Chapter 10

Cam stalked through the shadows of the other side of the room, shaking her hands. She could feel the firm muscles of his chest on the palms of her hands still. Her entire body thrummed with it. She rounded the bed to the soft glow that filled one half of the room.

“Would you light someplace? You’re driving me insane.”

“I can’t just sit.” Her emotions were jumbled with fear, anticipation and…God, was that lust? Was it attraction she was feeling? How? Just the thought of a man touching her was enough to send her walking to Canada in the middle of the blizzard outside. Unless that man was Jon, evidently, she thought in disgust.

There was a sense of safety that seemed to exude from him, and at the same time a blast of urgency left her breathless. Her body wanted him. Crazy as it was to even fathom, she’d nearly kissed him. Her body had flamed at the mere touch of his bearded chin on her neck.

For the first time in months, fear had taken a back seat to needs she’d thought she’d buried. Even at her most delusional Lucas had never put a tenth of the heat into her blood that standing in a room with Jon did. Just standing. It was beyond amazing. He made her want again, when her life had been all about running for so long.

She sat on the bed and curled her legs up Indian style. Her bandages pulled a little, but the pain pushed away the mist of lust that had her near hysterical. Concentrate on getting yourself out of this, Cam. Not on a man that was so far out of reach he should have been in the next galaxy.

She didn’t have time for romance or for someone as public as he was. God, wasn’t he married? She folded her hands over her feet and faced the window. “Jon, where’s your family?”

“In New Jersey,” he said with a sigh.

“Isn’t your wife worried about you?”

“She’s probably relieved that I’m gone.”

“Because she doesn’t understand you?” she asked dryly.

He leaned his head on the glass. “Yeah, you could say that. How can she understand me, when I don’t understand me?”

Happy to focus on something other than her own personal hell she leaned back on the pillows. “Midlife crisis?”

He snorted and tossed a sardonic grin over his shoulder. “I wish. If it was a midlife crisis then I could go get a young mistress, a fast car and burn through some money to make myself feel young again. I could live the cliché they accuse me of with my former pretty blonde hair and my perfect little life.”

She could practically taste the bitterness in his words. “But it’s not,” she prompted.

“No, it’s not something as easy as a midlife crisis; it’s more like lack of inspiration. Nothing,” he paused and the darkness seemed to feed his need to talk. “Makes me happy anymore. Not my music, not my work, not my charity work. Nothing seems to settle me these days. So I came up here to see if I could get my shit together.”

“And you get me,” she said quietly.

He turned to her and sat on the corner of the bed. “And I got you,” his eyes flickered in the firelight, intense, bright and hot. “And you woke me up for the first time in nearly eighteen months.”

“It’s probably just a short term thing.”

His hand covered hers and squeezed. “The timing is the only thing that’s off.”

“Isn’t this sweet? My wife decides to first desert me, then cheat on me like the whore I always knew she was.”

A ball of fire exploded in her belly as fear and surprise flared at the sound of his voice. She felt the harsh grip of Lucas’ fingers as he dragged her off the bed. She tumbled to the floor, her body still not totally recovered from her date with the tree.

“Get up, whore,” Lucas said through gritted teeth. He dragged her up as she scratched at his wrists for him to loosen his hold.

Jon vaulted over the bed, his lean athletic body thrumming with rage and fear. “Let her go, Lucas.”

“I see you’ve been telling your new man all about me, wife.” Lucas sneered as he dragged her back.

“I’m not your wife!” she spat out.

“A mere technicality.”

She blinked away the pain as he yanked on her hair. He couldn’t honestly believe that she would marry him now? She couldn’t make out Jon’s features in the dark, just the outline of his body, and the stiff posture of his fear.

“What are you going to do now?” Jon asked in a cool voice.

“Finish where I left off of course,” Lucas said calmly.

“She’s not going anywhere with you.”

“Oh but she is, Mr. Bon Jovi. It’s a shame you patched her up so well,” he dragged her close, she could feel his hot breath on her cheek and bile roiled up her throat. “Such a waste of time,” he said with the barest hint of regret.

Jon took a step forward and she froze as Lucas’ hand rose and the steel blade of his favorite knife glinted in the low firelight.