"I should go." She glanced up, pulling back. "Good-bye, Walsh."
She leaned in to drop a chaste kiss on his cheek, with every intention of walking through those French doors. But he turned his head, brushing his lips across hers, and they both went still. The sweet, hot memory of the one kiss they had shared paled beside the reality of his lips against hers. With a groan, Kerris pulled the curve of his bottom lip into her mouth, the taste of him a forbidden pleasure she promised herself she would never know again.
His large hands wrapped around her jaw and the delicate bones at the back of her head, thumbs pressing against her chin until her mouth dropped open. He hovered there for seconds, savoring her breath flowing in his mouth in sharp pants before leaning forward. He sucked her bottom lip as she had done his, the kiss an illicit covenant between them. She groaned, pulling his top lip between hers. His tongue plunged in, frantically exploring the roof of her mouth, running over her teeth, bathing the lining of her cheek. It was mere seconds, but the outside world seemed to freeze, allowing them this slice outside of time.
The bright overhead light flaring the room into unnatural brightness shocked them both. Kerris pulled back abruptly, but not soon enough.
"Get your damn hands off my wife, Bennett!"
* * *
Cam crossed the room in a few steps, manacling Kerris's wrist and roughly jerking her behind him. Walsh heard her moan.
"You're hurting her," Walsh said, keeping his tone even.
He could still hear laughter down the hall from the few guests who remained. He wanted to spare Kerris the scene their raised voices would cause.
"Ease up, Cam. It's not what you think."
"Oh, that's good to know because I thought I saw your tongue down my wife's throat."
Grit and anger littered Cam's voice. He looked only at Walsh, not even glancing at Kerris. Cam's fury encompassed the three of them, squeezing the air from Walsh's lungs until he wasn't even breathing.
"It was a kiss, Cam." Walsh's calm tone belied the quickened beat of his heart. "It meant nothing."
"Nothing!" The word torpedoed from Cam's mouth. "It's been ‘nothing' since the day you met her, hasn't it, Bennett? You wanted my girl that first night and ever since, right? You think I didn't see it? That everyone hasn't seen you making a fool of yourself over her?"
There was nothing Walsh could say. It was true. That first night he had been bowled over. Enraptured. Practically oblivious to everyone at that scholars' ceremony except the slender woman Cam still held in a painful grip.
"Nothing to say?" Cam sneered, eyes slitted by anger. "All your life, everything's been handed to you on a silver platter, and I get this one thing. This one thing you want more than anything else and can't have."
"And you made sure you capitalized on that fact. Didn't you?" Walsh unclenched his fists at his side, forcing his breathing to slow. "How's it feel to have guilted your wife into marrying you? You knew how I felt, so you rushed to get her to the altar because you were afraid I'd do something about it."
"Maybe I did," Cam said. Walsh saw Kerris's sharp glance at her husband. "She was mine, Bennett. The only thing I ever had of my own, and you thought you could have her like you have everything else."
"That's not true, Cam." Walsh shook his head slowly. "I knew she was yours. I was attracted to her. That's all."
"Liar!" Cam dropped Kerris's wrist to lunge toward the man who had been like a brother to him.
Kerris quickly slipped between them, taking the brunt of Cam's weight, which knocked her back against Walsh and sandwiched her between them.
"Cam, Walsh still has a concussion." She held him back with her hand on his chest. "Tonight was … wrong, but it was just a kiss. We were talking about the kidnapping, how close Walsh came to dying, and just got … emotional. Nothing more happened and nothing ever will."
Nothing ever will.
The words reverberated through Walsh like a benediction. Though true, it rocked him to the core. Of course she would choose Cam. Her life was here with him. It was the only choice, but it snuffed out an unspoken, impossible hope that had hidden in his heart. That one day, somehow, she would be his. But no. She would do what was right. That was what he loved about her. That line of integrity that ran through her as surely as the river cut through the earth. A force, compelling and pure.
"So here's where the guest of honor disappeared to." Jo strolled through the door, a margarita in her hand, a smile on her face. She took in the tense triangle of Kerris, Cam, and Walsh. The smile froze on her face and then melted. "What's going on?"
"What's going on is that your cousin can't keep his hands to himself." Cam pressed against Kerris's hand, still on his chest, straining toward Walsh again.
"What have you done?" Jo spat at Kerris, her eyes snapping her fury.
"I'm … I'm sorry." Kerris ran the one hand she had free through her hair. "We didn't mean-"
"You didn't mean what, Ker?" Cam looked at her like algae growing on the river. "You slipped and fell into Walsh's arms?"
"No. Cam, just listen to me."
"I'm done listening. I'll deal with you later."
"Don't you hurt her." Walsh's jaw tightened until it ached.
"She's my wife, Walsh." Cam pulled Kerris from between them, moving her back behind him. "You don't seem to get that. You're one arrogant, entitled bastard, aren't you?"
"Maybe I am." Walsh stared at Kerris's distraught face over Cam's shoulder.
"You should go, Walsh." Her eyes begged him not to make this any worse.
"I know." But Walsh couldn't look away even now, clearly seeing the pain and the regret in her eyes. Feeling all of those things, too. "I'm sorry, Kerris. This was my fault."
"Yeah, it was." Anger distorted Cam's handsome face. Disappointment dulled his eyes.
"Let's go." Jo tugged on Walsh's wrist.
"You heard her," Cam said. "Go. And don't come back. We're done, Bennett. Don't come sniffing around my wife. I don't ever wanna see you again."
The pain of a lost brother, of the enmity that tangled like barbed wire between him and the best friend he'd ever had, sliced over the still-throbbing wound of his futile, thwarted love for Kerris. His heart was being ripped from his chest. He rushed over to the door, now desperate to get away.
"I'm going." He wouldn't allow himself even one more glance at Kerris. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean … If you ever need anything-"
"We won't." Cam's eyes were like diamond chips against his tanned skin. "Clear the hell outta here, Bennett."
Walsh and Jo walked through the door leading outside to the backyard instead of back into the party. Walsh refused to respond to Jo's questions and accusations on the way home. He withdrew, holding the taste of Kerris on his lips as long as he could, certain he'd never be that close again.
Chapter Twenty-Five
You fucking whore," Cam snarled, standing over Kerris, who sat completely still on the edge of their bed.
Kerris winced, biting her lip to keep from crying. She knew Cam could be vicious when angered, but she also knew he would not physically harm her. He leaned in, bringing them practically nose to nose. She braced herself.
"Is this how you show me you're my only, Ker?" Cam's blue-gray eyes sparked with rage.
"Cam, if you'd just listen-"
"You bitch! My best friend. Have you fucked him?"
"Cam, no." Shame weighed heavily, drooping her head until her chin rested on her chest. "It was just a kiss. It shouldn't have happened."
"No, it shouldn't have." Cam tossed the words back at her head like boulders. He paced back and forth.
"It won't happen again," she rushed to say. "We were both emotional talking about Haiti-"
"And why would he talk to you when he's refused to talk to anybody else, even his own mother?" Cam came to a halt to stand in front of her, a tightly held column of wrath.
For the same reason she had talked to him about TJ after years of painful silence. For whatever reason, Walsh had held the key to unlock those painful memories, to heal her wounded soul. And she knew she'd held the key to his. Walsh had been a salve to her hurt, and she had been a salve to his. She couldn't say that to her husband.
She sat in numb silence, waiting for him to spew more venom. She saw his great hurt, the soul-deep laceration she had inflicted tonight. She saw the hard-won, rarely offered trust that Cam had been so stingy with all his life, laying in tatters around them. And she felt low and dirty and unworthy. She deserved his rage.