He stared at me, surprised and concerned at the same time. “Of what, baby?”
I finally untangled my legs off him and rose to my feet. “I really don’t want to talk about this.”
He got up, too, and cupped my face with his hands. “You know I’m not my father, Cammie.”
“I know, and I’m sure you’d be better off here away from Rosewood and the gang and the dirty business you run. At least, I won’t worry about you the whole fucking time, wondering if you’re alive or not. But…”
“But what?”
I swallowed. “What are you going to do here, Dusty? Sit around and wait for me to finish class?” My shoulder lifted in resignation. “You’re going to miss your old life, and soon you’ll know I’m not enough for you. You’ll hate me for everything.” Here. I said it. I finally confessed to my biggest fear.
“Not enough for me? Hate you? Where’s this shit coming from?”
“This shitis the truth.”
He laughed. “Geez, baby.”
I took his hands off my face. “Why are you laughing?”
“’Cause I thought the reason behind this whole bull was that you liked some fancy-ass college boy, and you were having second thoughts about us. I didn’t know it was…” He laughed again.
I kicked at the sand. “It’s not funny.”
“Yes, it is.” He held me tightly, and I could feel his searing heat and the bulge in his jeans on me. “I love you, Cammie, and I’ll never feel anything but love for you.”
“Dusty…”
His lips silenced me. Soothed me.
He rested his forehead on mine, tucking my ruffled hair behind my ears. “We’ll work something out. I’ll find something to do, not club related, while you finish your school. Then we’ll take it from there. Just give me a couple of weeks to arrange for the whole thing.”
“What about the Lanzas?”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll deal with them. I won’t let anything stand between us, baby.”
Again, I found myself under his spell. When I was listening to his heartbeat, wrapped in his embrace like this, and he looked at me with his caring eyes, the intensity of his unwavering attention dissolved every ounce of my distress.
Every move he made was a distraction. Every gesture stopped my racing brain in its tracks.Relax, it said.Everything is going to be just fine.
“Dusty, I don’t want to change you into someone you’re not.” That was all the resistance left in me.
“And I want to be the man you deserve.”
CHAPTER 33
Dusty
What she’d said at the beach was ridiculous. I was the one scared shitless she’d wake up one day hating me and leave.
If it weren’t for the shit we went through together last year, a woman like Cammie never would have chosen to be with a guy like me. A smart, beautiful, sexy as fuck engineer and a biker who barely graduated high school. The daughter of a war hero and the son of a rapist murderer. What were the odds of us lasting a week, let alone months?
But we did.
We didn’t see each other every day or lived in the same city. I’d been in constant worry she’d meet someone else, and she’d been worrying I might wind up killed. Still, we’d made it this far. And I intended to stretch this as far as I could.
Until the very end. I had no choice. Cammie had sliced my heart open and tattooed her name in there. She was the only girl for me, and I meant every word I’d told her.
I wouldn’t just leave the MC and move here to be with her. I would do anything, change into anything, that made me the man she deserved.
