“We haven’t made love since I got shot,” Renée observed softly, extracting her hand from Paula’s grip. She cupped Paula very lightly between the legs. “Miss it?”

“Oh, geez,” Paula choked, her legs starting to quiver. “Yeah.”

Renée squeezed gently. “Have you been taking many solo flights?”

“Not many.” Paula flushed as she felt a flood of wetness between her thighs. “Oh.”

“Mmm. You did miss me, didn’t you?” Renée gripped a little harder and jiggled her hand.

“Stop.” Paula slammed her hand down over Renée’s, effectively preventing her from moving her fingers. “Honest. Don’t. I’ll get really excited, and we can’t until your leg’s better.”

Renée laughed. “My leg might keep me from working, sweetie, but it doesn’t keep me from taking care of the important business.” She lowered her head and licked Paula’s nipple into rapid attention. When Paula shivered and moaned softly, she worried the small, hard knot tenderly with her teeth. “So I think you should hold very still.” She sucked until Paula moaned again. “While I make you come.”

“Renée,” Paula said hoarsely. “We should wait.”

Renée shifted and guided Paula’s face to her breast. “No. Waiting is the last thing we should do.” She hissed in a breath as Paula’s mouth closed over her nipple. Delicately, she traced the hard prominence of Paula’s clitoris with her fingertip. When Paula jerked and started to pull back, she gripped her between thumb and forefinger and squeezed. “We’re here together right now, Paula. Feel me now, sweetie. Feel me.”

Unable to resist the persistent caresses, Paula closed her eyes as Renée fondled her in just the right spot with just the right pressure to make her come. Spinning toward orgasm, she whispered the one thing of which she was totally certain in a suddenly uncertain world. “I love you.”

Chapter Six

“Diane was quiet tonight,” Cam said as she sat on the side of the bed and pulled off her shoes. She unbuckled her belt, lifted her hips, and shed her trousers. Across the room, Blair undressed, tossing her blue jeans and T-shirt into the laundry basket in the bedroom closet. The circles that had surfaced beneath her eyes earlier in the day had deepened, giving her a haunted look.

“Things are still pretty awful in Manhattan,” Blair said. “She closed the gallery for a while.”

“It’s going to take some time before people and businesses recover.” Cam gave a mirthless laugh as she removed her shirt. “I guess recover is an optimistic word.”

“Adjust to a new reality is more like it.” Naked, Blair brushed her fingertips over Cam’s chest as she slid past her and into bed. “I guess we’re just catching up to the rest of the world.”

Cam removed the rest of her clothes, turned off the light, and got into bed. She turned on her side and circled Blair with one arm, easing close to her in the dark. “You should go back to Whitley Point for a while. Take Diane.”

“Turn the light on.”

Wordlessly, Cam complied.

“Go back to Whitley Point and stay out of the way?” Blair asked edgily.

“I don’t believe I said that.” Cam traced a fingertip along the rigid arc of Blair’s jaw. “I was thinking that twenty-four hours ago you almost looked relaxed.” She smoothed her thumb over the crest of Blair’s cheekbone. “Now you’re looking a little weary.”

Blair snatched Cam’s hand away from her face and bit her thumb hard enough to make Cam wince. “Don’t try to distract me with your slick moves.”

“Ow.”

“Let me guess what you’re going to be doing while I’m painting pretty pictures on a remote island. And Diane is doing…cross-stitch.”

Cam smothered a grin. Blair had been pale moments before. Now she was flushed and her eyes were bright. Anger looked good on her, but then, it always had.

“You’ll be playing super sleuth in Washington or New York or God knows where, chasing down maniacs who would be happy to kill you, and themselves, and anyone in the vicinity.” Blair pushed at Cam’s shoulder. “I already know you’re going to take my father’s offer. Just what else do you have planned?”

“I’m not sure. I’ve been out of the Intel loop since the raid. I’ve got to assemble a team and do some catching up.” Cam risked diving in for a quick kiss. “And it’s possible I’ll need to travel.”

Blair sat up and wrapped her arms around her knees. “Where? And don’t you dare say anywhere in the Middle East.” She focused on Cam, her face set. “I mean it. If someone has to go there, fine. That’s why we have the CIA and all the other spies.” She fisted her hands so tightly Cam thought her fingers must be getting numb. “I’ve never asked you not to do something, Cameron. But I’m asking this.”

“That’s not where I meant,” Cam said, prying Blair’s clenched hands open and clasping her fingers. “I was thinking Paris.”

“Paris?” Blair echoed. “Why?”

“Because Foster made more than a few trips there in the ten months before the assault on you. Maybe there’s a connection.” Cam shrugged, frustrated. “I don’t know. That’s the problem—none of us know, because none of us expected anything like what happened.”

“Do you think Valerie’s in Paris?”

“Valerie?” Cam circled Blair’s shoulders and tugged her down onto the bed. She stroked Blair’s hair even though she could feel Blair resist her caress. This wasn’t anger. This was fear. Fear and something else she couldn’t quite get a sense of. “I suppose it’s possible. She knows as much as I know about what happened in the attack at the Aerie and who might be behind it. That’s part of the problem. She’s knows as much as I do, or more, and she’s one step ahead of us.”

“You’re taking this assignment with OHS to find Valerie, aren’t you?” Blair asked.

“No,” Cam said. “I’m taking this assignment because Stark doesn’t need me, and neither do you, not professionally. And there’s no way I’m going back to providing security for presidential hopefuls or visiting diplomats, and I’m sure as hell not going to chase bad money, even if it is funding drug cartels. There are bigger threats than drugs to worry about now.”

“And of course, you want to go after the biggest and baddest.” Blair rolled on top of Cam and braced herself on her elbows. She very gently touched Cam’s face. “I’m surprised you’re not in the military. You’re such a patriot.”

