Wicked Pleasures (27 page)

His jaw clenched before he nodded again, dominance and arrogance at war with the challenge she was putting out to him and the demands she was making.

"Hurting you isn't what I want," he finally said.

"Then don't do that to me again," she whispered. "For both our sakes."

She watched his face as he moved to her, the heaviness in his expression, the flash of pain in his eyes. Then his arms were around her, just a little too tight, his body tense as he held her to him.

"Never again," he promised, though his jaw bunched as it pressed against the top of her head, and she could feel the anger—it had to be anger—growing inside him.

She held onto him and closed her eyes tightly, wondering how in hell she was going to survive the pain she was watching brew inside him. Whatever it was, what they had done in that bedroom hadn't eased it. The wildness was still there, the flaring desperation, and the haunting shadows that had no explanation.

She loved him, but she was beginning to wonder if love was going to be enough.

The next night, Jaci tossed in the freshly made bed, uncomfortable, cold, and alone. Silence filled the apartment, except for the soft drone of the television.

Cam had kissed her forehead and told her good night. And then he had left her, moving from the bedroom back to the living room and the cold emptiness of the apartment.

Why? Why couldn't he sleep with her?

She rolled over to her back and stared at the ceiling above her. She hadn't expected this when she moved in with him, this sense of bonding, and still the aloneness. This was the second night he had taken her like a wild man, pushing her, pushing both of them, and leaving them shaking in the aftermath.

And it was the second time he had left her to face the night alone.

Well, too damned bad, because she had faced too many nights alone. Too many nights when she had needed him close to her and refused to allow herself other options. Too many nights when she had wondered what she had allowed to slip from her fingers. So, the fight was going to be harder than she had imagined it would be. She would just have to adapt.

She rose again from the bed, padded to the living area, and stared at Cam as he lay unmoving, silent and awake, on the large sectional couch.

The short curve of the cushioned furniture was empty, so she curled up there, her feet tucking against his as she drew another of the thin throws from the back of the couch and pulled it around her.

His legs parted enough to trap her feet farther within the warmth of them, then the television winked out.

Silence stretched between them, but it was a warm silence, one that felt comfortable, that wrapped around her and sent a surge of relief rocking her.

"Good night, Cam," she whispered.

"Good night, baby."

She turned on her side, tucked her back closer to the couch, and closed her eyes. Within minutes, sleep overcame her as it hadn't in that too-big, too-cold bed.

Cam knew the moment she fell asleep and lay still and silent, waiting for the sense of smothering unease to fill him. He hadn't slept with a woman since he was in his teens, since he was forced to stay in those old bitches' beds until the sun rose. He had rarely slept, certainly, other than once, he had barely dozed. His skin had crawled with the feel of their naked bodies plastered against his back, their hands groping at him, even in their sleep.

Rather than the need to get up and find another place to sleep, a place alone, Cam found, instead, an uncertain peace. Jaci's feet were tucked against his lower legs, fragile, soft, and warm. He could see her face from where he lay, her expression serene now, as it hadn't been when he'd checked on her the night before.

She was comfortable and warm, and close to him.

His lips quirked at the thought of that, and at the fragile enjoyment he was finding in her feet shifting, pressing closer to him.

They had been cold when she first lay down and curled herself on the curved section of the couch. The chill had quickly turned to warmth though, and as she fell asleep, her graceful little toes had curled as though in contentment, before relaxing once again.

And now, rather than wondering how long he'd have to lie there before he could leave her without hurting her, he found drowsiness drifting over him instead.

He hadn't slept worth shit the night before, and he'd feared tonight would be no better. Now he smothered a yawn, let his eyes close, and found himself drifting to sleep with a speed and contentment that he hadn't known since he was a child.

Jaci muttered in her sleep as he felt himself drifting off, and he smiled at the sound. He could get used to that, he thought. He could get very used to it.

"I think it's singularly unfair that you're being given freedom to roam the club, while I have to beg for months just for a drink at the bar," Courtney pouted several days later, as she trailed Jaci through the club.

Jaci snapped another picture with the digital camera she used, before turning to look over her shoulder at her friend.

Courtney's eyes were filled with amusement, though her expression was less than pleased.

"No doubt you cause as much trouble in here as you do anywhere else," Jaci accused her. "Where's the fascination in it?" She let the camera hang by its strap below her breasts, as she made a few notes on the electronic notepad she carried with her.

"Tell me you see the possibilities, Jaci." Courtney's voice was scandalized. "It is an adventure."

"It's a place full of men," Jaci said as she lifted the camera and zoomed in on the molding at the ceiling. "The exercise room is sweaty and smelly. The library is dark and gloomy, and the living area has a bar and a billiards table. Give me a break. It's so male-oriented, you nearly choke on the testosterone."

She could feel Courtney behind her, almost see the outraged expression on her friend's face.

"And they do not want us here." There was a pout in Courtney's voice. "They are determined to close us out of their little conversations and their conniving. It's totally unfair."

