“Part of that gauntlet you ran earlier was the press on sixteen, yes?”
“Yeah, it was a fucking nightmare up there.”
“That will only get worse the longer this drags on,” Nic replied.“Scott’s and Mike’s attorneys aren’t stupid.This is a relatively open-and-shut case, especially if we capture Becca in the meantime.Now I spend the next week negotiating plea agreements.That should be enough time.And if it isn’t...”
The gleam in those blue eyes was telling.Maybe the prosecutor didn’t want to agree on the pleas.“If it isn’t,” Cam said, “you get to trial faster.”Nic’s smile could have lit the hallway.As it were, it lit Cam’s blood to boiling.“You are good at this.”
“I know.”
That confidence, that smile, and that fucking suit and tie finally got the better of Cam.Fuck but this man made him want to break all his rules.And truth be told, he’d never been that good with them when it came to sex, the wild side he’d buried long ago needing some outlet.And right now, Nic was the matador in an irresistible cape of gray and blue.
He intercepted Nic’s arm mid-reach for the holding room door, using it to swing him around.Cam closed the distance between them, pressing Nic back against the wall.“You’re good at other things too.The way you handle case assets.Legal strategy.Making beer.”Cam’s gaze roved over Nic’s face.Blue eyes wide and darkening.A blush staining his high cheekbones.Parted lips that Cam couldn’t shake the taste of.
Wanted to taste again.“Kissing,” Cam whispered.
“Boston, there are cameras in this hallway.”It wasn’t so much a warning as barely restrained desire, Nic’s voice low and gravelly.
“How much do you really care right now?”
Nic’s gaze strayed to his mouth, and Cam had all the answer he needed.He clasped one side of Nic’s freshly shaven jaw and angled his face so he could devour him.The muted whimper from the back of Nic’s throat made Cam even hungrier.
He moved to rid the inches between them, to slake his hunger with Nic’s mouth, only to have the distance spring back into reality, the holding room door banging open.
At first, instinct startled them apart.
Then shock kept them that way, attention suddenly focused elsewhere.
Tony fell through the open doorway, hand slipping off the inside doorknob as he collapsed onto the floor.
They both kicked into emergency mode.
“Tony!”Nic slid onto his knees next to the unconscious guard, ripping through layers of clothes, searching for a wound, while Cam leaped over them.
Into the empty room.
No sign of Abby anywhere.
Just the legal pad and tablet left behind.
Seven
“Are all lawyers screamers?”Cringing, Lauren shrank in her seat across the conference table from Cam.“I can’t believe I used to think Aidan was bad.He’s a fucking lightweight compared to...”She waved a hand the direction of Bowers’s office, and Cam couldn’t agree with her more.
Nic and his boss had been going at it—Cam checked his watch—a solid hour, their voices escalating louder by the minute.Two offices lay between them, yet Cam could still make out every few words between the two attorneys.
“Fucked up...more resources...irresponsible...what you wanted...turned on you...forced us...We’re screwed...Fix this...”The tirade went on.
Cam and Lauren weren’t the only ones privy to the shouting match.In the war room with them were another attorney and paralegal working on a continuance, neither of whom seemed all that fazed by their bosses’ argument, and a team of agents Cam had brought down to brief on kidnap and extraction scenarios.He should have sent them back up to thirteen when he’d finished the debrief, but he wasn’t sure what Nic might want to run through once he escaped Bowers.
The answer to that question was an emphatic “Clear the room.”
Everyone scurried at Nic’s bark, and Cam could tell it was a struggle for him not to slam the door behind them.As it were, once he’d forced himself to close it gently, Nic stood with his rigid back to the room, arms spread, hands clutching the doorframe.
“Breathe, Price.”
It took a good thirty seconds of measured breaths, Nic’s long torso heaving up and down, before he dropped his arms and turned.He rounded the table and collapsed into the chair next to Cam.“We’re fucked,” he said.
Acting on impulse—more and more of those sneaking through in Nic’s presence—Cam rolled his chair closer, their knees brushing under the table.Nic’s hand came down on his leg and Cam was certain he was going to shove him away, the impropriety here in the office a step too far, but Nic’s fingers dug into his thigh instead.All of that frustration needed an outlet; Cam was happy to provide it.“I got that much.”
