Perfect Chaos

by Nashoda Rose

  He snorted and then got out of bed and started pacing. “Kai was involved with the sex trafficking. I don’t know how deep, but it was enough to get him into the compound in Mexico. You fuckin’ know that.”

  I really didn’t know the details of Kai’s involvement in that. Shit, Kai kept all of what he did from me. “He wouldn’t hurt—”

  “He’s dangerous as hell.”

  “And you’re not?”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “When you rescued London from that auction and brought her to my place …” Deck’s eyes shot to mine. “I called Kai. Told him she was with me, but he already knew. He was trying to get info on the sex-trade transporter, Jacob. The only way to get close to him was through Alfonzo, so he made a deal with Alfonzo, exchanged London for money.”

  “Except he didn’t want London.”

  I nodded. “He wanted to be led to the transporter.”

  “Jesus Christ. You were nearly killed. They drugged you and—”

  “Kai wouldn’t have let anything happen to me.”

  “You seem pretty damn sure of a man who has been using you. Fuck. And he’s convinced you to keep it from me because he knows damn well I’d fuckin’ never let this shit happen.”

  “I’m using him, too, Deck. I want Robbie stopped. I can’t let him hurt other girls, and he’s finding a way to get to him.”

  “And it’s taken what … seven years?” Deck scoffed. “Bullshit. He’s using you and dangling Robbie over your head like a fuckin’ carrot. That’s what he does, Georgie. He uses people. That’s all he knows. You ever wonder what he’ll do to you once Robbie is dead?”

  I wasn’t really certain because I’d asked that very question to Kai and he said we had to find Robbie first. “I don’t know.”

  “Yeah, because he doesn’t want you to know.”

  “Kai doesn’t share much with us.”

  “Us? How many people work for him?”

  I shrugged, because I honestly didn’t know. “Tanner and I are all I know about. But I suspect he has others elsewhere. He doesn’t stay put for very long, and sometimes I won’t hear from him for months. When he was looking for London, he was gone a few months. I thought he was dead.”

  “And the drinking?”

  “Kai thought I needed a cover … ” I took a deep breath. “It kept you focused on my drinking and partying rather than what I was doing with the assignments. My targets.”

  “Jesus Christ. I’ll fuckin’ kill that bastard.”

  “He never forced me. I made the choice.”

  “If I hadn’t fucked off, it would’ve never happened. None of it.”

  Probably not, but … “You didn’t fuck off. You went back to your team, Deck.” But two years was a long time and by then, I was so immersed with Kai that even when Deck came back, I knew stopping was impossible. This was exactly how I knew he’d react. He’d want to go after Robbie, Kai. And then what? Kai would kill him like he had always threatened to do. I wasn’t ignorant to the fact Deck was capable of looking after himself, but there was no way in hell I’d ever chance losing him to something I could’ve prevented.

  All the years I tried to avoid this very outcome, and it happened anyway. Except something had changed. Kai didn’t want to kill Deck. Why? What did Kai want?

  I said quietly, “I need Kai.”

  His eyes darkened as he glared at me. “Tell me I didn’t just hear you say you need Kai.”

  “You heard me just fine. And you know what I mean.” Needing Kai had nothing to do with anything other than finding Robbie and stopping him from hurting others.

  I’d never give up, no matter how long it took. The sick bastard had to be found. There was a reason he was hiding. No chance was he some upstanding citizen, and if by some miracle he was … well, then I was going to be there to see it for myself.

  “I can’t believe you even said that after I fucked you.” I did smile a little because Deck was acting jealous. “Georgie … this isn’t a game. Kai doesn’t give a shit about anyone, even himself. You don’t fuckin’ need him.”

  I sat up, putting my legs over the side of the bed. “He’s been searching for him for years Deck. I know you have contacts and can look for Robbie too, but Kai will do what needs to be done.” Kai will kill Robbie.

  “And I won’t? That’s my fuckin’ job.”

  “No, Deck. That’s not it.” Well, it was in that I didn’t want any of this on Deck.

