Chapter Eighteen
Two months later, Kate wrapped her sweater around her shoulders and went out back to the range. Chase was shooting, and she wondered if he was remembering the way she’d made him come the weekend of their birthdays.
Probably not, because something had changed since she woke in the hospital, growing worse since two weeks ago. Somehow, in that short time, she had lost him. And she had no clue how.
She rubbed her hand over the scar on her stomach. She’d recovered, slowly, and healed even slower. But during that time he’d fortified the mask he wore with a wall around him, one that grew higher with each passing day.
The change had started slowly, and at first, she thought Chase was just being considerate, careful, polite. They slipped into a different routine. His aunt came during the day while he worked, to take care of her and make dinner. He slept on the edge of the bed practically, avoiding all contact so he wouldn’t hurt her. He had wanted to move across the hall but she refused to let him.
She loved his Aunt Sophie, and she gleaned a lot of information about the boy he’d been. Intense, even in youth, driven. Painfully shy, hating any attention, especially because he was cute.
Until he hit sixteen and the girls beat a path to his door, his window, his car…wherever he was, they flocked. But he never did serious. Not until after he came home from war and met Diane, the daughter of his uncle’s friend. Only that turned out one-sided.
But Aunt Sophie declared her fit after two weeks and it returned to just Kate and Chase. Kate did her physical therapy three times a week, not so much for her injury but more to get her back into shape, slowly.
She wasn’t allowed to work yet so she sat and twiddled her thumbs, entertained her mind with a small mission of her own, and waited. Waited for him to come home and talk, to tell her what she did was okay, and he was pleased, both as a boss and her lover. She waited to hear that she could finally love him, and yes, they would make it because she’d done exactly as he had asked.
But they had never talked as he had promised. And as the days slipped by, she realized he didn’t intend to talk to her. Ever.
Oh, she had talked, but to a handful of men—the general and other government bureaucrats—as they debriefed her endlessly about the mission. Thank God for Jake because Chase had dropped the ball, refusing to talk to her, failing to warn her about what she could expect from his uncle’s line of questioning.
Jake had stepped in, told her she would be fucking amazing and that he loved her, second cousin style. Chase had sat in the back, silent, cold, and she’d been so grateful she could leave out the details.
The powers-that-be didn’t want to know how they got in. They just wanted to know who, what, why, where. But she did finally discover the bomb had gone off and Zareh Sharan was no more, and she was a heroine.
Not to Chase, though. She got that. But if he was angry about what she did with Jake on that last mission, he had no right, not when he ordered it.
She felt he had tossed the Kate part of her aside for being a whore when he had promised her it wouldn’t matter to him. That he’d only said that because she had been terrified of being raped. They never discussed how he would feel if she went and did her job, just as he had taught her.
She fought the tears as she watched him bend and pick something up, his movements fluid and graceful, those long fingers of his dexterous. Damn him, he trained her to seduce. He was allowed to be the boss, to be a hard-assed, egotistical bastard who had a hand in more evil than the devil dreamed of. If he could be that at work, why was it wrong for her to do her job?
Her phone dinged in her pocket—a text. Probably Jake. She’d seen only him once after the debriefing because she sensed Jake was another source of the problem. Jake was getting the cold shoulder, too, but he didn’t complain. He was a good friend like that.
You going to talk to him soon? Jake texted. Ginger had lunch with him yesterday. He’s spiraling.
Her hands trembled on the phone. Ginger was what he called Charlotte, and she was close to both Jake and Chase.
Spiraling was their code for Chase losing control, and that scared her more than anything. If he wasn’t talking to her, and he spiraled, he was going back to that dark place. She couldn’t say he’d cheat on her, because obviously he didn’t belong to her. You can’t cheat on someone you’re not with. But he’d go back, to the women and the dark sex. And it would kill her.
It’s hard to talk to a wall, Cowboy.
Scale it. Find a way in. I taught you better than that.
He’s your friend. You scale it.
Crowded room, busy street. He won’t kill you.
She wasn’t so sure about that. Actually, at this point, she wished he would just kill her and put her out of her misery. She wished she hadn’t lived, not from the plane crash way back when, and she could have died as Emma, a virgin, dreaming of the day when Alexander Bishop would come back and rescue her.
