Uncut Bundle

by Susan Stephens

  And then, without warning, she’d found herself playing the role of a lifetime. A woman in jeopardy, with a man as different from the men in her world as night was from day.

  Sleeping with him had been her walk on the wild side.

  As for him… He’d been pulled straight into her fantasy. Either he wasn’t as immune to adrenaline highs as he’d thought or his rush had come from taking a virgin.

  The bottom line was, he’d had enough. It was time to put the experience behind him and the way to do that was to confront Salome. Damn it, confront Leanna.

  He had to remember who she really was.

  He’d considered waiting outside the theater but then he’d realized she’d probably be surrounded by people. He didn’t want this last scene in their little drama played before an audience.

  Better to go to her hotel. Grab her as she came in. Except, the odds were good she’d still be with people. Friends—or maybe some guy. Maybe, with her innocence gone, she was busy exploring life.

  She’d been good in bed. Incredible. For all he knew, she’d decided to enjoy herself.

  Just because he lay awake nights, remembering how it had been, didn’t mean she did. All the touching. The tasting. Sex that went from achingly tender to excitingly savage in a heartbeat.

  Weeks had passed, and he hadn’t forgotten.

  Her whispers. The feel of her hand on him. The heat of her body as he sank into her. The way she trembled when she came.

  Cam slammed his fist against the steering wheel. Why didn’t the freaking phone ring?

  In the end, he’d decided to catch her off guard. That meant doing this the way he knew best. Dress in dark clothes. Use the night as a cover. Slip into her room, wait for her, scare the crap out of her so she knew she couldn’t make a fool of him and get away with it.

  The cell phone rang. Cam let out a long, slow breath and flipped it open.

  “I’m outside the theater,” the P.I. said. “The subject’s roommate is heading east with a man. Medium height. Light hair.”

  Cam nodded. Rich had done his job.

  “And the subject?”

  “Heading west, in the direction of her hotel.”

  A muscle knotted in Cam’s jaw. “Is she alone?”

  “Yes.”

  Perfect. Cam snapped the phone closed, tossed it on the passenger seat and settled in to wait.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THE hotel floor plans were on file at the city building department.

  Cameron had studied them thoroughly. In late afternoon, he’d gone to the hotel and checked it out for himself.

  Damned if he’d put a bunch of ballerinas in a place like this. He wasn’t sure it even deserved being called a hotel.

  The building was what he figured a Realtor would call a Victorian. It was really just an old and weary brick hulk. If it had seen better days, they were long past. This wasn’t the best of neighborhoods, either. Not a bad one but certainly not the type the Chamber of Commerce would tout.

  The idea of his Salome coming along this street at night, alone…

  Except, she wasn’t his Salome. She wasn’t his anything. And if he had to give her credit for one thing, it was that she could take care of herself.

  The building was big, though like many old structures it looked as if it had been added to as the city grew. When he’d strolled inside earlier, he’d noticed that it was relatively well-cared for.

  Not that its condition mattered.

  His sole concern had been finding a way to get into Salome’s room that didn’t involve the hotel’s front door or hers.

  His reconnaissance had verified that an alley led to the rear of the building where fire escape stairs climbed the wall like the ossified bones of a dinosaur.

  The window in Salome’s room opened onto that fire escape.

  Perfect for an intruder.

  Perfect for him.

  Something moved across the street. Cam took a pair of binoculars from the seat beside him. He’d considered a night-vision scope, but there was enough ambient light on a city street, even this one, for regular glasses to work.

  He put the binoculars to his eyes, focused and felt his heart thud. Yes. It was Salome, walking quickly along the sidewalk. All that golden hair, that proud stride… It was her.

  He watched her go up the steps to the front door of the hotel. Watched it shut behind her. Then he tossed aside the binoculars and slid a coiled length of rope inside his jacket. He zipped the jacket, stepped out of the Porsche and trotted across the street. A quick look to make sure nobody was coming, and then he went down the alley that led to the rear of the building. Stepped into the shadows, looked up to the third floor…

  Saw the light come on in what he knew, from the P.I. and the plans, was her room.

  Cam took a deep breath, threw his rope over the suspended fire escape ladder, and began to climb.

  Leanna locked the door to her room behind her and watched her breath plume into the chilly air.

  She always thought of Texas as a warm place. Silly, she knew. It was a huge state with different climates. This time of year, the weather in Dallas was cold.

  It seemed even colder in this dingy room. She and Ginny had tried everything to get more heat out of the old-fashioned radiator. They’d jiggled the on-off handle, turned it up and turned it down. Ginny had finally whacked it with a shoe, but nothing worked. Give it a few minutes and you adjusted, although coming in from the cold each night remained a shock.

  Surprisingly, there was no lack of hot water. A hot bath was fine for relaxing muscles that had taken a tough workout on stage, plus it took the chill out of your bones.

