Wicked Pleasures (9 page)

With any other woman, he would have pushed her from him and walked away. He couldn't tolerate pity, or the horrified distaste that often filled their eyes. But this wasn't any other woman, this was Jaci. And he knew from past experience how she had worried when she was younger, feared for him when she knew he was on a mission.

And he needed to know now, if the scars, the superficial damage done to his body, was going to disgust her. There had been no chance for her to pay attention the night before. He and Chase had overwhelmed her before they even got their shirts off. And she had been exhausted, curled up in sleep by the time he moved from the bed.

"Taking my shirt off could have other consequences, sweetheart," he warned her, as her fingers moved down the shirt, the material parting as she moved lower.

Her gaze lifted to his as the last button released and her shaking hands moved to part the edges of the shirt. Then her eyes lowered and he watched her grow pale. He saw the tears that filled her unusual eyes, the trembling of her lips as her fingers whispered over the worst of the scarring.

He'd taken two bullets, and the bastard that wielded the knife as he was bleeding to death on the ground had sliced not just his face, but his chest and upper arms as well, before Cam could use the sidearm he'd had in his hand.

That night had been hell on earth. Half his team had been lost in the ambush. Cam had been certain he would die before the extraction team made it in.

Silken-soft hands smoothing the material of the shirt back from his shoulders drew him from his thoughts. The fine cotton slid over his muscles, clearly revealing the damage, as the auburn-haired little sprite let a single tear fall.

"Hey, no tears." He frowned, reaching out to wipe the tear from her face. "It was a long time ago, baby. Barely remembered."

She shook her head, the soft fall of dark fire whispering across her cheek as her lips trembled again and her fingertips, like a breath of fiery sensation, eased over the slashed scars.

They weren't as bad as they had been, but they were still pretty horrific. Deep slashes had forever marked his flesh. He'd been damned lucky the enemy had poor aim that night. The one bullet had done the worse damage, so close to his heart that just a breath closer and there would have been no saving him. Angels must have been watching over him, because the bullet had nicked a lung, missed everything else vital, and tore through his back. But he'd lived.

"I would have come if I had known." Another tear fell as Cam watched her in confusion.

Chase had come to him, but there had been no one else to call, no one else to care that he existed for weeks within the shadow land of his own mind.

"Why?" He watched her expression carefully.

He had wanted her then. He barely remembered anything from those pain-ridden months, except the pain and his need for Jaci. And later, he struggled with his fear that the scarring would disgust her. Women were strange creatures at times, he had learned. The brutal slashes along his chest and back weren't a pretty sight. And women did like their pretty things.

There was no disgust in Jaci's eyes, though. The only horror was for what pain he may have felt, not the physical imperfection he now carried.

"Why?" Disbelief filled her eyes as they lifted to him. "Because I cared, Cam. I wouldn't have left you alone."

"Chase was there." Who else was supposed to be there?

She shook her head, her lips pressing together to still their trembling. He wanted to lower his head and kiss them, to steal the saddened curve of them and fill her with hunger, instead of with pain.

"I would have been there, too. For as long as I could have been."

For some reason, he believed her. Or maybe he just wanted to believe her.

"You would have been there for that, but you couldn't stay, the night I brought you home from that party?"

Fire flashed in her eyes for a second. "One has nothing to do with the other," she snapped. "Don't be a moron."

Now,
there
was his Jaci. Fiery, confrontational, speaking her mind, as she should be.

"It's a logical question. Why would you have flown half a world away to be with me while I was dying, but refuse to share my bed?"

"Yours and Chase's? I was only twenty-one, Cam." She sniffed in distain. "Oh, shut up. I was just starting to like you again."

She was kneeling between his thighs, her generous breasts brushing against his lower stomach as she berated him, and Cam couldn't help but smile. How long had it been since a woman had done more than close her eyes in distaste at those scars and whisper platitudes he didn't want to hear?

"Did you stop liking me, Jaci?" he asked her then, lifting his hand again to brush the hair back from her cheek, as her fingers felt the ridged scars that covered his chest.

Her pert little nose twitched in irritation as her brown-and-blue-flecked green eyes, darker than his own, glared back at him.

"You're pissing me off."

He laughed at that. The sting of accusation was absent, but instead, he heard that hint of fondness he needed to hear. "How am I pissing you off? Because I want to surround you in pleasure, but I can't tolerate a bed? Then, yeah, I have to concede defeat there. I guess I'm probably going to have to keep pissing you off."

Her lips almost twitched. He caught the betraying tug at the corners of those luscious curves before she firmly steadied them.

