When a Man Loves a Weapon (9 page)

Holy freaking
geez
, she’d forgotten he’d been on the wrestling team every year in high school, once the football season ended.

He stilled, suddenly, as he finally, groggily, swam back to
awareness, up through the whiskey blur, trying to focus his brown eyes on her face as she fought to squirm out from under him, and then he whispered, “Aw, baby, you’re home,” and she knew he wasn’t completely awake yet as he kissed her.

“Cam!” she snapped as his lips grazed hers, her body stiff with consternation and shock and familiarity and guilt
and shock
and
she was going to have to explain this to Trevor
and
oh, God, Trevor would kill him
, “Wake up, dammit!”

And he did.

She watched his gaze shift from fuzzy to clear, brows slanted in confusion and then for a brief second, pleasure, then Reality slammed a home run as he became aware that he was not only holding her down, pinned, but that he was naked and aroused and she was angry.

“Jesus,” he said, pushing away as she sprang from the bed. “Sonofabitch.” He rolled up into a sitting position, still not covered, shaking his head as if trying to dislodge the grogginess. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“You didn’t answer the door.” Way to state the obvious. She could still feel heat where his lips had grazed hers, still feel the fear pumping through her body that he was dead, adrenaline racing around her heart like a trapped wild animal, gnawing its way out.

“Was I expecting you?” He glanced at his bedside clock, the one she’d given him six Christmases ago.

“Since when have you been drinking so much that you don’t hear someone knocking on the door, Cam? I knocked all the way through the freaking house.” She shook, she was so angry.

A
you know since when
look settled in his brown eyes as he glanced at her left hand and yep, the ring was still there, and with all of those diamonds and rubies, it felt like it weighed about eleven billion pounds just then. She was surprised the entire planet didn’t just tip over.
Way to lead with the stupid question first.
Because he didn’t owe her that explanation, and she was hyperaware of it.

Without a stitch of shyness, he let the sheet drop as he reached for his jeans at the foot of his bed. And then, whoa,
she pinged on the fact that he was still naked, sweet baby Jesus, and she yelped as she spun around to face the wall.

He laughed, low, wistful. “You’ve seen me naked plenty of times, baby.” She could hear the slide of his legs into the jeans.

“I’m not supposed to see you naked.” She didn’t add the automatic “anymore” to the end of that sentence because it felt like turning a knife, and she’d done enough damage for the night.

“So I repeat, was I expecting you?”

“No. Well, I don’t know, in your crazy macho-cop know-it-all world, maybe you did this, maybe you know what’s going on and you’re having a great laugh here, but really, I’m so going to kick your ass if you are.”

“Okay, that was English and actual words and I think it may have even been a sentence, but what the hell it meant, I have no idea.”

She heard him zip the jeans and she turned around, trying not to let her gaze drift over the acres of muscles of his well-toned upper body, because clearly he’d been working out, working off some of his excess energy, since she knew he wasn’t dating. He reached for a shirt and muscles rippled and her brain sent up warning flares to
stick to the point, you moron.
“I need your help.” She watched him go from
surprised
to
pleased
to
what’s the catch
in about a nanosecond. “I think Trevor’s in trouble.”

Cam held a chocolate-brown button-down shirt in his hand, frozen midway to reaching an arm into a sleeve, and he stared at her. The hard
you gotta be fucking kidding me
cop stare. She’d hated it ever since he’d used it on her when he was in tenth grade and he found out she’d kinda sorta deflated Shelley Henderson’s tires (Shelley kept trying to get Bobbie Faye framed for extravagant misdeeds so she’d get detention—mostly because Bobbie Faye’s boobs were bigger).

Bobbie Faye really hated that glare.

He stood there motionless for nearly a full minute, anger boiling beneath the cold landscape of his expression. She
could practically see the smoke billowing from his ears as the gears ground.

“So you came
here
.” He finally moved to slide his arm into the shirt, and looped it over his back, pushing the other arm through, flexing his shoulders, battling the tension. The glare he gave her—hot and hard—made her throat ache from slamming back the emotion. He didn’t bother to keep the incredulity out of his voice, pitched with the intimacy only a former lover could use. “Just so I’m clear here, you are asking me . . . your ex . . . who should not be your ex, by the way, to
help you find
your current
fiancé
? Am I getting this right?”