She texted Jake, If I scale, and he pushes me away… I can’t live without him.
But you already are, sweetheart. Call me when you’re done. I’ll come get you if you need me to.
Yes, she already was living without him. The only contact she had was in bed, when he slept, after her wounds had healed. The wall would come down and he’d drape himself over her, crushing her to his hard body, holding her as if she would disappear from his grasp.
It became so all she wanted to do was sleep, so he’d touch her. There was no sexual contact at all. He didn’t kiss her more than a chaste thing on the corner of her mouth when he had to.
He’d made no attempt at making love to her, even though they’d cleared her for that a week earlier. She’d told him, and the look he had given her was like an icy knife being driven into her heart.
He only had to twist the knife in her heart to kill her, and she was waiting for it… Waiting like she had when she almost died, waiting in that quiet, silent place where he said he would be. Waiting for him to return. Only this time, the room was full of pain.
Jake was right. She had to talk to him. She couldn’t bear waiting any longer. He needed to twist the knife and kill the love she had for him, so she could be free. She didn’t see him coming back from this, to love her again. She’d let it go way, way too far.
Chase stood at ease in the shooting range, loading the pistol, oblivious she was there, which surprised her because he noticed everything. He didn’t wear protection of any sort. Protection was for wimps, he had said once.
She remembered how loud the discharge had been when she’d been shot, and after, when she had shot the guard. She wished now she had practiced some without any protection. It might have been easier.
His blue flannel shirt draped open over a white T-shirt, jeans and he wore a military baseball cap—his favorite weekend attire. He was thinner than when she had met him, harder. Definitely colder. He took aim down range and effortlessly fired off the rounds, hitting direct center at a distance she knew she could never hit.
She forced herself to breathe around the lust that built, swirling, quickly consuming her. That she’d want him this desperately when he hated her had to be wrong. But want him she did, especially when he shot like this, dark and dangerous, beyond amazing, beyond perfect. The clip was empty so he reloaded again, not bothering to check his target.
She gripped her sweater tighter around her. It was now or never. “Chase.”
He glanced up, finished what he was doing and then walked over, his face guarded. “You want a turn?” he asked, holding out the gun.
“The last time I held a gun, I killed a man.” She stared at the gun, her stomach churning, and brushed the hair from her face. She didn’t know what to do with her hands, not when she wanted to touch him so badly. She tucked her hands back under her arms. “You never told me how that would feel. Just that it would get easier.”
“It sucks,” he said. “If you have any sort of a conscience, it sucks. It doesn’t matter how evil the target is. You have to believe what you did was right, for our country, and find peace that way.”
It was the most he’d said to her in ages. “We need to talk, Chase,” she said softly.
“I have nothing to say.” But there was a flicker of emotion that said he lied, and he had a hell of a lot to say. She bit her lip, unsure what to do.
Nervously, she tugged at the collar of her shirt, and his eyes dropped to her cleavage. His breathing changed just a little, and it took him a moment to tear his eyes from the small amount of flesh visible. His Adam’s apple bobbed, and he finally dragged his attention to the gun in his hand.
She blinked, hope taking root. He wanted her. He was pissed as hell, but he still wanted her. She leaned in and grabbed his water bottle off the shooting bench, her hand brushing his. He tensed and took a step back, giving her room. She drank, then set it back down, deliberately bending a bit so her shirt fell away, exposing more of her breasts to him.
She heard his breath hitch then grow shallow. He swallowed harder and took another step back. She stood and knew how to scale the wall. She’d seduce him. She’d climb that wall of his naked and make him notice her. And at least, if he tossed her back over it when he was done taking her, she would have held him one last time.
“Look at me,” she whispered.
His gaze snapped to hers.
“I want you.” She took a step toward him. He took one back. “I want you to fuck me on your shooting bench, like you wanted to on our birthday weekend. Remember? But I was too sore, and you…you were just you, dark and dangerous. The devil with a gun, just like you are now.”
She leaned against the bench, more of a table, and slowly unbuttoned her shirt, taking longer than she would have if she were just undressing, just as he had once taught her. His gaze wanted to dip, wanted to take in the black bra she wore. She hoped he’d ignore the new scar on her stomach, where they’d removed the bullet and sewed up the damage. But it was a part of her now, like it or not.
