“I care about who I want,” he said, choosing, in her opinion, the completely wrong thing to get pissy about.
“No.” She shook her head. This wasn’t just about him and his mission, and it wasn’t about their relationship either. If the last few months had taught her anything, it was that she didn’t need him to stand in front of her holding a huge placard telling anyone who approached to back off. “I’m a whore—”
“Hey!” he cut her off. “Don’t you dare—”
“Not to you,” she said.
He didn’t get it, she had to make him see that she wasn’t making a judgement on herself or what they’d just done. Since finding Sikorski in that club, she’d known that she would have to hide her identity and her personality. Getting what she wanted from Sikorski relied on it.
Back then, she’d thought she’d only have to spend one evening with him. When it all went wrong at the end of that night, she’d been sucked in too deep to walk away. The image of herself that she’d cultivated, that’s what she’d been relying on since that night, not only to protect those she cared about, but to protect her own sanity. Thinking of herself as the lowlifes here thought of her put a line between who she was and what she had to do here.
“I would never think of you that way.”
“But he would… he can’t know we have history.” Sikorski hadn’t even given a single thought to her personality, the first thing he’d done when they met was name her like she hadn’t existed before he picked her up. “We’ll limit our contact outside of this room, which shouldn’t be hard. We’re not allowed to eat together, or socialize for anything but business—”
“If I want you there—”
Frustration made her exhale in a growl, he still didn’t get it. “Want me, yes,” she said. “If you decide you want to screw me at lunchtime then I’ll be summoned, but we can’t—”
“I don’t want you leaving my sight, not for a second.”
“It doesn’t work like that,” she said, grabbing one of this hands with both of hers. “You walk out of this room alone and you enter alone. We can only be together if you tell them you want sex.”
“You’re spending the night,” he said, wearing a scowl. Endearing as it was to see her man be affronted by the idea that they might be separated again, they couldn’t lose sight of where they were or why they’d ended up here.
She shook her head. “Madame says we’re not allowed to form relationships,” Kadie said. Following her training, doing exactly what she was told and what was expected of her, would be the best way to buy them time to do what needed to be done. “Unless it’s for business purposes.”
“So, you can tell them you have the ability to manipulate me. I’m cool with being manipulated by you and I’ll do whatever it takes to satisfy—”
“I don’t care about that,” she said. Although he was right, that Sikorski did ask the women in his harem to manipulate or spy on the men they slept with, she hadn’t been asked to do that with Tuck. Yet. “I can’t believe you told him what you were capable of.”
When she was just a one-night indulgence for Tuck, her masters probably didn’t believe she would have the time to figure him out. Their concern with her inexperience already made them doubt her. If Tuck took a specific interest in her and maintained that interest, her Master or Madame may ask her to gather information or tempt him into working for Sikorski.
Her loyalty to Tuck might be steadfast, but those she worked for here didn’t know that. With each second that passed, the situation was getting more complicated. Would she have to agree to spy on her lover for her boss? If she did, what information should she return? It would be information that she and Tuck agreed to share, but if he asked her to provide false information to benefit his mission, would she have to sacrifice her own?
“No one knows what I’m capable of, including me,” he said. “I know what I’m not capable of, and that’s leaving you behind.”
She assumed his abandonment of her nine months ago didn’t count by his reckoning. “If you show weakness, the tiniest, slightest opening, then he’ll exploit it. If he suspects your interest in me is anything other than sexual he’ll use it to make you… I don’t even know what, Tuck. But neither of us will leave here again. He’ll find a way to…” Use her to hurt Tuck, to force him into taking actions that he didn’t want to take. “You do what you need to do, walk away, and do it fast. I’ll… I’ll find a way out, I’ll think of something—”
“You’re leaving with me,” he said.
“I can’t,” she said. “This is already unprecedented. Madame checked twice when the order came down for me. I’m too new to be trusted with a client as important as you, that’s what she said. I haven’t even been… out, you know?”
Women were trained, conditioned, by the Madame in the basement and by Sikorski’s men so that they wouldn’t make fools of themselves in front of people that Sikorski was trying to impress. The Russian used sex to manipulate and impress the men he wanted to work with. Having never been an attraction at a party, or even in the bed of his men, Kadie was viewed as too inexperienced to be given responsibility.
It wasn’t about sexual experience, it didn’t matter if a woman was a virgin or a whore in that regard, they were taught how to manipulate and how to bow down even when presented with something, or someone, they didn’t want to respond to.
In the first few days of being here, she’d gotten herself into trouble by speaking out when she shouldn’t, which got her a reputation as a loose cannon. Seeing what some of the women went through, especially the younger ones, tore out her heart and it was difficult to see these things happening without reacting in any way. But she’d learned to keep her mouth shut.
“I’m special.”
“Yes, you are. Already that scares me. It shows he’ll do anything to get you working for him.” The fancy suite, the stripping of the bugs, the free whore for the night, all of it indicated Sikorski wanted to impress Tuck into staying. “What would he do if he realized all he had to do was threaten me to have you nuke Tokyo?”
