Wicked Pleasure (Bound Hearts #9)

“Agreed.” Ian sighed. “But stay away from Roberts, Cam, until you have proof of whatever you think he may have done. I can handle violence if there’s reason for it. Otherwise, stay back.”

“I’m well back,” Cam mocked.

Cam didn’t need proof, no more than he needed proof of Jaci’s innocence or her guilt. He understood the world. Sometimes a woman stepped into things she shouldn’t—that was always possible. But Roberts had threatened her, and that wasn’t acceptable.

He stared into the night once again, a frown brewing at his eyes. The investigation they had done on her had been too damned sketchy for seven years of a woman’s life.

There were rumors, here and there, of lovers, but none of those rumors had panned out. For seven years, Jaci had worked her ass off at her career, but she hadn’t put much into making friends or developing relationships.

Whatever had happened with Roberts had happened five years ago. After that, even less effort had gone into filling her life with anything other than work.

She didn’t party, except for business occasions. She was known for her restraint and cool purpose, her stubbornness and determination. She was outspoken in her design work, but rarely discussed personal issues with her clients. She had only a few friends, and pulling information from two of them had been like pulling teeth.

Courtney Sinclair and the manager of Ian’s men’s club, Sebastian De Lorents, had been less than forthcoming about anything they might know about her. Such loyalty wasn’t common, especially within the society they moved in.

“What are you going to do?” Ian finally asked.

“About what?” Cam turned back to him.

Ian shook his head. “If she’s going to design the club, then she’s going to have to understand the rules she’s working under. I expect you to take care of that.”

“It’s your club,” Cam growled.

“And your woman. See it’s done before she leaves tomorrow. Then we’ll decide if this job is truly hers or not. I’d rather lose the deposit I paid her than the reputation my wife is building in this community, Cam. You understand the rules and you know the woman. Take care of it. And make damned sure you and Chase know this woman you vouched so strongly for. I’d hate for either of you to be wrong.”

Jaci allowed the hotel room door to close heavily behind her before tossing her evening bag to the couch in the sitting room and reaching back to tear the silver clip from the back of her hair.

As the long, thick strands fell down her back, a surge of anger tore through her. A second later the hair clip was arching through the air to smack into the thick curtains covering the balcony doors.

“Damn him!” The vicious snarl that left her lips surprised her, as did the tears that she was forced to blink back.

He couldn’t even say hello. Couldn’t tear himself from his “business” discussion to even let her know he was there. No, he had sent Chase instead.

Cam couldn’t have meant the threat he had made so long ago. She drew in a hard, controlling breath. It was seven years ago, and when it came to women they wanted sexually, men could say a lot of things. She knew that. And Chase’s warning had been just that. The warning of a man who wanted her sexually, and who wanted answers to his questions, nothing more.

But he had acted as though he believed in her, a little voice inside her head whispered. He had asked her what Richard and Annalee had done to her, not what had she done. No one else had ever asked that.

She shook her head, kicking off the high heels and reaching behind her to release the zipper at the back of her evening gown as she moved into the bedroom.

She pulled the straps over her shoulders and let the silk slither down her body, leaving her clad in nothing but her thong and the thigh-high, black silk stockings.

Laying the dress over a chair, she grabbed her robe and wrapped it around her.

She didn’t need this headache. It was going to be all she could manage to keep her wits about her and keep the congressman and his wife from attacking her openly.

They were terrified of her. Even five years later, they were so frightened of the truth that it rolled off them in sickening waves every time they saw her. It would have been amusing if it didn’t continually destroy parts of her life along with it.

She stared around the hotel suite.

She was alone. She shouldn’t have been. Over the past few years, the ache inside her had grown to such proportions that it was nearly physical. She ached to be touched, to close her eyes as a lover touched her, even if she had to pretend it was Cameron Falladay.

It should have been so easy to accept the invitation in Chase’s eyes tonight. He could have come up here—she could have touched him, been touched, and pretended it was Cam.

She shook her head. She was losing her sanity, evidently. Chase would have never allowed her to get away with it, and she knew it. Just as she had known it before she left town seven years ago.

She pushed her fingers through her hair again, then let her hand trail down her neck, almost shivering at the memory of Cam’s fingers there.

Other men had touched her over the years. Superficially. They had kissed her, held her; but that ache that gnawed at her insides had never gone away. No more than the distrust had.

She was willing to lay her life savings on the fact that she was quite possibly the only twenty-eight-year-old virgin in existence, in the nation.

She stopped at the full-length mirror in the corner of the room and stared at herself. Her nose was straight, eyebrows arched. Her eyes faintly tilted, her lips just a little bit too lush. Her breasts weren’t small, but they weren’t overly large. They fit her body. She was slender; she stayed in shape. Her shoulder-length auburn hair was a nice contrast to her brown-and-blue-flecked green eyes.

She wasn’t ugly. She didn’t consider herself beautiful, rather average. There was no reason for her to be spending her life alone.

Other than her own fears. And the simple fact that she was still, even now, waiting on Cam.

