“How—” She didn’t get a word in because his big hands were gripping her head and his lips were on hers—firm, pressing—and she gave a soft sigh and opened her mouth. He slipped his tongue inside, probing, licking, owning. She clutched his shirt at his waist and melted into him. He pulled back and licked his lips, face inches from hers. “Sweet.”
“Thanks,” she whispered.
He shook his head. “Taste like sugar.”
“Oh,” she blushed. “I made a dessert.”
He turned his head and spotted the plate sitting on the counter. “Again?”
She shrugged as he let her go and snatched up the plate. “I like to bake. Gives me something to do.”
He didn’t use the fork she’d placed near the plate for herself. With his fingers, he picked up the cake—which had to still be hot—and shoved half of it into his mouth.
He began to chew and immediately opened his mouth to suck in air. “Hot,” he said around a mouthful.
“I would have warned you but you didn’t give me the chance.” She poured him a glass of cold milk and watched as he downed it. He apparently didn’t learn his lesson, though, because he swallowed and then immediately shoved the other half in his mouth. “Fucking good,” he mumbled around the mouthful. He swallowed that too and drank more milk. “Not even gonna complain about how much weight I’ll put on eating this shit. Fuck it. Too delicious to care.”
She liked Jock’s body, but she also liked that it looked lived in. Used. Not a model posed on one of her book covers. Not that those weren’t fun to look at.
She ran her fingers over his stomach and cut her own square. “I’m glad you like my baking.”
His arms wrapped around her waist from behind, then his lips were at her ear. “Like it a lot. Like you more, though.”
See? Why did he have to say sweet shit? It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him questions, probe into his life, but why do that if this relationship was strictly about this mission? Why ruin this moment where his breath smelled like blueberries and sugar and his arms were warm and safe around her?
“How was, uh, tonight?” she asked instead.
His arms tightened briefly. “All right. We’re making progress. We’ll have profiles for you and Wren to look at next week.”
“Great,” she said softly.
He pressed a kiss under her ear. “Eat your thing. Finish your book. Then come to bed. I’m gonna shower, then wait for you.”
Right, he’d wait for her, then he’d touch her, then he’d make her come, then she’d make him come, and they’d fall asleep. Because this was her dream life. Not her real one. And fuck it, but she’d earned herself some dreams. “Okay, J.”
He blew out a breath and a shudder ran through his body, something that happened every time she called him J. She didn’t know why. Another question she didn’t ask.
Another kiss and he was gone. She did indeed eat her cake, finish her chapter, then went upstairs to the bedroom and a very clean and very naked Jamison Bosh.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“I don’t like this.” Jock’s face was thunder, and Fiona appreciated the anger on her behalf.
“I don’t either,” Roarke glared. “You think I didn’t try to talk Wren out of this?”
Fiona squeezed Wren’s hand. “We talked about it, and we’re okay. We can do this.”
Jock’s jaw ticked and Fiona smiled at him. She knew the smile didn’t reach her eyes. This wasn’t anything to smile about. This was going to be painful and humiliating, but it was necessary.
It’d been a week since they’d arrived at the townhouse, a week where Fiona could pretend she had a normal life. That she wasn’t being hunted or that all of this would go away once the threat did. That she’d be on her own again before too long.
At least she had Sundance. He sat at her legs now, his body leaning against hers. She threaded her fingers in his fur and he turned to her, blinking those big eyes. She blew him a kiss, and he tossed his head.
During the past week, the team had spent every minute working on profiling Darren’s crew and associates. And now Wren and Fiona had about twenty profiles to go through to see if they recognized anyone from the time they’d been taken in college.
Fiona knew he hated to see her anxious or upset. He was her protector, a big bulldog who wanted to stand between her and anything that dared to hurt her. She was falling for him, but it was a painful fall. There was nothing glorious about falling in love with Jock when she knew there was nowhere to land. Nothing to cushion her because, after this was over, he’d be gone on his next mission. She didn’t doubt that he cared for her, but it was the kind of care bred of protectiveness. It wasn’t a lasting love, built on humor, common interests, and goals.
Hell, she didn’t even have goals. Her main focus had always been just to stay alive.
Wren’s hand squeezed her knee. “Hey, you okay?”
Oh right, they had profiles to look through. Focus, Fiona. “Yeah, I’m ready to do this. Let’s get it over with and then I can drink an entire bottle of wine.”
It was just the four of them. Erick and Marisol were working elsewhere, and that was great, because this wasn’t something Fiona wanted an audience for. She sat on the couch with Wren, a coffee table in front of them, Roarke and Jock looking on. She took a deep breath as Roarke slid an envelope across the table, and Wren opened up the first file. Jock began to pace. Fiona got distracted by the shift of his ass in his pants and the way his thighs stretched the seams. God, he was a beautiful hunk of man.