“Tokyo?” he asked. “What interest does he have in—”
“You know what I’m saying.”
Everything was computerized these days. With Tuck’s skills he could access banks, governments, weapons systems. Without leaving his chair, he could order executions, dismantle governments, and commandeer the media. Sikorski could achieve everything he’d dreamed of with Tuck under his command.
“I do,” he said. “And you’re right, that is a possibility because I would never put you in danger. But I’ve factored that in, I’m not gonna ask him for your hand in marriage. I plan to be as derogatory about you as I can be in his company.”
“Did you plan on telling me that?”
Maintaining one character had proved to be challenging enough. Sitting silently while the man who loved to tease her spoke down about her might be more than she could handle.
“I’m telling you now,” he said. “But I knew you would know I didn’t mean it. It’s a performance, like theatre, you have to play your part well. Which, by the way, you do like a pro, why didn’t I know that?”
Compliments always made her feel good, this one was sweetened because it set her up for the chance to chastise him. “You’ve never trusted me before. And by the way,” she mocked. “You wouldn’t be trusting me now unless I’d forced you into it.”
“Course not,” he said, pulling her into his arms and lying down with her again. “You’re only good for sex. What use would a feeble woman like you be otherwise?”
This might be too much fun for him. “Getting into character?” she asked, kissing his chest.
“What character?” he teased, and she slapped his abdomen. “Stay here a minute.” He kissed her head, then pounced off the bed to go over to the desk where there was a laptop and the device he’d been fiddling with when she came in.
Propping the heel of her hand on her hair, she watched him pick it up. “What is that?”
“My phone,” he said, unclicking the back of the device and ignoring her confused frown.
The computer didn’t look familiar and she hadn’t seen him with any kind of bag or backpack that might have been carrying hardware in the bar or in the car. “Where did the computer come from?”
“Your boss,” he said, putting the back of the phone on the desk. “Told him I needed it to check in or hell would rain down.”
She could see him saying it, she couldn’t see it being true. “If you have your own phone, why did you need Nicky’s computer?” she asked.
“Because it’s on his network,” Tuck said, taking out the long metal wand he needed that had been secreted in the back of the handset.
She sighed. “I don’t understand you. You have the skills to get into his network from the outside, why would you need to be here to get into it? That’s a stupid risk just for a look into—”
“I’ve been in his network, plenty of times, stuck in my own bugs. My people know what he’s up to. But we still don’t have what we need.”
“Which is what?”
He didn’t reply and turned to sit down at the computer, he began to fiddle around with something, so she lay on her back and waited. “I have to contact the Kindred,” Tuck mumbled and she was sure he was giving her commentary, but he was too distracted to provide details. “It will take me a few minutes, I’ll have to secure the link, scramble his trackers. This little baby will work its magic, sever his link and copy everything on his network in seconds.”
Maybe she was supposed to be awed, he must have forgotten that she’d seen him do all kinds of magical things once upon a time with the businesses they partnered with in their legitimate work.
“I better get going.” Making the mistake of climbing off the bed at the side he was seated on, it didn’t take him long to spin the chair and grab her wrist to tug her into his lap.
Turned out he was paying closer attention than she’d thought. “You’re not going anywhere,” he said. “This will take five minutes tops. I’m not taking the risk of direct communication, this is all passive, information gathering. My signal will ping and the guys will know I’m safe.” Flicking a transparent bud that she hadn’t noticed on the desk until now, she peered at it. “It’s an earpiece, two-way communication. I took it out when I knew you were coming. I didn’t want my people listening to what I knew would happen between us.”
So he’d known before she even got up here that they’d have sex or was he referring to what they might say? It stood to reason that if he was private with her then he was private with the Kindred members too, which left her curious about what he’d told them about her.
Those were irrelevant at this moment, in this house, she had rules to follow and she’d tried to tell him that, apparently his mind had been elsewhere. “Have you been listening to me? I’m not allowed to stay—”
“I want sex,” he said. “More sex, lots of sex… I could get used to this lifestyle you know.”
Having her sent to his room to service him whenever he commanded it, yeah, she believed that he could get used to it. “They only have to think we’re having sex,” she said, making sure he knew that this illusion was still going to operate under her terms. Coercion had never been a part of their sex life and she wasn’t going to let Sikorski change that dynamic. “You said this room was clean, so they’ll never know—”
“It gives you a chance to flesh out your character.”
Answers for everything, they’d reverted back to their typical teasing and flirting without skipping much of a beat. “My character’s supposed to be having lots of sex with you,” she said. Her role in Sikorski’s household was to provide her body to whoever wanted it.
“Exactly,” he gloated. “Practice, practice.”
She loved that he thought he was winning this fight because it made disproving that he was a lot more enjoyable. “I’ve had lots of sex with you,” she said, tipping her chin up to smirk at him. “I’ve had years of it in fact.”
