Its not horse hockey, Lachlan. You asked me what the deal is, and Im telling you. In the beginning I just didnt see a reason to get into all this. It wasnt your problem, wasnt your business. But you asked so Im telling you. I want to get into casual sex. With you. I want to know for sure that youre leaving. That youre going back to your own life. That I dont have to worry about how you think about me as a woman, deep down. How you-
Damned if he was going to let her finish another idiotic sentence. Enough was enough.
Ten
Violet felt completely bewildered when Cameron suddenly grabbed her. Shed been trying to seriously talk to him. She was all riled up and upset that the whole crappy story about her skinny tubes had come out. Shed never wanted Cam to know. It was fine the way it was. Good the way it was. He thought of her as a whole, sexy woman-she knew he did. She didnt want him to see her differently, and shed been afraid all along that he would if he knew the whole blasted picture.
Yet suddenly his arms swept around her, tighter than a noose, and his mouth swooped down on hers, slapped hers, crushed hersthen almost immediately lightened. Slower than honey, a taking kind of kiss became a wooing kind of kiss. A coaxing, wooing kind of kiss suddenly became an ardent, I want you need you have to have you kind of kiss. His tongue found hers. His hands sieved into her hair. She felt his long, hard body throb against hers, and suddenly she was trembling from the inside out.
He was going to take her. She knew it in the flash of an instinct, a burst of heat and fear and excitement streaking through her pulse. Right here, right now, right under the deep, dark shade of the maple. No one was around, and the sun was setting fast now, but heaven knew strangers and neighbors both drove by and drove in at all hours.
It was as if he didnt care. Didnt notice.
And then neither did she.
Shed never felt like this. As a young girl, shed dreamed incessantly all that tedious stuff about the prince whod find her, whod make her the center of his world, whod slay dragons for her. But obviously shed grown up. There were no fairy tales, and shed wanted a flesh-and-blood guy and not a fake prince anyway. But Cameronoh, Cameron.
He pushed at clothes, buttons, zippers. Heeled off his shoes, lifted her out of hers. No one had ever swept her away like this. Made her feel as if he couldnt breathe without her breath, couldnt survive without touching her, couldnt live. Without having her.
His eyes were open on hers, intense, unrelenting. Yet his mouth kept coming, even as he swooped her down to the ground on their makeshift nest of clothes. A car went by, maybe saw them, maybe didnt.
Pagan kiss followed pagan kiss, each more fierce and wild than the last. A button dug into her spine. Grass tickled. Her hair tangled-her darn long hair was always tangling-yet only one thing mattered to her. Cam. And what they seemed to be creating together.
When he suddenly lifted his head, she tried to say something, but the way he looked at her dammed all the words in her throat and her heart was suddenly hammering, hammering. I love you, he said roughly. Love, Vi. Do you hear me?
Again she tried to answer, but he moved so fast. One instant he was taking her mouth, the next hed twisted around, all naked and bronzed and bare, and started over completely at the other end. He kissed her right foot, from arch to toe, then worked his way up. Kisses wreathed from ankle to knee to the inside of her thigh to the core of her, and when she was gasping for breath, he flipped her over. He kissed her fanny; bit softly, tenderly, then laved a silken path up her spine to the nape of her neck. Then flipped her again.
His tongue dove into her mouth, mated with hers, even as he reached down. He wrapped her legs around his waist, intimately tight, and then dove in, drove in, taking her high and tight and intimately. Desire suddenly developed sharp teeth. Need clawed at her, ached through her. The need for completion, but even more, the need to love. Him. To be loved. By him.
Come with me, he rasped. The sun dropped so fast, as if understanding they needed privacy, yet the darkness so stealthily brought voyeurs. Crickets. Frogs. Lightning bugs. Cats. And then the moon.
Their moon.
She saw his face above her, so sharply honed, so full of passion and emotion, even as she could feel herself losing any last ounce of control. Love reeled through her, whipped through her senses and heart.
Now, Vi, he said.
She came with him, feeling as if she were freefalling from the top of the sky. But not alone. She fell with Cam, wildly, from the heart. Even minutes later, even hours later, she couldnt shake the flushed, joyous sensation of feeling totally complete. Totally whole. As if she were the most powerful woman ever born, woman with a capital W, the woman shed always wanted to be.
Cams woman.
And at that moment she couldnt imagine feeling any other way.
Cameron couldnt sleep.
