by Mia Downing
“Fornicate?” His smile grew, that dimple a deadly weapon against her heart.
“You like it when I speak smartly. Fornicate is a little smarter than plain old fuck.”
She loved that as unemotional as he could be at times, he had a hard time hiding his lust for her. “I could muster up some rhythm for that. We may have to practice over, and over, and over…”
She grinned and ground against him a little more suggestively. “When’s Jake coming?”
“He’s running late.”
“Do we have time? Because I’m not wearing panties. Just for you.” She reached up, took his face in her hands, and drew him down to kiss her. He slid his arms around her waist and ground his hips against hers, his cock already hard.
“None of that,” Jake said as he walked in through the mudroom. “Unless I’m invited.” It could have been her imagination, but the atmosphere changed the minute Jake walked in. The air seemed to become more static, as if his addition charged the air with a mysterious energy.
Jake dropped his bag on the floor and then crossed the kitchen. He exchanged a look with Chase, one she didn’t quite comprehend. Then he leaned in to kiss her quickly on the lips, despite the fact that she was still in Chase’s arms. “I missed you, darlin’.”
Kate gaped at Jake, not knowing what to say. Or do.
“I had lunch with you, so you couldn’t have missed me too much,” Chase said, sounding amused, which Kate didn’t expect at all.
Jake grinned. They exchanged another look and he went to inspect the pots on the stove.
Kate blinked. Shouldn’t Chase yell or stiffen or something? Jake had kissed her, and wasn’t that…wrong? But Chase hadn’t, and instead he held her closer, hugging her, inhaling as if she were the best smelling thing on Earth. Maybe she was after baking an apple pie.
And then it dawned on her that she’d never really seen the two of them interact out of work.
At work, Chase was the boss and she and Jake did what they were told. But this, how Jake moved around Chase, the looks they shared, was different. Maybe she wasn’t used to seeing best friends interact, but there was something else…
Those shared looks hinted of darker things they’d done together. She’d put two and two together and made the huge leap to a threesome. She’d never asked either directly, though she’d bet she would have a better chance of learning something if she asked Jake. Chase would just shut her down.
“Dinner almost ready?” Chase asked, his arms still around her. He dipped to kiss her neck.
“Yes.”
“Then put that music on hold. Maybe we’ll play with that later.”
“Okay.”
She served dinner and the guys ate. Though she loved having Chase to herself, she found having Jake in the house to be…she had no words for it. His presence enhanced what Chase did quietly, as if someone had added an amplifier to heighten everything. She felt more attractive, more important, more…loved. Not that either had ever gone to that word, love. But they made her feel more womanly than she ever had before.
And Jake wasn’t being anything more than Jake. In fact, after that kiss in the doorway, he’d become very polite and hands-off, unlike work. Jake lightened the mood, made Chase smile more, and she laughed even though Jake picked on her constantly. It was as if he didn’t get his fill from not being with her all day, since she had the day off and he didn’t.
And Chase was quite complimentary about his meal, stating he couldn’t have done better himself. She knew some of that was a lie, but for once, she was glad for his skills in that department.
“Okay, since it’s my evening, I pick the entertainment,” Kate said over coffee. “And no, Jake, you’d never be able to play hostess because I know what you’d pick. I’m not stripping for you.”
“Damn.” Jake snapped his fingers and laughed. Chase grunted, but a smile hovered around the corners of his mouth. “So what do you have in store?”
What to do with two men? A naughty part of her wondered what it would be like to be fucked by them both. But she brushed that aside, shocked. She belonged to Chase and Chase only. “You can pick a game and hope to beat me. I’ll let the two of you team up together if one combined ego is easier to soothe than two separate, trashed egos.”
“What makes you think you’ll beat us, both of us?” Chased crossed his arms and looked belligerent at the thought of losing.
Jake slapped him on the back. “That’s the torture of only having sex every night, buddy. You don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?” Chase looked from her to Jake and back at her again, expecting to be filled in.
