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  Legs trembling, she pressed her shoulders harder against the rear shower wall for support. She ached inside. Still massaging her breasts with one hand, she pressed the other to her stomach, running her fingers lightly over her skin, moving lower with each stroke. Her pulse beat between her legs like a second heart. She knew how hard she was, had felt the stiff swelling as she straddled Cam’s thigh. If she touched herself, she would never be able to stop. She had been close the minute her lips had found Cam’s mouth.

  I am always so damn ready for her. She imagined Cam’s fingers where her own brushed through the hair at the base of her belly, and her clitoris twitched.

  “Ah, God,” she whispered, shuddering at the memory. She needed to ease the pressure, couldn’t think of anything else. Her fingers slid lower, one on either side of her distended clitoris. Her hips jerked as she squeezed lightly, and she had to brace herself with one arm against the wall to keep from falling.

  Her mind was empty of everything except the exquisite sensation of her fingertips rubbing over her blood-engorged flesh. She was dimly conscious of her muscles quivering and the pounding pressure of her orgasm building. Faintly, she heard herself whimpering with each teasing stroke. Neck arched, she thrust her hips steadily back and forth as her hand moved faster between her legs, setting her nerves on fire. When the inferno roared from her pelvis and scorched along her veins, she choked back a cry, her fingers squeezing down with each spasm, milking each pulsation to the very end.

  As the contractions finally ebbed, she leaned weakly forward into the spray, both arms outstretched, palms against the opposite wall, barely able to stand. Her body was satisfied, but she took no satisfaction from it. She still felt hollow.

  “Damn you, Cameron,” she whispered.

  Chapter Three

  At 1255, Cam approached Blair’s building for their briefing. Two things occurred simultaneously. The earphone connected to her radio transmitter crackled to life, and she saw Blair Powell flag down a Checker cab, slide into the rear seat, and disappear as the vehicle pulled away into traffic.

  “Commander, please be advised that Egret is flying solo,” Mac’s voice informed her. “Unit one has been dispatched but does not have visual.”

  Cam turned abruptly, stepped into the street, and hailed one of the many taxis passing by, practically walking in front of it to force it to stop. As she pulled open the front door, she extended a hand displaying her open badge folder. “I need you to follow that cab up ahead.”

  The taxi driver stared at her. “You’re kidding, right?”

  Cam shook her head and got in beside him, her eyes following Blair’s vehicle around the square. “I wish I were. You’re going to lose them if you don’t get going.”

  It was something about the utter stillness in her face and the unnatural calm in her voice that made him face forward, sit up straight, and, with his hands gripping the wheel tightly, execute a performance of New York City driving that would have won him a trophy at Daytona. He pulled to a stop ten feet and twenty-five seconds behind the cab that had carried Blair to a small coffee shop deep in the heart of Greenwich Village.

  “Thanks.” Cam handed him a twenty as she stepped out.

  He leaned across the seat to look up at her. Her sculpted features, ebony hair, and deep voice seemed familiar, and he thought he finally understood.

  “You’re making a movie, right?”

  She didn’t answer. She was already halfway across the sidewalk.

  As soon as she entered the small storefront café, she located Blair seated with another woman at a small table for two in the rear. Blair looked up at the sound of the chime over the door, her eyes meeting Cam’s, but she gave no sign of recognition. Cam threaded her way through the few tables to the counter and ordered a double espresso. While she waited, she glanced around the room, noting the location of the exits and the general position of the few patrons, mostly twenty-somethings reading newspapers or working on sleek laptops.

  She paid and picked up the small espresso cup, moving to the opposite corner of the room from where Blair was seated. She chose a small circular table in the front corner, her back to the wall. From there, she could watch the front and rear doors as well as everyone in the room without infringing on Blair’s conversation. She would have been happier to have a car out front in case they needed to leave quickly, and she hoped that unit one—Paula Stark and her partner—would arrive momentarily. They’d been scrambling into one of the unmarked Suburbans in front of Blair’s apartment building as she went by in the cab.

  Fortunately, most civilians didn’t recognize Blair when she went out dressed casually, with her hair down and wearing little or no make-up. Today, in jeans, a navy cotton V-neck sweater over her white T-shirt, and scuffed boots, she looked like most of the young denizens of the neighborhood. The man-on-the-street usually recognized public figures only when they were attired formally and placed in the appropriate surroundings. That was the one thing that made Cam’s job easier, because Blair Powell certainly didn’t.

  “Commander?” Paula Stark’s voice asked in her ear.

  “Yes,” Cam murmured, tilting her head slightly as she listened to Stark relay her position. She gave Stark her exact location and informed her that she’d stay inside with Blair. “Just maintain in the vehicle outside.”

  “Roger that,” Stark replied morosely, wondering just how pissed off her commander was going to be that they had let Blair Powell walk unescorted right out of the building. The president’s daughter hadn’t pulled one of her old tricks in so long that when she called for the elevator and announced she was going to the lobby to get her mail, they hadn’t brought the car around front in anticipation. When they finally realized that she had exited the building and was hailing a cab, they’d lost two minutes mobilizing. Stark sighed, settling back to watch the door to the café and the people going in and out.

