Rafe was so sick of Cam’s insecurities. He’d put up with them for years. Rafe had never been able to convince Cam that he didn’t give a shit that he’d grown up in a trailer park. It was Cam’s problem. Not Rafe’s. “You weren’t living off me, you stupid, overly proud prick. It wasn’t charity. You were working to find her. We agreed to this deal.”
Cam’s lips curled up in a smirking approximation of a smile.
“Yeah, we agreed that you would share information with me, but you don’t have to uphold your end of the bargain, do you? You don’t have to share with a guy you consider your goddamn employee. That’s why I didn’t want your money. I didn’t want to be your butt monkey anymore. Tell me something, Rafe, you been fucking any admins with Brad there? Brad working out as your wingman? I’ll be sure to tell Laura when I see her that you’re fine, because you finally found a partner you could truly love.”
Without another thought, Rafe pulled back his fist and plowed into Cam with everything he had. Cam’s head snapped back with a crack, but his body stayed in place. Too late, Rafe remembered why Cam had gotten into that fight with another agent.
Cam liked it.
A feral smile crossed Cam’s face just before he reared back and let his fist fly.
A lance of shock speared through Rafe’s gut. His breath shot out of his body, and Rafe staggered back, hitting the wall with a thud.
Cam pressed his advantage. He landed another blow, this one an uppercut to Rafe’s jaw. The pain exploded in Rafe’s skull, and he fought back.
He shoved against Cam’s bulk. Did the country boy expect the city boy to play fair? Rafe was done playing fair. It bought him nothing with Cam. He shoved out with both hands, and Cam fell back, stumbling over his sadly worn duffel bag.
“What were thinking, Cam? Did you already have your bags packed when you came to see me? Do you honestly believe you can waltz back into her life? What do you have to offer her? You going to bring her back here?”
Cam’s leg came out, sweeping across Rafe’s ankles and knocking him down. Cam kicked himself up, years and years of martial arts practice turning the move into a graceful dance. Cam moved well for a man of any size, much less for a man who weighed in at two hundred and fifty pounds of pure muscle.
“And what are you going to give her? Are you going to bring her back to your condo and turn her into some trophy for your goddamn wall? She never meant anything to you. She was just a prize. You only wanted her to fuck with me.” Cam stopped, his face going dumb for a minute. “Damn it, Rafe. What the fuck are we doing? I’m…” Whatever Cam was going to say was utterly lost on Rafe. All he knew was they had had this fight before. He was so fucking sick of having his money shoved back at him like it was something to be ashamed of. Cam wielded his impoverished childhood like a sword, and Rafe was so done with it. City boy was done taking country boy’s shit. With ruthless precision, he brought his foot up and kicked out.
His heel met with Cam’s cock, and Cam went down with a long, animal-like moan of pure agony.
Rafe rolled over and shoved himself to a standing position. He wiped the blood off his face. It was time to have a long talk with his ex-partner. They used to be best friends, and damn, but Rafe missed the dumbass country boy.
“You got any beer in this hellhole?”
Cam’s face was mottled up in a mask of pain. He cupped his crotch, but he nodded toward the fridge. “It tastes like piss, but it’s cold.”
Rafe grabbed two beers and helped Cam to the couch.
“You’re a fucking bastard.” Cam groaned as he gingerly lowered himself to the cushions.
“Yeah, because you’re so damn upstanding.” Rafe’s jaw was still throbbing as he propped his feet on Cam’s wobbly coffee table. He took a long drink of the beer. Cam was right. It tasted like piss.
“I don’t try to come off as Captain America.” Rafe rolled his eyes. “Well, at least I don’t try to be the tough guy every minute of the day. Look, I really was concerned about you. I don’t want you going off the deep end again.” Cam was too obsessive. Now that Rafe was looking around the tiny apartment, he was even more concerned. There were printouts stacked to precarious heights. The only books in the place seemed to be about coding, and all over were handwritten lines of code. They seemed to be written in a weird foreign language. Cam had always been the guy who sank into a case. He needed someone to pull him out, and Rafe hadn’t been there.
“That was the best year of my life,” Cam said quietly.
Rafe knew exactly what he meant. That year before Laura had left had meant the world to him, too. It had started as a joke. They had dared the gorgeous blonde profiler to date both of them. She had told them she didn’t have the time. They would have to date her together.
They had gone to a movie and then a bar. The three of them had sat and talked until they were kicked out. It had only gotten awkward when they dropped her off. No one had gotten a kiss that night. And then they had settled into a friendship.
Months had passed, and she had somehow become the center of their worlds. Rafe had been unwilling to push her to choose because she seemed to care about Cam so much. Cam had come alive. His thick, protective shell had cracked. Rafe had felt like a better person for knowing her.
And they had fucked up everything in a twenty-four-hour period.
“I have to see her again.” Rafe had to stand in front of her, if only to beg her forgiveness.
“Do you still want her?”
“More than I want my next breath.”
A long sigh came from Cam. “I want her, too. I’ve tried dating.
I’ve been so mad at Laura that I’ve tried to fuck her out of my heart. I just feel…god, this is stupid. I feel dirty after I sleep with someone else.”
“It’s not stupid, man. I feel the same way.” His dick had languished in limbo for the last eight months. He belonged to Laura.
It was wrong to sleep with someone else.
“What the hell are we going to do? She walked away from us.
Even if, by some miracle, we can make her want us again, she didn’t want to choose.”
“Okay, so we don’t make her choose.”
Cam sat up. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
“If we want to have a chance with her, if we want to get her to forgive us, we’re going to have to give her everything she wants.”
“Everything? I thought what we did that night was perverted.
That’s what you said to me the next morning.”
“Well, we fucked the same girl at the same time. I think that’s a little perverted by anyone’s standards.” Rafe let that sit for a minute.
“But it was also hot. I liked watching. I think we can make it work.
We can share her. People do it. Somewhere.” Rafe let his head fall back. Damn, he’d missed Cam. “I think I have a plan on how to get her to accept us, well, force her to accept us. Though it will probably make her really mad. We’ll have to hang out in that little town of hers for a while. And it totally takes us off the case.”
“I’m okay with that. Laura’s the important thing here.” Cam was right. They had put the case above her feelings before. It was time the case took a backseat.
“So we’re going to Bliss. What a name.” Rafe tipped back his beer. “You know, we’re going to have to be aggressive. We’re going to have to go after her hard and fast and together.” Cam settled back. “That might not go over so well in a small town.”
“So what? You aren’t a guy who minds a little scandal.”
“Nope. But I didn’t mind being the bad boy of the Bureau, either.
It might bother you.”
“She’s worth it.” Rafe wasn’t going to let some societal taboo keep him from Laura. Never again. Five years without her had taught him what he really wanted. He’d spent years feeling incomplete. He couldn’t go the rest of his life without knowing where she was, and he was pretty sure that once he found her, he would do whatever it took to stay in her life. If he had to share her with his best friend, then that was what he would do.