  She shrugged off her jacket, went into the bathroom, turned on the water and began undressing. Naked, she swept her hair from her shoulders and pinned it on top of her head, then added bath oil to the steaming water.

  The oil smelled of lavender, not flowers. That meant there was no reason it should make her think of Cam and yet, she was doing exactly that. Thinking of Cam. Of how it had felt to be in his arms as he stepped into a marble tub of scented water.

  Leanna blinked.

  The sooner she was out of this city, the better.

  She shut the bathroom door, put a towel within easy reach and eased into the tub. Oh, yes. It felt wonderful to sit back and let the heat work its magic. There was nothing like a hot bath to soothe you at the end of a long and stressful day…

  Nothing like a hot bath with your lover to turn a long, stressful day into the prelude to a long, wonderful night.

  Stop it!

  She was not going down that path again. All those weeks, telling herself Cam would call. That he’d come for her. Tell her that he did love her, that what he’d said that last day hadn’t been true.

  It had taken a long time before she’d faced reality, and she wasn’t backing away from it now.

  Cam wasn’t going to come after her. He wasn’t even going to telephone. And that was okay. He’d never made promises of forever. He hadn’t fallen in love. She had…

  And she still loved him.

  Being here, where he lived and worked, knowing she had only to dial a number to hear his voice, was killing her. One call. Just one. She wouldn’t have to say anything, except to his secretary, and then she could hear Cam’s voice, add that memory to the others.

  Suddenly the bath seemed cold. Leanna opened the drain, stepped from the tub, wrapped herself in a too thin, too small towel and opened the bathroom door…

  On darkness.

  Her heartbeat skittered.

  How could that be? She’d left the room’s single overhead light on. Even if the bulb had burned out, light should have been coming through the window. She was always careful to leave the window locked—the fire stairs outside were not reassuring—but she never drew the drab curtains until she and Ginny were ready to go to sleep. The room faced on a brick wall. Nobody could see in, but the light that filtered in from the alley, however faint, was welcome.

  Cou
ld Ginny have come back already? Could she have drawn the curtains? Could the bulb in the ceiling light have gone out?

  Could all that have happened at the same time?

  “Ginny?” Leanna’s whisper came out as half prayer, half question. “Gin? Is that—”

  Something moved in the shadows. A figure. Tall. Broad-shouldered. A man. Leanna stumbled back in terror. Oh God, oh God, oh God…

  The beam of a flashlight shone in her face. She gave a thin, high shriek, threw up a hand to shield her eyes.

  “Hello, Salome,” a rough voice said.

  “Cameron?” Leanna went from terrified to thrilled in a heartbeat. He was here! He’d come for her after all. She whispered his name, started toward him…

  And froze when the beam of light slid down her body, lingering on her breasts with slow insolence, rising again until it reached her face. Questions crowded out the joy she’d felt hearing his voice.

  How had he gotten into the room? Why was he waiting in the dark?

  “You don’t seem very happy to see me.”

  Leanna jerked her head away from the cold yellow glare. “The light,” she said. “I can’t see.”

  The beam from the flashlight swung toward the floor. She blinked her eyes, trying to adjust to the dark. She could see Cam now, an inky blur against the charcoal shadows, moving slowly toward her.

  Her heart began to race.

  She’d longed to see him again and now he was here—but what did she know about him, really? He’d saved her life and made love to her. In the end, he’d broken her heart.

  Aside from those things, he was a stranger. A hard and dangerous stranger. He’d worked for a government agency, he’d said, one so secret she wouldn’t have recognized its initials.

  Even the air crackled with menace.

  He was inches from her now. She took a quick step back and her shoulders hit the wall.

  “Don’t,” she said, and hated herself for the way the word wobbled.

  “Don’t what, Salome?” His words were soft as silk, but even silk could be deadly in the right hands. “I’m still waiting for you to tell me how glad you are to see me.”

  “I can’t see you at all.” That was better. She was shaking with fear but her voice was steady. “How did you get into my room?”

  “Management needs to do something about that fire escape,” he said lazily. “And that window lock wasn’t worth a damn. How’ve you been, baby? Come to think of it, that’s a foolish question. I know the answer. You’ve been busy.”

  His voice was harsh; he put an icy twist on that last word. She thought of the days she’d spent in the hospital but what would that matter to the man standing before her? Her Cameron had been tender. This one wouldn’t know the meaning of the word.

  “Cam.” She swallowed past the lump in her throat. “Why—why did you break into my room? All you had to do, if you wanted to see me, was—”

  “Why would I want to see you?” he said coldly. “We had a good time, you and I, but it ended.” The flashlight fell to the floor and he caught her by the shoulders, his hands hard against her flesh. “That’s right, isn’t it? What we had ended that day Asaad’s men found us.” She didn’t answer; his grip on her tightened and he shook her. “Answer me, damn it. Isn’t that the way it was?”

