One Wrong Move Page 19

  Grinning again, she backed away and sauntered closer to the bed. She removed her top and tossed it to the side. Her shorts soon followed until she was wearing nothing but a bra and panties. Panties he’d touched when he went to her house to get her things.

  Panties he desperately needed to touch now.

  “Damn, woman.”

  She stood there as he ambled forward and touched her body in a light caress, trailing kisses alongside her neck and down her chest. Her hands went for his jeans and he helped her pull them off. His underwear soon followed, and she stroked him.

  Their eyes held onto each other as her warmth burned beneath his hands, under those sexy lacy panties.

  She backed away again when he tried to kiss her, standing up against the bed but not yet on it, teasing him. He continued his prowl, desperately wanting to kiss her but also wanting to see that glow, that fire in her eyes, that come-hither smile on her lips.

  “You’ve pleased me with nothing in return,” she said as she trailed her hands down his chest. “Now it’s my turn to please you.”

  “Pleasing you pleases me,” he said. “And we’re both going to enjoy this.”

  Their mouths came together like magnets, strong and pulling. They fell to the bed. He stroked his hands up the sides of her stomach to her breasts. Keeping his mouth on hers, he pulled her away from the bed, arching her back just enough to unsnap the hindrance of her bra. He tore his mouth away from the softest, most exquisite lips he’d ever tasted, and pushed her back down to take a nipple into his mouth.

  Heaven. This was heaven. The scent of her, the taste of her, the feel of softness and liquidity, velvet and solidity. His tongue played against the rigid peak of her breast. She found his hardness and tried to pull him closer, but he stayed back, needing to tease her, wanting to make this last but also wanting this to be the most incredible sex she’d ever experienced in her life, so she’d forget about any man in her past.

  “Touch me,” she said.

  He lightly nibbled her lip, teasing her as she had teased him moments ago, fighting his need to kiss her more deeply, keeping his mouth away from hers. “I am touching you.”

  “There,” she cried.

  He touched her moist center. She cried out and lifted herself up to him. He feared he’d mimic their time in the closet and lose control, so he pulled away to reach for a condom from his bedside table, trembling as he put it on. Her hands came to his, softly helping him. He thought he was going to lose it.

  His finger delved into her wet heat again, deep inside until she shook and cried, then he entered her velvet smooth core as she pulsed against him.

  In that one moment when nothing else mattered but the exquisite sensations of two people merging, he thought he was falling in love.

  ***

  Rayma

  “I was sixteen when I moved out of the house,” Rayma said. Camden was surprised she’d answered his question.

  They’d made love, napped, and now he wanted to know more about her.

  It was stupid to ask the question. Tell me about yourself. Tell me about your past, your boyfriends. There was no point in knowing more about her. He needed to distance himself, get on with is life.

  But he couldn’t. He wanted her, wanted to learn more about her.

  “I moved in with my nineteen-year-old boyfriend, who I thought was going to take care of me,” she continued. His gut twitched, and he forced himself to listen, forced himself to stop the urge to cover her body with his.

  “I thought I was all grown up, and I was so ready to get out of the house. I was still going to school and working after. Warren lost his job and swore he was looking, but he was an alcoholic, on drugs, and had all kinds of parties till all hours of the night when I was trying to sleep. I loved investigating, that’s the career I knew I wanted to pursue, yet I didn’t investigate him. I didn’t even suspect him because he promised he loved me and would take care of me. I came home early one night and found him with a girl in our bed. Turns out that happened almost every night.

  “I left him. Went to college by some miracle and worked hard, got good grades. Met Kevin right before I graduated. He seemed perfect, but no way would I let what happened to me happen again. James, who was working for the Austin Police Department, ran a background check on him. Kevin found out about it. He was furious and left, saying if I couldn’t trust him, we had no relationship. He’s married with two kids now.”

  Camden held her tightly and ran his fingers through the strands of her hair as he listened to her story, wishing he could have been there those many years ago to see her through.

