Page 39 of Melt for You (Slow Burn 2)
I huff and puff, pondering the image he’s put into my head. “Toned is good. Skinny is better.”
“Wrong! Strong is the goal, lass, not skinny. A man doesn’t wanna grab onto a sack of rattlin’ bones when he’s in the mood. He wants a nice, thick, juicy woman with buttery curves, sizzlin’ hot and tasty.”
“You literally just described my perfect steak.”
“My mum always said you can’t trust a skinny woman. Skinny body, skinny heart, skinny love.”
“I think I love your mother.”
“Aye,” says Cam softly. “She was easy to love.”
Was. That drains the last bit of energy from my legs. I stagger to a stop, holding my side and panting, and look at Cam. He’s refusing to look at me for some reason, keeping his face averted as he jogs in place a few feet away.
“She passed away?”
A curt nod is his only answer.
“I’m sorry.”
He swallows, squinting up at a streetlamp. In the cold yellow glow, his face is all stark angles and planes. The sharp cut of his jaw. The razor-straight nose. The dark hollows beneath his full cheekbones.
The pain on his face is another sharp feature, etched there like carvings in glass.
“Hundred years ago. Ancient history. But thanks.”
His voice is low and raw, and I’ve never seen him so naked. Without the usual bravado he wears like a suit of armor, he seems like a stranger all over again, one darker and more complicated, and far more compelling.
But the moment is gone as quickly as it came when Cam turns to me with a brilliant smile. “Quit your lollygaggin’, lass, and pick up your feet! We’re only just gettin’ started!”
He turns and jogs away down the sidewalk into the predawn gloom, his back straight and his head high, his step lively.
But it’s too late. I’ve peeked behind the golden curtain. I’ve glimpsed the real man behind the Great and Powerful Oz.
“I see you, Cameron McGregor,” I whisper to the empty street as a garbage truck rumbles b
y. I draw a stinging lungful of diesel fumes and force my legs to move once again. Then I’m jogging behind Cam, my will renewed, the pain in my body pushed to the periphery of my awareness by the single thought crowding out everything else in my head.
I see you.
ELEVEN
By two o’clock that afternoon, I’ve forgotten all about Cam and the interesting moment in the morning cold because I’m in so much agony I’m convinced a trip to urgent care is in my immediate future.
“What’s all the groaning over there?” asks Shasta from behind the cubicle wall, in a voice that indicates she’s not particularly supportive of my medical condition.
“I started working out. Kill me.”
She pops over the wall, resting her chin on the edge and dangling her arms over so she looks like a decapitated marionette. “Pilates? Peloton? Krav Maga? Kundalini? Booty Twerk?”
“What language are you speaking?”
“I’m into capoeira myself.”
When I stare at her in pained silence, she explains. “It’s a Brazilian martial art combining dance, music, and acrobatic movements.”
No wonder she’s so lithe and coordinated. Her resemblance to a gazelle is uncanny. “All things I suck at. Remind me never to go.”
“So what’re you doing?”
