by Joss Wood
Whoa, hold on a second...
Before Vivi could tell him what he could do with his house and car, Cam spoke again. “You deserve a partner, Viv, someone who will be with you to celebrate the big and the small, to hold you when you are sad and pick you up when you are down. You deserve someone who will stand beside you, someone who thinks that your happiness is more important than anything else.” Cam hauled in a deep breath. “I’m not that person, Viv.”
She wasn’t so sure. “What makes you say that?”
Cam shot to his feet and jammed his hands into the pockets of his casual pants. By the way the fabric bunched, she could see that his hands were clenched into tight fists.
“I’m a selfish bastard, Vivi. I was raised to be like that. My father and grandfather were the same. My entire life has been a fight for survival, to get ahead. I don’t think about other people. It’s all about me.”
What rubbish. A selfish person didn’t offer his money to help her rescue a failing restaurant, didn’t run to the bedside of a stranger when he found out he was an emergency contact, didn’t lavish time and attention on the daughter he’d just discovered was his own. No, how Cam saw himself wasn’t who he was.
“I see I’ve shocked you. Well, while I’m at it, let me get this done.” Cam’s voice was pitched low but Vivi saw his distress in his rigid neck, his thin lips, his taut shoulder blades. “I was a childhood thief, Viv. I could lift anything, anywhere, anytime. I could steal your watch or your purse and you wouldn’t even know it. My father and grandfather were equally proficient in the art of pickpocketing, grifting, conning. Crime, you see, was so much easier than a day’s work.”
Now was not the time to speak, so Vivi just looked at him, refusing to show any of the shock she felt. If she did, she’d lose him.
“I grew bored with petty crime—Oh, that’s the other thing. I get bored really, really easily.”
There was a subtext there and she was bright enough to decode his sentence. I’ll get bored of you. I always do. She could challenge that statement, but it wasn’t time yet. Frustration passed over Cam’s face, probably because she wasn’t throwing up her hands and squealing like an offended teenager. She was stronger, smarter, than that.
Instead, Vivi just lifted her eyebrows in a silent “Is that all you’ve got?”
“I graduated to breaking into people’s houses, even stealing into bedrooms while couples slept. You see, I’m not a good bet,” he said, suddenly looking tired and defeated, washed out and embarrassed. “I’ve had a tough past and I’m a tough bastard and I doubt I’m going to be a good father...but I’m going to try.” He shook his head. “But I can’t be more than that, Vivianne.”
She didn’t respond to his last statement. Instead, she focused on his past. “Tell me, Cam. Tell me all of it.”
Cam took a deep breath before shrugging. “It’s not pretty.”
“I don’t want pretty. I want the truth.”
“My mom left when I was two or three. My father said she couldn’t handle it, couldn’t handle me.”
Even if his mother had been that much of a bitch, how dare his father repeat her words? Vivi pushed her fist into her sternum, immediately and intensely angry for the child Cam had been.
“Most people expect our parents to love us more than anything else in the whole world. I never did. I knew my mom left because she didn’t love me and I knew I was nothing more than a burden to my father. When my grandfather came to live with us when I was five or so, he reinforced that idea. I was a drain on their resources, and if I was going to hang around, then I was going to earn my keep.
“I remember being five or six, and them teaching me to pick pockets, boosting me through small windows to pilfer items out of bedrooms and offices. Even then I knew what we were doing was wrong, but they told me that if I did this one thing, they would throw a ball with me, read me a story, buy me an ice cream. It was all about bribery, and they were masters at knowing exactly what I needed most at that time. They were damn good at manipulation.”
Vivi wanted to throw something, to punch a wall, to go out and find his relatives so that she could strip skin off them. “Where are they now?” she asked, holding on to her temper.
“My dad is in jail, and will be for the next twenty years, and my grandfather died a few years back.”
“Ah.”
“Have you ever met a person who was never, ever at fault?” Now that the plug had been pulled from the dam, the river of words started to flow from Cam.
