Wicked Pleasure

Cam’s hand settled at Jaci’s lower back as he moved to her, leading her through the restaurant and to the exit. They passed the Robertses’ table. Catching Annalee’s glare, Jaci took the only opportunity she was going to find to tighten the noose around her nemesis’s neck.

She smiled a smug, satisfied smile that assured Annalee that she’d found a way to beat her. She made certain the smile was completely confident and edged with knowledge.

And Annalee read it exactly as she was meant to. As they passed, she watched the little flicker of fear in the other woman’s face and steeled herself not to turn and give her anything more.

She had to be subtle. She had to play the few chances she had just right. She and Moriah had it planned; they would bring Annalee down.

The scar at her hip seemed to smart as they left the restaurant; the whip mark had cut deep into her flesh and nearly allowed Richard to catch her that night. Annalee knew what she was doing with that particular weapon. The sound of the whip cracking in her nightmares never failed to bring Jaci awake in a surge of fear and sweat.

They had been so confident she would fall right into their little games, Jaci remembered, as Cam helped her into the Sinclair limo and got in behind her. What in the world had made Annalee think for a second that Jaci would accept a role in their dirty games? It still didn’t make sense, even years later.

For five years, Jaci had tried to figure out why Richard and Annalee would ever conceive of the idea that she would join in. And they had been confident, so certain that she was theirs for the taking.

She let the conversation between the men drift around her, but she was very aware the moment Cam’s arm slid around her and he pulled her closer to him. He did it comfortably, easily, almost as though he wasn’t thinking about it as he listened to whatever Ian was telling him. Something about zoning laws and checking out problems with them.

She had to admit, she was paying even less attention now than she had been earlier. As he talked, his hand played at her hip, stroking it through her dress, the pads of his fingers moving in little circular motions that were destructive to her thought processes.

There were no thought processes when Cam was touching her. It was like autopilot hit the brain, and her hormones took control of her body.

She wanted to lean into him, feel him against her and over her. She couldn’t get enough of him. No matter how often he took her, or how sated he left her. She always wanted more.

The limo pulled into the underground parking garage beneath Cam and Chase’s home. After he parked the car, the chauffer jumped out and opened the back door.

Jaci said her good nights to Courtney and Ian, then, once again walking between Chase and Cam, moved away from the vehicle.

That was odd. They had done that all night long, keeping her securely between them.

“You two want to tell me what’s going on?” she asked as Chase locked the door behind them and set the security.

“With what?” Cam asked innocently.

“With the whole keep-Jaci-between-you thing.” She waved toward them to emphasize exactly how they had done that throughout the evening.

A smile curled at his lips—sexy, and diabolically sensual.

“I can’t believe you had to ask that question,” Chase injected with a chuckle.

A flush washed beneath her cheeks, heating her face.

“Chase, you’re a pain,” she told him, moving through the house.

“Duly noted,” Cam replied. “Why don’t you go on to bed, Jaci. Chase and I have a few things we have to take of for Ian tonight, so I might be a little late.”

She stopped on her way to the bedroom. She had visions of comfortable clothes in her mind, and maybe a few hours in front of the television with Cam. She enjoyed those hours they spent together and she would miss it tonight. There was something in his voice that warned her, though, a vague suspicion that he wasn’t being totally honest with her.

She turned and stared back at him silently, letting her gaze take in both men, comparing their expressions. She had to restrain the shiver that would have rippled over her. They looked dangerous. And they looked like men eager to ditch the little woman, to do whatever it was they had to do.

She wanted to roll her eyes at them. “Go play.” She waved her hand over her shoulder as she headed for the bedroom. “I’ll have fun here all by my lonesome. I’m good at that.”

They watched her until she disappeared into the bedroom; she could feel their eyes on her, caressing her, intensity and male impatience swirling through the air to wrap around her.

“She’s going to drive me to drink,” Cam murmured, once Jaci disappeared around the heavy screen that surrounded the bedroom.

“She’s chilling you out.” Chase clapped him on the shoulder as he headed for the stairs. “Come on, let’s see if any of my contacts have made any progress in the past few hours. I’m sick of dealing with those two.”

Those two. The Robertses. If Chase thought he was sick of dealing with this shit, then he should be sitting in Cam’s place, waiting for the other shoe to drop. There were times when he could stare at Jaci and see her mind working. He could almost feel her gearing herself up to face the congressman and his wife, and that he couldn’t allow. There was something about the Robertses that set off every warning instinct he possessed. He just couldn’t figure out what it was.

Rumors were they were into BDSM with their little secretary. But those rumors were unsubstantiated, and no more than giggling little tales told by a few women during their little ladies’-only cocktail parties.

As he followed Chase up the stairs to their office, he had to fight back the impulse to return downstairs and demand answers from her. Not that demanding jack shit worked with Jaci. She stared back at him with that redhead temper in her eyes and that stubborn chin of hers lifted. And then she would drive him crazy with her smart-assed little comments and her declarations that he give as good as he demanded.

