Sexual Games [The Heroes of Silver Springs 8] (Siren Publishing Classic) (27 page)

Jeez, what are you thinking?

He hadn’t considered what it would look like if someone saw him out here. Then again, no one here knew him. They didn’t know he and Cameron had spent several fantastic hours together mere nights ago. They were unaware that Thaddeus couldn’t seem to get those hours out of his head, couldn’t stop thinking about Cameron and how badly he wanted a repeat of that night.

But that’s not why you’re here.

No, it wasn’t. He had come to see if Cameron was all right, to offer a shoulder if the man needed one, to…

Oh, hell, he didn’t really know why he had come here. If Cameron needed a shoulder, he had Jackson, his best friend and a man who would need comfort just as badly if the worst had happened today. He should have gone to Jackson’s apartment and waited for him to come home with news.

Thaddeus pushed off the bumper to do just that when he spotted a figure walking toward him in his peripheral vision. Cameron looked beat, defeated. Thaddeus couldn’t see his face in the darkness, but he saw the man’s step falter slightly when he spotted him.

Bad idea.
He definitely shouldn’t have come here.

Cameron’s steps brought him into the light of the nearby street lamp and Thaddeus saw his face, saw his lips curve in a small smile that looked both happy to see him and exhausted as hell. His gaze locked with Thaddeus’s, and a world of questions and surprise swirled in his expression.

“How long have you been out here?”

Thaddeus’s gut did a decidedly nervous roll. “Not long, about a half an hour maybe.”

“You should have come inside.” Cameron stopped within arm’s reach of him. “The night guard would have called me for you. Or, hell, you could’ve called me yourself. You’ve got my number, baby.”

Thaddeus grimaced. “I didn’t think about it. Well, I did, but I didn’t want to bother you. I didn’t know…”

Cameron touched him, a soft glide of his fingers down Thaddeus’s bicep. “It wasn’t Mallory.”

“Oh, thank God.” Thaddeus released a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding.

“Yeah, but she’s out there somewhere and we don’t have a fucking clue where to look.”

“The fire investigator was still at the scene when I left. I don’t know how much more he’ll be able to find to help you, though. Whoever set that fire did a damn good job at covering up the evidence.”

Cameron nodded. “That’s what they intended.” He sighed, raked a hand through his hair, then winced when the movement caused obvious pain to his injured arm. “We’ll find her. I just hope we get to her before that bastard hurts her.”

“How is your arm? From what I saw of the burn, it looked pretty vicious. Terri said it’s borderline third degree but you wouldn’t let her do more than put some ointment on it and a bandage.”

“It stings, but she did a bang-up job treating it. Is she with you?” Cameron cast a cursory glance around the parking lot before meeting Thaddeus’s gaze again.

“I dropped her at Jackson’s apartment. He gave us a key, you know, so we don’t find ourselves locked out again. Of course, if she decides to leave before I get there tonight I’m screwed, but…” He shrugged.

“I could let you in again.” Cameron waited a beat, his gaze lingering on Thaddeus’s eyes before dropping to his mouth. He took a half step closer and put his hand on Thaddeus’s waist. “Or you could come to my place.”

Thaddeus swallowed. Being this close to Cameron again, having that simple contact of his hand on his waist, reignited the fire inside him that had been smoldering almost since the first moment they met.

“Is that where you’re headed?”

“I’ve been ordered to go home, change my bandages, and sit around going fucking crazy wondering where Mallory is and how the fuck we’re going to find her.”

“Aw, baby, I wish there was something I could do.”

“There is. You can come home with me, keep me company since I’m not going to get a wink of sleep tonight. Honestly, I don’t want to be alone.”

Thaddeus’s heart skipped a beat, and he slowly nodded. “I’ll follow you.”

* * * *

“Are you hungry? Want something to drink?” Cameron bent to stick his head inside the refrigerator and laughed. “I can’t offer you much. It looks like my grocery fairy has gone on strike.” He straightened and looked over the refrigerator door at Thaddeus. The man stood in the kitchen doorway, one shoulder resting against the frame, arms and ankles casually crossed. In that pose, he looked like a
GQ
cover model, and Cameron found himself wanting to rush for his camera, to capture the moment.

