Sexual Games [The Heroes of Silver Springs 8] (Siren Publishing Classic) (11 page)

She didn’t ask any questions about the other waitresses. Tonight was all about getting her feet wet, getting to know the current employees and the people who frequented the club. It was about watching the back rooms to get a bead on the office and how she could get inside to copy the hard drive from the computer to the USB device hidden in her anklet. It was about making everyone comfortable with Jacqueline so that maybe, just maybe, she would find herself in one of their confidences enough for them to spill a portion of the proverbial beans.

“And he’s still allowed in here?” Mallory widened her eyes for effect. “Wow!”

Sasha shrugged. “He’s been banned a couple of times, raised a stink about it, and the boss man let him back in. The slime ball is connected, if you can believe that.”

Mallory actually felt her ears perk up. “Really? How?” She didn’t hesitate to ask, hoping what Sasha likely deemed as general Stardust gossip would reveal far more.

Sasha rolled her eyes. “He’s got an uncle or brother or cousin or some shit on the ABC.”

The Alcoholic Beverage Control board. Yeah, Mallory could see why the boss man wouldn’t want to piss off a skuz-bucket like that. She could also see how a man like that could be involved in a trafficking ring.

“Who is he, anyway? You know, so next time he gets out of hand I can scold him by name.”

“Ha. If you do, make sure the music is low so I can hear it this time. His name is as classy as the man. Leroy Platt.”

Mallory’s lips twitched as she filed the name in her mind with a neon tab to pull up everything she could find on him when she hit her office tomorrow morning. If Tarantino didn’t beat her to it.

* * * *

Thaddeus didn’t know what Cameron drove, but he figured it out easily enough when a silver Corvette with a black racing stripe down the center of the hood pulled into the parking garage of Jackson’s apartment building and eased into a guest slot. Cameron looked his way, a smile unfolding on his lips that sent Thaddeus’s heart through a repetition of hard-core calisthenics. The purr of the Corvette engine died as Cameron shut off the car and got out.

Damn, he looks good.

He wore a solid black T-shirt with worn jeans and equally worn tennis shoes. He looked more excitedly appealing than Thaddeus remembered, his clothes defining every well-cut muscle to pristine perfection. Potent sexuality radiated from him as he walked toward Thaddeus, and the effect went straight to Thaddeus’s cock.

Thaddeus shifted his stance, attempting to alleviate some of the tightness pressing against his zipper. He felt Cameron’s gaze move over him the same way he was allowing his own gaze to do to Cameron, and prickles of heat sizzled over every ounce of his flesh. Cameron’s shoulders were broader than he’d realized, his arms and chest wider and bunched with raw power. Thaddeus raked his gaze down the man’s biceps, thick forearms, and strong wrists, instantly imagining what it would feel like to have those arms locked around him in a lover’s embrace.

“You look good.” Cameron put to voice the thought ping-ponging in Thaddeus’s head. His attention dropped to Thaddeus’s mouth and Thaddeus swallowed, his lips tingling as if he’d just been kissed. He had dressed for comfort and casual class, deciding on a green-and-brown striped polo shirt tucked into a pair of tight-fitting jeans and brown loafers.

“So do you.” He flicked a pointed glance at the Corvette. “Hot car.”

Cameron grinned in a boyish way Thaddeus understood. “I like toys. I have an SUV I use for practical purposes, but when I’m off duty, I like to play.”

“So do I.” Independently wealthy thanks to a family of old money, Thaddeus’s garage back home was chocked full of boy toys.

Cameron lifted both brows. “Something we have in common.” He shoved his keys in the front pocket of his jeans and turned, motioning with his head toward the exit of the parking garage. “Come on. You can tell me about them while we walk.”

Thaddeus didn’t start talking immediately. A gentle breeze moved the air as they stepped onto the sidewalk and rounded the apartment building. Nerves rocked his insides, twisted his gut, and sent a cacophony of thoughts bouncing into one another in his mind. He remembered the last time he had taken a walk with a man on a starry, moonlit night. Adrien had been the man. The location had been the Silver Springs beach. He had fallen for Adrien that night, really and truly fallen.

