When You Are Mine Read Online Free

a long time, but it was there on Cam’s face now.
    “Marry me.” The tremor in Cam’s voice made her more nervous than the words he’d spoken.
    Kerris struggled to even her erratic breaths, but could not. Heat rushed to her cheeks under Cam’s probing, waiting stare. The blood thumped at her wrists and temples, reminding her that she was alive and not a statue-still shell frozen by his words.
    “Cam, I just graduated, and it took me longer than most. Don’t you think we need a little time?” Kerris ran damp palms along the fabric stretched across her legs. “I’m only twenty-five. Maybe we should—”
    “Not now. I know you’re not ready. I know we’ve only been dating six months, but I want you to think about it. And at the end of the summer, I’ll ask you again.” He tugged the orchid in her hair away and placed it in her lap, kissing behind her ear and slanting her a cocky grin. “And you’ll say yes.”
    She raised her lashes, forcing herself not to look away from his hungry stare. He was so into her.
    Please don’t let me hurt him.
    She smiled through her confusion, thinking of the friend Cam had been to her. Thinking of how comfortable she always felt with him. How patient he’d been with her abstinence. Maybe the night that haunted her had bankrupted her heart and stripped her body of its capacity for physical desire. She had abandoned love-struck delusions of butterflies and goose bumps. Perhaps what she felt for Cam was all she was capable of. It felt good. It could be enough.
    The situation with Walsh had been her imagination. Or a fluke. After all these years of isolation and numbness, that rush of desire, that sense of…rightness…couldn’t have been real. With a stranger? With Cam’s best friend?
    “Did you hear me?” Cam’s eyes were fixed on the expression she had pulled into place to hide her thoughts. “I said you’ll say yes at the end of the summer.”
    “Cam, I can’t make any promises.” Kerris toyed with a chunk of bread from the basket, tearing it into tiny pieces in her lap.
    “Just promise me you’ll think about it.” Cam lifted her chin, gently compelling her to look at him.
    She set her disturbing thoughts aside and laced her smile with all that she could promise.
    “I’ll think about it.”
    “That’s all I can ask for.” He dropped a quick kiss on her lips, its sweetness a thin veneer covering the passion she knew he carefully checked. “That’s enough for now.”

Chapter Four
    S omeone in this elevator smelled good enough to eat.
    A sexy-sweet scent of vanilla and brown sugar titillated Walsh’s sense of smell and taste. His mouth watered.
    The heavy Tag Heuer watch wrapped around his wrist confirmed that he was late. Walsh bided his time in the packed elevator, revisiting every detail about Kerris from last night. Her face, her hair, her voice, the act of kindness he’d witnessed in the parking lot. Everything about her had haunted him since they’d left the scholars’ awards.
    By the tenth floor, everyone had filed out of the elevator. Walsh was startled to see Kerris’s slight frame leaning against the wall, eyes closed. There was no flower in her hair today. Her dark jeans weren’t tight, but still hugged the lean, curvy lines of her petite figure.
    “Kerris?” Walsh asked, afraid his half-horny imagination had conjured her up.
    She jerked here eyes open wide.
    “Walsh, what are you doing here?” She wore a white T-shirt emblazoned with the Walsh Foundation logo. Her dark wavy hair was caught in two low ponytails at her neck.
    He couldn’t stop the smile that worked its way onto his face. Talk about oblivious. Here he’d been indulging in guilt-soaked fantasies about a woman not even five feet away from him.
    “How’d you hide in an elevator?”
    “There were a lot of people in here.” She grinned back, and it felt like they’d had this conversation a thousand times before. “I don’t have on my heels, so I guess I kind of got lost