  It wouldn’t have mattered. He would’ve been just as much of a jerk, maybe more so, in his immature asshole days.

  They’d slept off and on, cuddled next to each other, then made love again. She’d teased him, tormented him, promising payback for the teasing he’d done to her earlier. Afterward, he asked her again about her life, hoping it wouldn’t draw her away from him. To his surprise, she opened up to him, though he wasn’t sure how much he needed to know about her ex-boyfriends. It was a conversation he never had with lovers. It indicated an intimacy he never wanted to feel.

  Until now. With Rayma.

  “Then there’s Keegan,” she continued. “I was about to turn thirty and thought I was finally ready to settle down. I thought most men my age would be mature. Keegan…”

  Camden stiffened. Was she still in love with the guy? It hadn’t been too long ago. Was she still trying to get over him? “What happened to him?”

  “Have you ever heard of Wesley Webb?”

  “The racecar driver?” he asked, and Rayma nodded. “Hell yeah. I read his biography when it came out. I’m a race fan when I have time, but I rarely do. I keep up with the goings-on.”

  “His wife, Caitlyn, the one who wrote his biography, was my best friend and roommate in college. If you’ve read the book, you’ve heard about Keegan. And you’ve heard about me.”

  “You were her best friend?” Camden rose, and she had to take her head from his shoulder to let him. He needed a better glimpse of her.

  “Yes.”

  “My God.” He remembered the story. It had been plastered all over the newspapers—paper and online—at the time, and when the book finally came out, Camden snatched it up and read it. Wesley Webb found out his real father was actually an uncle he never knew existed. The uncle had a son, Keegan. The two of them were living with stolen identities and had committed a host of crimes to cover it up, including murder. When Rayma found out the truth, Keegan and his father locked her and Caitlyn in a basement, intending to kill them.

  Her life had been hell. No wonder she didn’t trust men.

  “There’s more,” Rayma said.

  More? How could there be more? What else had this woman been through? And why had he considered it a good idea to not read her files?

  “The man I thought was my father abused little girls. And boys.” Her voice cracked.

  His throat barely opened for his next words. “Did he hurt you?”

  “He tried. The first time, it was just a light touch, thank God. The next time, I ran away from him before he could do any damage and I told my friend. She told her mom. Come to find out, he had abused her and some other kids. Some I didn’t know, some I did.”

  Camden wanted to jump up and find the bastard. “I should kill the—”

  “No,” she interrupted. “He paid his penance. I survived, became stronger. That’s who I went out to meet today.”

  “It made you stronger?” he asked, trying to mask the creeping animosity. Men who hurt children were scum, and Rayma would always feel the effects from what her purported father had done.

  “It did,” she said.

  Camden disagreed. “Do you call not trusting people becoming stronger?”

  Rayma shrugged, her shoulders brushing his skin. “I guess I’ve never really trusted people, have I?”

  Camden, propped on one arm, leaned over her. His thumb traced h
er jaw, down to her lips. “With good reason,” he said.

  She shuffled to sit up, and he moved aside to let her. “Wouldn’t you have read this in my files?”

  “I haven’t read your files.”

  “You…” Her voice trailed, and she shifted against the headboard. He wanted to discourage any doubts she had, but wasn’t sure how to do so if she didn’t believe the truth.

  “Haven’t read them,” he finished.

  “Why not?”

  Camden leaned on the headboard next to her. “Because I didn’t want to. I didn’t feel right doing so.”

  “But they do exist?”

  “Sure. There’s a file on you. As undercover officers, we have to ensure our safety and those around us. That means knowing everything there is to know about the people who are directly affecting our jobs.”

  “So your partners—”

  “No, not all of them. Moore has seen your files, but he doesn’t know everything. He doesn’t know what you’ve told me about your boyfriends. There’s nothing personal like that. He offered to let me see them, but I told him it wasn’t necessary as long as I knew you weren’t crazy or didn’t have someone crazy after you.”

