Bound Hearts 01-12

by Lora Leigh

  It was the reason he had left Jaci so quickly. He could feel that darkness rising inside him, that need eating at his guts, and he knew he had to get away from her. From the need to give her everything. To explain. To belong.

  "Stop worrying, Chase." He shrugged his shoulders, knowing that wasn't enough, knowing it did nothing to ease his brother's concern.

  "Yeah, that's what you said when you joined the fucking military," Chase snapped. "Eighteen years old.

  You couldn't even wait two years, could you Cam? You had to go. What the hell did you get for it? A medical discharge and a thanks, but sorry, we can't pay you for your sacrifice?"

  "The military didn't do this to me, Chase," Cam bit out.

  "No, it just made it worse," Chase retorted. "Cam, listen to me man, you're fucking up with Jaci. Just like you did in Oklahoma. If you can't tell me what happened, then you damned well better tell her.

  Because I'm telling you, she's going to walk away again."

  "She's not walking away." He would stop her. He didn't have to tell her the truth. He could hold her without it. He would make certain of it.

  "If she walks away, that's it," Chase informed him, his voice tight and hard. "Do you understand that, Cam? If you push her away like you've pushed me away, and anyone else that could have cared for you, then I've had enough. If you can't trust me enough with the truth, then fuck it. What the hell are we even brothers for?"

  "Blackmail, Chase?" Cam crossed his arms over his chest and glowered back at Chase.

  "Fuck you, Cam." Chase's expression was tight, frustrated. Cam could see the conflict raging inside him

  —hell, he could feel it, and there was no way to help it.

  "Chase, bro, you're blowing this all out of proportion," he told him lightly. "Jaci's going to be fine."

  "You left her within minutes of taking her last night. Hell, I had barely left," he snapped. "Trust me, she's not fine. And, by God, neither am I. I'm sick of this. You can't even trust her enough to sleep with her. You don't trust me enough to tell me what the fucking problem is, but you expect both of us to just accept it."

  "To accept me." The words tore from him.

  Cam didn't know who was surprised the most. Chase by the demand, or himself because of the vehemence of it.

  "Son of a bitch, do you have to have explanations for every damned thing?" Cam cursed. "What the hell is bothering you so bad? That I didn't stay with her last night? Or that you don't know every fucking area of my life? Do I question you when you don't share a woman with me? Do I harass and interrogate you when you don't stay all night with one?"

  "I'm not the bastard sleeping on the couch after bringing a woman home, either," Chase argued furiously, "but I am the one that can feel whatever it is inside you eating you alive. And whatever it is, Cam, it's going to drive her away. Trust me when I tell you that. If you don't tell her why you need to share her, why that hunger is tearing you apart, then she's going to tell you to get fucked."

  "No, actually, she'll tell him he can do without being fucked. At least, by me."

  They both swung around. Shock tore through Cam at the sight of Jaci, hip cocked, her arm braced in the open doorway, her expression unwavering.

  Cam inhaled slowly, locked his teeth together, and fought the burning hunger inside him. He could see her, dazed, screaming in pleasure, trapped between him and Chase, burning with them as he loosed the gnawing intensity tearing through him.

  "Shit, Cam," Chase muttered.

  There was enough of that twin bond so that Chase could feel the echo of that need. Cam was amazed the ground wasn't shaking with the vibrations of the hunger. And, son of a bitch, the possessiveness.

  "What the hell are you doing out here?" Cam shook his head.

  Didn't it just figure? Any other time he would have brushed Chase's demands aside, rather than arguing over them. The one time he let his brother draw him into this argument, Jaci just had to show up.

  Dressed in those snug jeans, in that T-shirt that revealed glimpses of her lower stomach between the hem of the shirt and the band of her jeans. The clothes were comfortable, wild, wicked. They weren't the business clothes she had been wearing, that was for damned sure. He was going to kill Courtney for demanding Jaci wear jeans. It should be illegal for her to wear jeans, dammit.

