A Kiss to Dream On

by Neesa Hart

  “I don’t—”

  She pressed a finger to his lips with a sad smile. “But I can’t. So will you at least let me bandage a few wounds and clean your stitches?”

  The ravaged lines on his face had begun to ease. “Why are you so good to me?” he asked.

  “Because you’re good to me.” She studied him for a moment. “I’ve never felt closer to a person than I feel to you.”

  His eyes drifted shut. “Have I ever told you how much the stuff you say affects me?”

  “No.” Her breath caught.

  “Sometimes, we’re cruising along having a perfectly normal conversation, and then, wham, one sentence will hit me out of the blue.”

  Cammy swallowed the sudden dryness in her throat. “I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

  His eyebrows lifted. “You’re kidding. It’s not exactly poetic.”

  “Yes, it is. You have no idea how much I love the way you listen to me. Or what it does to me.”

  “We’re evenly matched, then. You talk. I listen. And the next thing you know—it’s fireworks.”

  Lord, he made her feel good. Smoothing a dark wave of hair off his forehead, she pressed a kiss to his chin. “Fireworks. Really?”

  “Absolutely.” His voice was still a little hoarse, but the turmoil seemed to have quieted.

  “Hmm.” She nuzzled his throat.

  “Cam?” He tipped her head away, his warm palm cradling her face. “What are you up to?”

  She studied his eyes. Grief still lingered there, but she sensed the peace in him. Telling the story had freed him of its grip. “I’m wondering just how much it would affect you if I reminded you of the conversation we had on your parents’ porch.”

  He went as still as a breezeless day. “What?”

  She ignored his strangled tone as she turned her face to kiss his palm. Spending time with Jackson had shown her an entirely new side of herself. Not in a million years would she have pictured herself telling him that night that she’d been ready to escalate their physical and emotional relationship. And here she was, ready to do it again. A part of her recognized that she wanted to give him this, this affirmation of life, to help ease his pain, but another part, the braver part, told her the truth: the man absolutely amazed her. “I’ve been thinking about that,” she whispered.

  “So have I. Night and day.”

  “In psychology, we call that an abnormal preoccupation.”

  “Obsession is more like it.”

  “You’re sure?”

  His eyes sparkled. “Honey, believe me. It’s my body and my psyche. I’m sure.” He eased his arm from around her shoulders and reached into the picnic basket. “Before we go any farther with this conversation, which I can pretty much guarantee is going to make me crazed, I have something for you.”

  “I can’t eat another thing.”

  He playfully tugged a lock of her hair. “It’s not food. It’s a present.”

  She looked at him curiously. “Really?”

  “Really.” He handed her a rolled parchment. Cammy gave him a curious look, but accepted the paper. She untied the blue ribbon so she could open it. The certificate had been issued by the International Star Registry. It pinpointed a specific star and named it: STARLIGHT, STAR BRIGHT. An astrological chart showed the location of the star, and assigned ownership to Dr. Cameo Glynn.

  “I never had my own star before.”

  “All those wishes,” he murmured. “I thought I’d give you a place to direct them.”

  Her heart swelled. She pressed a soft kiss to his mouth. “You are the most remarkable man I have ever known.”

  “I’m awfully glad you think so. I also think that if you don’t let me off the hook soon, you might have a certifiable nutcase on your hands. You’re destroying my brain.”

  “How could I possibly resist a man who gave me the stars?”

  He clasped her hand in his and pressed it to his chest. The steady thump of his heart echoed her own. In a voice so raw that she recognized the urgent need in it, he whispered, “I need you, Cammy.”

  The simple admission captivated her. To the best of her knowledge, she’d never been needed before. The rawness she saw in his gaze revealed both his hunger and his hurt, and she was powerless to resist it. Like a flame, it beckoned her. Even if it burned her alive, she realized, she longed to feel the heat of it. He had given her an indescribable gift tonight, and no amount of fear, or doubt, or hesitation would stop her from returning it to him. She drew a deep breath. “I know the feeling.”

