No Risk Refused

by Cara Summers

  “Surely you’ve heard of it.” Her tone was pleasant, earnest. “No expectations. No worries about tomorrow. Just hot and very satisfying, on-demand sex between two people who want each other but don’t have time for all the problems of a relationship. It’s perfect for us.”

  For the first time he noted that her hands were clasped tight, her knuckles white. Nerves.

  The fact that she was feeling them was enough to ease his temper as he met her eyes again. “You’ve had some experience with buddy sex, I take it?”

  She lifted her chin. “And you haven’t?”

  “You’re right. I have.” He’d not only had those kinds of relationships in the past. He’d made them his specialty. But buddy sex hadn’t been the fantasy she’d written on those yellow pages seven years ago. He was more certain of that than ever. Reaching out, he covered her clasped hands with his. “Tell me what you really want, Adair.”

  “I want to get everything straight going in so that neither of us has unrealistic expectations. No hurt feelings. Do we have a deal?”

  The bastard in Chicago had hurt her. That meant she deserved an honest answer. “The problem is there are no guarantees. Certainly not in my line of work. And I’d bet that in spite of the fact that you like to cross all your t’s and dot your i’s, weddings are pretty unpredictable, too.”

  “Yes, but surely we can—”

  “Try.” He smiled as he pulled her to her feet. “Let’s try this.” He gripped her hips, lifted her, then strode to the edge of the ledge and jumped.

  They hit the water. The cold hard shock of it, the thrill of it, sang through her system as they plunged deep and then deeper. She had no choice but to hold fast and go along for the ride. She didn’t want any other choice. By the time their momentum slowed and they kicked upward, her heart was racing, her lungs burning.

  When they broke through the surface of the pond they were eye-to-eye. His were so dark and glittered so fiercely that choice was snatched away again. All she could do was sink into them just as she had into the water.

  “Breathe,” he said. But he barely gave her time before his mouth crushed hers and they went under again.

  With one arm, he kept her pressed against him and with the other he touched her—sliding his hand from the nape of her neck down her back to her hip. But his touch was no longer gentle the way it had been when she’d been half dreaming. It was hard and possessive—the way she’d always fantasized it would be. In spite of the icy water surrounding them, heat coursed through her system. She wanted nothing more than to melt into him. Nothing.

  They were going to drown. The thought flickered like a guttering candle in some part of his brain, but Cam couldn’t find the strength to heed the warning. The completeness of her surrender had him falling hard and fast into a world where there was nothing but the two of them and this terrible need she’d triggered in him.

  His foot hit the bottom before he got enough of a grip on reality to kick them both back to the surface. This time when they broke the water, they were gasping and coughing. Latching onto a glimmer of sanity, he kicked to the side of the pond and pinned her against the rocks.

  “Look at me,” he said.

  When she did, he skimmed a hand possessively over her hip and slid two fingers into her. He watched those misty green eyes darken and glaze as she embraced him and gasped his name.

  “I’ve imagined doing this to you,” he murmured as he began to move his fingers, coaxing her into a rhythm. “There’s more I’ve imagined.” So much more. He was going to show her.

  She was moving faster now. He knew he could take her right here against the side of the pond. Fast and hard. The speed might ease some of the terrible pressure building inside of him. But there was so much more he wanted to give her. More he wanted to take.

  Then her mouth nibbled at his neck, her teeth scraping his skin in fast, greedy bites, and he felt his control start to slip. He wanted everything. The hitch of her breath, that husky, hungry sound she made each time he stroked his fingers in and then out, in and then out. And the heat—her body seemed to be on fire, and he wanted nothing more than to be consumed by the flames. Then she clenched his fingers, her hungry mouth fastened on his, and they slipped beneath the water again.

  The climax streaked into her, blasting a path from where his fingers pressed through every pore in her body. Reeling from it, she kept her mouth fused to his and demanded more. He gave her more and more as they sank into a dark primitive world and unspeakable pleasure peaked again.

  “Breathe,” Cam ordered when they reached the surface.

  Her lungs burned when she did.

  “Got to get you out of here.”

  Water was streaming down her face, but he filled her vision, the dark hair slicked to his head, the fierce eyes.

  “More,” she said.

  He groaned and shifted his face away when she tried to capture his mouth. “We could die.”

  “The…cave,” she managed between nips at his bottom lip. “Behind…falls.”

  Cam remembered then. He should have before. And thank God she had. But getting there was going to be a challenge. Holding her close, he struck out for it, using his feet to propel them toward the waterfall. But those long, silky limbs were tangled around him, trapping him. Her mouth was so close, the waterfall so far.

  Talk, he told himself. And then he thought of her fantasy and whispered in her ear. “I’m a pirate. For weeks, I’ve watched you from my ship. Every day you come down to the rocks to bathe and then rest in the sun. I’ve watched you, fantasized about you, wanted you.”

  “Yes,” she breathed in his ear.

  “You’ve felt my eyes on you.”

  “Yes.” She nipped his earlobe, and Cam nearly lost his focus again. “I’ve wanted you for so long. Kiss me again.”