“Put the gun down,” she ordered, because he seemed to respond when she gave him a command. He blinked, took a step to the side, away from her, and did as he was told. She ran her hand over her breasts and now his gaze dropped, his eyes flaring with desire as she cupped the flesh, her thumbs on her nipples. “Touch me.”
He closed his eyes, and she thought his hands trembled at his sides. Just a little because Chase never showed anything.
“Chase.”
His eyes opened and snapped to hers again.
“Touch me.”
She held her breath, waiting for him to make a decision. If he left, she’d curl up and die on the spot. Her heart hammered faster as he stared at her. He looked unsure, but who knew? He swallowed again and took a step forward, then two.
His hand rose, shaking, and touched her arm. The contact was electric. Shocks ran from his fingers along her skin straight to her core. He stepped closer and she could inhale his scent—guns and Chase. The air around them became supercharged, the current dangerous yet alluring at the same time. He glanced down at her arm, where his hand was, then he met her gaze again.
She didn’t like what she saw there. Fear raced with desire along the current between them. He was going to turn away. She knew it. She couldn’t lose him. She dug deeper into her training, remembering his words. She reached behind her back, unsnapped her bra, and let it fall so she stood topless, her breasts exposed, the autumn air puckering her nipples.
His gaze dropped again and his breath caught. He didn’t touch her, but her body responded as if he had, her breasts tighter, the strange connection between her nipples and her pussy coming alive with a pulsing heat. Her panties grew wetter as moisture gathered. She wouldn’t need him to touch her to be ready, not at this rate.
She grabbed the waistband of his jeans and tugged him closer, between her legs. He wasn’t immune to her, not if his cock was this hard, the bulge visible through the denim. She unbuttoned his pants, slid his zipper down, then tugged at his pants and underwear, setting his cock free.
Her hand trembled as she grasped his shaft at the base, stroking him long and languid, squeezing him just as he liked. He made a quiet noise in the back of his throat, not quite a groan. A drop of pre-cum beaded, and she bent, though the angle was awkward, and took just the head of his cock in her mouth, her tongue sweeping away his fluid.
He stiffened.
She sucked him deeper, harder, then released him from her mouth. She shoved him backward a step and knelt before him. She took his cock in her mouth again, sucking him deep, hard, the head at the back of her throat. His shaking hands threaded into her hair, his fingers against her scalp, and her heart sang at the contact.
She sucked harder, content to just blow him if that’s all he wanted. But she was doing this to get in, under his skin, to make him open up. In the field, she would eventually do this to some man to get what she wanted. It was sad that she had to do this now, to the man she loved, to make him talk to her.
His hands tightened in her hair and he tugged. She stood, unsure what he wanted, afraid he’d push her away. He bent and kissed her, hard, possessive, his tongue fierce, demanding. If felt as if he poured every ounce of anger and longing into that kiss, and she hung on to his shoulders and let lust respond.
He released her head and yanked up the skirt she’d worn without breaking the kiss. He slid his hands into the sides of her panties and ripped, the material shredding in his hands. His fingers delved between her thighs, stabbing between the damp folds of her pussy, jamming into her core with a roughness he’d never shown her before.
She welcomed him, spreading her legs, moaning into his mouth as he shoved two fingers in, thrusting hard. This would be hard, fast, and she probably wouldn’t get to come. Her punishment for being trained to seduce.
He lifted her to the bench, never breaking his kiss as he stepped between her thighs. He fumbled just a second, his cock homing in, and he grabbed her hips. He rammed home, claiming her, stretching her, the intense pleasure as violent as his need. Yes, she needed this. Had forgotten what it felt to be his, only his.
He broke the kiss and bit her neck, sucking as hard as he thrust. She leaned back and used her palms to support herself and him as his tempo increased, if that was at all possible. He shoved her down, flat on her back and followed her, his pecs pressing, his chest hair rough against her nipples as he pinned her down. She slid her hands to his shoulders, and he grabbed them, pinning them against the hard wood.
