Chapter Eight
Tia hadn’t wanted to sleep in Jake’s arms. God help her, she hadn’t, but he had been waiting when she returned from the shower and made it quite clear where she’d sleep, her head against his chest, his body intertwined with hers. She went to that part of her that made her a kick-ass spy, so good at her job, and she pretended.
He wasn’t Jake—he was still her cover. Yes, that was it. She had to fuck him, sleep in his arms, be whatever he wanted her to be, so she didn’t die. She could go there.
And so she woke in his arms as well, never having felt so secure, so comforted, even though that really wasn’t what she wanted, either. She looked at him. So perfect, his dark blond hair just brushing his cheek, his lips firm, nose so perfectly straight despite this job they had. She was sure he’d taken a shot to the face more than once, but somehow he remained perfect to her. Beautiful even.
She went to untangle herself, and he grabbed her wrist, his eyes open. She forgot how quickly spies woke compared to other men. Immediately he knew the game, had assessed her. If she were his enemy, she’d be dead.
She faked a smile of good morning. “Sleep good?”
“No.” He rolled slightly and pinned her half under his hard body. She sucked in a breath at the contact of his naked hips, his semi-aroused cock pressing against her mound, the need she thought quenched the night before returning full force. Damn him, she didn’t want this.
He stared down at her, his eyes narrow. “I didn’t sleep good. Not at all.”
“Why not?”
“Because all I could think of is how awesome I felt after making love to you, yet I made you go and cry in the shower.”
She closed her eyes and turned her face away, not wanting him to see the pain. He wasn’t supposed to hear her cry. This wasn’t about making him feel bad.
“Don’t deny it, Tia. I may not look like I’m that observant, but I don’t miss much more than Chase does.” He grabbed her chin and forced her face forward. “Look at me, and tell me the truth.”
She opened her eyes. His held concern with a touch of anger. “I was just…overwhelmed.”
“Bullshit. What did he do to you?”
“Who?” She shoved at his chest. It was like pushing hot steel. “Get off me.”
“Chase.” He said his best friend’s name as if it were a vile curse.
“I told you it was nothing.”
“Women don’t cry over nothing. Not like you cried. Tell me, and I’ll kill him for you.” There was no doubt in Tia’s mind he was serious. This was the Jake she’d see at work, under duress. Cold, hard, and sure.
“He’s your best friend.” Jake was insane. She didn’t know him well enough to claim he was jealous, though the idea was so tempting. Chivalrous. “And if there should be someone killing someone, it should be Chase killing you for loving his wife.”
Jake wasn’t taking the bait she offered to lure him away. “What did he do to you?”
“He did exactly as I asked.”
His hips bore down harder on hers, heavy. Insistent. He took her hands and held them over her head, almost without realizing, demanding that she submit. “What did you ask of him? Tell me. Now.”
Something inside snapped—the pain, the wedding sex, his possessiveness was too much for the tough girl in her to take. He had no right to want a part of her.
“You really want to know? Fine. I made him use a crop many strokes beyond what I could possibly stand, front and back. I made him cane me. I would have made him cut me, but he wouldn’t. So instead, I made him fuck me harder than any man has ever fucked me in a consensual rape fantasy, and the pain was divine. When he grew close to coming, I made him put his hands around my throat—”
“No!” All of the blood left Jake’s face, and he stared at her, then her throat, then met her eyes again. The fear she saw there was almost palpable.
No man had ever been afraid for her. Maybe Chase, but his ass had been on the line if he had killed her. The pain she felt during wedding sex returned, and she tamped it down. Went back to feeling numb. Fuck him or die. “Yes.”
“God, no.”
“I’m alive because I passed out as he came. If he hadn’t come then, he would have killed me. And I didn’t care. I wanted to be punished that badly. I wanted to come that badly. I woke up, and he was a mess because of what he did. What I made him do.”
“You’re lying.”
“He was so messed up, he vomited in the bathroom.”
Something about that statement took the disbelief from his eyes and changed it to straight pain. He swallowed and released her hand to touch her throat with a shaking finger. “Did you come?”
“No.” She batted his hand from her neck. God help her, if she had to make him hate her to stop the pain, she would. “Maybe you’re perfect, Jake. Maybe you have no problem keeping the role play under control. But I made Chase lose that control. I pushed every button he had. I asked for everything he gave.”
“Stop,” he whispered.
