Blair opened the door and said softly, "Hi."


"Hi," Cam said, not yet moving to enter. Blair looked tired and that was unusual for her. There were smudges of fatigue under her eyes and the smile she offered Cam was tinged with sadness. Cam reached out and ran her fingertips over Blair's cheek. "Have you slept?"


Blair shook her head. "I meant to, but I couldn't stop thinking."


"You should try," Cam said gently. "It's going to be a long night."


"I know," Blair answered softly. She wanted to reach out to her, to pull her inside. But she also knew that she wanted tokeep her inside, away from the night, away from the danger, and that wasn't her choice to make. It hurt to think that Cam would not choose safety over responsibility, even for her. So she stood waiting, wondering what it was that Cam really wanted. Finally she said, "I wasn't sure you would come."


Cam lifted her fingers briefly to Blair's face again. "I'm sorry you didn't know that," she murmured. "I'm sorry for the pain of all of this."


"No," Blair said quickly. "That's not your doing. It never has been."


"I could have done things differently," Cam said softly. "Between us."


Blair smiled at that, a faint fond smile. "Could you have?"


Cam shook her head. "No. But Iwish that I could have, so as not to hurt you."


"That just might be enough," Blair admitted, because she couldn't imagine which part of Cam could be changed without destroying some essential element of her. She feared that to change her would be to lose her.


"Blair," Cam said urgently, "I want you to know"


Blair stopped her with her fingers on her lips. "Will you come in now?"


Cam kissed her fingertips. "Yes."


"Can you stay?" she asked again.


"For a little while."


"That won't always be enough," Blair warned, but there was no anger in her voice.


"I understand," Cam replied, stepping across the threshold. "But I won't always be leaving."


Then Cam was inside, and Blair closed the door, and they were alone. Blair raised her arms to Cam's shoulders and moved up against her, resting her face on Cam's shoulder. She sighed, and as she couldn't seem to do before, she let go of everything in her mind and floated in the certainty of Cam's embrace.


"Let's go to bed," Blair finally murmured. "I need to hold you."


"Yes," Cam answered quietly, her lips moving gently on Blair's ear. "I need to tell you things."


And then they were naked in one another's arms, face to face, covered only by a light cotton sheet. Slowly, they kissed, each exploring the other anew with gentle strokes and tender caresses. They didn't hurry, but touched with absolute certainty, as if there had been no beginning and there would be no ending. Slowly, they stirred one another until they trembled together, breathless and poised on the precipice, ready to fall.


Blair brought one leg over Cam's hips, opening herself, as she stared into Cam's eyes. "Come inside," she whispered.


Cam slid her hand between their bodies, her fingers parting the swollen flesh, gliding over Blair's clitoris, making her gasp and quiver. "In a minute," she whispered back.


Their eyes locked as Cam held her tightly, drawing her fingers lightly back and forth over the exposed, exquisitely sensitive tip. Blair's fingers dug into her arm, and Cam murmured, "There's no hurry. Let me have you."


Blair was barely breathing, her muscles clenched and begging for release, every cell focused on the overpowering pleasure rippling under Cam's fingertips. "Oh please," Blair moaned at last. "Let me come."


Cam pressed harder, circling faster, each knowing stroke bringing her slowly but steadily to orgasm. She watched Blair's blue eyes darken to purple and lose focus.


"I love you," Cam whispered as Blair threw her head back and cried out sharply, pushing down hard against Cam's hand. Cam entered her then, prolonging the spasms with each thrust of her arm until Blair grew quiet and sagged against her.


"You wreck me," Blair gasped finally.


Cam wrapped her arms around her tightly. "I meant to."


"Just give me a minute to catch my breath," Blair murmured, pressing her lips to Cam's shoulder, wondering if she would ever recover, not from the pleasure, but from the agony of loving her so much.


"I'm okay," Cam answered, kissing Blair's temple gently.


"Bullshit," Blair laughed softly. "I can feel you on my leg, and you're a long ways from being okay."


