by Maya Banks
CHAPTER 27
Cam watched as Reggie thrust her hand into her hair, pulled it out then dug back in. Her other hand was balled tightly at her side, and she paced back and forth. He could see her lips moving as she muttered to herself.
Yeah, she was agitated.
He wanted to go out there and just hold her, tell her it would be all right, but hell, who was he kidding? He didn’t know if it would. That scared him shitless.
“What the fuck are we going to do, Cam?” Hutch asked.
Cam glanced sideways at him then turned away from the door that Reggie had stormed out of.
“Christ, I don’t know, Hutch. Give her some space?”
“We tried that. Didn’t work.”
“Pushing her won’t help. We know that.”
“I don’t want her to go back to that goddamn job,” Hutch said tersely.
Cam sighed and went over to the couch. No sign of Sawyer, but then he’d have to calm down before he reappeared. He’d looked to be close to bursting a blood vessel.
“I don’t want her to either, man. But that’s not our call. It can’t be.” He glanced up at Hutch, who’d walked around to flop into the recliner. “Just like we knew we’d never ask her to choose between us, we can’t ask her to now choose between us and her job.”
“What if she walks away again?”
There was a healthy dose of fear in Hutch’s voice. It was the same fear that was close to gutting Cam.
“We can’t make her stay with us,” Cam said quietly. “All we can do is show her how much we love her and try and convince her that it’ll work. We knew it wouldn’t be easy.”
Hutch threw his head back and stared at the ceiling. “I don’t get her wanting to be a cop. Sometimes I think . . . sometimes I think she did it just to get back at her old man, you know? And if that’s the case, it’s not where she needs to be. How happy could it make her?”
Cam leaned forward. “Are you happy with your life, Hutch? Are you happy with our business? Reggie aside, are you satisfied?”
Hutch rocked his head forward to look at Cam. “You know I am.”
“You can’t tell me you didn’t set out to make something of yourself to piss off all the people who thought we wouldn’t amount to shit. Reggie’s old man being one of them. Does that make you any less happy with the results because of the motivation behind your actions?”
Hutch screwed his face in annoyance. “Good grief, Cam, cut the analytical bullshit out. I swear you give me a headache with all your philosophizing.”
Cam chuckled. “You know I’m right. Regardless of why Reggie chose the profession she did, she’s happy. She’s tough. She can handle it. Do I like it? Hell no. In a perfect world, she wouldn’t work at all. She’d stay home. In our home. And we’d take care of her. But can you honestly ever see Reggie going for that? She’d make eunuchs of us all.”
Hutch’s face eased into a grin. “Yeah, I hear you.” His gaze skirted toward the door. “So what do we do?”
Cam followed his stare to see Reggie still pacing out on the patio. “We chill. Let her work this out herself. And we don’t issue ultimatums or even make it look like we’re handing her one.”
“But she’s pissed.”
“Yeah, so? How many times have we pissed her off over the years?”
“Yeah, but a lot more is at stake this time,” Hutch said.
“I won’t argue that, but Hutch, we’re not entering utopia here. There’s going to be arguments. Hell, with Sawyer and Reggie in the same house? You’re talking two bulldogs who don’t know the meaning of the words ‘back down.’ You can’t let it get to you.”
He leaned further toward Hutch. “And I’ll tell you something else. You can’t worry about my relationship with Reggie or Sawyer’s with Reggie. You can’t make it right for the rest of us. We’ll fuck up, but you can’t go around picking up the pieces of other people’s mistakes.”
“Yeah, I got you,” Hutch said in a low voice. “I just don’t want to screw this up, Cam. I don’t think we’ll get another chance.”
Cam swallowed against the panic caused by Hutch’s resigned statement. It mirrored his own thoughts too precisely. No, he didn’t think they’d get another chance if they screwed this one up. But damn it, Reggie had to be willing to meet them halfway.
Sawyer ran through another repetition of curls before he finally set the weights down. His chest heaved with exertion and sweat soaked his clothing. Work out. Yeah, this was supposed to help burn off the frustration, right?
All he’d gotten for his time was a good case of exhaustion and a need for a shower. Two of them.
He headed for the locker room to scrub the dozen layers of sweat from his body.
He shouldn’t have popped off at Reggie like that, but damn, she made it hard. Stubborn as a pack mule. He ought to know. They were two peas in a pod. Which is why they butted heads so damn much.