And suddenly she was reminded of when he had refused to force her and instead had made love to her. He would have claimed her then, like this. He would have ridden her just as hard, as violently, breathing like a dragon down her neck, every muscle tense, sweat beading on his brow.
“There’s a price for this,” she whispered in his ear, remembering how she had bargained with the guards to keep Jake safe. “If you come, you will have to talk to me.”
He tensed and stilled, panting, his eyes wild and feral. “I have nothing to say,” he ground out through gritted teeth.
“If you come, you will talk to me,” she commanded. He was too far gone to pull out.
“I have nothing to say,” he whispered but lost himself in her again, thrusting like he was possessed.
She could feel the struggle, wanting to come yet holding back because he was so stubborn. His shoulders tensed, the conflict etched in the lines of his face.
“Chase. Come for me. Let me be your Trinitrotoluene. Your TNT. Detonate for me,” she whispered, urging him on. “I am 251 megajoules of high-explosive orgasm, baby.”
He shuddered and tensed. He loved her smart talk. She wanted to make him explode, to come harder than ever before, so the goods would be worth the price of talking.
“I’ll break your sound barrier at 6900 meters per second. Come for me.”
He trembled and let go, groaning as he thrust harder a few pumps. Then he stilled, his cum jetting deep inside of her, hot and wet. He thrust gently, then collapsed on top of her, shaking and panting.
She wrapped her arms around him and held him, missing the contact. His hands were still biting into her hips, and she ached for him to wrap them around her.
“You didn’t come,” he finally said against her neck.
“No.”
“Good.” He struggled out of her arms and withdrew, avoiding her gaze. He stood and yanked up his pants, shoving his cock where it belonged before he zipped up.
“You don’t weigh one-thirty anymore,” he whispered, then finally looked at her, super-composed. “One twenty-five, maybe.”
He had noticed she had lost weight. She should be happy that he noticed, but she thought for a moment and a cold chill ran over her skin. He’d done the math to her megajoules comment, relating how much energy TNT contained per kilo.
She swallowed nervously, because she had forgotten how smart the devil was. Just as smart as he was beautiful. “You know TNT.”
He gave a sharp laugh. “I used to know TNT. I think you’ve become comp B, and I don’t know a damned thing about comp B. Except it’s way more than I can deal with.”
Yes, maybe she had morphed into something else, just like when they added other compounds to TNT to make stronger explosives, like comp B. But he had done this to her. It wasn’t her choice. She steeled her resolve to get what she needed. “Do you want to talk here or in the house?”
“I have nothing to say.”
She called her inner Kate, the one who had boldly shot a man. She could face this Chase. “You got your orgasm. Now pay the price. Start talking.”
He looked…hurt. “I can’t believe you just fucked me to get me to talk to you.”
“What did you want me to do? Honest to God, I have tried. I have cornered you in the bathroom, in the gun room, in your study, in the car, and you made it quite clear you didn’t have anything to say. I have made appointments to see you at the office, and you canceled them.
“You owe me an exit interview because isn’t that what this is? You’re done. I know that. This is what you did to Diane, only I’m smart enough to see it before you go and cheat on me like you did her.
“You owe me, and don’t you stand there looking at me like I’m a whore. You trained me to seduce, to get what I want. You made me what I am. So if you have a complaint about what I’ve become, look to the devil inside of you because that’s where I learned it.”
His cold gaze snapped to hers, and the mask slipped long enough for her to see the fury boiling, hot in contrast to the iciness of his brown eyes.
“I never taught you about threesomes. I never went there. How the fuck does a threesome even come up while sitting in a cell, waiting for a madman to kill you? Normal people, they’d talk about how they were going to escape or maybe how they were going to accomplish the objective. But not you two.” His laugh was bitter. “What else did you talk about, for Christ’s sake?” He waved a hand. “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”
She blinked. That was the most Chase had said to her in weeks, and of all the things that had gone through her mind regarding why he hated her, this was not one of them. “Jake and I talked a lot about you, but the threesome came up because he told me about your past, how you shared endless amounts of women, and when you are out of control, like you are now, that is what you turn to.”
