Only Pleasure

14

Kia clenched her hands into fists, then forced herself to relax them before dashing the tears from her eyes.

Crying wasn’t going to fix this any more than it had fixed her marriage to Drew or her own hurt pride. It wasn’t going to help her solve the problems in her life, nor was it going to ease the horrible, gripping awareness that she was unable to hold the one man who fascinated her.

She inhaled roughly, glanced at the clock to check the time, then stalked to the phone. She punched the speed dial with a stab of her finger and waited as her father’s cell phone rang.

“What’s wrong, baby?” Her father’s concerned voice came over the line, and another tear fell.

“I’ll be in the office in the morning,” she told him. “I’m calling the lawyer, and Drew can shove his damned alimony, but if you fire him or attempt to destroy him, I’ll work for your competitor. Are we clear?”

There was silence. She had helped her father on the side for years with the coordination of deliveries and schedules, making suggestions and incorporating some of the ideas she’d had when she’d held the position before her marriage. Drew had demanded she give up the job, but she had kept her hand in, as well as her opinions. After her divorce, she had become more active, but hadn’t taken a position officially because she knew her alimony was the only thing that kept her father from destroying Drew.

It wasn’t all Drew’s fault. He had frightened her, yes. Infuriated her and hurt her when he struck her. But the grief her father could give him would have destroyed his life. He hadn’t destroyed hers. She hadn’t wanted his destroyed either.

“I’m the boss, little girl. You don’t order me,” he growled back at her.

“And I’m your daughter. You taught me how to play dirty,” she reminded him. “I’m certain Johannes Logistics would love to snap me right up. What do you think?”

Timothy Rutherford grinned in spite of himself. He sat back in his chair and glanced at his wife where she sat with her sister, Jillian Edgewood, and brother-in-law, Harvey.

Celia was watching with an edge of hope, listening to his end of the conversation silently. This was the daughter they had despaired of seeing again. In her voice, he could hear the confidence and, yes, the anger. Something had finally pushed her, finally pissed her off enough to make her recover the woman within the confused young woman he had known for the past two years.

“Nine o’clock in the morning,” he growled. “In my office.”

She gave a little sniff. “I’ll be there at eight. There are a few things I want to clear up with you before I begin cleaning up the mess I’m certain awaits me in the office.”

His grin grew wider. “You’d better be ready to work.” He kept his voice at a growling pitch. “Or this time Stanton’s out the door so fast his head will bounce on the pavement.”

Not that Timothy gave a damn what happened to Drew Stanton. He was efficient at his job, wasn’t in the office much, and Timothy rarely had to deal with him. He’d make certain the other man knew his limits where Kia was concerned.

“Very well. I’ll see you in the morning then.”

Kia disconnected the line and stared at the phone, then her shaking hand. She leaned her head against the wall and let out a single sob. Losing Chase was worth a night filled with sobs, but she couldn’t afford to give in to them.

She gave herself an A for effort for the past years, though. Three years married to Drew, where she had tried to be the wife she thought he wanted. Where had that gotten her? She had taken his alimony for the past two years and hated every month of it. She didn’t need the money. She was perfectly capable of working, and even if she wasn’t, the trust funds her parents and grandparents had left her would see her and any children she ever had comfortably through life.

For the past two years, she deserved much more than that squalid A. She deserved medals and a parade. She had made certain Drew kept his job and her father didn’t have the chance to destroy him. She had taken the blame for their marriage on her own shoulders as well as the gossip that surrounded it as she licked her wounds in private and tried to make sense of the woman who had been emerging from the divorce.

Her lack of confidence in herself had thrown her, though. In these two years she had learned that the marriage to Drew had somehow torn aside that shield of confidence and security she had always known. She had let him take that from her, and that was her own fault. It was intolerable. It wouldn’t be allowed any longer, but it was her own fault.

And she damned sure wasn’t about to let another man, a man who meant much more to her than Drew ever had, rip the rest of it away from her.

Straightening, she turned and stared at the couch. Her pillow lay on the arm, and it belonged in the bed.

Inhaling deeply she stalked over to it, jerked the pillow from the couch, and headed for the bedroom. No matter how long it took, she would learn to sleep in that damned bed. No matter how large it was, or how lonely it became. And tomorrow, the moment she left the office, she would stop and purchase that electric blanket. And perhaps a few adult toys to go along with it.

