Live to See Tomorrow (43 page)

“But those duties could encompass many—”

“I didn’t come here to talk about the committee or their plans for me,” he interrupted impatiently. “I won’t waste time when I know damn well we don’t have it.” He strode toward the bed. “Come on.”

She tensed. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Yes, you are. I don’t like all the things that are zooming around your mind. I could stay here, but it might not be either quiet or calm. In fact, you can count on high-octane disturbance. You wouldn’t like that with Luke only a few rooms down.” He grasped her arm and pulled her from the bed. “So it’s the summerhouse.”

“No!” Memories of those erotic hours in the summerhouse were flooding back to her, the heady sexual games that had kept her captive.

“Yes.” He looked her in the eye. “Look, I’m not going to touch you if you don’t want me. But I’m going to talk to you. I stopped at Luke’s room on the way here to you and told him good-bye. You wouldn’t want him to hear anything that would make him defensive. He might feel bound to come in and confront me.”

He knew she wouldn’t permit Luke to be put in that position. She tore her wrist from his grasp. “I’ll go with you. But it’s not going to be your way, Cameron. This is only going to make me angry.”

“I know.” He bowed slightly and gestured for her to precede him. “But there’s no time for me to negotiate. I have to do what I have to do. I found out from Hu Chang that you’re on your way to Louisville.”

“Found out in your usual fashion, I suppose.”

“Yes, Hu Chang has no objection to an occasional intrusion as long as I make it a rare occurrence. Not like you, Catherine.”

“With me, your intrusions have not been all that rare,” Catherine said as she reached the bottom of the stairs. “And this particular one strikes me as being particularly obnoxious.”

“Because you’re on guard, and you don’t want to be put in a position where you might be tempted to lower it.” He opened the garden French door for her. “And that’s all I’m offering here. Not force.” He smiled. “Temptation.”

“After you got your way and positioned me correctly to receive temptation.”

“As I said, I don’t have much time.”

“It’s not going to work, Cameron.”

“Then I’ll go away and try again another day.” He opened the door to the summerhouse. “There’s always tomorrow.”

“Not according to your doctrines of Shambhala. Your committee thinks we’re all on our way to destruction.”

“But tomorrow will still exist, and it will be a brighter day.” Cameron closed the door of the summerhouse behind them. “And I’ll never stop trying, Catherine.”

The darkness was overwhelmingly intimate, with only the faint moonlight pouring through the windows. She could see his shadow only a few feet away, the white of his shirt, the muscular tightness of his body.

It was happening again. The anger didn’t matter. Her body was responding. She had to get out of here.

“Say what you have to say,” she said jerkily. “I’ll listen, then I’m gone.”

“I’ve already said what was important. But I said it in the middle of our hunt for Kadmus, and I have to make sure that you know that nothing has changed.” He reached out and turned on a lamp near the armchair he was standing beside. The soft glow illuminated him, his eyes, his mouth, the broad shoulders taut beneath that white shirt.

She drew a shaky breath. Don’t let him see how the sight of him affected her. Shit, he probably knew.

“I know how you affect me.” His gaze ran over her. “I like that sleep shirt. It clings in all the right places. I’d like it more if it were lying on the floor at your feet.”

She moistened her lips. “Yes, I want to screw you. That doesn’t mean I will. I have a life. I can’t let you do this to me.”

“Do what? Pleasure?”

“It’s more than that. I have a tendency to … lose myself. That mustn’t happen.”

He didn’t speak for a moment. “I told you, that’s not why I brought you down here. Sex with you is magnificent, but I can do without it…” He grimaced. “If I have to. But I have to talk to you. I can’t let you go without doing that.” He dropped down in the easy chair. “So stop standing there like an animal at bay and sit down and let me do it.”

She gazed at him warily, then went to the couch and sat down. “I’m listening.”

“I don’t want you to go to Louisville. I want you to go with me.”

She gazed at him incredulously. “Back to Tibet?”

“Perhaps. I may not go back there for a while. Kadmus is gone, and that eliminates a lot of problems in the area. I think I’ll be sent to Copenhagen to take care of a few troubles that have popped up there.” He met her eyes, and the intensity enveloped her, held her. “I don’t want to do without you. I want you with me.”

