“I can’t believe you would compare me to Jimmy or this Vince.”
“That’s what you’re choosing to hear, Cam? Really? That’s all you heard from everything I just said?” Frustration was making her voice squeak. She didn’t want to show any form of weakness just then, not any at all. If she did, he would never listen to her.
“No. I heard what you said, but I’m nothing like either of those men. I honor, love, and respect the people I care about. I don’t lie, cheat, or steal. So for you to compare me to them is a total insult to my character, Grace.”
“And for you to not trust me enough to live my life safely is an insult to me. I can’t be controlled. I don’t know how many times or in how many ways I have to say this before you will understand that.”
Tears threatened, but Grace would not give in to them.
Cam held her gaze, emotion burning in his eyes. She couldn’t tell what he was feeling most—frustration, anger, sadness, confusion . . . or any number of other things. But if he didn’t speak soon, maybe it was time for her to throw in the towel.
She started to rise, but Cam’s hand shot out and he grabbed her arm.
“Please,” he said quietly. “Just give me a minute.”
Grace didn’t resist when he pulled her down into his lap and wrapped her in his strong arms. Even though she didn’t want to feel like she needed anyone, it was too hard to resist the warmth that flowed through her when Cam held her. It was everything she didn’t want to feel, but that didn’t erase the fact that it was true.
She realized he really was her hero. He just needed to learn how to trust her enough to save herself sometimes.
“I know I come across as stern or controlling. I don’t want you to think I don’t trust you. It’s just that I love you, Grace,” he said, making her want to cry. “I don’t expect you to say it back to me. I don’t expect you to even believe me, not fully, but a part of you, a big part, knows what I’m saying is true. I love you and I don’t think it makes me a monster to want to protect the woman I love.”
Grace took a breath, and then another one. Her throat hurt from the effort it took not to reply to him, not to tell him what he meant to her. But she wasn’t ready for that right now. She wasn’t ready to fully trust him. When too much time elapsed, she decided to focus on the way she’d begun this conversation.
“If you care about me at all, you have to promise to start trusting me to take care of myself. You have to stop commanding me and instead be my partner.”
She waited for his reply, waited to see what he would say next. It seemed like hours, but was probably only seconds.
“I will try. But can you also allow for mistakes?”
She wasn’t expecting that at all. “What do you mean?” she asked, leaning back so she could see his eyes.
“I’ll respect you, Grace, but I’m human. I’ll make mistakes. Can you be understanding of that and give me more than one chance?”
“I’ll give you everything if you give me a reason to.”
That hadn’t been what she’d been planning to say. The words had slipped from her tongue involuntarily. But when joy lit his eyes, she didn’t regret saying them. He was trying to do right by her. She certainly could give him the same amount of effort.
“I’m going to make love to you right now, my beautiful Grace.”
“Finally,” she sighed.
Letting go, if only for a few moments, was liberating. As Cam kissed her, Grace gave him everything of herself in her response. His lips were unyielding as they captured hers, melting away the last of her resistance to this man she couldn’t let go of.
They tugged at each other’s clothing as their impatience to feel, to touch, to relearn each other’s bodies ignited their passion. The warm air breezed across Grace’s skin as Cam tossed her shirt away and then dragged off her pants, taking her panties with them.
Breaking their kiss only long enough to lift her into his arms, he rushed up the staircase and into his master suite, and set her down gently on his silk comforter.
“You’re wearing too many clothes,” she said as she sat back up and reached for his jeans, leaning in and running her lips across the flat plane of his stomach before undoing his zipper and reaching inside, feeling the full strength of his hardness.
Moans were wrung from his throat when she bent lower and kissed his erection, the fabric of his underwear the only barrier between his satin skin and her hungry mouth. “Mmm . . .” She couldn’t get enough of this man.
“Grace, this isn’t going to end like it did before,” he warned her as she freed him from the confinement of his clothes and he scooted them down his legs and kicked them away.
She dropped from the bed, kneeling in front of him. “You’re so beautiful, Cam,” she sighed before sliding her tongue along his entire length, then drinking the moisture from the tip.
“Men aren’t beautiful,” he said as he dug his fingers in her hair.
“You are so wrong,” she told him before closing her lips around his manhood. “Because there is so much about you that can only be described as beautiful,” she said a few moments later.
“I’ll be anything you want me to be,” he said before a guttural groan tore from his throat.
“You like this, Cam?” she asked, leaning back to look at him while her hand moved up and down his throbbing arousal.
“Yes, baby, I like it.”
“Good, because I like tasting you, touching you, stroking you,” she said, and bent forward again to swirl her tongue around his tip.