Water From the Moon (15 page)

"Maybe." His legs spread to allow her strolling fingers better access.

"Teach me, Cam." Her hands moved over him, bringing him to urgent arousal. "Teach me to be patient."

Not now, he thought with a silent laugh. He couldn’t be patient now.

His finger touched her nose, outlined her mouth. Acasia closed her lips around it, tugged. Cameron withdrew it, began to trace her breast, rolled her nipple between his thumb and forefinger. Looking at her, taking pleasure in her, Cameron knew he couldn’t walk away from her. They would have to sweat this out, come what might. He slid backward and bent to kiss her stomach, painting suggestions with his tongue.

Acasia moved restlessly. "Patience, Cam, you were going to teach me patience."

"Was I? I don’t think we have the time for that right now."

He lifted himself on his hands, one knee insinuating itself between her thighs. Acasia breathed in excitement, opening for him.

Now, he thought. Now, now,
now
!

"What do we have time for, Cam?" She was almost purring, her tongue wetting her lips expectantly.

Cameron grinned and bent to nip her full lower lip. Then he lifted her hips around him and, with a powerful thrust, showed her.

T
HEY WOKE SLOWLY, drowsily, tangled in sleep’s embrace, Cameron pillowed by Acasia’s softness, Acasia trapped happily within his arms.

Sunlight stroked them, raising beads of sweat on their skin. Tree frogs chirped steadily, heralding rain, and a toucan burred somewhere close by, rattling its bill indignantly. Voices rose and fell in the clinic, subsiding when a loud flapping filled the air.

Acasia froze, then remembered that it couldn’t be Dominic, and relaxed with a fleeting sense of disaster narrowly averted. Cameron only smiled sleepily at the sound, imagining it to be blood, his and Acasia’s pounding in unison. The flapping faded, and Cameron raised his head.

"Hi," he said, pleased to see her.

Acasia stretched like a preening cat, equally glad to discover he was not the product of another vivid dream. "Hi, yourself."

"Sleep well?"

"Oh, yeah."

Mouths met in luxurious hello, curving idiotically.

"You are definitely coming home with me somehow," Cameron informed her.

"Oh? Now who’s being arrogant?"

"You thought I didn’t learn anything from you when we were kids?"

"No, actually, I thought you came down here to take a refresher course in dictatorship from Sanchez."

"Hell, no. I knew all that stuff a long time ago. How do you think I keep my employees in line?"

Acasia grinned. "Hire someone to do it for you?"

"Ouch. That’s low." He turned his head to nibble Acasia’s ribs until she was breathless with laughter. "Doesn’t constantly tap–dancing on my ego bother you at all?"

"Uh–uh. A truck could run over your ego without damaging it. Besides—" she grabbed the hand that had begun to tickle her other side and tugged Cameron up level with her mouth "—somebody’s got to do it."

Cameron nuzzled a corner of her smile. "And you were elected by popular vote."

"Nope, self–appointed. You know, like you’ve appointed yourself my keeper." She drew the tongue tracing her upper lip into her mouth and sucked it deeply until Cameron groaned and grew hard along her thigh.

In retaliation he tangled his hand in her soft yellow curls, teasing her thighs open to steal liquid pearls from their heated safe, beckoning her hips with the rocking motion of his hand. Acasia drew up a knee and lifted herself to him, offering, taking. "You feel too good." She sighed. Tendrils of flame licked at her core, and she arched and gasped and gave herself fully to his control.

Her trust entranced him, made his arousal immediate and violent and undeniable, and he gave himself to her in kind, sinking deep, urging her to the brink and then losing himself, joining her, blending souls.

"Lord, woman, how do you do that?" Cameron asked fervently when he’d regained some semblance of control.

Laughter, husky and intimate, washed over him. "I was about to ask you the same thing."

Cameron turned onto his side and cuddled Acasia from behind.

"Mmm." She sighed, wiggling nearer, imprinting his warmth on her memory, denying the sluggish disquiet that pricked her conscience. Or perhaps it was the other way around; perhaps she denied conscience, which roused her more cautious second nature, disquiet—

Cameron was aware of when her mood changed, but uncertain of how to ask why. When he rolled her onto her back and smoothed her cheek and she shut her eyes, he knew that "why" was not the place for this relationship to begin.

