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.

7

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.