Wilde for Her (A Wilde Security Novel) (Entangled Brazen) (5 page)

Beautiful. Every inch of her. And watching her accept him into her body…

His. She was his.

He lost it. Still kneeling between her legs, he hammered into her and lifted her hips to meet each plunge. He hooked her legs over his shoulders and watched her breasts bounce as he went to town. The bed springs creaked, and the headboard banged against the wall until Eva grabbed the edge to steady herself.

“Cam,” she gasped.

“Yes. Keep saying my name. I want it on your lips when you come.”

Oh, it was on her lips all right. She ignited a second later, screaming his name, when he pressed his thumb to her clit. It was all he needed. He pumped his hips once, twice more, then found his own release in hard jets that left him shaking.

“Holy shit.” Eva’s legs dropped off his shoulders and thunked heavily to the mattress. “We should’ve done this a long time ago.”

Cam collapsed forward, catching himself on his hands on either side of her head, and balanced over her for a long time. Waited for his breathing to settle. “We’re gonna do it again real soon.”

She snorted. “I can’t move.”

That hollow where her shoulder met her neck was intriguing. He lowered himself on top of her, careful to balance most of his weight on his forearms, and traced the spot with his lips. She made a cute little sound somewhere between a gasp and a moan. He smiled against her skin and tested the area with his tongue. She squirmed. Yup. They were going to do it again sooner than she thought, and he was going to take his time with round two. Now that he’d gotten years of pent up sexual tension out of his system, he could slow it down.

Tease.

Explore.

Before the night was over, he planned to know every square inch of Eva Cardoso’s body by heart.

Chapter Six

As the first tendrils of pink lit the sky in the east, the slight change from complete dark to half-dark roused Eva from a doze and her stomach lurched. Overhead, the ceiling started a slow spin.

Oh, God. She was going to be sick.

She bolted toward the bathroom. Since all of her friends were men who knew how to pack away alcohol, she’d built up a decent tolerance over the years and hadn’t prayed to the porcelain god since college. She made up for lost time now, retching until she had nothing left in her stomach. Drinking all those shots in quick succession had been such a bad idea.

Eva flushed the toilet and brushed her teeth, then glugged some mouthwash directly out of the tiny complimentary bottle. But, no. The alcoholic burn made her stomach threaten another revolt. She gagged and spit it out.

Straightening, she surveyed her naked reflection in the mirror. Her hair stuck up around her head in a knotted mess. Her nipples puckered in the air-conditioned chill, and a vivid memory of a hot mouth teasing them had her dampening expectantly in the tender place between her thighs.

Sex hair. Swollen lips. Chin and cheeks chaffed by beard stubble. Happy nipples. She looked like a well-loved woman. So why did she feel so hollow?

Tell me to stop.

Oh, no. No, no, no.

With her head completely clear for the first time in hours, she staggered from the bathroom. No way did she have wild against-the-door sex with Cam. In the midst of her alcoholic daze, she must have superimposed his face over some other guy’s. She’d done it at least once before—okay, more than once. In fact, more often than she cared to admit, she’d let her imagination wander to him while she was in bed with Preston. But it wasn’t being unfaithful. Sometimes she needed a little extra something to reach orgasm, and the forbidden fruit fantasy was her favorite.

Fantasy
being the key word.

Please, not Cam. She’d be okay seeing anybody else in that bed except him. He was the only steady, uncomplicated thing in her life, and if she’d gone and fucked it all up—well, then she was no better than her mother.

Eva stumbled to a halt and wrapped her arms around her middle, gulping down another surge of sickness. In her absence, Cam—it was definitely him—had sprawled in the most awkward position, his arms wrapped around two pillows, one leg bent slightly at the knee, the other extended with his foot hanging off the edge of the mattress, and his body twisted so he was half on his stomach and half on his side.

He was naked.

From the foot of the bed, she had a perfect view of all his assets. Wide shoulders. Tribal tattoo wrapping his right shoulder and bicep. A slim waist and the sexy as hell dip at the small of his back dusted lightly with hair. A tight, muscular ass. Thick thighs.

And…everything else.

Semi-erect, his cock pressed into the mattress. His hips even moved in his sleep as if he dreamed of taking her again.

He had taken her, too. Completely. He’d dominated her and she’d let him. Worse, she enjoyed it. She’d never before allowed her lovers to take absolute control like that. So why had she let Cam?

Holy shit. She’d slept with Cam.

What had she done?