And spent the next year waiting for him to come back.

Thaddeus shut off that thought and concentrated on the man walking beside him tonight. He refused to dwell on the past, on the suspicion probing his gut that Cameron was the reason Adrien continued to keep his distance. If it turned out to be true, at least after tonight he figured he would have a better understanding of why.

“Tell me about your toys.” Cameron broke the silence, angled his head, and looked at Thaddeus with an expression of genuine interest.

“I just bought a BMW 650i convertible, vermillion red, black interior.”

Cameron gave a low whistle. “Sweet. Stick or automatic?”

“Stick, twin-turbo charged, V-8.”

“Nice. Took it cruising down the Billings strip yet?”

Thaddeus shot Cameron a boyish grin of his own. “The second I drove it off the lot.”

Cameron chuckled. “Yeah, I would have, too. So what else you got?”

Thaddeus scanned the storefronts that came into view as they rounded another corner and stepped onto a busier, nonresidential street. He recognized some of them, saw others in places where older business had obviously closed down. Waterston had changed a lot in the years since he had moved away.

He lifted a shoulder. “Remote-control gadgets, things that go bang, things that go boom, that sort of stuff.”

“Sounds like I should’ve asked you out to Toys“R”Us instead of a Chinese restaurant.”

Thaddeus laughed. “Now there’s an idea, put a Chinese restaurant inside a Toys“R”Us. I’d probably never leave.”

Silence fell between them, but this time it felt more comfortable, easy. Thaddeus’s gut settled, his nerves calmed, and he found himself relaxing in Cameron’s presence.

“This is the place.” Cameron stopped in front of the restaurant, one of the newer ones Thaddeus didn’t recognize, and pulled the door open for Thaddeus to enter first.

“Thank you.” Thaddeus stepped inside, his gaze quickly sweeping the room as the hostess greeted them and led them to a secluded table in a darkened corner. Like many Chinese restaurants, the place was dimly lit and immaculately decorated, with instrumental music playing softly in the background. The romanticism struck him as he took the seat across from Cameron and caught the intensity swirling in the man’s sea-blue eyes through the flickering candlelight between them.

Cameron held his gaze for several breath-taking heartbeats and Thaddeus’s arousal shot through the roof.
Christ on a pogo stick
. When Cameron looked at him like that, he wanted to climb over the table and attack the man.

“Maybe we should have gone for takeout,” Cameron said softly, as if he had read Thaddeus’s mind.

Thaddeus dropped his gaze to the table, shook his head, and felt his cheeks heat. “Am I being that obvious?” he asked on a half laugh and lifted his head.

Cameron leaned forward, resting his forearms on the tabletop. “No more than I am, I’m sure. I—” He broke off as the waitress approached the table to take their drink orders. “I’m thinking wine”—he told the waitress, then turned his attention to Thaddeus—“but I honestly don’t know what goes well with Chinese food.”

Thaddeus pursed his lips, wondering what Cameron had been about to say before the waitress interrupted. “That depends on your main course. Do you have a particular entree you usually go for?”

“Twice-cooked pork.”

Thaddeus nodded and addressed the waitress. “We’ll have a bottle of your best pinot noir, please.” He saw surprise move through Cameron’s handsome face as the waitress left the table, and he smiled, a little embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to take over there.”

“No, I’m glad you did,” Cameron said quickly. “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. I’m glad you do.”

Do I?
Thaddeus wasn’t so sure, but he had made up his mind before leaving Jackson’s apartment that he would simply see where tonight would lead.

“My family owns a couple of wine vineyards. All the Carter children learned at a very young age how to pair wine with food, even though we weren’t allowed to drink more than a sip with each course.”

“I gather your family is rich.”

Thaddeus rolled his eyes. “Ridiculously. Carter family reunions have been known to make magazine headlines.”