“You want me to trail behind you like a camp follower does a soldier? No thank you, Cameron.”

“It wouldn’t be like that.” His hands clenched on the arms of the chair. “I just have to have you. I’ll give you anything you want. There’s nothing in the world you can’t have that money will buy. I know you’d be giving up a lot. I’d try to allow you freedom and independence. I’d make arrangements for you to have Luke with you.”

“How very kind of you.”

“I’m trying, dammit,” he said harshly. “Just state your terms.”

“I don’t have terms. You’ve been spending too much time with prostitutes.” She could feel the flush heat her cheeks as shock turned to anger. “And how long would you want me with you, Cameron? A week, a month, a year?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Do you want me to promise you forever? I can’t do that. This is too new for me. All I can say is that I can’t imagine not wanting you.”

“But if it didn’t last long, that would be okay, wouldn’t it? Because you’re securing my future with all those billions of shekels your committee rains down on you.” She added fiercely, “You’re offering me a lousy deal. And you’re insulting me. I’m more than just a good lay. Go to hell, Cameron.”

He was silent. “I thought that would be your response. I had to make the attempt before I tried anything else. It’s not an insult, Catherine. It’s the best I can do under the circumstances. I can’t follow you to Louisville right now. I don’t have that choice.”

“Who asked you to do that?”

“No one,” he said wearily. “It was just a thought. You’d probably call the local police on me for harassing you.”

He sounded tired, rueful, sad, and unlike the Cameron she knew. She found her anger fading away. “I might. But I can’t see you in Louisville. I can’t see you anywhere that I belong. You have your own damn life, running around on mountains in Tibet, or kidnapping geniuses off trains in India, or fixing troubles in Copenhagen. That’s not my life. I don’t believe in it. I wouldn’t want to share it.”

“Have you finished?” Cameron asked quietly.

She nodded. “May I go now?”

His smile was twisted. “Yes, I promised you, didn’t I?”

Again that faintest hint of sadness … and loneliness.

Hu Chang had said he was lonely.

Well, she wasn’t about to follow him and become his mistress to keep him from being lonely. He was an expert at taking care of himself.

But anyone would say that so was she and she had been lonely most of her life.

“What are you waiting for?” he asked. “I won’t try to stop you.”

“I know, you gave your word.”

And he valued his promises. It’s the only thing that’s really mine to give, he had told her. Yet he had untold wealth at his disposal and the power the committee gave him was mind-boggling. She didn’t really know how he thought or how he felt about anything but his dedication to the Shambhala cause and his passion for her. Both of those emotions were clear. His history had formed such a complex mixture of qualities and experiences that it might take years to say she truly knew him.

She did not have years to pierce that wall. She had a son, she had a life. She was working on surviving her own past and making a decent future.

And she still had that son because Cameron had stepped in and taken a bullet for him.

She had been passionately grateful to him for saving Luke. Somehow that gratitude had become lost in her other emotions toward Cameron. How could that have happened?

Because it had made her feel vulnerable, and she couldn’t afford to feel any more vulnerable toward him. Yet it was all part of the total of what she felt for Cameron. What she had to come to terms with before she left him.

“Get out of here,” Cameron said roughly. “I’m trying to hold on, but it’s not going to last long.”

She could see that. And she knew that when that dam broke, it would overwhelm both of them as it had before. She would feel helpless and lost and want only—

What was she thinking? She sounded like a victim,
his
victim, and that would never be true. She had choice and power, and she would learn control.

“I’m going.” She got to her feet. “But not just yet.” She came toward him and stopped before his chair. “Because I have to come to terms with you, Cameron. All through our time together, you’ve been intimidating me.”

“The hell I have. You’re tough, Catherine.”

“Oh, I fought it. Maybe it was those damn mind tricks that threw me off.” She looked him in the eye. “Or maybe it was that I’d never wanted anyone sexually the way I did you. It made me feel helpless, and I hated it. Anyway it all added up to intimidation.”

His eyes narrowed. “Is this leading somewhere?”