“Maybe you don’t do hardcore s/m, but at that point, that’s what I wanted. I wanted him to hurt me. I wanted that pain. Don’t you get it? You may think you’re wild, but I am more than you’ve ever bargained for. So the next time you want wedding sex, you remember what your role play wife is—ruthless. I’ll do whatever I can to get what I need, and it’s not pretty. And some day, I’ll drive you to hurt me, too, if I don’t hurt you first. I’m not fucking perfect Kate, where it’s all roses and ponies and whatever else she makes you think, despite how wrong that is all on its own.”
He sucked in a breath. “She’s not perfect.”
Tia sighed, realizing she was lashing out at the wrong person. She hated herself, not Blondie. “No, she’s human. And from what I gather, she’s a rookie, and she’s still soft in all the wrong places. I’ve been in this business a long, long time. I’m hard. I’m cold. And I have no problem whoring myself for what I want. Now get the fuck off me.”
She hated the pain in his eyes as he released her hands and rolled to his side. “Is that what you think? You’re nothing better than a whore?”
“Of course not.”
Liar. That’s exactly what she thought of herself, and it made her tremble to hear him speak the words her mind said over and over to her, every day. She was a whore for her country, which was more honorable than what she did when she wasn’t at work. She was no good. And she didn’t deserve better.
She rose and found clothes, tugging them on. “You said Chase wanted us to run. How far?”
“If you wait, I’ll go with you.”
“How far, Jake?”
He sighed. “Five miles, at least. If you go right out the driveway and keep taking rights, you end up back here.”
“Then I’ll see you in a bit.”
****
Hindsight was twenty/twenty, and from where Jake sat, under his tree, book in hand, wedding sex had been a bad idea after all. Tia had been gone longer than the loop should have taken, but he figured she needed to pound out the stress in miles. He understood that. That was the only thing running was good for, solving problems, releasing stress. He’d gone downstairs to the basement and ran on the treadmill when she left, because he needed that release as well.
And in that time, all he could picture was his best friend’s hands around Tia’s perfect throat, choking her as he pounded between her thighs. He knew Chase. He didn’t want to believe. But Tia had told the truth, as bad as he wanted to believe her a liar. Chase threw up when he was shoved into a corner, wedged between a ticking bomb and hard steel. Almost killing a woman during sex would put him in that spot.
Jake closed his eyes and leaned his head on the sharp bark of the tree. Chase had been in a downward spiral after his divorce. He’d gone from woman to woman, sometimes two, searching for the control he needed. Jake’s job as a friend had been to keep Chase safe. Sane. Obviously, he had failed.
But that didn’t account for why Tia had wanted that. They didn’t allow breath control play at the club. You could fantasize you were being smothered or choked, but you couldn’t go there. Yet Tia had taken his friend by the hand and showed him a dark place, one he’d probably visited in the military. Choking each other out was sometimes a form of hazing, one Chase probably had to experience as a special ops team member, and if he didn’t want to get his ass kicked, he would have had to do it to a new recruit, too.
But to do it to a woman…
Jake shuddered. Thank God she had lived. Chase wouldn’t have survived killing her, even if it was an accident. If he had killed her, Jake would have missed out on the most special night ever with Tia.
Kate. Jake drew in a deep breath. Would Chase hurt Kate that way? He didn’t think so. Chase wouldn’t let her suffer a hangnail, never mind choke her to get her off. Chase had even gone so far as to threaten Jake’s life if their training went too far. Of course, it had. If Chase knew how many times Jake had made Kate pass out from one thing or another in training, he’d have Jake’s head. But it was expected to some extent. Better to pass out in training than to fuck up in real life and die.
Maybe that’s why Chase was so adamant about Kate’s safety. He feared subconsciously what monster lurked under his skin. But Kate had said once that Chase had told her he didn’t need to go to the very dark side anymore. Maybe this is what she had meant.
Suddenly, Jake wished he could talk to Kate. She was his friend first. He wanted to make sure she was okay, though he’d never be brave enough to ask her if Chase had ever hurt her like he had hurt Tia. Kate was a handful when pissed, and seeing his buddy had more than pissed her off, he was staying away from questionable conversation.
He stared at his phone, itching to dial. Kate had all the answers. And though neither of them was very experienced with relationships, at least she had one that was sort of working. He was at a loss of how to save the weekend, and it wasn’t even the weekend. It was only Friday.
I’m working on the mission, he texted Kate, waving a white flag.
Yeah. LOTS told me your plan. Bad, bad idea, Kate responded. LOTS was Chase—short for Lord of the Spies.
Worse idea than loving you? As soon as he hit send, he knew that was a big, big mistake. And sure enough, a heartbeat later, his phone rang, coming up as TNT on the display—their name for Kate.
