Page 43 of Back to You

“I’m not grumpy. I’m busy. Unlike some people who apparently don’t have anything to do while I’m literally cleaning a special place for them.”

“They appreciate the cleaning and will lend a hand because they know this is a team effort.” He slid another step closer.

“I’d rather you went and did whatever you need to do to start work.”

“Maybe cleaning is what I do before I start work.”

She sighed, completely exasperated.

He took one last step, right into her space at the tool bench, and reached past her.

“Can you hold this?”

Without thinking, she automatically put her hands up and he settled a toolkit weighing a good fifteen pounds into them.

“Perfect. Thanks.”

Then before she could ask what he was doing, he leaned in and kissed her. Again.

If she’d thought she’d romanticized last night’s kiss with the nostalgia of first love… well, she was probably right about that.

But if she thought that's why it had been so darn hot, she was more than a little mistaken.

It was so darn hot because Cam was an amazing kisser and they had chemistry off the charts.

She’d only kissed two guys since Cam. Kevin Baines and a date she went out on because the man kept asking and Charlie insisted she couldn’t live her life in the past or as only a mother.

But it definitely wasn’t inexperience making her toes curl.

She felt Cam’s hands come up to her face, the rough callus of his thumb running gently along the edge of her jaw. His mouth slid over hers, a shocking lack of urgency as she felt her heartbeat rise and rise and rise. But the warmth of his mouth as he slid hers open was a shock and a comfort.

She was sucked in by the gravity Cam naturally had, just leaning into that heat, to that mouth.

She pulled back, and before she could say anything, he took the toolbox out of her hands, set it down, kissed her on the cheek, and said, “Thanks. I’ll see you in about an hour,” then strolled out.

She stared after him, a bit flabbergasted at what had just happened.

16

Cam

Cam had been expectingVivian to storm over and ream him a good one for the hand-holding and the kissing from last night. But the timing could not have been better.

The flash of jealousy on her face had been priceless.

Thenshe’drealized she was jealous, and instead of telling him off for the night before, she’d stormed back out.

Vivian in high emotion—any high emotion—was a sight to behold.

And, my goodness, that kiss.

She had to see they were meant to be. That he wasn’t playing around.

He went back into his workshop, back to being absolutely happy with his life—deleting that little matter of tossing that kid out this morning—and finished the bowl for his mom.

Then he set up in his conference room with all the boxes he’d need to organize with Tyler. It would be easier to figure out what was in them here and leave the extra stuff behind when they brought them over to Vivian’s office.

Then he’d—