She undressed, showered. She washed the scent of Chase from her body, and if her tears mixed in the water, she didn’t worry about them. She toweled off, dried her hair, and moved to the bed. She crawled into the center of it and propped the extra pillows behind her back and held on to another. With the sheet and comforter pulled over her, she could almost imagine Chase was holding her.

Almost.

It would have to be enough.

The upstairs door to Chase’s apartment slammed with enough force that Jaci jerked against Cam’s chest where they sat on the couch, and stared at the ceiling.

The sound of boots stomping against the hardwood floor upstairs vibrated down, and her brows arched as she turned to Cameron.

What explanation was he supposed to give her? He stared at the ceiling, and his chest ached. He could feel the echo of the wild, tumultuous emotions raging through his brother and wished there was a way to make it easier.

“What the hell is going on up there?” Jaci asked slowly, frowning as he pulled her tighter into his arms. Cam thanked God he didn’t face the nights alone anymore.

Cam sighed at her question. “He’s falling in love.” If he hadn’t already fallen. Kia Rutherford had always been a weak spot with Chase. Cam did not doubt that Chase had always felt something for her.

“So that’s worth slamming his door off the hinges and pounding on his floor?” she asked skeptically.

Cam shook his head. “Not a bad thing, sweetheart. But for Chase, possibly, a little unfamiliar. He’s not going to handle it well at all.”

He stroked her arms, remembering how he had fought falling in love himself, how hard letting go had been, how difficult to admit to the feelings that had taken root inside him.

“I bet Kia’s not pounding the floors.” She sniffed. “Probably crying into her pillow. He’s going to break her heart, isn’t he?”

Cam pulled her closer. “Did I break your heart?”

“Dented it a little. Maybe.” She had shed tears for him, ached and hurt for him, but her heart had always been whole and had wholly belonged to him.

He smiled against her hair. “It’s a guy thing. It makes us vulnerable. All our pride, our emotions, and everything we are get tangled up around one person who could so easily destroy it. It’s the warrior instinct, losing a battle to a silken, soft, defenseless woman. We’re brought emotionally to our knees. Chase will fight it every step of the way.”

“Why?” She shook her head, leaning back to stare up at him, obviously trying to make sense of it. “Why would you want to?”

Cam shook his head. “That first realization that your heart, soul, strength, everything you are, belongs to someone else isn’t always easy, Jaci. Because a man realizes how easily it can be taken from him, either by death or by design or pure ignorance on our own part. That instinct, that knowledge, when it first awakens, is a damned frightening thing.”

“You don’t seem so frightened, Cam.” Her smile was all woman and made him harder than hell. But it also reminded him that he had fought those feelings just as hard as Chase was fighting them now. For different reasons, but he had fought.

“If I lose you, I lose myself, and I know that. But holding you, the pleasure and the need and the hunger hold the fears at bay. But have no doubt, any man who tried to take what’s mine would die. And if death should steal you from me, Jaci, then I’d follow you swiftly.”

He watched her eyes well with tears, watched a single drop ease from them.

“I love you the same, Cam,” she whispered. “Always. Forever.”

He held her to him, his gaze going to the ceiling again as he prayed Chase lost the battle he was fighting inside himself.

Losing Jaci would kill Cam. But having her completed him. It was a completion his brother and Kia deserved.

Chase stomped to the sink, jerked the whiskey from the cabinet, and sloshed the dark amber liquid into a shot glass before tossing it back and grimacing at the fiery blast that hit the back of his throat and flowed to his stomach.

Hell, it had been a long time since he’d done more than sip at the liquor. Many years since he had upended a bottle to see how much he could take in one long drink.

He’d set the liquor aside when he turned nineteen and had rarely looked back. Until now.

He thumped the bottle on the counter and turned away from it. He plowed his fingers through his hair and stared around the huge, open apartment. Living room, kitchen, and dining room were open, just as they were on Cameron’s level. Two bedrooms, bath, and washroom were roomed off, though, but were large, open, and airy once a person stepped inside. And there was space to add rooms if he needed to, if he and Cameron did as they had once talked about doing. Raising their families here, always a part of each other. Always brothers and family.

