But everyone’s luck ran out some time. Suppose, while he was taking care of things for her, he was killed? Or arrested?
And she didn’t even want to consider Cam being hurt. It would destroy her. As much as she cared about Meggie and her husband, it was easier to focus on Mr. Caldwell, rather than thinking of Cam’s death.
Her cooperation would keep him alive. She had to believe that.
Unable to stop herself, she burst into tears. If she didn’t do what Stein wanted, Cam would die.
“I hear you’ve finally gotten the seriousness of the situation,” Stein spat. “I’ll give you the night to let it sink in. When I call tomorrow, either you give me what I want or I’ll see to it that both Caldwell and Baptiste are taken care of. Got me?”
Nodding, she hiccupped, grateful when Stein disconnected. It was only then that she realized Ava had awakened and was crying.
She popped to her feet, scooped Ava into her arms and breathed in her baby scent. She had to let Mr. Caldwell and Meggie go.
Say what you really mean, Jordan.
She had to let Cameron go. Really let him go. Stop thinking about what he meant to her and make Stein know that she didn’t care.
If he thought she didn’t care, he wouldn’t bother threatening him.
She returned to the rocking chair and began to rock Ava, singing softly to her. She’d just laid Ava back in her bed when her doorbell rang. The thought to ignore it crossed her mind, but whoever was there wouldn’t go away.
At the fourth ring, Ava started whining again, so Jordan picked her up and raced down the hall to the staircase, cooing to her daughter. A moment later, she reached the door and yanked it open.
Seeing Cam made her gasp. Despite herself, her heart started to race and a smile trembled on her lips.
Unlike this morning, he didn’t have flowers. He started to speak, then stared at her face and narrowed his eyes.
“You’ve been crying.”
Her hold tightened on Ava as she pretended that seeing Cam wasn’t a bright spot in her day. Since she saw him last, he had removed his tie and two buttons on his white shirt were opened, revealing a bit of his chest. The woodsy scent of his cologne floated to her.
He’d looked after her from the time they’d met, she reminded herself.
It was her turn to take care of him.
“I’m emotional right now,” she said over Ava’s cries. She shifted the baby to her other shoulder, supporting the back of her head and kissing the top of it. She whispered to her until the baby settled. “What do you want?” she asked finally.
Cam’s lips tightened, which made her remember just how firm and demanding they’d been during their kiss.
“I heard you fired the bikers.” He stepped aside and pointed to his Jeep. “I’m taking responsibility for you and Ava. I’ll be parked outside your door watching over you.”
That would defeat the entire purpose for her sacrifice. “Absolutely not.”
“I’m not taking no for an answer. Sulley’s brothers are on the loose. You need protection.”
Maybe he talked to Mr. Caldwell? No. She was underestimating Cam. He had ways of finding things out.
Her eyes widened. No wonder Stein said his feed had been scrambled. Cam had intercepted the surveillance somehow. “I appreciate your concern, but it isn’t necessary.”
“It is, until you get your permit to own a gun.”
“That’ll happen soon. Until then, I can handle myself.”
“You’re a strong, capable woman. I’m sure you can handle yourself. But until you get the gun, I’m keeping watch over you.”
“You have work.”
“I have a partner,” he shot back. “Knox will understand.”
“I don’t want you doing this. I don’t want you near me.” She swallowed hard and added one lie to the last. “Or near Ava, either.”
He shrugged. “Sorry, ma’am, but you’re overruled.”
“You’ll be quite uncomfortable in that car.”
A grin curved his mouth and Jordan bit down on her lip. “You can always invite me inside. I’ll sleep on the sofa. You won’t even know I’m here.”
Doubtful. Whenever he was near her, she was hyperaware of his presence. Instead of answering him, she repeated, “You don’t have to do this.”
“You’re right, but I want to. You’re important to me.”
She clamped her mouth shut.
For long moments, he stared at her as if he expected her to capitulate and invite him in. She forced herself to roll her eyes. “Fine,” she sniffed. “Have it your way. I can’t stop you from parking in front of my door.”
