When You Are Mine(38)

"You betrayed me." Cam resumed his pacing in the wake of her guilty  silence. "With my best friend. He was like a brother to me, and you've  killed that."

"I'm sorry." She winced when he stopped right in front of her, grabbing  the back of her neck, his fingers digging cruelly through her hair to  find the fragile bones beneath.

"You're sorry?" Seething anger bubbled up in the eyes running over her  face. "You're sorry," he repeated, loosening his grip on her neck to  lean in and nuzzle her, deceptively gentle. "Sorry that you cost me my  best friend?" he whispered in her ear, sucking on the tender lobe before  continuing.

"Are you sorry you deceived me?" He trailed furious kisses down the downy curve of her neck.

"I didn't deceive you." Kerris shuddered as Cam wove a cocoon of raging  intimacy around them. "I made a mistake. It was thoughtless. I wish I  could take it back, but it won't happen again."

"You're damned right it won't happen again." Cam pulled the edge of her  tunic back and tongued her collarbone. "You're mine, Kerris."

"Yes, I am." Kerris was quick to agree. Eager to remind him of it. "Cam,  please don't forget that. I am your wife. I chose you. I love you. We  still have our family to build and our future together."

"Oh, there's no doubt we'll have a future together, angel." He laughed  against the exposed skin of her neck. "I'll never let you go, Kerris.  You know that, right?"

"I don't want to go." She pulled back to look into the shadowed beauty  of his face, still mottled with temper. "I want to stay with you."

"Prove it."

"How … what-"

"Take off your clothes." His staccato words cut into the quiet of their bedroom, pelting her nerves.

"Cam, don't do this." She clutched the collar he had already pulled away. "Please don't do this in anger."

"I'm not angry anymore, Kerris." His swiped his expression free of the  fury she knew still boiled under his skin. "I've just discovered that  seeing another man kissing my wife turns me on."

Kerris gulped, willing to do anything to heal the hurt she saw behind  his rage, but afraid he could do irreparable damage to their marriage,  more even than what she had done. Sex had never been easy for her. Her  twisted history with TJ had made it hard and complicated and scary, but  she had overcome the pain of it, had given herself freely to her husband  and could find some pleasure in the act.

Cam had always been gentle and considerate. She had told him the story  of TJ on their wedding night. He had seen them as two broken spirits  coming together to heal each other, finding each other and helping each  other. He'd always been tender with her, but there was no tenderness in  him now. He folded his arms across the lean muscles of his chest,  waiting for her to strip. Wanting to reestablish himself as her husband  in the most fundamental way a man could.

Kerris pursed her lips, blinking back tears of shame and hurt, knowing  she would not refuse. She tugged at the hem of her tunic, pulling it  over her head, exposing her simple black bra. She pulled off the  leggings, feeling the greedy slide of his eyes over her nearly naked  body. She reached up to the front clasp of the bra, ready to take the  next step in this sexual battle of wills where Cam held every advantage.  His fingers covered hers, a viperous grin on his too-handsome face.

"I'll take it from here."

He opened the clasp and ruthlessly fondled her nipples. He pushed her  back against the coolness of their freshly washed sheets. Kerris closed  her eyes, tears streaking her face, making a slow slide into the corners  of her mouth and washing away the bittersweet traces of Walsh's kiss.

* * *



"I can't let you run this time, Walsh," Jo said while Walsh tossed clothes into his suitcase with short, tight motions.                       
       
           



       

"Yeah, try and stop me." He moved forward, ignoring the yawning hole in  his chest, refusing to allow the aching emptiness to slow him down. "I  gotta get out of Rivermont."

"Walsh, what were you thinking?" Jo, not for the first time since they'd  left the cottage, looked at him like he was the class dunce.

"I wasn't exactly thinking."

"Of course you were, only not with your head but with your dick." Anger  smelted Jo's gray eyes to hot silver. She leaned forward to poke him in  the chest when he strode by.

"Is that what you think?" He stopped, forcing himself to face her.

"That you've lusted after Kerris since day one? I know you have, and now Cam knows it, too."

"Cam has known how I feel about Kerris for a long time." Walsh shook his  head, hindsight bringing everything into clear focus. "That's why he  rushed her to get married. The night they announced their engagement I  was about to tell him how I felt. I should have. I knew this would  happen."

"Knew what? That you'd cheat with Kerris? Damn, Walsh, has it gone any further than a kiss?"

"No, it hasn't." He faced his dresser, stretching his arms across its  width and gripping the edges. "Kerris would never let it go further than  that. She wouldn't have even let it go that far tonight if the  circumstances hadn't been so extreme. We were talking, and it just got  too intimate. Too close."

"Why would you talk to her about what happened in Haiti when you  wouldn't even talk to me or Aunt Kris?" The hardened shell around Jo's  voice didn't hide her hurt and confusion.

"I wish I could explain to you what I feel for that woman." He dropped  his head to the dresser, wanting to bang his head over and over in  punishment for his careless stupidity tonight. "She feels like my other  half, Jo."

"You don't believe in that shit."

"I didn't." Walsh raised his head and moved back toward his closet to drag out a duffel bag. "But I do now."

"What's so special about her?"

"She is … " Walsh lost words, coming to a halt in the middle of the room, a  shirt dangling from his fingers. "She's pure. There's no subterfuge, no  faking. And she's kind, to a fault. She's sensitive to other people's  feelings. And to be all of that, to be such a good person, after how her  life began, is a miracle."

"Oh, my God, you really do love her." Astonishment swept away the anger on Jo's face.

"Like you didn't know that the night before their wedding," Walsh said  through the cage of his gritted teeth. "You ignored it and wanted to  make sure we didn't hurt Cam's feelings. Like you always do."

"You broke Cam's heart tonight."

"I know that." Walsh gave free rein to the guilt he'd been suppressing  ever since Cam turned on that bright light. "His face … what do you think  he's doing to her?"

"I think he's probably screwing her brains out."

"What?" Walsh turned to face her, a frown snatching his brows together.

"Oh, yeah." Jo nodded her certainty. "If I know Cam, and I probably know  him even better than you do, he's gonna want to make sure she remembers  who her husband is. He's a very sexual man. You know that."

"Stop it."

The image of Cam in bed with Kerris after what she and Walsh had shared  for those few moments tonight was a screw slowly being twisted into the  surface of his mind by an unrelenting screwdriver.

"I can't … I need … I need you to check on her tomorrow, Jo. Make sure he hasn't hurt her."

"Cam would never hurt a woman. And Kerris is probably willing to do whatever it takes to get back in his good graces."

"Fuck!"

Walsh squeezed the bridge of his nose, wanting more than anything to  rush back to the cottage and drag her out of there. He started back  toward his closet with new urgency.

"I gotta get out of Rivermont before I do something even worse. You  thought tonight was stupid. Just trap me here a few days with those  images in my head, and you'll see stupid."                       
       
           



       

"Walsh, that's what I'm trying to tell you." Jo drew a deep breath,  placing a restraining hand on his arm; he was still flinging clothes  into his suitcase. "I can't let you run this time."

"I have to." Walsh shook Jo's hand off.

"You need to talk to your mother." Her tone was wall-flat and insistent.

Walsh glanced over his shoulder to stare at his cousin.

"Of course I'll talk to Mom before I leave."

"No, go talk to her right now." Jo swallowed hard, and the tears didn't  slide down her face, but they stood in her eyes. "She has something to  tell you."