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She slipped her arms around his neck, lifting to her toes. “I said, ‘And I love you, more than you know.’”
And whether because they’d done this before or because neither of them could help it, Ian found his lips against hers as he pulled her body closer to his, until there wasn’t even a breath separating them.
He slid his hands down her back, over her hips to rest on her backside. She moaned against his lips. Her hands tunneled into his hair, holding him to her as if to keep him from escaping. Crazy woman. Didn’t she realize he didn’t want to be anywhere else? He nipped at her jaw and then her neck. A small cry escaped her lips as he released her skin. He kissed the small red mark left behind.
“Ian.” The low sound took him back to a thousand memories of their bodies coming together, her warmth surrounding him.
He pushed his hand under her tank top. The muscles of her abdomen tightened beneath his palm. Pausing, his fingers rubbed lazily at the underside of her breast. Her hips arched closer to him. Her softness seeking his hardness.
“God, Cam, I love you,” he managed between kisses.
Her body went rigid against his.
“Cam?” He leaned back to search her face.
Pushing against his chest, she shook her head. “Don’t . . . don’t say that to me.”
His hand slipped from beneath her shirt, but he didn’t back away. Afraid if he let her go, she’d never let him touch her again.
“Cam. Please.”
He wasn’t above begging. Not when it came to Cam and his happiness. “Talk to me. I’ve missed you, mourned you for five years. You and our daughter.”
This time, she shoved him away from her. He stumbled back, all contact lost.
“Don’t you talk about her to me.”
Anger warred with the desire churning inside him. “Why? Do I not get to mourn her too? Have you cornered the market on grief?”
“I was the only one who wanted her, so yes,” she yelled. “You made it clear when I told you I was pregnant that you weren’t ready for a baby, you—”
“Do you forget the way I held you at night and talked about her? Do you forget that I felt her moving beneath my hand, that I named her? Did none of that mean anything?” Tears filled his eyes as he remembered those moments of hope and love they’d shared. How could she think he hadn’t wanted their daughter?
“You didn’t even cry when she died.” Her soft voice broke.
She had no idea. While she’d lain unconscious in her hospital bed, he’d held their daughter and wept. Wes had finally pried the child from his arms. By the time Cam woke up, he’d thought he had no tears left to shed. Then he’d seen her devastation and his already shattered heart had somehow broken into even smaller fragments. Cam wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t speak. She blamed herself for their daughter’s death. What kind of man would he have been to lay his own pain on her, when every ounce of her energy needed to focus on survival?
“You’re right. I didn’t cry, not in front of you.”
She snickered. “You say that.”
“I mean that. You were barely keeping it together. I couldn’t add to your pain by making you comfort me.”
“So, who did comfort you then?”
Would she believe no one? He’d sat by her side, he’d watched her suffer, and he’d told himself he deserved every bit of his own pain.
When he remained silent, she raised a dark brow.
“No one. I waited for you to get better, for us to eventually comfort each other. Then you left.”
Her glare softened, before she seemed to remember something and straightened. “No. You—”
The door to the clinic burst open. “Doc. Doc C, please,” a girl’s voice called, followed by the slapping of bare feet on the cement floor.
Cameron’s eyes widened. Before Ian could ask who the voice belonged to, Cameron had turned and ran from the room. He followed her, stopping in his tracks when he saw the problem.
Two small girls held the door open as Luci and the woman he remembered from his first night, half carried, half dragged Esmerelda Hunte inside.
“You have to help her,” Luci gasped. “It’s the baby. It’s ready.”