"Why can't you tolerate a bed?" she finally asked softly. "You want all my secrets Cam, but you're giving me so little to hold on to you with."

"I'm giving you everything I can right now," he said. "And that, Jaci, is more than I've ever been able to give anyone else in my life."

Could she go a step at a time? Could she accept being pulled closer to him, while he remained forever distant, and still keep her soul from being scarred?

The sound of a knock at the door caused her head to jerk up.

"It's Chase," he said, his fingers touching her hair.

"We don't need Chase," she whispered. "Why is he here, Cam?"

A second later the door opened and Chase stepped inside the room, his gaze instantly finding them, his expression sober, concerned, as he stared back at Jaci.

Whatever the reason why, it wasn't the first time, and it was a need, at least for Cam. She stared up at him once again, feeling his fingers caress her jawline as his gaze darkened painfully.

It wasn't something he just wanted. He wouldn't take her without it. She could see it in his face, in his eyes, and she needed him. She needed him until she couldn't breathe because of the need. And she couldn't deny the heat Chase stoked in her as well.

Cam watched as she lowered her head, and her lips pressed against his chest. There, where the bullet had entered his body, her soft lips burning his flesh and sending hard, driving spikes of pure heated lust straight to his already tight testicles.

He stared down at her bent head, feeling her lips on his skin, and he wanted nothing more than to bury himself so deep inside her that he would become lost in her. And for a heartbeat, one pain-filled second, he wished he hadn't called Chase. He could feel Chase in the room now, his worry competing with his own arousal. Cam pushed back the need for possessiveness. He could't afford it now. Cam could have done without knowing his brother worried for him, about him, or the needs that whipped around them at the moment. But Cam couldn't do without the balance, not now. The knowledge that as long as he shared her, she wasn't totally his. And if she wasn't totally his, then she could never be taken totally away from him. He had to have that, just for now.

He couldn't force his hands to stay on the arms of the chair, no matter how hard he clenched his fingers into them.

He had to touch her hair. Had to bury his fingers into that heated mass and make certain she didn't stop, because those sweet lips were washing away the torment from those scars, that were caused by the memories of the night they had been inflicted.

She was touching him without coercion, without seduction. Loving him with her lips and her soft breath. And he realized in a single moment of insight that he knew he couldn't have survived much longer without her.

His flesh beneath her lips was like satin stretched over iron. His chest was hard, muscled, flexing beneath her lips as she felt his hands bury themselves into her hair.

And, oh! He tasted so delicious. Like the sun, heat pouring into her, the fresh masculine scent overwhelming her. She couldn't stop tasting. Like an addict, she couldn't force her lips back from her drug of choice. She needed more.

And Cam was in complete agreement with her need to dine on him, if the feel of his hands in her hair and the hard rise and fall of his chest was any indication. He was offering himself as her banquet, and was evidently quite pleased with each bite she took of his hard muscles.

Her hands pressed against his lower chest, her lips ran over each and every scar, and when she reached the most wicked of those thick, silvery lines, she had to taste him.

Her tongue peeked from her lips and she licked him. And she couldn't stop licking him. The taste of his flesh against her tongue was even richer, hotter than it had been against her lips.

His fingers tightened in her hair. A burning pleasure to add to the burning pleasure of his taste. His hard body flexed, one hand left her hair to lift her closer, the other forced her head back, and his lips swallowed her protesting moan, until the taste of his kiss sank into her senses. The feel of it washed through her mind. His lips were like rough velvet, heated and exciting. They rasped over hers, caressed and sent shards of hunger spiking inside her.

When she thought she could stand the gentle rubbing of his lips against hers no longer, that she would die from the need for more, deeper and harder, he gave it to her.

His hand clasped the back of her head as he pulled her to his lap, lifted her into his embrace, and devoured her. With lips, teeth, and tongue, he nipped, licked, then slanted his lips over hers and buried his kiss into her.

Sensations—pleasure, hunger, and need—whipped through her system, attacked nerve endings, drawing them too close to the skin, making them too sensitive. She could feel every breath of air against her flesh, every touch of his hands, every separate sensation of his kiss. His tongue stroking her, his lips moving over hers, his groan meeting the mewling whisper of desire that fell from her lips.

Her hands were in his hair, fisted in it, holding him to her. If she could just keep his lips on hers, hold back reality for just a little longer, then she could find a way to be strong again.

Because she was definitely weak right now. Lost in his touch, melting against his chest and arching closer to him. Nothing mattered but this. His kiss feeding the hunger inside her.

