On My Knees (27 page)

“I want to be with you, Maya, because we belong together. You may not believe it, but you’re strong and you’re beautiful, and we may fight like hell, but you’re mine. And now I want you to fight for us, for the girl who used to dream with me, who made me believe we could do anything together. I’ve never known what the future held, but I’ve never been able to stop imagining you were the person I’d go into it with.

He took a silent breath, his features softening slightly. “Please, Maya. I’m begging you to talk to me. Something happened back there. Tell me. Don’t keep me in the dark.”

I squeezed my eyes closed against a new wave of tears. I was losing it. His words cut through me, past the skin, right down to the bone, right down to the weak, scared, motherless person I hated to be.

“Maya,” he whispered, grazing my cheek with the warmth of his touch.

“My mom visited Ruthie a few weeks ago.” I shook my head. “There are things you never knew about me, Cameron.”

“Tell me.” He rose and sat beside me, his arm around me.

I brushed away the last of my tears and took a steeling breath.

“My mom and I... We never had much, but we had each other, you know? It wasn’t easy for her, raising me on her own, and when I left for school... Everything pretty much went to hell after that. She was always kind of a mess anyway, but without me to hold her down and give her a reason to stay put, she spiraled out of control. Boyfriends, drinking all the time, and though she’d never admit it, I figure drugs finally entered the picture. I couldn’t quit school though. I mean, I seriously considered it. But this is what we’d worked for, a better life, and I couldn’t just let it all go. I was determined to finish and get a good job, like we’d talked about, and I was going to get her out of whatever mess she’d gotten herself into. But I was too late...”

“What happened?”

“You left, and then...she left. Disappeared. I figured she’d moved again and hadn’t given me her new number, but days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months. I never heard from her. I filed reports. Nothing.”

“Christ, Maya. You never...”

“You were gone, but even if you hadn’t left, I’m still not sure I would have told you. You and Olivia, I never wanted either of you to know that side of my life, that part of me that was so far from perfect.”

“I’m pretty sure perfect means something different for you than it does for me.”

I shrugged. He tossed that word around too much. I wasn’t Olivia. I wasn’t the kind of girl you couldn’t wait to introduce your parents to.

Cameron tipped my chin, locking me in his stare and interrupting my self-defeating tirade.

“Did you think you really had me fooled into thinking you were like everyone else? I knew things weren’t all roses for you. I didn’t know exactly why, but I’d figured one day you’d tell me. I didn’t think it’d take five years though.”

“I couldn’t tell you.” I drew in a jagged breath at the memory. “Even when I was about to lose you, somehow I couldn’t muster the strength to tell you.”

I looked into his deep blue eyes. They seemed to light up the darkening room.

“You weren’t the reason I said no that day. I knew I needed to stay close, to take care of my mom. I couldn’t bear the thought of explaining to you then how marrying me would mean signing on for that part of my life too. But I wasn’t going to let her just slip away and out of my life either.” I shrugged. “She did anyway. I lost you both, trying to be the perfect girl for you and somehow take care of her too. I ended up with nothing.”

A sad laugh escaped me. I thought back to that dark time when all the purpose of my life had been ripped from me. Now my two reasons for living were back, in some way. I was still floundering, lost and fucking it all up. No closer to fixing anything than I had been the day Cameron left me. The tears dried cold on my cheeks and the heaviness was back, a thick suffocating kind of pain that only knew one outlet. I stared down at my hands tangled together to still the fretful tremble. Fuck all, I needed a drink.

“I need it to go away for a few hours, Cam. Everything will be better in the morning, I promise. I’ll be better. I won’t be like this.”

He gathered me close. My forehead fell to his chest, my body even weaker in the strength of his embrace. I wanted to disappear in his arms, to curl up into a protected little ball and forget the rest of the world. But I worried that wouldn’t be enough to stave off the kind of pain that plagued me now.

“Please,” I begged, praying Cameron would take pity on me.

“I’ll make it go away, okay?” he whispered, pushing the hair away from my tear-stained face. “Just stay with me.”

I looked up at him, desperate and so very lost. He held my cheek. His arm wrapped possessively around my waist.