3

Chase was waiting in the lobby of the hotel when Cam strode through the entrance. The black suit his brother wore did nothing to alleviate the aura of power and danger that surrounded him. The wicked scar that slashed down the left side of his cheek definitely helped the impression, but it was the icy green eyes, the unsmiling lips, the expression that seemed carved from experiences that suggested hell, made him appear even more dangerous, that did it.

Cam was his brother, his twin. And sometimes Chase wondered if he even knew who or what his brother was. He definitely didn’t know what had created the dark visage that strode toward him.

“She’s not going to appreciate a late-night visit,” he told his brother as they headed toward the elevator.

“Too bad,” Cam growled. “Roberts waylaid me at the party. The slick bastard. He should be in film rather than congress. His acting ability beats the shit out of his ability to help run this fucking country.”

Chase winced. Cam was cussing. That was never a good thing.

“Blindsiding Jaci like this isn’t going to help,” he advised him as the elevator doors slid closed behind them. “She is a little demon when that temper of hers is roused, you know that as well as I do.”

And she was liquid fire when other parts of her were aroused. Chase could still taste the sweet syrup that had flowed from her body, even seven years later. And he knew Cam had never forgotten.

“I want eyes on her twentyfour seven,” Cam ordered. “If Roberts even thinks about contacting her, I want to know about it.”

“Cam, you can’t control her life here.” The elevator doors slid open.

As they stepped out, his brother turned to him. The green ice in his gaze flickered with a hidden flame. The intensity of the color was no longer flat with whatever emotions or memories he fought. The color was wild, vivid, shocking Chase with the emotions that seemed to swirl just under the surface.

“I have no intention of controlling her life,” Cam stated. “I’m going to become her life, Chase. There’s a difference.”

For a second, Chase stood in shock, staring at his brother’s back as he strode quickly down the hall to the suite Ian had reserved for the interior designer.

Cameron had never claimed anything or anyone as his. Not since they had lost their parents, since their lives had gone to hell beneath the less-than-gentle care of their maternal aunt at the tender age of thirteen. But now, he was claiming Jaci?

Hearing him claim something, someone now, was enough to almost cause him to miss that twisted expression of need on Cam’s face as he turned away.

Hell, Jaci didn’t need to see Cam like this. Chase didn’t need to see Cam like this. Brimming with fire and lust and a need Chase had never imagined filled his brother.

“Cam, dammit,” he muttered, moving quickly behind him. “Do you think this is a wise move right now?”

Cam stopped in front of the hotel room door and glanced at his brother impatiently.

“What’s so unwise about it?” He’d waited seven years for her to grow up, to find them, and now Chase wanted to wait?

“She’s not exactly extending an invitation for us together,” his brother snorted. “She actually stated we should find someone else to play our games with.”

“You pissed her off.” He lifted his hand to knock on the door.

“And you’re not going to piss her off more?” Chase asked, his voice filled with a hint of disbelief that didn’t make sense to Cam.

He turned back to his brother, glaring at him. “Look, I let you talk to her first, I let you bring her home, and look where it got us. You never did know how to handle her, and don’t pretend you did. She walks all over you.”

It was true. Chase had never been able to tell her no. Cam, on the other hand, could and would, if it meant protecting her.

“Yeah, but it feels damned good when Jaci walks on you, man.” He grinned, amusement transforming his expression and filling his eyes with a joy that often made Cam look like more of an outsider than ever.

His brother had kept that sense of fun and prankish delights, while that sense had been carved out of Cam, stripped from him like flesh from the bone.

Cam ignored the protests and the laughter, turned back to the door, and rapped his knuckles against it imperiously.

Staying away from her at the party had been an act of superhuman effort. He still couldn’t believe he’d managed it. That witch’s black dress, slit to the thigh, the banked fire in her auburn hair, the searching expression on her elfin features as she stared around the room, as though looking for someone. He wanted to think she was looking for him, because he’d be damned if he had eyes for anyone but her.

A second later the door opened. His eyes met hers, and he knew in that moment that the past had dissolved between them—seven years never existed, and it was the night he had brought her home from that party. Her eyes staring at him in those final moments of knowledge, confusion, passion, and lust—and a young woman’s fear.

There was no fear in her eyes now. There was excitement. He could see it in her. In the way she leaned against the door, stared at the two of them, and shook her head as though uncertain—now that the moment was here—what she was supposed to do.

Cam crossed his arms over his chest, aware of Chase rocking back on his heels beside him, a grin of deviltry on his face when Jaci glanced over at him.

“And to what do I owe the honor of this little visit?” Husky and sweet, her voice promised delights that tortured his most vivid fantasies, awake and sleeping.

She was dressed in nothing but a long, silky robe. He had to curl his fingers into a fist to keep from stripping it from her body and baring her to his gaze, right there in the open doorway.

“Do you really want to talk about it in the hallway?” he asked.

She looked from him to Chase again. Whatever Chase did, the damned maniac, had her lips twitching with amusement.