by Lexi Blake
She kind of thought he’d retreated.
After the day they’d had, she didn’t blame him. It felt like the last few weeks had been spent in a perfect snow globe, the types tourists took home to their kids, showing them how gorgeous the world was. They’d been in the bubble, their days and nights moving in perfect tandem, making her forget all that was wrong between them.
Someone had upended their globe today, and she wasn’t entirely sure where they’d all landed.
Damn but she wanted to wake him up and figure out what the hell he was doing. After that first strangely awkward and entirely thrilling kiss, she’d settled a bit, trying to tamp down the desperate and sudden need to get her hands on a Brides magazine. Before she said yes to the dress, she needed to understand if this was nothing more than Josh’s way of chilling her dads out.
Then they would need to go over the definition of chilling out because her papa had been twelve kinds of freaked upon finding out she was involved in some fairly kinky things. Josh’s new truth resolution had cost her a very awkward conversation with a man who liked to pretend she was still a virgin, even though he knew she’d lived over a BDSM club. Her dads were great believers in hearing only what they wanted to hear.
“Hey, are you okay?”
She turned and Dad had come out of the bedroom that had been hers until tonight. He closed the door and spoke quietly, as though trying not to wake Papa.
“Yeah. I’m good.” Dad was easier to talk to than her papa, perhaps because Dad had been the one who went to work while Papa had stayed home to raise her. Dad seemed more capable of reason when it came to her.
“Are you sure because I know Papa was hard on you,” Dad said, adjusting his glasses. He’d changed out of his traveling clothes and into his pajamas and robe. Still, he managed to make it all look very professorial. Forty years in academia had left their mark. “I might have talked to him about what people have historically considered deviant lifestyles. He wasn’t trying to be hypocritical.”
She blushed. “It’s all consensual.”
“Oh, baby, I know that. What you do with your partner is all up to the two of you. As long as that man is treating you right, I’ve got no problem with him. You’ve got to forgive Papa. I think in some ways he never wanted you to settle down. I think deep down he kept waiting for you to come home and be a proper millennial. He longs for a freeloading child. I told him maybe our grandchildren will need a place to crash someday, and until then he can take away the dog’s dignity.”
She frowned. “Puddles looks good in a sweater. There’s no indignity there.”
“That is in the eye of the beholder, my daughter.” He glanced over at the door she’d been standing in front of. “How much does he know about your past?”
“Enough to probably get me severely reprimanded,” she admitted.
“Does he know about your sister?”
She stopped. “She’s classified, Dad. Her life is literally classified.”
Her life, her death. Jiang Kun was a ghost lost in the machine. Even MSS believed she was dead, killed in a plane crash.
“A lot about your life back then is classified, but you still talk. I don’t blame you. You can’t keep secrets and be happy in life.”
Her gut tightened because she was keeping a lot of secrets. “I don’t know about that. What if you know something that will hurt the person you love, but telling him won’t change anything—except to hurt him.”
He sighed. “Is this spy stuff?”
“Maybe.”
“I rather thought there was more to this than a basic bodyguard job. You’re too smart to follow some actor around twenty-four seven. Is the CIA involved?”
There was only so far she could push the classified talking. “Maybe.”
“Do you love this man?”
That was the million-dollar question, but she couldn’t lie. Not to her dad. “Yeah. He’s frustrating and complex and he can go from sulky boy to incredibly kind man. He’s complicated.”
“I don’t know. He sounds pretty human to me,” her father said.
That was one of the best compliments her father could give him. Her dad believed in humanity. Why had she thought it was a bad idea to talk to them? She’d thought she would get weak if she opened herself up in that way a daughter only could for her father, but she’d forgotten how much strength she found in the connection. There wasn’t an ounce of blood between them, but this man and the one sleeping in the bedroom had created the path of her life, had taught her everything she needed to know about love and living. “He’s got something nasty in his past. Something that’s still haunting him.”