He couldn’t frighten her into telling him the truth, and he damned sure couldn’t seduce it out of her. For some reason, those games just smacked of foul play with him. He didn’t want games between them, he wanted trust. And he knew that was the crux of the entire matter. Because Jaci wanted the same thing from him.

“I put the files together before we left earlier,” Chase said, as they sat down at their separate computers. “England, Italy, and New York. I also found another reference in Cancún. She was there on vacation. Left early when her dad got sick about a year and a half ago. The night she left, there was a hit-and-run on another guest of the resort. Auburn hair, about Jaci’s build.” He pulled up the picture of the tourist. She would have resembled Jaci in the dark. “We missed this in the first investigation. We were just looking at her, rather than at any strange occurrences revolving around her.”

“Have you managed to pinpoint a suspect?” Cam stared at the picture of the tourist that had nearly died during her vacation, simply because she looked like Jaci.

“Nothing and no one.” Chase shook his head at the question. “If you’re right about her having a connection to Moriah, then the only time it could have occurred was the time she was at the Brockheim cabin. Moriah was supposedly on vacation in the south of France, but there are no records of her, there or anywhere else.”

Cam breathed in deeply. “What does Moriah have to do with this?”

Chase snorted. “Coconspirator. Whatever Jaci is up to, Moriah is most likely right there beside her.”

Cam had no doubt.

“The woman needs to be locked up for her own safety,” Cam growled. “Son of a bitch, she knows they’ve targeted her and she still won’t let me help her. Stubborn-assed woman.”

“You sound surprised.” The mockery in Chase’s voice had him wincing. “Hell, Cam, you knew how stubborn she was when she was no more than a girl. What would make her any less so now?”

“Common sense?”

“Oh. She had some of that, then? When?”

Cam had to chuckle. When it came to him, she had never shown good sense. From the time she was thirteen to now, they had gravitated to each other like bees to honey. And he had to admit, she had the sweetest honey he had ever tasted.

“She was a virgin,” he told his brother. The truth of that still filled him with a warmth that made no sense at all.

Silence met his statement. When he turned to look at his brother, it was to see the same primal arousal on his face that had filled Cam at the time.

“Damn,” he finally blew out roughly. “Damn.”

Chase rubbed the back of his neck and turned away, shaking his head. Cam knew what his brother was feeling. That sense of male fascination, the knowledge that her sensuality was theirs to mold and teach. It was a heady feeling for a man to have a woman as passionate as Jaci, one whose sensual pleasures were awakening beneath his touch.

He loved it. The pleasure it brought him to see the fascination on her face, the dazed pleasure in her eyes, the shock and surprise, the adventure it brought to each touch, each kiss. It made him ache to show her more, to teach her all the ways of sensuality and desire that he knew.

“We have to get the Robertses taken care of.” Chase’s voice was rough with arousal. “Getting her to trust us while you hide all those pesky secrets of yours isn’t going to be easy.” There was an edge of disgust to his brother’s tone.

Cam had a feeling it wasn’t going to be possible at all. As he pulled up the files he’d transferred to the home computer throughout the investigation process, he concentrated on finding a weakness to exploit in the Robertses.

This situation had to be taken care of, had to be resolved now. He was tired of waiting, and by God, he was sick of that flicker of fear he caught in her eyes every now and then.

Jaci had to be safe. No matter what. He just prayed it didn’t mean revealing everything about himself to force her to reveal her truth.

A glass of wine and an old movie. Jaci sipped at the wine as she let the movie drone in the background. She was curled up on what she had claimed as her end of the long sectional couch, a frown pulling at her brow as she glanced again at the stairs leading to Chase’s apartment.

What the hell were they doing up there?

Cam didn’t bring work home in the evenings since she had moved in. And she’d gotten the impression it wasn’t something that was normal, either.

She swirled the wine in the glass, staring into the clear liquid as she tried to make sense of this relationship. The relationship and the man.

Cam had held her heart for so long, sometimes she wondered if there had ever been a time when he wasn’t a part of it.

Wait on me, Cam. I’ll grow up and I’ll take all the bad things away.

She had told him that the day she found him alone in the pickup, and something in his face had warned her that she was about to lose him forever. Even then, at thirteen, she had recognized that soul-deep sorrow inside him. A shame, a fury that devoured his soul.

Stay away from those Falladay boys, Jaci, her father had warned her as she grew up. The games they play aren’t for the likes of a decent girl. And that Cameron, he’s a danger to himself, let alone a little girl like you.

How many times had her father given her similar warnings? And then there had been Tim Bridges, the sheriff, a close friend of her father’s. She sipped at the wine, remembering the night the sheriff had come to her dad and they disappeared into her father’s workshop to talk. Jaci had heard Cam’s name mentioned and had been terrified. His name, and something else that hadn’t made sense to her at the time. Something about drugs and Cam’s pride.

Sheriff Bridges had mentioned Davinda Morris, Cam’s aunt, and his tone had been filled with disgust and anger toward the woman, but not toward Cam.

What had happened to him? She knew what she was beginning to suspect terrified her. Cam was a man with a mile-long streak of pride. Even then, so many years ago, he would have fought at the slightest slur to that pride.