the small sectional you picked, much better than a traditional couch. The rolling coffee table is perfect too.”
The way he nodded absently, like he was thinking and agreeing at the same time, made me smile. If numbers were involved, spreadsheets, statistics, he could focus on several things at once. Lots of balls in the air was not an issue. But things that I considered simple, basic—like ordering food in a restaurant he’d never been to before—he had to deliberate over. The more time we spent together, the more I realized that one of the things I could offer him was variety, and because I was right there with him, he never had to worry about going it alone.
“Cam?”
He squinted at me and then looked around slowly, carefully, from the front door to the living room, to the kitchen, to the sliding glass door that led out onto the patio. He took his time, and then his gaze returned to me. “You’re right.”
“What am I right about?”
“It is too gray-and-white in here.”
“But there’s nothing wrong with that if you love it.”
His brows were furrowed as he crossed the room to the kitchen and put his hands on the counter. “I like the renovations I did in here.”
“I don’t know what it looked like before but it’s really nice.” It was the only room I could say I liked other than his office. “A clean, organized kitchen is a must, and you have that.”
“We have that,” he corrected.
“Yes. We.”
He cleared his throat. “I hired a decorator.”
“Okay.”
“And afterwards, I added things from catalogs or that I saw online.”
“Sure.”
“I never want to be wrong about how things look or how they go together.”
“And that’s not a bad thing.” I crossed the room to stand beside him. “I don’t want to turn your life upside down or––” His grin stopped me midsentence. He was stunning, always, but when he smiled, all I could do was stare.
“Trust me, you already did that. And…I wouldn’t change any part of it.”
I grinned right back at him. “Good.”
He took gentle hold of my hips as his eyes met mine. “I like sitting outside on the patio with that ceramic thing—what is it?”
“A chiminea.”
“Yes. I had no idea what it was when you brought it home, but I like what you burn in it, the dried creosote and the other things. I like our little grill and all the plants and the wind chimes Leilani gave us.”
“Me too.”
“Thank you for convincing Agatha to change out the mirrored doors in the bedroom.”
I snorted. “They were a bit much.”
He slipped his hands up under my T-shirt to my skin, and I shivered with the contact. No doubt about it, Cameron had a carnal effect on me. “I like the bamboo doors so much better; they look good.”
I thought to take a step back then, but his grip on my sides tightened; only a bit, though, since he was still scared of hurting me. It was something I planned to fix over the long four-day weekend, his perception that I couldn’t give him the manhandling he craved. He’d been overly careful, going to bed early, asleep by the time I got home or staying up later than me. When I caught him staring, he’d nearly jump out of his hot, flushed skin, and I noticed he had a tendency to walk into walls, the refrigerator, and once into the sliding glass door. He wouldn’t let me touch him, he didn’t like that he couldn’t reciprocate, no matter what I said, and he was sticking like glue to the doctor’s orders, even though I felt great. Since I was back to running, and now swimming since I had access to a pool, I would have thought he could tell I was in playing shape, but it turned out he cared for me even more than he wanted to jump me. It was hard to be mad about not having sex when the person you wanted stared at you with absolute adoration. He had no idea how velvety dark his eyes got as he gazed at me over dinner every night.
“Jeremiah?”
“Yeah.” It came out husky, a little breathy, and I leaned in to kiss his nose, and then stepped free of his hands because they were driving me crazy. “Listen, I’m not asking you to change your home for me. That’s not fair. I’ll hardly ever be here, so––”
“No, I want both places to be ours,” he argued, stepping in close to me again.