  "I forgot my case in the car." She ambled from the doorway, smooth feminine grace and outrage emphasized with each step, as she moved past him. "I'm glad I did. So, tell us Cam, exactly why was it so important that you walk out on me last night?"

  "I left you a note."

  He hit the unlock on his auto key chain as she gripped the door latch, allowing her to open the door.

  "Of course you did," she drawled sweetly, dangerously.

  She bent to retrieve the case and he felt a fine film of perspiration coat his forehead at the sight of her rounded, taut little ass lifting, before she straightened, case in hand, and slammed the door closed.

  She turned to them, and he knew what she saw: him and Chase both watching, their damned tongues hanging out in lust.

  "Answers would be nice, Cam," she told him as she moved away, unhurried—that walk sexy as hell and causing his mouth to water at the remembered taste of her flesh.

  "Yeah, answers would be really nice," Chase muttered.

  "You two are barking up the wrong tree." He snorted with the casual denial he should have used earlier.

  "The only problem I have is a hard-on and a sexual twist. No big deal."

  Jaci and Chase both snorted at that one.

  "Let me know when you're ready to talk." She stopped and glanced at them both over her shoulder.

  "Maybe then I'd be ready to discuss your sexual twists and my own little abnormal desires. You never know what we all might learn that we haven't already."

  With that, she turned and moved back into the house, closing the door behind her and disappearing out of sight. And Cam found his back slammed against the side of Ian's Hummer, his brother in his face.

  Lust and irritation flared in his brother's eyes. "You better start talking," he grated. "Because you know what she just did?"

  Oh yeah, he knew, and his dick was hard as stone. It didn't matter how many times he had her. She could still do this to him.

  "She just dared us, Cam. And I don't know about you, but the thought of 'abnormal desires' dancing through her mind is going to drive me fucking crazy. Now, fix it."

  With that, Chase, too, stalked away, leaving Cam to stare at the door, his lips quirking into a little smile of disbelief. He'd be damned if she didn't stoke that burn inside him higher and hotter.

  The need to have her again was already rising inside him. That dark hunger, that need to push her, as well as himself, was brewing inside him like a shadowed, furious blaze. He could feel it building, the need to let loose, to let all that hunger free that he kept tightly restrained, tearing at his control.

  God, what a mess. He'd latched onto that crutch when he and Chase had first experimented with sharing a woman. That darkness in his soul, the brewing bitterness, was eased in seeing the pleasure, being able to watch as the woman received pleasure, in building it, in pushing his own boundaries, as well as hers.

  And in the distance sharing afforded him.

  What it came down to, though, was that the very core of that need was hidden in the twisted, demented evil of the woman who had raised them.

  They weren't even sexual desires. Not really. He had known that even then. But the horrifying years he had spent in silence had created something inside him that he couldn't explain, and the only time he could release it was in the heated, wild ménages he had grown to depend upon.

  As thunder and lightening crashed in the skies above, Cam swore he felt it crashing inside his soul, because Chase was right: She had dared them both, challenged them, made an offer he had no choice but to refuse. He wouldn't weigh down his brother's soul with the truth, and he sure as hell wouldn't b
urden Jaci's with it. He'd just have to convince her to reveal those "abnormal" desires.

  He smiled at the thought, anticipation building inside him. She had thrown out the challenge, now he'd take her up on it. In his way. With all his secrets intact. Because he didn't know if he could survive the revelation of those secrets.

  14

  Chase stood inside the kitchen, staring out at the parking area, watching as his brother pushed his fingers through his hair, shook his head, and moved into the house.

  "What happened to you, Cam?" he asked softly, knowing it would do no good to ask his brother that question. He had been asking that question since the first night Cam had disappeared from their bedroom, just after he turned fifteen.

  They had been big for their ages, well developed, almost men, physically, but lost, uncertain, even for their ages. The death of their parents the year before had shaken them. The arrival of the Bitch from Hell, their mother's older sister, Davinda, had nearly destroyed them.