  He turned and walked into the bathroom and I heard him smashing a drawer shut then the shower door slamming—violently. When he came back out, his face was shielded with a cold mask of darkness. He was going dark on me.

  “You’re not being tainted with this shit anymore. Whatever needs to be done, I’ll deal with it.” He paced and ran his hand through his hair. I’d never seen Deck so disturbed. He was rock solid … he was my solid, and I didn’t like that I made him this way.

  “Deck.” God, I did this.

  “My fuckin’ girl is not going near any men who put cuts on her back.”

  I sighed then slid off the bed and came toward him. He ignored me. I wrapped my arms around his waist from behind and lay my head on his back. “I love you calling me your girl.” I felt the stiffness leave his body as if he was sinking into me. He was trying to protect me where he thought he failed. “No matter what I did, you never left me. You protected me and put up with all my bullshit. Even now … the lies … you didn’t leave me. You never failed me, Deck. You’ve saved me again and again. Please, let me try to keep you safe from this.”

  He was quiet, but even my words didn’t take the tension in him away.

  “Where’s Kai? I’ve called and he won’t pick up.”

  I sighed. He obviously didn’t want to talk about it. “He changes phones constantly except for the number I have.” Kai was always the one to call people.

  I slipped away from him, walked over to the nightstand and picked up my cell. I entered the password and then another to get to Kai’s number. I pressed call. When Kai answered, he wasn’t his usual charming self; he was the hard, cold bastard who had demons in his past. I didn’t even have to say anything before Kai told me to pass the phone to Deck. I did.

  I’d been around Deck enough to know that trying to listen and find out what he was saying to Kai was hopeless.

  I walked out of the room, and with every step I felt Deck’s eyes on me. When I glanced over my shoulder I saw his face as he held the phone to his ear—pure, unadulterated wrath.

  Tears pooled in my eyes as I closed the door behind me.

  AFTER TELLING DECK everything, I was pretty fucked up … kind of like I’d been run over by a bull then ripped apart. I didn’t like that my emotions were all scrambled up now. I’d been hiding this from Deck—from everyone—for so long that now I was overcome with so much guilt. It was acid staining my soul, a soul that had already been damaged, but I’d managed to live with it by doing what I did. However, I had doubts. Not of going after Robbie, fuck no. I wanted him to piss himself because he was so freakin’ afraid. What I doubted was who I was now. I felt like I was part Chaos, part Georgie and part the innocent girl I’d once been. I didn’t know who the real me was anymore.

  Deck had walked into his office talking to Kai three hours ago. I watched a movie, finding out Deck had no television channels, only movies, and then I sat by the pool hoping he’d come out of his office and join me. I listened for crashing or shouting, but it remained quiet; not sure if that was a good thing or not. With Deck, sometimes being deadly silent was worse.

  I had tried the door to his office and it was locked. After the movie, I tried again—still locked. Since I was really bored and nervous as to what the hell he was doing in there, I knocked. His reply? “Not now.”

  My reply? “When?”

  “When I’m done.”

  So, I made dinner, a surprising feat for me considering I sucked at it.

  The band Tear Asunder would come over every Sunday when they wer
e in town and I’d help make brunch, but that was the most cooking I did. It was a pretty big group now that Kat and Emily were with two of the band members, Ream and Logan, it was like a big family gathering. Even my parents often stopped by. Crisis had a thing for my mom—well, Crisis had a thing for every woman. The guitarist was a sex God … at least he thought he was. A blond one with a sexy ass and devilish eyes.

  I had hit on him … more to make Deck jealous, but that was when I was drunk, and that night it wasn’t a pretend drunk—I was smashed. Deck ended up throwing me over his shoulder and taking me back to his place where the usual happened—nothing.

  I pulled the tilapia out of the oven and sprinkled more lemon pepper on it then dished it onto the steaming green beans. I poured light garlic lemon butter sauce over the whole thing.

  “You made dinner.”

  I hadn’t heard him come out of his office or approach me and I dropped the sauce pan. It clattered onto the counter and remnants of sauce splattered. “If you want to call it that.”