“Again, that sounds awfully human. The man who gets to his age and tells you he isn’t damaged either hasn’t lived at all or is lying. We’re all walking wounded if we’ve lived at all. I know you are.” He reached out and brushed his hand along her cheek, a sweet gesture she remembered from her childhood. “And I know I haven’t seen you smile the way you did tonight since that man took you away from us.”
“He didn’t take me away.” They tended to disagree on John Bishop. “I was going to go back to the Agency no matter what happened. I’d already talked to Tennessee Smith about it and he’d agreed to let me join the class.”
“Joining the class is not the same as sending a young girl who had barely begun her life into a snake pit.”
“There’s a lot I haven’t told you, but I hope you understand that I did good in there,” she said. “Bishop did what he did for this country, this country that took me in. This country that saved me, that let my dads love each other.”
His eyes narrowed. “Not for years, and don’t start in on the jingoistic anthem, Kayla. This country has a lot of problems.”
“Yes, and one of them isn’t a full out trade war with China. One of them isn’t biological warfare. And yes, I was a part of stopping both of those things. I know we have our problems, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t do our part. We’re struggling right now, but that doesn’t make me less of a patriot than I was before. It doesn’t make my sacrifice less. It makes it more.”
He sighed and leaned over, kissing her on the forehead as he had all those years ago. “I’m an old academic, my baby girl. I never once thought I would raise a warrior. I’ll follow your lead when it comes to warfare. So why don’t you follow mine when it comes to having a long-lasting and loving relationship? Whatever you’re hiding from Josh, tell him before it comes out.”
The thought scared her more than she could say. “What if it never comes out? What if he doesn’t have to know? What if I can do both?”
He shook his head. “It always comes out in the end. Always. Go get some sleep. Tomorrow we’ll take you two out for brunch. You know how your papa loves him some brunch. We’ll get out of your hair, Kayla, but don’t expect us to stay away for long. If you’re living here in California, you better get used to seeing your parents.”
For the first time, the thought made her smile. Maybe they weren’t hard to talk to about this stuff. Maybe they did understand that she wasn’t the same girl she’d been. “I think I can handle that. And thanks for going easy on Josh.”
He stepped back. “Oh, that’s only because it’s late. Tomorrow we’re going to have a long talk about historical accuracy in films. And if you want to invite that puppy who lives next door along, don’t tell him, but Papa actually does have a little crush on him.” He sighed. “I just wish his brains were as developed as his abs.”
He turned and disappeared behind the door.
What was she going to do about Josh? She was stuck. If she told him and he walked away, she was risking another agent’s life. She’d been that agent. For years she’d been the one who had to rely on others’ silence for her continued existence. Was it fair to risk someone’s life so she could clear things up with her boyfriend?
It had to wait. If it was strictly about her, she could throw the truth down in a heartbeat. If it was her own life, she could risk that. She
would put her faith in Josh.
Did she have the right to risk someone else’s?
She eased in the door, trying not to wake him.
“Hey, did everything go okay with your dads?” In the low light from the window above them, she could see him lying on the bed, an arm above his head. He was wearing boxer shorts and nothing else.
“Yeah. It was good.” She sat down on the edge of his big bed and started to reach for the lamp on the nightstand.
“Don’t turn it on,” he said quickly. He took an audible breath. “I would rather do this with the lights off, please.”
She felt her whole body stiffen at the words and what she thought they might mean. “Do what? If that was your way of keeping me calm in front of the guests so you could fire me in private, I swear we’re going to have trouble, Joshua. You kissed me. You can’t kiss me and fire me.”
His hand found her arm, tugging her down to the mattress. “No, baby. I’m not going to fire you. I know I should. I know that would be the selfless way to go, but I’m not selfless when it comes to you. I’m a selfish bastard and I can’t send you away. Not even for your own sake. That means I have to tell you the truth and give you a chance to leave of your own volition.”
She lay down beside him, facing him, their legs brushing against each other. “Will you kiss me first?”