  Whatever had happened had revolved around her.

  Some nights, it was never predictable; Chase would wake up and go to check on his brother, and Cam would just be gone. Davinda never seemed to have answers to where he was, but she always knew.

  Chase had seen it in her eyes, she always knew. And as each year passed, the boy that was his brother had changed. The day they turned eighteen, Cam disappeared from school and showed up at the local sheriff 's department. Chase never knew what he had told Sheriff Bridges, but that evening the sheriff arrived, took the Bitch into another room, and then waited silently in the hall while she packed and left their lives forever.

  He had gone through her luggage before she left. Through her purse. He had made certain she left with nothing but her belongings. When she had left, he clapped Cam on the shoulder, muttered an apology, and left.

  Cam had never told Chase what happened. Four months later, he joined the military and just left. Ten years later, he had been captured, then nearly killed during an ambush that had occurred after he and his team escaped their captors. The man that had returned five years ago had changed, to the point that Chase sometimes wondered who Cam even was.

  The only times he even felt as though his brother were alive inside were the times they shared their lovers. Cam was different then. That stony, dark control loosened, and the hunger inside him was given freedom, to a small degree.

  Well, it used to be a small degree. Since Jaci had walked back into their lives, Chase had come closer than he ever had to learning what had changed the boy so severely that it had created the man Cam had become.

  With Jaci, the hunger was closer to the surface, and for the first time since they were fifteen, Chase had begun to glimpse his brother's nightmares.

  They'd done that a lot when they were boys—sensed each others nightmares. Not their dreams or fantasies, or even their fears, just their nightmares. And the nightmares Chase had begun sensing was sending chills down his spine.

  God help Davinda Morris, because if she was still alive, Chase knew he would have to seek her out and kill her himself. Whatever she had done to Cam had come close to destroying him. And now it was coming close to destroying Cam's last chance with Jaci.

  Chase had known, even seven years before, that Jaci was Cam's weakness. He had felt it each time Cam had seen Jaci, talked to her, heard her laughter.

  It wasn't a sexual or even an emotional knowledge. Just a sense that the darkness inside his brother had eased, and it had eased because of Jaci.

  As he stood there, staring into the gloomy, rain-swept morning, he wondered if his brother would ever release the hold he had on his secrets, because he had a feeling he saw something in Jaci that Cam refused to see. She would never allow what Cam needed for the sake of pleasure alone. For Jaci, it would always be emotional, and it would always be tied to Cam and her trust in him. Without that trust, she would never allow it.

  "Have you tried checking into your aunt's past?" Ian stepped into the room, his voice quiet. He knew Chase and Cam well enough, had seen Cam in the throes of that darkness, to know what was going on.

  It was a problem that plagued both of them.

  "Only about every year." Chase sighed. "He's not talking, and evidently I'm not looking in the right places."

  He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall beside the wide, tall window that stared out into the covered parking area.

  "I've investigated the sex clubs, both above- and underground. I've had every sexual predator known at the time investigated. I've had investigators working on Davinda's past as well her friends'. Nothing. No records, no hints of abuse. I'm missing something, Ian. I just can't figure out what."

  He'd figured it was sexual abuse years before, but in the years since his brother had joined the military, and after, he'd never found proof of it.

  Ian moved across the room and pulled a chair from the table. Lights were out, the room was shadowed, lit occasionally with the hard, jagged flashes of lightning.

  Straddling the chair, Ian stared back as Chase turned to watch him.

  "If she walks away from him, I'll lose my brother forever," he said. "It's been coming for more than a year. That much I can feel. He'll leave, join a private paramilitary group, and the next thing I know, I'll be burying him. He was talking about it last year. Hints here and there." He shrugged. "The military nearly destroyed what was left of his compassion. The killing. Seeing the hell nations can visit on each other." He shook his head as he breathed out wearily. "He's cold inside, Ian. Almost pure ice."