Kate looked at Jake and shrugged. It wasn’t her fault he didn’t know. Unfortunately, Jake was right. Their nightly entertainment consisted of running and a movie or sex. She wasn’t going to complain one bit about the sex part.
Jake heaved an exaggerated sigh, because he’d been beaten enough by her to know what was in store. “You’re not going to win anything she chooses. Just be a man and resign yourself to that now, so when we play, you can pretend you’re having fun. Your ego will thank you.”
Chase looked at her with new appreciation, and she shrugged, a blush creeping warmly up to her cheeks. “I count cards. A game with dice has probability statistics. And I have a photographic memory. That dictionary in the den is now in my brain.”
“Is there no game I can beat you at?” She knew Chase’s ego was horrified at the prospect. He was a smart guy, and he was used to winning at everything.
“A board game? No. Well, you have a better chance with a game with dice. I warn you, though, I know what to buy in games with mock real estate, so don’t even go there if you don’t wish to pay to spend a night in my hotels.”
Chase somehow had worked sexy into a sullen pout, and it made her smile on the inside. Such a bad boy. “I should get to stay rent-free for all the sex I give you.”
“Sex doesn’t factor into rent, since that’s prostitution,” she informed him. “And if you’re that testy already, then don’t choose a word game or cards, because you won’t win.”
Chase blinked and cocked his head at her. “You said you count cards. Have you ever been to a casino to try it?”
“Vegas, baby,” Jake crowed. “Please, send us together. We’d have so much fun. Or maybe that’s not a good idea.” Jake shook his head. “They’d bounce her ass from the game room so fast her head would spin.”
“Not if you do it right.” Kate smiled smugly at Jake, remembering the success she had in Atlantic City on her way up to New York, after she had run away. “I’ve gambled successfully counting cards. You can’t win every time. You have to be very careful if you want to hit it big.”
And then she drew in a breath and held it, afraid to look away from Jake. Chase knew. When he asked if she counted cards, the devil knew, and she could feel his wrath burning from his end of the table.
“That’s how you escaped. Part of it.” Kate met Chase’s cold, glittering gaze then, that deer in the headlights feeling returning. “You didn’t go right to New York. You stopped in Atlantic City, didn’t you?”
Jake raised his brows, and Chase set his jaw in that way he did when she thwarted him. She wasn’t as competent at lying as they were, so she sighed and surrendered. “Yes.”
“Love, I have to know how you evaded me for a month. It’s killing my ego.”
“Chase—”
“Please?”
He never asked her for anything, not so nicely, not when this pissed. She glanced at Jake, who arched an impatient brow and nodded. He’d been just as pissed, since he had pounded the streets of Manhattan, looking for her, for clues.
Kate looked at her coffee mug, unsure where to even begin, because admitting her secret talents made her uneasy. “I am a master at forgery. I taught myself because I was bored, so I learned how to fake documents. I created several identities for myself by eighteen, all good enough to fool the experts. I bought wigs of all shapes and sizes, and makeup
to change my complexion, contacts in different colors, and I learned how to turn into someone else.”
“Why? Were you really that bored?” Jake asked.
“At first. But I knew it was only a matter of time before my father pushed me to run. I wasn’t going to die under his thumb. And when I knocked you out, Chase, I put the plan into play.” She turned her coffee mug in her hands. “I had been doing my father’s books since I was twelve, so I had enough money funneled away to support myself when I ran, but I didn’t have enough cash.”
“I had a hundred bucks in my wallet,” Chase said. “Why didn’t you take it?”
“That’s not my style, and I needed more. I had a couple thousand in my room, but it wasn’t enough. So I went to Atlantic City and won what I needed until I could get to a bank safely. Kate Burgess was the queen of twenty-one that night.”
Kate Burgess. She stared at Chase. She had used five different identities, but Kate had always been her favorite name, so she used that one first. “But you wouldn’t know about Kate because I had changed identities after that and burned the evidence. How did you choose Kate for me?”