“I want you, Maya. Your heart may be broken, but I still want it. And I may not deserve it, but I’ll wait for it, as long as I need to. In the meantime, I’m here. For tonight, let this be enough, just you and me.”

I exhaled a jagged breath and his mouth was on me, inhaling my relief. He kissed my lips, my cheeks, my eyelids, his fingertips tracing his path. Angling over me, he cradled my face in his palm, commanding me with his kiss. I responded the way he knew I would, hungry for the sweet taste of his tongue. We tangled and tasted, seeking more of each other until we were both breathless.

“Maya?” He pulled back, his eyes dark and serious. “Let me be the place you go to forget and wash it all away. I can take you there. I know I can, because nothing has ever made me feel the way I do when we’re together. No drink, no woman…no rush, risk, or cheap high does what being with you does. I want to make love to you until we can’t remember who we are. I want you drunk on nothing but us tonight.”

My heart beat loudly, a steady reminder of how I loved him, a state of being well beyond my control now. The picture he painted, I wanted that. I wanted to forget everything that had brought me so low and start over with him. I longed for the words that only our bodies could speak, for the force of a physical connection that might transcend everything that had come between us.

A simple nod was all I could manage before he lifted and lowered me to the bed. He covered me with the warm heaviness of his body. The relief was almost instant. My limbs weakened in his embrace. He kissed me, nipping and licking my lips apart, seeking my tongue and sucking gently. I moaned, my hips responding beyond my control.

He rose, unfastened my jeans, and pulled them down my legs. I sat up and tugged off my shirt, reaching next for his. He kicked off his jeans and came to me quickly, claiming my mouth.

My hands were restless. I grazed the muscles that bunched and released as he moved over me. I arched. I wanted him closer still. Impossibly close, until he was inside me, making me his. His hot skin burned against me, the twining of our bodies hungry with need. The sensations crept over me until my head was spinning with desire. The piercing pain of my reality ebbed, faded into the darkening room, until there was only Cameron.

“I love you.” The words fell from my lips before I knew what I was saying, what it meant, what I was giving up with the admission.

He slowed, his lips barely touching mine. The look in his eyes—intense and full of all the love I felt in that moment—branded me.

“I’ve waited a long time for that.”

“I was scared. I still am. I’m so afraid you’re going to leave, that you’re going to break me. Saying it...it’s like giving you the last little piece of me, the part that I can’t afford to give anyone.”

I paused, frozen with a fleeting apprehension that quickly disappeared. He caught my cheek and leveled our gazes.

“Someone could drag me to hell, and I’d crawl back to you, Maya, for a chance to make right everything that was ever wrong between us. Even I can’t tell you what’s happening with us. I’ve never felt this way. But believe me when I tell you I’m not going anywhere. I swear to you.”

With a sharp exhale, he crushed his mouth against mine. I moaned into the kiss, meeting his fervency, his love, his commitment. The way he kissed me was deep, devouring, as if he’d had his own demons seeking release.

CAMERON. I tried in vain to slow down. I moved over her, tasting every inch of her. Her hands fisted and released anxiously by her sides. Her body shifted eagerly below me, a reflection of the longing that coursed through me too. I battled with it, wanting to take my time and love her slowly.

“Maya,” I murmured, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear to gain better access to the sensitive skin below it and unfettered access to her neck. I reveled in the smallest reactions of her body. The way goose bumps raced across her skin when I was there, sucking and licking, breathing her name over and over, like a mantra, like an echo in a dream. She shivered. I pulled her closer, wanting to give her all the warmth and comfort she desired.

Seeing her so upset had overwhelmed me. I wanted to banish the memories and the circumstances beyond her control that gave her an ounce of unhappiness. I wanted to flood her darkness with light, with love. I rolled the word around in my head, analyzing what it meant in the context of having the only woman I’d ever loved in my bed again, in my arms, opening her heart and body to me.

Her shaking hands skimmed over my shoulders and down my chest. I caught them and kissed her fingertips. Then I bent to her, grasping her breast before sucking the tip into my mouth. Pulling them into long taut points, I teased each peak with my tongue and my teeth until she cried out and her thighs tightened fiercely around my hips.

