Baby Me, page 2
part #4 of With Me Series
I still couldn’t understand why Cameron thought it was better to hide out here than in New York, where we both had lived before. I always thought it was easier to blend in with more people, but since I hadn’t been able to make any decisions when I was drugged up at the hospital, we’d ended up here. At first, I could barely move, dress, or feed and wash myself. Cameron was great at helping. He’d pretty much saved my sanity the past month and a half, but now that I’d healed, I was desperate for some me time. You know, when you can freely burp or make other bodily noises without being afraid that someone else is going to hear them, or pick at a scab on my arm that was healing and itching like crazy — that kind of alone.
Up until now, I had no choice. Completely dependent on Cameron, I knew that he held the reigns, and since I seemed to have been a bad judge of character in the past, I let him. He made our decisions for the both of us and for the first time in my life I was okay with that. For the first time in my life I actually wanted that burden to be removed from my mind. I didn’t want to worry about where to go, what to eat, who to speak to, or even worry whether Aaron Cortez was lurking nearby. Actually, I’d always worry about that; I just wouldn’t let Cameron know. He had enough on his mind while trying to protect me.
Letting go of everything had helped me heal and I was ready to take that next step in my life. I was ready to start living again.
“Are you ready for your shower?” His throaty voice floated on the thick air and vibrated pleasurably along my skin. If there was one perk about being immobile, it was Cameron’s willingness to do everything for me — well, almost everything. I knew he wanted more. I was well aware that we both needed more, but after nearly losing my own life, it was difficult to return to this new reality of a normal life. It was difficult to let go of a past that was still part of your present and could lead to a devastating future. Hopefully, the feeling wouldn’t last long. If there was anyone up there listening to my prayers, they’d lead the police straight to Aaron Cortez and let us move on with our lives.
I looked out the window at the orange morning sunrise that glowed through the sheer curtains. The past week the temperatures had risen to well above average and, without air conditioning, the sweat seemed to collect everywhere. Who in their right mind didn’t have air-conditioning? It turned out to be this off-the-grid family cabin in the mountains, where electricity wasn’t easily accessible. According to Cameron, the lack of electricity had many benefits – which I had yet to discover, but I didn’t want to appear grumpy. Besides, I couldn’t argue with the fact that if we’d lived through Arizona heat, we could live through this Indian summer.
“Kate, where are you? I asked you if you were ready for a shower.”
“Yes, I’m sorry. I’m ready. Let’s get wet.” I paused, the meaning of my words not lost on me, or by the look of Cameron’s bemused smile, on him. At the thought of him making me wet, I felt my panties dampen. “The casts don’t need to stay dry. You can get those wet because I’m getting them off today,” I stuttered.
Shit.
My mind was definitely playing with me, and judging by that mysterious smirk on his face, Cameron didn’t mind. He helped me out of bed, passed me my crutches, and guided me toward the bathroom, saying, “Today I can get anything you’d like wet. It’s a good day for it, don’t you think?”
Each time I stepped through the bathroom door and saw the clawfoot tub in the middle, I dreamt about the day I’d be able to bathe. With the casts on my body, that hadn’t been an option. Next to the floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out into the back yard and the forest, the tub was my favorite feature in this cabin. Honestly, all we needed was a fireplace here and I’d never leave the bathroom. I was afraid that if I mentioned it to Cameron, he’d have one installed the next day, and so I didn’t.
As I stepped inside the shower, I felt his fingertips at my panties. I froze momentarily, then lowered my gaze, and my whole body stilled at the gentle touch of his hands over my hips. Would he go further?
“I can’t wait to snuggle next to you. I can’t wait to hold you in my arms again, this time without any barriers.” He was standing behind me, his mouth at my ear, my back pressed to his chest. His fingers snuck into the sides of my panties and he lowered himself to the ground, his nose skimming right over my bare ass, tickling and arousing me at the same time.