“Coincidence.” Chase brushed away her question with a wave of his hand. “So you knew how much money your account had that day in my office. You faked surprise.”
“Yes.”
Chase leaned in, looking more and more like her boss than her lover. “Then you knew he was getting large sums of money for the sale of his technology. Where the hell did you think it was coming from?”
As smart as she was, it bothered her that she never put two and two together about her father’s treason. “I didn’t know. Please don’t go there, because I’m not a terrorist. He told me the U.S. government was paying him for his technology. He didn’t just make bombs, you know. He created innovative items that would improve life in a lot of poorer countries. When he said we were selling the bombs to the U.S.—you—I believed him.”
“My God.” Chase narrowed his eyes. “You have other accounts, don’t you? You have money somewhere, the Caymans, Switzerland? We looked, trust me. But…”
She was an evil person to enjoy pissing off the devil, and he’d make her rot in hell when the time came. But she couldn’t resist giving him a slow smile, one she knew was coy and crafty. He always felt he held all the cards, had control. And a mean piece of her loved watching when she unraveled him, bit by bit. “I can’t tell you all my secrets, Chase. You’d get in trouble.”
“Emma wasn’t so sweet after all, was she?”
Though his face held no emotion, she wondered at the tone of his voice, almost sad, as if the memory of Emma’s pureness being tainted hit him in the heart. That served her well. She’d killed Emma two weeks ago. It was best if she died in him, too. “Maybe Emma always wanted to be a spy. Maybe she was waiting for Alex to come recruit her.”
“How can you be so scary smart and act somewhat normal?” Jake leaned forward, captivated.
“I don’t know. We had a housekeeper who moved in with us when I was one, after my mother died. She kept me very humble and normal, and my father didn’t actually have much to do with me. He was always in the lab, making something. Out of the lab, he didn’t like the fact that I was smarter than he was. So I learned to hide it unless he wanted to know something.”
Chase shifted in his chair, and it hit her that he was very turned on, though the normal person wouldn’t see it. His eyes were glazed a little with lust, and the shifting had to be to ease a raging hard-on. It shocked her. How could he be so turned on when she had just dealt his ego such a hefty blow?
“When are you leaving,” he asked Jake.
“Uh, since you’re so turned on by her scary smartness, never. You can suffer there, in your chair, while I let her beat me at a word game. Unless you want me to watch.”
“You’d watch us?” Kate didn’t know if she should be so instantly aroused at the thought of Jake watching her make love to Chase. She wiggled a bit, trying to stop the pulse from throbbing in her pussy. “Have you watched Chase before?”
Chase shot Jake a dark look, and Jake merely shrugged.
“So I take that as a yes.” She crossed her arms over her chest, more to hide her erect nipples than anything. “You did wicked things together. I know you’ve had women together.”
Chase shot Jake another look, this one darker, but he didn’t seem to be less aroused. In fact, the more she asked, the lustier he grew. Well, if he wanted to take her there, who was she to complain?
“I’m not your girlfriend, Chase. I don’t know why it bothers you to talk about this. And if I were your girlfriend, it’s in the past. I’m not going to judge you because you and Jake walk the dark side, as you like to put it. Maybe one day you can get me good and drunk, and you and Jake can work your magic on me.”
“Kate. You’re killing me,” Jake whispered, his eyes closed, face contorted as if her words were pure torture.
“Go to your room,” Chase growled. She didn’t know if his growl was because he was feeling possessive or so turned on, but it still made her laugh.
“I’m not going anywhere, Chase. You can buddy up with Jake and try to beat me at a game, or I’ll turn the entertainment over to Jacob. Your choice.”
Chase rose, went to the den, and returned with the game box. He chucked it on the table with a glare, the tiles spilling out onto the dining room table.
Kate smiled serenely. “Word game it is, then.”
****
“Charlotte is looking for a roommate,” Kate told Chase after she returned from saying goodbye to Jake at the door.