Those plans had been developed too many years ago. The drunken ramblings of two young men with nothing to hold on to but the future. At the time, Chase had known it was his dream, not Cam’s. Now Cam had a fiancée, and he was dreaming the dream, and here Chase sat, staring into the darkness amid the shit he had collected over the years.

Only in the past months had Cam begun picking from the family pictures Chase had kept when they sold their parents’ home and property to fund the rest of their lives.

Chase had sworn, the day they sold it, that he would never again lose something that belonged to him. Cameron, too, had needed to sell it, to sever all ties with the county, the small town, where he had known nothing but hell. For Chase, it was bittersweet.

He’d taken the collected memories, the quilts their mother had made, the family pictures and albums, the mementos that were priceless to him, and he’d stored them until they bought this warehouse. Until he had built the rooms and brought in the past that created him.

One of the quilts was on his bed and others lay over the back of the couch, as well as the spare bed. His mother’s prized bedroom suite was in the spare room. The antique dining set was carefully polished by the cleaning lady every week and sat peacefully in his dining room.

And here he was alone.

What the hell had he saved these things for? They didn’t fill the hole he had always felt in his life, and didn’t ease the bleak knowledge that there was no one to share them with. A knowledge he had only begun to realize.

I feel sorry for you, Chase. One of these days you’re going to realize just how damned little anyone cares for you!

That accusation drifted through his head. Joannie Lemaster, his first live-in lover, hadn’t exactly stinted on giving her opinion when he had walked out the door that night to return to work. He had been a federal agent, he had a job to do, and that night he had nearly died doing it.

He’d awakened in the hospital days later, and Joannie hadn’t been there. When he came home, she had been gone. He’d walked into an empty apartment, and the loneliness had slammed inside him.

Several years later he remembered waking alone, sitting up in the bed, his chest on fire, a dream of death and blood so vivid in his brain that his first thought had been of his brother. The next day, he’d received the call he’d been dreading since Cam joined the military.

Cam was near death. They hadn’t expected him to survive. He’d flown to Cam’s side, certain he was going to lose the last link to anyone who truly knew him. And it was his fault. When he returned to the States with his brother, his new live-in lover had left, just as Joannie had. That one he had even put effort into. He’d tried not to be distant. He’d called her when he flew out of the country and called her daily until the day before he flew home with Cam. And she hadn’t even told him she was leaving.

The part that had really hit him was that, that time, the abandonment hadn’t even hurt. He’d made certain she was okay; he’d called and told her goodbye and gone on with his life.

He hadn’t let himself get close to anyone; by then, he’d forgotten how to become close. He’d held his lovers at arm’s length, and his friends even more distant. Only his brother was close to him, and Cam had his own shields in place. There was no risk. Chase had made certain there was no risk in his personal life.

Now there was Kia.

He wasn’t letting go of her so easily. He had tried. God knows, he had tried to remain distant from her, but it hadn’t worked.

He pushed her away with one hand and dragged her closer with the other. It was no damned wonder she was ready to throw something at him.

All the old fears rose inside him where Kia was concerned. The darkness inside him, the intensity. Sometimes he demanded too much from his lovers, he thought. He wanted to know them, he wanted to hear their secrets, know their hearts, yet he’d always held his own back. He wanted to know where they were when they left, needed to be confident they were safe.

Women were softer, they were gentler, and they could be taken so easily. Just as his parents had been taken, as Cam had nearly been taken.

And Moriah. If someone had cared enough about her to recognize the sickness eating away at her, perhaps he wouldn’t have had to kill her. He wouldn’t have had to pull the trigger and kill a friend to save his brother.

She had been sick, and no one had wanted to see it. No one had loved her enough to try to stop her.

And Kia didn’t understand that demon of fear inside him because he hadn’t let her see it. He couldn’t blame her for her anger or her own demands. It was his decision to place that distance between them and he didn’t have the right to be angry now.

But he wasn’t angry with Kia. He ached for her. Hungered for her. And he hated himself every second for it. Because he knew he wouldn’t be able to stay away from her. He knew he would go to her again, and again, and he would destroy them both in the process, because she didn’t know how to handle a man who couldn’t bear to hold her in the dark and let her go at the sun’s rising.

He turned back to the whiskey, poured another shot, and tossed it back. It wasn’t going to happen. He wasn’t going to let her go. He would have her again, or he just might die from the need.