by Lori Foster
“I—”
She sat up straighter in warning. “If you offer to pay me for services rendered, you’ll be wearing the coffee.”
He eyed her hold on the cup and must have decided it was an idle threat. “Mine is yours.”
“No, yours is yours.”
“I want to share.”
“Talk to Mercy. Maybe she’ll take a gift or two.” Frustration brought him forward. “You are being deliberately antagonistic. Why?”
He couldn’t be serious. “Are you kidding?”
Going for a different tack, he glanced at her breasts, then her mouth. That one quick glance, and Cameo felt the stirring of new interest. Or … wait!
Through her teeth, she warned, “You better not be using your wiles on me.”
“My wiles?” He shook his head. “You want me, I want you. You can’t deny that.”
Still, she didn’t quite trust him on this. “Did you or did you not just provoke me with your mind?”
“Not.” He reached for her hand and held it when she would have pulled away. “I looked at you the way any man in lust looks at a woman, and you responded in kind. We have a megadose of chemistry going on here.”
Oh God, she felt it. Knowing everything he’d recently forced her to experience didn’t help. Still sensitive in key places, the memory of sizzling sensations almost brought them right back.
She jerked her hand free. “I said no touching.”
“Then don’t accuse me of using amped-up means to seduce you.” He pushed back from his chair and loomed over her. “I don’t need help to have you screaming with pleasure.”
“Brax …”
He leaned closer, bracing his hands on the seat of her chair, caging her in. His mouth was so close, she could almost taste him.
“There are so many ways I want to take you, Cameo.” His lips brushed hers on a path to her throat. “So many ways I’ve thought about having you, night after night.”
“Oh …”
“Sometimes hard.” He put a damp, open-mouthed kiss to a very sensitive spot between her neck and shoulder. “Sometimes easy.” His teeth grazed her skin, making her tingle. “But always deep and hot and—”
She shoved up both hands to halt him. “Unfair practice, Brax.” A deep breath refilled her starving lungs with oxygen. “You know I lack your experience.”
He took one of her hands and brought it down to his fly. “I’ll share my experience with you. Right now.”
So fast that she nearly toppled over in her chair, Cameo pushed back. She managed to land on her feet; the chair wasn’t so lucky.
They both ignored it.
Again, their gazes locked and it was so fierce, it had her heart punching double time.
Think, Cameo. You had questions. Yes, she did. “Why me? Why now?”
Brax retreated to lean on the kitchen counter. In the stainless-steel-and-granite kitchen, he looked right at home, just as solid and sustainable as metal or rock.
He crossed his arms over his chest. “You defy me.”
Her spine snapped straight in affront. “This is a game? I’m a challenge for your ego?”
“My ego is healthy enough that challenges are unnecessary.” His close observation burned over her, lingering in key places on her body. While looking at her breasts, he murmured, “My emotional mastery has, so far, proven overpowering.”
“Mastery?” she questioned with a raised brow. Yes, the man had a very healthy ego.
“Whenever I’ve chosen to trigger an unconscious response in a person, largely against a criminal element so corrupt that it blackens all others in its vicinity, I’ve succeeded without fail.”
“Criminals?”
“One thing at a time, honey.” He eased closer to her. “With you, I sensed that you had some strange power to resist me. Don’t get pissed, but I’ve subtly tried to encourage you to do things you didn’t want to do.”
Things clicked into place. “Today, when you ordered me over to that awful, gaping hole in the wall …”
“You refused, and I couldn’t encourage you to my will.”
“You almost did,” she whispered. “It scared me. I didn’t want to get that close to the drop, but the urge to do what you said was almost overwhelming.”
“Almost,” he reiterated. “But you rejected my mental coercion. No one else has ever managed that.”
Oh God, this was so confusing. “Have you … coerced others to their death?”
Something flickered in his gaze. He looked down, gathering his thoughts before facing her again. He spoke slowly, willing her to understand. “There are a lot of evil people surrounding us, Cameo.”