“Son of bitch,” Cameron whispered, and Thaddeus saw when realization took hold. “Carter. As in Carter Industries and a crap load of other stuff. You’re a local boy.”

“It’s been years since I lived here. The city has changed a lot since I left. But, yeah, my family is from Waterston.”

“How did I miss that? I didn’t make the connection until now.” Cameron grimaced. “I’m not sure I would like that much, being in that kind of spotlight, trying to live up to those kinds of expectations.”

“The pressure can be pretty daunting at times,” Thaddeus admitted. “But you learn to deal with it.”

“Is that why you’re staying with Jackson instead of with your parents at the Carter family mansion while you’re in town?”

“That’s part of it.” Thaddeus waited a beat. “Terri is the other reason.”

“You don’t think your family would like her.” Cameron made it sound like more statement than question, but Thaddeus answered anyway because he knew the other man didn’t quite yet get it.

“Just the opposite. She’s classy in her own way, beautiful, fantastic, with a personality that doesn’t stop. My family would absolutely adore her.”

“Ah, and wonder why you aren’t
with
her, with her. I get it now.”

“Exactly. I mean, they know I’m gay, and they stopped trying to change it a long time ago, but, well, I don’t want to give them any encouragement to start again.”

The waitress returned with their wine, poured a splash into Thaddeus’s glass, and waited. Thaddeus nudged the glass toward Cameron, who eyed him as he lifted the glass and sipped.

“That’s good.” He licked his lips and Thaddeus watched the path his tongue took, his own tongue burning to follow, to taste and tangle.

“Wait until you taste it with the twice-cooked pork.”

Cameron placed their order and filled their glasses.

Thaddeus studied the man for a long moment over the rim of his wine glass as he drank, then set it back on the table. “What about you? I know you have a sister here. Is the rest of your family here, too?” He had put it together that the woman in the photo with Cameron and Jackson he had seen on Jackson’s bookshelf was Cameron’s sister, Mallory.

“There isn’t anyone else besides my mother. She lives in town. My father was killed in nineteen eighty-three in Operation Urgent Fury.”

“Wow, I’m sorry.” Thaddeus remembered by the end of the invasion of Granada, codenamed Operation Urgent Fury, the United States armed forces had sustained eighteen causalities and as many as one-hundred-sixteen wounded soldiers.

“He died serving his country, doing what he loved. Being a Marine was the most important thing in his life, outside of my mother, Mal, and me, of course.”

“I can’t imagine losing one of my parents. I know it will happen someday, but…” Thaddeus let the sentence trail off and shook his head.

“It’s hard to lose someone you love, even harder to watch someone else you love try to learn to live without them. Seeing my mother, the way she’s been since my father was killed, it shows me I never want to go through something like that, you know? I was five when he died, and Mal was barely a year old. We grew up without him. Mom did a fabulous job, but she never remarried, never met anyone who could take my father’s place. The whole experience made Mal and I loners to a point.”

It made you afraid to love, Thaddeus suspected but didn’t voice the thought. “Your dad was a Marine, yet you and your sister landed in the FBI.” He changed the subject. “How did that happen?”

Cameron chuckled. “Jackson started it. His family lived here when we were growing up. His father and brother moved to Silver Springs. Jackson stayed. I can’t really remember what set the whole career goal in his head, but the more he talked about growing up and joining the FBI, the more I wanted to do it, too. Mallory stuck to us like glue and inevitably followed us.”

Cameron picked up his glass, took a long swallow, and asked, “What about you, rich boy? You’re family owns more companies than I can count and you become a firefighter. What’s up with that?”

Thaddeus told him the story, starting all the way back with Thaddeus Leopold Carter II and the man’s dream of being a firefighter engineer for the Waterston FD. The waitress returned with their entrees and they settled into conversations that jumped from one subject to the next. Three hours passed with the feeling of mere minutes. They likely would’ve talked longer if the restaurant hadn’t started to close around them.

“I guess that’s our cue to leave.” Cameron grinned as he tossed enough cash to cover the check and tip onto the table and got to his feet.