by Lexi Blake
“It’s too late for that.” He kept one arm securely around her waist as he started to back up toward the bed.
Maybe reason would work. She softened her voice. “Ian, you don’t want to get involved in this. Call Adam off. Tell Simon to turn his back for a couple of minutes. I’ll wake up Chelsea and we’ll get out of here. I won’t bother you again.”
“You bother me every minute of every fucking day, baby. You have since the moment I met you, and I’ve been fighting it. I’ve fought it so hard since you came back. Every good agent knows when one tactic doesn’t work, it’s time to try another one.”
He turned her neatly so she was facing him, his arm unwinding. But before she could make a move to get away, he had both her wrists in one big hand.
And a nice length of rope in the other.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying something new.” He wound the rope around her.
Charlie tried to take off. She bolted for the door, frightened not of what Ian might do, but that after all the shit he’d poured on her that she might still let him do it. She couldn’t be the girl who took a guy’s crap and then fucked him. She just couldn’t.
He was on her in a second, pulling her down and pinning her to the plush carpet underneath them.
“Get off me,” she yelled.
“I can’t.” He was perfectly calm. She could think this was an everyday occurrence if it hadn’t been for the massive erection pressed against her.
Despite the fact that she tried her damnedest to get a knee in his crotch, he held her down and had her wrists bound together in no time at all. He tested the knots, as though he gave a shit.
“Is it too tight?” Ian asked, his voice quiet and serious.
She stayed silent, not willing to give him anything. He’d taken her world away and then expected her to submit?
“Charlie, baby, talk to me. I can’t stand this. I hate that I shut you down. I don’t want to. I want to be cold. I want to not care. I can’t. I can’t let you go.”
“You’re taking away my options.”
“Because I gave them all to you last time and you fucking didn’t choose me. You chose everyone but me. I’ll fix this. I’ll save you. Choose me, Charlie. Choose us. Trust me. Give me the option of being your hero.”
She had, she suddenly realized. She’d chosen Chelsea over him. She’d chosen herself over him. At the time, she hadn’t seen it that way. It had seemed like a clear path, and she hadn’t considered once turning to him and telling him the truth. How would a man like Ian handle that? He would shut down. Ian needed to be needed and she’d trusted his worst enemy over him.
He was asking for another chance. Or was he just trying to get her to comply?
How could she know?
“Ian, just untie me and let me go to Chelsea.” She had questions for her sister. If Chelsea was blackmailing politicians, they were in more trouble than she’d imagined.
His face tightened. “I can’t. I can’t trust you not to run.”
Frustration welled. “You’ve made sure I don’t have anywhere to run to, Ian. I have nothing to fall back on if Adam has taken those hard drives and you’re going to give them my money.”
She would be all alone in the world again. She would have to start over and hope she lasted long enough to make it. Her whole soul cried because he was the one who had put her here. Her love. Half her soul had banished her to death and pain.
He hauled her up, lifting her into his strong arms. “I’m giving them whatever it takes to keep you out of jail. If you give them the ten million in your accounts, and you stay out of trouble, they’ll leave you be. I worked on this deal. I had to promise some very important people a couple of favors. My favors can mean dangerous things. Don’t fucking tell me I’m trying to hurt you, Charlie.”
Ten million? She stilled in his arms. He knew exactly how much she had. Chelsea had told her Adam had found their bank accounts. She had almost twenty-five million in their accounts. It came from the money she’d stolen from Nelson and her uncle and the money they had made from brokering information. Tears pricked her eyes again, but for a different reason this time. Ian was trying to tell her something, but he couldn’t just say it outright. Was he really trying? Was he really saving her? “You gave them the whole ten million? Ian, that’s everything I have.”
They could be listening. She had to be careful. Hope fluttered in her chest, a babe she’d thought was stillborn but who had just taken its first breath.
He laid her down on the massive bed, fastening her wrists to the hook at the headboard. “I did. All of it, Charlie.” He winked her way.