  His gaze darkened. “I can wait,” he assured her, “I’m just not sure how long.”

  Resolute, and slightly giddy from a surge of adrenaline, she pressed a soft kiss to his lips, then met his gaze. “What’s wrong with right now?”

  thirteen

  Jackson pushed his way through layers of sleep, dimly aware that the blissful lassitude couldn’t possibly last. His limbs seemed sensitized, his nerve endings thrummed with subtle energy. He hadn’t felt this rested, or refreshed, or at peace since the day Leo had died.

  The realization opened the floodgate of his memory. His eyes popped open, and he took a quick assessment of Cammy’s bedroom. In the adjacent bathroom, the shower was running. His suit jacket hugged the ladder back of a chair. The black dress hung in the closet. His shirt lay across the end of the bed.

  And contentment filled every muscle in his body. He spent one long minute savoring the absolutely mind-shattering feeling that coursed through him. There was every possibility that he’d never felt this good. She had responded to him with a deeply sensual abandon that had aroused him like nothing before. He’d realized one of the most profound moments of his life the instant she’d clung to his shoulders and found fulfillment in his arms.

  The second and third times, inconceivably, were even better. With a deep growl of satisfaction, he tossed the sheets aside and strode to the bathroom. If he knew her as well as he thought, he’d bet real money she was in there trying to pretend that the events of the previous night hadn’t irrevocably altered the course of their relationship. And he wasn’t about to let her get away with it.

  He pushed aside the shower curtain with a broad sweep of his hand. Cammy faced him, looking terrified. Too late, he realized she could never have heard his approach. Her cochlear transmitter and earpiece sat on the vanity. With a repentant smile, he stepped into the tub, then pried the soap from her white-knuckled grip. “Sorry,” he signed. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

  She watched him, wariness and uncertainty filling her gaze. He found the idea of chasing away that look so fulfilling that he almost didn’t recognize the slight feeling of unease that threatened to dissolve the rosy haze of serenity.

  It niggled at him for a full half hour before he put a name to it. They were dressed, and she was toasting a bagel, and he was toweling the remaining dampness from his hair when he realized, with a sense of shock, precisely what was making his stomach clench with anxiety.

  He loved her. And it scared him to death.

  He drew in a shaky breath as he carefully placed the towel on the counter. She wasn’t going to like this. He had a very distinct, very certain feeling that Cammy wouldn’t like knowing he’d placed a name on his feelings. Especially not that name.

  How many times had she told him she wouldn’t get involved with him? A less intuitive man, he supposed, might assume that, after last night, they were as involved as two people could get.

  He knew her well enough to know there was nothing uncomplicated about what had happened between them last night. He’d stake his life on the fact that she didn’t have much experience, an insight which had made her sweetness and her passion all the more electrifying. She hadn’t rushed into bed with him for some emotionally detached one-night stand. It had meant more than that to her. He’d also bet that she’d known it would happen from the minute she’d put on that black dress. She had planned his seduction. And it had been absolute.

&nbs
p; He’d spent the entire night completely under her spell. She’d been in control, just as she’d planned. He studied her now, with her hair pulled into a loose ponytail, her oversized sweatshirt masking all the curves he’d adored during the night. On the surface, she showed none of the emotional turmoil he felt, but he sensed it. The physical link between them only served to deepen his developing understanding of her. At times, he almost felt like he read her mind. With his own feelings held so deeply, he was especially attuned, he found, to hers.

  And unless he missed his guess, she was struggling to maintain distance, regain the upper hand she’d previously held. Her body was calm, but her mind was in overdrive. Somehow, she was trying to find a way to hold him at an emotional distance despite the very real intimacy of their physical relationship.

  He didn’t know why, and he couldn’t identify just what it was about her countenance that made him so sure, but he knew she was fighting him.

