“Feel how tight you hold me?” He flexed inside her as his lips moved to her ear. “That’s how I want to hold you. Wrap around you until you don’t know where you end and I begin.”

He was wrapped around her, his arms embracing her, his powerful thighs and legs outside hers, his head at her neck. Surrounding her with pleasure, filling her with it.

The involuntary flexing of her vagina around the thick intrusion of his cock, and the subtle strokes of his cock deep inside her dragged a groan from his throat.

The throb and caress of the thick cock head deep inside her was driving her insane. She wanted the hard strokes, the furious thrusts. This gentle caress inside her, where she was most sensitive, was making her insane.

“I love how you hold me here.” He nipped her ear, drew it into his mouth, and soothed the tiny hurt.

Jaci stared at him in dazed pleasure, her eyes locking with his as his head lay beside hers, his lips touching hers.

“You’re torturing me,” she cried, breathless, fighting to move, to force him to give her that last stroke of sensation needed to throw her over the edge.

“I’m loving you.” He caught her lower lip before she could reply, nipped it, licked it.

The ice green of his eyes was fiery now, burning with pleasure, with hunger.

“Then do it.” She whimpered as he released her lip and licked it again. “Take me, Cam.”

“Soft and easy?” He shifted, pulled back, then slid into her with such destructive ease that she wanted to scream out with the punch of ecstasy that ricocheted inside her.

“Or hard and fast?”

He held her hips and slammed inside her. Her back arched, bowed, she screamed out his name and a second before the flames consumed her, he stopped.

He stopped. Just stilled inside her and did that stroking thing that made her so crazy. Ah God, if he didn’t move, if he didn’t pound inside her, she was going to die. She could feel herself shaking from the inside out. Burning, flaming, so desperate to orgasm that she clawed at the hood of the car again.

“Easy sweetheart.” His hands trapped hers, holding them still. “Let’s just play a little bit. See what you like. See how much you like.” He pulled back and slammed inside her. Once. Just once.

“No. Oh God. Damn you, Cam.” She fought to push against him, to find the incredible, mindless pleasure of seconds before.

“Ahh, my baby likes it hard and fast,” he crooned. “Whatever you want, Jaci. However you want it. All you have to do is tell me.”

“Fast. Fast.” She wanted to scream the words. “Damn you, Cam, fuck me. Hard. Fast.”

He held her hands. His lips touched hers. And his hips moved. Hard. Fast. He pounded inside her, sending pleasure screaming through her nerve endings and the orgasm she fought so desperately for exploding through her senses.

A tidal wave of excruciating pleasure swept through her, tightened her, released and exploded again in a furious sweep of ecstasy.

She was aware of him shuddering behind her. The feel of his erection throbbing, his release sweeping over him. And for a second, she hated that damned condom. She wanted to feel him exploding inside her. Feel him taking her, marking her as he had never taken another woman.

But even more, she needed him to hold her.

22

He carried her to the shower and beneath the warm spray of water he held her, he loved her slow and easy. And he felt something break inside him.

This woman he had dreamed of. She held him through the night the only way he had allowed her to. She touched his body, but more, she touched his soul.

Just as she had so many years ago. She had been no more than a child when she found him, and he had been broken. But there was something about her. Wait for me, Cameron. I’ll grow up and I’ll make all the bad things go away.

He clenched his teeth to hold back the emotion that swept through him. Because she had taken the bad things away enough that he’d found the strength and the courage to do what he had to do.

“You make all the bad things go away,” he whispered into her wet hair as he held onto her.

The water sprayed over them, washing over her hair, along his hands as he caressed her naked back, and spilling to the floor below. It embraced them the way he wanted to embrace her, always. All over. Like a protective shield between her and any harm.

He felt her smile against his chest, a bittersweet curve of her lips that had him kissing the top of her head as he clenched his eyes closed in agony.

“The big bad Falladay brother,” she whispered against his chest. “Everyone thought they were supposed to be scared of you.”

They’d had good reason to be scared of him. He’d lived in hell and he tried to take it out on any willing fist that would face him.

“You weren’t scared of me.”

“I couldn’t stay away from you.” She sighed. “You’re like a drug. One taste of you, Cam, and all I do is crave more.”

“You stayed away for seven years.” She had stayed away and he had allowed it. Because he’d needed the distance, needed to hold back the secrets he knew she would demand.

She lifted her head from his chest as her hand touched his cheek. “It was only by monumental effort.”

He knew her, knew the varied looks in her eyes, her expressions, her stubbornness and her loyalties.

“You stayed away because you were scared, and you weren’t scared of what I wanted from you, either.”

They were going to finish this, now. She could protest until hell froze over, but the Robertses were a threat to her and that threat was not going to continue. She didn’t have to tell him what they had done to her, his imagination was good enough. That was all he needed.

She pulled away from him and stepped out of the water. Jerking a towel from the rack on the wall she dried off quickly, refusing to look at him.