She’d beaten them by one hundred points, and Chase could tell she was holding back. Either that or the tiles she chose were abysmal. It didn’t help his mood any. This, as far as he was concerned, was their last night together.
Tomorrow she’d learn her fate and be pissed, so he’d be spending tomorrow night alone, in his own circle of hell. He had sort of planned on making love to her all night long, making her come time after time beneath him, but having Jake there had changed things.
Jake only served to remind him of how things could be, how close the dark side really was, for either of them. The more tense and stressed Chase became, the more he longed to take Kate there. He knew he was treading a fine line as it was, with the toys, the control games. She loved it, as did he, but Jake reminded him that he wanted more.
He wanted her submissive under him, bound, gagged maybe. Clamps on her nipples, her clit. His toys shoved in her pussy or ass. He wanted her to scream over and over, begging him to take her while he held his own orgasm for an eternity. Then he’d finally get to come inside her, reveling in the pleasure he’d given her, the control he’d shown.
Softer kink would be enough for him usually, but if he could control her with Jake there…it would be the ultimate experience for him. It didn’t help that these thoughts also drudged up conflicting emotions.
Parts of him that didn’t want to share Kate were also parts that were jealous of Jake’s day-to-day dealings with her. He trusted Jake with his life, and Kate’s, so he should trust him with his girl, right? But those parts didn’t want to hear reason. Those parts wanted to shoot Jake from a mile away, picking him off in a crowded room, off a busy street.
“Did you hear me? Charlotte wants a roommate.”
Chase looked up from chucking letter tiles into the box. He was trying to bounce them like a college kid would bounce quarters into a beer cup. It wasn’t going well, but what in his life was? “How do you know this?”
Kate took the elastic out of her hair and let it fall loose around her shoulders, a halo of gold around her face. “Jake just told me.”
Funny Jake would tell her that, out of his earshot. No doubt, he was worried about what would happen after tomorrow, too. It was nice to know Jake would take care of her after he squashed her like a bug. Chase bounced another tile. It skittered across the table to drop to Kate’s feet.
“Wait until after tomorrow, okay? Let’s ge
t through this mission before you go and make big changes.” Stupid. He should be telling her to go now, before it was too late. But he couldn’t. He was selfish, and he wanted one more night with her. Just one more.
“Okay.” She sighed, picked up the tile from the floor and dropped it in the box. She sat at the table, and for the first time that evening she wore a mantle of stress, wrinkling her brow, lining her face. Her eyes were darker blue, conflicted, her shoulders tense as she pushed the tiles around in the box with her finger.
He frowned. If she was upset, this didn’t bode well for a passionate evening. “What’s wrong?”
She pursed her lips, as if trying to decide what to say. Then she took a deep breath and said, “I wish you could tell me more. I think what I imagine is probably worse than what you’ll make me do.”
“You know I can’t. You’ll get used to it. Jake did.” But Jake was hardened, former military, and he’d faced death enough not to let it bother him anymore.
She frowned again, the wheels in her mind turning behind conflicted eyes. “Why didn’t you introduce me to Charlotte that first day?”
He blinked. Why didn’t he? Maybe because he’d been nervous about seeing Kate again, scared shitless she’d shoot him down when he told her the powers-that-be wanted him to take her virginity.
Charlotte wasn’t easy to explain, either. She was special, a girl with so much baggage, and someday, her issues would put them all in danger. How did he explain that to the woman he loved? Explain he’d vowed to see Charlotte’s issues through, to the end, despite the fact that Charlotte would hate him, too. He and Jake would stand at Charlotte’s side and fight, to the death if need be—they owed her that. Kate wouldn’t get it, though.
He frowned. Maybe Charlotte and Kate had more in common than he thought, except he didn’t get to go and die with Kate.
Fuck, he was playing a dangerous game with Kate, had been, and his uncle had been right. He should have sent her away and zipped his pants because he wanted to do nothing more than tell her the truth, every fucking minute. He was losing his edge, and that would get her just as easily killed. “You didn’t need to know about Charlotte then. That’s the way it works.”