Wilde for Her (A Wilde Security Novel) (Entangled Brazen) (14 page)

Chapter Eighteen

As Reece hit the highway breaking every speed limit, Cam’s phone buzzed in his pocket. Eva’s name appeared on the display, and he snapped it up, air exploding out of his lungs in relief that she’d returned his frantic calls.

“Are you okay?”

She drew a breath that shook. “Mom attacked Shelby.”

“I know. I heard it on the scanner. Are
you
okay?”

Silence.

His heart damn near stopped. “Baby, answer me.”

“Cam.” Her voice broke on his name. “I need you.”

“I’m on my way.” He thumped the dashboard with his palm. Reece all but stood on the gas, and twenty frustrating minutes later, they were pulling up behind a swarm of police vehicles.

Apparently, he wasn’t the only one who recognized her address.

His feet hit the pavement before Reece had the Escalade in park. Several of the officers recognized him and pointed to the ambulance backed ass-end to the curb in front of Eva’s house, but when he looked inside, he found two paramedics talking sedately over a petite blond woman. Strapped down to the gurney, she was out cold.

Eva’s mother.

It was the first look he’d ever gotten of the woman, and he saw little resemblance between Katrina Bremer and Eva. Wherever Eva was dark—hair, skin, eyes—Katrina was light. Why that relived him, he couldn’t begin to guess.

One of the medics noticed him standing there and nodded toward the house. “Cardoso’s inside. She and her sister are okay.”

“Thanks.” Without another thought for the woman who had brought Eva into the world, he spirited across the yard and up the steps. Reece met him at the door and followed him into the house.

First thing he noticed was the scent of pot clinging to the air. The second was Eva, standing at the kitchen counter with her back to him, pressing a bag of frozen peas to her sister’s swollen eye. He wanted to cross the space and sweep her into his arms and got half way to her before remembering himself.

Friends.

She’d called him as her best friend, not her lover.

He slowed his pace and drew in several calming breaths before speaking. Just seeing her unharmed and in one piece would have to be enough. At least until he got her alone. “Is everyone okay?”

Eva spun and lurched forward a step like she wanted to throw herself into his embrace as much as he wanted to scoop her up and hold her. He even spread his arms to catch her, but she stopped short, and her cheeks filled with color as her gaze darted around the room. He tried to tell her with his eyes that nobody would blame her for breaking down, for leaning on him for comfort, but she only straightened her shoulders and answered his question.

“Shelby has a good shiner, but otherwise, we’re both fine. Mom’s going to the hospital for a psychiatric evaluation. We’re pressing charges.”

“No, we’re not,” Shelby said and jumped down from her seat on the counter. She moved around Eva, giving her sister a look with her one good eye that dared her to argue, then studied Cam for a moment before her gaze landed on Reece. “Whoa. Hey, Evie, look. It’s Suit and Tie.” She grinned and elbowed her sister. “Remember the hot guy from the coffee shop I told ya about? The one that eye-fucks me?”

Cam stared at his brother. “What the fuck? You hit on Eva’s sister?”

“Not in words,” Shelby said, still grinning. “He just always looks like he wants to lick me from head to toe. Like ice cream.”

Eva bit her lower lip, but her laugh escaped in a snort, which set Shelby off until the two were all but rolling around on the floor in a fit of hysterical laughter.

Reece held up his hands and backed away. “Cam, I swear, I didn’t touch her.”

“And you’re not going to. Eva’s little sister? Bro, really?”

“Slurrrp,” Shelby said between laughing gasps for air.

Reece shut his eyes. “I’m leaving. I imagine you’re staying here tonight?”

“Yeah,” Cam said. “I am.”

“Right. Okay.” He actually stumbled over himself backing away, like he couldn’t get out of the house fast enough. “I have work to do.”

…

Sometime after Reece’s hasty exit and before the cops left, Shelby’s laughing fit devolved into shuddering, gut-wrenching sobs. Cam watched with a horrible sense of helplessness as Eva tried to calm her. The medic said she was in shock, and she should go to the hospital, but Shelby had made her position on that idea quite clear earlier in the night, and Eva upheld her wish to stay home.

Eventually, the medic gave her a painkiller laced with a light sedative, and she finally drifted to sleep on the couch with her sister cradling her head.

“She’s out,” Eva said, her own exhaustion weighing heavy in her voice. She stroked a hand over Shelby’s pink-streaked blond hair. “I haven’t seen her cry like that in years. This really shook her up.”

Had shaken Eva, too, although Cam didn’t point it out. He pushed up from the chair he’d settled into. “Want me to carry her to her room?”

