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eagerness to advance their own positions. She had no doubt that Patrick Doyle cared less for her safety
than for his own desire to be the one to apprehend Lover Boy. She wasn't foolish enough to think that
she really mattered to him, and she didn't care. She knew - more importantly, shefelt - that to Cameron,
she did.
She'd felt that caring the first time Cameron walked into her loft and made it clear that she would do her
job, but that she'd try to make it tolerable for Blair. She'd seen it manifest in horrific detail the day Cam
had stepped in front of her and almost died from the bullet meant for her. She didn't want to see that
again. She didn't want Cam standing in front of her for any reason, but certainly not for a reason that
could cost Cam her life.
Why couldn't you just have told him no?she wondered for the hundredth time. She knew the answer.
Cameron hadn't accepted this assignment just because the President of the United States had requested
her. She'd taken the assignment because that was what she did. That was who she was. Some part of
Blair could respect that. Some part of her could even understand it. But knowing it and understanding it
did not change what she felt. She didn't want or need Cam's protection. She resented that she needed it
from anyone, but at least she had made some form of peace with that.
What she wanted from Cameron was the one thing that she had given up hoping for, or had simply
stopped looking for, in another human being. Cam touched her in some deep place that others never
imagined existed, and that's what she so desperately needed. Cam didn't try to tell her to accept her
circumstances or to be grateful for her privilege, as so many others before her had. She was equally
oblivious to Blair's status, a welcome respite from the solicitous attentions of so many. Most importantly,
Cam understood her anger and forgave her fury.
She watched Cam walk around the corner toward her own apartment building, and after a moment, she
turned back to her empty loft. Seeing Cam, being as close to her as they had been just moments before,
had left her restless and edgy with the low throb of desire. It always seemed to happen when they were
anywhere near each other. She didn't want to feel it, and she didn't want to think about it. Her gaze fell
on a large oil canvas, and she studied it critically from across the room. She didn't consider the details at
first, but rather the gestalt, the sense of it. She felt it, rather than saw it. Slowly, after a minute or two, she
focused her attention on the elements of the painting - on the colors and contrast and movement of the
eye over the images. By the time she advanced from the window to stand in front of her work in
progress, her mind was clear and briefly, her heart was free.
Cam decided it was much safer to run - safer than seeing Blair again so soon. It had been the same since
the first time she'd met with her, this rebellion of her body in the face of good sense. She was aware of it
now, a simmering tension that ran along the tendons and the muscles and the nerves in her legs and
twisted inside like a starving beast. She knew what it was; she'd felt it for months before she had finally
relented. Being with Blair hadn't blunted the urgency, touching her hadn't lessened the wanting, making
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love with her had not muted the desire. She could feel Blair's skin hot under her hands and the hard beat
of her under her lips. She could taste her still.
There were ways to deal with the body's demands - safe, simple, unencumbered ways. Pleasant,
mutually satisfying, emotionally secure ways. She was reminded of Claire's note, left for her to find after
their last night together.
If ever you need - anything, call me. C.
Cam tossed her jacket on the bed, shrugged out of her shoulder harness and began unbuttoning her
shirt.Yeah, right, she muttered, stripping down to her briefs and pulling shorts and t-shirt from a
drawer.Simple.
She wasn't certain any longer that Claire's admittedly talented ministrations could assuage the hunger.
Still, physical desire - that she could deal with, one way or the other. It was more than just the wanting,
and that was the problem. It was the aching in her heart that tormented her. Blair didn't just arouse her,
she awakened her. Every emotion she had so carefully stilled came roaring back to life when she thought
of her. Blair's ferocious will stirred her even as Blair's tenderness, so invisible to others, comforted her.
Blair made her nearly mad with frustration and soothed her with the barest of touches. Blair devastated
her with a smile.
She hit the pavement running, desperate to stop thinking. She just needed a few weeks to assess the
seriousness of the threat to Blair. Once she had access to all the available intelligence, she could turn over
more of the day-to-day security to Mac. Maybe then she and Blair could talk, maybe then they could
-What? What? Carry on an affair under Doyle's nose? Risk Blair's privacy and the President's public
image with a backroom love affair that the media would make tabloid headlines with? Perfect.
She pounded steadily along the East River, although the scenery barely registered. She'd hurt her. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]