“Cameron Madden, what are you doing?” I asked on a heavy exhale and turned around to face him, then looked down as he stood up, ever so slowly, and tossed the small piece of fabric to the hamper at the side.
“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m undressing you.”
He grasped the hem of my shirt and didn’t even bother lifting it over my head. Instead, he manifested a pair of scissors from thin air and cut through the middle right up to my neck and along the shoulders until the fabric swooshed to the ground. He pushed the pieces out of the shower and turned on the faucet.
“Put my panties back on right this moment,” I demanded, though I wasn’t sure why. It was the last thing I wanted, but he’d caught me off guard. Now that my heart was beating hard in my chest and my breaths quickened, I felt the room spin out of control.
Cold water streamed over the back of my head and neck, down my spine, and I didn’t flinch. It would have normally been a perfect distraction, but I was so hot and angry and turned on at the same time that I could barely breathe, never mind think. Over the past month and a half, I’d denied just how much I needed his touch and intimacy.
“Or what? You’re going to whack me over the head with your cast?”
“That’s rude.”
“I don’t care.”
“But you’re just taking what wasn’t offered.”
“I didn’t know I had to ask. And baby, do I really have to ask? All I want to do is kiss you. Everywhere.”
“I just… it feels so sudden.”
“No. It feels right. It feels like I should have done this a long time ago.”
My vision blurred. Everything he was saying sounded perfect, except I didn’t want to give in. After the loss of our baby, I wasn’t sure if I was ready for that part of our life — the one that could potentially give us another life.
“Let me kiss you, Kate. Let me kiss your neck.”
His lips touched my skin at the nook between my shoulder and my ear, and I shivered.
“Let me kiss your lips.”
He skimmed over my mouth, and I blindly followed for more as he moved his head lower to my other shoulder.
“Let me kiss you everywhere I’ve been wanting to since the last time I had my mouth on you.”
Oh, boy!
The water was no longer enough to distract me. The heat radiating from between my legs was agonizing.
“I’ve missed touching you. I’ve missed kissing you, and most of all, I’ve missed being inside you, and I promise you that by the end of the night I will ease that need I can feel dripping down your thigh.”
That’s when I noticed that his hand was down there, ever so close to all that pent-up desire I had for this man. He hadn’t even gone down on his knees, and I felt my ass tense at the thought of what would happen if he did.
He leaned in closer to me, his naked chest against my bare breasts and hard nipples. It was almost too painful to touch him.
“I want to hear you scream my name when I suck on you. I want to hear the moans of pleasure echo through the woods when that orgasm leaves your body.”
His other hand weaved down my bare arm on the left side, then slid between us until he reached my belly. He then lowered it to my sex and guided his fingers in between my folds. I let out a high-pitched gasp of surprise at how tender his touch felt there.
“Relax, Kate. Before the end of the night, I promise you that you will feel like a newborn. No, wait – you’re going to feel like you want to live again. I promise to give you the hope you so desperately need.”
I looked at him from underneath my hooded eyelids, half-dazed, horny, high on hormones, and oh so confused. I wanted him like I’d never wanted a man before, but something stopped me. So much had been taken from me — from us — I wasn’t sure that I wanted it all back just yet because I was afraid it would all be ripped from me again.
“You’ll come out of this stronger than ever. I truly believe in that, Kate. Do you hear me? We will be fine. Aaron Cortez will never hurt you again.”
I did believe him. I believed every word he said. He was the only man that I trusted now. He might have broken that trust once when he’d pretended to be a priest, but I knew that he would never hurt me like that again.
“But my heart. It hurts.” I lowered my hand to my stomach that was supposed to have a bump. Water dripped off my lashes and down my face. He lifted his hand and skimmed his thumb over my trembling lip.
“That’s why you’ve got me. Let me help you heal. Let me be that rock for you.”
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Will you ever forgive yourself?”
“Today is all about you, sweetheart.”