Cam smiled and kissed the tips of Blair’s fingers. “I thought about it when I was younger, but I don’t take orders all that well.” At Blair’s snort of derision, she shook her head. “No, I don’t. Not really. I understand the chain of command and I respect it. But I need the freedom to call my own shots in my day-to-day work.”

“You avoided my question about Valerie. You do want to find her, don’t you?” Blair was aware of treading carefully. She did want to know what Cam planned to do. As much as Cam could tell her. Cam was her lover, and she needed to know what mattered to her, what drove her—what danger she would put herself in and why. But she didn’t want anything that Cam might tell her to be an unwitting betrayal of their trust.

“I want to find her,” Cam agreed, “and I need to find her. She’s either in danger or a potential danger to others. Either way, she’s not safe out there alone.”

“I’m not going to use Diane to help you.” Blair didn’t know why she was surprised that the words came so easily. There had never been any doubt about what she would do. Or wouldn’t do.

Blair started to sit up, but Cam held her close. “I never thought that you would. You know I wouldn’t ask you to, right?”

Silently, Blair nodded.

“But just hear me out, okay?”

“You might not ask me to, but you might want me to.” Blair rested her head on Cam’s chest. “I don’t want to…disappoint you.”

“Disappoint—” Cam tilted Blair’s chin and met her eyes. They were cloudy and troubled. She hated that her lover had been caught in the tangled web of divided loyalties. “Baby, it’s my job. Not yours. Lucinda was wrong to ask you to get involved.”

“What about national security?”

“We’ll have no national security—or any other kind—if we resort to spying on our friends.” Cam shook her head. “I trust you’ll tell me if Diane gets into any trouble.”

“I will.”

“And you have to stay out of it.” Cam held Blair’s jaw more firmly, delving into the blue eyes that glimmered with anticipated resistance. “Okay?”

“Okay.” Blair hesitated. “Can you tell me why you think Valerie might be in danger? Diane really loves her, Cam.”

“Ah, Jesus,” Cam breathed. “What a mess.”

“Love tends to get that way,” Blair murmured, kissing Cam’s throat. “You mess me up.”

Stroking the back of Blair’s neck, Cam sorted her thoughts. “Until a few hours before the raid, the only people who knew Matheson’s identity were Valerie, Stark, Savard, and Davis. If Matheson disappeared from the compound—or never showed up there to begin with because someone tipped him off—there are only a limited number of explanations. I know it wasn’t any of my people and not likely to be anyone on the assault team. So, either Valerie warned him or someone Valerie told warned him.”

“Valerie must report to someone inside the Company, Cam,” Blair said.

“Of course. Whoever ordered her to infiltrate our team to begin with.”

Blair closed her eyes. “Then that means they’ll know that you’re looking for her. Jesus, this is a nightmare. And you’re going to be right in the middle of it.”

“If Valerie wasn’t responsible for the leak, once she got wind of Matheson disappearing, she’d know she was the weak link. She’d have to disappear because she’d know whoever tipped Matheson would be coming after her.”

“So you’re telling me that Valerie isn’t safe, and I should help you find her.”

“That’s one way of looking at it,” Cam said. “Right now, I’m not sure. And because I’m not sure, I don’t want you to do anything.”

“Except hide out with Tanner and Diane at Whitley Point.”

“That would be my wish.” Cam kissed the tip of Blair’s chin. “Any chance?”

“I don’t know, maybe,” Blair said. “Not because I want to hide, but because I don’t want to stay here. And I can’t go back to Manhattan, because I don’t have any place to go back to.”

“This is sounding good,” Cam said.

“But—”

“Uh-oh.”

Blair smiled. “I’m not going without you.”

Cam frowned. “I’m going to be pretty busy, Blair. I’ve got to put a team together, for one thing. Then who knows what I’ll find once I start digging into this whole Valerie situation.”

“Are you telling me you’re going to direct the investigation from some office in DC somewhere? Where anyone could access your files or monitor your activities?” Blair made a face. “Even I know that’s not very smart. If you even suspect that there’s someone high enough up to get Matheson’s name from Valerie’s intelligence reports and warn him, then nothing is secure.” She grinned. “Unless you’re going to work out of Lucinda’s office.”

Cam groaned. “You make it sound so appealing. But we’re talking about a big operation here, baby.”

“You found Matheson working from Whitley Point. That was a big operation, too.”

“Yeah, and someone ferried Valerie off right under our noses.”

“Good point, except Valerie helped them from the inside.” Blair saw the anger and betrayal flicker across Cam’s face, knowing nothing she might say could lessen it. Only the truth could do that. “You’ve got to admit, it’s going to be more secure there than almost any place around here.”

“I’ll think about it. At least for a base of operations. Hell,” Cam mused, “we used to do all of our advance surveillance and intelligence right out of the Aerie. That was a damn big operation, too.”

“I’ll talk to Tanner tomorrow about speeding up the property purchase. I’m sure she can make it happen. Besides,” Blair said softly, “I love it there, and we need a place to live.”

Cam brushed her fingers through Blair’s hair, then drew her head down and kissed her. She murmured against her lips, “We do, don’t we.”

“Is it all right with you?”

“Are you going to be okay having a base of operations where we live?”

Blair laughed shortly. “Cameron, I’ve always had some kind of base where I live. Look at the Aerie. I’m used to it.”

“If you’re sure. Right now, I’d feel a hell of a lot better if you were back there.”

“I’m going to talk to Lucinda tomorrow about our plans,” Blair said.

Cam rolled her over and settled one thigh between her legs. “You’re not going to make me go with you, are you?”

“I can’t believe you’re afraid of Lucinda.” Blair curled her leg around the back of Cam’s thigh and nestled her center against Cam’s crotch. “It’ll cost you.”