  So he made a characteristically rapid decision. This would be something, he thought, like the time he had accompanied his father on a deep-sea fishing expedition. The objective was to give the fish enough line to make it think it had a fighting chance. Too tight, and the line would break. Too loose, and the fish might squirm away. A strategy of give and take, coupled with patience and strength, was needed to assure victory.

  The analogy almost made him laugh out loud. Last night, he’d mentally compared her to the root of a tree. Today, he was looking at her like she was a three hundred and fifty pound marlin. Here he was in what was probably one of the most abstruse moments of his entire life, and the best he could come up with was a fishing story. The woman was doing serious things to his mind.

  And he liked all of them.

  He liked them so much that he was just about ready to drop to his knees and beg her to keep doing them. But he’d give her, he decided, enough line to keep her from panicking. He could give her time to get used to the idea—days, and the fates willing, nights, to realize that she was meant to belong to him. He wouldn’t scare her, he’d nurture her. He wouldn’t push, he’d persuade. And before she knew it, he’d have loved her so thoroughly, so completely, that whatever fears she had would have simply evaporated. The very thought made his flesh tingle.

  He crossed the kitchen to wrap his arms around her waist from behind. The slight stiffening of her spine made him smile into her hair. Patience and persistence, he reminded himself. He’d built a career on those two principles. He was very, very good at them.

  Tipping his head to nuzzle her neck, he whispered, “What are the chances”—he nipped her earlobe—“that I can talk you into canceling your plans for the rest of the day?”

  She spread butter on the bagel. “Nil. I’ve got too much to do.”

  Her skin tasted like baby powder. He never thought he’d find that so sexy. “Okay.”

  She tipped her head to give him a surprised look. He took full advantage of the new angle by capturing her lips. When he finally raised his head, her glasses were askew. He straightened them for her. She blinked at him. “Okay?”

  He nodded, then scooped up the bagel. “Sure. Whatever you’ve got to do, I’ll do it with you. That way, we’ll get it done twice as fast, which leaves more time for,” he lifted his eyebrows, “other things.” He took a hefty bite of the bagel.

  “That wasn’t for you,” she told him.

  Grinning apologetically, he held it to her lips. “Sorry. You eat the rest.”

  She hesitated, but took a bite. While she chewed, he rubbed the smeared butter from her lips with the pad of his thumb. The shiver that ripped through her made his blood sing. “I could take you out to breakfast,” he offered.

  She shook her head. “No time. You, uh, slowed me down in the shower.”

  “Oh really?”

  “Yes. It doesn’t normally take me thirty-five minutes to take a shower.”

  His mouth twitched at the corner. “How long does it take?” He pressed the bagel to her mouth again.

  “About twenty.” She took another bite.

  “Me, too. So you see, if we shower together every morning, we’re saving five minutes of hot water. I read somewhere that five minutes of hot water equals five thousand recycled aluminum cans. I’m willing to do my part for the environment if you are.”

  That won a smile. “Who’s going to do my part for my water bill?”

  “We’ll split the routine. One week at my place, and one week at yours. We’ll both come out ahead, and we’ll save the environment.”

  “You’re incorrigible.”

  “And you’re adorable, and I’m totally infatuated.”

  She slipped from his embrace before he could stop her. “I’m also late. I’ve really got to go.”

  “And I really want to go with you.”

  She gave him a surprised look as she put the bagels and butter back in her refrigerator. “You can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m going to see my mother.”

  “So?”

  “So, you can’t come.”

  “Doesn’t that place have visiting hours?”

  “That’s beside the point. She doesn’t know you.”

  “I took you to see my mother.”

  “Your mother’s not a raving lunatic.”

  He recognized the quip as an effort to put him off. He stood his ground. “You should see her when she’s angry.”

  “Jackson—”

  He crossed the room in two quick strides. “Honey, listen.” Raising her hand, he pressed a kiss to her fingers. “I am not making fun of you. Please understand that.”

  She hesitated, but she finally answered him. “I do.”

  “Thank you. I just want to share this with you.”