Before she allowed him into her house, or even worse, told him the truth, she closed the door, feeling safer than she had in days.
The only problem was that she had to think of a way to make him leave before Stein showed up at her house.
Cam adjusted the vent so the heat would blow directly on him. Mother Nature had decided to test his willpower by blanketing the area with a late January snowstorm.
In intervals, he allowed the engine to idle and then killed it altogether. Those times were the worst, when it felt as if icicles grew from his balls. Unlike what Outlaw had said, Jordan had yet to come to the Jeep and offer him refuge in her house. Cam had been parked in her driveway for hours. It was after two in the morning.
His cell phone rang. By the tone, he knew it was Jordan calling him. She was probably telling him to leave. If so, he would. He’d been on stakeouts before, but this was personal, adding to his frustration. It left him too fucking tired, cold, and hungry to argue. Besides, he didn’t have airtight evidence she was in danger, only the certainty of the biker.
Cam had to give it to Jordan. She was ballsier than Outlaw predicted.
He picked up his phone. “What can I do for you, doc?”
Minute throat-clearing. “I have a guestroom you can sleep in for tonight. It must be freezing outside. There are cans of soup in the cupboard if you’d like to eat before you turn in. You’ve been out there for hours so you might be hungry.”
Oh, for God’s sake. Outlaw was right.
His reply came out in frozen puffs of air.
Without responding, Jordan disconnected.
Cam wasted no time in getting his ass out of the Jeep and hurrying to her front door. Just as he got there, she opened it and stepped aside.
She wore a different peignoir set than she had on earlier and her braids were loose and free, but dark circles ringed her eyes. She looked exhausted.
Once he walked inside, she closed the door behind him. Cam didn’t dare move forward without direction from her. All the other times he’d been in her house, he’d felt welcomed and comfortable. Now her month-long shut-out left him uncertain.
“Follow me,” she instructed, leading him to the family room, where a welcoming fire blazed. The last time he’d been in the room he’d won at Cards Against Humanity. It was the same evening he and Jordan had kissed. She’d agreed to go away with him. “Warm up.”
While Cam settled himself in the seat closest to the fireplace, Jordan disappeared. A moment later, the divider separating the kitchen and family room slid open. Jordan was moving about, pulling things from the cupboards.
The huge house had a state-of-the-art kitchen, the latest electronics, and beautiful décor. Based on its size, it had been built for a family. When Jordan purchased it, had she intended to have a husband and several kids?
“Would you like more kids?” The question slipped from his mouth before he caught himself.
She offered him a cautious smile. “At one time, I wanted three or four.”
“You don’t any more?” Whatever she wanted, he’d give her. If Ava was enough, he’d have no problem. If she wanted two more kids, that was also fine with him. “Doesn’t Ava need a brother or sister?” he pressed at her silence.
A sad look crossed her face. “I would like that. But I don’t think it’s in the cards.”
“I’d
have no problem helping you open a new deck, sweetheart.”
A tiny smile formed at her mouth but then she ducked her head and looked away.
He pretended not to have noticed her close scrutiny. It took everything in him not to wink at her. She’d thawed just a little toward him and he didn’t want to ruin it by pushing her. He’d take baby steps.
Clearing her throat, she removed a walkie-talkie looking device from her pocket and tuned it.
A whirring noise filled the air and Cam realized she was listening for her daughter.
“Chicken Noodle or Alphabet Vegetable?”
“Alphabet Vegetable?” he echoed.
“What can I say?” she returned without remorse. “It’s delicious. One of the good memories I have of my mom.”
“Don’t bring that witch up to me,” he said darkly.
Jordan had told him about how her mom sided with her bastard of a husband. His mom dated every now and then. She’d rarely brought a guy home to meet Cam, but if she did, they knew better than to even look at him wrong.
Cam had a lot of love and respect for his mom. She’d worked her fingers to the bones to give him the best of everything, especially an education.
