Only Pleasure (Bound Hearts 10)

Bullshit. If Jaci was talking, Cameron was listening, simply because he was fucking mesmerized by her.

"They definitely come with a few problems. " Cameron sighed and shook his head.

"Like what?" Chase growled. "Kia's not a problem. "

"Well, that's true. I guess if you're just there for the fuck, then it's not that big a deal. " He shrugged. "Now me, for instance. There's all the cuddling Jaci wants to do at night. " He tapped his fingers against his desk thoughtfully. "But she does keep a man warm. Sharing bathroom space gets tight sometimes—all that girly stuff lying around. But she'll wash my back in the shower. " He grinned. She did a hell of a lot more than that in the shower.

Chase glared at him.

"Man, monogamy can suck, I guess, and women just insist on it. " He'd kill any man who tried to touch Jaci.

Despite the fact that the first part of their relationship had been spent with Chase as a third, it wasn't a relationship that had continued.

Chase's look grew yet darker.

"There's no relationship," he snapped again. "It wasn't love, it wasn't commitment, it was pleasure. That was all. Simple. Clean. Period. "

Yeah, that was what he felt pouring from Chase, pure damned mad and messed-up male emotions. Simple. Clean. Period.

"Eh, count yourself lucky. " Cameron shrugged and grinned again. "I guess I just got all the monogamy genes in the family. Damn. I'm a lucky bastard. "

"You're definitely a bastard," he heard Chase mutter as he turned back to his computer.

Cameron had to keep his chuckle to himself. He cleared his throat, covered his mouth with his hand as he bent over the files on his desk and let a smile pull at his lips.

Man, Chase was a goner.

Maybe he should feel sorry for his brother, after all, falling in love wasn't an easy thing to do. There were all those messed-up emotions, sensations you just didn't know what the hell to do with, and the fact that a man knew, balls deep and in his gut, that he was never going to feel as much pleasure as he did with that one woman.

Chase was fighting that now. All the possessive, instinctual emotions that assailed a man when he finally touched that one woman who fascinated him were coming off Chase in waves.

Whatever the hell his brother had done, whatever he was denying, it wasn't sitting well with him. And despite his apparent fascination with e-mail, his mind wasn't really on it.

"Did we manage to get the report in on John Haggard's application?" Cam asked his brother several minutes later.

"No. "

Cameron almost laughed. Bullshit. He'd seen it on Chase's desk that morning and just hadn't picked it up.

"He's going to be anxious to get his application through," Cam stated. "He's had his deposit in for a year now while we put him through the wringer. Do you think we could rush it?"

"I'm on it. "

Cameron craned his neck, checked to see what Chase was so absorbed in, then shook his head pitifully.

Those damned cell phone pictures Courtney had taken of Kia going through the lingerie.

Yeah, Chase had it pretty damned bad.

He rose to his feet and moved to his brother's desk, almost grinning again as Chase minimized the screen.

"What the hell do you want?" Chase asked.

Cameron reached down to the desk slowly and grinned knowingly. "The Haggard file. " He picked it up, then chuckled as his brother scowled. "She'll be at the Edgewood ball next week, I bet. Maybe you should come with us. "

Chase lifted his lip in a snarl and Cameron had to snicker. Poor Chase. A goner, for sure.

Chapter 11