“Would you? I think she’ll feel safer in her own bed.” She glanced around the living room, wincing at the mess her mother had left. “And I want to clean up before she wakes. She doesn’t need the visual reminder.”

Cam nodded and very gently slid his arms underneath Shelby. The girl weighed next to nothing, and a fierce surge of protectiveness swamped him as he picked her up. Eva, he never much worried about because she could hold her own against anyone. It was one of the things he found so freaking sexy about her. But Shelby? As tiny as she was, she couldn’t win a battle against a cockroach. And if anything ever happened to her, Eva would never recover from the heartbreak.

He would not let that happen.

“I got you, Shel,” he murmured when he laid her down and she stirred restlessly. He pulled the covers over her and stood there, talking in soft tones until she settled again. He backed out and shut the door, listening for a moment to make sure she didn’t wake.

Silence.

Good.

In the living room, he found Eva stuffing beer cans into a black garbage bag. Outwardly, she seemed to be holding it together well, but her movements were stiff, jerky, and each breath she exhaled came out a bit too ragged.

He crossed the room and wrapped his arms around her, wishing he could take the pain away. She stiffened for a moment, but then relaxed with a shudder and turned to bury her face in the crook of his neck. He stroked her back, trembles of suppressed emotion rippling underneath his hand. He wanted to tell her to let go, cry it out, but that would be as useless as yelling into a hurricane.

Sometimes he wished his woman wasn’t quite so strong.

“Mom never physically abused us,” she said eventually.

“I know.”

“She was ranting, paranoid.”

“Drugs do that to people.”

“She’s never going to change.” She sighed. “I need to finish cleaning.” But she stayed put, clinging to him like she couldn’t bear to let him go.

“Leave it for the morning,” he whispered into her hair. “Let’s go to bed.”

She didn’t protest. Just went to show how emotionally wiped out she was. He scooped her into his arms. She wasn’t as light as Shelby. He didn’t want her to be. He wanted a woman who wouldn’t feel like porcelain in his hands, with the strength to stand up to him in bed and out, and he loved Eva’s body, all long, sleek muscle with soft curves in exactly the right places.

His cock hardened and he mentally cursed himself for it. Not tonight. Tonight was about comfort. Tonight, he’d be the friend she needed.

As he set her on the edge of her bed, she grabbed a fistful of his shirt and dragged his mouth to hers. A branding kiss. Claiming. Her hands slid down his chest to the waistband of his pants, and she tugged him forward. He followed her onto the mattress, but switched their positions so that she was on top, letting her take the lead this time, set the pace. She shoved at his shirt; he lifted his head so she could get it off, and her mouth found his nipple. The hot, insistent tug made his cock jump, pinching him against the front of his jeans. It was the best kind of pain, and he groaned as her mouth trailed down. She undid his fly with her lips and teeth, kissed her way down his straining erection through the cotton of his boxer-briefs.

He knotted his hands in the sheet under him, curtailing the urge to touch her, to get her under him and taste her sweet pussy before he took her.

This was her show. Whatever she wanted.

She released his cock and her mouth engulfed him, her tongue tracing the underside until his hips bucked off the bed of their own accord. She made a pleased humming noise in her throat that traveled up his shaft and nailed him in the gut.

Christ, he wanted inside her.

Eva swirled her tongue over his head one last time before her mouth left him and she dragged his pants off. She made short work of her own clothing, and her skin was cool against his as she slid up his overheated body, her mouth blazing a hot trail along his flesh.

By the time she straddled him and accepted him deep into her body, he trembled with need. She moved slow, raising herself over him, her fingers trailing down her stomach to find them where they were joined. She rubbed her own clit and so many dirty thoughts tumbled through his mind, but he bit them back. There was a time for that kind of talk, and now wasn’t it.

But, fuck, she was driving him insane.

He allowed his hands to uncurl from the sheet and move to her thighs, then to her ass. But he didn’t urge her to quicken the pace, didn’t hold her still and pump into her like he wanted. He watched her take pleasure in his body and her own, and the sight was the most erotic thing he’d ever seen in his life. Her head fell back, spilling her dark hair down her back. A moan vibrated from her throat as her thighs tightened around his hips and she moved faster, her breasts bouncing, her moans sharpening into little cries until a hard spasm quaked through her and he lost all sense of sight as his own orgasm rocketed from him.

Gasping, she collapsed on his chest. He released his grip on her ass and slid his hands up her back, down again, up, down.

She let loose with a shuddering sound that was as close to a sob as he’d ever heard from her. He wrapped her up in his arms, rolling so that they lay side by side, their bodies still locked together in the most intimate of ways.

Her heavy-lidded eyes opened and searched his face. “How can you do that?” she whispered. “Give up control so easily like that?”