From his expression, Vivi suspected that it might be the first time he’d spoken about this, so she nodded, encouraging him to talk.
“They were always victims, you know? They always blamed someone else, frequently me, when something went wrong. They were Teflon coated. They never took ownership or responsibility for anything, ever. And they didn’t teach me to do that, either.
“I spent my life analyzing my behavior, trying to be the person they wanted me to be. I was perpetually tired, drained, partially because I was constantly worried they’d be caught and I’d be shoved into the system. Turned out I was the one to be arrested first, and I was the one tossed into the system.”
“You went to jail?”
Cam nodded. “Yeah. You’ve been sleeping with an ex-con, sweetheart.”
“No, I slept with you,” she was quick to correct him. “Why did you go to jail? And what happened inside that made you straighten out?”
“I went to juvie for burglary. My lookout, my father, ran when a silent alarm went off in a house. I got caught red-handed with my hand in a safe.”
Vivi grimaced. How scared he must’ve been.
“And I was straightened out by a social worker who arranged for me to tour a prison, someplace I realized I didn’t want to go. She told me that if I didn’t shape up, some of those animals I met would be my new best friends.” Cam shrugged. “I’ve never been stupid, so I shaped up. By the time I left juvie, Dad was incarcerated and I decided not to contact my grandfather again.”
“That must’ve been hard.”
When Cam shook his head, it finally hit Vivi how hard his life must’ve been. How alone he must’ve felt. “I’m sorry, Cam.”
“I’m not a good bet, Vivi.” Cam looked her in the eye. “I was exposed to stuff that no child should be exposed to. I did things no one is supposed to. My father and his father had screaming fights and frequently came to blows, so I never learned how to communicate in a healthy way. Can you understand why I’m so damn reluctant to settle down, have a family?”
“But you do have a family. You have Clem. And me.”
“And I don’t deserve either.”
He uttered that sentence with such conviction that it tore into Vivi’s heart. How could he still believe that? He’d come out of a dreadful situation to become an amazing man, a great human being. It was easy to be successful when you had the benefits of a supportive family and a good education. He’d had none of that, yet he’d been determined to better himself. She was crazy about him—possibly in love with him—but she also admired the hell out of him. And respected him more than that.
“I can’t fix my past, Viv.”
“Nobody is asking you to do that.” Vivi rested her hands on his chest. “But you can focus on the positive aspects of your past, the fact that you changed your life around, that you had the guts to do that. Give Clem the love and support you missed. Break the McNeal cycle.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
Of course, he could, Vivi wanted to tell him. He already had. Why couldn’t he see that? He was tough, bold, wonderful. She didn’t understand how he could look at himself and see a failure. But didn’t she do the same? Didn’t she refuse all offers of help, reject anything that threatened her independence because she was still living in the past? Because she was still allowing her mother to control her actions?
S
o, wow. Light-bulb moment.
But this wasn’t about her right now. This was about Camden. She could sit here and tell him he was being unbelievably hard on himself, that she pretty much thought the sun rose and set with him, that she wanted to see where this went. But she knew that nothing she said would make him change his mind.
But maybe she could show him.
Yeah, sometimes actions spoke so much louder than words.
Vivi stood up and walked over to her badass billionaire and rested her hands on his hips, her forehead on his chest. She felt the tension seep from him, just a little, and she traced the hard ridges of his stomach. Nuzzling her nose into the gap between his first and second button, she inhaled his spicy, masculine Cam smell. Wanting more, she pulled his shirt from the waistband of his pants and placed her hands on his hot skin, up over his ribs, his nipples and up to his powerful shoulders.
Needing more, she tugged his shirt up and over his head, sighing her pleasure when she had unrestricted access to his chest, his back, his stomach. After licking his flat, dusky nipple until it formed a tiny peak, she tracked her mouth over his shoulder and dipped her tongue into the deep groove between his muscled shoulder blades, then traced her lips over a scar on his back. She smiled when his hands came up to touch her thighs.