“That was then.” Chase looked away, toward the edge of the shooting range. “Makes me glad we were radio silent on that conversation. It was bad enough, watching you in the clearing and knowing every man in that tent had a hard-on. My God, you were so fucking hot and there wasn’t a guy who didn’t want to be Jake at that moment. Including me.”
So he was pissed about the clearing, too. That didn’t surprise her. But he had no right to be pissed. It was his mission. He’d planned it. He told Jake she had to come.
She sighed and felt like the walls in the hole he’d dug for her were closing in. Just shove dirt on her and she’d have an instant grave. Maybe that would be best, for all of them. If she no longer existed.
“You told me to be convincing, to do my job. I was fucking hot because I made Jake wear your cologne and I was pretending Jake was you. And yes, I’m sorry I said your name and now the whole team knows, and yes, I almost blew the whole thing. But when Jake shoved his hands down my pants and said I was wet, that was because it was you I was wet for, not him. I’m not sorry for that.”
His jaw clenched, and she could almost hear his teeth grind in frustration. “And what were you pretending when you offered yourself—us—to him?”
“Part of me was joking at that point. And in the hospital when I said I owed him, I was thinking about baking another pie, not sleeping with him. But after what I went through, a part of me isn’t joking anymore.
“You are losing it, Chase. You are out of control. And if you turned to that before, you’ll turn again. I am doing everything I can to fight for you. And if that means I have to sleep with you and Jake, I’ll do it.”‘
“I’m in control.”
“That’s not what Jake says or Ryan or even Charlotte. Or anyone else I’ve talked to who say you’ve been a jerk at work, too, because of me.”
The punishment at work was to run if you fucked up. Chase had made four people run to the house last week alone because it was about ten miles from the base. Kate had to give them a ride back, and she hated that she was the problem behind their suffering.
“Don’t tell me how to do my job.”
“Someone has to because, like I said, you are out of control.”
“I have enough people telling me how to do my job. You think being me is so easy. Pretty, dark, and dangerous, good at everything. Well, all I want out of life is luck for once. I have shit for luck, and it all started when I met you.”
“You should have let me die,” she whispered, no longer able to fight him. “Why did you bother saving me? You should have let me die as Emma.” She dropped her gaze from his and turned away.
“Don’t talk like that.”
She spun on her heel. “Why not, Chase? Isn’t that the truth? I don’t know what to do to make you happy anymore. I went on that mission. I did what you asked. I made it so Jake could come home, just like you commanded. I have done everything you asked of me, and it’s never enough.
“I even entertained the idea of a threesome with Jake to make you happy. When I sat in that cell with him, and we talked about you, he made me realize that I had to become what you needed if I wanted to keep you. You said it yourself that last night we were together and you bound me. If I didn’t go there, you would leave me.
“So I went, you blew my mind with the intensity of the orgasms, and I would go again. Gladly, if it meant you’d stop being so angry. So how bad is my luck? I’m willing to give you everything, and you still don’t want me? There are a lot of men out there who would thank their lucky stars they met me.”
“Maybe you should go find one, then.” His upper lip twisted.
“I found one.” She didn’t want to find anyone else. She wanted to find him again. Stupidity had her set the cards on the table and show them, all but one.
“For as much as an asshole as you are right now, you are an incredible man, and I am very lucky to have met you. I know what you did for me, after the plane crashed. The nurses told me a gorgeous man sat with me every night, and I never believed them. Not until I smelled your cologne in the room when I woke up, and I remembered. And I believed.
“You even let me choose my name. I remember you asking, ‘If you can’t be Emma, who do you wish to be?’ I always wanted to be Kate. And now I am.”
He grunted but looked less angry. “You were my collateral damage. I took care of you, just like Jake took care of Charlotte.”
Yes, he did. But she had to believe she meant more. She didn’t want him to twist the knife in her heart. “Jake told me what you did to make sure I came home, that you asked him to go. You didn’t have to do that.”
Now he softened a bit more. “Jake tells you a lot.”
“Sometimes.” She wished Jake were here, now, to help her with this, to tell her she was amazing. She was failing miserably.
“Do you love him?” The question was soft and sad, not angry.
“Who? Jake?” She blinked. “Where is this coming from?”