  Not yet. He didn’t dare. Carefully, he negotiated the waterfall and they reached the shallower water that bordered the cave. “Today I couldn’t resist you any longer, so I swam ashore to make love to you. To make you mine.”

  Finally, his foot hit a rock ledge and he found enough balance to shift both of them onto the floor of the cave. She lay beneath him now just as she had in the foyer the night before. He could see her eyes, the dark gleam of them and nothing else as he lowered his mouth to hers.

  Now he could explore all those flavors that he’d only sampled before. But as he tasted her, as the flavors poured into him, he felt as if he were drowning again.

  And he couldn’t seem to get enough. Each time he changed the angle of the kiss, he discovered something new. Beneath the incredible layers of sweetness, there was the darker flavor of desperation. The richness of her tastes, the depth of them, ignited a fire in his blood that started in his gut and radiated to the tips of his fingers. Fingers that trembled as they drew away the wet material that still clung to her breasts.

  Her body arched up, offering more, and he had no choice but to take. He told himself to go slowly, to savor when what he craved was to devour and possess. Her skin was slick and so hot that it burned his lips as he moved them down the slim column of her throat. Using teeth and tongue, he lingered at her breasts, teasing, tormenting, taking. He felt her heart beat against his lips and his own nearly stopped.

  Each time she shuddered, each time her nails dug into his shoulders, a fresh thrill threatened to shatter his system. Wherever he touched or tasted, her response was so generous, so beyond his experience, he could never have imagined it. Ever.

  “Cam.”

  He could barely hear his name above the rush of the waterfall and the pounding of his blood, but he knew she thought only of him. The power of that nearly pushed him beyond reason. But each time he thought he had to end it, he found more to tantalize him. Lured by the slim line of her torso, entranced by the dip at her stomach, he journeyed lower.

  When he found himself blocked by the strings of her bikini, he ripped it away.

  “Cam.”

  Adair had no idea whether she said the w
ord aloud or whether she’d only managed to shout it in her mind again and again. It echoed through her, streaming through her veins, filling her. The story of the pirate and of the woman who’d waited replayed in her mind. Their longings, their needs, couldn’t possibly be as great as hers. She’d waited so long for Cam. For this.

  Too long.

  No one had ever made her feel this way. The need he’d triggered was primal and raw. It terrified her. Electrified her. And just when she thought he couldn’t possibly take her further, he did. Each press of his fingers, each scrape of his teeth showed her how much more there was. And when he used them on the skin of her inner thigh, she cried his name again and arched her hips upward. And he pressed his mouth to her core.

  The orgasm tore through her, erupting again and again in aftershocks that only left her craving more. There was only Cam, the taste, the smell, the sight of him. When he rose above her again, she fisted her hands in his wet shirt and ripped it apart. Buttons flew.

  “Again,” she demanded. Then, as desperate as he to taste, to touch, to devour, she rolled with him across the floor of the cave. Legs and arms tangling, they struggled to pull down his wet jeans and strip off his shirt.

  “Hurry,” she demanded.

  “Trying to.”

  But when she would have dragged him back on top of her, he sat back on his knees and shifted her so that she was straddling them. Then he dug his fingers into her hips to hold them still. They were eye-to-eye, nearly mouth-to-mouth. “Protection,” he managed to say.

  He dug his fingers into the pocket of his jeans and they fumbled with the condom together.

  “Hurry,” she said again.

  He watched her eyes and nothing else as he lifted her hips and plunged inside of her. She was all he knew, all he wanted. And in that moment, she was everything. They moved together then. And when she climaxed, clamping those long legs around him and crying out his name, power and triumph, heady and sweet, streaked to his core.

  Then he built the pleasure again, for both of them. Her nails raked his back as he fought against the mists that threatened to blur his vision. He wanted to see her. Had to see her as they both rode a new and towering wave of sensations. Her face beaded with water, her eyes, witch-green, were fastened on his. They trapped him as surely as the lust. He felt something inside of him that wanted to break out, something strong. He tried to hold it back but her name broke free from his lips as he took her with him over the edge.

  9

  AFTERWARD THEY CLUNG like wet rag dolls against the wall of the cave. They didn’t speak. Adair wondered if her vocal cords might have been cauterized by the heat they’d created. She’d known that Cam would be different for her, but nothing in her experience, nothing in her imagination had come close. No one had ever done the things he’d done to her. And she’d never even dreamed of the things she’d done to him. They’d gone so far beyond her fantasies.

  And they were real. She’d never felt like this, so weak, so feminine. So totally satisfied.

  She sat snuggled on his lap, her arms and legs wrapped around him, her cheek pressed cozily against his. She would have been content to stay just as they were for a very long time.

  But that would be dangerous. She’d outlined their relationship quite clearly, and he’d been ready enough to agree there were no guarantees. The important thing would be to stick to the plan she’d outlined and enjoy what they could have together as long as it lasted.

  When Cam turned his head and met her eyes, something fluttered right under her heart.

  “You know, I have to be honest with you,” he said. “I don’t think we did that right.”

  She stared at him. “We didn’t?”

  “You said you wanted buddy sex—convenient, no harm, no foul. And you nearly killed me.”