  Forty minutes later, the statuesque blond with Blair stood up and crossed the room to Cam’s table. She leaned down far enough to show more cleavage than could easily be ignored and said in her low throaty voice, “How nice to see you again, Commander. Blair tells me that you’re back in charge of her.”

  Cam shifted slightly so that she could keep Blair in her sightline. “I’m not sure I’d phrase it precisely that way, Ms. Bleeker,” she said with a faint smile, her eyes following Blair as she gathered her things.

  “Actually, Blair didn’t put it exactly that way either. The way she described it was quite a bit more...colorful,” Diane Bleeker said provocatively. In fact, Diane had sensed that Blair was on the verge of tears through much of the conversation, although she wasn’t certain if they were tears of anger or tears of pain. Even if she was right, she knew that Blair would never give in to them, particularly when the woman at the heart of her distress was sitting fifteen feet away.

  No one who didn’t know Blair very well would even have realized how distraught she was. Diane knew because she and Blair had been friends since they were teenagers together at prep school, and she knew because six weeks ago Blair had asked to use Diane’s apartment while Diane was in Europe.

  It had been a long time since Blair had brought a lover to Diane’s, because Blair rarely slept with anyone more than once and rarely planned for it in advance. She didn’t need to plan an anonymous liaison with a woman she met by chance in a dark bar or at a high-society fundraiser. When Diane had asked whom she was planning on seducing, Blair’s silence had been telling. Whoever she was, she mattered. Now, Diane had a very good idea just who that woman had been.

  During a brief moment of madness, she contemplated informing the strikingly handsome, dark-haired security agent that she was making the biggest mistake of her life. If she chose to be Blair’s protector rather than her lover, no matter how noble her motives, Blair would never forgive her.

  But Diane knew she wouldn’t say anything, today or any other day, and she wasn’t altogether proud of the reasons why. Despite her long friendship with Blair,
they had always been attracted to the same women, and most of the time they had been good natured about the competition because it was all in fun—the chase, the seduction, the consummation. This time it was different. For Blair to admit any feelings at all for a woman, it had to be serious. Even knowing that, Diane couldn’t deny the quick surge of attraction she felt every time she saw Cameron Roberts.

  “It was nice to see you again,” Cam said, rising, but her attention was on Blair, who was walking toward the front door. “If you would excuse me.” She stepped away to follow Blair.

  Out on the street, Blair had turned and was watching Cam come through the door. At the same time, Paula Stark stepped out of the car that had been idling across the street from the café. Cam waved Stark back and walked over to Blair.

  “It makes it difficult when we don’t know where you’re going,” Cam said quietly, although she knew very well that Blair was aware of that.

  “Apparently, the rules of this engagement can change at any time.” Blair shrugged slightly. She wasn’t able to keep the edge of bitterness from her voice. “Fair is fair.”

  Cam nodded and met Blair’s heated gaze. “I know it must seem that way, and I’m sorry. For the time being, we’re both going to have to live with it.”

  “No, we don’t. You made the decision—I’ll deal with it any way I want.” Blair shook her head dismissively and turned her back, moving quickly away down the sidewalk.

  Damn it. Cam caught up with her and fell into step, automatically placing herself between Blair and the street. She knew without looking that Stark and her partner would follow slowly behind them in the unmarked vehicle.

  “There’s no point in putting yourself in danger because you’re angry with me, Blair,” Cam persisted gently. “If you’ll just let us do what we need to do, I’ll intrude on your private life as little as possible.”

  Blair stopped abruptly and faced Cam, heedless of the complaining people who had to suddenly step around them on the narrow sidewalk. In a low, seething tone, she asked, “Has it occurred to you, Commander, that I wanted you to intrude on my private life? You. Not strangers twenty-four hours a day. Just you.”

  Cam ran a hand through her hair, struggling with both frustration and temper. She wanted to explain to Blair that she did care, and that she didn’t plan for this to happen, and that it was torture to see her and not be able to touch her.

  “Blair...”

  Someone jostled her shoulder as they passed, and she swore under her breath. A public sidewalk was no place to have this discussion. If she had only managed to keep her own emotions under control when she had first been assigned to Blair Powell’s security detail, none of this would be happening now. She had allowed herself to give in first to physical attraction, and then to emotional attachment. Now she had entangled them both in a situation for which there were no rules and only potential disaster.

  She grimaced because she could see the pain in Blair’s eyes, and she didn’t have the luxury of explaining herself at the moment. Not here, not now.

  “Can we talk about this in a somewhat more secure location?”

  Blair laughed darkly, unable to help herself. If there was one thing she could count on with Cameron Roberts, it was that no matter what was happening, Cam would never let it interfere with her duty. And she hated being Cameron Roberts’s duty.

  She started walking again. “I don’t think there’s anything left to talk about. You made your decision. I don’t intend to adjust my life to make yours easier. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to the gym and beat the crap out of someone.”