"Hmm. Maybe we should invite them to the spa with us," Jaci suggested. "See what they think about estrogen overload."

Unlike Courtney, Jaci had no interest in the club or the men who gathered there. She didn't want to know their identities, and she sure as hell didn't want to be a part of their conversations.

"You're being mean to me today." Courtney sighed, though Jaci heard the amusement in her voice. "Doesn't it make you curious about them? Sometimes, I think if I could be invisible, then I could move about them, perhaps find the answers I seek in what makes these men so different from others. The few I know that are members here are unlike other men. This fascinates me, wondering what has created these men, what makes them as they are."

"Have you asked Ian?" Jaci asked, though the only member that fascinated her was Cam.

"Ian's answers would only infuriate you." She rolled her eyes expressively. "He is a man. I have decided that male language and female language are not always compatible."

God, wasn't that the truth.

"Maybe men are just aliens," Jaci suggested, thinking of Cam.

Over the weekend, being with him had seemed so natural, so easy. She hadn't imagined that living in that huge apartment with him could be anything but taxing. She hadn't lived with anyone since she had moved from her parents' home.

But she had also realized there was so much about him that she didn't know, and that she didn't understand. Chase was easier to read. Cam hid much more of himself. She was learning that there was so much about him that she didn't know.

He was doing just as she had once asked him not to do, though. He was seducing his way not only into her heart, but around it, through it, binding her to him in a way she hadn't imagined she could be bound.

And at the same time, it worried her. The dark sexual core of him was growing. Despite the sexual excess of the weekend, he never seemed to lose that wild, desperate hunger growing inside him. And she was terribly afraid she knew the only thing that would ease it.

After she finished the photos and notes and walking through the club rooms, she returned to the main mansion with Courtney trailing behind her. Jaci couldn't help but wonder at the hunger driving Cam, and if she was making a mistake in pushing for more before giving into that need that tormented him.

There was something that warned her that whatever drove him, whatever tormented him, wouldn't be revealed easily. It was a part of him that worried her, even before she left Oklahoma.

That thought caused her to pause as she entered the office Ian had assigned her. She had known Cam before he joined the military. Admittedly, she had been too young then to understand much about the unsmiling Falladay twin. He was five years older than her. They hadn't even gone to the same school, but sometimes her father hired the boys to help on his small ranch.

And she had always thought it a game, a challenge, whenever she saw him, to draw a smile to his lips, to his odd light green eyes.

She moved to the desk, downloaded the pictures on auto pilot, and frowned at those memories.

Cam had joined the army when she was still a young girl, but each time he returned home on leave, he had made it a point to check up on her; he managed to be wherever she was, and she had always dropped whatever she was doing to make Cam smile.

Whatever happened had happened there in Oklahoma.

She licked her lips nervously. Her father's best friend, Sheriff Bridges, had made a point after she turned sixteen to warn her about Cam. It was a warning she had informed him she didn't need.

Sheriff Bridges was retired now, but he was still a close friend—of hers, as well as her father's. But would he tell her what she needed to know?

She pulled her cell phone from the clip at her side and laid it on the desk beside her, staring at it. Did she want to know?

"You look like a woman with a lot on her mind."

She lifted her head and stared back at Chase. He didn't know what had happened to his brother, either. The argument she had glimpsed the week before proved that he was as much in the dark as she was when it came to Cam.

"Quite a bit," she finally admitted, watching as he stepped into the room and closed the door behind him.

He leaned against the heavy wood panel, a scowl working at his face as he watched her. His gaze dropped to the cell phone, then moved back to her face.

"I've run more than a dozen investigations into our past," he said quietly. "I've personally questioned everyone I could think of in that fucking town, had every pedophile and every filthy molesting son of a bitch I can think of questioned, and I don't know any more now than I did when we were kids, when he disappeared from the house."

She stared at the phone again. Did either of them have the right to steal the secrets he was fighting so hard to hide?

"Do you like sleeping on the couch, Jaci?" he asked her then, his voice hard, filled with anger. "Do you like having nothing but your feet held between his, rather than his arms around you?"

"Stop, Chase!" She jumped from the chair and pushed her fingers through her hair, fighting her own fears and the need to have Cam hold her through the night.

"Do you know why he shares his women?"

She stared back at him, her chest aching as her heart clenched at the pain in his face. She shook her head slowly. She didn't have the right to give Chase answers that Cam wouldn't. But, God, she wanted to. She wanted to know why her lover hurt so desperately that he couldn't even bear to share a bed with her.

"He shares them because he can't hold them. Because he can't bring himself to give them more than the pleasure of his body. It's my job to hold them through the night, while he finds a couch to sleep on," he snapped out. "Is that what you want? Do you want me holding you while he sleeps on that fucking couch?"

"If that was what I wanted, then I would have come to your bed, rather than the damned couch he shares with me," she retorted. "For God's sake, Chase, what do you want from me? He hasn't told me anything, and if he had, do you think I could tell you? Do you think I'd betray him like that?"