“I know that.”
He shook his head. “I’m not talking ordinary criminals. Thieves, liars, bullies—they infest the earth. They disgust me, but I accept them as a part of our society. But there are beings that are more craven and malevolent than you could ever know. And sometimes, even with a confession, our legal system is helpless against them.”
Her chest hurt. “Is that a yes?”
He searched her gaze before giving one firm nod. “Yes.”
Shock took her back a step.
He didn’t reach for her, but Cameo saw the urgency rushing through him.
Tone harder, harsher, he said, “A child molester, Cameo. He’d tortured two sixteen-year-old boys. It was only when he got so involved in murdering one of them that the other was able to escape.”
Sickness twisted in her stomach, burned her throat. She pressed a hand to her heart, trying to contain the vicious thumping. “You were certain of all this?”
“The sick fuck took videos. Yes, I was absolutely certain.”
The depravity of it stole her breath.
Jaw clenched, eyes clouded, Brax said, “I saw it in his face, Cameo, the complete pleasure he took in causing them pain. He enjoyed it too much to ever quit. There’d be no reform for him. Ever.” His gaze flashed back to hers. “Do you really want society to falter and turn him loose again?”
Understanding the agony he’d experienced, not just this time, but as a course of his life’s calling, altered her perspective. “What did you do to him?”
Pulling back, expression guarded, he whispered, “You don’t need details.”
“Yes, I do.” If she was going to enter into this … alliance, she needed to know everything.
A deep breath expanded his chest, making him look bigger, more dangerous, when he was dangerous enough on a daily basis. “He savagely broke his neck while trying to hang himself.”
The torment was there in his eyes, showing what it cost him to fulfill his heritage. He did what he had to do to protect others, not because he was twisted or evil, but to stop the evil from striking again. Accepting it all, accepting him, her nervousness faded beneath a rush of empathy. “I’m so sorry, Brax.”
“No.” Sudden rage darkened his expression. “Fuck no. I don’t want your goddamned pity!”
But she wasn’t afraid anymore, and her gentle smile was a buffer in the face of his anger. “It’s called understanding, and you have it whether you want it or not.”
Lunging forward, he caught her arms and jerked her up to her tiptoes, flush against his hard body. Hanging there in his grasp, the disparity in their sizes was more evident than ever. He stood a foot taller than her, large boned and layered in solid muscle. One of his hands would easily span the width of her back. His forearms were larger than her calves.
And she felt … protected.
Safe from the ugliness in the world.
His mouth came down on hers, his tongue raping her with a fierce hunger. Cameo didn’t fight him. She wouldn’t have sex with him yet; for her, it was still too soon to switch to that level of intimacy.
But if this brought him comfort, she was more than willing.
Putting her small hands to his heated chest, she stroked over bulging muscles.
He set her away from him as quickly as he’d grabbed her. Breathing hard, he stared at her in d
isbelief. “Damn you.”
When she said nothing, he let her go and stepped a few feet away. “Let’s get this straight. All I need from you is release.”
He sounded distant, harsh and determined.
“Sex will help you?” Before making any final decisions, she needed to comprehend this odd code, and the nuances behind surviving it.
His nod was slow, as if he disbelieved her calm. “It’s always been that way in my family. When we find the right woman, she can … save us.”
To Cameo, that certainly sounded like more than just sex. “And if you don’t find the right woman?”
His giant shoulder lifted in a failed attempt at nonchalance. “A few have gone insane. It’s sometimes too much, trading emotions with psychopaths, committing sins in the name of humanity.”
Many things began to click into place for her: the veil of secrecy that always cloaked him, the “businessmen” who’d left a private meeting in much worse shape than when they’d arrived, and the women.
So many women had come and gone during the years since she started working for him. She was not a prude, and she did her best not to judge others.
But his treatment of them, even with their willing participation, had seemed so callous, as if he saw them all as disposable pleasures.
