Down London Road (46 page)

The peace it brought me to look back and no longer see that wall Cam had helped me scale so long ago was indescribable. I would never be back behind that wall again, or have my colours muted and my personality trapped in the stranglehold of my insecurities. This was me. Life from now on would consist of being real, which was somehow scary and freeing all at the same time.

It helped that the pieces of my life were falling nicely into place for once.

Cole pretended to be indifferent to the news that we were moving into Cam’s flat, but I could tell by the way he’d been enthusiastically packing, and slowly moving something new into the flat every day, that he was happy about the new arrangement.

As for Mum … well … first she’d gone off about how we were abandoning her, and how she wouldn’t let me do this to her, and I couldn’t take Cole, and I was a selfish little whore, and blah, blah, blah …

Allowing her to exhaust herself in a tirade seemed like the best way to cope with her. That way she tired herself out and had no energy to fight me as I calmly told her that if she didn’t let me move Cole downstairs, if she even dared to call the authorities, I’d leave her ass in the dust and never look back. I assured her that this way
I would check in with her, and if she needed me I was only a staircase away. Her silence was a bittersweet relief and it informed me in its heavy weightlessness that I’d won this particular argument.

She hadn’t spoken to us for three weeks.

Wiping sweat off my forehead, I blew air out between my now completely healed lips and gazed around Cam’s sitting room. Boxes surrounded me on every side. Cole and I were supposed to be officially moving into Cam’s the next day – a Saturday – so that Cam and the guys could help us with all the boxes. Feeling a little overexcited about the whole thing, and restlessly wandering around the flat, I’d decided to take one of the lighter boxes downstairs to his (our) flat while he was at work. It was now late afternoon, my side was hurting a little, and I’d moved most of the boxes into their new home.

Cam would return from work in an hour or so and a few hours after that I had to be at the bar for one of my last shifts ever at Club 39. I was going to miss everyone at the bar. I’d still see Joss, of course, but that place had been a home away from home for the longest time, and I had spent time there with two of the most important people in my life. It was the end of an era.

However, something new and exciting awaited me. Uncle Mick had already given me two work T-shirts with his company name on them:
M HOLLOWAY’S PAINTER & DECORATOR
. I loved them. They looked great with the new overalls Cam had bought me.

Humming to myself, I pulled out my iPod and stuck it in Cam’s stereo dock, turning the volume up as I began unpacking. Time passed quickly as I sang along, dancing,
and shaking my ass as I found places for all my stuff, attempting not to overwhelm Cam’s space with my things.

Just as I was breaking up the empty boxes, a pair of strong arms slid around my waist and scared the bejesus out of me. I yelped and spun around to find a bemused Cameron smiling at me. He gestured silently to the room and all of the new objects.

‘I got a little carried away,’ I explained, speaking loudly to be heard over the music.

He nodded, his gaze drifting over the mantel, where a photograph of me, him and Cole now sat next to his own pictures. The stylish mantel clock from upstairs now dominated the centre, the photographs dispersed evenly on either side of it. ‘I can see that.’

‘It saved us doing most of it tomorrow.’

Blue eyes dropped to my side and his hand came up, his palm pressing gently against my ribs. At the proximity of his touch to my chest, I felt my nipples peak against my sweat-dampened tank top. We hadn’t had sex since before the attack. Fooling around while we waited for my ribs to heal had been fun, but my hormones were becoming a tad impatient for the play that succeeded the fore.

‘You didn’t hurt yourself, did you?’ Cam asked, his brows knitting together in concern.

Lying to him a little, I shook my head in response.

As if he knew, he scowled at me.

‘Okay, I got a bit overeager. It’s just because I’m excited to move in with you, baby.’ I tried to charm my way out of the coming admonishment.

It worked. With a roll of his eyes, he whipped his other arm out and pulled me against him. I wrapped my arms
around his neck as he held me, resting my chin on his shoulder. Breathing Cam in, feeling the strength of him against me, and knowing that I could reach out and have this with him anytime I wanted made me sink deeper into him. Those lean, muscular arms of his tightened around me, not only comforting me but awakening another set of frustrated, neglected hormones.

