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‘Saturday? I can’t,’ she said, searching the end of the sleeping bag with her feet for her jeans and sighing with relief when her toes hit denim.
‘It’ll be one hell of a party.’
‘I’m sure it will.’
The sleeping bag around her bare thighs slid away as Cameron sat up, and it pooled low around his hips. Staring at the bland wall of the tent, she whipped on her cardigan and did the bow up tight.
He leaned in and pushed her hair aside, laying a small, soft kiss on her neck.
She closed her eyes and tried to ignore the warmth washing across her skin, the grip of his gravitational pull tugging her into oblivion. But it felt too good. He felt so good. So difficult, so dangerous, but so very good.
‘Cameron…’
‘The truth is, I need you there.’
She squeezed her forehead tight, trying to push away how wonderful those three words—I need you—felt.
Once upon a time all she’d wanted was to feel needed, wanted, loved. She’d been a good kid, she’d studied hard, and she’d silently hugged her mum whenever she’d found her crying, even when deep down she’d known it would never be enough.
Since she’d been on her own in the big, wide world all she’d needed was fresh air, food, water and basic shelter. She’d never once felt that need to be needed by anybody else.
Yet now those three little words danced behind her eyes, waving streamers and skipping through fertile fields, singing at the top of their lungs. It had been so long since she’d shoved the wish down so deep inside that the moment it came to the surface it was intoxicating.
‘I’ll think about it.’
‘Don’t think, just come,’ he murmured against her shoulder.
She extricated herself from his wandering hands and slipped out of the tent, happier to be half-naked beneath the open sky than to see how much more he could get her to promise him from just a simple touch.
‘So, I’ll pick you up at your place around eight,’ he called out.
She found her functional white, cotton briefs hanging provocatively over her tripod, and shoved them into a pocket of her telescope bag. ‘Oh, for Pete’s sake, fine! I’ll go. Are you happy now?’
‘Now I am happy.’
All her fidgeting stopped. He might have been playing like he was flirting, but the thread of truth lacing its way beneath his words got to her like nothing else.
She glanced back into the tent to find Cameron was lying back with his arms over his head, his biceps cradling his head, watching her.
‘It’s black tie,’ he said with a grin.
Her eyebrows lifted so fast she almost pulled something. ‘Are you intimating that might be a reason for me to back out?’
His gaze meandered down her crazy get-up. ‘Not at all. So far you haven’t found it at all difficult to just say no to me when you really wanted to say no.’
‘You have no idea,’ she muttered.
‘What was that?’
She wrapped the tie of her fluffy cardigan ever tighter. ‘Cameron, I’ll go with you to your father’s party because I’m madly proud of you for listening to my words of wisdom. No hidden agenda. Nothing more. As agreed last night.’
He stared at her for a few moments, then nodded. She was mighty glad he believed her, as she wasn’t even close to sure that she believed herself.
She shielded her eyes and looked to the sun, which had risen, making it some time after seven in the morning. The faint crescent of Venus had been hovering above the horizon for some time without even getting a look in.
She said, ‘Shouldn’t you get going? Don’t you have minions to boss around at the worksite? Won’t Bruce be lost without you?’
‘I’m not so worried about Bruce right this second. How about you?’
‘Bruce isn’t high on my list of priorities either.’
He smiled. A smile so stunningly sexy that Rosie’s knees forgot how to work.
‘I meant, do you have anywhere else to be,’ he said.
She blinked down at him, arms crossed. ‘Um, no. I don’t. Because this is my place of work.’
Cameron didn’t move a muscle. He simply lay naked in her tent, while she realised that from the minute he’d walked into her glade—all gorgeous and conciliatory, talking of how he couldn’t keep his hands off her—she hadn’t given her work, her time, her warm bed, her breakfast, or anything else usually so important to her, a single thought.
Warning bells began to chime inside her head, telling her to finish getting dressed. To get moving. To just let him keep the damn tent.
‘Then what are you doing out there in the cold when it’s still so warm in here?’ he asked, flapping open the sleeping bag, leaving room for her.