She swallowed hard. She knew what she was doing to him. Hated it. Couldn’t stop.

“Yes.”

He studied her then with a hot liquid gaze that ran from her toes to the crown of her head, warmth flooding her as his eyes held the memories of them making love right here, in this room—hell, all over this house—the memory of fitting together. He knew all of her and everything and sometimes, he knew nothing at all of who she was, and she saw that, too, as the warmth of his expression plunged to icy. Their break-up had been bad and mean and cutting, the way two people can do when they know each other’s vulnerabilities and want the other person to do the changing. There should be a Richter scale for that level of fury, and he’d been the one to reject her first, had been the one to push her away when she’d later approached him. He’d told her, point-blank, he hadn’t wanted to love her.

Until he realized he did. And wanted her back. Wanted her to think of Trevor as rebound, as a rushed, awful choice because he’d shut down.

He took a step forward, proprietary, angry that she hadn’t come to her senses, the dullness of the whiskey cut away by his fury.

“Have you noticed yet that he’s an FBI agent? With about ten thousand other agents and another thirty thousand in support staff that you could go to, and instead, you come here?”

“They won’t talk to me.”

“They’re probably busy custom-designing your butterfly net right now.”

“Yeah, Cam, go ahead and make this easy.” She crossed her arms, returning his glare.

He sighed, running his hands through his hair, which was, thankfully, long enough to not stick up in Riles’s perfected constant
holy fuck, who me?
surprised ’do. The cop in him battled the man—the part of him that was still her friend—and she could see that battle at work, him shoving the emotion aside for a moment as he asked, “What do you mean, he’s in trouble?”

“He was only supposed to be gone a couple of days, and it’s almost eight days now. Tomorrow morning will be eight. He hasn’t checked in with me at all. And you know how he is about that damned phone going everywhere with him.”

“That’s not enough time to—”

“And Alex is apparently betting against me again. And against Trevor.”

“Wait! Alex? You went to
Alex
before you came to
me
?”

She threw his disgusted scowl back at him and raised him an annoyed head shake. “I’m not insane, Cam. I’d never go to Alex for help. But I heard he’s betting huge. And you know Alex—he only ever bets on what he thinks are sure things.”

“And you know this because . . . ?”

“Nick showed up. Worried that he couldn’t cover the bets.”

Cam cursed. Hands on his hips, shirt hanging open, looking for all the world like he’d breathe fire on Nick the next chance he got. “I told him I’d arrest him if I had a single witness that could come forward.”

“Well, you have a store full of them now, because everyone heard the conversation. Although it’s all highly suspicious, for Nick to put himself in that position. There’s no way for Alex to know what Trevor’s doing, unless Trevor’s cover really has been blown. And if Nick was going to make book on the fact that Trevor’s cover was blown, why would he let me know that?”

“Unless he’s hoping to spread the word, have other people start betting for Trevor, evening out the odds. Covering his ass.”

“That’s not a good enough reason to come tell
me
. Me, Cam. Think about it.”

He tensed, comprehension dawning.

“It’s an FBI case. Tell them what you know and they’ll take care of this,” he warned, moving to stand in front of her.

“Right, because I have such a great relationship with the FBI, they’re sure to jump all over any tip I give them.”

“Can you blame them?”

No, she could not blame them, but that did not mean she was going to wait around until something had already happened to Trevor. Cam clearly read her determination.

“Damn it!” He slapped his palm against the doorframe. “You
cannot
go blundering around into an ongoing FBI investigation.”

“I won’t be blundering, you idiot, if you’re helping.”

“No. Fucking. Way.” He leaned a little closer. “I am
not
helping you get killed. And Alex is probably messing with you. Alex doesn’t do a goddamned
thing
without an ulterior motive, and you know that.”

“Are you going to help me, or what?” God, it galled her to have to ask him. Killed her.

And something in him snapped. She saw it with the way his eyes flared, just like when he’d been out on the football field, calling the last possible play of a game, coming from behind, digging in,
furious
. He put both hands on either side of where she stood, trapping her there as he angled in really close.

“
Or what
,” he repeated, “I like that choice,” his brown eyes black with pain. He dropped the tone of his voice, low and husky, reeking of sex. “Tell you what: you let me finish that kiss, and then I’ll call anybody you want me to call.”

