If it was a switch that controlled that little box, it was a goddamn power plant of need that was firing all day and night inside of me because of that man.
I hadn’t actually seen Cam since the morning he’d taken me back to my house, but I could still feel his fingers sliding through my hair, his skin skating over mine as he put that damn blood pressure cuff on me, his masculine scent teasing my nose as he leaned over the bed to wake me up three separate times in the middle of the night to make sure I would wake up. I hadn’t been able to do anything more than lie there in his guest bed and hold perfectly still as he’d checked my temperature and my blood pressure. As soon as he’d left the room, I’d practically stumbled over my own feet as I’d hurried to the bathroom to jack off and spill my seed as I whispered Cam’s name.
The ache inside me had become so harsh and painful that I no longer heard Reverend Page’s voice when I thought of Cam or brought myself to completion when I imagined what it would be like to be buried deep inside his body… or him in mine.
The devil had definitely escaped the box and I had no idea how to cram him or any of the other shit that kept spewing out of the four metaphorical walls back in there. My only saving grace was that my parents couldn’t take note of my behavior because they were still out of town (though they’d most certainly wonder about how spotless the house was, since I couldn’t stop cleaning it to save my life). And luckily, Jimmy had managed to score what must have been a sizeable stash of drugs in the city because he spent most of his time passed out in his room. He’d been so quiet that I’d even had to check on him a few times to make sure he was still breathing.
“Ford?”
I looked up to see that Isaac was watching me with concern. Crap, I’d completely zoned out.
“What, sorry?” I said. “Did you say something?”
“Yeah, I was asking about your friend, Walter. Cam told us what happened to him when he picked up Puddles a couple days ago. How’s he doing?”
There was Cam’s name again.
And right on schedule came all the reminders of how close I’d come to begging him to touch me, to do whatever he wanted to me.
“He’s doing well. The surgery on his knee is scheduled for next week and then he’ll spend a couple weeks doing inpatient rehab.”
“Then he goes to stay with Cam for a while, right? Until his house can be fixed?”
I nodded. I still couldn’t believe that Cam had done that for Walter. It was one of the reasons my obsession with Cam had grown so intense so quickly. Cam had absolutely nothing to gain by helping Walter out… he’d done it because it’d been the right thing to do. I’d wanted to be able to make that kind of offer to Walter, but I’d known my mother wouldn’t have allowed a man she considered a busybody into our house. I’d been thinking of ways I could pay for an apartment or hotel for Walter to stay at while he was recovering, since he was so terrified of going into a nursing home and never coming back out, but then Cam had jumped in with his offer to let Walter stay with him. I’d been as stunned as Walter at Cam’s show of generosity.
“And how about you?”
“Me?” I asked, confused.
Isaac smiled patiently. “How are you doing? You look… good.”
I knew what Isaac’s hesitation had been about.
I was currently, for the most part, bruise-free. Isaac and the guys hadn’t ever seen me without some kind of marks on me. And it wasn’t like I could explain that after Jimmy’s trips to the city, I usually got a reprieve of some kind. I wasn’t proud of it, but there’d been times where I’d actually given my brother all the money I had on me in the hopes he’d buy enough drugs to keep him content for a good week or two. But since he’d lost his job after he’d rudely mouthed off to Nolan Grainger when the man had come into the feed store, Jimmy had had more time on his hands and he only needed to stay semi-sober enough to get through a few hours at dinnertime when our parents were both home.
“Um, yeah, keeping busy,” I said.
That was the truth.
“Well, we can’t tell you how much we appreciated you helping out while we were gone. With everything that happened, we just really wanted Newt to get to be a normal kid, you know?”
I nodded. When all the shit had gone down with Isaac being arrested for “kidnapping” his brother, he and Newt hadn’t been allowed to see one another. In fact, it’d been Cam who’d arrested Isaac the very day Cam and I had met for the first time. I’d been there to witness it.