  Tears blurred Leanna’s eyes. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Because I want answers.”

  “Cam. Please, let go. You’re hurting me.”

  “You didn’t say that the last time I touched you.” She gasped as he tore the towel from her and pinned her to the wall with one hand banded around her throat. “Remember, Salome? More, you said. More, Cameron.” His voice roughened. “More of this.”

  His hand cupped her breast, his thumb feathered over her nipple. Leanna cried out in fear but her body, her traitorous body, began to melt under his remembered caresses.

  “Don’t,” she said, “Cam, I beg you—”

  “Good. Beg me. That’s what I want from you tonight, Salome.” Cam bent his head, caught her mouth with his, forced her lips apart. The taste of her shot through his blood. “Go on, damn you! Beg me. Tell me what you want.”

  His hand slid down her belly, cupped the soft gold curls that guarded the most intimate secrets of her body—secrets only he had known.

  “This? Is this what you want from me?” He bent his head and tongued her nipple. She made a little sound that might have been despair or might have been pleasure. He didn’t know, didn’t care, didn’t care…

  Except, he did.

  “Salome,” he whispered, and his touch changed, his heart changed, his hand slipped from banding her throat to cupping her face. “Salome,” he said again, and as he kissed her, he knew, with terrifying swiftness, that what he wanted from his Salome was to be with her for the rest of his life.

  He loved her.

  Loved her, with his heart, his mind, his soul.

  It scared the hell out of him… But what scared him more was that she might not love him, too.

  “Cameron,” she said brokenly. “Please. Don’t do this. What we had—what we had—”

  “What did we have, Salome?”

  “You—you said it yourself. It was a fantasy. The danger. The excitement—”

  “Is that all it was?”

  She didn’t answer. Her eyes slid from his and he prayed it was because she loved him.

  “Salome. Remember what I said in the desert? I told you to stop thinking.” He framed her face with his hands. “That’s what I want you to do now, sweetheart. Don’t think. Just feel—and tell me what’s in your heart.” He took a deep breath. “Tell me that you love me, Leanna.” His voice roughened. “Tell me you love me as much as I love you.”

  She stared at him in silence. Then, when he’d almost given up hope, she choked out a sound halfway between a sob and laughter.

  “Cameron,” she said. “Oh, Cameron, my beloved.”

  The world, his anger, the disillusionment Cam had carried with him most of his life, were all swept away. He caught Leanna to him and kissed her.

  She tasted as she had in his dreams, sweet as honey, rich as cream. Her tears, under the sweep of his thumbs, were warm as summer rain. And when she sighed his name, he knew he would forgive her for not coming to him, that he would forgive her for anything as long as he never lost her again.

  “Salome,” he whispered.

  He lifted her into his arms, his mouth on hers, his tongue between her lips, and carried her the few feet to the bed. He lay her down slowly, still kissing her, torn between wanting the kiss to go on forever and the need to pull off his clothes, bury himself inside her and make her his again.

  Leanna dug her hands into his hair. “Don’t leave me,” she begged. “Cameron, don’t ever leave me again.”

  “Never,” he said fiercely.

  He took her hands and kissed them, bent to her and nipped her throat, kissed his way to her breasts, exulting in the richness of her scent as he sucked the beaded tips into his mouth. When she cried out in pleasure, Cam tore off his jacket, his shirt, then scooped her tightly against him, groaning aloud at the feel of her skin on his.

  “Tell me you’ve missed me,” he demanded. “Tell me you’ve dreamed about me doing this.”

  “Yes,” Leanna sobbed, “yes, yes! I’ve missed you. I’ve dreamed about you. Cam. Come inside me. Please, I want you inside me. I need to feel you. I need—”

  She arched against him as he slid his hand between her thighs. She was wet and hot, for him. Only for him, he knew, and then he couldn’t wait, couldn’t wait, could only unzip his fly, spread his hands beneath her, lift her to him, drive deep inside her…

  Her scream of completion rose into the night. She locked her arms around his neck and rose up to him, her body convulsing around his, her fingernails scoring his back. Cam rode the wave of ecstasy with her, letting the first delicate contraction of her womb sweep him toward the edge of sanity.

  He crushed her mouth with his, bit i
nto the tender flesh, tasted blood—hers or his, he didn’t know, didn’t care—as she sucked his tongue into her mouth.

  Sobbing his name, Salome collapsed against the pillows.

  Cam flung back his head, cried out, and flew with her into paradise.

  Leanna had read that the French sometimes referred to orgasm as le petit mort. The little death. The phrase had seemed elegant but impossible.

  Now, she knew the truth of it.