"God! Jaci!" He moved his lips from hers.

She was outraged that he had stopped. Desperate, blinding need filled her, overwhelmed her.

"Don't stop." She fisted her hands harder in his hair, dragging his lips back to hers. "Just for a few minutes. Let me feel you for just a few more minutes."

He muttered a male groan and he was kissing her again. Blissful kisses. Kisses that let her sink into that world of pleasure once again—a world where Cam's strong arms tightened around her, lifted her—where security enfolded her.

She was only distantly aware of her back meeting the couch and Cam looming over her. He was surrounding her. His powerful arms were sheltering her, his kisses dragging her past fear and distrust, and filling her with his hunger, his need.

She let her hands slide from his hair to his shoulders, pushing frantically at the shirt in her quest to touch his flesh.

His knee slid between her thighs, pressed into the sensitive flesh of her silk-covered pussy, and sent talons of desire digging into her womb.

"Slow down, Jaci." He forced his lips away from hers once more, trailed them over her jaw, and ignored her cry of loss. "Easy. Let me touch you, sweetheart."

Jaci arched toward his lips, her head turning as they slid to her neck, her hips lifting against the pressure of his thigh, as his teeth scraped down her neck.

"I love your taste," he groaned as he pulled at her shirt, baring the upper orbs of her breasts for his lips.

He feasted on the rapidly rising and falling mounds, his lips and tongue playing against them as she tried to get closer, tried to force his head lower.

"Sweet Jaci."

She didn't know where Chase was. She thought she felt him at the end of the couch behind her head, but she couldn't drag her senses away from Cam long enough to be certain.

Buttons released from the blouse as he pulled at the edges, popping them loose, and she didn't give a damn. He could shred the blouse if he wanted to.

He bared her bra, delicate creamy lace, to his gaze, and within seconds released the front clasp that held it secure, then lowered his head.

"Cam!" she cried out.

His lips covered the hard, sensitive peak of her nipple and drew it into his mouth. There, he sucked and laved the peak, his tongue flicked over it, his teeth rasped against it.

Liquid pleasure burned beneath her flesh, as her head thrashed against the cushions of the couch. She needed more of him. More of his touch.

"I can't breathe," she panted, yet she arched closer.

"Me neither." He groaned, moving to the other peak. "I don't give a damn."

Another cry tore from her lips as he took the other nipple into his mouth and gave it the same rough loving. He sucked on her with driven hunger. He laved the tip with his tongue, then caught it between his strong teeth, worried it with exciting roughness, then suckled it again until she was writhing beneath him.

Her skirt was past her thighs, pushed to her hips by hard calloused hands, as her blouse fanned out around her.

"I want all of you." He nipped at the curve of her breast. "I want it all now, Jaci."

God yes. She needed it all. She needed him until she felt as though she were unraveling at the seams with the strength of that need.

"Yes." She tried to drag his lips closer. "Don't stop. Not yet. Please Cam, not yet."

He was torn. Cam could feel every cell in his body screaming at him to take her. Nothing mattered but sinking inside her.

He glanced behind her to see Chase loosening his shirt, then his slacks. Sometimes, Chase just watched, and that was okay because Cam couldn't drag his attention off the woman in his arms, and he would be damned if he could pull back from so much as a moment of this pleasure. Right now, while she was in his arms, he needed to know
he
held her. Completely. All of her.

God, he didn't want to lose her again. And he knew he wouldn't be able to deny the need, eventually, to take her alone.

He wanted her just like this, in his arms. She arched against the knee he had planted between her thighs, rubbing herself against him like a needy little kitten. And for the moment they both ignored Chase.

He had to pull his lips back from her breast and grit his teeth against the hunger burning through him.

His hand slid from her breast down her belly and over the skirt that had bunched at her hips—over it, to her lower stomach, and beneath the lacy elastic band of her panties.

He lifted his head and stared down at her, swallowing tightly as he fought to remember that he was not going to take her without making her realize she belonged to him.

Her face was wild with pleasure. Wild with it. Aubum hair surrounded flushed features. Her eyes had darkened until the green was mossy, the flecks of brown and blue like a hidden fire within it.

"Touch me." She whispered the words as he edged his thigh back just enough to side his fingers into paradise.

He felt perspiration bead along his body as her nails bit into his shoulders and her head tilted back with a surfeit of pleasure. Her thighs parted farther, allowing his fingers greater ease into the dewdampened folds of flesh between her thighs.