Their extended family looked down on him, and, as a result, looked down on his mom. They called him an Oreo Cookie—white on the inside and black on the outside—and deemed his mom an ambitious snob.
Cam didn’t give a fuck. He’d even taken the nickname of Cookie to show them how little he cared. His mother had never asked her parents, brothers or sisters for one red cent. What she did for him—for herself—she did through her own blood, sweat, and tears. If they looked down on her for that, it was their loss.
A series of beeps snagged his attention. The microwave.
“You chose for me, huh, doc?”
“Yep. If Ava wakes up, I have to abandon you. I wanted to feed you and show you to your room before that happens.”
“Fair enough.” His mind had wandered. “I like both Chicken Noodle and Alphabet Vegetable.”
He was thawing out, so he abandoned his spot by the fireplace and went to the kitchen where Jordan stirred his soup to even out the heat. She smelled fresh and clean. Cam wanted to draw in a deep breath and take in her essence. He’d probably come off as a pervert. If she knew the amount of times he’d jerked off to thoughts of her, she’d throw his ass out.
She slid the soup to him, her lowered gaze entirely unlike the lively, intelligent woman he’d come to know.
“Thank you,” she said quietly. “For everything.” She shuddered from head to foot. “But especially for scrambling those signals to the bugs.”
“What…” Cam’s voice trailed off. Outlaw. He must’ve had one of his guys tap into Jordan’s house.
He should confess that he had nothing to do with that, but she was looking at him as if he was her everything. As if she believed he could scale Mount Everest and fly down. Maybe, he was a low-down motherfucker for claiming another man’s work but he nodded. “It was my pleasure.”
Fear widened her eyes.
Fury surged up his spine and his entire body tensed, ready for warfare. Those motherfucking brothers-in-law of hers had invaded her privacy.
With one brisk step, he gathered her into his arms. “You must have been scared to death, Jordan. Damn it, you should have told me, sweetheart.”
“I swore I wouldn’t say anything because I’m so scared for Mr. Caldwell. And you,” she added on a whisper. “I should’ve known Sulley’s death wouldn’t be the end of it.”
Cam picked Jordan up in his arms and put her on the counter facing him. She released a sob, and fell forward against his chest, her shoulders shaking with the ferocity of her tears.
“I’m going to get my permit and go hunting for them myself,” she vowed. “I hate this helplessness, but his brothers are threatening the people I love. I’m trying to recover from Ava’s birth and all I can do is cry!”
Cam tangled his fingers through her hair, picking out and holding onto the words, the people I love. He was included in that. She loved him.
Jordan loved him.
It wasn’t the time or place to think about that so he shoved the thought away. First off, he had to take care of the threat to his family.
“Slow down, baby,” he said gruffly. “Take a deep breath and tell me how those fuckers scared you.”
“Stein has photos of Mr. Caldwell killing Sulley,” she choked. Her hands curled against his shoulders and her voice rose. “He has photos of you protecting me. He was there in the garage, with Silton, waiting for Sulley to grab me. They were going to help him dispose of…of me. Of my body.”
A cold resolution formed in Cam’s gut. Those fuckers were dead.
Jordan kept talking. “Now he’s threatening to send Mr. Caldwell to jail and to kill you.” She buried her face against his chest again. “I had to send you away this morning. I’ve alienated Mr. Caldwell and Meggie. They’re like family to me.” Her voice broke on another sob. “You can’t stay here beyond tonight,” she rambled. “Stein is going to visit Ava tomorrow, and if he finds you here, he’ll kill you.”
Another bout of rage surged through Cam again. He had to allow a few moments to pass to calm himself. No one would hurt Jordan. He’d see to that if he had to hunt the Ward brothers down himself and shoot the fuck out of them.
Jordan pulled away and stared into his eyes. “I love you,” she said in a frantic tone. “I’d die if something happened to you. I just need a few days to get my license, then I’m going to buy a gun and hunt them down myself. Now that the feed is scrambled, they won’t know what I’m doing. I sent you away, yet you came back. Knowing you were out there, in your car, on my behalf, was a wake-up call. I can’t cower—”
He cupped her face. “Sweetheart, listen to me. You can cry as much as you want to. Your body is adjusting to being Ava’s cocoon, and you’re adjusting to being a new mom. I’m here to catch you, to carry you, to caress you, Jordan.”