I moved to kiss her shoulders, all the way up her neck to her ear, enticing more tiny shivers from her. She gripped my waist, urging me closer. I wanted to bury myself in her. My patience was waning.

“Are you on the pill?”

She blinked rapidly, as if she needed to regain her focus to answer the question. “Yeah.”

I grazed her throat with my hand, pausing a second over the steady pulse at her neck. I moved south until my fingers crept to the top of her thighs, teasing down over the soft cotton of her panties where she was soaked through for me. With a little pressure she reacted, bucking into my hand. I slid the fabric to the side and slipped my fingers through her moist folds. She gripped my arm and gasped when I pushed inside her. My cock ached to be there, ravaging her. I’d be there soon.

“I want to be here, Maya, coming inside you...”

“I’ve always been safe, Cam. You’re the only one.”

I kissed her hard, swallowing her promise. She moaned, arching into my chest. I trusted her, and she trusted me to bring her through this.

Trust, the benevolent warrior fighting the misgivings that had plagued us, pulsed between us now. Trust and this love that even she could no longer deny perhaps was the bridge that would take us from who we were to who we’d become. Maybe it could be enough to undo all the hurt we’d caused one another.

“I want to make love to you, but you need to tell me if it’s too much right now.”

“I need too much.” She ran her fingers up my chest, shifted her body against me, charging my already full erection further. “I need this. Make me forget everything. All I want is this moment between us. Make it last as long as we can.”

I caught her mouth, kissing her tenderly. A small moan hummed through her tiny frame as I licked her tongue, sucking softly, and then deeper, exploring her mouth. When she opened her eyes, her half-lidded gaze met my own. My heart twisted painfully.

“I could kiss you like this forever. You’re so sweet and soft.” I brushed my knuckles over the blush of her cheek that grew darker with the words.

“I’m going to need something stronger than a kiss.”

I laughed quietly. I tugged off her panties, lowered, and wasted no time pressing into her. Anxious, I wanted to sheath her in one fierce thrust. But I wanted to experience every second of this decadent moment, draw it out as she pulled me deeper.

And she felt amazing, warm and snug around me, the only place I’d ever wanted to be.

I’d wanted this from the beginning, but we’d had too many hurdles between us to broach the subject of our sexual histories before. It was almost worth avoiding altogether, except for the exquisite rush of our bodies being joined now with nothing to separate us.

The mere thought of her being with other men filled me with a fiery jealousy. In a rash need to claim her for myself, I rooted deeply, as deep as I’d ever been. She gasped. Every muscle tensed, locking me to her. When my eyes went to her, her mouth had fallen open, harsh breath heaving her chest. Her lip quivered. She pulsed around my cock as I held myself deep within her.

“You okay?”

“God yes.”

“Did I hurt you?”

“It’s impossible for you to hurt me. You know my body too well. You always have.”

I released some tension, though I was still coiled tight, ready to spring into loving her passionately.

“This is what I want, Maya. Nothing between us.”

“This is what I want too. I want you, us. Please don’t stop.”

She dug her nails into my ass and I jerked against her, spurring the first of a series of thrusts that had her unraveling quickly in my arms. The rush of pleasure took hold quickly.

“Cam, oh God.”

The way she was clenched down around me, slick and yet possessive, I couldn’t stop. Instead I sped up, driving deep, the delicious friction between us taking us both out of our minds. We came together, an explosion of heat and riotous emotion. I jetted inside her. I cursed, marking her as I held her hips firmly in place.

I wanted to fill her, to possess her fully this way always. In my mindless state I dared to imagine that time hadn’t come between us. What could this feel like, to come inside her with the hope that we could make a life between us, with this love? A love that was growing stronger by the day, rooting itself in our lives despite all the doubts.

I exhaled heavily and rested over her. Crazy thoughts. Falling in love with her this time around was taking hold of me in different ways. The thought was intoxicating, if severely premature.

She sagged beneath me, catching her breath. I thrust again gently and she contracted, her delicious grip rippling over me. I was wrecked and still hard, but I hadn’t meant to come so soon. I had plans to do a lot more.