That truth killed his swagger, quick. “But…”
Righting her posture, she was happy to pick her hands up to his shoulders and rub her lips on his jaw. “We don’t need to actually have more sex for you to be convincing. If you want to boast about my body, or criticize my technique in front of Nicky, mentally reference any of the other four billion times we had sex.”
His eyebrow slid up. “Four billion? That might be an exaggeration.”
“Not by much,” she said, adopting a smile that matched the slight one curling his lips. “We have a lot of fun sex stories.”
Given how long they’d been together, and how amorous they were after periods apart, they had a long list of sexual memories. “Do you remember the time we were screwing in a car behind that ancient movie theater?”
“When we missed the fact that there was a raid on the building behind it? And missed the police showing up with the SWAT team?” he asked, stroking her arm. “Yeah, I remember.”
“The first we knew they were there was when they interrupted us.”
“For witness statements,” he said, pulling her body up when he stood to carry her back to the bed. “That was awkward.”
Awkward didn’t begin to describe it. The surprise of the bang on the window was one thing, Tuck got so mad that someone had thought to disturb them. When the parties on each side of the glass realized what the other was doing, there were a lot of stutters and averted eyes. The cops thought they had valuable witnesses when all they had was a sated woman and a guy whose mouth had been occupied by her pussy.
After recovering from the initial contact, the men were polite, but she and Tuck couldn’t offer much in the way of observations. “For the world’s most observant guy—”
“Ha. Ha. I never claimed that title.”
Lying against him, she didn’t know if he’d finished what he’d started on the computer, or if he’d put it aside to placate her. That he didn’t miss anything was sort of an inside joke between them that she couldn’t believe he’d forgotten. Kadie was happy to remind him of how far his insanity had once gone. “One time when I lost half a pound, you took my blood to your lab to test for weird tropical diseases.”
“I look after you.”
“It was half a pound,” she said. “I missed lunch and you could tell just by looking at me, from a distance, too.”
“I know your body,” he said. “I love your body.”
That was undeniable. “How do you think that made me feel when I put on half a pound? Instantly a heifer.”
She wasn’t actually offended when he’d approached to stroke his hands over her like he was searching for clues to a mystery. That he did notice and cared enough to question her health was better than the alternative of not giving a rat’s ass.
“Never,” he said, urging her head back down with his chin when she tried to look at him. “I don’t care what you weigh. I wanted to make sure that you were ok. Anything could’ve happened to you while I was away. It doesn’t hurt to be vigilant. Hence taking the blood, if that had been infected—”
“With what?” she asked on a gasp. “Never mind, I don’t want to know… Are you going to seduce me now?”
Everything would change between them. Even admitting that they wanted to be together again wouldn’t put things back to the way they were before. For one thing, she couldn’t sit at home and wait without protest when she knew he could be in danger, like he was here.
Kadie wanted to be a part of it, ugly or not, this was Tuck’s world. Sticking by him, helping him, consulting him, what she planned to do while they were in this situation was prove that she could be trusted and that she could be an asset to him and to his team. If they were interested in accepting her.
“You’re a sure thing, Toots,” he said, pulling her closer. “Let’s lie here for a while. I’ll let you know when I’m ready.”
Delaying their intimacy was a way of prolonging the time they could spend together. As long as he said
that he wanted it, she had to stay here, but she couldn’t stay once they’d finished having sex for the night. Staying overnight in a client’s bed was a massive no-no and one she couldn’t afford to ignore when she was still trying to make an impression. Errors for a newbie would be inexcusable. Perfection was what she needed to portray to maintain her place here.
Sliding her leg up his, her thigh covered his erection. “Uh, don’t look now—”
“Ignore that,” he said. “If we have sex every time that appears we’ll be here for months.”
Turning her smile against his skin, she drew in a long breath. “This is real, isn’t it? If I close my eyes will you be here when I open them?”
Taking a nap should be ok and lying in his arms was no hardship. He’d asked when she came in if he could hold her, she could hardly deny him that right now when they’d confessed the truth of their feelings for each other.
“Every time,” he said, kissing her hair again, then releasing his own deep breath. “Just relax, you’re safe with me.”
“And happy,” she muttered, letting her eyes close and her breathing even out. She could relax, sleep, just for a few minutes. He’d be ready again soon.
SEVENTEEN
Except he wasn’t, or if he was he chose to ignore his desire in deference to letting her sleep because the next time she opened her eyes he’d made the decision for both of them. Darkness greeted her. Darkness that shouldn’t have been there because she wasn’t supposed to spend the night. Her job was to pleasure the man her Madame pointed at and then return to her bed in the basement with the others.
The comfort of his arms made her forget their predicament as she was transported to a time gone by and it took her a minute to reorient. The sheets around them were foreign, they felt different and smelled different to the ones they’d had on the bed in their apartment. The curtains were drawn around the four posts of the bed and they hadn’t been before she closed her eyes. Tuck must have chosen to close them for increased privacy.
Swift (Kindred Book 4) Page 19