  “I don’t—”

  “I know you’ve never done it this way before. I understand that, but I don’t want you to keep being alone. You look sad.” He pressed a finger to the corner of her eye. “I see it in your eyes, and it hurts me. You helped me with Leo.”

  “All I did was listen. I didn’t even give you decent advice.”

  “You helped me,” he insisted. “If nothing else, you told me it was okay to feel rotten about it.”

  “Of course it’s okay.”

  “You’d be surprised how many people don’t believe that. In the world beyond trained psychiatrists, grief has a timetable.”

  “I know.”

  “After a few weeks, sometimes months, the world moves on. It leaves you in the dust, and it moves on. People don’t care that you’re still bleeding—they just don’t want you to drag them into it.”

  “Disassociation,” she muttered.

  He sensed the battle in her and refrained from pressing. There was something significant in the way she said the word, he was sure of it. He filed it for later as he pressed his thumb to the pulse at her throat. “So, you helped me. And I want to help you.”

  She studied his face for long, tense seconds. He pressed her hand to his chest. “Let me at least drive you to the hospital. If you don’t want me to go in, I won’t.”

  Her expression altered, subtly. “I have to go from the hospital to pick up Amy. Her appointment with Doctor Van Root is this afternoon at George Washington Medical Center.”

  “Fine. We’ll take her together. I need to swing by my place in Georgetown to change clothes, then I’m yours for the day.”

  “You’re making me crazy.”

  Relief poured through him. He sensed her surrender. “Fair’s fair. You’ve been making me crazy for weeks.”

  “I’ve been trying to tell you that since the day I met you.”

  “And mule that I am, I wouldn’t listen.”

  “I’m not exactly sure why I keep putting up with you.”

  He snaked an arm around her waist so her body aligned with his. “Aren’t you?”

  “Contrary to male fantasies, women aren’t nearly as easy as men to manipulate with physical attraction.”

  “Want to test that theory?�
��

  “Not this morning.”

  He gave her a quick kiss. “All right. I’ll take a rain check.”

  “And you’re sure I can’t talk you out of going with me today?”

  “Positive. Unlike you, I happen to be very easy to manipulate with physical attraction.”

  “As long as you get your way.”

  His grin was shameless. “I think you’re catching on.”

  It was a hundred times worse than he’d imagined. Every time Laura Glynn aimed a verbal barb at Cammy, he had to remind himself that the shrew was out of her mind. She wasn’t responsible, Cammy would tell him, for the things she said, or for the effect they had. Still, he was having a hard time keeping a rein on his mounting anger. Someone should have told that woman years ago that lunacy didn’t give her a license to wound people.

  Laura gave him a scathing look. “I suppose you slept with him?” she asked Cammy.

  Jackson’s teeth clenched. Cammy didn’t falter. “I’m not sixteen, Mother. I’m old enough to make choices.”

  “Bad ones. You know what will happen if your father finds out.”

  “He won’t.”

  Laura turned her bitter gaze on Jackson. “He’ll kill you. You might not think so, but he will. He won’t hesitate.”

  “Is he that protective of his daughter?” he asked.

  Laura’s laugh sent a shiver through him. “Are you kidding? Durstan doesn’t protect anyone but himself. You’re a reporter, and Cammy slept with you. God knows what she’s told you. He’ll never tolerate it.” She looked at her daughter. “You’ve really made a mess of things this time, haven’t you? You should have stayed with Leslie. At least your father liked Leslie. He’ll blame this on me, you know. It’ll be my fault for giving you too much freedom.”

  “It’s no one’s fault, Mother.”

  “Who’s going to tell him that? He’ll ignore me for weeks because of this. You know that, don’t you? He’ll be screwing his mistress just to make me angry.”

  “Will it?” Cammy prompted.

  “Hah. Do you think I care who he screws? He’s a pig. Don’t ever think your father is anything but a pig. He hates you, and he hates me.” Laura wiped a hand over her face. “I keep telling you that, but you’re always on his side. You’re a fool to trust him.”