  Rayma giggled and smacked his bare chest. “Really? Someone crazy like Darrell?”

  Camden gathered her in his arms and spun her around to straddle him, then nuzzled her breasts. The moment was too good to let things go to hell. “Or someone crazy like me.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Darrell

  Darrell sat in the darkness of his office and considered what Lacey had told him. Heavy cigar smoke hung in the air, relaxing him in a way nothing else could.

  He had a lot to lose and very little to gain as far as people went, and he never trusted easily. To hear that Cyndi was an undercover agent disconcerted him. Not that he had anything to worry about. Cyndi didn’t know anything about him. His entire life was like one great big undercover operation, and he knew how to hide. It wasn’t the first time he’d been investigated, probably wouldn’t be the last time, but it pissed him off. Didn’t these damn cops realize they had nothing on him, never would?

  Darrell had a side that scared even him. Once someone crossed him, he agonized over everything he’d ever said and everything he might have done wrong, to the point he couldn’t control his thoughts, his temper, or his need to dispose of that person properly.

  Killing didn’t bother him. In fact, he enjoyed the terror in a person’s eyes just when they knew they were about to die. There was no greater power than to hold a person’s life in his hands. He never wondered if they had kids at home, a spouse, or parents to grieve for the child they lost.

  Killing didn’t bother him, but he didn’t like to do it. It created a new set of problems—covering up the crime, taking time from his busy schedule to see it through, making sure the right people were bribed. He had a few employees he trusted completely for those things, but then there were those who botched the jobs, as they had with Rayma. The less people who could turn on him later, the better.

  Like Shawn. He’d practically raised the boy. Never thought he’d betray him out of stinginess.

  Lacey. Mike. Rayma. Camden. They were all involved with one another in some twisted way. Mike and Camden were Rayma’s ex-boyfriends. Lacey was Camden’s landlord. Rayma, a television reporter, found out about Darrell’s operation before Camden was ever in her picture.

  If Cyndi was an agent, it wasn’t likely she was the only one sent to infiltrate his operation. They were like cockroaches. You saw one of the bastards and you could damn well expect a whole group of them in no time.

  So there was someone out there he couldn’t trust. Mike had been with him a long time, and before that, his father had been a part of Darrell’s operation. Mike was obtuse, a little on the naïve side, and a greedy son of a bitch. But he was faithful to a fault when it came to Darrell’s dealings.

  Rayma was an enigma. He wasn’t sure where she’d gotten the information she had. His people were checking, and so far all fingers pointed to Shawn.

  Camden. The best damn chef Darrell had ever employed, the best damn gofer he’d used in a while, and one hell of a good actor. Could Camden be a cockroach? Darrell didn’t know any agent who could withstand his tests without fail, especially after a few months. No one was that good. Camden had been with him nine months and hadn’t given him any reason to suspect he was other than he said he was.

  But he had to be sure. Before Dare let him any closer, Camden would be put to the ultimate test.

  ***

  Camden

  Camden sat in Darrell’s office and listened to him tell his story.

  “I’ve been dating a woman,” Darrell said.

  If they were true friends, Camden would tell him about the most extraordinary woman he’d ever met. A woman he’d spent last night with, woke up with this morning, and couldn’t wait to see when he got back home. All he could think of was Rayma.

  But he couldn’t tell Darrell that.

  “She’s married,” Darrell continued, his attention focused just to the left of Camden as if someone was standing there.

  For a brief nightmarish moment, he thought he’d ask him to kill a woman. A married woman he’d been dating. Killing was something he refused to do, even if it meant bringing down the man who sat before him.

  “Do you know a Lacey Bowman?”

  It took him a moment to comprehend what Dare had said. Irritation prickled under his skin, stabbing him from the inside out. The beginnings of a headache formed into a tight fist in his skull. His throat crackled, but he gulped down a cough.

