Wait for You, стр. 51
Chapter 25
What Cam had been waiting for happened shortly after I took my shirt off and showed him my bra. He’d gotten me to sit down and wrapped a quilt around my shoulders, covering me up. We were watching a horrifically bad science fiction movie when all that liquor decided it didn’t want to me in my belly anyone.
Tearing off the quilt, I scrambled over Cam’s legs and lap. “Oh God…”
“What? You’re sick.” Cam was on his feet.
I rushed toward the bathroom and slammed the door behind me. Dropping to my knees, I lifted the lid and started heaving. Every muscle in my body went through the motion. Tears streamed down my face as my body shuddered. It seemed wrong to be going through this after having the flu.
Over all the retched noise I was making, I hadn’t heard Cam come in, but he was there, kneeling beside me. His hand smoothed the length of my spine, a continuous, endless soothing stroke as he scooped the hair that had escaped my bun out of my face. He stayed, murmuring unintelligible words to me that did wonders, even through the violent dry heaving stage.
When it was all done, he helped me lean against the bath tub while he grabbed a small towel and ran it under the water. He knelt down, wiping the soft material across my face, like he had the night of the Halloween party and when I’d been sick. “Feel better?” he asked.
“Kinda,” I murmured, closing my eyes against the brightness. “Oh God, this is so embarrassing.”
He chuckled. “It’s nothing, sweetheart.”
“This is why you stayed, right?” I moaned, feeling like a giant idiot. “You knew I was going to be sick and here I was, taking off my clothes.”
“Shh,” he said, tucking the loose strands of my hair back. “As charming as it was to watch you vomit up your guts, that’s not why I stayed and you know it.”
I closed my eyes again, feeling a bit floaty. “Because you want me, but not when I’m drunk and puking all over the place?”
Cam burst into laughter. “Yeah, you know, that sounds about right.”
“Just making sure we’re on the same page,” I murmured. It kind of struck me then that I was still just in my jeans and bra, but I honestly didn’t care. Tomorrow would most definitely be a different story.
“We’re not.”
I pried one eye open. “Ha.”
“Thought you’d like that.” He swiped the cool, damp cloth along my chin.
“You’re very… good at this.”
“Had a lot of practice.” Cam tossed the towel aside, grabbed a new one and repeated the steps. “Been where you are quite a few times.” He ran it down my neck, over my bra straps and then the length of my arms. “Want to get ready for bed?”
My other eye flew open.
He shook his head and the dimple appeared in his left cheek. “Get your mind out of the gutter.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh,” he said, standing. With his back to me, he rummaged around the sink. A faucet turned on. He was back in front of me again, holding a loaded toothbrush. “Thought you’d want to get the taste out of your mouth.”
My fingers made grabby motions. “You are wonderful.”
“I know.” He handed it over and then replaced the toothbrush with one of those paper cups I never used. When I was all done, he knelt again and rocked back on his heels. He unzipped his hoodie and shrugged it off. “I’ve been trying to get you to say I’m wonderful from the first time you plowed into me. If I’d known that all it would take was handing you a toothbrush, I would have done that a long time ago. My loss.”
“No. It was my…” I pushed myself up a little, watching as he reached down and pulled the shirt off his head. “My loss—what are you doing?”
“I don’t know where your clothes are.”
“Uh-huh.” My gaze dropped and I think I needed the damp towel again.
“And I figured you’d want to get out of your clothes.”
In the bright light, I saw the detail on the sun tattoo like I never had before. There had to be a thousand little marks inside the sun, giving it such a realistic, fiery detail. “Yeah…”
“So the easiest thing would be to let you borrow my shirt.”
My eyes went even lower, over the dusky nipple and then down, tracing each ripple of his stomach muscles. “Okay.”
“Then you’d be more comfortable.”
There was a fine dusting of dark hair the appeared under his navel and traveled south, below the band on his jeans. It looks like someone placed their fingers on either side of his hips, indenting the skin there. “Sure,” I murmured. How did someone get muscles there? Like what kind of stomach exercises did you have to subject yourself to?
“You haven’t been listening to a single thing I’ve said.”
I dragged my gaze up. “Nuh-uh.”
There was that dimple again as he clasped my hips and helped me up so I was sitting on the edge of the tub. “Don’t lift your arms yet, okay.”
Sitting still, I gripped the edges of the tub as he pulled the opening of his shirt over my head.
“Keep your arms down.” He let go of the shirt and slipped his arms around me. A second later, his agile finger unclasped my bra.
“What are you doing?” My stomach dropped, and boy, after what just went on in here, that was not a good feeling.
He laughed as the straps slid down my arms, making me shiver. “Like I said before, get your mind out of the gutter. Your virtue is safe with me.”
“My virtue?” I wasn’t sure if I wanted it to be safe with him.
He peeked up. “For now.”
“For now?” I whispered.
Cam nodded. “Put your arms through.”
I did as I was told and then he made a show of rolling up the sleeves before sliding his hand down my left arm, stopping above my bracelet.
“Don’t—” Panic shot through me as he unhooked the bracelet. I tried to yank my arm back, but Cam looked up, tightening his grip.
“I’ve already seen it, Avery.”
Pressure clamped down on my chest. “Please, don’t. It’s embarrassing and I can’t take back that you saw this. I wish I could, but I can’t.”
He wrapped both his hands around the bracelet and wrist as he met my gaze with his steady one. “It’s because of this, isn’t it? Why you freaked out on me? Wouldn’t talk to me? Dropped the class?”
A lump rose so quickly in my throat that I couldn’t speak.
“Oh, sweetheart.” Softness crept into voice and his stare. “We’ve all done stuff we aren’t proud of. If you knew…” He shook his head. “The point is, I don’t know why you did this. I just hope that whatever the reason was, it’s something that you’ve come to terms with. I don’t think any less of you because of it. I never did.”
“But you looked so…” My voice was too hoarse.
The bracelet slipped off, but his one hand still covered my wrist as he put the bracelet on the edge of the sink. “I was just surprised and I was concerned. I didn’t know when you got this and I’m not going to ask. Not right now, okay? Just know that you don’t have to hide it around me. Alright?”
All I could do was nod, because I was always trying to hide it.
Cam lowered his head as he lifted my wrist, turning my arm over, so my palm was facing up. He pressed his lips to the scar, and the breath caught in my throat. I looked away, squeezing my eyes shut. Something cracked inside me, a proverbial wall I’d built around me.
“I’d just turned sixteen,” I said, my voice hoarse as I blurted out the words before I lost my nerve. “That’s when I did it. I don’t know if I really meant to do it or if I just wanted someone to…” I shook my head. “It’s something I regret every day.”
“Sixteen?” His tone was devoid of judgment.
I nodded. “I would never do anything like that again. I swear. I’m not the same person I was then.”
“I know.” Several moments passed and then he placed my arm on my leg. “Now it’s time to take your pants off.”
The abrupt change in subject caused me to laugh. “Nice.”
When he helped me stand, the shirt almost reached my knees and my bra, it lay on the floor between us like a sad, lonely thing. When he reached for the buttons on my jeans, I smacked his hand away. “I think I can do that.”