“What the fuck, Anderson. You know he goes through my phone, don’t you?” She didn’t beat around the bush, and though she often berated him about his language, when she was pissed, she could give as good as he could. “Even this call is a bad idea, because he could easily pull it up. He doesn’t have me bugged. I’ve checked. But you’re waving the red cape in front of the bull, and I don’t mean me.”
“Sorry, bad move on my part.”
“You think? You think as bad a move as taking your partner home with you when you don’t take women home? Chase told me she was the one who had bound you in Paris. Really, fucking bad idea.”
Again, hindsight was twenty/twenty. “We’d already slept together. And I’m working on forgetting you. Doesn’t that count for something?”
“No! I told you to find a woman of your own, not one to play mind games with. Jesus, Jake. If I had known it would come to this, I would have given you relationship lessons ages ago when my relationship was working.”
“Things still not good?”
“No, things are not good. He lied to me. He told me I was implanted with some birth control device, and then he proceeded to tell me, as he fucked me daily, that he couldn’t keep his hands off of me, because committed sex was awesome. And he was relentless on that mission. He didn’t care that I was exhausted or that you’d bruised four of my ribs the day before or that I twisted my ankle on a jump landing. He wanted a fucking zygote, and that’s what he got. So no, things are not good.”
Jake sighed. Chase was an ass.
“I’m sorry you hurt.” Saying sorry usually made women happy, but it only seemed to toss fuel on Kate’s fire.
“You haven’t made the situation any better. Do you realize the hell I got last night when he came home? He wanted to know about Paris, every stinking detail, and you know how well I lie to him. So despite how pissed I am, I had to give him the look and distract him from his interrogation.”
Jake knew the look. It had made him hot before, and it obviously tossed Chase off the edge. Kate drew in a breath, winding up to give Jake more, and he winced. Maybe he should have bitten the bullet and called Chase instead.
“So…” she continued. “Now he thinks he has a chance in hell, and he’s being an egotistical bastard. It’s taking everything I have in me to keep from walking out on him. So, God help me, you better find your way out of this mess, both with Chase and Tia. You had better come up with what you’re going to say to him when he asks, and you had better be able to say it faster than he can load a bullet.”
Jake wasn’t worried any longer. He had it under control. He was here, with Tia, and Chase knew that. “He’s not going to connect the dots. We’re fine.”
“Really? I can’t believe you just said that.” She gave a disgusted snort. “That’s your problem, you know. You underestimate everyone who’s close to you. In the field, you take nothing, no one for granted. You never underestimate the stakes when they’re high. They could kill you, and you’re one step ahead.”
“Not true!”
“The truth hurts, doesn’t it? Those of us in the inner circle, we’re all either taken for granted or underestimated. You underestimate my strength every day, believing I’m not strong enough to leave Chase without you to hold my hand. That I’m not strong enough to be an agent, with or without you. And even Chase, he’s not smart enough to look at you as a threat. I’m not saying you need to be afraid of us, but for God’s sake, get your head out of your ass and start seeing people for what they are instead of what you create them to be.”
She always accused them of being overprotective, but now she thought he underestimated her? Chase? Wrong. Jake went back to the original plan—say you’re sorry and pray like hell. “Sweetheart, I don’t underestimate you. I’m sorry he’s made you this…angry. I’d do anything to take the pain away.”
She growled with frustration at her end of the phone. “And that right there is your second problem. It’s my life, and he’s hurt me, but he’s your best friend. When he told you I was pregnant, what was the first thing that came into your mind?”
Jake struggled to remember the conversation. He’d been too shocked. “How much this was going to hurt you?” Maybe that smacked too close to what she was screaming at him about. He should have thought first and lied.
She snorted. “He’s your fucking best friend. You should be thinking about Chase, and what Chase needs. Did you even ask if he needed anything from you? Even if he wanted to go for a beer or shoot something or just talk? I wouldn’t even have cared if you had taken him to see a stripper. Just…something.”
“I was in his office. It wasn’t appropriate.”
“Bullshit. You were putting me first again, and that’s not helping any of us. It’s not going to help your future relationships, either. I can’t be first. So when I say, I’m thinking about leaving him, you best be thinking how you’re going to pick up the pieces of his life, because he’s the one who needs you, not me.”
“Kate. I’m sorry.” And he was. He had fucked things up but hadn’t realized the depth of it. But he didn’t agree on the underestimating. She was wrong.
Kate sighed. “So you obviously fucked something up with this Tia, because you’re texting/talking to me instead of making love to her. So what did you do?”