He’d left her a security blanket. She could find new info. She could build their business again, but the money was paramount if she needed to run.
He stared down at her. “Trust me.”
She closed her eyes. She loved this man and he’d hurt her. She’d hurt him. She’d cost him damn near everything, and she was threatening it again. Her uncle could take out his whole crew. So far they had handled the trouble, but they could lose one of their own.
Trust. She almost didn’t understand the word.
Ian needed it. He needed her to trust him. It was like a code written into his DNA. He was the type of man who would love one woman and then be done. She was his. She was the one who could complete him but her history had fucked them both over.
She had a choice. Him or Chelsea. She’d chosen Chelsea the first time. Her sister had been so young and in need, but they were stronger now and Chelsea was almost off the radar. No one believed she had done anything wrong. Chelsea could walk away.
“So you’ve cleaned up my problems?”
His hand came out, smoothing back her hair. “Yes, thank god your sister has stayed out of trouble.”
She mouthed her next question. Why?
He leaned over, his mouth right over her ear. “I told you. I tried. I tried to rid myself of this need, but I can’t. I need you. I can’t get you out of my fucking head. I haven’t been able to for five fucking years.”
“After today, I should walk away. It would be better for everyone in your life if I disappeared.” She owed him the truth. After everything she’d done to him and his friends, she couldn’t lie.
“I can’t.” He stood over her, his body hard and ready. “I can’t let you go. You asked me a question. I didn’t answer.”
She asked him if what they’d had those years before was real. “Was it real? It felt real. It was real for me. I married you.”
His shoulders slumped. He leaned against the wall, his eyes never leaving her. “I married you. I loved you, Charlie. With everything I had, I loved you, but you didn’t reciprocate.”
How could he think that? “Ian, I’ve spent five years trying to work my way back to you. How can you think I didn’t love you?”
“You didn’t need five years. You needed to trust me. You needed to trust me more than Eli Nelson. You didn’t.”
That was the wall between them, the chasm. She hadn’t trusted him enough to tell him what was happening. She hadn’t loved him enough to give him the truth.
“What would you have done, Ian?” She stared up at him. Sometimes he seemed so remote, aloof, but it was all an act. It could be hard to see past that gorgeous face and perfect body, but deep down he was just a man and she’d hurt him. “What would you have done if I had come to you? I was afraid you would kick me to the curb and then I wouldn’t be able to save Chelsea. There was a tiny piece of me that was afraid you knew everything and you were playing me.”
“I would have killed Eli Nelson. I would have gotten your sister.”
She shook her head. He saw everything in black and white. “My dad had her. He wasn’t going to let her go.”
“I told you I would have gotten your sister. If anyone got in my way, I would have taken them out, and I very likely would have enjoyed killing your father.”
“You were on an op.”
He sighed, looking past tired. “You were more i
mportant than any op. I would have turned over the op to someone else. You were my wife. I made vows to you that I never made to another woman. I won’t ever make to another woman. I would have walked away from the Agency and taken care of your problems and then I would have brought you back to the States and bought a fucking house with soapstone and shit and I would have gotten you pregnant and we would have a couple of kids by now, and then I wouldn’t feel this hole inside me every single fucking day of my life. I would be some dumbass dad who takes his kid to soccer practice and bitches about the coach. I would be a husband who just likes to spend time with his wife at boring barbecues and family dinners.”
The life they could have had. It played in the corners of her mind always, a dream she couldn’t quite catch. “I don’t know that we could ever have had that life, Ian. I think I made a mistake by coming back to you. I love you. I wish I’d made better choices, but in the end they’ll always come after me.”
“Can we not make decisions tonight?” Weariness had invaded his voice. “Can we just get through this crisis before we have to deal with the next one?”
Because the next crisis would come. “Yes. I’ll be good. You can untie me.”