“They want to kill you and you’re unarmed.”
That’s what she thought. He brushed his lips across hers, then released her. “I’ll be fine,” he assured her. “My concern is you.”
“My concern is you. As much as I want to, we can’t be together until Stein and Silton are taken care of. Maybe not then. If I lure them here and kill them, I might spend the rest of my life in prison. I’d prefer that than to live in fear. Ava could live a peaceful life, without worrying about her crazy uncles.”
“You hatched this plan in the hours since I arrived?”
She nodded, fully prepared to see it through. He saw it in the stubborn set of her jaw. He also knew she wouldn’t change her mind about them being together while Stein and Silton posed a threat. He wouldn’t pressure her. In the morning, he’d set his own plans in motion.
He drew her against his chest, body to body, all her curves fitting his hollows as if they were made to be together. Then he set her gently on her own feet again.
“I’m real tired, sweetheart,” he told her, picking up his soup. “If you can show me to my room, I’m going to eat, and hit the sheets.”
“Follow me.”
She walked in front of him as they climbed the stairs and the sexy sway of her hips hardened his cock. It had been months since he’d been with a woman. At first, he’d been too busy with his new firm, then he’d met Jordan. After that, he didn’t even glance at another woman.
She was it for him.
Her pregnancy had added padding to her hips and backside, and damn it, if she was even hotter. He wanted to lick every inch of her, giving special attention to her pussy. He wanted to taste her, eat her out, and then when she was still shuddering with pleasure, turn her over and grip those plush hips with his hands and thrust into her. Buck against her, pounding into her until she came again, screaming this time, telling him…
Yeah.
Telling him she loved him.
His balls throbbed as if he was a teenager again. Any moment,
he expected his zipper to burst.
Grinding his teeth, he forced himself to take in the high ceilings and art deco look of the house. Jordan was a self-made woman, and a damned successful one, which made her all the more fascinating.
She was like his mother in that. She didn’t need a man.
He had to just hope that she wanted one.
She led him to a bedroom at the end of the hall, next to the nursery. He knew it was Ava’s room, because the door was ajar and the dim nightlight afforded him a view of the baby bed, chest of drawers, rocker, and changing table.
“You have a private bathroom,” Jordan said, flipping on the overhead light to reveal a modest sized room with medium blue walls and white trimming. “If you need anything, I’ll be in the nursery.”
He set his soup on the dresser. “You sleep on the rocker?”
She shook her head. “There’s a daybed in there.”
“Any reason why you don’t sleep in your room?”
“It was easier for me to handle my daughter being close to her.”
“You haven’t had any help?”
“I didn’t want to put anyone in danger.”
That surge of anger pumped through him again. No wonder she looked so tired.
“If I need anything, I’ll call,” he agreed. He was here now, and he wasn’t leaving, but it would take her a while to accept it.
She kissed his cheek and even that small gesture set his blood on fire again. “Thank you.”
The moment she left, Cam downed his soup. Leaving the empty bowl on the dresser, he went to the bathroom and found an unopened toothbrush and an unused tube of toothpaste. He brushed his teeth and stripped off his clothing. He slept in the nude, gun within comfortable reach on the bedside table.
The comfort of the bed lulled him and he fell asleep immediately.
A baby’s wail awakened him and he bolted up. It took him a moment to gather his bearings. When he did, he realized Ava was crying. Shoving the covers aside, he hurried to the room next to his and found a barely awake Jordan attempting to feed her distressed daughter.
The sight of Jordan’s milk-swollen breast made his cock instantly jerk to attention. The baby’s little mouth kept missing the sweet, brown nipple it sought.
Death Dwellers Motorcycle Club:: Fifteen Bad Boy Biker Books Page 419