He rested his arm on the shower wall and laid his forehead against his wrist as the water sluiced over his back. Reggie going back to her job. Her house. Her life. Without them?
What about her promise to stay? To try and work things out? Or had they just been a temporary diversion?
No, Reggie wasn’t like that. She might be scared to death, but she wouldn’t use them like that. Not intentionally.
He scrubbed his body and rinsed then stepped out of the shower to towel off. His muscles ached like a son of a bitch, but at least he was a little calmer now.
Bolting like that was probably a bad idea, but if he would’ve stayed, things would have just gotten tenser. They didn’t need more tension. There was already enough of that simmering between them all.
He didn’t know whether to kiss her senseless or kick her ass. Both options held a certain appeal.
Stubborn, ornery, beautiful woman. Mouthy, sassy, sexy-as-hell wench.
What would he ever do without her?
He didn’t want to find out. He’d already spent way too much time away from her. Not by his choice, but at some point, it all had to end. Whether they decided to give it a go or they said to hell with it and went their separate ways.
As much as the latter tore a hole in his gut, he couldn’t go on this way, hoping and reaching for something that might never happen.
“Mountain out of a molehill,” he muttered as he climbed into his truck.
It was one frickin’ argument. Not the end of the world. The day he and Reggie stopped bickering would be the day they buried one of them. Yeah, he’d overreacted, but so had she. Not that it was anything new.
He drove home knowing he’d have to eat some serious crow, but then wasn’t that what life with a woman was all about? He grinned. Men humbled themselves all the time at the altar of woman. If they didn’t, the population would have died off a long time ago.
When he pulled into the driveway, he noticed the house was mostly dark. Probably all went to bed without him. He tried real hard not to be jealous of the fact that Reggie was probably all tucked in between Cam and Hutch or that they’d probably already screwed her six ways to Sunday.
“Down, boy,” he muttered as his dick surged to attention.
But when he walked into the darkened living room, he saw that Reggie wasn’t upstairs with Cam and Hutch. She was curled up on the couch asleep. In just a T-shirt. Had she waited up for him?
All smart-ass remarks aside, the idea that his woman had waited up for him sent a bolt of pure pleasure through his veins. Humbling himself at her feet didn’t seem quite as bad as it had a few minutes ago.
He dropped his gym bag on the floor and walked over to where she lay.
He knelt beside her and trailed a finger down her arm. Little goose bumps puckered and jumped up on her skin in the wake of his touch.
She stirred and did one of those little sleepy snuggles that he loved so much. Of course he liked it a lot better when she’d done it on top of him. But damn, she looked so darn cute. Sweet even.
Well she damn sure wasn’t going to s
leep down here, and if Cam and Hutch had been dumb enough to let her sleep alone, that was their problem. He was taking her to bed with him.
He slid his arms underneath her and hoisted her up. She landed against his chest with a soft thud, and he stood there a moment, just enjoying the feel of her warm body all tucked up against his.
Yeah, life was good. Most of the time. At least until she woke up and handed him his ass. Until then he’d get as much enjoyment out of the situation as he could and practice up on his looks of humility.
He mounted the stairs and took her to his room. Shouldering his way in, he gave the door a kick to close it behind him.
He laid her on the bed and pulled the unmade covers over her hips. Then he stepped back and hastily shrugged out of his jeans and shirt.
When he crawled in beside her and cuddled up to her back, she stirred and turned over, snuggling into his arms.
“Sawyer?” she asked sleepily.
“Yeah, honey?”
“I’m sorry for getting all pissy with you.”
He smiled. “Me too.”
She nuzzled her face into his neck, and he sighed in contentment.
“Reggie?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you going to stay?”
There was a brief pause, and he felt a little hiccup in her breathing. He found himself holding his own breath as he waited for her to answer.
“Yeah, Sawyer. I’m staying.”
Relief was so strong that it damn near blurred his vision.
“Good. I’m glad.”
He pulled her closer against him and wrapped himself around her tight. He hooked his leg over hers, drawing her further in line with his body.
“You just try keeping those skinny parts away from me,” he muttered.
He felt her smile against his chest.
CHAPTER 28
When Regina woke, the bed was empty. She frowned. So much for waking up in Sawyer’s arms. She yawned and stretched then sniffed. Food. She was starving.