“I thought we were fighting,” Cam said, his voice low and rough.
Vivi wrapped her hands around his erection, hard beneath the fabric of his chinos.
“You were trying to pick a fight with me, but I wouldn’t let you,” Vivi told him, keeping her voice soft. “You’re not ready to believe anything I have to say. So I thought I’d try something different.” Vivi dropped kisses on his spine, bending her knees to kiss the hollow of his back, just above the waistband of his pants held up by a thin leather belt.
She frowned and tugged at the offending object. “Crocodile, McNeal? Uh, no.”
“What’s wrong with the belt?” Cam demanded and she finally, finally, heard a note of amusement in his voice.
“It’s a reptile! Ick.” Vivi ducked around him and took off the belt. She dragged her thumb up his hard erection and smiled at his quiet shudder. After attacking the button, she pulled the zipper down and looked into Cam’s beautiful, confused face. Good. Confusion was better than his relentless quest for control.
“You are so very beautiful, Camden McNeal.”
Cam blushed, leaving Vivi to wonder if anyone had bothered to compliment him before. She cupped his face in her hands and stood on her tiptoes. “Your body is magnificent, your face is too sexy for words, but, man—” she tapped her fingers against his temple “this brain of yours slays me.”
Vivi dropped back down to her toes and kissed his chest, somewhere in the region of his heart. “And your heart is as big as the Texas sky. You just don’t want anyone to know that.”
“Vivi,” Cam pleaded, “don’t.”
Vivi shook her head. “Don’t what? Tell you I want you, tell you that I’m not only attracted to your body but to the awesome person you are?”
Confusion was evident on his face. He opened his mouth, but no words came out.
Vivi smiled at him. “All you need to do right now is kiss me, Cam. Can you do that?”
Her quiet question seemed to jolt Cam out of his shock. His hands gripped her hips and he was lifting her up and onto him. Vivi wrapped her legs around his hips as his mouth took hers in a kiss that was a perfect mix of amazement and confusion, desire and tenderness. She sensed him trying to keep his passion under control, but when she sucked his tongue into her mouth, he utterly and finally lost control.
Oh, not of his strength or of the moment but of his need to hide, to run, retreat. It might not last but Vivi knew the exact moment that he surrendered to whatever this craziness was between them, fully embracing their madness.
Suddenly his hands were everywhere, kneading her breasts, cupping her butt, skimming her back. His mouth ravaged hers before he traced his tongue down the column of her neck, sucked the sensitive skin inside her collarbone. The buttons on her shirt popped and he lifted her up his chest so that he could tongue her nipple, sucking her lace-covered breast into his mouth.
Vivi cradled his head and sighed, knowing that here, in his arms, she was completely connected with the person he really was. The thought pushed hot liquid to her core and she felt her moisture soak her panties.
She wanted him buried deep inside her. Now. Immediately.
Unable to wait, Vivi whispered a dirty suggestion in his ear and Cam pulled his head back, blue-black eyes glittering.
“No.”
Her suggestion had been explicit and, if she had to say so herself, damn hot. He should be tearing her clothes off, not staring at her like she was a tasty ice pop on a scorching day. Well, now, this could be interesting, she thought. She leaned back and rested her hands on his shoulders, confident that he could hold her. There was something so sexy about being held by a strong, hot, almost naked guy. The mere thought caused another mini flood down below. He was going to have to do something about that soon.
“What do you have in mind, McNeal?” she demanded in a haughty tone.
“This, for starters.” Cam plumped up her breast and took her nipple into his mouth, his eyes still on hers. God, this was hot. Vivi felt her heart pounding, the beginning of an orgasm starting to build.
She really didn’t want to go over the edge on her own. “Cam, seriously, I want to come, and I want you there with me.”
Cam lowered her onto the bed and quickly, efficiently, stripped her of her clothing. Then he shucked his pants and underwear, his erection thick and hard.