The deliberate challenge was like a match to tinder. He could feel the surge of dominance that burned inside him now. He had lost control of this situation and this relationship, and it was time to draw it back. If he didn’t, then all control was going to be lost, and he’d be damned if he would allow that to happen.

“How do you know I’m not scared of what you want?” She shrugged as she dried her hair, hiding her expression from him. “You know, it’s not every day a man wants to share you with his brother.”

Just hearing the words out of her mouth had his dick twitching in anticipation.

He hadn’t forgotten that need; to the contrary, he knew it was the reason the memories were tearing into him with such brutal precision lately. The dreams, the needs, they frayed his control and weakened the barriers he had between himself and the world.

“It’s not every day you have a twin for a lover, either,” he told her.

She snorted at that, as he knew she would. Cam felt a smile tilt at his lips, felt a part of his heart lighten at the sound.

“I’ve known plenty of twins, Cam,” she informed him. “You and Chase are the only ones that share your lovers. It’s not exactly natural.”

He pulled the towel from her hair and tilted his head to steal a kiss before using it to dry himself and grinning back at her unrepentantly.

“Maybe we’re just special.” He chuckled.

“Maybe you’re just too determined to have your own way.” She moved away from him, running her fingers through her wet hair until it lay around her head in soft, damp waves.

“Determination is my middle name.”

“No its not. It’s James.” She laughed from the doorway. “I know, because I asked Chase years ago.”

She sprinted from the door with a little laugh as he pulled the towel back as though to snap it at her. That laughter raced through his bloodstream nearly as hot and arousing as her touch could.

He closed his eyes and treasured it. She was here with him. Things might not be as smooth as he would have liked, as she would have liked, but it was going to work. He’d make sure it worked because as far as he was concerned, he wasn’t returning to the bleak, empty days he had known before she had come back into his life.

As he moved into the connecting walk-in closet that held his clothes he heard her call out that Chase was there. He smiled at the ire in her voice. Evidently, Chase had come in as she was running naked from him.

Dressing quickly, he left the bathroom and glanced in the bedroom where the light remained on in the closet on the other side of the screened-in bedroom. How long did it take a woman to pick out an outfit to wear at the house?

“Ian called as I was on my way home.” Chase was pulling a beer from the refrigerator as Cam neared him.

He caught the bottle his brother tossed to him and twisted the cap off. Lifting it to his lips, Cam watched him, seeing the careful restraint, the banked anger Chase didn’t bother to hide.

He was still pissed over the argument in the office, and Cam knew it. Chase didn’t let things go easily, and he had been probing Cam for more than a year now, determined to learn what had happened in their youth.

“What did Ian want?”

“He had a visitor after we left.” Chase shrugged his shoulders before lifting his own beer and taking a long drink.

“Who was the visitor, Chase?” Cam finally asked, patiently. Chase could be a bastard when he was pissed.

Chase’s lips flattened as he glanced to the bedroom.

“It was Roberts. Seems the bastard thinks Ian should fire Jaci in return for the change in that zoning law Ian petitioned for on one of his properties. His wife seems to have some influence on one of the members of the zoning board.”

Cam finished his beer before tossing it into the garbage can beside the kitchen island.

“What did Ian tell him?”

“Told him to get fucked,” Chase grunted. “But the bastard made the mistake of upsetting Courtney before Matthew could let Ian know he was there. Evidently, Courtney was cursing in Spanish when Ian made it to the foyer.”

Cam grimaced. “This could get ugly.”

“Sebastian was there during the meeting with Ian. Roberts ran a background check on him, and he’s made some very subtle threats, evidently where De Lorents is concerned. Did you know Spain has a mafia? Seems Sebastian thinks Roberts would fit right in with them.”

“Every country has a mafia,” Cam said, as he pushed his fingers through his hair in frustration. “So, what’s Ian’s take on this?”

“The Robertses are scared,” Chase bit out. “They can’t use gossip to get rid of her, because evidently, no one gives a fuck about old trash talk this month.”

Cam glanced back at the screened-off bedroom.

“Have the final reports come in on the Robertses yet?” he asked Chase.

Chase shook his head. “All but a few. We don’t have any proof of the rumors we’ve heard about some of their games. Their secretary isn’t talking, but she’s a little arrogant, for her position. The servants aren’t full-time at the mansion or their penthouse, so we haven’t been able to pull out any information there.”

Cam scratched at his jaw, his eyes narrowing as he let the problem roll through his mind. Anyone driven by fear had a weakness, he knew that well. There was no way to keep everything quiet, unless you spilled blood. And even then there were risks involved.

“Go back further,” he finally said, quietly. “They’ve had overnight guests before; check their backgrounds further, see if they have any ghosts in their closets. If we can’t get dirt on the Robertses with the check we’ve done on them, then we’ll find it there.”

Chase shook his head. “I’ve done that. A few house parties, a few close friends who have come out squeaky clean. The Robertses are so damned clean its making me sick. They even keep friends’ teenagers through the summer or on vacations, to allow them to apprentice with Richard. The whole ‘see what the congressman does’ routine.”