The joke petered out. We went back to zippingupthe motorway when all I wanted to do was turn south and ride home. I’d craved Orla since I was sixteen years old. The ache in my gut for Locke was newer, but no less potent, and I no longer had to wonder if Cam felt the same about Saint and Alexei.Of course he does. And I no longer wondered about who fucked who. Loving Locke had taught me lots of things, but perhaps most of all that none of that mattered. Inside him, inside me, inside her, the rush was the same. The love. And man if I didn’t come like a man possessed each and every time.
“I need to tell you something.” Cam’s growly voice interrupted my sex-themed reverie.
I meandered around a minibus. For whatever reason, Cam had slowed the fuck down, no longer in a hurry to reach our latest apocalypse. “Is this gonna be a joyful revelation or something that makes me want to deck you?”
“Depends.”
“On?”
“On how you feel about Russian mobsters knowing our business.”
“Russian mobsters have been up in our shit ever since you banged one.”
I legit felt Cam bristle. Heard the words he didn’t bother to speak.Lexi’s not a mobster.Okay. Assassin. Prince of Death. Whatever. No fucker could deny that for better or worse, our world had been a different brand of red, white, and blue since Alexei had come along.
And Viktor.
Jakov too.
“Just tell me.” I caught up with Cam, flanking him. “We’re ten minutes out and I’m not going down on a cliffhanger. I refuse.”
“I told Jakov about our Bear problem.”
I tilted my helmet in Cam’s general direction. “When?”
“The other day. On the phone.”
“Why?”
“He’s a clever motherfucker like they all are.”
“Meaning?”
Cam shrugged. “He asked what was bothering me at just the right moment and it fell out of me before I could stop it.”
I turned back to the road, scanning the horizon for our exit, noting the dark clouds ahead. Ominous? Fucking hoped not. “What did he say?”
“Not much. Just that we should play ball for now and he’d help us out if the worst happened.”
“That’s your definition ofnot much?”
“It was a five-minute conversation.”
“No, it wasn’t. I saw you on that fucking roof.”
The rare snap in my tone—though the last few months I’d been testy as fuck—caused Cam to jerk his head at me.
Through my visor, I glared right back at him. “Why did you tell him?”
“I don’tknow.”
“For fuck’s sake.”
For the thousandth time today alone, Cam sighed. “Look, I needed to talk to someone who wasn’t emotionally invested in this shit, okay? Usually, that’s Alexei, but I couldn’t do that this time, not about this. He loves you too much.”
“Lovesyou.”
“Nope.” Cam veered onto the slip road. “Apparently, he’s murderously overprotective of just about everyone now, and that includes you and Locke both.”