“What?” Brax asked. He touched her swollen mouth with unspoken apology. “I can see you thinking.”
She caught his wrist and drew his hand away from her. She couldn’t think while he toyed with her. “All those women you’ve been with.”
“What about them?”
“They were …” She laughed at the absurdity, but said it anyway. “Treatment?”
He cupped the side of her face. “I’ve occupied myself with agreeable women to feed my emotional reservoir. I know how that sounds, Cameo, so don’t try to hide your disbelief.” As if he couldn’t help himself, his thumb brushed her bottom lip again. “I want you to understand it all.”
“I do.” But it wasn’t easy. Knowing what he could do made her feel exceptionally vulnerable. Not only was he physically powerful, but he could control her mind, too. It left her very uncomfortable—and strangely excited.
The odd but combustive combination kept her heart beating too hard and left a slow burn churning deep inside her.
He’d fulfilled her—and yet, he hadn’t.
“The use of coercive persuasion on another can strip the controller of his own emotions, leaving him raw and burned out. Only that free, utterly replete sensation during and right after release allows me to recharge internally.”
“That sounds suspiciously like a convenient, male-contrived excuse to have a lot of sex with a lot of different women.” The way he kept staring so intently at her mouth, it was a wonder she could speak coherently.
“There’s nothing convenient about it.” His eyes narrowed, looking at her with a near-tactile potency. “The truth is that hot, gritty sex helps me regain my perspective on life.” He bent and kissed her very gently. “But for some time now, it hasn’t been enough. Because of you.”
“I have never openly judged your promiscuity.”
His large hands settled over her back, using subtle pressure to bring her closer. “No, but by your very presence you provoked me and showed all other women as lacking.”
The import of her next question made it impossible to look at him directly, so instead Cameo stared at his chin. “Will you continue seeing other women, too?”
One big hand lowered close to her derriere. “If you and I come to an agreement, I’ll have no need of other women.”
Her heart pounded so hard, it was a wonder he didn’t hear it. “The agreement being?”
He kissed her again with a tenderness that made her want to consent to anything. Staying so close that she felt surrounded by him, he said, “I need total release, Cameo, the oblivion that comes only from losing myself in a woman’s body. To obtain that, you must be accessible to me. Always. Here when I want you, ready when I am. Agreeable to all my sexual needs.” His mouth brushed hers, and his voice thickened with desire. “Whatever those needs might be.”
“But—” That made her sound like a sex slave. And God help her, she wanted to agree. “I … I can’t blindly agree to that, Brax. I don’t know if …”
“If what? You’ll want me to do the things I’m dying to do to you?” He held her face, stared into her eyes. “Understand, Cameo, I can ensure that you are always ready, even anxious, when I am.” His tongue traced her upper lip, sank in soft and slow past her lips to play with her tongue, then retreated. “That’s already been proved to you. I promise I will always make you as wild, and agreeable, as you need to be.”
That was part of what scared, and excited, her. “I … I don’t want to be manipulated.”
His eyes locked on hers. “I guarantee you that when I manipulate you, you will love it.”
Caught in his spell, Cameo felt herself sinking beneath his persuasion despite her better sense.
Until the clearing of a throat shattered the spell.
Brax reacted so quickly that before she could blink, Cameo found herself shielded behind the protective wall of his hard body.
She felt his rigid preparation to attack—and a second later, the faint shifting of those impressive muscles as surprise replaced rage.
“Uncle Amos? What the hell are you doing here?”
A very deep, whisky-rough voice said, “Interrupting, obviously.”
Cameo peeked around Brax to see a man even more intimidating and impressive. He was of a similar height to Brax, with that same inky black hair and startling golden eyes. But on this man, an edge of savagery showed as bright as a badge.
Age had added another layer of sturdiness to his frame and flicked silver highlights through the hair at his temples. A nasty scar cut through one eyebrow. The knuckles of both hands were bloody, and … the right side of his shirt dripped blood.