She got out of bed and stumbled toward the shower. She hoped to hell Sawyer still wasn’t pissed. There was a vague memory of him carrying her up the stairs, and she definitely remembered apologizing and then snuggling into his arms. Everything else was kind of a blur.
Oh well, it wasn’t the first time they’d gotten into each other’s face, and it wouldn’t be the last.
An uncomfortable sensation settled into her stomach. This time, though . . . this time it mattered. Really mattered. It was more than two friends bickering.
She sighed and stepped into the shower. She soaped and rinsed her hair then turned to reach for the body wash.
A warm, naked body melded to her back. One hand slid around her middle, pressed to her stomach. The other circled her throat, ran up to her jaw and turned her face back and upward to meet seeking lips.
“Good morning, Cam,” she murmured.
His heavy erection burned the small of her back. The hand at her stomach slid downward, between her legs, dipping into the wet curls, to the throbbing flesh hidden underneath.
Wordlessly, he turned her around to face him then backed her against the shower seat in the corner. She sank onto the wet surface, the spray from the showerhead bouncing off the walls and spritzing her body.
He reached for the showerhead, released it from the mount and then knelt in front of her.
This silent, mysterious side of Cam was seriously sexy stuff. Not that he wasn’t always somewhat quiet and serious, but this brooding thing was getting her worked up.
His hair hung wetly down his neck, carelessly strung forward over his shoulders. There was fire in his eyes. And determination.
He nudged her knees apart then hoisted one ankle upward until her heel rested on the ledge she sat on. He picked the other one up and did the same.
She was spread out before him, her pussy open and accessible. She was so damn turned on that she could have come with the slightest touch.
As if reading her thoughts, he reached with one finger and gently rolled it over her clit. Fire ignited and blazed over her. He touched one more time, and her orgasm flared and burst like a short fuse.
She gasped as her pussy pulsed with sharp, agonizing bursts. That had to be a record.
He gripped the shower head tighter in one hand and adjusted the spray to pulse setting. Her eyes widened when she realized what he was going to do. Oh hell, this was going to be good.
Using two fingers to part her folds, he brought his other hand up and swooshed the thin stream of water over her still quivering clitoris.
She arched up as a spasm worked over her pelvis.
“Cam!” she cried out.
He smiled. Silent bastard. Then he aimed the spray back over the taut bud and worked gently up and down in tiny increments.
Wave after wave of blissful, agonizing tension rolled through her. Tighter and tighter she wound, coiling viciously. Could she have another orgasm so fast?
The answer was yes.
He kept the spray steady, and every muscle in her groin screamed for mercy. She worked higher and higher, nearing the breaking point but never quiet toppling over.
“Cam, please! It hurts!”
He chuckled. “Don’t fight it, love. Let it happen.”
Her legs shook spasmodically. She braced her hands against the seat, threw back her head and screamed as another orgasm lashed through her body.
He dropped the nozzle. He surged to his feet and yanked her into his arms. He hoisted her up then pressed her back to the shower wall.
“Wrap your legs around me,” he rasped.
He reached between them, positioned his cock and thrust upward. He rocked her against the wall as he drove deep.
The spray from the discarded shower head arched upward, bathing Cam’s back with warm water. It rolled up and over his shoulders, dripping between them and down to where he was joined with her.
He cupped his hands over her ass, squeezing and spreading as he hammered forward again. He was wild and insatiable. She hung on for dear life, her hands locked behind his neck and her ankles locked at the small of his back.
Each stab was like static electricity. Almost painful as he dragged his cock over swollen, sensitive flesh.
And then he was taking her frantically. Over and over. Desperate. Frenzied.
His lips sucked at her neck, and her breasts were flattened against his heaving chest.
Mine. His every action, his every movement screamed it. He was staking his claim. Mine. His.
She closed her eyes, nearly exhausted from the two orgasms she’d already experienced. And yet another called to her, pulled sweetly at her, slower and less intense than the others.
He coaxed her flesh, teasing and intoxicating. Each pull of his cock, each stab forward.
“Yours,” she whispered.
“Mine,” he agreed.
He strained forward and every muscle in his body stiffened. He yelled hoarsely. Her name spilled from his lips in an agonized groan as he poured himself into her.