“Faster or I’m going to handle my problem myself.”
Cam had the audacity to grin at her. “Go for it, sweetheart. I’d love to watch you getting yourself off. And then I’ll just take you back up again.”
Such confidence. And absolute truth. Because he was still standing there, far too far away, Vivi narrowed her eyes at him. She wasn’t confident enough to go that far...
And she needed his touch. “You do it so much better. Please, Cam?”
Cam’s smile hit his eyes. “Are you begging me, Vivianne?”
“Asking nicely,” Vivi countered.
“Sounded like groveling to me,” Cam shot back as he dropped to his knees by the edge of the bed. Reaching for her, he draped her legs over his shoulders and slowly licked his way up her thigh.
Vivi squealed and released a curse.
“More dirty words, Donner?” Cam murmured, his breath tickling her feminine folds. “I like it.”
“Cam, please,” Vivi begged, lifting her hips to bring her core closer to his mouth.
Cam chuckled. “Definitely begging.”
Vivi didn’t bother to answer, not that she could. Every thought disappeared when Cam kissed her, gently sucking on her clit. She thought she’d reached the pinnacle of pleasure, that she couldn’t take any more, and she shuddered, pushing herself against his hot, sexy mouth. But then Cam pushed one finger, then another into her and flicked at a spot deep inside her, and every cell in her body shattered. She shuddered, she screamed, her back arched, her skin flushed.
This was it—the best orgasm she’d ever had. Nothing would ever be as good as this. But Cam proved her wrong yet again when he pushed himself into her, pulling her legs up to accommodate him. He pounded into her, demanding that she come again—that she come with him—and those shattered cells disintegrated again.
Cam tensed, hesitated, and when he sank into her that last time, she felt his shudder and knew that he was there with her, fully in the moment, neither of them in control.
* * *
The next morning Vivi ran down the stairs, a broad grin on her face. She felt well rested, a little sore in all those good places that suggested that she’d been well loved—but happier than she’d been in a long, long time. She’d he
ard that sex was a gateway to the soul, but until earlier with Cam, she’d never experienced it. She’d never understood how powerful sex could be, how making love could open one’s eyes and make one shift one’s focus. Lying against Cam after the third time they’d made love was the most...right she’d ever felt. Vivi felt completely in tune with Cam and was convinced that they were better together than they were apart.
He was what she wanted, the person she and Clem needed. Not for his money or his position, though she deeply admired him pulling himself out of a situation that sounded horrible but because he was strong and protective and loving and flawed. For now, tomorrow, the next ten, twenty, forty, sixty years, she wanted to prove to him how worthy he was of love. He needed to understand that she knew him, that she saw him clearly, that he didn’t need to hide who he was or what he’d done.
That no matter how uncomfortable, transparent and vulnerable he felt, she loved him and would continue to love him.
Rich, poor, she didn’t care. They were stronger together than they were apart. And she thought Cam was finally starting to understand that. Thank God and all his angels and archangels.
Cam had kissed her goodbye much earlier, told her to sleep in and that he would dress Clem and take her to school. She remembered something about him saying he had a Texas Cattleman’s Club meeting later that afternoon and that he might be late. It was Sally’s day off and she had the big house to herself. Thinking that she would take another look at the offers of work she’d received, she walked into the kitchen and headed straight for the coffeepot.
Sitting down at the breakfast table, she stared out over Cam’s landscaped garden, enjoying the bright blue sky and the lush vegetation. Pulling the laptop Cam loaned her toward her, she tapped her finger on the cover, unable to flip it open. She really needed to spend some time reading through, and understanding, the job offers she’d received. She didn’t want to, she wanted to go back to what was familiar, what she knew and loved. Was she being stubborn in refusing to take Cam’s offer to help resurrect the restaurant? Was she cutting off her nose to spite her face? Nobody was able to open a new restaurant without investors.
