Candy whimpered.

“What?” Sky asked.

“Okay. I…hear you.”

“Good.” Sky straightened, pulling Candy up with her, and pushed her away so hard that Candy caromed off a nearby table. She turned to Loren and poked her in the chest, hard. “I can’t leave you alone for a couple of hours without finding some slut crawling all over you?”

“Come on, baby, let me get some ice,” Loren said. Sky’s left lower lid was purple and her upper lid rapidly closing.

“Fuck ice.” Sky planted a hand in the center of Loren’s chest and pushed, nearly knocking her backward off the stool. “I said, why can’t you keep your nose out of strange pussy?”

“I’m telling you,” Loren protested, aware they were being watched from all corners. She held her hands up. “I didn’t do anything.”

“This one time I’m going to believe you.” Sky’s voice vibrated with fury. “But if you don’t keep your hands and your mouth where they belong from now, you’re gonna be missing out on the best pussy of your life.”

A couple of guys hooted and a few girls clapped. Loren looked around the room and grinned. “Anything you say, baby.”

“Remember it.” Sky grabbed her T-shirt in both fists and kissed her.

Loren forgot they had an audience. She gripped the back of Sky’s neck and sank into the kiss, careful of the bruise on Sky’s face. Sky’s breasts against her chest were nothing like Candy’s had been. The heat and soft pressure kindled fire in her belly. Sky twisted her hands in the material of Loren’s shirt until the cotton abraded Loren’s nipples, sending shock waves to her clit. Sky’s tongue explored her mouth until her breath fled.

Loren moaned, aching to touch her. She pulled away, gasping. “Let’s get out of here.”

“I don’t think so,” Sky murmured, her voice thick and sensuous. “I’m ready for a beer.”

“You okay?” Loren asked, trailing a finger down Sky’s throat.

“Never better.” Sky’s eyes glittered, fever hot. She ran her fingers through Loren’s hair. “Never better.”

Chapter Twenty


Blair stood in a small square of moonlight by the living-room window, watching the trees sway in the park beyond the wrought-iron fence. Time hung suspended—even the streets were empty—as if waiting for a giant hand to start the hands of some celestial clock moving forward again. She almost wished the gears of time would protest, demand a respite from the inexorable march of change. Right now, she had everything she could ever want, except the promise she would never lose it. Never lose Cam. Foolish wishes that would vanish with the dawn.

“Can’t sleep?” Cam said from behind her.

Blair wrapped her arms around herself, chilled even though the loft was warm. She’d woken shivering. “Sorry. I didn’t want to wake you, and I was restless.”

Cam joined her by the window and put an arm around her. Drawing her into the warm haven of her body, Cam kissed her temple softly. “What’s on your mind?”

“Nothing, at least nothing I can put my finger on. Just…nothing.” Blair shook her head, leaning her cheek against Cam’s shoulder. Asking Cam for something she couldn’t give would only hurt her, and Cam had always been honest about who she was. Blair loved her for all the things that scared her to death. She kissed Cam’s throat. “I love you.”

“Still angry at me?”

Blair laughed, her melancholy drifting away like mist at sunrise. “It’s a lot easier to be angry at you when you’re not next to me. When you are, I forget almost everything except how much I love you.”

“Then I’ll have to stay close more often.”

“You won’t get any argument from me.”

Cam took Blair’s hand. “Come on, let’s go back to bed. You’re cold.”

“I’m not really, or at least I shouldn’t be.”

“It doesn’t matter what should or shouldn’t be.” Cam tugged her hand. “All that matters is what is. Come on.”

Blair followed Cam down the hall and into the bedroom. She crawled under the covers and into Cam’s arms again. The cold vanished. Cam provided all the heat she needed, and she curled up against her, her head on Cam’s shoulder. “How long will you be here?”

“Are you staying?”

“I thought I might. I like New Year’s Eve in the city.”

“Mmm. I like your birthday in the city.” Cam stroked her back. “Let’s celebrate with Diane. Or would you rather it be just us?”

“I wasn’t sure you’d be here.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” Cam sighed. “I’ve got at least a few days.”

“Then I vote for New Year’s Eve with Diane and Valerie—if she hasn’t disappeared again.”

“Good. As to you being angry, I suppose by now you know what went on at that meeting.”

“My father called and more or less told me.” Blair ran her nails lightly down Cam’s bare abdomen. Cam sucked in a breath, so Blair repeated the motion. A little torture seemed like fair payback. “Who instigated it?”

“Does it matter?”

“Only if it was you.”

“I agreed.”