Acasia opened her eyes at the tenderness, then slipped her arms around his neck and raised her head to kiss him.

"Acasia Jones," called a civil British voice from somewhere beyond the door, "your brother says I’m not to cross the line he’s drawn on the floor. Have I risked life and limb to rescue you while you were, so to speak, having an effing good time?"

Well, that was certainly one way of putting it. And it deserved a reply in kind.

"Go ’way, Jules. I’m—" She looked at Cameron, who grinned and kissed the end of her nose. "We're still having an effing good time."

"Get a move on, Jones. Lift–off on the Zaragozan Liberation Express is at T minus fifteen and counting." The words were light, the meaning explicit: let’s get the hell out of here!

"Oh, be civilized," Acasia protested.

"I haven’t peeked, have I?" Julianna pointed out. "Come on, let’s go. I have news flashes, fresh coffee and day–old muffins for in–flight, and Fred would like to know precisely where you were birthing babies yesterday. The sooner we take this show on the road, the sooner you can resume—"

"Shut up!" Acasia said, and punched Cameron none too gently when he sputtered with laughter over her discomfiture. "Both of you."

Chuckling, Julianna left, and Acasia and Cameron rose to dress.

The goodbyes they made a few minutes later were brief.

"Smith," said Fred.

"Jones," Cameron returned.

They didn’t shake hands, didn’t smile, didn’t voice what they were thinking. A curt nod was left to say it all.

Acasia stepped in to hug her brother. "I said hello to Angelo for you yesterday."

"Did you now?"

"He sends his regards."

"Uh–huh."

She took a step back and looked up at Fred. "Yeah, so uh… watch your back, okay? I’ll see ya in a few."

"Let’s not make it too soon, huh?" He reached a hand toward her, dropped it and turned away. "Listen," he said, "take care, would you, Peaches? And for heaven’s sake, if you leaped without looking last night, just watch where you land." Then, hands in his pockets, he ambled away to get on with his day.

Acasia did the same. Cameron tried to catch her, but she brushed by him and went on to the waiting helicopter without stopping.

"Let her go." The cultured British voice was cool, and if Cameron hadn’t been looking at Julianna, he might have mistaken her tone as unfriendly. He looked her up and down. Acasia’s friend was completely unlike her: ice to Acasia’s heat; aloof and elegant where Acasia was solidly graceful; cool and uninvolved where Acasia was passionate. Like Acasia, she was not a woman who took to friendship easily—or lightly. Was not a woman to betray a thought—or a friend.

He met her pale blue gaze steadily. "I can’t."

Julianna understood. "Well, then," she said dryly, "I guess you’d best be careful."

W
HEN ACASIA HAD been three, Simon Jones had introduced his daughter to his philosophy of life: Keep moving if you want to stay whole and healthy.

When she asked what that meant, he explained that if you didn’t want problems you had to live alone and travel light, untethered to possessions, without personal ties. He’d also told her that it was when you let emotion clutter up your life that you ran into trouble. And he’d known the moment he’d laid eyes on Moira Dullea, Acasia’s mother, that he was in serious trouble. Then he’d kissed Acasia on top of her head, handed her a tiny suitcase and told her to pack anything that she couldn’t live without, because she, Fred and Moira were moving to Amsterdam, where he would join them in a couple of weeks.

By the time she was six, she, Fred and Moira had lived in most of the major cities of Western Europe, and she’d learned to pack her suitcase judiciously, already understanding the difference between what was replaceable and what was not. And she knew by the time she was eight that there were only two things you couldn’t regain once you’d lost them: time and opportunity.

With the regretful sense that last night and this morning had been a childish attempt to recapture both, she watched Cameron climb into the helicopter behind her.

If you leaped without looking…

Oh, she’d looked, all right. She simply hadn’t paid attention to what she’d seen.

"Somebody steal your dog?" Cameron asked. "Or did Fred hand you the opportunity to wallow in second thoughts?"

Acasia looked at the finger he ran lightly down her arm to take away the sting of his words. "We shouldn’t—"

"Yes," Cameron told her fiercely, "we should. We did. And we’re not finished with this, with us. Not yet. Not by a long shot. I wasn’t looking for a new playmate last night, Casie, in case you hadn’t noticed—in case I didn’t make myself perfectly clear."