Panic kicked her heart rate into a gallop, and she couldn’t draw a full breath. She couldn’t face him in the light of day. What would she say? Thanks? And what about their friendship? Would he wake up expecting more than that from her?

I’ve waited too long to have you under me.

Oh, she couldn’t do this.

Frantic to escape, she gathered her bathroom things as quietly as possible. She’d already repacked her clothes in anticipation of her departure tomorrow morning, and her bag still lay on the floor, right where Cam had tripped over it. Her dress spilled off the corner of the bed and pooled to the floor like a splash of satin blood. She didn’t bother putting it back on, but stuffed it in her bag and found a pair of cotton shorts, a support tank, and a comfy over-sized T-shirt. Nor did she bother with a brush, opting instead to tie her hair up in a sloppy bun. She grabbed her gun and holster from the bedside table. A pair of flip-flops, her key card, and she was out the door with her bag slung over her shoulder.

She needed space. And time. And to be completely sober. Maybe then she’d be capable of processing this one night stand like a mature, rational adult.

Because right now, she sure as fuck didn’t feel the least bit rational.

…

Sunlight splashed over the bed, warm and cheery—and completely fucking merciless in its brightness. It stabbed through Cam’s eyelids like two flaming stakes, jolting him from a dead sleep. Groaning, he stuffed his head under a pillow with every intention of going back to dreamland until his brain stopped pounding. But now that he was semi-conscious, he couldn’t shake the niggling sense that something was…off. He eased the pillow away from his face and blinked a couple times at the light. What brilliant designer decided it was a good idea to line two of the four walls in the room with floor-to-ceiling windows anyway? Especially when one such wall faced directly east. Were people not allowed to sleep past dawn in Key West?

Okay, so it wasn’t exactly dawn. The alarm clock on the bedside table said it was a little after ten. But anything before noon was ungodly early after a night like last night.

Although, in truth, he didn’t feel half bad. Besides the expected hangover headache and some tightness in his lower back, he was pretty damn happy. He lay sprawled across the bed on his belly, the sheet in a twisted knot around his legs and hips. All of the pillows scattered the floor, save for the one he’d burrowed underneath when the blasted sunshine woke him—

Wait. The other half of the bed was empty.

Eva.

Cam bolted upright and hissed as his head made it known in no uncertain terms that it despised him at the moment. He disengaged his legs from the sheet and sat up on the edge of the mattress, cradling his forehead in his palms until some of the throbbing subsided. After several long minutes, he cautiously lifted his gaze to scan the room.

Her dress was gone. So was the duffel bag that he’d tripped over the night before.

“No.” He scrambled to his feet, crossed the room, and pulled open the closet, a small part of him hoping maybe she’d stashed the bag out of the way before a morning coffee run.

Nope. Empty.

Bathroom, too.

The only thing she’d left behind was a thong hanging from the desk lamp.

“Goddammit!” Anger mixed liberally with despair into a nasty slurry in his stomach. He shoved the closet door shut hard enough to rattle it in its frame, than banged the flat of his hand against it because slamming it hadn’t been satisfying enough.

She’d up and left without waking him or leaving a note. And he bet when he got back to his room and checked his phone, there would be no call or text from her, either. She might as well have shoved a knife in his back before she took off. Would have hurt a helluva lot less.

The locking mechanism on the front door whirred and Cam spun toward it, his heart doing a fleetingly hopeful jig behind his ribs. So maybe Eva
had
gone out for coffee or—

The door swung open. And while the maid standing on the other side shared Eva’s caramel complexion and dark hair, coloring was the only resemblance between them. Small and curvy, the maid had a weathered,
been there, done that
look to her and she wore her graying hair in a tail tight enough to give her an automatic face-lift. She froze when she spotted him, the master key card dropping from her hand. It was on one of those retractable chains and whipped back to the clip on her apron with a
ziiip
sound that was unnaturally loud in the awkward silence.

And there he stood, his tackle on display for anyone walking by in the hallway. “Uh…”

The maid crossed her arms underneath her ample breasts. “You need to leave,” she said in a heavy smoker’s voice with only the slightest hint of a Spanish accent. After the initial shock of seeing him wore off, she didn’t seem the least bit fazed by his nudity, but he still snapped up his shorts from where they’d dropped last night and tugged them on.

“The woman staying in this room…do you know where she is?” he asked as he bent to retrieve his shirt.

Her disapproving frown only deepened. “Not here. She checked out this morning. Now you need to leave or I’ll call security.”