  He grabbed my hips from behind then leaned down and kissed the side of my neck below my right ear.

  I melted, sinking into his touch like a flimsy stem of a dandelion. Wow. He was being sweet. I didn’t get why yet after whatever went down with Kai, but I was getting sweet Deck and after all the shit I just told him I was taking it.

  He took the plates out to the terrace and I brought two glasses of ice water with lemon. When we sat and ate, it was still sweet and … comfortable. Deck actually opened up and told me about how he and Connor competed in JTF2 training. They were both the top of the class, and Connor excelled at everything involving water while Deck excelled at tactical planning. It was a toss-up with who had the better shot.

  “And I bet he bragged about every single thing he did better than you.”

  Deck chuckled. “Hell yeah. Connor was the cocky bastard who made everyone laugh.” Yeah, my brother had always been the easy-going one. Even when I was upset at something silly, he’d come in my room and within five minutes, he’d have me giggling. “When we were in deep on a mission … ” Deck paused as if thinking about it. “He could put a smile on the guys’ faces. Even Vic’s.”

  I laughed, and the tension I’d been feeling slipped from my shoulders. I hadn’t realized how uptight I still was. I looked at Deck sitting back in his chair, the tautness around his lips gone and it was like … well, it was like there were no shields between us. We were two normal people talking.

  And I loved him even more for doing this. Giving me a piece of my brother I hadn’t seen.

  “Your brother was good at what he did, Georgie. The best man on the team. And he loved it, too. ” I noticed a flicker of uneasiness in his eyes before it vanished and he grabbed a green bean and tossed it in his mouth. “We’d been in a covert situation for three fuckin’ days. Sitting in the desert sweating our asses off. No communication except hand signals. Taking a piss was the most movement we did. Our target was inside a bunker and had yet to make a move, but we had intel that he never stayed in one place for longer than five days. So we waited.” A flicker of a smile danced at his mouth. “Your brother, he fuckin’ loved it. It was like a challenge to him to see how far he could push himself. While the rest of the men were on edge and just wanted to get this shit done, Connor was relaxed. It didn’t even faze him.” I saw the flicker of something in his eyes again. “He was good at his job because he loved it so much.”

  “Did you?”

  Deck looked a little startled at the question as he placed his fork back down and looked at me. “Yeah, I did. It was my home, Georgie. They were my brothers. Now the guys at Unyielding Riot are.”

  “You’re Unyielding and Connor is Riot. That’s why you named it that.”

  He nodded.

  “What about your real home? Brothers? Sisters?”

  He shrugged. “Never had a real home. No family.” He paused before he said, “I killed my father.”

  Holy fuck. I tried to keep the shock from my face, but I knew he must have seen my eyes widen with surprise because he was looking at me when he said it. Connor had said he’d gone to Juvie and then was on the streets before he joined the Army. Was that why?

  “I was fifteen. He was beating up my mom like he always did. Fuck, it was a weekly thing in our house. He stopped hitting me when I hit him back the year before. He actually stopped beating both of us for a while after that. Then … he left us. Not sure why, but I didn’t care. He just disappeared one day and we didn’t see him for five months. My mother cried for weeks. Guess in a way she loved him; I mean, he did bring her presents all the time—after he beat her. Made me sick seeing him all sorry and shit while my mom’s face was black and blue and she couldn’t leave the house for weeks without a hat and sunglasses.”

  I knew what was coming. A guy like that didn’t just walk away.

  “He came back but this time with a gun. He shot her right between the eyes then kicked her over and over again. It was in the middle of the night. I woke to the shot and came running downstairs to see him beating on her dead, lifeless body.” Oh, God. I felt sick to my stomach and put my hand over my mouth. I hadn’t noticed I’d been crying until I felt a warm tear drip onto my hand.

  Deck held out his hand. “Come here.”

  I didn’t hesitate and took his hand, crawling onto his lap, settling my head on his shoulder. He tightened his arms around me and stroked my arm with the tips of his fingers.