"There are things… history …. You don’t know…."

"Keep your history. You’re more important to me than it is."

"Tell me that again the day after tomorrow, or sometime next week, and maybe I’ll believe it for a while."

"I love it when you feel sorry for yourself, Casie. No one else has quite your flair for self–pity."

"Stuff it, Cam!" Acasia said violently. "You’ve been after me for two days to talk, and when I do—you want to talk self–pity? We’re all here because you felt sorry enough for yourself to jump into trouble just to see if you had what it takes to climb out."

"Are we back to that again? That’s not what this is about." He shoved a hand through his hair in irritation. "Don’t push me away, damn it. Don’t make that choice for me again."

He was gentle, insistent, but Acasia stared fixedly at anything but him. She didn’t want to push him away; she wanted to hold on for dear life, for the rest of her life. But that wasn’t how the world worked. She’d learned the hard way that sometimes the best way to love was to let go. She’d convinced herself after Lisetta’s death that if she’d walked away from her friend instead of fostering Lisetta’s dependence on her, maybe Lisetta would somehow have learned to fend for herself, learned how to keep herself alive.

She opened her mouth, but Cameron put a finger to her lips, shushing words she hadn’t spoken.

"If I’d kept looking for you instead of quitting when Simon told me I should," he told her quietly, "I’d have found you."

Denial was automatic. "It wouldn’t have changed anything."

Cameron smiled. "Maybe, but we wouldn’t have spent half our lives wondering, either." He took her hand, stroked the back of it with his thumb. "I’m too old to keep adding possibilities to my collection of things I haven’t tried. I want to find out about us, Casie. Get off that horse you’ve been riding away from me all these years and come home with me. Now."

Acasia studied the buttons on his shirt, swamped by his nearness and by needs she didn’t want to recognize, seeing dependence lying in wait with love. She’d learned a long time ago that he was crucial to her existence, but after Lisetta died, she’d run from him because she didn’t want to become Lisetta, didn’t want to cling to him in the same paralyzing way Lisetta had clung to her. It had been the most important thing in the world to her at that time, to know she could survive her nightmares on her own without Cam’s help—without turning him into the center of her universe, the only reason for her existence.

Now, even though he offered her the two things she wanted most, new opportunities and a chance for a different life, she still hesitated to accept them. The girl she’d been still lived inside her, locked in constant battle with the woman she’d become. One wanted to throw caution to the winds; the other wanted to know at what cost.

She looked at Cameron and said, "I want to come. I could make some time, but I told you, it’s not that easy."

He touched her cheek, offering her sanctuary. "I didn’t ask for easy, Casie. I asked for you."

Her laughter rose, dispelling morbid anticipation. She wanted so much to be with him, even if only for a little while. "I can’t offer you promises…."

Cameron shook his head. "I don’t want any. I just want a shot. Day by day, moment to moment, to be negotiated as we go, whatever we’ve got."

"You don’t mind a cloudy future?"

"I don’t even mind a little rain."

She couldn’t deny him. It was that simple. With her heart in her eyes, Acasia tossed away her concern over life’s price tags and said yes.

* * *

The journey out of Zaragoza to Maracaibo, Venezuela, was quiet and uneventful. In Maracaibo they landed at a private airstrip and traded in the helicopter for the cargo plane that would carry them the final leg to Miami. When they landed again it was late afternoon and the Miami sun was blazing over the tarmac, a huge, fiery ball suspended in a hazy sky.

"Damn."

Acasia spit the word out violently when the heat seared her lungs as the plane’s door was opened. The blistering heat only strengthened a mood that was growing lousier with each passing moment. She didn’t relish the confrontation she knew she was about to have with Paolo over Cameron, but unless she told Futures and Securities’ director an outright lie, it couldn’t be helped. If the truth were known, she preferred evasions where her private life was concerned, but not this time, not with Dominic and Angelo sitting in the background. She could be honest with Paolo, for Cameron’s sake, if not her own.

She licked flecks of sweat from her upper lip and used a hand to shade her eyes against the glare. From across the airfield a veritable tidal wave of people, led by a blue golf cart thundered toward her. A roar of sound preceded the onslaught.