Cameo shoved around Brax. “You’re hurt.”
With stiff movements, the man pulled out a chair and talked about her as if she weren’t there. “She’s observant.”
“More than you’d realize.” Acting as if a bleeding relative were a routine thing, Brax got out a dishcloth, dampened it in the sink, and handed it to the man. “I didn’t see your approach.”
“With your surveillance?” His rude grunt conveyed much. “It’s lacking.”
“Not for most. And family is always welcome.”
Cameo looked at them both. The gist of their conversation was that his family would have an advantage over other less-talented humans. She almost rolled her eyes. “How did you get in? The entire house is secured.” As a routine part of her duties, she’d seen to that herself.
Brax rolled a shoulder. “A locked door wouldn’t stop one of my relatives, any more than it would stop me.” Then he gestured at the intruder. “Cameo, meet a long-lost relative, my uncle Amos.”
The absurd formal introductions mixed with the macho disregard for bleeding wounds irritated her. “You’re both ridiculous,” she snapped. And then to Amos, “How badly are you hurt?”
Again he ignored her to speak to Brax. “Got a medical kit? I’m going to need stitches.”
Cameo stiffened, but refused to be daunted. The man looked ready to pass out. Maybe he was in shock. She pushed aside his very large, roughened hands and lifted his blood-soaked shirt.
Both men reacted with raised brows.
The sight of gore and torn flesh just beneath his right armpit and over to his ribs didn’t turn her squeamish, but they did invoke her sympathies. Gently, she prodded along the deep gash. More blood oozed out.
She reached back and took the cloth from Brax. “I can’t be sure, but it doesn’t appear that you’ve cut deep enough to affect anything vital.” Mopping away most of the blood, she continued to examine him and his torn flesh. “You’ll need more than stitches. Probably antibiotics and strong pain medication—”
“No pain meds, honey.” Brax took the crimson-stain
ed cloth from her and tossed it in the sink. “They don’t mix well with our psyches.”
That made her blink, but she supposed she could understand it. Anytime she’d ever taken pain meds, they’d made her loopy. Being that Brax and his uncle were more … visceral than most, an added effect made sense. “Aspirin, then?”
Brax turned to Amos. “What do you think, Uncle? To take the edge off?”
Amos surveyed Cameo with the same probing absorption he might have reserved for a two-headed frog or some other absurd freak of nature. “I’d prefer whisky. And if you can tear yourself away, I could really use that med kit, too.”
“I’ll be right back.” Without another word, Brax headed out of the kitchen.
Straightening, Cameo admonished Uncle Amos with her sternest frown. “Are you two serious? Pain meds won’t do, but a good stiff drink works just fine?” To her mind, the last thing Brax’s uncle needed was alcohol thinning his blood or blurring his reactions. “I think this is more of your male-inspired logic.”
Using alarming leisureliness while somehow taking her captive, Amos leaned forward. The glittering animus in his eyes urged Cameo to flee—but she couldn’t get her legs to work. Inside her, panic swirled and churned in a dizzying ebb and flow; she fought it back with sheer force of will.
Yes, he was big, bloodied for reasons unknown to her, and more intrinsically wild than any man she’d ever met. He looked angry at the world, and perturbed by her in particular.
Her first impression had been shock and apprehension, but she’d seen his injuries and caring for him had taken precedence over everything else.
He was Brax’s uncle, so surely he posed no danger to her. Brax wouldn’t have left her alone with him if doing so put her in peril. Right?
Amos didn’t smile, but something showed in those fathomless, inhuman eyes of his, some very sardonic amusement—at her expense.
Even sitting, his extreme height put him on a level with her, and he used that to his advantage. His disquieting, probing scrutiny made her heart punch and her pulse leap.
Nearer and nearer he came, until his nose touched her cheek. His hot breath warmed her skin; his whisker-rough jaw brushed her hair, along her jaw.