Her Forever Hero (Unexpected Heroes #3)(45)

“Okay, but only if you share that blanket.” He pulled the blanket open, making her grumble, then sat next to her, stretching his legs out and throwing his arm along the back of the sofa as he got comfortable.

“Brave man,” she groused, unwilling to admit that the sofa had just become a heck of a lot more comfortable with him sitting there next to her.

“Yes, I’m quite the stud,” he said. “I’ve been known to save lives.”

Grace couldn’t help but laugh. “Your ego is certainly in check,” she told him, then swatted his hand away from her thigh. “And you can keep your hands to yourself.”

“I like touching you. You used to like it just as much as I did,” he reminded her, his fingers running along the top of her thigh, causing a shiver to rush through her.

“I can’t say I remember liking that,” she lied.

“You liked more than my touch, Grace. You loved my kisses, too.”

“They were okay,” she said, now completely lying. They were always fantastic.

“Ha!” he chuckled, bringing his arm around her and twining his fingers in her damp hair. “I remember when you used to chase me.”

“I most certainly did not,” she informed him huffily. “You were the one chasing me.”

“That’s not how I remember it, Grace. I seem to recall you hanging out at the ranch a lot during roundup season. I think you just wanted to take a look at me after work, when I was shirtless and sweaty.”

This time an almost girlish giggle escaped her. She just couldn’t pretend that wasn’t true. She and Sage had loved hanging around the Whitman ranch, where the boys would be working, half the time without shirts, and, man, had the view been perfect! If only she could go back to those days of innocence.

“I was only here to look at your brothers. They filled out much quicker than you.”

“Well, it’s true that Sage’s eyes never strayed far from Spence,” Cam said. “But, Gracie, yours were all over me. Right from the beginning.”

“You were scrawny, as I recall.” She wasn’t admitting defeat.

“The secret is that I put a little more effort out when you were around. I had to make sure to show off, because watching you waltz around in your tiny tank tops and short shorts had my mouth watering. Damn, it still makes my heart thud to remember those days.”

Her own heart began pounding just thinking about that time, the time before the first kiss, when flirting was second nature, and she’d felt so feminine and powerful in her young womanhood. She’d watched him gazing at her, and she’d loved the power of knowing she was turning this handsome guy on.

“Do you remember our first kiss?” he asked as his fingers slid against her neck. She stopped trying to brush him away.

Revisiting the past like this was a terrible idea, but she couldn’t stop herself from enjoying the journey while Cam was at her side.

“There were so many, I don’t know if I can remember the first.” Of course she did. What she really was fishing for was to see whether he remembered.

“It was just before you turned eighteen, and if I recall, that was the summer you decided to wear clothing that showed all your curves,” he said, looking at her and giving a salacious wink.

“Yes, before that, I was horrified by my curves,” she said. She could feel herself blush even after so many years.

“Believe me, I was enjoying the more confident you,” he told her. “You and Sage, always inseparable, came walking up to us with a couple other girls—I can’t remember their names—and you were carrying a bottle of Sage’s grandma’s lemonade. That stuff was to die for. I think you were practicing a new way of sashaying, ’cause your hips were swiveling and shaking the entire time, and I could barely tear my eyes away.”

“I was not doing that!” she said with another laugh.

“Anyway,” he went on, “you said you wanted to talk to me about something, and I was more than willing to break away from the group. We walked to the other side of the barn, and you asked me if I was going to the barn dance that Friday.”

“Oh, my gosh, I forgot about that part,” Grace said. How much more forward could a young girl get?

“I said that I was going if I could take you as my date,” he said. “And then you handed me the bottle of lemonade and told me I looked hot. I was burning up at that point. You looked up at me, licked your lips, and I was your slave from that moment on. I leaned down and stole the kiss I’d been dreaming about for the past month straight.”

His fingers continued caressing her neck the entire time he told the story, and the way he said the words made her stomach quiver and her heart race. He hadn’t forgotten a single detail of a moment that had meant so much to her.

“I can’t believe you remember all that,” she sighed, leaning into him without even realizing it.

“That was the day you became my girl. I asked you out again that night at the dance, and then we had many more barn kisses . . . not to mention other things later on.”

“I must say, you were quite patient, Cam. I moved pretty slowly.”

“It was enough to just hold you in my arms and taste your sweet lips,” he whispered, leaning down and kissing her cheek, causing another shudder to pass through her.