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She lowered her gaze. “Everyone looks at me differently once they know.”

“I’m not everyone, Avery! Not to you, not with you. Do you think I still don’t have hope? Hope that you will eventually get past this? That it won’t haunt you five more years from now?”

Avery looked too afraid to speak as I guided her hands to my chest, above my heart. “I have hope.” I held her gaze. “I have hope because I love you—I’ve been in love with you, Avery. Probably before I even realized that I was.”

Her eyes widened. “You loved me?”

I pressed my forehead to hers. “I love you.”

“You love me?”

I smiled slightly. “Yes, sweetheart.”

Avery held my gaze for a few moments, and I saw the very second she cracked. When the walls she had built around herself to just get by every day finally crumbled. Tears poured out of her eyes, so many I honestly believed it was possible for someone to drown in them. With everything in the open, she was laid bare, for the first time in years.

Emotion crawled up my throat as I circled my arms around her tightly. She came willingly, clutching my shirt. And she kept sobbing, and I knew I couldn’t stop her. That she had to get this out.

I lifted her into my arms and carried her back into my bedroom. I laid her down on the bed. I crawled in beside her, cradling her against my chest, and she held on to me as she continued to cry, like she was afraid I would leave her.

And leaving her was something that would never happen again.

Twenty-Seven

It was after midnight when my phone vibrated off my nightstand. Half asleep, I rolled over and smacked around until my hand landed on my cell. The soft white glow lit up the one word text from Shortcake.

Incoming.

Things were definitely different in the weeks following the day she had opened up to me.

I grinned as I threw the sheets off me and hurried through the living room and opened the front door. Avery stood there, barefoot and wearing a pair of tiny sleep shorts and a thin shirt. In the still cool night of early May, the shirt left very little to the imagination.

She smiled as I took her hand and pulled her inside, quietly shutting the door behind us.

“What the . . . ?” she whispered, staring at the floor between the coffee table and the couch.

Ollie lay facedown, cheek propped on the pillow I’d shoved under his face before I’d gone to bed. His soft snores would soon turn into chainsaws.

“Don’t ask,” I whispered back.

Giggling quietly, she squeezed my hand. We quickly made our way back to the bedroom and once inside, I spun her into my arms. “What are you doing?” I asked. “You have a nine-A.M. exam tomorrow.”

“I know.” She walked backward, guiding me to the bed. When she sat, I remained on my feet. “But it’s my last exam and I’ve already studied so much I think my brain is broke.”

I laughed. Over the last week, the time we spent together we spent studying for our own exams. “But shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

“I was lonely.” Her lips curved up as she tugged on my hands. “And I missed you. And I miss . . .”

She didn’t have to finish her sentence. I knew what she was thinking, what she wanted. Knowing the truth about what had happened was a blessing, but I wasn’t sure how to . . . well, how to really initiate things. The last thing I wanted to do was push her into something she wasn’t ready for. So I hadn’t pushed at all.

“Miss me?” I quickly changed the subject. “I know. Going even a few hours without my presence can cause heart palpitations, abnormal sweating, the occasional—”

“I think your arrogance is actually a disease.”

I gave her a cocky grin. “I like to think it’s a character strength.”

“Keep telling yourself that.” Sliding her hands free, she rose onto her knees in front of me. My mouth dried as I looked down at her upturned face. “Actually, keep telling yourself that quietly. Right now, try not talking.”

My brows shot up. “Well . . .”

She grinned, but I could see the deepening color spreading across her cheeks as she reached forward, placing her hands on my bare chest, and then she stretched up, sliding her fingers to my cheeks. She guided my head down to hers.

“I’ve missed you, Cam.” The tip of her nose brushed mine. “Haven’t you missed me?”

I closed my eyes as I wrapped my fingers along her slender wrists. “I have.”

“Good,” she murmured.

Her lips grazed mine once and then she kissed me softly. There was nothing like her kisses, especially when our positions were flopped. She pushed, working at the seam of my lips until I opened. The taste of her clouded my thoughts. I didn’t realize she had let go of my face until I felt the tips of her fingers slipping under the band of my nylon shirts.

My grip tightened around her wrists as I lifted my head. “Avery, maybe we—”

“Maybe you should let me do this.” Her chest rose sharply as her gaze dipped. There was no hiding that I wanted her to do this. The corners of her lips spread into a winsome smile. “I think you really want me to do this.”

“I do. God, I do, but—”

She silenced me with a kiss that told me that I needed to let her do whatever she wanted to do. Removing my fingers one at a time, I dropped my hands to the sides.

This was all her.

Avery broke away and then placed a kiss on my chest, above my heart. I tensed as she tugged my shorts down. Loosened, the shorts pooled on the floor in a second. I stiffened, aching, as she placed her hands on my hips and kissed her way down my abs. When the edges of her hair brushed me, my hands curled into fists. And she kept going, sliding one hand around my front, causing my body to jerk as she wrapped her fingers around me. I pulsed—my entire body pulsed. Then her breath danced over my hardness.

I cupped her cheek, stopping her. “Avery, you don’t have to do this.”

She lifted her head. “But I want to.”

My mouth opened, but the words—whatever the hell they were—died on my tongue as she took me into her mouth. Sensation exploded in several points. I kicked my head back, groaning as her hand moved, steady and strong in rhythm with her mouth.

I didn’t want to last. My back bowed as she worked me. Fuck. I couldn’t last. There was no way. Release powered through me as my hips jerked. I tried to pull her away, but she was latched on. She wasn’t going anywhere. I came, shouting her name.

After what felt like forever, she pulled away. As my chest rose and fell raggedly as I dropped a damn near out-of-breath kiss on her forehead. “Avery . . .”

“You liked?”

I coughed out a laugh. “I loved.”

“I’m a quick learner.”

Damn straight she was. Placing my hands on her shoulders, I guided her onto her back. “Avery?”

She let her hands fall beside her head. “Yeah?”

“Get ready.”

A puzzled look crossed her face. “Get ready for what?”

I captured her mouth, letting my lips and my tongue tell her exactly what to get ready for and it was a hell of a long time before I used those two things for anything other than loving her.

“Cookies! I got cookies!”

“Oh! What kind?” Shortcake’s voice floated from the bedroom.

She’d left the door unlocked for me, something that I was going to have to talk to her about later, but right now I had a warm plate of special delivery. I headed back to the bedroom, finding her lying on her bed, hands folded across her stomach.

“Peanut-butter cookies,” I told her. “But special.”

She grinned as she stretched her bare feet. “How are they special?”

“Well, besides the fact that I just baked them in honor of you finishing your last exam, they’re not just any kind of peanut-butter cookies.” I sat the plate on the nightstand. “But Reese’s peanut-butter cookies.”