Honor Bound h-2 Page 3

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, a faint smile on her face, her eyes following Blair as she gathered her things.

  "Actually, Blair didn't put it exactly that way either. It was quite a bit more colorful the way she described it," 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 were right, she knew that Blair would never give into 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. You didn't need to plan an anonymous liaison with a woman you met by chance in a dark bar or at a high-society fundraiser. When Diane had asked her whom she was planning on seducing, Blair's silence had been telling. Whoever she was, she mattered, and Diane had a very good idea just who the woman might be.

  During a brief moment of madness, Diane 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," Cam said politely, as she stepped away to follow Blair.

  Out on the street, Blair turned and watched Cam come through the door. At the same time, Paula Stark stepped out of the car which had been idling across the street from the cafe. Cam waved her 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.

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

  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."

  Blair shook her head and turned her back, moving quickly away down the sidewalk. Cam caught up with her and fell into step beside her, 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, turning to face Cam, heedless of the people complaining as they had to suddenly step around them on the narrow sidewalk. In a low, seething tone, Blair said, "Has it occurred to you, Commander, that Iwanted 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 shedid 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 passing by and she swore under her breath. This 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, 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's duty.

  Blair 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.

  Blair wasn't in the mood for company. "Ernie's is the one place where 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. I'd like to keep it that way."

  Cam continued to keep step with her through the narrow streets of the Village as they headed north towards Chelsea. "Are you trying to say that no one has been inside with you?"

  She couldn't believe that Mac had allowed Blair to work out alone without at least one agent in the gym with her. Essentially that left Blair unguarded, which was something that was never supposed to happen, even in the most secure circumstances. Exceptions occasionally occurred, but they were rare. Briefly, she thought of those nights she and Blair had spent at Diane Bleeker's apartment while Diane was in Europe. None of the agents had actually been in the apartment with Blair, but there had been a car outside in the street. If the agents in the car knew that Blair was not alone, no one had ever given any indication of that. Cam didn't like to place fellow agents in situations 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 assigned to protect Blair either.

  The gym was an entirely different situation. Blair would be in unsecured surroundings with two dozen men who, even if they didn't recognize her, might present threats. If she were recognized, absolutely anything could happen, from simple harassment to abduction. Cam shook her head, knowing how Blair would react. "I don't know how you've managed to keep them away from here, and I'm not certain I want to know, but I can't let you go alone."

  "I know that," Blair said, turning down the alley that led to the unmarked, unpainted door that was the street entrance to the gym on the upper floor. "Usually a car waits just at the end of the alley. 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.

  Blair stopped with her hand on the door and looked at Cam, her face completely unreadable and her eyes flat and expressionless. "You can come up if you want, Commander. 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.

  Chapter Five

  Cam stood against one wall, her hands in the pockets of her blended silk trousers, wat
ching two fighters prepare to spar in the ring opposite her. The top floor of the warehouse was dimly lit by rows of dirty windows well above head level and fluorescent lights dangling from heavy chains in the cavernous ceiling. The combination cast the entire space in a harsh flickering haze. There were sparring rings at each of three corners of the room. In the fourth corner, an area partitioned off by plywood and exposed two-by-fours served as the business office and makeshift locker rooms. When she had first entered, Cam had given the entire room a thorough examination, noting how many people were present, and where they were. Blair had gone immediately to the tiny women's dressing area, which was nothing more than a closet with a curtain strung across the door.

  Cam did not follow her for several reasons. She 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, 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 work out gear. Cam did not want to be standing two feet away from her when Blair did that, because regardless of her intentions, Cam 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 she stood in the shadows against the wall 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. There were no other women who frequented the gym with enough experience at kickboxing to spar with her. She'd been coming long enough that the men accepted her as a regular, and no one thought anything of working out with her. After the first few times that she had put one of them soundly on the mat with a round house kick or a strong right cross, they forget that she was a woman and fought her with no holds barred.

  She watched the young guy opposite her approach, happy at the moment to see a little belligerence in his attitude. She needed an outlet for her physical frustration and her mental turmoil. Cam's abrupt return and the sudden change in their relationship had left her reeling. Nothing would test her or distract her as much as being in the ring with someone who could potentially hurt her. She would need to focus and she would need to burn. She knew that somewhere nearby Cam was watching. She didn't look for her; she didn't want to see her. But she felt her, and part of her wanted her there.

  She hated the fact that she was comforted by knowing that Cam was near. Cam was so very good at making her feel cared for, even when it was part of her job. From the very beginning, Cam made her feel that she was what mattered and not the status reports or job performance evaluations that seemed to motivate so many of the dozens of agents who had guarded her throughout her childhood and into adulthood. God, she hated that she loved every single thing about Cameron Roberts. She lifted her gloved hands and tapped them against those of her opponent, eager for the first contact, wanting desperately to drive Cam's face from her mind.

  *

  She's even better than she used to be, Cam thought, as she watched Blair dance lightly across the canvas. Unlike most male kickboxers who relied primarily on their punches for knockouts, Blair had to depend more on her legs, which were, for most women, more powerful weapons than their hands. It also gave her the advantage of staying beyond the range of most other fighters' punches. It was very possible that with a well-placed kick Blair could render a man unconscious. On the other hand, she wouldn't be able to weather too many direct blows to the face from a man her size or one even smaller. As Cam watched, Blair effectively countered a volley of punches and pushed her opponent back with a nicely executed kick to his thigh.