“I’ve got beer and water.” Cameron turned his attention back to the fridge and pulled out a beer for himself. The ice-cold bottle of water would probably be better at putting out this fire burning inside him for the man standing a scant few feet away. Thaddeus might be a firefighter, but he was damn good at starting them, too. “On the food side, there’s probably a couple of frozen pizzas in the freezer and a box of Twinkies in the cabinet.”

“Grocery fairy, huh?” Amusement danced in Thaddeus’s voice. “Something tells me she’s made sure you have the main essentials ready and waiting.”

Cameron glanced back at Thaddeus and grinned. “Yeah, I’m the stereotypical bachelor. Mal’s the same way. Jackson stays on both of us about our eating habits.”

“Beer. Competing tomorrow with a hangover would be horrible, but one won’t hurt. I’ve seen enough water today to last me a little while.”

“I bet.” Cameron pulled another can of beer from the fridge, popped the top, and walked closer to Thaddeus to hand it to him. He couldn’t stop his gaze from roaming over the man. His hair was charmingly tousled, his return gaze comfortable and mildly flirtatious. His SSFD T-shirt had black smudges on the chest, as did his neck and left cheek. “Did you want to take a shower?”

Thaddeus drew his brows together. “Do I smell that bad?”

Cameron laughed. “No.” He lifted a hand to Thaddeus’s neck and wiped at the smear there. Thaddeus angled his head at the touch, exposing the corded muscle that ran up the side of his neck. Cameron swallowed. The urge to run his tongue along that muscle made his mouth water.

“You’ve got black stuff on her neck and your cheek,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. Damn, touching the man drove him friggin’ crazy. Electricity zinged up his arm, sizzled in the burn beneath the bandages, and exploded in a blast of desire to touch so much more of this man.

“Maybe in a bit,” Thaddeus said huskily.

He licked his lips and Cameron’s gaze was instantly there. A craving to kiss, to taste, collided with the need to touch, and he forced himself to drop his hand. He had asked Thaddeus to come over tonight to keep him company, to keep his mind off Mallory, not so he could seduce him, for crying out loud.

“I didn’t get a shower after I left the fire scene today.”

Because he had gone to HQ to wait for him. Yeah, Cameron knew and, God, walking out of the office to find Thaddeus in the parking lot had offered a ray of sunshine to an otherwise horrifically dark day.

“We should probably take a look at your arm, put more ointment on the burn and change the bandages. I’m not a certified EMT, but we’re all trained on basic medical treatment.”

“It’s okay for now. You were pretty amazing today, you know?” Cameron took a step back and drank a swig of his beer as Thaddeus’s lips tilted in a boyish grin that made it almost impossible to keep his distance.

“It was great.” Something moved through his eyes that Cameron couldn’t quite define, and his smile quickly faded. “I mean, the fact that the place was torched like that wasn’t. Knowing that we couldn’t get the fire out fast enough to get someone in there to look for survivors, knowing that Mallory was believed to be inside…” He dropped his gaze and shook his head. “God, no it wasn’t great.”

“I know what you meant.” Cameron understood. The danger, the sheer adrenaline rush that came with it was what men like them lived for. “That kind of destruction, knowing that lives are on the line, it’s never a good thing, but the job, battling something so out of control, is what you love.”

Surprise flashed through Thaddeus’s eyes. “Yeah, it is.”

“Do you get to do it often?” Cameron leaned a hip against the counter and took another swig from his can. “You’re an engineer on the SSFD, right? Which means you stay with the truck on fire scenes. Do you ever get pulled away from it, ever get a chance to be in the rest of the action like you did today?”

“Sometimes. It’s not as rare as it used to be. Ryan Magee, he was the engineer before I signed on with the department. He’s lead nozzle man for Engine 1 now. We’ve been swapping out here and there lately.”

“I’ve met Magee.” He had been there on his first assignment in Silver Springs when Magee’s now stepson had been kidnapped by the Phay cartel. “Former SEAL, definitely a bad ass.”