“You offered him a threesome. You told him you loved him, in the hospital, and right before you went into the debriefing. You both said it. The day after your debriefing, you spent the entire day with him, and I can just guess what you did. So do you? If you have fallen for him instead of me, it will make this a lot easier.”
Kate’s mind whirled around his accusations. The debriefing was two weeks ago, and everything had seemed to go downhill after that. She could understand him being pissed about Jake saying he loved her, but it was the second cousin rule, not the way she loved Chase.
What scared her most was his accusation that she’d spent the day with Jake the day after the debriefing.
Chase had given her too much time to think after her injury, leaving her all alone, and she had needed some closure on the Emma side of her life. She’d been deep undercover, breaking every rule they’d put in place concerning her new identity. Chase the rule maker, the rule follower, would be pissed as hell if he knew.
She tucked her hair behind her ear. “What are you talking about? I have never slept with Jake or anyone else but you. Just you.”
“Do you love him?” he repeated, louder, a little more anxious.
“Yes, but not like I love you. You love him, too, so don’t be pissy about it.”
“Fuck.” He closed his eyes and seemed to count to ten. “See? This is why I think I have shitty luck. I have waited over a year to hear you love me, and it’s in conjunction with loving him.”
A year. He’d waited a year… “You told me I couldn’t love you. I would have said those words long before today if you allowed it. But you didn’t. That’s not shitty luck. That’s poor judgment or bad planning on your part. Not luck.”
“But you love him.”
Anger fed off his holier-than-thou tone. “Yes, and like I said, so do you, so you should get it. He’s my best friend. I didn’t have friends when I was Emma, so meeting Jake was like Christmas morning for me, every day. You were Mr. Popular in high school. I was a virgin for you because I spent every day in the lab or with tutors. I didn’t have the opportunity to meet a boy, never mind have sex.”
“Do you want him, then?”
Good question. Did she? “Not like I want you. You are like sexual crack for me, especially these last few weeks when you wouldn’t touch me. I crave you. And yes, Jake was the last person to make me come, but I don’t want him to take care of this horrible need I have.”
His jaw set, just like Jake’s. The two were closer than even they realized.
She blew out an exasperated breath. “What I did with Jake doesn’t change how I feel about him sexually. He’s an attractive man, and it’s exciting that he’s wanted me.
“But you need to remember that I could have had Jake first, long before I even knew who you were. I didn’t, because stupid Emma fell in love with a certain businessman who took her to third base the night before her twenty-fifth birthday.”
Chase’s stance changed, the tension oozing from his shoulders.
“Jake is a special, wonderful man. He saved my life, for you. And yes, I think I owe him something—you owe him, too. And if having a threesome with you and Jake kills two birds with one stone, then so be it.”
He studied her and she knew his mind was whirling a mile a minute, even if it didn’t show in his eyes. “If you didn’t fuck him the day after the debriefing, then where did you go?”
She had to tread very carefully. “How do you know I went anywhere?”
“I tracked your phone to the house, but when I came home to talk to you, you were gone. Your phone was on the counter. You had no calls, just the texts I’d seen from Jake and Charlotte. So you used your second phone to call someone and do something all day. And when I questioned you that night, you froze, like you were guilty.”
“A deer in the headlights,” she whispered.
She had thought she was over feeling that way with him when he stared at her like that. She didn’t question the fact that he’d snooped at her phone. She knew he had on several occasions, and she had nothing to hide. The second phone he must have seen when she dropped her purse that night when he questioned her. Guilty as charged, except not how he thought.
“A guilty deer in the headlights,” he amended. “When I went and tracked Jake’s phone, he was at the club. I did some digging, and he’d been there all day. He told me once that when he found that special girl, he was booking a room and fucking her for eight hours straight. You were gone, so…”
“Maybe he has a girlfriend now.” But Jake didn’t do girlfriends. She wasn’t with him, but she couldn’t admit to Chase where she’d gone, either. Chase had enough ammo against her. “I swear to you, I’ve never slept with him. Never. And any thought of sleeping with him has only been in conjunction with you.”
“Then where were you?”
Leave it, Chase. Please. “It was personal. Maybe I’d have to tell you if this were work because I broke a whole bunch of rules and the boss part of you would be pissed as hell. But you—I’m nothing to you. I’m not your girlfriend, I’m not your lover. I don’t exist or belong.”
