Too Wilde to Tame (35 page)

Where did they go from here?

He knew what direction he wanted to go, but he had no idea if he'd be traveling down that road with Mia or on his own. And it was time he found out.

He headed through the house and out to the back porch. As soon as he closed the sliding screen door behind him, she glanced up from her sketch pad and smiled at him. Unfortunately, since he'd come to know her so well, he could see right through her welcome pretense to the guarded reserve glimmering in the depths of her eyes.

"Hey there," he said, striving for a casual tone when he was feeling anything but.

"Hey yourself," she replied, her gaze searching his features—most likely to gauge his mood. "Is your work all done?"

"Most of it. The rest can wait." What he had to say to her couldn't. Not any longer. He dragged a chair over to where she was lounging, parked it close to the chaise, and took a seat. "You and I need to talk."

She eyed him warily, just as he'd expected. "About?"

"Our relationship," he said, getting right to the point. "Especially now that your case is over. One has ended, but the other doesn't have to."

The change in her was immediate. She set her sketch pad aside, drew her knees up, and wrapped her arms around her legs, as if to safeguard her heart and emotions from what was about to happen. "I knew this was coming, and I've thought a lot about you and I and where we go from here."

"And?" He was curious to hear what conclusions she'd drawn about them.

She exhaled a deep breath. "And I think this is it for us," she said, trying to put on a brave front.

"This is it," he repeated flatly, unable to believe she could dismiss the past few weeks they'd spent together so frivously.

"We agreed on a temporary affair for a reason, Cameron," she said, much too pragmatically. "While the sex between us is fantastic and amazing, when it comes down to you and me on a long-term one-on-one basis, we're two very different, incompatible people."

Leaning forward in his chair, he clasped his hands between his knees and pinned her with a direct and unwavering look. One she couldn't escape. "Different and incompatible how?"

Her lips pursed with impatience. "You're going to make me spell it all out, aren't you?"

"Yeah, I guess I am," he persisted, refusing to let her out of this discussion so easily.

With an irritable sigh, she stood up and paced across the patio, putting a decent amount of physical distance between them before she turned around and spoke. "There's a good reason why we never hooked up before I came to you for help a few weeks ago, and that reason hasn't changed just because we've slept together. I'm stubborn, unpredictable, and too reckless, remember? And you're Mr. Cool, Calm, and Collected. The two just don't mix."

Luckily, that was an argument he'd anticipated. "Seems to me we'd balance each other out pretty damn well. I'd keep you level-headed, and you'd make sure I didn't revert to being uptight and stuffy." He said the last part jokingly, but she didn't seem in a humorous mood.

Instead, she crossed her arms over her chest. "I distinctly remember you saying that I was all wrong for you, and in a lot of ways, we both know that's true."

"That was before I really got to know you, inside." He stood and approached her but still gave her the space she seemed to need. "During our time together I changed my mind. You changed my mind."

"For the moment, yes," she said, her exasperated attitude disguising deeper insecurities she refused to face. "But in the long run, we'd drive each other crazy. We spent the past two years annoying the hell out of one another, and once this 'new relationship' glow fades and the thrill is gone, all those annoyances are going to creep right back up and be glaring issues between us."

Her expression turned imploring, as if she was silently pleading with him to understand. "It's happened to me before, in other relationships, Cameron. You're going to want me to change. Be something or someone I'm not. And I just don't know if I can be the kind of woman you need in your life. Someone stable and grounded and refined. And in the end, you'll come to resent me and the relationship."

He heard the catch in her voice and saw those familiar, lifetime fears she was desperately fighting against. What she didn't realize, or wasn't ready to admit or deal with, was that she'd already changed in the course of their short relationship—all in good, positive ways that made her a stronger, better person. But she had to come to see and accept those changes in herself.

He formed his response carefully but firmly. "If you honestly think I'd ever resent who and what you are, then you don't know me very well at all."

She shook her head in frustration, causing her silky black hair to swirl around her shoulders. "Come on, Cameron, let's at least be honest with each other about all this, okay?"

His jaw clenched, because his own patience was quickly reaching its limit. She wanted honest? Well, she was about to get more than she'd bargained for, because he was going to lay everything on the line. He figured he had nothing left to lose at this point.

"Listen up, sweetheart, because I'm about to prove to you just how well I know you," he said and started toward her slowly but purposefully.

Apparently, he was getting too close for her comfort zone, physically and emotionally, and when she attempted to dodge around him, he was faster. He stepped to the side, trapping her up against the side of the house. Before she could bolt again, he flattened his palms on either side of her shoulders, keeping her within the confines of his arms.

"Dammit, quit running from me," he growled furiously. "From us."

Her chin jutted out mutinously, but her gray eyes were wider than normal. "I'm not running from anything," she shot back.

"That's bullshit, and we both know it." He hoped like hell she was able to handle the honesty he was about to dish out in abundance. "You've spent your adult life avoiding intimacy with a man, especially when you start feeling threatened emotionally, and that's exactly where you are with me. I threaten you emotionally, and that scares the crap out of you. You don't want to deal with those feelings, and so it's easier for you to cut loose and run than risk being hurt. The same kind of hurt and pain you've lived with since your mother's death."

She rolled her eyes at him in an attempt to dismiss his words, no matter how true they were. "There you go again, sugar," she drawled. "Psychoanalyzing me."

"It's what I do best." And there was a helluva lot more where that came from. "I know just how vulnerable you are, even though you want everyone to believe you're tough and strong and don't need anyone at all," he went on ruthlessly. "I know you hate the way your brothers and cousins smother and protect you, even though you know they do it because they love and care about you. I know how badly you crave your family's approval, of who you are and what you do. And I know just how talented you are and how those erotic pictures you create in your stained-glass designs are all a part of the sensual woman you are, inside and out. A woman with a romantic soul who is searching for an unconditional kind of love and acceptance."