He was evading my question and he knew it. He was trying to change the subject, and I worried that it would be a long time before Cameron trusted the world again. It would be a long time before he truly believed in life and love. I would have to be there for him, then. I would have to step in and take care of him the way he had taken care of me. When you’d been stripped of love and when you knew that your love could be snatched from you at any moment, it was easy to no longer believe in it. It was easier to pretend that love was some figment of the imagination or a good romance novel. But it wasn’t like that with me and Cameron. Love for us had been real from the first moment I’d picked him up at a bar.
He reached for a sponge, soaped it up, and proceeded to wash all the exposed parts of my body. It took only a few seconds for me to get lost to his touch. I parted my legs, hoping he’d venture lower, to where my need was almost burning. He took his time washing me, stroking the sensitive parts, rubbing over my mound. He drew the sponge underneath my breasts and over their swell, around my shoulders, and across my back. It felt so good, yet it wasn’t enough.
“Tonight,” he whispered in my ear. “When these casts come off, you’re mine, Kate. I won’t have it any other way.”
I nodded, wishing that it could all happen now. I wished he could find that spot and rub it over and over again, so that I could feel the relief. Instead, he set the sponge aside and rinsed my body with the showerhead.
But he was right. If this was going to happen, I wanted to enjoy him with my whole body. The casts were coming off today, and I couldn’t be happier. Maybe I could finally socialize a little. Not that I entirely wanted to, but I no longer wanted to be confined to the house. I wanted to go outside to pick mushrooms, to walk around barefoot across the grass, dampening my feet with the morning dew. I was ready to get back to life, or get back to as much of it as possible.
A sudden image of a dark shadow behind trees flashed in my mind and I froze. “Cameron? Can you do me a favor when you go to town today?”
“Sure, what is it?”
“Can you get me some pepper spray?”
“Of course.”
“Also, I need a sedative.”
“A what?”
“A sedative.”
“Why?”
“Because everyone always sedates me, and I’m tired of it.”
“No one’s going to sedate you, Kate.”
“Not if I sedate them first.”
He looked at me with skepticism but didn’t question my motives. I was pretty sure my motives were clear. If anyone fucked with me, I wouldn’t hesitate to take them out.
“All right. If it makes you happy, I will,” he replied, and resumed washing me, taking his time.
“How soon do you think it will be before I can walk to town?”
“Is it so bad around here?”
“No, but now that I’ll be more mobile, I should check the area out.”
“That’s the cop in you talking.”
Maybe it was. Maybe the cop in me was finally trying to gain back some of the control that I’d lost when I was kidnapped. The thought excited me, and I had an urge to jump out of that shower and then explore the little town Cameron had spoken so fondly about.
“What if you did go to town with me today?” he asked, and I felt my eyes grow wide.
“Are you serious?”
“I wouldn’t make such an offer if I was kidding.”
I threw my one working arm around his neck and yanked him to come forward until his lips were pressed against mine.
“I love you so much,” I said, between kisses.
“I love you as well.”
How I hoped that all the love we had in the morning would last for a while. Little did I know that love would blossom into a lifelong commitment by that evening.
Chapter 3
Cameron
The sound of a saw cutting plaster sliced through the air. The high-pitched noise frightened all the birds away. They returned minutes after Dr. Charles Lockheart set the saw aside. The dust settled, and Kate’s mouth stretched into a grin.
“How do you feel?” I asked her, as she examined the parts of her body that had been hidden over the past two months.
“Like a newborn.”
She lifted her arm in haste and winced.
“You need to still take it easy, Kate. Use the crutches wisely,” Dr. Lockheart advised, and Kate flawlessly batted her lashes at him. There was no doubt that he deserved every ogle the woman gave him. Still a very eligible bachelor, Charlie, as I’d known him since we were kids, hadn’t found “the one.” When we used to come up here with my parents, we always dined at his mom’s. Tonight, I was taking Kate to the Lockheart Diner, and I couldn’t wait for her to meet what I called our extended family.
