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“I don’t know . . . ”
“He said he would kill any man who dared to hurt you. ” His voice was soft, warning. “Did you think he was joking? Do you think for a moment he forgot that promise? Tell me, Jaci, do you want to be the cause of Congressman Roberts’s death?”
2
Cameron Falladay stood on the stone patio outside the ballroom, his body braced against the brick wall, a drink in hand, head lowered. His head filled with a woman’s face and the memory of a kiss that had burned through his soul.
Her. Jaci.
He ground his teeth together and fought against the need to leave the party, to race to her hotel room before Chase could touch her, before his brother could take the woman who had tormented Cam for so long.
He wanted to sink inside her with a hunger that had tightened his muscles to the point that they ached. His cock was iron hard, throbbing brutally with that need.
What had possessed him to refuse to go to her? He had known if he didn’t, Chase would, and at that time, that seemed the better solution. It had been seven long years since he had touched the woman that tormented damned near every dream he’d had since she left the small Oklahoma town they lived in.
The first punch of clawing need that had struck him the second he’d seen her tonight had almost stolen his breath. He had stood there, staring at her, the way that dress draped down, baring her back, swishing sexily above her rounded ass.
It was enough to make a grown man go to his knees and worship that rounded flesh and everything above and below it.
Instead of going to her, he had left Chase to go after her instead, because he didn’t trust his control. He didn’t trust his ability not to demand things he knew she couldn’t give.
But letting her go, risking his brother, even the brother he shared his women with, touching her, was fraying his control.
No one had ever tempted his control as Jaci did. Even seven years ago, a tender twenty-one-year-old virgin with stars in her eyes, she had tempted it. She made him want to forget the rules that had defined his life. Made him wish he was someone or something other than who he was.
“Hey, Cam, where’s that brother of yours?” The false joviality in Congressman Roberts’s voice had Cam tensing, his head lifting as he stared back at the smaller man with barely restrained violence in his heart.
Where he stood was shadowed, darker than the area around it, hiding the anger he had promised himself and Ian he would keep carefully restrained.
But it wasn’t easy. Roberts was a maggot, and he was the maggot that had tormented Jaci for five years.
The investigative report they had pulled together on her over the past months had enraged him and Chase. Chase was more subtle; Roberts’s financials would be an open book to them eventually—to them, as well as to the Feds. Cam wasn’t much into subtlety, though. He wanted to ram his fist into the bastard’s face.
“Congressman,” he drawled softly, “I’m sure Chase is around somewhere. ”
Dark brown hair was layered to frame the congressman’s face and lend it an “honest” appearance. The false sincerity in his brown gaze had always sickened Cam, but now it made him almost violent.
“I saw him with Ms. Wright earlier. ” Those eyes flickered with concern. “I was hoping to catch him before he left with her. ”
“Did he leave with her?” Cam drawled, his hand tightening on his drink glass as he thought of all the reasons why it was a very bad idea to rearrange this man’s face.
“I hope not. ” Roberts sighed. “Ms. Wright is a perfectly acceptable interior designer, but a man in Chase’s position should be careful of his reputation. ”
“And she can harm that how?” If he killed Roberts, he could hide the body really well. The Special Forces had taught him how. But he’d never be able to hide the fact that he’d done it from Chase. And Chase would just give him hell over it.
“Certain women always manage to do so,” the congressman sighed. “Ah well, I’m certain he’s well aware of her past. Being an investigator comes in handy,” he joked, his laughter as false as the concern had been.
“It does indeed. ”
Roberts cleared his throat. “It’s regrettable that Ms. Wright sometimes allows herself to forget her place. Some women”—he shrugged philosophically, with no idea how close to death he was stepping,—“some women aren’t always willing to work properly for what they want. ”
Cam felt his hand curl into a fist.
“How did she work for what she wanted, then?”
If the bastard said the words, he was dead. As cold and dead as any enemy Cam had taken out in the military. All he had to do was say the words, and Cam promised himself, the bastard’s death would be brutal. Bloody.
Roberts shook his h