  The mocking note of accusation in his voice caused a laugh to bubble up and break free. “It was your idea to jump off the ledge. You’re the one who nearly killed us both.”

  “Well, maybe we just need more practice. I’m sure we’ll get better at it.” He was about to prove his point by actions when he heard his cell phone beep. He managed to keep hold of her as he finessed it out of his jeans.

  “How did your cell phone survive?” Adair asked.

  “Special CIA issue. Waterproof,” he said as he glanced at the text Daryl had sent.

  Fingerprints of the man who ran a Scalzo-like scam in Oregan match Lawrence Banes’s. I’ll be joining you soon.

  “Important?” Adair asked.

  “A friend of mine is close to tracking down an old enemy.” What was good news for Daryl was definitely going to be bad news for Adair’s wedding on Saturday. But he couldn’t even warn her until Daryl was sure. That worry faded from his mind when he glanced up and noticed movement on the other side of the falling water. Lowering his head, he spoke close to her ear. “Don’t move. We may have company.”

  Easing Adair onto a ledge of rock, he pulled up his jeans and found his shirt. Someone standing on the shore of the pond couldn’t see into the cave because of the thick fall of water and the darkness. But he and Adair could get at least a blurred image of anyone who came into the clearing.

  Two people had. Cam crawled to the far side of the falls where there was a narrow gap between the crashing water and the side of the cave. Pressing his face against the rock, he peered out.

  Because of the spray he still couldn’t get a clear image. Two men stood at the far end of the pond. One had his back to the falls and stood with one foot propped on a rock, his forearm resting on his thigh. He wore slacks and a white shirt, and he was tall and broad-shouldered enough to partially block the other man’s face. That one held a camera with a telephoto lens. He, too, wore city clothes—slacks and a golf shirt. He was shorter and on the chunky side, with longer hair and a mustache and beard.

  And they were not happy.

  Though it was impossible to overhear their conversation, they were clearly arguing. The man with the camera used his hands in staccato gestures. The other one shook his head vehemently.

  “Let me see.” Adair pitched her voice low as she wiggled in front of him.

  He eased back so that she could try to see through the narrow gap between water and rock. “Recognize either one of them?”

  “Maybe,” she murmured. “The mist blurs everything, but the man I had an appointment with just before I came out here, Nathan MacDonald—he had a camera. The hair and the build are right. I gave him a tour. He was particularly interested in Eleanor’s portrait. He’d said that he’d seen the photo in the Times article and he’d love to see the real thing.”

  “You showed it to him,” Cam said.

  “Sure. It’s not in the regular tour I give, but many people ask to see it.”

  “How about the other man?”

  Even as Cam asked the question, the two men started up the path into the woods. For as long as she could she studied the back of the taller one who brought up the rear. Something seemed familiar, but she couldn’t place it.

  “No. I don’t know.”

  Cam turned her around so that they were kneeling on the floor of the cave facing each other. “This Nathan MacDonald could have decided to come back and take his own private tour of the rest of the estate. But that doesn’t explain the other man.”

  “He mentioned bringing his fiancée back. But I didn’t get the idea it would be today. And he didn’t mention that his fiancé was a man.”

  “But their visit could still be legit. He might want to get the fiancé’s reaction before filling you in on all the details.”

  “Yes. And what we saw was just a little lovers’ spat?”

  “Maybe.” The presence of the two men could be perfectly legitimate. But he had the same feeling he’d had earlier when he’d been driving back from Glen Loch, that sense that he should get back to the castle.

  “Okay,” Adair said, “we’ve established a semiplausible reason for Nathan MacDonald and his companion to be here with a camera and bei
ng a little secretive about checking out the estate. But you’re still worried.”

  “Because we can’t be sure how many people know about the earring yet. Vi mentioned to your dad that Alba barked at someone or something in the hills behind the stone arch right after you and she opened the leather pouch.”

  He filled her in on the stranger at the library who’d been so interested in Eleanor’s missing dowry. “And I think that someone may have been breaking into the castle at night for the past six months or so—ever since your Aunt Vi started waking up in the middle of the night.”

  Adair frowned at him. “But how? We activate the security system every night. And nothing is missing. We would have noticed.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that. There are times during the day when you deactivate it because you and Vi are home. You’re seeing clients. She’s in the kitchen and wants to enjoy the breeze from the lake. Depending on their motivation someone could sneak in late in the day. Or if they have the skill they could bypass the system just as I did. And maybe whoever it is just needs access to the castle for a specific reason. Your aunt’s rooms are over the library. She and the dog are waking up and you’re not.”

  “You think someone’s looking for something in the library?”

  “My mom spent a whole summer there doing research. And the Times article renewed interest in Eleanor’s sapphires. I went to the library in Glen Loch first thing this morning to look them up and to check out what’s available to the public. If I were looking for some jewels that could be traced back to Mary Stuart, I’d gather data. And the castle’s private library would be at the top of my list to find more. But I’m just theorizing, posing possible explanations.”

  Like the one he’d just posed for the two arguing men, which seemed less and less plausible by the minute. “At any rate, I’d like you and your aunt Vi to look at the library. Let me know what you see. Let’s get dressed.”