Even in the low light she could see those gorgeous lips curling up in a self-satisfied smile. “You are obsessed with kissing.”
“I’m obsessed with you kissing me.”
His hand came out, smoothing back her hair. “I’m not good at it. Oh, I’m great on screen, but that’s someone else. I have to figure out how I kiss.”
“All this time and no personal kissing? How did you learn to do it on screen? And what’s the difference?”
“I was nineteen when I made my first movie,” he started. “I was supposed to kiss this actress. She was my age and gorgeous. I got sick at the thought of kissing her.”
“That must have done a number on her ego.”
“Oddly not. Even then Alicia was pretty cool.”
“Alicia Kingman?” She was one of the hottest actresses working in Hollywood. “I guess I haven’t seen that one.”
“It was a small indie film. Anyway, Alicia is a sweetheart as long as you’re not involved with her. Great to her friends, a horrible romantic partner, but she asked me if it was girls I was opposed to as a whole or just her. I told her I’d never kissed anyone. At all. And she taught me how to kiss for the screen. It’s different. You have to be aware of what it’s going to look like. I don’t think it’s that way when you really kiss someone. I want to put my tongue in your mouth, and I won’t give a shit that it doesn’t look delicate and romantic. I want to eat you up with no thought past getting inside you and taking you hard so you remember who you belong to.”
He said all the right things. “I think you have the principles down pat. Now you simply need to put them into use. You know what they say. Practice makes perfect.”
He was quiet for a moment. “You might not want to kiss me after I tell you my story.”
She wasn’t stupid. She reached out for him in the darkness. “I know someone hurt you when you were young. Maybe more than one person. And I would bet it was sexual abuse, but it doesn’t matter. Josh, I will still kiss you. I will kiss you because I’ll be grateful you survived. I’ll kiss you because I’ll want to take away the pain even though I know I can’t. I’ll kiss you because I think we belong together, you and I.”
“Who the fuck are you?” He whispered the question, but there was awe in each word. “Sometimes I’m absolutely sure you’re too good to be true.”
Before she could answer, his lips were on hers, tentative at first, and then moving with more confidence. She submitted utterly, letting him take his time. He explored her lips, brushing against them over and over until she finally felt his tongue drag along her lower lip. He tasted her slowly, as though trying to find his way. He sucked her bottom lip gently between his teeth, nipping her and sending sparks through her body.
His hands tightened and she was suddenly flush against his body as his dominant nature seemed to take over. One big palm found its way to the back of her head, holding her still as he feasted on her lips. His tongue surged into her mouth, taking over and making her shiver with pure desire.
And then he was done, breaking off the kiss but holding her close to his body.
“I’m not going to tell you everything. I don’t want to relive it. I know this sounds weird because I was against sleeping with you, but I want this to be our bed, and it’s sacred. I want it to be a place where it’s only the two of us and no one else gets in.”
A sanctuary. She was already getting emotional. “No one else. Josh, I’m not going to leave you. No matter what words come out of your mouth. You’re not in this alone. Not anymore.”
He lay back, taking a deep breath before he began.
“I had a fairly decent childhood in the beginning. Then my mom died and my dad dove deep into a bottle. He wasn’t the same after. He was so mad. He took it out on his girlfriends. When I was older, he took it out on me. After he went to prison, I went into the system. Some of those homes are quite nice and the people are good. Well, they have good intentions. Life screws things up. I got moved around a couple of times because I was angry and not an easy child even when I wasn’t angry.”
She reached up in the darkness and smoothed back his hair, hoping touch and affection would make it easier for him to talk. She remained silent because this was his story and he would tell as much or as little as he wanted.
“Then I found myself in the home of a family who lived in a rural part of the county. The social worker told me he thought fresh air would do me some good. They had me and three girls in the house. Except the girls claimed that there had been two more of them at one point and they didn’t know where the girls had gone. I didn’t think much of it. Kids came and went all the time. I was scrawny and they fed me. Good food. Anything I wanted. The mom always talked about my face and how my face was going to be worth millions one day.”