“Sweetheart, it isn’t about control. Never was.”

“You like being in control.”

“I do,” he admitted and swept a strand of hair out of her face. “But I like giving you what you need more. And, this time, you needed to be in charge.”

“Thank you, Cam. For everything.” She snuggled closer, her lips brushing his neck in a sweet little kiss. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

And she was gone, carried away from him by exhaustion and the release of orgasm. Pressing a kiss to her forehead, he pulled the blanket up over them both and held her through the rest of the night.

Chapter Nineteen

“
Chica
, you read this yet?” Miguel wheeled his chair across the aisle and slapped a stapled stack of papers on her desk.

“What is it?” Eva picked them up and scanned the first page—the autopsy report on Soup. “Good. I’ve been wondering when we’d get this.”

“You won’t be sayin’ ‘good’ once you read it.”

She lowered the papers. “Uh-oh. Don’t tell me the case just got complicated.”

“Case got complicated,” he said with a grave nod.

“Damn. All right, give me the Cliff’s Notes version.”

“Soup had enough heroin in his system to kill five healthy men. Medical examiner says his heart would have stopped before he was able to finish injecting himself with this high of a dose. There was also some postmortem bruising on his arms, suggesting he was held down. Lots of bruising at the injection site, too.”

“So,” Eva said and the glow left over from the last three nights she’d spent with Cam faded. “Someone did it for him.”

“And not at our crime scene. Lividity proves Soup was moved several hours after time of death, which the M.E. puts sometime late in the evening two Fridays ago.”

Meaning Cam was probably the last person to see Soup alive. Which would not look good in a report.

Shit.

“You gonna call Wilde?” Miguel asked, reading her mind.

“He’s not involved in Soup’s murder.” That much she knew with a hundred percent certainty—but he
was
holding something back from her. He had been since she first interviewed him, but she kept brushing it off as nothing.

Now, it was something.

Pain’s jagged edge cut her to the core at the thought of Cam lying to her. She wanted to talk to him. Alone. Wanted to hear what he had to say, which was not standard operating procedure when interviewing a witness. “We should go see him.”

Miguel lifted his brows. “
We
? You mean, in an official capacity?”

Her stomach twisted. “Absolutely. We’re handling this the right way.”

…

By the time Miguel stopped his department-owned car in front of the Wilde Security office, Eva had worked up a good, frothing anger. Why would Cam not tell her everything he knew? He wasn’t involved in the murder, so what did he have to hide? And why the fuck would he hide it from her, of all people?

She banged through the front door, the little bell on the jamb shuttering in complaint, and spotted just the person she wanted to unleash her anger on sitting at one of the three desks, working on a computer. “Cam—”

“Vaughn,” he corrected without looking up and hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “Cam’s in with Greer.”

She growled and stormed by him. “Dammit, grow your hair out again.”

“Working on it.” Vaughn stopped typing and stood, his hands flattened on his desk. He glanced between her and Miguel. “What’s going on?”

Ignoring him, she strode to the back of the room and shoved into Greer’s office. As the door slammed against the wall, Cam stopped talking with his oldest brother and did a double-take, slowly rising to his feet.

“Hey. Is everything okay?”

“No.” She pointed at him, indicating he should stay seated, and then nodded to Miguel to shut the door behind them. Except Vaughn stood between the jambs, arms crossed over his chest, and Miguel didn’t even attempt it.

Greer scowled. “What the hell is going on?”

“A murder investigation. You don’t like it, you can get the fuck out of my way. In fact, you should. I don’t need to talk to you.” She rounded on Cam, fury burning like acid in her throat. He watched her with calm, unreadable eyes, which only served to tick her off more. She hated—
hated
—that he was sitting there so calmly, all the while withholding information from her.

“What’s this about?” he asked, directing the question to Miguel.

She pinned her partner with a glare, daring him to answer. Miguel held up his hands and backed up a step. Damn right. This interview was hers. If anyone deserved answers from Cam, it was the woman he’d been fucking just about every night for the past week.

She jabbed her thumb toward her sternum. “Me, Cam. You’re talking to me.”

“All right.” Still completely unruffled, he turned in his seat to face her. “You want to start by telling me why you’re so pissed off at me? ‘Cause, I gotta be honest, I’m lost.”

“Soup was murdered. Not an overdose.
Murder.
”

Cam shut his eyes, breathed out a slow breath. When he met her gaze again, there was no shock. He
knew
. All along, he’d known Soup had been murdered, or at very least, he’d suspected it. And he hadn’t said one word to her about it. Fury and hurt warred for space in her chest. Fury won. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?”

“It’s my mess.” His voice was low with no hint of apology. “I’ll clean it up.”