  He wanted to kill Lacey, or at least shake the idiocy out of her, if possible.

  “I followed her home one night.”

  “I know a Lacey. She and her husband are my landlords for the time being.”

  “For the time being?”

  “I’m looking for a bigger place,” Camden lied.

  “I’m not sure I can trust her.”

  “You can’t, Dare. She’s a married woman. She belongs to somebody else.”

  Lacey had been dating Darrell right under their noses? What else had she done? And why hadn’t Camden noticed? Why hadn’t Moore kept her on a tighter leash? Had Moore put her up to this without telling him?

  He’d been paying more attention to Rayma than this case, and now Lacey wanted to destroy their chances of ever bringing Darrell Weberley down. What had she told him? Could she be trusted, or was it time to pull out?

  Camden could bust him now on minor drug charges, but he would only serve a couple of years and be a free man. No, he wanted him to go down and live the rest of his life behind bars, where at least the public could be protected from him.

  If Lacey didn’t screw it up.

  But at least if he was busted for petty drugs, he’d have a record, and he’d spend time in prison. Hell, maybe he’d pissed off enough people that someone would kill him and ease Camden’s concern about his getting out.

  Then there was Rayma to think about. Not that he didn’t do enough thinking about her already. It wasn’t fair to keep her in custody indefinitely, but neither could they just let her fend for herself. Darrell wanted her dead, and if she were left to her own devices, she would be.

  “I don’t know what to do about her,” Dare said.

  “Move on. Forget about her. Find someone else. Married women can’t be trusted.”

  “What do you know about her?”

  “I rarely see her. I deal mostly with her husband.”

  “What does he do?”

  Lacey and Moore’s phony careers had already been mapped out in case something like this ever happened, though he never would have imagined it would be because Lacey had done something so stupid. Camden knew exactly what to say. “He’s an oil and gas consultant. Makes enough money for them both. She doesn’t have to work and probably gets bored.”

  “You ever sleep with her?” Darrell asked.

  “Hell no. She’s not my type. Ha
ve you?”

  Dare raised his brows, wiggled them, then turned away. “Time to get back to work, Camden.”

  It was all he could do to continue working. When he went home that night, Lacey and Rayma were in the kitchen, Beacon sprawled on the table while the women were having toddies and laughing over some girly things.

  Anger boiled over beyond him even wanting to control it. He no longer viewed Lacey as a woman. She was a Special Agent with the DEA and could take a beating just like the rest of them.

  He jerked her up from her chair by the arm, his fingers digging into her soft flesh. “What the hell were you thinking?”

  ***

  Rayma

  Rayma jumped from the table at Camden’s unexpected outburst, and Beacon did a spin out on the table, bolting from the room.

  “Camden, what the hell is going on?” Moore asked as he rushed in, his hand resting on his gun.

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” Camden said.

  “Let her go,” Rayma begged. Camden was scaring her. He’d always been somewhat intimidating, but his anger was absolutely terrifying, especially when there seemed to be no reason.

  They’d left on good terms this morning, but something had changed. He had changed. All day she’d wondered what would happen when he came home, but never had she imagined his attack on Lacey.

  “What are you doing, Camden?” Moore demanded.

  Camden’s fingers dug into Lacey’s arm. Eyes wide and defiant, she flung her free arm into his face, but he caught her. She slumped and gave up her struggle, but her jaw clenched and she glared.

  “She’s an agent,” Camden said. “If she can’t take it, she needs to get the fuck out.”

  Rayma’s stomach tensed as she froze and watched the display. Lacey was like a can of gasoline sitting in the hot sun. One wrong circumstance would create a wildfire. She was different every day, like a woman with multiple personalities. Rayma didn’t trust her, nor did she particularly like her, but she tolerated her. They’d spent a lot of time together and laughed over drinks, but it was all in the name of business. They’d never be friends in the real world, outside of this safe house.