by Amelia Autin
He collapsed into a chair next to the man with whom he was meeting, who was casually reading a newspaper and pretending he hadn’t been watching the High Tiger’s approach. He had, which the High Tiger knew all too well.
After a moment the man folded the newspaper in thirds and placed it on the table. That was the signal. Unfolded or folded in half would mean the man suspected something, and the two men would not speak.
“So what do you have for me?”
The man glanced once more to the left and right, then leaned forward and spoke in an undertone. “The High Dragon of RMM,” he said, referring to the head of RMM by the euphemism the man always used. “And the woman with whom he is enamored. This is the first chink in his armor in all the years I have known him. Now he is vulnerable.” The man smiled, and even the High Tiger was chilled by the absolute malevolence in that smile. “Now we have him.”
* * *
Alana had heard there was sometimes pain, but not for her. Not with this man. She’d steeled herself against the possibility until she realized he wouldn’t let there be pain for her with his loving.
Jason had fulfilled his pledge...by fulfilling her. Numerous times. She’d lost track somewhere along the way, but that didn’t seem to matter in the slightest. No, the only thing Jason seemed to care about was the tears she’d shed when the pleasure was too great—as he’d promised she would. And because she sensed it mattered to him, she hadn’t held the tears back as she would otherwise have tried to do. She wasn’t ashamed, and she wanted him to know. She wanted to give him that small triumph.
She was floating in pleasure-dazed euphoria after the last time, when Jason reached over to the nightstand and grabbed one of the little packets there. She watched as he rolled the condom on over his impressive erection, then moved between her thighs.
“Open for me, lang loi,” his husky voice whispered in her ear, and she eagerly complied. This was what she’d been waiting for after all. Everything else had been a prelude to this.
Then he slid inside. Not quickly, painfully, but slowly, inexorably. There was one instant when her body refused his entrance, but his fingers caressed the little nub until her body softened in surrender. Only then did he flex his hips and fill her to the hilt. She caught her breath in wonder at the sensation of having this man so tight, so deep, within her; it was as if for one brief moment they were one. And she knew from the inarticulate sounds issuing from his throat she was giving him the same pleasure he was giving her.
She raised her knees and arched her hips, taking him impossibly deeper...and he loved it. Then she tightened her pelvic muscles, wrenching a groan from him. He growled, “Do that again and I won’t last, lang loi.” So of course she did it again, and he lost all control, driving into her hard and fast.
The orgasm took her by surprise. She hadn’t thought she was capable of another—but then it hit and she throbbed around him and sobbed his name. Hers preceded his by mere seconds. A brief flurry of thrusts and then he came, too, her name on his lips.
* * *
Alana was floating again. She hadn’t lost consciousness because she was all too aware when Jason drew away, and she wanted to protest. But she knew he needed to deal with the condom, so she contented herself by squeezing him one last time with her inner muscles as he withdrew.
She was shocked out of her lethargy when Jason muttered a pithy Anglo-Saxon curse, and her eyes flew open. “What? What’s wrong?”
His mouth was a thin line and guilt wove its way over his features when he confessed, “The condom broke.” As if it was a disaster.
A dart of unthinking panic was quickly replaced with the once-shocking thought that it wouldn’t be the worst thing she could imagine. She’d always known she wanted children. Not just because she wanted a chance to be a better parent than her own had been, but because she couldn’t envision a life without them someday. And she couldn’t imagine anyone other than Jason as her children’s father. She loved him. He loved her—at least, she was pretty sure he did. So why was he so upset?
She sat up, drawing the sheet over her bare breasts and touching his arm in comfort. “Does it matter that much to you? I mean, okay, it’s not something we planned. The odds are against it, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world, you know, if it did happen.”
His face hardened. “Yes, it matters. It matters more than you can imagine.”
A tiny chill feathered down her spine and she blinked. “Why?”
He didn’t answer, just rose from the bed and disappeared into the bathroom with the defective condom. She heard the shower running briefly, then he emerged a minute later, a towel wrapped around his hips. And the closed expression on his face warned her something was going on here, something she didn’t understand.
“Why, Jason? Why does it matter so much?”
Then he dropped a bombshell. “Because I don’t want children. Ever.”
Chapter 13
Jason watched as the warm color drained from Alana’s cheeks, leaving her face white and pinched. And he knew he’d just delivered a body blow.
“Not even with me?” Her voice wobbled a bit, and her eyes...her eyes slayed him. But he couldn’t lie to her about this.
“Not even with you.”
“I...see.” Her fingers tightened on the sheet. “I see.” She averted her face as if she didn’t want him to see how it affected her, and that ripped a hole in his heart. Alana hadn’t been ashamed of anything they’d done in bed. Not yesterday, and not tonight. But he knew she was ashamed now.
Still without looking at him, she asked quietly, “May I have my clothes, please?”