  “Ernie’s?” Cam asked, remembering the third-floor hole-in-the-wall establishment that Blair had somehow managed to frequent for six months before anyone in the security detail realized that she was there and not at her massage therapist’s around the corner.

  “Ernie’s is the one place I can go that no one knows me and no one cares where I come from or where I’ll be going back to. The only thing they care about is what I do in the ring.” She wasn’t in the mood for company. “I’d like to keep it that way.”

  “Wait a minute...” Cam hurried to keep step with her through the narrow streets of the Village as they headed north toward Chelsea. She barely stopped herself from grabbing Blair’s arm to slow her down. “Are you trying to say that no one has been inside with you?”

  “Not upstairs. One look at the Junior G-men and half the guys up there would have jumped out the windows to get away.”

  “That’s my point, God damn it.” Blair should never be left unguarded, even in the most secure circumstances. Exceptions occasionally occurred, but they were rare, and Ernie’s was not one of them. It was a tough, almost exclusively male crowd, and Cam was willing to bet there was more than one man there outside the law. “I can’t believe Mac didn’t put someone with you.”

  “It’s happened before—if you remember.”

  The biting tone of Blair’s voice told Cam what she meant. She and Blair had spent five nights together at Diane Bleeker’s East Side apartment while Diane was in Europe. None of the team had actually been in the apartment with Blair, but there had been a car with two agents parked on the street in front of the building. If the people stationed outside knew that Blair was not alone, no one had ever given any indication.

  Cam hadn’t liked placing fellow agents in a situation that they might later have to lie about, but at the time, she hadn’t been assigned to Blair’s security detail. Their few hours together each evening were personal—personal and intimate and no one else’s business. She wasn’t hypocritical enough to deny, even to herself, that she and Blair had tried to keep their meetings a secret, but they had not purposely eluded the Secret Service agents either.

  “I remember.” Cam steeled herself, refusing to discuss their personal issues when there was a real threat to Blair’s safety to deal with, and knowing how Blair would react. “But the gym is an entirely different situation. You’re in unsecured surroundings with two dozen men who, even if they don’t recognize you, might present threats. If you were recognized, absolutely anything could happen, from simple harassment to abduction.”

  Her words were met with stony silence, but she continued.

  “I don’t know how you’ve managed to keep the team away from here, and I’m not certain I want to know, but I can’t let you go alone.”

  “I know that,” Blair snapped, turning down the alley that led to the unmarked, unpainted door that was the street entrance to the third-floor gym. “Usually a car waits just at the end of the alley. That should be good enough. I’ve been coming here for years. No one will bother me.”

  “I’m coming up with you,” Cam said grimly. It was too late to change plans now, and since she was the only one immediately available, the responsibility fell to her.

  “You can come up if you want, Commander.” Blair stopped with her hand on the door and glanced at Cam, her face completely unreadable—her eyes flat and expressionless. “But I would prefer that you stay away from me.”

  With that, she opened the door and took the stairs two at a time, leaving Cam to follow.

  Minutes later, Cam leaned against one wall, her hands in the pockets of her blended silk trousers, watching two fighters prepare to spar in the ring opposite her. Automatically, she gave the entire room and its occupants a thorough examination, noting how many people were present and each individual’s position.

  The top floor of the warehouse was dimly lit by what little natural light managed to seep through dirty windows situated well above head level and augmented by fluorescent fixtures dangling from heavy chains in the cavernous ceiling. The combination cast the entire space in a harsh, flickering haze. Sparring rings stood in each of three corners. In the fourth, a space was partitioned off from the larger room by plywood and exposed two-by-fours and served as the business office and makeshift locker rooms.

  When she and Blair had first entered, Blair had disappeared into the tiny women’s dressing area, whic
h was nothing more than a closet with a curtain strung across the door.

  For several reasons, Cam did not follow.

  She had wanted to give Blair as much privacy as possible, and following her into the dressing room would only call more attention to them both. Furthermore, she had been in that dressing room with Blair once before, and she knew just how small it was, and she knew exactly how Blair looked when she stripped off her clothes to put on her workout gear.

  She did not want to be standing two feet away from her when Blair did that, because regardless of her intentions, she knew she would be tempted. It had been six weeks, and not a day—hell, barely an hour—had passed that she didn’t think about Blair. What she couldn’t tell Blair, and what she didn’t want to think about herself, was how many times in those six weeks she had imagined how Blair’s skin would feel under her fingertips.

  So now she stood in the shadows where she could see the entire room and still be as close to Blair as she could be without actually climbing into the ring with her.

  Twenty feet away, Blair jogged lightly in place on the soiled canvas cover of the ten-foot square ring while she waited for her opponent to adjust his gloves and get his mouthpiece between his teeth. She had been free-sparring for almost three months with some of the men in her weight class. None of the other female kickboxers who frequented the gym were experienced enough to spar with her. The men accepted her as one of the regulars, and no one thought anything of working out with her. After the first few times she’d put one of them soundly on the mat with a roundhouse kick or a strong right cross, they’d forgotten she was a woman and had fought her with no holds barred.

  The young guy opposite her approached, a little belligerence in his attitude. Perfect.