Jake didn’t want to tell Kate, not after she had just reamed him out, but if he wanted to get over her, he had to press on. So he told her everything except the part about Chase fucking Tia—the woman didn’t need any more ammo against Chase—and when he got to the wedding sex role playing, she made that strangled noise in her throat. He never knew if it meant she wanted to strangle him or if he was strangling her, but it always made him cringe.
“What?”
“Really? You’d play mind games with her like that? Wedding sex?”
“It’s role playing. Don’t you role play with Chase?”
“No. I wake up and play a role every day of my life. It’s all I can handle. If he had played wedding sex with me in the beginning, I would have gone completely crazy or would have just rigged his car with a bomb.”
He blinked in disbelief. “You don’t like role playing.”
“Not no. Hell no.”
It never dawned on Jake that they might not be sexually compatible. She was attracted to him, he to her. But the idea that she wouldn’t want role play during sex boggled his mind. He and Tia spent most of their sex play in some role or another, and then added in toys or other fun things to keep it just shy of wild. Obviously, Chase didn’t play that way. And if Kate was his, he wouldn’t play that way, either.
He frowned. “I’m sorry you don’t like role play sex. I think, though, you should try it if you ever speak to Chase again.” She made the strangling noise, and Jake hastily said, “I said that putting Chase first! Not you. He likes a good role play. His favorite is captured spy, though I bet you’re the first real spy he ever captured.”
He must have hit too close to home, because she made a disgusted sound. “You know him too well, and I hate you. But we weren’t talking about me.”
Ha, so she had role played before. He’d bet his horses on it. Jake grinned at the phone. “Fine. So what do I do?”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Jake, other than figure it out.” She paused and sucked in a breath of surprise. “That’s for me?” she asked someone on her end of the phone, sounding stunned. “Really? Put it there. Thank you.”
“What?”
“Damn him,” she whispered. “He sent a gift. God damn that man, he knows exactly what buttons to push.”
“What did Chase send? Where are you?” He pictured diamonds, pearls, and a car. Chase had butt loads of money. He could send her anything her heart desired.
“I’m at the lab. He sent me C-4. Lots and lots of C-4.” She sighed again, sounding as wistful as a woman who had just received diamonds, pearls and a car. “Damn him.”
He should be sad or jealous, but instead, Jake laughed, unable to help himself. Chase knew her better than anyone, and he was a little proud of his buddy. “I told you he didn’t play fair.”
“No. He doesn’t.” Kate paused. “Go forth, Anderson. See how you can make this Tia of yours as happy as Chase just made me.”
Jake hung up and leaned against his tree, happy for Kate. She deserved to be happy, after what Chase had done. But he was unhappy for himself after the bitching out he had just received. He didn’t underestimate his friends, did he? He thought of all Kate said, and then reflected that to the problem at hand—Tia.
He quickly came to the conclusion that he was as much an asshole as Kate inferred. He had underestimated what their role playing would do to Tia. He’d taken it for granted that she would enjoy it as much as he did. He’d assumed Chase hurting her had been the reason she cried. A weaker woman might have dissolved to tears about that, but Tia was anything but weak. Kate was right. Thinking like that in the field would have gotten him killed.
So what made Tia tick? Wedding sex had terrified her at first, enough to make her safeword out. Then it had made her cry. He drew in a deep breath on the tails of understanding. She didn’t want to be a girly girl, and when she had bitched him out, she had given him the impression that her true self-image wasn’t as strong as he would expect. Perhaps that’s why she had driven Chase to the lengths she had. Maybe she didn’t feel she deserved better.
Maybe wedding sex was her darkest fantasy.
He shifted on his blanket, leaning his back against the tree. Maybe that’s why she came so easily for him, because the whole act had felt more like making love than just…sex. Maybe it filled a secret need she had. One she hadn’t expected, and that’s why she had cried.
He swallowed the lump in his throat. Wedding sex had been incredible for him, too. Mind-blowing. Pretending had been magical and made him stand at the fringes of his childhood, when he was sixteen again and love was so…simple. He brushed that thought aside. Real men didn’t go back. That was for women.
Maybe Tia needed to revisit something a little more kinky to get her confidence back, before he resumed wedding sex full throttle. Tia deserved to feel special, and what better place than in his arms? No way in hell was he giving up wedding sex, not when deep down, they both craved it. But first, he’d let her get some of that fire back.
He rose and ambled back to the house to gather a few things he knew she wouldn’t be able to resist. They broke the vanilla rules, but if Chase didn’t have to play fair with Kate, then neither did he with Tia.