“Alana, I... You don’t understand.” The words were on the tip of his tongue to suggest she obtain a doctor’s prescription for the morning-after pill, which wasn’t yet available over the counter in Hong Kong. But her reaction told him the request would devastate her even more than his admission, and the words died unspoken. “It’s not—”
The face she turned to him was as fierce as her voice. “Don’t you dare say, ‘It’s not you, it’s me.’”
“Why not, when it’s the truth?”
Her eyes glistened suddenly, and she bit her lip. “Because if you really cared for me—”
“I do.”
She shook her head in denial. “You can’t possibly.” Her voice was scarcely above a whisper.
He sat on the bed and reached for her, grasping her upper arms and shaking her a little. “Don’t say that, lang—”
She pulled away sharply. “And don’t call me lang loi, because you don’t really mean it.”
His arms dropped to his sides. “You’re deliberately misunderstanding the situation.”
“What about me?” The tears in her eyes and her voice were a dagger in his soul. “I want children. Your children. You’re not willing to consider it? Not even at some point in the future?”
More than anything in the world he wanted to be able to say yes. But memories flooded his consciousness, reminding him why he’d vowed years ago he’d never put any child through what he’d endured. “No.”
“Why? Will you at least tell me that much?”
He couldn’t tell her, but he couldn’t say the word no. Not again. His throat closed and he couldn’t speak. So he just shook his head slowly, watching the faint hope in her eyes die.
Her lips trembled, then tightened, and she nodded her acceptance. “I see,” she said for the third time. “So what you’re saying is, you don’t care about what I want.”
“I do care.” He briefly considered asking why children were so important to her, but decided against it because there was no point. No matter her response, he wouldn’t change his mind. Instead he said, “Ask me for anything else. Anything. But not this.”
“Then may I have my clothes, please?” Politely. As if there was nothin
g between them. As if they were strangers.
His hands tightened into fists and he fought the primitive possessiveness that swept through him, the possessiveness that insisted Alana was his, and he would never let her go. He clenched his jaw against the sudden urge to keep her here by force, if necessary, until she admitted she belonged to him. Making love to her until she agreed never to leave him.
She seemed to divine his thoughts, though, because she said in a tight, little voice, “You can’t keep me here against my will, Jason. And I...” She caught her breath as if it hurt her to say the words that were the death knell to his dreams. “I don’t want to be here...with you.”
* * *
Alana didn’t cry as Jason drove her from Causeway Bay to the DeWinters’ estate on Victoria Peak. She desperately wanted to, but she knew her tears would devastate Jason, and she couldn’t do that to him. Dirk’s words kept coming back to her, like a filmstrip on a repeating loop. I’m less concerned with you breaking Jason’s heart than I am with him breaking yours. Not that I think he’d do it deliberately. But any woman who gets involved with him has to know up front it could happen.
Her heart was breaking. But she didn’t know why. There was an explanation, though. There had to be an explanation that made sense to him, even if she couldn’t see it now. Even if he refused to tell her.
It wasn’t that she just wanted children, and any man would do. She would have been married long since if that was the case; she’d had plenty of opportunities.
No, her dream had been of a future with the man she loved, including children created from their love who would grow up in a caring, nurturing home, unlike the one in which she’d been raised. A dream that now lay in ashes.
But she wasn’t ready to give up. She loved Jason; tonight would never have happened if that wasn’t the case. So even though part of her wanted to lash out at him, wound him as he’d wounded her, she couldn’t do it. He’d flinched when she’d told him earlier she didn’t want to be there with him. He’d hidden his reaction behind a stoic front almost immediately, but he hadn’t been able to prevent that initial instant’s betrayal of pain her words had caused. Alana knew he did care for her after all. And she’d already hurt him enough.
Which was why, when he parked the car in front of the DeWinters’ house, she reached over and turned off the engine. Then waited for his puzzled gaze to meet hers, a question in his eyes.
“I have something to say, and I’d appreciate it if you just listen quietly and don’t speak. Okay?”
“All right. But only if I can say what I have to say after.”
She nodded, then took her courage in both hands and said, “I still—” She stopped abruptly, unwilling to reveal her love in the face of Jason’s outright rejection. “I still care for you. I know it might not seem that way after what I said earlier, but I do. I just need time by myself to think about this.” To come to terms with your edict, she almost said, but she didn’t want to make promises she might not be able to keep. She wasn’t sure she could ever come to terms with it, but she was going to try.
She touched his cheek. “That’s it. That’s all I wanted to say. I still care, even if I can’t...” She reached for the door handle, but he stopped her.
“You’ve had your say, and now it’s my turn.”
“I’m sorry, I forgot. What did you want to tell me?”
He was silent for a moment, then said, “If it was any woman, it would be you. I want you to know that.”
By which Alana knew Jason meant if he ever had children, he would want her as their mother. She was so moved by the admission tears threatened again, but she held them back with a superhuman effort. “Thank you.”
Tenderness for this man, so obviously wounded in ways she still didn’t understand, washed through her, and she knew she couldn’t leave things like this. She leaned over and brushed a kiss against his cheek, murmuring, “Good night, lang jai. Thank you for making my first time so wonderful.”