And there went his last shred of hope that last night had meant more to Eva than a wham, bam, thank you, sir.

Cam breathed out in a soft sigh of resignation then fished his own key card out of his pocket. He held it up between two fingers and showed it to the maid. “No, don’t do that. I’m a guest here, too.”

“Not in this room you’re not.”

“No, I’m not,” he agreed and shot one last glance at the bed. “I’m leaving.”

Vaughn wasn’t in their room when Cam got there, which he counted as a blessing. Boiling for a fight, he wasn’t fit for public consumption at the moment, and it wouldn’t have been fair to take all of his frustration out on his twin. He stripped as soon as the door clicked shut behind him and gave serious consideration to tossing his clothes in the trash. He could smell Eva and sex on them, and he wanted no reminder. But in the end, he folded them into his suitcase, then headed for the bathroom to start the shower.

The near-scalding water cleaned away the blackest part of his mood. He even felt marginally human again when he stepped out. By the time he dried off and dressed in a fresh T-shirt and his favorite pair of blue jeans, his headache had dulled and his stomach had settled enough that food sounded like a good idea. Preferably something greasy and artery clogging.

He grabbed his key card from the dresser and made his way down to the restaurant attached to the hotel’s lobby, all the while hoping he didn’t run into the maid again. Nothing like having a witness to your morning after walk of shame.

At the restaurant, he found Vaughn sitting in a corner booth with his SEAL buddies, Gabe and Quinn. None of them had much left on their plates, so they’d been there for a while already.

“Hey,” Gabe said when he joined them. “Thanks for your help last night with Seth.”

“Huh? Oh. Yeah.” Cam waved a hand and took the empty spot on the bench seat next to his twin. With everything else, he’d almost forgotten about that whole incident. “I didn’t do anything but talk to him.”

“At least he’ll talk to you,” Quinn said. “He shuts down around us.”

The scent of food made Cam’s stomach howl, but the waiter was nowhere to be seen. He reached over and stole a slice of bacon off Vaughn’s plate. “Well, you guys are technically Seth’s bosses. He’s not gonna want to air his dirty laundry in front of you. Does he have anyone else to talk to? A peer?”

Gabe and Quinn looked at each other, then Quinn shrugged. “The other guys on the team…they haven’t quite accepted him yet.”

“He’s being diplomatic. They don’t want him,” Gabe said in his typical blunt way. “They think he’s dangerous. Frankly, so do I.”

Yeah, that was an argument Cam wasn’t about to get in the middle of. And yet, he couldn’t stand the thought of Seth having nobody neutral to talk to on the team. “If he ever needs to talk, send him my way, okay? Jude has my number.”

“Thanks,” Quinn said.

From there, the conversation veered into lighter topics until the waiter finally showed. Cam ordered a double stack of pancakes, bacon, and some black coffee. The two former SEALs settled their bills and stood to leave, but Gabe paused and turned back to the table.

“Cam, you were Air Force, weren’t you?”

He lifted his coffee in a salute. “Four years, Security Forces.”

“Know of any pilots looking for work in the private sector?”

“Why, you hiring?”

Gabe nodded. “We need one before we take on anything more serious than bodyguard jobs.”

Cam thought about it, running through a mental list of his pilot friends. Most wouldn’t qualify for the kind of mercenary work Gabe dealt in, being either married with families or in stable careers as commercial airline pilots—except for Jace Garcia. The guy was a hothead, known for charging into situations like a bull, earning him the nickname Toro. He was smart, capable, and a bit crazy. Come to think of it, he’d probably fit in well with Gabe’s team. “There’s only one guy I can think of right now. Last I talked to him, he was flying corporate big wigs around Texas and hating every minute of it. I’ll give him a call, gauge his interest. Is there a way he can get in touch with you?”

Gabe produced a business card and handed it over, then after a round of goodbyes, the SEALs left.

Vaughn waited all of a half second before nailing Cam with a look that said,
all right, spill it,
and his hackles rose.

“What?”

“Where were you all night?”

Cam’s jaw locked. “You know damn well,” he said through his teeth.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. That was a huge mistake, bro.”

“I kinda figured that out when I woke up and found her gone.”

Vaughn shook his head and picked up his coffee. “Now what are you gonna do?”

“Can’t do anything till we get home.”

“And then?” Vaughn prompted.

He shrugged, pretending all kinds of nonchalance that he didn’t feel. “Then…I don’t know.”