“You heard the doctor, Kate. Take it easy. The last thing you want to do is overwork yourself and take longer to heal.”
“I am healed. Look.” She wiggled her foot, then slowly stood up. She placed most of her weight on the side where she’d had the cast and took three brave steps before sitting down. Her left leg was visibly weaker, and as soon as she caught our glares, she rolled her eyes. “Crutches. I got it. Don’t worry. I’ll be fine. I can’t wait to call Mom as soon as we have a signal.”
Having a signal was code for going to town because that was the closest place with an actual connection to the outside world. While I could have told Kate that we actually had a signal at the cabin, I hadn’t. When we first came here and she began recovering from her injuries, I never turned on the wifi in Jax’s bedroom. Seeing how nice it had been for Kate to rest and relax over the past month, I had first decided not to mention it for a while, and then forgot about it. But now I made a mental note to do so before she went to bed tonight so I could surprise her with the news in the morning.
“I’m sure she’d love to hear from you,” I said.
“Use your crutches for a few days. Don’t overdo it, and let Cameron help you. I know how keen you are to get back to your regular life, but give your body and mind the time they need to recuperate.” Dr. Lockheart handed her a small booklet, which I assumed contained her exercise routine that we’d spoken about. My good friend was the only one I trusted to come up to the cabin. “Your muscles need time to strengthen, so don’t be too hasty.”
“Got it.” Kate gave him an over-enthusiastic thumbs-up, grinning from ear to ear. If she thought she was happy now, I couldn’t wait until she saw what I had planned for the day.
“Call me for anything else you need.”
“Thank you, Dr. Lockheart.”
“You’re welcome.”
Just as we said our goodbyes, I heard an odd noise outside. “Why don’t I walk you out, Charlie? Kate, stay in. I’ll be right back.”
If she heard the worry in my voice, she didn’t say anything. I put on my jacket, walked Charlie to the car, waited until he left and then went around the back. A quarter of the trees’ leaves had fallen to the ground, littering it in orange, yellow, and red tones. It was a beautiful sight, but when I heard the same shuffling noise again, I paused. I quietly paced to the shed where my father’s old hunting rifle was secured. I dusted it off, loaded it, and went back outside. The noise was likely made by an animal, but the last thing I wanted was to stumble upon a lost bear. They didn’t come near the cabin often, but with winter around the corner, I wouldn’t have been too surprised to find one.
Back at the house, Kate was standing behind the sliding glass door with her arms crossed over her chest, as if she knew I was looking for something. I stood still in the middle of the clearing, listening to the forest. I had closed my eyes and was concentrating on the sounds that did not belong there when I heard the noise again. I opened my eyes and strained my gaze to the left. A darker shadow moved behind the tree, and I prepped my rifle and aimed. If a bear was this close, I’d only get one shot if it decided to charge.
But the shadow moved quickly to the right and then disappeared into the forest. I lowered the rifle and went back to the house.
“Did you see that?” I asked Kate.
“Yeah, but what was it?”
“I don’t know.”
“It was too small for a bear.” She twisted the corner of her shirt. While I was out, she’d managed to change into a pair of leggings, and they fit her to perfection.
“A wolf?” I wondered out loud.
“No, too tall. Not big, but tall. I could have sworn it moved like a human.”
“All right. That seals it. I’m not leaving your side from now on.”
“Aw, come on. I thought today was the first day of me getting some freedom.” Kate pouted, and I pulled her gently to me to place a kiss on her lips.
“I promise you will still have your own space, but not until I’m sure the area’s secure. All I want is for you to be safe.”
“Cameron, I think you may have forgotten that I’m not a baby, and I can take care of myself. You have nothing to worry about. We’ll go to town, and we’re going to have the best time ever. I won’t have it any other way.” When I didn’t argue and sighed with reluctance she almost squealed with happiness. I’d missed that smile.