  “He was so focused on my mother he didn’t even notice me come down the stairs. I jumped him and we fell to the floor. Then I just started pounding with my fists. I don’t remember how long I did it, but when I finally stopped, he was dead.”

  I knew sorry wasn’t enough or even appropriate. I was beginning to understand why Deck was so protective of me. He grew up trying to protect his mother and failed time and again. Even the last time he’d been too late.

  “You were just a kid.”

  Deck’s hand paused caressing my arm then started again. “You know, Connor kept a picture of you with him.” He was done talking about his past. “Kept it tucked in his wallet. He never said it, but he worried about you all the time.” He paused and looked directly at me. “I did, too.”

  My breath hitched as our eyes locked.

  “You ever read his journal, Georgie?”

  I shook my head. “No. It’s his private thoughts and feels … I don’t know—wrong, I guess. But I used to sleep with it under my pillow. When the Robbie shit was happening, it was the one place I felt safe … in bed with my hand on his journal.”

  Deck lowered his head and nodded.

  “Deck.” I waited until he looked up. “It was you, too. It was the last piece I had of you.”

  Then he kissed me. It was sudden and unexpected as he grabbed the back of my neck and pulled me further into him. His mouth took mine in fierce warmth. A blanket of tingles swept through me as I sagged into him, the invasion of his tongue feeding me what I’d been starved for. And now I understood. We’d both been starved for one another.

  He pulled back and his fingers in my hair massaged slowly while he stared at me. He looked relaxed and content. I never saw this side of Deck; it was hotter than the badass side. Hmmm, maybe not. That was a toss-up because thinking about his office this afternoon had me shifting in my chair and aching to have his hands on me again.

  “Turn, babe.” He put his hands under my armpits and helped me shift around so my legs were on either side of him. My stomach whirled as I felt his cock hard beneath me. I put my hands on his chest, loving the feeling of his heartbeat beneath my palm. It was like it became a part of me, fed me, lit something up inside that couldn’t be shut out.

  Deck pulled me forward and kissed the tip of my nose. It was sweet and I liked it—a lot.

  I looked down at his chest, slowly drawing circles over the hard slab of muscle. “I love being here with you.”

  “That’s because of the multiple orgasms.”

  I laughed. “
True.” I trailed my finger down his chest to between his legs and felt him tense. His cock jerked against my palm and I bit my lower lip and smiled while I unzipped his pants. His hand tightened on my hip and I heard the slight rumble in his chest. I smiled. “I want dessert.”

  I WAS REELING from telling her that shit. The only other person I’d ever told about my father was Connor. But for some reason, telling Georgie felt … right. I needed her to see that side of me. There was no fuckin’ way I was ever letting her go, so she needed to see the fucked-up parts, and those parts were pretty damn big.

  There wasn’t a day I regretted killing my dad. Not once. Maybe that was wrong in the eyes of the law or a psychologist, but I didn’t give a shit. He deserved it.

  Georgie slipped off my lap and all thoughts of everything except her and what she was doing went dark. She knelt between my legs and then her hands went to my jeans and she undid the zipper.

  Her taking out my cock and that sassy expression on her face … Fuckin’ hell, it was something I’d imagined her doing for years.

  Her tongue darted out and touched the tip of me. I curled my hand in her hair. “Babe.”

  I closed my eyes and my head went back as she gripped my cock in a fist and then slid me into the warmth of her mouth. My hand tightened in her hair, trying to control the urge to force her deeper. Not yet.

  She sucked while her tongue flicked over me and her hand, slow and hard, fisted my dick. She moved up and down a few times then pulled all the way out and my eyes opened. Her kneeling on the patio in front of me, cheeks flushed, eyes curious and smoldering … my control faltered.

  She cupped my balls, her fingers tantalizing, stroking. I tried to bring her mouth back to my cock, but she resisted and I didn’t like it. I hated not having control, and Georgie literally had me by the balls. “Put your mouth on me,” I growled.

  She tightened her hand on my balls while her other pumped me hard a few times. “Oh, baby, not the time to be giving orders.” She smiled and her tongue darted out and licked the tip once.