A shiver went through her and she cuddled closer to him. She wished he didn’t have to say it, but they needed the words between them. He needed to speak them and she needed to let him know they didn’t matter. His past didn’t matter.
He sighed as though he’d needed her to breach that small distance. His arm tightened around her. “Then one night a man came. They woke me up and I was told I was supposed to go with him. I remember how late it was, how dark the night was. They told me I had to be quiet because they didn’t want to wake the other kids. He was huge. It’s funny but I remember him as more of a shadow than an actual man. It wasn’t until I got to the car that I realized I wasn’t alone. He took me and Hannah Lovell, a girl with long blonde hair. She was quiet and shy. I think she was seven at the time. Maybe eight. They put us in a car and we thought we were going to another foster home. We didn’t know we’d been sold.”
She put her head on his chest. Every word that came out of his mouth was precise and measured, but his heart was thundering in his chest. “I would like to know the names of everyone involved.”
His breath hitched. “I bet you would, baby. I bet that would be a hell of a meeting.”
“So it was a human trafficking ring?” She needed to name it, to put that horrible label on what had happened to him.
“They specialized in children,” he explained. “They took us out of foster homes. I suspect they said we’d run away. They were careful about who they took. They wouldn’t have taken a temporary.”
“Temporary?”
“Uhm, like if Mom went to jail and no one else could watch the kid. That kid wouldn’t have been a candidate because Mom still gave a shit and could still cause trouble. They wanted true orphans, kids who had no one in the world who wanted them. My dad had signed away his right to me. I had no one. Neither did Hannah.”
How terrible it must have been to
realize he was alone at such a young age. Not one moment of her life had she known that feeling. She’d been loved from the second she was born. Her mother had loved her so much she’d given her up so she could live. Her fathers had poured their love into her.
Even when she’d been in MSS, she’d known they were there, loving her, wishing she would come home. She’d had Bishop, who’d watched over her while he could, and then Ten. Josh had been a child with no one in the world to love him.
“I fought and got hurt pretty bad. That was when they decided there were people out there who liked a little fight and my life got worse. I learned to submit.”
How hard had that been? He was such a dominant male, quiet, but always in control. Had the seeds been planted in the crimes against his younger self, or had his own nature made it worse?
“Josh, this changes nothing. It makes me think no less of you. It makes me think more.”
“When I was seventeen, I killed a man. Killing him was the only way I could escape.”
“Good. Now I can kill the rest of them.” She would make a hobby of it. There could be a list and she would study each of them and torture them in psychologically significant ways before she killed them.
He shifted, rolling on top of her. “I killed someone, Kayla.”
He seemed to forget who he was talking to. “I’ve killed lots of people, Joshua.”
“Yeah, well this wasn’t sanctioned by the US government.”
“It was sanctioned by right, by self-defense,” she argued. “Was the man you killed planning on using you in a nonconsensual way?”
“Yes.”
She reached up, cupping his face, that gorgeous face that was both heaven and hell for Joshua Hunt. “Then fuck him. Fuck all of them.”
“I don’t even know where I was held most of the time. When I escaped I was in Ohio. I was so far from home and I didn’t know anything. I should have gone to the police, but the man I killed was, well, he was wearing a suit and looked clean, and I wasn’t. They always told me if I ever talked to the police, no one would believe me. I would be one more piece of trash trying to find a meal ticket. I ran and hid and prayed they didn’t find me. By that time they’d taken Hannah out of the place I was being held. We were held together for years. They pretended we were siblings. She was the blonde angel and I was the dark-haired devil. She became a lot like a sister to me, but she got badly addicted. I worried she would overdose. I hated not being with her. Heroin was one of the ways they kept us all calm and quiet. I didn’t have anyone left to protect so I did what I did. I was utterly lost and that was when Tina found me.”