His eyes glittered dangerously in a body carved from stone. “You want me to pull the boss card? Is that what you want?”
“What would that solve, Chase? You’d still hate me.” She stared out at the shooting range, remembering how he had expanded her shooting skills. He’d been the boss then and she hadn’t even known it.
She sighed. “The funny thing is, if you were just my boss, this would have been over a long time ago. You would have called me into your office, bitched me out, then you would have made me run, just like everyone else.
“And as much as I have hated you as a boss, I think right now I would prefer him to the judgmental bastard you’ve become. The boss made it quite clear he would destroy any shred of innocence I had left.
“You—you look at me like I’m a whore because of what work made me do with your best friend. And then you kill me quietly, with your silence.”
He blanched, as if she’d slapped him. “You think I’m judgmental?”
“Yes. I do.”
The armor slipped and she caught a glimpse of the depth of his suffering. It tore at her heart because she didn’t want that. She just wanted to love him.
“Chase, this doesn’t have to ruin us. You don’t understand how I love you. My love for you is all-consuming, complete, and it kept me alive and running when I should have fallen and died. What I feel for Jake is nothing compared to what I feel for you. He’s a second cousin I’d fuck if you’d let me, but you…I gave you my soul. I told you I was yours. All yours.”
She had his attention. He stared and swallowed, and she knew she had to press on, to lay down the last card that showed exactly how much she loved him. “I would die for Jake. I almost did. But I would die for you first. That’s how much I love you.”
And he said nothing, his emotions so tightly in check as he still stared.
And the knife twisted in her heart. She pushed away from the bench and took out her phone.
“What are you doing?”
“Texting Jake to come get me. I’m going out with him for a bit. He’s my best friend, and I haven’t seen him since the debriefing. I need to start looking for a house, I think, and he said he would go with me.
“Unless you open up, unless you start giving me something other than this mask you wear, we’re done. I can’t live like this, with your silence and anger, thinking I’m nothing better than a whore. I did that with my father, and you know how that ended.”
“I don’t think that. You’re not a whore.”
“I wouldn’t know what you think. You haven’t talked to me at all. Not as my boss, not as my lover.” She sighed. “I can’t tell you what to do as my boyfriend. You made it clear I’d never be your girlfriend. You didn’t want one.”
She assessed him, knowing this would be taken way out of line. She would deserve to be punished for this, but she had to tell him.
“But as my boss, you dropped the ball. I needed you. I needed to talk to you, I needed to know if what I did was right, and I needed you to be there for me when I faced your uncle at the debriefing. But you dropped the ball, and Jake had to step in.
“So. How lucky am I? I’m really lucky because when the man I love chokes, his best friend is there for me.”
“How long will you be gone?” he asked, his voice hoarse.
“A few hours. You can think during that time, and make a decision. If you want me to come back, for good, it will be as a girlfriend. I can’t be nothing. And that’s what I am. I’m nothing to anyone, except Jake. I am the second cousin he’d like to fuck. How sad is that?”
She bit back the tears, hating the cold face staring back at her. Damn him. Damn him straight to hell, where he resided anyway.
“If you decide you want me, then I expect you to make love to me, properly. And if you don’t want a threesome, fine. But you need to say you’re sorry to Jake, for being an asshole.”
“And if I don’t want to?” He was so sexy, even as sullen and cold as he was. She hated her attraction to him. Hopefully that would die along with her love when he turned her away.
“Then it’s over. I’ll transfer somewhere else, if the powers-that-be will let me. You know I can run and hide, and I could do that, too. I’m prepared.
“Honestly, I don’t see us working. Jake said you loved me, in that cell. And I don’t believe it. Maybe you loved me as Emma, but there is no way you love Kate. Because if you loved me…”
She wiped a tear from her face, not caring if he saw them. “I would die for you, and I feel like I already have. When I almost died, I went to that place where you said you’d be, where you would wait if something bad happened. I feel like I woke up from the hospital, and that’s where I still am. In that place. Waiting. Only it hurts.”
She turned away, and then she looked back at him one last time, his hands in his pockets, every inch dark and dangerous.
She said softly, “I’m done waiting.”