Sweet flesh, tender, it parted for him, the heated moisture of her response spilling to his fingertips. He eased lower, fighting to hold onto his control, until he couldn't help himself. He could not hold back the need. He pierced her with a single finger, amazed at how snug, how tight her heated pussy was for him, and then worked deeper inside her.

She arched against him, the muscles clenching on his finger, surrounding it with slick, heated syrup and satiny flesh. He pumped into her, watching her take him, the pretty pink flesh and auburn curls parting, wet, welcoming.

Hell, she was hot. Hot and writhing in his arms, reaching up for the fragile penetration, as her cries begged for more. And he was no less desperate. His cock was rigid beneath his pants, fully engorged, and aching for the tight clasp of her pussy.

"Cam." Her voice was rich, husky. "Oh God."

A surge of white-hot lust had one of his hands lowering to the belt cinching his waist, while the other, loath to leave the creamy heat of her body, continued to caress and cajole more of her sweet syrup from her.

He wasn't going to be able to hold onto his control this time. It would be rougher than he had wanted. Harder. And fuck making her face anything except his possession. He had been born for this moment. Born to burn in the fire she ignited inside him.

She stretched beneath him, her arms reaching above her, hands gripping the armrest behind her head as she thrust against him. His finger slid deeper, retreated. Pierced her as her hips lowered, slid nearly free as she lifted.

With her body, with each sensuous movement, she was taking him into her, riding his finger with such voluptuous pleasure that his cock threatened to explode before he ever entered her with it.

He tore the belt buckle free, slid his finger from her, despite her husky, protesting cry, and was working to release his erection, when the shrill demand of his cell phone filled the room.

"No." Jaci reached for him, her eyes burning into his with the same need tearing through him. "Don't answer it."

It rang again, the imperious summons causing him to snarl with impatience as he jerked it from the holder on the band of his pants.

"What?"

Jaci watched the grimace that pulled at Cam's expression. Blood thundered through her body, the blistering need burned her from the inside out. But the reprieve was a lucky one, she realized suddenly.

She had lost her mind. She had to have. The careful control she had adapted over the years, the firm rein she had placed on her sensuality and her need to be held had slipped with Cam.

It had slipped with the most dangerous man she could have imagined. He wouldn't reveal her secrets, he wouldn't betray her—but he could destroy her.

She moved to pull her body from his, ignoring the tightening of his hand on her hip, pushing away his hold, as he watched her with that hawklike stare.

She rose quickly from the couch, ignoring both men now, pulling her shirt around her and straightening her skirt as she rushed to the bedroom. She closed and locked the door carefully behind her.

Her shirt was ruined. Buttons were missing, there was a tear at the shoulders. She ripped it from her body and tossed it across the room before pulling a soft, comfortable pullover from her closet, along with a pair of jeans.

As she finished dressing, there was a soft knock at the bedroom door.

"Don't make me break the lock, Jaci," Cam warned her.

Don't make him break the lock. He was so arrogant, so self-assured. So certain of himself that it oozed from every pore of his body and made her want to scream in outrage, because she couldn't find that confidence—couldn't seem to fake even a quarter of that self-assurance whenever he was around.

She turned the lock and jerked the door open.

Standing before them, it was all she could do to rein in the shiver that would have trembled through her body at the look Cam gave her. The way his gaze slid over her body, the mocking quirk to his kiss-swollen lips.

Did her lips look like that? Reddened and swollen and hungry?

"We need to go back to the office," he told her. "I'll see you in the morning."

One hand cupped her neck, his hold dominant, daring her to pull away as his head lowered and he delivered a quick, hard kiss to her lips.

"What was that for?" She jerked back, but only after he released her.

"That was one of those little good-bye kisses lovers share," he said sensually. "Surely you recognized it?"

She would have had to have a lover first. "We're not lovers," she told him through gritted teeth.

At that he smiled. A slow, sexy curve of his lips, rife with promise. "Of course we are, sweetheart. I told you, you can't go back now. The only question in this relationship is when we'll go forward."

"There is no going forward." She had made a grave tactical error with him, and she knew it. He had taken control from the first moment, and he wasn't letting it go. "I've decided enough is enough. It's more than obvious I can't handle you, let alone both of you." She waved her hand toward the silent, amused Chase.

Amusement glittered in his eyes. "You already have."

Jaci stared back at him in disbelief, and she had to admit to the temptation rushing through her at the amused passion, the arrogance in his eyes.

"You couldn't handle it seven years ago. You were too young then, and I knew it. You're not too young to understand it now, Jaci."