She couldn’t really see his features since he was hidden by the shadows. He stood just out of the light provided by the landscape fixtures.
“Why not?” she asked. She shook her head and leaned forward to put her head in her hands. “I just need time to breathe.”
She didn’t hear him move, but a moment later his big hand was on her shoulder rubbing in a circle. “I can give you that.”
She turned her head to the side and looked up at him. He didn’t have on a shirt, just a pair of low-slung pj bottoms. It was hard for her to see him but she remembered that muscled chest with the light smattering of hair. She reached out and touched him. “I’ve dreamed so many times that you came back to me.”
“You did?”
“Yes. It was so hard doing this alone and I wanted to tell you.” She started crying, surprising herself with how much emotion she’d bottled up since Ty’s birth. “You have no idea … it was only the echo of your words that you wanted a mistress and nothing more that kept my silence.”
He stroked his hand over her head and then bent down and lifted her up. He sat down on the bench with her or his lap. “You still should have told me, but I understand why you were hesitant to. I’m truly sorry.”
“I am, too,” she said, looking him straight in the eyes. She had no place to put her arm but around his naked shoulder, and she did just that.
“I want to start over. But not from a place of anger,” she said.
“I can try,” he admitted. “But I’m not making any promises. What do you suggest?”
“It’s obvious we both want to be parents to Ty. I suggest we try to work and live together for his sake.”
“And sex?” he asked.
“I’d like to see it develop naturally,” she said. “Not because of some arrangement. Or out of spite.”
She held her breath. Hoping that Cam was the man she’d glimpsed earlier tonight while they’d played with Ty and made him supper. Hoping he could see that with all this anger between them, they were never going to be able to move on.
“Okay,” he said. “But if you hide anything from me again all bets are off. Ty will be my son alone and you will have no rights to him. I’ll make sure of that.”
“I’m not hiding anything else from you,” she said.
“I’m not kidding,” Cam said.
“Neither am I,” she promised. She wanted that family of her dreams too much to do anything to compromise it. And if Cam was offering her a second chance, she was going to jump on it with both feet.
He held her in his arms, and they both said little. His hands moved over her as she sat there just listening to the sound of his breathing. She knew that the answers she’d come here seeking were still just out of her reach. But she felt closer to her dreams of a real family and a man who she could trust than she’d ever been before.
When he tipped her head back and lowered his mouth to hers, she knew she should push away and go back inside. She knew that sex with this man wasn’t safe for her. But she also knew that she’d been alone too long with only her dreams to keep her company—and that every one of them had been of him.
Six
Becca might need some breathing room, but all Cam needed tonight was Becca. He’d heard her leave her room. He’d put her in the room next to his so he could come and visit her at night once she became his lover again. And he’d had no doubt that she would become his lover. He was determined to have it all this time.
Becca’s lie about their son had given him a nice safe place from which to approach this entire relationship. He didn’t trust her, and that meant he was safe from falling in love with her. And love was something the Stern men weren’t particularly good at. But making love to a beautiful woman—well, that was something else entirely.
And Becca was the only lover he’d never been able to forget. He skimmed his hands down her back and around her hips. He flexed his fingers and squeezed her before moving his mouth from hers.
He nibbled his way to her ear and traced the shell of it with his tongue. “Did you want me on the plane?”
“Yes,” she said, her voice light and breathy. “Very much.”
“Good,” he said, rewarding her with a nibbling kiss at the base of her neck that sent shivers through her body. She shifted on his lap, arousing him even further.
“Have you thought about finishing what we started?” he asked.
She nodded. “But I have to ask you about your reputation as a playboy, Cam. Are you clean?”
That surprised a laugh out of him. “Yes, I am. I give blood regularly. Do you want to see my blood-donor card?”
She flushed. “No. I’m sorry if that made you uncomfortable.”
“You had every right to ask,” he said. “But tell me, Becca. I want to hear from your lips how much you want me,” he said. He brought one hand down low between her legs, stroking her buttocks, and then he lifted her up so she straddled him on the bench.
The fabric of her nightdress fell away from her chest and he had a quick glance of her cleavage. He reached up, cupping her right breast. He rubbed his palm over the globe until he felt her pert nipple blossoming against his hand.
He leaned down and licked her shirt where her nipple was pressed, and she shivered again, her hips moving against his erection.
“Tell me,” he said.
“I thought of nothing but that moment and wished you’d taken the kiss so much further,” she said. “I want your mouth on my breasts and your hands all over me as I move against you.”
Her words enflamed him, and he felt his erection strain against the fabric of his pajama pants. He pulled her night dress up and off her body and stared down at her breasts.
She put her hands on his chest and leaned toward him to kiss him. Her nipples rubbed against his chest, and he felt her rotate her shoulders so that they brushed through his chest hair. He put his hands on her butt and lifted his hips. His erection brushed between her thighs. She moaned and rode him a little harder, her hips moving back and forth without the motion of his hands.
She reached down between them and tried to free him from his pants. He lifted his hips off the bench and reached down to do it himself. Immediately he felt her wet hot core rubbing over his length. He groaned and closed his eyes, hoping to give himself a little breathing room, but he was ready to come. He wanted to be inside the velvet glove of her body. He wanted to hear her breath catch and then make her call his name again and again while he filled her.
“Are you on the pill?” he asked, barely able to get the words out. His voice sounded guttural and deep to his own ears.
“Yes. I am not trusting condoms anymore.”
“Thank goodness,” he said. He shifted her on his lap and maneuvered his hips so the tip of his erection was poised at the entrance of her body.
She quivered, and he felt her melt as she started to push down on him. To try to take him. But he wanted to be the one to take her. He held her still with his hands on her hips and pushed up into her one slow inch at a time. She bit her lip and moaned deep in her throat. Her nails dug into his shoulders, and he felt her tightening around him, but he kept his entrance slow and steady. He wanted it to last forever because he knew once he was buried hilt deep, he was going to give in to the tingling in his spine that called for him to thrust into her until he came.
“Cam….”
“Yes,” he said between clenched teeth.
“I need you,” she said.
“I’m