  "A man can't hinge his survival on a woman, Chase," Ian said compassionately. "I think you're wrong about him. He's stronger than that."

  "He's too fucking strong." Chase rubbed at his chin wearily. "That's the problem. Too controlled. Too secretive. Too determined to make certain I don't blame myself for whatever happened to him. What makes him think that hiding it changes anything? I still blame myself."

  He was the oldest by minutes only, but it was his job to protect his brother.

  "He's not a boy anymore, and neither are you," Ian told him. "And Jaci's not his savior. If the ice is starting to crack, then it would have anyway. And I think it has. Cam was restless before Courtney mentioned her name. He needed the sharing more often, he brooded more often. I think Jaci being here will only push him into it faster."

  "If he'll let her," Chase said uncertainly. "What if he doesn't?"

  "Then there's no way you can fix it," Ian pointed out. "He's a man, Chase, not a boy. You can't make him do anything he refuses to do. All we can do is be here if he needs to discuss it. But my guess is, you might never know. Some things a man just can't share with another man, even his brother. But maybe, if Jaci has to have answers to accept him, then maybe he'll tell her. Maybe he can heal with her. That's all we can ask for."

  To that, Chase shook his head. There wasn't much else he could say.

  "Sometimes a man takes too much responsibility on his shoulders, Chase." Ian stood up before continuing. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his slacks and watched Chase somberly. "I think you and Cam both do that way too often. Give him a chance to work this out." He smiled then. "He might be better at it than you want to give him credit for."

  "He's my brother. I'm supposed to worry." Chase grunted. "Secretive bastard."

  "Uh-huh, I guess that's why you told him why you need the sharing as well." Ian asked.

  Chase frowned, a sudden suspicion drawing him tight.

  "What are you talking about?"

  Ian chuckled. "Seems Cam's not the only one with secrets, Chase. And maybe he senses that as well."

  With that, Ian turned and moved from the room, leaving Chase with his thoughts and his worries.

  What could have happened to his brother? There was no evidence of sexual abuse that he could find.

  The pedophiles in their area at the time had had no knowledge of Cam, outside the fact that they had seen him around town.

 
; Chase frowned at that. He knew, knew in his soul, it was sexual abuse, but the parameters of abuse he knew of weren't exactly right. They were off. Just a little something that wasn't right about it.

  And in all these years he had never figured out what that little something was, and he had a feeling he might not ever know. But, as he'd told Ian, it didn't stop the guilt. Something had nearly destroyed his brother, and Chase hadn't been able to stop it. It was a guilt he would carry for the rest of his life.

  "What the hell happened, Cam?" He breathed out again. "Son of a bitch, what did she do to you?"

  Image

  Chase wasn't going to let it go, and Cam knew it. A part of him had always known that his brother at least suspected part of what happened; but hell, even his brother couldn't have guessed the truth. The truth was so fucking twisted, so incredibly depraved, that sometimes he wondered at the truth of it himself.

  Shaking his head hours later, he ignored Chase's grumblings from behind about the lightning and the shitty Internet reception. The rain always seemed to affect both the satellite and cable reception. Neither were perfected yet, even with Ian's top-notch, ex-government computer expert on board. Storm-laden days still had the reception lagging, until it was slow enough to make a saint curse.

  Slow enough to leave a man time to think, and Cam was thinking in overdrive. Courtney and Jaci were in the club section of the mansion, under Ian's supervision. Jaci needed sketches, measurements, a feel of the rooms, she had told Ian.

  Cam's hands itched to feel her again. He'd like to hide her in one of those rooms, strip those damned jeans off her ass, and bend her over—take her, as he gripped the rounded curves of her rear.

  He shook his head and punched in the search command again before sitting back in his chair and waiting. He lifted his gaze to the security monitors lined up over his desk.

  Security was wired into his and Chase's office, as well as Ian's and the central security room, to allow for multiple-room surveillance. Ian believed in backup.