She inhaled so sharply, she practically vacuumed the room. She wasn’t sure what to feel first—pissed off that he would be such an asshole, knowing there was no way in the world she’d ever betray Trevor, or her mortification at her own deep,
shoved-down-to-the-bottom-of-the-ocean, completely-until-this-point ignored awareness that they had too damned much chemistry. History. Connection.

“See,” he continued, before she formed the appropriate withering remark, “I know you, baby. I know your body and I know your mind. When I started to kiss you in bed?
You remembered
. You remember how we were and you know what we could be and”—he pushed in a little closer to stop her from interrupting as he invaded her space—“you know that if you had no feelings about kissing me and if kissing me would get your fiancé back, you’d kiss me in a heartbeat to save him and never think twice. And the fact that you have doubts, Bobbie Faye, the fact that you know what is here between us, means you’re marrying the wrong guy. You think about that.”

He levered off the wall and walked out of the room while her head spun and ears burned and she wished she’d hit him.

“You’re being a bastard,” she called after him, and he laughed. “And quit calling me
baby
!” she snapped, following him down the hall, losing sight of him just as he entered the living room.

“Who the
fuck
are
you
?” he asked, as she rounded through the archway and nearly slammed into his backside.

Riles sat on the sofa, playing with one of the fishing poles he’d gotten off the dining room table.

Statistical rise in panic attacks in therapists prior to “Bobbie Faye” events: 12%

—Page 7 of study on “Therapists: The Battlezone Blues”

Cam cursed that last fucking shot of Jack—he should have been more alert, should have grabbed his spare gun from his bedroom the minute Bobbie Faye showed up because Trouble always followed her, and clearly, it was sitting on his sofa with a gun by his side. Not in his hand, or Cam would have gone for a weapon of his own, but close enough so that the man was a threat. Cam moved to keep Bobbie Faye behind him as she stepped through the hall arch. He felt her falter.

“How the hell did you get in?” she snapped at his uninvited guest, and the man shrugged. “You were supposed to wait! I locked the door! I set the code!”

“You know this guy?” He looked from his ex—who was flushed, livid—to the belligerent composure of the man on his sofa. Had to be military. Or ex-cop. The guy had his feet propped up on Cam’s coffee table—as much of an announcement that he had a second weapon as for comfort, and Cam knew that was on purpose. If he’d wanted to be covert, he’d have waited, hidden, or at the least, not shown his weapons. The too-casual attitude he had told Cam this guy knew what the hell to do with the guns, and how to do it quickly, without nerves getting in the way.

“My job’s to watch you.” Clear, succinct, scathing.
He’d seen the kiss
. And this mattered to him? Who the hell was he?

“So you broke
in
?” She turned to Cam, a tsunami of fury.

“He broke in. To your house.”

“I noticed.”

“Can’t you arrest him? Breaking and entering and general shitheadedness?”

The man snorted, derisive. “I don’t think they’ll put me away for annoying the living crap out of you. I’d probably get a medal. Besides, once he hears why I’m here, he’s not going to object.”

“You want to fill me in?” Cam asked Bobbie Faye, who clenched her fist on the back of the overstuffed chair just to keep from sidling up to Riles and smacking the ever-lovin’ smartass out of him.

“This,” she said, pointing to the man, who’d continued to cast the line and reel it in, “is Riles. Former Spec Ops friend of Trevor’s, supposedly an excellent sniper and definitely a class-A Asshole. Riles, this is Cam. State police detective. Minoring in Asshole, but has potential. Holds grudges. You two should get along well.”

“Why are you in my house? And how long have you been here?”
And what, exactly, did he overhear?
Cam felt like a complete, stupid dick. Sure, he wanted Bobbie Faye to realize she was making a mistake. She didn’t admit mistakes—she dug in. Fierce and determined, she’d burrow down into that mistake and build a wall around it like a beaver damming a river. He’d seen her do it over and over again, and he was running out of time; he was going to have to make her face her mistake. He was going to do it for her, for him. Hell, for their future, because dammit, they had a chance. Still, if he’d known the man was here, Cam wouldn’t have ever jeopardized her reputation for being honest. It was, sometimes, all she thought she had. She was wrong, but he knew it was important. “Well?” he said again when Riles didn’t answer.