d found a lump four weeks ago but thankfully it had turned out to be a cist. “She’s fine. We got a fright but she’s fine.”

“Next time shit like that is going down you grab me by the hair, the balls, whatever the fuck you can grab, I don’t care, and you yell at me you need to talk. Okay?”

I stared into his eyes. “I will. I’m sorry I didn’t.”

He lowered his gaze and his wine, and I waited, recognizing the troubled look on his face. “Would you really try to leave me?”

I closed my eyes, wishing I’d never said that. It was the heat of the moment, it was my own pain talking.

But I’d hurt him.

“It would have to take a hell of a lot to make me leave you, Cameron MacCabe.”

He looked up at me now and I shivered at the heat, the longing… the determination in his eyes. “I would follow you, you know. I would follow you to the ends of the earth to convince you to come back to me. I will never stop fighting for you.”

And that right there…. That was one of the many reasons I loved him. “I just needed the reminder. Not everyone has a love like ours, Cam. I was terrified we were becoming just… ordinary.”

His answer to that was to push the food out of the way and crawl toward me.

My breath hitched as he nudged my legs apart and pressed his body against mine until I had no recourse but to lie back on the floor beneath him. He braced himself over me, one hand caressing my thigh.

“It’s been too long. I need to be inside you, baby.”

I nodded, speechless as arousal flushed hot and tingling between my legs and in the swell of my breasts. “I need you too.”

Cam slowly stripped me of my pajamas and his own clothes until I was lying naked in the glow of the candlelight and he was braced on his knees over me. I drank in the sight of him, of the warm light highlighting the hard, muscular body that was maintained by the gym and his martial arts training. I had to admit part of me had resented his immoveable commitment to his fitness these last few months—more time given to something else other than me.