It had to be well past two in the morning. Theyd eventually made it to her bedroom, dozed for a while, wakened to make love all over again. Now, oddly, he was more wide awake than a hoot owl. She was lying in his arms, damp, warm, draped all over him-or he was draped all over her. Who cared who was doing the draping as long as every inch of his skin was touching every inch of hers?
His eyes were used to the darkness now. He kept staring at the silver moonlight flooding in the open window, the quiet stir of curtains, the pale light falling on that strangely austere bedroom. Vi, he whispered.
Hmm?
Hed been pretty sure she was awake, just not positive. Her voice was sleepy, sated, content-but awake. Chére, are you absolutely positive about the infertility?
She didnt stiffen in his arms this time, which told Cameron that she was okay talking about the subject with him now. The trust was there. For him. For her. Lets put it this way, she said with a wry touch of humor. Originally I learned everything about sex from Simpson-which means that I learned almost everything wrong. From the time we were in high school, Simpson made me think that a guy had to get off or he suffered terribly. That guys couldnt wait. That sometimes girls made it and sometimes they didnt, but overall, that Real Women did.
As inits the womans fault if she doesnt have a climax?
Yup. I cant believe I swallowed a lot of the things Simpson used to tell me. And on the baby subject, he really believed that it must be the womans fault if she couldnt get pregnant, if the guy was virile. She sighed. Some things he didnt have completely wrong. He had his sperm checked. And they were all aggressive little swimmers. I was the one with the skinny tubes. She snuggled closer. You know what?
What?
I didnt want to tell you about all this, butsomehow its opened my eyes to just air it all out. Its obvious to me now what I was doing with the lavender. I needed to create something that was totally my own, something that came specifically from me. And I guess I did go a little batty with enthusiasm.
A little?
He heard her soft chuckle in the darkness. Okay. So I went hog wild. But the thing is-I never thought all my experiments would take. I thought most of them would miscarry, you know? Why should they work? I was a novice at this, no more than a closet gardener. It just seemed to be luck, that everything I touched reproduced with no problem. It was so ironic.
Ironic in what way? He stroked that long hair, knowing shed be annoyed in the morning she hadnt braided it, but loving it loose.
Ironic, because all I had to do was love it. And nurture it. And it thrived. She sighed. Same with cats. I took in one stray barn cat three years ago. He was starved, crippled. I didnt think he had a chance of making it, and the next thing I knew, hed miraculously turned into a she-cat and had kittens on me. She stroked his neck, as if somehow instinctively knowing where he liked being touched most. My mom had this theory, raising kids.
Which was?
Which was that everybodys powerful in some way. We just have to clue in to who we naturally are. My mom taught us girls that each of us had something in our nature that we needed to listen to, develop. For me, I thought it was to be a mother. To grow and raise and nurture. To feed. To caretake. Thats part of what was so hard. Knowing I couldnt have kids. Id just always been programmed to believe that was a natural part of me.
Which was that everybodys powerful in some way. We just have to clue in to who we naturally are. My mom taught us girls that each of us had something in our nature that we needed to listen to, develop. For me, I thought it was to be a mother. To grow and raise and nurture. To feed. To caretake. Thats part of what was so hard. Knowing I couldnt have kids. Id just always been programmed to believe that was a natural part of me.
Cameron hesitated. Hed never been afraid of wading into touchy waters, but this time, he desperately wanted to say the right thing. Its not like he knew anything about infertility. Or that he had any way to make her loss any less painful. But he had to find something right to say. The jerk shed married had made her feel less than a woman, as if she were less than whole because of those skinny tubes.
Chére, I think you were a born nurturer. Just like your mother said. But I dont think thats just about children. Its about everything and everyone around you. Always will be. Although
Although what?
Although I think theres a definite danger you could get overrun by cats. There, hed made her smile. If you started adopting elephantswell, the potential problems boggle the mind.
And there. Hed made her really laugh now. Feeling high on those successes, he pressed toward touchier ground. Im relieved you went for the divorce, he murmured, and kissed her forehead. Im sorry that he was such a blind idiot and hurt you. But if he hadnt had all those stupid ideas, who knows, maybe youd have stuck with him. And then Id never have found you.
You think its fate we found each other when we did?
Her voice was getting sleepier, her cheek rooting for just the right place on his shoulder. Not fate, he said quietly, bluntly. Love. The kind of love thats actually freeing for us both. I mean-I already have two kids, so I dont need to start a formal family all over again. This is perfect. Im a free spirit. So are you. We can both do anything, go anywhere we want. Theres nothing to hold us down. Nothing to hold us back.