  As one part of her mind kept a constant vigil of the people nearby in her peripheral vision, Cam allowed herself the luxury of simply looking at Blair. Blair had pulled her hair back away from her face and gathered it at the nape of her neck, securing the few remaining wild curls with a rolled red bandanna tied around her forehead. She wore loose navy shorts and a cropped white tee-shirt that left her midriff bare. The small gold ring in her navel glinted against the sweat sheen on her skin. As Cam watched the muscles ripple in Blair's stomach, she stared at the ring and remembered how it felt as she rubbed her palm over it.

  It was the first night they had stayed at Diane's apartment, and the memory was not diminished by the many times Cam had relived it. She had been there close to an hour, waiting for Blair. She'd tried to read a magazine she'd found next to the sofa, but found she couldn't concentrate. She was too anxious. She was worried about Blair, knowing that agents would be watching her and wondering what she was doing at Diane's. Blair didn't make a secret of her sexual preferences, but it was never wise to give anyone too much information of a private nature. And rumors of Blair trysting with a Secret Service agent would make for powerful discussion around the water cooler. Cam reminded herself that she knew these agents, and believed in her heart that she could trust them to be discreet, but the habits of a lifetime of guarding her privacy were hard to change. Despite her anxiety, she couldn't wait to see Blair again. After resisting her for so long, now all she could do was think about her. When she heard the key turn in the lock, she got to her feet and crossed the living room towards the tiny foyer just inside the front door. Blair stepped through, breathless and smiling.

  "Hi," Blair had said, depositing a bag and a bottle of wine on the small table nearby. For just an instant, she looked shy.

  Cam remembered thinking that she had never seen Blair look quite so young. "Hi," she had answered. And then she had kissed her. She had meant it only as a kiss of greeting, but they had parted nearly a day before, and they had only had a night together then. It had not been enough, and at the moment it felt like it would never be enough. One of them had groaned, and both of them had begun frantically undressing each other where they stood. Soon, they were pressed together half naked, unable to stop touching each other long enough to finish the job.

  With their mouths hungrily trading kisses and small bites, Cam's hands had found Blair's breasts as Blair worked desperately to loosen the buttons on Cam's jeans. They had both been in danger of falling in their eagerness to consume one another.

  Finally, Cam had wrenched her head back, gasping, and said, "Wait! There must be a bedroom here. I really need to do this lying down."

  Blair's eyes had been wild with urgency, and she had simply grasped the waistband of Cam's jeans where she had managed to get the top button open and tugged. "Come on," she had ordered, her voice husky with want. "Guestroom. This way."

  Cam had followed, slipping one hand around Blair's body from behind, smoothing her palm over the silky tautness of Blair's abdomen. The small gold ring had rubbed lightly against her skin, and she didn't think she'd ever felt anything quite so sexy. She had stopped Blair just outside the door to the bedroom, pressing her bare chest to Blair's back, bringing both hands from behind to cup Blair's breasts. She'd brought her lips close to Blair's ear as she'd moved her fingers to Blair's nipples. "Yesterday you made me beg."

  Blair jerked in her arms, arching into Cam's hands as Cam continued the pressure on her nipples. "Do you have a point, Commander?" Blair had finally managed, reaching back with one hand and searching for the rest of the buttons on Cam's fly.

  "Could be it's your turn," Cam whispered, biting lightly at the skin below Blair's earlobe. She was about to slide her palm down Blair's stomach when Blair succeeded in opening her jeans and slipping her hand down the front.

  "God!" Cam gasped as Blair's fingers slid through the wet heat between her legs. Her knees thr
eatened to buckle as Blair tugged at her. She wrapped her arms around Blair's body, pressing her face to Blair's neck, floating for a moment on a wave of pleasure. Then she'd stiffened as the persistent pull of Blair's fingers pushed her suddenly to the brink of orgasm.

  "Uh uh. No," she murmured, stepping back unsteadily, her head buzzing with the thunder of blood, forcing Blair to move her hand. "Not so fast." She shook her head, clearing the mist of arousal from her brain. She took a deep breath, trying hard to ignore the throbbing that began in her belly and spread outward through her limbs.

  Blair turned in her arms, pushing at her jeans, ready to take her on the spot, and Cam had kissed her again. Distracting her by pulling her lower lip between her teeth, biting her lightly, Cam backed her up step by step, into the bedroom. She kept her lips firmly on Blair's and grasped Blair's wrists with her hands, keeping them away from her. She'd never last if Blair touched her again. She was already twitching with the faint tremor of preorgasmic spasms. When they hit the bed and fell backwards together, Cam had rolled onto her, pinning Blair's hands above her head with both of hers.

  "Not so fast," Cam whispered hoarsely again, just before she caught Blair's nipple in her teeth.

  Blair had cried out in surprise and struggled to get her hands free, thrusting her hips against the thigh Cam had driven between her legs. "Let me touch you," she'd groaned in Cam's ear. "Let me do it fast this time."