* * *
Jason jolted awake much earlier than normal the next morning. His heart pounding. His breath coming in gasps. Then he collapsed back onto his pillow, struggling to bring his body down from the nightmare that had woken him.
It didn’t happen, he told himself firmly. It was just a bad dream. Alana wasn’t taken to a brothel in Macau. She wasn’t raped, then forced with threats, drugs and beatings to service the men who would pay handsomely to—
But other women had been. He and RMM had rescued Alana, but what about all the other women? RMM had to shut this triad down. Which meant he needed to stop obsessing over her and focus on the job at hand.
Easier said than done, especially now. Now that Alana had sealed herself to him in the most elemental way. Now that she’d shown him how much she loved him.
She hadn’t said the words, but nothing else made sense. Alana would never have slept with him otherwise, no matter what she said about “wanting” him.
And she still loved him, despite what he’d confessed last night.
Hadn’t he known, though? Hadn’t he told himself Sunday night that if Alana truly loved him she’d accept children weren’t in the cards? Even though she’d been shocked and devastated at first, she’d left him with hope that all wasn’t lost. That his dream of a life with her was still a possibility.
We could have a good life, he thought now, even without children of our own. There were numerous child-related charities crying for volunteers. He quietly supported numerous charities with money, even though he didn’t have the time to devote to them, since RMM took all his free time. If Alana married me, she could spend her time however she chooses. If she needs interaction with children, volunteering would be the perfect outlet.
He would never subject a child of his to what he’d suffered growing up. Not happening, he reiterated in his mind.
He’d never told his parents. Had never told his sister, either. Those wounds went too deep, and he couldn’t bear to have them touched. The only person alive who knew was David, and he was sworn to secrecy.
But that didn’t mean he planned to live his life alone, especially now that he’d found Alana. In his mind’s eye he already saw them married, taking their places in society in both his worlds.
His parents would love her; that went without saying. And her cultured background and royal connection to the Queen of Zakhar would play well to his paternal relatives, members of the British upper class who seemed to momentarily expect Jason to introduce an outsider into their midst, even though he’d always kept that part of his life completely separate. “She’s not our kind, darling,” had never been addressed to him—he’d made damn sure of that!—but he’d heard it said often enough about others...including his beloved mother. It had infuriated him, but paradoxically had also inculcated in him a steely determination that no one would ever be able to say that about his wife.
But right in the midst of his fantasies about his future life with Alana, a picture surfaced. One that had briefly appeared to him Sunday night, although he’d immediately suppressed it at the time—Alana with his baby in her arms. No matter how hard he tried to suppress it now, the picture...and the longing it engendered...refused to be completely dispelled.
* * *
Alana woke forty minutes before her alarm clock went off, and she tried to go back to sleep without success. So she lay on her side in bed, one hand tucked beneath her cheek. Thinking. Trying to figure out why, something she’d dreamed about off and on all night long.
Why wouldn’t Jason want children? It didn’t make sense. It wasn’t that he didn’t like children—he was a beloved stepuncle to Dirk’s twin daughters. Children were pretty perceptive. Linden and Laurel wouldn’t adore their “Unca Jason” if he didn’t love them first and willingly spend time with them.
A sudden thought occurred to her. Was it possible Jason couldn’t father chi
ldren? Some men who were sterile pretended they didn’t want children rather than admit their sterility, which they saw as a reflection on their manhood.
She dismissed that idea just as quickly as it popped into her head. Jason wouldn’t have been upset about the condom breaking if that were the case. In fact, he wouldn’t even have needed a condom in the first place.
“That can’t be it, stupid,” she murmured to herself.
So what could it be?
* * *
The first thing Jason did when he arrived at his office was call the social worker at RMM’s safe house. “So how did the interview with the police go yesterday?”
“Not too bad. I only had to stop the questioning once.”
“Were they able to supply any information the police or RMM can use?” She was a trained RMM operative; Jason knew he could trust Soo-Ying to know what was and wasn’t important in that regard.
“Sorry, laoban. They didn’t even know all the names of the men making the film. The producer and director, of course, and they picked them out of a photo array, but that doesn’t tell you anything more than you already knew. And since those men are dead...” She let Jason fill in the blanks.
After a moment’s reflection he changed the subject. “Has the doctor seen them yet? And what about the therapist? I notified them right away.”
“The doctor arrived shortly after your first phone call yesterday. They appear to be in good health, all things considered, but the doctor is running some lab tests. Those will take a little time before we know the results.” Unspoken between them were the words sexually transmitted diseases, a definite worry where one of the women was concerned.
“And the therapist saw each of them yesterday, after the police interview. Separately, of course. His opinion? Only one needs counseling.” She didn’t have to say anything more. Jason knew who...and he knew why.
Soo-Ying was one of a handful of people who knew of Jason’s philanthropic endeavors in addition to his work with RMM. Anyone who’d suffered abuse was eligible for free counseling at one of the fifteen clinics Jason sponsored throughout the SAR. Sadly, there was often a waiting list, and Jason was in the process of opening five more to handle the demand.