She drew a trembling breath, and her eyes shone with telltale moisture. "You have no idea what you're talking about," she whispered hoarsely, desperation evident in her tone.

He pressed two fingers to her soft, damp lips to keep her quiet. Lips he ached to kiss in the worst way. "Oh, I know exactly what I'm talking about, and I'm not done yet," he said, locking his gaze with hers. "I agree that our affair started out as all about sex and getting you out of my system after wanting you for two years. And what we shared sexually has been hotter and more erotic than anything I've ever had with another woman."

He let his hand fall away. "But I'm a man who sees more than just what's on the outside, and over the past few weeks I've discovered a side to you I don't think any other man has ever taken the time to learn or know. And for you to let me in so intimately, you have to feel something for me, too."

She closed her eyes and tried to turn her face away, but he gently touched her jaw and waited until she was looking at him again. But this time, when her lashes fluttered back open, there were tears in her eyes. And a wealth of feeling. Her entire body trembled with the emotion she was trying so hard to suppress, and he suspected that was a very instinctual reaction for her.

"You can hide behind your erotic stained-glass art and your wild and outrageous personality, but I know who you really are, Mia," he said softly. "Deep inside where it counts. In your heart. In your beautiful, lost soul. And that's the woman I fell for. The woman no one else knows as well as I do."

She blinked, and a big, fat tear fell down her cheek. "God, how can you want a woman with so many hang-ups and issues?"

"Because I love you," he said simply.

A panicked sob caught in her throat, and she shook her head in denial. "You can't!"

"I can, and I do. It certainly wasn't something I'd planned on, but it happened. I want to love you, Mia, like you've never been loved before." He gently wiped away yet another tear with the pad of his thumb. "You trusted me with your body, and I gave you nothing but pleasure. You trusted me with your past and secrets, now trust me with your heart, and I swear I'll keep it safe from the kind of hurt and pain you're so afraid of."

"You can't make those kinds of promises, Cameron. No one can. I know you believe in this moment you can give me those things, that the two of us can make it work, but I can't handle a broken heart if it doesn't. I know what that feels like, and the emotional pain of losing someone is something I can't bear to go through ever again."

He knew she was referring to her mother's death, which had scarred her deeply and affected so many relationships throughout her life. Men, definitely, but shutting people out of her heart had all started with her stepmother, Amelia. And that was a situation Cameron couldn't repair for Mia, even though he suspected that scarred relationship was the crux of most of her emotional issues.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

Cameron understood that she was frightened of what she was feeling for him, but he'd hoped that during the course of their conversation today she'd face those fears and take a chance on something genuine and real. Him. Them. Together.

He'd been sorely mistaken. Her rejection felt like a knife through his heart.

Admitting defeat, he pushed away from Mia, letting her go. There was nothing left for him to do. Nothing left for him to say. She'd made it very clear that it was over, and he wasn't going to beg and plead.

"Come on," he said with a heavy sigh. "I'll take you home."

Chapter Seventeen

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CAMERON skimmed through the rap sheet on Ray Wilkins, a.k.a. Billy Dearborn, that Wesley had just handed to him, not at all surprised to discover that the man had a list of transgressions attached to his real name. The guy had a criminal record that spanned everything from physical to sexual assault, varying degrees of theft, vandalism, drug use, carrying a concealed weapon, and even a few felony violations he'd done prison time for.

"Jesus," Cameron said in disgust and was damn grateful Gina had finally come to her senses and ended her relationship with the guy. Not to mention issuing a restraining order against him. Dearborn was a hot-headed, dangerous criminal without a conscience, and it looked as though Gina needed whatever protection she could get against him.

Jaw clenched, Cameron glanced back up at Wesley, who was standing on the other side of his desk. "How in the hell did you finally nail this guy?"

"Billy Dearborn changed his name, but not his Social Security number or birth date," Wes replied wryly. "As soon as I started tracing his Social Security number through public records, one thing led to another until I tracked him down to the last place he'd lived before moving to Chicago, and that was Florida."

Cameron shuffled through the other paperwork and printouts Wesley had given him. "Do you know what sent him packing?"

"Actually, I do, and I came across more than one reason why he left the state. I have a few P.I. contacts in Florida I've kept in touch with from the last firm I worked for, and I put a call in to someone I know and trust." Wesley's lips flattened into a grim line. "It appears that Billy Dearborn was involved in a drug-smuggling ring, and about six months ago he pocketed a cool twenty grand that belonged to the organization he was working for. They found out about the theft, beat the crap out of Billy, and gave him a week to pay back the money, but Billy changed his identity and moved here to Chicago."

"They didn't try very hard to find him," Cameron muttered irritably, wishing they'd tracked down Dearborn before he'd hooked up with Gina.

"Unfortunately, I'm sure they have bigger fish to fry in their line of business," Wesley told him. "Billy was small shrimp in comparison, though I'm betting if they knew where he was they wouldn't hesitate to try and get their money back from him any way they could. Even in blood."

That thought gave Cameron a semblance of satisfaction.

"But that's not all," Wesley said. "This guy has a warrant out for his arrest for sexually assaulting a woman."

Cameron swore beneath his breath. "Well, it looks like Gina is going to be the last woman he assaults for a very long time, because I'm turning his ass in." There was no way Cameron was going to let this bastard hurt another woman again. "And while I'm at it, I'm going to scare the shit out of him with the information we have about the twenty grand he stole to keep him away from Mia and Gina for good."