Tearing off the quilt, I scrambled over Cam’s legs and lap. “Oh God…”
“What? You’re sick.” Cam was on his feet.
I rushed toward the bathroom and slammed the door behind me. Dropping to my knees, I lifted the lid and started heaving. Every muscle in my body went through the motion. Tears streamed down my face as my body shuddered. It seemed wrong to be going through this after having the flu.
Over all the retched noise I was making, I hadn’t heard Cam come in, but he was there, kneeling beside me. His hand smoothed the length of my spine, a continuous, endless soothing stroke as he scooped the hair that had escaped my bun out of my face. He stayed, murmuring unintelligible words to me that did wonders, even through the violent dry heaving stage.
When it was all done, he helped me lean against the bath tub while he grabbed a small towel and ran it under the water. He knelt down, wiping the soft material across my face, like he had the night of the Halloween party and when I’d been sick. “Feel better?” he asked.
“Kinda,” I murmured, closing my eyes against the brightness. “Oh God, this is so embarrassing.”
He chuckled. “It’s nothing, sweetheart.”
“This is why you stayed, right?” I moaned, feeling like a giant idiot. “You knew I was going to be sick and here I was, taking off my clothes.”
“Shh,” he said, tucking the loose strands of my hair back. “As charming as it was to watch you vomit up your guts, that’s not why I stayed and you know it.”
I closed my eyes again, feeling a bit floaty. “Because you want me, but not when I’m drunk and puking all over the place?”
Cam burst into laughter. “Yeah, you know, that sounds about right.”
“Just making sure we’re on the same page,” I murmured. It kind of struck me then that I was still just in my jeans and bra, but I honestly didn’t care. Tomorrow would most definitely be a different story.
“We’re not.”
I pried one eye open. “Ha.”
“Thought you’d like that.” He swiped the cool, damp cloth along my chin.
“You’re very… good at this.”
“Had a lot of practice.” Cam tossed the towel aside, grabbed a new one and repeated the steps. “Been where you are quite a few times.” He ran it down my neck, over my bra straps and then the length of my arms. “Want to get ready for bed?”
My other eye flew open.
He shook his head and the dimple appeared in his left cheek. “Get your mind out of the gutter.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh,” he said, standing. With his back to me, he rummaged around the sink. A faucet turned on. He was back in front of me again, holding a loaded toothbrush. “Thought you’d want to get the taste out of your mouth.”
My fingers made grabby motions. “You are wonderful.”
“I know.” He handed it over and then replaced the toothbrush with one of those paper cups I never used. When I was all done, he knelt again and rocked back on his heels. He unzipped his hoodie and shrugged it off. “I’ve been trying to get you to say I’m wonderful from the first time you plowed into me. If I’d known that all it would take was handing you a toothbrush, I would have done that a long time ago. My loss.”
“No. It was my…” I pushed myself up a little, watching as he reached down and pulled the shirt off his head. “My loss—what are you doing?”
“I don’t know where your clothes are.”
“Uh-huh.” My gaze dropped and I think I needed the damp towel again.
“And I figured you’d want to get out of your clothes.”
In the bright light, I saw the detail on the sun tattoo like I never had before. There had to be a thousand little marks inside the sun, giving it such a realistic, fiery detail. “Yeah…”
“So the easiest thing would be to let you borrow my shirt.”
My eyes went even lower, over the dusky nipple and then down, tracing each ripple of his stomach muscles. “Okay.”
“Then you’d be more comfortable.”
There was a fine dusting of dark hair the appeared under his navel and traveled south, below the band on his jeans. It looks like someone placed their fingers on either side of his hips, indenting the skin there. “Sure,” I murmured. How did someone get muscles there? Like what kind of stomach exercises did you have to subject yourself to?
“You haven’t been listening to a single thing I’ve said.”
I dragged my gaze up. “Nuh-uh.”
There was that dimple again as he clasped my hips and helped me up so I was sitting on the edge of the tub. “Don’t lift your arms yet, okay.”
Sitting still, I gripped the edges of the tub as he pulled the opening of his shirt over my head.
“Keep your arms down.” He let go of the shirt and slipped his arms around me. A second later, his agile finger unclasped my bra.
“What are you doing?” My stomach dropped, and boy, after what just went on in here, that was not a good feeling.