He’d taken two bullets, and the bastard that wielded the knife as he was bleeding to death on the ground had sliced not just his face, but his chest and upper arms as well, before Cam could use the sidearm he’d had in his hand.
That night had been hell on earth. Half his team had been lost in the ambush. Cam had been certain he would die before the extraction team made it in.
Silken-soft hands smoothing the material of the shirt back from his shoulders drew him from his thoughts. The fine cotton slid over his muscles, clearly revealing the damage, as the auburn-haired little sprite let a single tear fall.
“Hey, no tears.” He frowned, reaching out to wipe the tear from her face. “It was a long time ago, baby. Barely remembered.”
She shook her head, the soft fall of dark fire whispering across her cheek as her lips trembled again and her fingertips, like a breath of fiery sensation, eased over the slashed scars.
They weren’t as bad as they had been, but they were still pretty horrific. Deep slashes had forever marked his flesh. He’d been damned lucky the enemy had poor aim that night. The one bullet had done the worse damage, so close to his heart that just a breath closer and there would have been no saving him. Angels must have been watching over him, because the bullet had nicked a lung, missed everything else vital, and tore through his back. But he’d lived.
“I would have come if I had known.” Another tear fell as Cam watched her in confusion.
Chase had come to him, but there had been no one else to call, no one else to care that he existed for weeks within the shadow land of his own mind.
“Why?” He watched her expression carefully.
He had wanted her then. He barely remembered anything from those pain-ridden months, except the pain and his need for Jaci. And later, he struggled with his fear that the scarring would disgust her. Women were strange creatures at times, he had learned. The brutal slashes along his chest and back weren’t a pretty sight. And women did like their pretty things.
There was no disgust in Jaci’s eyes, though. The only horror was for what pain he may have felt, not the physical imperfection he now carried.
“Why?” Disbelief filled her eyes as they lifted to him. “Because I cared, Cam. I wouldn’t have left you alone.”
“Chase was there.” Who else was supposed to be there?
She shook her head, her lips pressing together to still their trembling. He wanted to lower his head and kiss them, to steal the saddened curve of them and fill her with hunger, instead of with pain.
“I would have been there, too. For as long as I could have been.”
For some reason, he believed her. Or maybe he just wanted to believe her.
“You would have been there for that, but you couldn’t stay, the night I brought you home from that party?”
Fire flashed in her eyes for a second. “One has nothing to do with the other,” she snapped. “Don’t be a moron.”
Now, there was his Jaci. Fiery, confrontational, speaking her mind, as she should be.
“It’s a logical question. Why would you have flown half a world away to be with me while I was dying, but refuse to share my bed?”
“Yours and Chase’s? I was only twenty-one, Cam.” She sniffed in distain. “Oh, shut up. I was just starting to like you again.”
She was kneeling between his thighs, her generous br**sts brushing against his lower stomach as she berated him, and Cam couldn’t help but smile. How long had it been since a woman had done more than close her eyes in distaste at those scars and whisper platitudes he didn’t want to hear?
“Did you stop liking me, Jaci?” he asked her then, lifting his hand again to brush the hair back from her cheek, as her fingers felt the ridged scars that covered his chest.
Her pert little nose twitched in irritation as her brown-and-blue-flecked green eyes, darker than his own, glared back at him.
“You’re pissing me off.”
He laughed at that. The sting of accusation was absent, but instead, he heard that hint of fondness he needed to hear. “How am I pissing you off? Because I want to surround you in pleasure, but I can’t tolerate a bed? Then, yeah, I have to concede defeat there. I guess I’m probably going to have to keep pissing you off.”
Her lips almost twitched. He caught the betraying tug at the corners of those luscious curves before she firmly steadied them.
“Why can’t you tolerate a bed?” she finally asked softly. “You want all my secrets Cam, but you’re giving me so little to hold on to you with.”
“I’m giving you everything I can right now,” he said. “And that, Jaci, is more than I’ve ever been able to give anyone else in my life.”
Could she go a step at a time? Could she accept being pulled closer to him, while he remained forever distant, and still keep her soul from being scarred?
The sound of a knock at the door caused her head to jerk up.
“It’s Chase,” he said, his fingers touching her hair.
“We don’t need Chase,” she whispered. “Why is he here, Cam?”
A second later the door opened and Chase stepped inside the room, his gaze instantly finding them, his expression sober, concerned, as he stared back at Jaci.
Whatever the reason why, it wasn’t the first time, and it was a need, at least for Cam. She stared up at him once again, feeling his fingers caress her jawline as his gaze darkened painfully.
It wasn’t something he just wanted. He wouldn’t take her without it. She could see it in his face, in his eyes, and she needed him. She needed him until she couldn’t breathe because of the need. And she couldn’t deny the heat Chase stoked in her as well.
Cam watched as she lowered her head, and her lips pressed against his chest. There, where the bullet had entered his body, her soft lips burning his flesh and sending hard, driving spikes of pure heated lust straight to his already tight testicles.
He stared down at her bent head, feeling her lips on his skin, and he wanted nothing more than to bury himself so deep inside her that he would become lost in her. And for a heartbeat, one pain-filled second, he wished he hadn’t called Chase. He could feel Chase in the room now, his worry competing with his own arousal. Cam pushed back the need for possessiveness. He could’t afford it now. Cam could have done without knowing his brother worried for him, about him, or the needs that whipped around them at the moment. But Cam couldn’t do without the balance, not now. The knowledge that as long as he shared her, she wasn’t totally his. And if she wasn’t totally his, then she could never be taken totally away from him. He had to have that, just for now.