He snorted a little and moved away from the wall, pulling his shirt over his head. “I think I’ll keep you the way you are. That way I can sleep without having to keep one eye open.”
“Ian, I promise.”
“And I promise to gag you if you don’t stop talking.”
“God, you’re such a bastard.” He made her crazy. He said the sweetest things and then left her trussed up like a piece of meat on a hook. And who the hell had hooks built into his headboard?
He got down to his boxers and then the bed moved as he tossed his body on it. “Are you cold?”
“Ian, I’m tied up. I’m not worried about the cold.”
His big hand came down on her belly, flattening over it possessively. “I’ve never had a woman in this bed.”
“Yet you have hooks in the headboard.”
He laid his head on her breasts, cuddling down like they were pillows. “I’m an optimist.”
He was a bastard, and she still loved him. And she definitely wasn’t cold.
With his arms around her, his body warming hers, she found it oddly easy to fall asleep.
Chapter Eleven
“What the fuck are you doing with my hard drives?”
Why hadn’t he thought to have his bedroom soundproofed? Ian came awake to the shrill sounds of his sister-in-law fucking up his very carefully laid out plans. He’d planned on waking up and easing into Charlie’s pussy before she’d really opened her eyes. He’d planned on starting the morning better than the way they had ended the evening.
“Keep your fucking voice down.” Simon’s low command came through loud and clear.
“Do they have to argue in front of our room?” Charlie groaned a little and turned toward him. He’d freed her after she’d fallen asleep. He’d never really meant to leave her tied up all night. It would have done terrible things to her joints and made her awfully crabby. Sleepy eyes opened, and she laid her head on his chest.
It was simple to curl his arm around her, drawing her close. He hated the fact that her referring to the room as theirs sounded so fucking right. But he wasn’t going to fight it anymore. Fighting it had only made him miserable.
So he was having an affair. With his wife. He wasn’t going to look past that and keeping her alive for today.
“I swear to god if you don’t give me back my hard drives, I’m going to take your balls off.”
“I would love to see you try, little girl.”
Charlie whined a little. “Make them go away, Master.”
If only he could. He gave her a squeeze and rolled off the bed, not bothering with clothes. If they wanted to throw down outside his bedroom, they could deal with the fact that he had morning wood.
He threw the door open and Simon was standing over Chelsea, his face red. Ian could practically see the steam coming out of his ears. “You two both shut the fuck up. Where’s Damon?”
Simon stood down. “He and Baz left early this morning. They’re meeting us at the office in a few hours.”
At least they hadn’t been listening to Chelsea scream about her hard drives. “Then why the fuck are you two standing outside my door, wrecking my morning? I had a late fucking night what with all the killing and burying bodies and listening to Alex hand his balls over to Eve.”
Chelsea turned, her face a stubborn mask. “I want to see my sister.”
Ian wanted a lot of things that he wasn’t going to get. “I want to fuck your sister but I can’t because the two of you won’t keep it down long enough for me to take care of business.”
There was a chuckle from behind him and then Charlie’s arm wound around his waist. Her body hugged his from behind. “You have no discretion at all.”
Sleep seemed to have done his sub a world of good. Or maybe it was the fact that he’d stopped the macho revenge bullshit. He’d halfway expected to wake up and find her missing, but instead, she’d been wrapped around him, a little smile on her face. “Discretion is useless in this case. Now, in your sister’s case, it could very likely get you killed if she keeps running around screaming about her hard drives.”
“I want them back.” Chelsea didn’t seem to be in the same good mood as her sister. Maybe Simon should have tied her to a bed.
“Not going to happen. I traded them for your sister’s freedom.”
Chelsea huffed a little. “Bullshit. I could have gotten us out of that. Charlotte, you can’t believe this asshole. He’s one of them.”
He waited for Charlie’s deeply detailed defense of him, but she just put her head against his back and sighed. “No, he’s not.”
Neat. Succinct. To the point. He liked it.