Thaddeus chuckled. “That’s Magee.” He angled his head and seemed to be choosing his words carefully before he spoke again. “It’s a wonder you and I never met before the other night, given how many of the same people we know.”

“I’ve thought about that, too. Jason, Jackson, Magee…”

“Adrien,” Thaddeus supplied, and Cameron’s heart skipped a beat.

Shit.
Why hadn’t the possibility occurred to him? Jackson had thought of it. He had even tried to warn Cameron.

I’d be careful though. Thaddeus is from Silver Springs, too. I don’t know if it’s still happening, but when I was there, the DEA office was crossing paths with the SSFD quite frequently.

Think Thaddeus would be one to go home and gossip to the town?

No, but there’s a good chance he and Adrien are acquaintances.

Was it a good chance they were more than acquaintances? Cameron stared at Thaddeus, momentarily speechless. “You know Adrien?”

“Yeah, small world, huh?”

He knew, Cameron realized as he held Thaddeus’s unwavering gaze. His mind spun through all the late-night phone calls with Adrien, all the conversations they’d had about people and things going on in Silver Springs. Adrien had never once brought up Thaddeus.

“How well?” he dared to ask because, Jesus, what if he had unknowingly come between them somehow? He had suspected for a long time that he wasn’t the only man in Adrien’s life, but he hadn’t known for sure.

“Very well,” Thaddeus said evenly, his tone heavy with insinuation.

Thaddeus didn’t sound pissed. He didn’t sound hurt. Yet, Cameron knew those two words had been Thaddeus’s way of telling him that he and Adrien were, or had been, a whole lot more than mere acquaintances.

“Fuck.” Cameron closed his eyes and dragged a hand down his face. “Do I owe you an apology, a plea for mercy while you kick my ass?”

Thaddeus actually laughed. “I have no reason to kick your ass. I mean, I figured out, or was fairly certain at least, right after I met you that you were the reason he’s been side-stepping me for years, but that’s not your fault.”

“It might be,” Cameron admitted. “Adrien and I have been doing our own fair amount of side-stepping the last couple of years. It didn’t start out that way. We found ourselves working the case against Ving Kim Phay. You know about that fiasco, right?”

“Yeah, he talked to me about the case. Well, he told me as much as he could, anyway.”

“We started talking a lot, about the case at first and then one thing led to another, and we got closer.” Cameron thought he saw a dart of pain shoot through Thaddeus’s eyes. “We were never romantically involved. Hell, I never got close enough to kiss him, much less anything else.” He had wanted to, though. Christ on a pogo stick, he was so damn attracted to Adrien he couldn’t think about the man without getting a hard-on.

“You wanted to.” The certainty in Thaddeus’s tone made the words more statement than question.

Cameron nodded anyway. “I’ll give it to you straight. I wanted to fuck him. He’s hot, sexy, freaking amazing.”

Thaddeus’s lips actually twitched at that. “Tell me about it.”

Cameron chuckled. He couldn’t help himself. “When I realized what was happening between us, where things had the potential of going, I shut it down. I was honest with him. I didn’t want to lead him on, and I felt like I had been.”

“That was the last time you were in Silver Springs, right?”

“Yeah, right before we finally got Ving Kim Phay. Why?”

“It wasn’t long after that Adrien started slowly getting closer to me again. Then, a few weeks later, he started backing away…again.”

Cameron sighed. “Which means I
do
owe you an apology.” He tipped back his beer, downed the remainder of the can, and tossed it in the trash across the kitchen. “I cut off all communication between us for weeks. It drove me fucking nuts. Not talking to him, not hearing his voice, not being able to call him when I needed a ready ear, I felt like I lost a part of myself when I did that.”

“Are you in love with him?”

“No,” Cameron said quickly. The disbelieving look in Thaddeus’s eyes made him say it again, more forcefully this time. “God, no.” He shook his head and raked a frustrated hand through his hair. “But I can’t seem to stay away from him either.”

“Yeah.” Thaddeus laughed slightly, but the sound held more irritation than humor. “Neither can I.”