When You Are Mine(4)

"Thank you." Kerris barely had the energy to raise her voice over the rush of the river.

Cam pressed warm lips to her eyelids and the lashes feathering her  cheeks. His kisses wandered from her eyes, across the tilt of her nose  and the curve of one cheekbone, before settling over her mouth. He  skimmed her lips once, twice, and again before she opened her mouth,  brushing her tongue against his. She hoped for a measure of the fire she  could sense building inside of him, but it never came.

She had stopped believing in the lightning strike of desire. She had  assumed that if this beautiful man with his lean, muscled body and  sensually curved lips couldn't stoke a fire inside of her, no one could.

And she'd believed that. Until tonight.

Cam's hand wandered across the curve of her breast and slid over her  hip, down her thigh, and moved in for a more intimate touch.

"Cam." Kerris placed her hand over his, halting his progress.

"Hmmmmm." The vibration of his groan hummed through her like a revving  engine. He lay his forehead against hers, obviously working to regain  control. "You're right. We need to talk."

"Talk about what?" She sat up, pulling the neckline he had tugged aside  back into place, tired from the mental paces tonight's encounter with  Walsh had put her through.

"Kerris." Cam gulped with uncharacteristic nervousness before starting  again. "Kerris, you know we both had really shitty childhoods."

With a laugh as bitter as it was short, Kerris nodded. She wasn't sure  what was worse, her mother abandoning her on the orphanage steps or  Cam's mother actually thinking she could pull herself together long  enough to raise him. Fortunately, or unfortunately, Cam's mother had  tried for the first twelve years of his life. He had only alluded to  parts of it, keeping his deepest scars covered. Yet another thing they  had in common.

"You know I love you." He stroked one finger over the full bow of her  mouth. "I've never had a family of my own. I mean, the Walshes took me  under their wing, and Walsh is the closest thing I have to a brother,  but I don't belong to them. And they don't belong to me."

"People don't belong to each other, Cam. People love each other."

"No, baby, people do belong to each other." The conviction on his face  glowed brighter than the candlelight. "We just don't know about it  because we never had it. Don't you want that? To belong to someone? And  have him belong to you?"

His words, though softly spoken, echoed her deepest desire. She could  think of only one person who had truly loved her, and Kerris had been  taken away from Mama Jess's foster home cruelly and abruptly. No one had  looked at her with that much love in a long time, but it was there on  Cam's face now.

"Marry me." The tremor in Cam's voice made her more nervous than the words he'd spoken.

Kerris struggled to even her erratic breaths, but could not. Heat rushed  to her cheeks under Cam's probing, waiting stare. The blood thumped at  her wrists and temples, reminding her that she was alive and not a  statue-still shell frozen by his words.                       
       
           



       

"Cam, I just graduated, and it took me longer than most. Don't you think  we need a little time?" Kerris ran damp palms along the fabric  stretched across her legs. "I'm only twenty-five. Maybe we should-"

"Not now. I know you're not ready. I know we've only been dating six  months, but I want you to think about it. And at the end of the summer,  I'll ask you again." He tugged the orchid in her hair away and placed it  in her lap, kissing behind her ear and slanting her a cocky grin. "And  you'll say yes."

She raised her lashes, forcing herself not to look away from his hungry stare. He was so into her.

Please don't let me hurt him.

She smiled through her confusion, thinking of the friend Cam had been to  her. Thinking of how comfortable she always felt with him. How patient  he'd been with her abstinence. Maybe the night that haunted her had  bankrupted her heart and stripped her body of its capacity for physical  desire. She had abandoned love-struck delusions of butterflies and goose  bumps. Perhaps what she felt for Cam was all she was capable of. It  felt good. It could be enough.

The situation with Walsh had been her imagination. Or a fluke. After all  these years of isolation and numbness, that rush of desire, that sense  of … rightness … couldn't have been real. With a stranger? With Cam's best  friend?

"Did you hear me?" Cam's eyes were fixed on the expression she had  pulled into place to hide her thoughts. "I said you'll say yes at the  end of the summer."

"Cam, I can't make any promises." Kerris toyed with a chunk of bread from the basket, tearing it into tiny pieces in her lap.

"Just promise me you'll think about it." Cam lifted her chin, gently compelling her to look at him.

She set her disturbing thoughts aside and laced her smile with all that she could promise.

"I'll think about it."

"That's all I can ask for." He dropped a quick kiss on her lips, its  sweetness a thin veneer covering the passion she knew he carefully  checked. "That's enough for now."





Chapter Four



Someone in this elevator smelled good enough to eat.

A sexy-sweet scent of vanilla and brown sugar titillated Walsh's sense of smell and taste. His mouth watered.

The heavy Tag Heuer watch wrapped around his wrist confirmed that he was  late. Walsh bided his time in the packed elevator, revisiting every  detail about Kerris from last night. Her face, her hair, her voice, the  act of kindness he'd witnessed in the parking lot. Everything about her  had haunted him since they'd left the scholars' awards.

By the tenth floor, everyone had filed out of the elevator. Walsh was  startled to see Kerris's slight frame leaning against the wall, eyes  closed. There was no flower in her hair today. Her dark jeans weren't  tight, but still hugged the lean, curvy lines of her petite figure.

"Kerris?" Walsh asked, afraid his half-horny imagination had conjured her up.

She jerked here eyes open wide.

"Walsh, what are you doing here?" She wore a white T-shirt emblazoned  with the Walsh Foundation logo. Her dark wavy hair was caught in two low  ponytails at her neck.

He couldn't stop the smile that worked its way onto his face. Talk about  oblivious. Here he'd been indulging in guilt-soaked fantasies about a  woman not even five feet away from him.

"How'd you hide in an elevator?"

"There were a lot of people in here." She grinned back, and it felt like  they'd had this conversation a thousand times before. "I don't have on  my heels, so I guess I kind of got lost in the sauce."

His deep-rumbled chuckle and her husky laugh met in the space separating  them. Walsh felt it again; that invisible thread stretching between  them. Electricity zipped up and down his body like a current on a power  line.

"Okay, this is my floor." Kerris smiled her good-bye.

"It's my floor, too."

He gestured for her to precede him into the children's ward, catching a  noseful of vanilla and brown sugar. How had he missed that last night  when every other detail had played over and over in his head?                       
       
           



       

"You visiting someone in the children's ward?" He paced his long steps to match her shorter ones.

"Actually, a few someones." She slid a hand into her back pocket over  the subtle swell of her bottom. "I volunteer here. We do crafts, mostly  making jewelry. Necklaces, bracelets. Nothing fancy, but it seems to  cheer them up."

He nodded, searching his mind for something that would make her linger.  She saved him from asking something truly idiotic with a question of her  own.

"Are you visiting someone?"

"Yeah. Her name's Iyani." Walsh looked up the hall toward the little  girl's room. "She's one of the kids from our orphanage in Kenya. She has  a brain tumor. We thought it had been taken care of, but it's back. The  prognosis isn't good, but I knew she'd have a better shot with the  medical care here than there."

"You really care about those kids, huh?" Kerris lobbed him an admiring glance.

"Of course. In addition to our own orphanages, there are several all  over the world that we support. I'm involved with them all."

"So you have a thing for orphans, huh?" Kerris's smile drew him in and  warmed him up. "Is that why you and Cam get along so well?"

"I don't know what Cam told you, but things didn't start off so smoothly  with us." Walsh couldn't help but smile remembering his early years  with Cam. "He was at one of our camps here in North Carolina. I was down  from New York spending the summer with my mom. Cam and I hated each  other immediately."