Without really meaning to, we began to sway to the music, and Rihanna’s mournful voice sang ‘Stay’ at us. Goose bumps woke up all over my arms and I held on tighter to him, turning my head so our cheeks brushed. The song filled the room with such meaning it took my breath away, and as it hit the chorus Cameron whispered the lyrics in my ear, ‘… I can’t live without you …’

With my heart pounding with the profundity of what he’d confessed so romantically, I pulled slowly away from him so I could look into his face, and his eyes seared into mine. He meant that. He meant every word.

I was too full. Too full of emotion. Too full of love. There was no room for words. Instead I kissed him, throwing every feeling I had for him into it, my mouth savouring his in wet, hard desperation. Cam started moving us backwards as we kissed, his hands reaching out behind him as he led us out of the sitting room. He turned to guide us towards the bedroom, but I broke the kiss with a shake of my head, tugging on his hand.

Stumbling back against the wall in the hallway, I yanked him towards me. My skin flushed under his gaze as I whipped my T-shirt off and then pushed my leggings down. ‘Here,’ I told him, my voice shaking with anticipation. ‘Where it all started.’

Realization dawned with the light of absolute adoration in Cam’s eyes, an adoration I would never get tired of witnessing. He moved towards me, watching me as I stripped before him. ‘What about your side?’ he murmured. ‘I don’t want to hurt you.’

I slid my hands up under his T-shirt, forcing it up and off him, my ravenous gaze eating up the sight of his roped, naked torso. ‘It’ll be worth the pain.’ I reached back to unclip my bra and as it fluttered to the floor, Cam shot into action.

He kicked off his boots, fumbling with his jeans. He shoved his underwear and jeans down, not waiting another second before lifting me up by the ass. My legs wrapped around his hard hips and my hands gripped to his shoulders as he pushed us back against the wall.

I suddenly laughed, halting him. Cam’s brow furrowed in perplexity. ‘Rihanna?’ I giggled as I explained. ‘You know the lyrics to Rihanna?’

Cam’s mouth curled sexily, arrogantly. He was not at all abashed at knowing Rihanna lyrics. ‘
You
know the lyrics to Rihanna. I just pay attention.’

‘Always got an answer for everything, you cocky bugger.’

He laughed against my mouth. ‘I think you like my answers.’ Unable it seemed to wait another minute, Cam thrust up into me. I cried out at the thick invasion, my inner muscles clinging greedily to his cock as he pulled out almost completely and then roughly slammed back in.

‘I missed you, baby,’ he groaned, using one hand to brace against the wall as the other hand clutched my butt cheek in its bruising grip.

‘I missed you, too.’ I moaned as he thrust back into me, my nails digging into the muscles in his back. ‘Harder,’ I begged, sensing that he was holding back because of my injury.

‘Jo –’ He shook his head.

‘Please,’ I pleaded into his ear in a purr. I nipped his lobe and felt his control snap.

Afterwards, he carried me to our bedroom, put me down on the bed, and began to kiss his way up my body. With my assurance that Cole was enjoying the first days of his summer holidays at Jamie’s house, Cam decided he had all the time in the world. He kissed, and licked, and sucked until I was almost wrung dry. After what felt like hours of foreplay, he wrapped my legs around his waist and braced himself over me as he kissed me.

His kisses were deep and slow. He brushed his mouth over mine in butterfly kisses one second, and then closed it over mine the next. His kisses never sped up, never hardened … instead he revelled in the erotic building of anticipation as our tongues met in a breathless, wet waltz. When he eventually sucked hard on my tongue, setting off little jerks of reaction in my lower belly, I pushed for more. It seemed impossible, but I was ready for another orgasm. We made out, naked on his bed, for who knew how long, his hard-on rubbing over my sex, teasing my clit, as his body moved with his kisses. He squeezed my breast, his thumb rubbing over the sensitive nipple he’d sucked earlier – sucked and licked it so diligently that he’d only had to whisper his thumb over my clit to bring me to climax.

As he tormented me with the tantalizing nearness of
his erection, I whined against his mouth and his answering smile was smug. He pulled back and brushed his fingers along my cheekbone, his eyes never leaving mine as he slowly pushed his cock inside me. He shifted, bracing his hands on either side of my head, and then began to move. His thrusts were gentle this time, languid, and the tension coiled to an excruciating level.