To prove her point, Blair pressed her thigh hard between Cam's legs, and Cam groaned at the rapid surge of blood into her clitoris. "No fair," she gasped.


"Yes, fair," Blair said firmly, pushing Cam onto her back and rolling on top of her. "I told you I just needed a minute."


Cam looked up at her and grinned. "That's probably all I'll need, too."


"Oh no, Commander," Blair said softly. "I want much more than that from you."


And then Blair took her slowly, with her mouth and her hands and her tender caresses, drawing the fire from her blood and the heat from her bones, igniting her nerves and scorching her senses, until all Cam knew was Blair and all she could do was cry out her name.


*****


They slept for an hour and awakened together, just on the other side of darkness. They lay side by side, hands clasped, their fingers entwined.


"What happens now?" Blair asked in the stillness.


Cam spoke quietly, her voice steady and calm. "At twenty-one hundred hours, Savard and I will leave for the rendezvous site. Thirty minutes later, Grant will walk out the front entrance and flag down a cab. Stark and Fielding will be in that cab. We're assuming that Loverboy may be watching here to assure himself that you are really going to meet him, and that you're coming alone as you said that you would. It's possible that he has someone else watching the building for him and relaying a message. Either way, it will look like you have once again slipped by us and are on your way to him."


"So how willhe get to the meeting site on time, if he's here when Grant leaves?"


"Lindsey Ryan speculates that he chose this site some time ago, and I agree. He was prepared when you agreed to meet him. He named that place and time almost immediately. It may have just been his fantasy that you would someday come to him, but Lindsey thinks he's actually been there, and may have already 'readied' it for you."


Blair shivered at the thought of someone creating these elaborate fantasies with her as the star. It made her feel as if someone had been touching her while she slept.


Cam slipped her arm around her shoulder and drew her near. "Blair, you don't need to hear all of this."


"No," Blair said quickly, her voice strong and determined. "I want to know. All of it."


Cam continued. "He'll either follow Grant to the site or use an alternate route to arrive before her. Since he's familiar with the area, we assume that he'll have planned a way into the arcade without detection. We'll already be in place when she arrives."


"But she's not really going to meet him, is she?" Blair asked worriedly.


"No," Cam said with certainty. "Doyle's team will have infrared heat seeking scopes that will pinpoint the location of any living thing bigger than a dumpster rat within a hundred yards of the meet site. They'll hone in on him and take him out. Grant's only role is to leave here as you and get out of the cab at the entrance to the amusement park. She's not going to actually enter the arcade."


"And you and Savard?" Blair asked quietly, her heart pounding.


Cam leaned up on elbow so that she could look into Blair's eyes. The room lights were off, but the streetlights outside the loft windows were enough for them to see each other. "We'll be there for ground support only, to assure that Grant is covered if any action takes place near her and to get her to the back up car which will be nearby. Escort duty only."


"Is that all of it, Cam?"


Cam held her gaze. "That's the plan, Blair. I won't tell you that unexpected things don't happen, but there will be a hundred agents right behind us and about that many State Police watching the perimeter. It's as solid as these things get."


Blair ran her hand through Cam's hair, then tightened her fingers in the thick strands, pulling Cam's head down close to her face. "I can't take anyone else leaving me."


"I won't," Cam vowed. "I swear."


"Well, that's reassuring," Blair whispered, "because I know your word is good."


Then, in the last moment left to them, they made their promises - simply and surely - with a kiss.




Chapter Thirty-Seven

At twenty minutes to midnight, Blair walked into the command center. She halted just inside the door, momentarily disoriented. The room was brightly lit yet eerily deserted. Monitors flickered with images that no one watched. Chairs stood askew in front of desks littered with coffee cups and food wrappers, as if abandoned in haste. Here and there a jacket or sweater lay forsaken on a counter. The atmosphere of control she was accustomed to had been replaced by a lingering sense of chaos that made her heart beat uneasily.