“Charlotte, you can’t let him do this to you,” her sister pleaded. Her face twisted in a little frown of disgust. “Can’t you put that thing away?”
His cock was tenting out of his boxers, poking its way through the fly. “I told you how to make it go away, but you’re still here.” Charlie chuckled behind him, her mouth on his back sending the little laughter reverberating through his skin. It did nothing to get his dick to slow down. “Besides, it looks like Simon there has wood of his own. You’re not complaining about that.”
Simon flushed. “God, you’re a fucking bastard, Taggart. It’s my deep pleasure to tell you that fucking your wife is going to have to wait. Liam’s on his way in. He bagged a Russian and he managed to not kill his, so we’re bringing him into the interrogation room in five.”
Fuck all. He really couldn’t screw his wife. Damn it. His day was already going to hell. “Fine.”
“You have an interrogation room?” Charlie asked, her voice incredulous.
“Doesn’t everyone?” He wasn’t going to apologize for having a proper home. Dungeon. Check. Interrogation room. Check. She didn’t even know that he’d turned the shed in the back into a detention cell. Now that he thought about it, he really had made this house into a home. He just needed Charlie to pick out shit like curtains. Should he put curtains in his detention cell?
“I’ll take this one off your hands.” Simon had an oversized paw on Chelsea’s elbow.
She pulled away from him. “Don’t think this is over. Charlotte, I don’t care how good he is in bed. You can’t let him wreck our future.”
“The future in which you blackmail high-ranking officials?” Charlie asked, finally showing some irritation. “The one where I get renditioned because you can’t keep your hands out of the pie? Just tell me you haven’t been hacking MSS. I don’t think even Ian can work a deal with the Chinese.”
Her sister flushed. “No. I stayed away from them. You have to understand that the officials I’m working over deserve it. If you only knew the kind of things they do, Charlotte.”
“I don’t have to know,” Charlie shot back. “You shut that shit down now. We’re out
of the information business. If Ian can settle everything, we’re going to keep our noses clean and stay off the radar.”
Chelsea huffed away looking like a kid who had just had her favorite toy taken. Simon followed after her.
Ian turned to Charlie, allowing her to twist until she hugged him, his cock up against her belly, the easy intimacy comforting. “So you’re on board now?”
She turned her face up. God, he loved how pretty she looked without an ounce of makeup on. “You’re right. At least half of the people looking for me will go away if we give up the business, but Ian, you have to know that my uncle won’t stop. I can’t hide here forever.”
He had no idea what he would do with her if she could stay. There was still so much between them, so much he couldn’t trust about her. Still, he didn’t want to fight more. He hugged her close. “We’ll figure it out as we go along. Now go and take a shower and then deal with Miss Frowns A Lot. She and Simon would be so much happier if they would just get it over with and fuck.”
“That’s your solution to everything.”
It was his solution to his massive hard-on. Now that he was kind-of, sort-of done with shoving her away, he should really be able to fuck his wife. He had five years of fucking to make up for. He pressed his cock against her, his hands finding her hair. “It’s a really good solution.”
He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to hold her still and explore her mouth lazily. They could start the morning right. His lips hovered right over hers.
“Ian!” Liam’s voice rang out. “I caught us a nice fat fish.”
There was a flurry of Russian curse words and Charlie tensed.
Fuck. He pulled her close, forgetting about his stupid, needed-more-than-it-was-going-to-get cock. “It’s going to be okay, baby. I’ll deal with this fucker.”
“Are you going to kill him?” There wasn’t an ounce of judgment in her question, just an offhand curiosity.
He’d thought about it, but he didn’t really want to bury the dude in his backyard and Alex’s was already full, so he was going to make another deal. “Li’s going to hold him here until the Agency can pick him up. They’ll take him along with the files and then it’s out of our hands. I really only have a couple of hours to talk to him, so go and get cleaned up. We have to be at the office by noon.”