She pushed her fingers through her hair again, and this time she clenched the strands furiously as she turned away from him.

He looked so much like Cam. There were no scars, the haunted shadows weren't the same, but in his expression, in his eyes, she could see his pain and his worry.

"When we were fifteen years old, he began disappearing at night," Chase bit out. "Until that summer, I could always feel him, knew when he was hurting, when he had nightmares. We always shared our nightmares, Jaci. After that, it was as though my brother, my twin who I had shared space with since conception, was dead. He walked and he talked, but I couldn't feel him. I couldn't talk to him. By God, I couldn't reach him. Now I'm asking for your help."

Her help? Jaci stared back at him in disbelief, wondering how the hell she was supposed to help him when she couldn't even help herself where Cam was concerned.

"You're asking me to betray him." She dropped her hands from her hair and stared back at him miserably. "Even if I knew anything, Chase, how could you ask me to do that?"

"Because he's my brother and I need to know who to fucking kill for what happened to him."

Her lips parted as she fought to drag in air. He wasn't joking. Just as Cam hadn't been joking seven years before when he threatened to kill for her.

"You and Cam just seem to have this thing about killing people," she exclaimed. "Tell me, Chase, where do you hide all the bodies?"

The grimace of disgust that twisted his face would have been amusing, if the conversation were a different one. He breathed in roughly, obviously gritting his teeth as she crossed her arms over her breasts and stared back at him, sorrow building inside her.

She could see the fear in his brother's eyes, and she hated knowing that fear was for the man she loved.

"Cam's still alive," she finally whispered. "Whatever happened to him, he survived."

"Do you call that surviving?" He straightened from the door and shot her a furious glare, then paced across the room before turning back to her. "Is that what you call it?"

"He walks, he talks, he smiles, and he laughs," she whispered. "He's fighting his demons the only way he knows how. And he's trying to love me. Do I have the right to ask for anything more?"

She had left him. She realized that she walked away from any right she had to call his demons her own, but that didn't stop her from doing it, and it didn't stop her from aching at the loss she sensed inside Cam. And Chase.

"Is that enough for you?" He propped his hands on his hips and stared back at her knowingly.

No, it wasn't enough for her, but it was that or leave. And she wasn't going anywhere. Not yet. Not as long as Cam could tolerate her laying at his feet.

"For now," she finally answered him.

"You're not even going to fight for him, are you?" Chase shook his head as though in disbelief.

"Chase, what do you think I'm doing now?" She held her hands out demandingly, before they dropped to her side. "Do you think I liked having him walk away from me five minutes after he thought I was asleep? Do you think I enjoy seeing the hunger that's building inside him, knowing what he wants and what he needs, and being unable to give it to him? Do you think I enjoy seeing his pain?"

"Then do something, Jaci."

"Like what?" She almost yelled the words back at him. "What the hell do you want me to do? Hurt him worse? Blackmail him? 'Sorry, Cam, but you spill your secrets or do without me'? Damn you, Chase, what the hell do you want from me?"

"I want you to fight for him this time." He was suddenly in front of her, his hands gripping her shoulders as he gave them a little shake, shocking her with the depth of his anger. "Damn you, stop fucking letting him take the easy way out, like you did the last time. If you're going to let him get away with this macho, closed-mouth bullshit, then you may as well just fucking leave the same way you got here."

He pushed her away, stomped across the room, then turned back, his eyes blazing in accusation as the office door slammed open.

Jaci flinched as the panel slammed into the wall and Cam strode in, fury lining every strong, sharp contour in his face as his gaze found and pinned Chase.

"Cam." She moved for him.

"Stay put!" His finger stabbed in her direction, drawing her to an abrupt halt, shock rocking her on her feet as the two brothers faced off.

Both were furious. She watched their bodies tense, watched as they glared back at each other.

"Did you forget about the cameras in the office, Chase?" Cam asked him, his voice silky, dangerous, as he glanced up at the darkened glass of the security monitors.

Chase smiled, all teeth, all fury. "I didn't forget, little brother. Just as I didn't forget that you were supposed to be in a meeting with Ian, not spying on your girlfriend."

"Jaci, are you ready to leave?" Cam didn't turn his gaze from his brother, didn't so much as slide his gaze away as he asked the question.

"The two of you here alone?" She wasn't that stupid. "I don't think so, Cam."

"Get whatever you need and we'll leave together then. Now." His voice grew darker, softer.

Jaci almost shivered at the fury she could feel in the very stillness of the tone.

She wasn't the only one that watched him warily. She watched Chase's expression. He was studying his brother like a scientist would examine a curious specimen. Something unknown. Something potentially fatal. There was almost a calculation in his gaze, as though he had meant to push Cam to this point, and now he was wondering how to push him further.

She was terrified to see if he could actually do it.

She moved quickly back to her desk, shoved her phone into her purse, and grabbed it up. She wasn't permitted to take the design pad or the pictures with her.