“Yes, out of confusion and into the bright light.” She took his face into her hands and stared into his eyes. “First, I just realized I don’t have to be intimidated by you. I’m no victim.”

“You’re damn right you’re not.”

“Second, I want to tell you I’m grateful to you for saving Luke. I’ll never forget it.”

“I don’t want your gratitude. I made you a promise.”

“Whether you want it or not, I’m grateful. Accept it. Third, I will not go with you and be your mistress. Accept it.” She bent forward and kissed him, hard, open, passionate. “Also accept that anything I do isn’t because I’m grateful; it’s because I want to do it. Not forever, not permanent, just for tonight. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t have you. I’m taking what I want if you want to give it.” She stepped back, pulled her sleep shirt over head, and dropped it on the floor. “Understood?”

“Oh, my God.” He reached for her and she was suddenly on his lap and his mouth was on her breast.

She could hardly breathe. She could feel his teeth and his tongue and that suction that nearly drove her crazy. “No.” She was sitting astride him, unbuttoning his shirt, then her fingers were on his pants, freeing him.

She cried out as he sank deep, her arms holding him with all her strength, and her body moved.

Taking. Taking. Taking.

His mouth was on hers as he tumbled her to the floor.

He lifted her hips to take the thrust.

Deep. Deeper.

Full of him …

His mouth on her breast, drawing, biting.

Fire.

Breathlessness.

Deeper.

It was a fever. It was need.

A need that was met and satisfied and ignited again, and again.

And it went on forever.

Or maybe it was only hours that seemed forever.

Silk on her bare skin …

She opened her eyes as he carried her over to the couch and settled her there. He gently tucked the silk comforter he’d taken from the chair over her. “You like the feel of silk against you? Sharp and soft, it’s very sensual.” He drew the end of the comforter slowly, teasingly, over her breasts and smiled as he saw the response. “I learned a few interesting things do with silk cords and raw silk. Remind me to show you.” He dropped a light kiss on her lips. “I don’t want to leave now, but I’m not going to do anything to push my luck. I told you that you could be in control.” He was dressing quickly. “I did understand you, Catherine. Perhaps more than you understood yourself.”

“Intimidation, again … You’re wrong, I understood what I wanted, and I took it.” And she wanted him again. He was putting on his shirt and the ripples of muscle were sleek and—“You’re bleeding again!” Her gaze was on the bandage on the left side that was wet with fresh blood. “I forgot about your wound. Why didn’t you tell me?”

He grinned. “Surely you jest? Even if I’d noticed it, I wouldn’t have run the risk of you stopping to soothe and rebandage me.” He came back to her and pulled the silk comforter down and kissed her breast. “And it gave me a chance to prove I’d give my blood for you.” He rubbed his slightly rough cheek against her. “I would, you know. To the last drop.”

“Bullshit.” She pushed him away. “Your committee wouldn’t permit you to donate even a pint of your precious blood to the Red Cross.” She sat up. “You’re too essential to their splendid cause.”

“It is splendid, Catherine.” He got to his feet. “You’ll come to believe that, too, someday.”

“No, I won’t. And that’s another prime reason for me to leave and let you go back to being Guardian. We’d never agree.”

“We’ve just spent a number of hours in complete agreement.” He turned and headed for the door. “And we will again.”

“You said you understood. It’s over now. I told you, it was just for tonight, Cameron.”

He smiled as he opened the door. “I can be patient. I can let you go for a while. I was planning on it anyway. I’ll either come after you, or you’ll come to me.”

Her brows rose. “
I’ll
come to you?”

“Oh, not running to jump into bed with me. That would be too much to hope for. But you’re CIA and as Guardian I have frequent encounters both bad and good with the CIA. I leave them alone as long as they don’t interfere, but they’re becoming increasingly troublesome.”

“Or is it you who are becoming troublesome?”

“The dangers are increasing, and I have to make adjustments for them.” He shrugged. “Either way, it’s more likely to bring us together.”

“Or put us on the hunt for each other.”

“But that could be exciting, too.”

She felt a thrill of that excitement at the thought. How would it feel to be on the hunt for Cameron with his superb talents and training?

“You see?” Cameron said softly. “It can’t be over. We’d miss too much.”