‘I love you,’ he breathed harshly.

I pulled my knees up more, to allow him in deeper, as I cupped his face in my hands. ‘I love you, too.’

I gasped as he rotated his hips, starting to lose focus as the sensations of our lovemaking gained dominance.

‘I love to fuck you,’ he whispered in my ear, his voice gravelly with emotion. ‘But I love to love you, too.’

I nodded, understanding completely.

Cam kissed me deeply again, his thrusts growing more frantic as the tension increased inside us. Our skin was clammy with sweat as we slid against each other, our panting breathing mingling as our lips brushed back and forth with the movement of his body over mine.

Chasing climax, I tilted my hips up with force, meeting Cam’s next plunge with a slam that snapped the coil. Sparks flew apart in the wake of its destruction and I cried out his name as I came, my sex pulsing around him, my lower body shaking from the climax.

Cam suddenly arranged my hands above my head on the bed, pumping into me harder as he held me down. He came with a guttural shout of my name, his hips jerking against mine as he flooded my womb with his release.

He collapsed on me and I felt a twinge of pain in my ribs. Almost as if he felt it too, Cam rolled on to his side,
still in me, and pulled me against him, hooking my leg over his hip.

I felt another spark of pleasure between my legs as his cock twitched inside me.

‘Well worth the wait,’ he sighed happily.

I nodded against his chest, thinking about all the wrong guys I’d dated before him. ‘Definitely.’

Two weeks later

Cam and Jo’s flat

Sweaty, tired, and covered in tiny flecks of paint from the gentle spray of the roller, I let myself into our flat and leaned back against the door with a contented sigh.

Uncle Mick had just dropped me off at home after our first day on the job together. We were decorating one of the show homes in the new development Mick had been contracted for. Today we’d painted all of the ceilings. Tomorrow and the next day would be more painting and then we’d get on with the wallpaper the designer had chosen.

‘I’m home,’ I called, kicking off my work boots and unsnapping the straps on my overalls so they hung on me like baggy jeans.

‘In here,’ Cam answered from the bedroom.

I strolled along the hallway, pulling the bandanna off my head and thinking how nice it was to feel this exhausted. It was an accomplished kind of exhausted and I loved it. I stopped in the doorway of the bedroom to find Cam
sitting on the end of the bed with his hands behind his back.

Our room was now a weird mishmash of my stuff and his, but I didn’t care. I just loved that when I woke up in the morning it was to a warm arm wrapped around my waist and usually a welcome morning erection nudging me in the ass.

I wouldn’t swap it for anything.

The move had gone well for the most part. We were both pretty laid-back about the small things, so sharing space wasn’t really an issue for me and Cam, and Cole had recreated his bedroom from upstairs in Cam’s guest bedroom in record-breaking time. He seemed to be perfectly happy with his new home, and glad that our room was on the other side of the flat from his.

I was glad for that too.

Mum, on the other hand, was still pulling the silent treatment, refusing to talk to me whenever I popped upstairs to bring her groceries and clean the place.

Guilt would not find me. Not because of her.

Admittedly, though, some days were easier than others.

However, everything else had gone smoothly. Everyone was happy for us. Well, except Blair, I imagine, but since Cam had been as good as his word about breaking contact with her, I didn’t know that for sure. The only argument we’d had so far was about a week ago when we’d been watching a movie and Malcolm had called me. I took the call. Malcolm had just wanted to chat, a chat in which I told him I’d moved in with Cam. Silence had fallen on the other side of the line and when Malcolm
finally spoke, offering me congratulations, it was with such false cheer that I knew I’d hurt him. Again. Before I could respond – not that I knew what to say – he had made his excuses and hung up.

When I returned from the kitchen, I was promptly manhandled by Cameron into the bedroom, where he tried to calmly (and was unsuccessful in that endeavour) ask me what Malcolm wanted. It ended in an argument. Cam argued that since he stopped talking to Blair I should stop talking to Malcolm. I argued it wasn’t the same thing since Blair was in love with him. Cam argued that Malcolm was in love with me. And since I thought he might be right, I let him win the argument, assuring him I wouldn’t speak to Malcolm any more. I didn’t think that would be a problem. I had a feeling that was the last call I would ever receive from Malcolm.