“Hang on,” Greer said and stared at his brother. “Is this the same informant that told you about the contract on your head?”

Eva’s breath caught in her lungs. “
What
?”

From the doorway behind her, Vaughn cursed. “Cam, you didn’t tell her? Goddammit, that is so like you.” He moved into the room, putting himself between her and Cam. “Soup said someone tried to hire him for a hit, but Cam keeps brushing it off as no big deal.”

“It
is
no big deal,” Cam said. “I’m looking into it, and so far, I’ve found little evidence—”

“But you have found something,” Greer stated.

“The only thing I know for sure is that Soup had five-hundred dollars after someone offered him a thousand to kill me.”

Horror twisted Eva’s stomach, adding to the nauseating slurry of emotion inside her. “You lied to me.”

Wincing, Cam shouldered past his twin and tried to touch her, but she jerked away. He dropped his hand to his side. “It wasn’t exactly a lie. More like an omission.”

“Lying by omission is still lying!” All of the anger mutated into something much uglier. Something like betrayal. Oh, and hurt. Definitely a good dose of that swirling through her blood. “Cam, you lied to me during an official interview. That’s obstruction. I can arrest you for that. I
should
arrest you for that.”

“Whoa, hold up,” Cam said, and his own temper sparked in his eyes. “I didn’t lie during the interview. You asked me what I had met Soup about that night, I told you it was in regards to a case we were working. That was the truth. I just didn’t go in to specifics about
which
case. You asked me where Soup got my jacket, I told you I gave it to him. You asked me about the money he had, I told you I didn’t know where it came from.”

“But you did. If someone paid him—”

“No, I didn’t know that at the time. I suspected a lot of things, but until you came in here and told me definitively that Soup was murdered, I had no proof to substantiate any of my suspicions.”

“Bullshit.” Her voice wobbled and she hated herself for it. She threw back her shoulders, lifted her chin, and nailed him with a glare. “You
lied
to me.” And the pain of his betrayal cut so deep into her chest, she didn’t know if she’d ever breathe normally again.

Cam rubbed his face with both hands. “All right, yes.” His arms dropped back to his sides in a gesture of defeat. “I lied. To you, to my brothers. I didn’t want any of you involved. I can’t risk anyone else getting hurt just because some asshole thinks I’d look better in a casket.”

“It’s my
job
to be involved. And I can handle myself, fuck you very much.” She shoved him hard enough that he staggered. “You, of all people, should know that.”

“I know you can,” he said, straightening himself. “Believe me, I know. But no matter how well you’re trained, horrible things can happen. Look at Seth Harlan. And my Dad? He was career military, and he and Mom still wound up bleeding to death in a gas station parking lot because someone wanted their car.”

He stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her. Abruptly, she realized everyone else had vacated the room.

“I can’t risk losing you, Eva. I just…can’t.”

Christ, she’d fucked this up. She was supposed to come in as a law enforcement officer and get an official statement. Instead, she’d let her emotions get the best of her and now here she stood, clinging to Cam like he’d vanish if she let him go.

And it took a helluva lot more willpower to yank out of his embrace than it should have. “News flash, Cam. You can’t lose what you don’t have.”

His eyes, now more gray than blue, sparked with a flare of temper. “Nobody can take care of Eva like Eva, that it?”

“Damn right. I’m not yours to protect.”

He laughed, but it was a nasty, sardonic sound that raked over her nerve endings. “Because God forbid you ever let anyone close enough to care for you.”

She stared at him, her breath sawing in and out of her lungs with the force of her fury. “Don’t you fucking dare turn this around on me. You’re the one lying about everything and you’re the one in danger. Not me. Not your brothers. So get your head outta your ass, Camden.”

A muscle jumped in his jaw, but he didn’t move, didn’t say anything more, and for a half second, she felt like a complete bitch for throwing his fears in his face.

But, no. Dammit, she wasn’t going to feel guilty for pointing out the obvious.

Unable to stand the deepening silence between them, she backed to the door. “You need to make an official statement. Again. We’re going to have to investigate Soup’s claims.”

“It’s a dead end,” he said, jaw still clenched.

“That will be for us to decide. Miguel will take your statement.” Blindly, she reached out for the door, found the handle, and all but fell through. Miguel waited on the other side, his expression grim. She hooked a thumb over her shoulder. “Can you find out what’s going on?”

“Sure. Are you okay?”

Not in the least. Cam lied to her. The only person in her life she could count on to always tell the truth, and he’d lied.

“Yeah,” she answered, telling a whooper of a lie herself. “I’m just…taking a personal day.”

He nodded and patted her shoulder. “Good idea,
chica
. It’s long overdue.”