“Not the same thing.” Blair gripped Cam’s T-shirt, bunched it in her fist, and pushed it higher. Cam was all lean muscle and elegant form. A beautiful warrior. “I already know how you feel about me going with my father, so the fact that you agreed with wanting me to stay behind doesn’t surprise me. What bothers me…” Blair fanned her fingers back and forth over Cam’s lower abdomen, making the muscles jump. Cam tensed. “Well, you know what bothers me, don’t you.”

“Yes,” Cam said, sounding a little like she was in pain. Blair smiled. “A, ah…a meeting to discuss what you should or shouldn’t do, held without your knowledge or consent.” Blair skimmed her fingers over the triangle between Cam’s thighs. “Blair—come on.”

Blair smiled. “Sorry.”

“Right.” Cam exhaled sharply. “I know how much you hate other people trying to make decisions for you.”

“That sums it up pretty well.” Blair took pity and relented, resting her palm on the inside of Cam’s thigh. “But what really bothered me was thinking you might have gone behind my back.”

“I didn’t, but I can’t promise I won’t at some point.”

“I’m not asking you to swear to every moment of the future. All that matters is right now…at least, right now.” Blair caressed her. She couldn’t help it. She loved Cam’s body—the breathtaking contradictions of silken skin over steely muscle. “I can’t swear to the future either.”

Cam laughed. “That feels like a slippery slope.”

“Maybe, but it’s the best I can do.”

“Then it will do.” Cam pulled Blair down and kissed her. “Your call, baby. Always.”

Blair relaxed for the first time in a week. Cam never stopped loving her, never asked her to change. Never told her what she felt was unreasonable or selfish or irresponsible. And she couldn’t ask Cam to change, either. “Did you find out anything in Georgia?”

“Not as much as I’d like. I still think we’re on the right trail looking for a connection between Angela Jones and Jennifer Pattee, but the threads are still pretty loose.” Cam ran her fingers through Blair’s hair. “Similar age and similar backgrounds, including geographic, as near as we can tell. I’m betting they knew each other before this plan was put together.”

“So what’s your next step?”

“I need to meet with some people who are a lot closer to the situation than anyone in DC.”

“People?”

“Some agents with more direct connections to groups capable of pulling this off.”

Blair took a breath and let it out slowly, waiting for the reflex flash of temper to pass. “That sounds like double-talk for you getting up close and personal with some really dangerous people.”

Cam shook her head. “It isn’t. I’m not planning to confront suspects. Still in the information-gathering stage.”

“Uh-huh. From undercover agents who are right in the thick of some pretty hairy situations.”

Cam hesitated. “True,” she said finally.

“And when you catch up to whoever’s behind this, you’re just going to sit back and let someone else go after them?”

“That depends.”

“Oh bullshit, Cameron.” Blair braced herself on her arms and glared at Cam. “It doesn’t matter what kind of job they give you or what description they hang on it, you’re always going to go after the bad guys yourself.”

“I have to,” Cam said quietly.

Blair sighed and closed her eyes. “I know.”

“I’ll be careful.”

Blair rubbed her cheek against Cam’s chest. The scar tissue above Cam’s heart, a reminder of the bullet that had nearly claimed Cam’s life, was still rough and hard. She would never forget, even without that constant reminder, the absolute devastation she’d experienced in those moments when she’d thought Cam was gone. She shuddered. “Be very careful.”

“I will be, I promise. And I won’t promise anything I don’t intend to do.”

“As much as you can.”

“As much as I can.”

“All right then. We’re square.” Blair slid on top of her, needing to feel all of her against every surface, every inch of her skin. Dawn was coming. Silver light, the first hint of the day, cast Cam’s face in marble, a perfect profile etched in stone. Blair kissed her, the warmth of Cam’s lips a shocking contrast to the coolness of her profile. “You’re so beautiful. And I love you so much.”

Cam arched beneath her, pulse hammering in her throat. “And I, you.”

“Lie very still,” Blair whispered.

Cam’s breath shuddered out.

Blair took her time, touching, kissing, and stroking, luxuriating in every dip and curve and sensuous angle of Cam’s body. She knew every line by heart, but the miracle of reclaiming what was hers was just as awe-inspiring as the first time. When she pressed her cheek against Cam’s lower abdomen, Cam gripped her hand. Blair settled her breasts against Cam’s center and watched Cam watching her. Cam’s dark eyes had grown even deeper, shimmering with secrets only Blair knew. Smiling, she eased lower between Cam’s legs and skated her mouth over Cam’s clit.