“Fiona,” Wren said.
She smiled at her friend. “Yes, sorry, looking now.”
The first file made her breath catch. The eyes in the picture stared back at her. She knew the guys and Marisol had spent a lot of time working on these profiles, staking out the men to get as much information on them as they could, including pictures. Whoever had taken this picture got this man’s photo head-on. And it was the eyes that Fiona remembered. The hard, cold, beady eyes. He’d wrenched her hands behind her back, and he’d hissed in her ear not to scream or he’d slit her throat. He’d been the muscle.
“Harvey,” she said softly. That was what the others had called him, although the file listed him as Clive Baskins. He’d always be Harvey to her. “Him. He was the enforcer.”
Jock’s body went still. “Enforcer?”
Fiona swallowed and glanced at Wren. She was deep in thought, staring at the picture. “He was the one I saw taking you away that first day, wasn’t he?” Wren asked.
Fiona nodded.
“What do you mean by ‘enforcer’?” Roarke asked in a gentle voice while Jock’s face got redder by the minute.
“I mean he was the one they brought in if I tried to fight. He was strong, and he knew where to, um, hit—where bruises weren’t too visible on camera.”
The energy in the room snapped like lightning, and then Jock was moving, right out of the living room. She heard the sound of his footsteps up the stairs, then the slam of a door, and then a loud crash followed by a roar. Fiona flinched, her stomach souring. She hated this, hated this so much, even though it had to be done. “He can’t…” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Please tell him not to get upset. I don’t like it.”
Roarke nodded once and then went off after Jock. Wren watched him go before turning to Fiona with wet eyes. “I’m so sorry. I wonder every single day, what if I stayed, what if—”
“They would have done the same to you,” Fiona said. “And it’s done. Please Wren, I can’t deal with what-ifs, I can’t. Because there’s no going back. It is done. What-ifs make it hurt more.”
Wren nodded tightly. “Sure.”
“Okay.” Fiona closed Harvey’s file and placed it to the side. “That’s the keep pile.” She went for a smile, and Wren returned it.
They’d gone through two more files, not recognizing either of them, when they heard the sounds of footsteps down the stairs. Jock went right to her and sat down, drawing her into his arms
. “Sorry,” he said into her hair. “Shouldn’ta…shouldn’ta done that. Didn’t mean to scare you.”
She leaned into his touch and squeezed his forearm. “It’s okay.”
“Hate seeing you upset, hate hearing about it all…” Fiona didn’t say anything as a tremor ran through Jock’s body. “I’ll be here for you, though. Right here. Getting through this with you. I’ll keep my cool.” He pulled back and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Won’t happen again.”
“I like that you’re angry for me,” Fiona said. “I do. But today…I need steady, J. I need you to be strong for me because, when you’re strong, it props me up.”
And like that, his back went up, his eyes went hard and determined. “Steady,” he murmured.
“Yeah.” She patted his thigh before focusing back on the files. “Okay, I’m ready to start again.”
They went through another ten profiles with Fiona recognizing a couple of names and voices. The last profile was of a man named Henry Chamberlain II. Fiona didn’t recognize the name or the face.
“Got his voice, too, and we think he’s a part of this. He mentioned something about holding more parties.”
Fiona’s anxiety spiked through her like a lightning bolt. They often used the word parties, as if this was all consensual fun and games. Roarke tapped at his phone before holding it out to her to listen.
“Yeah, things are good. You should come up sometime. The guys and I have some parties…you know the kind.” The tinny voice filled the room, and Fiona’s blood went cold. She knew that voice, she knew the way he said parties, with a hard r like a pirate. She knew the way he smelled, the way his hands felt on her skin. She knew it all. He was the one who’d ordered her. There’d been several men, but this one was the reason she’d been bought.
“Yeah? Even with Darren away?” Roarke’s voice said on the phone in answer, with a slight accent.
“Yep, the parties are still going on,” the man said. White, they’d called him. There’d been a Blue and a Black too, like some fucked-up version of Reservoir Dogs. She felt like her body had been yanked back in time. There she was again. On a bed, the red light of the camera penetrating through her grimy blindfold, damp with her tears.
White’s voice, laughing as he used her. Telling all his friends what a great party this had been. A sharp needle had pierced her vein, and she was no longer crying because she was floating, floating from the pain and the smell, and the feel of those hands.
“Fiona!” a voice shouted and she jolted, her mind snapping back to present day, to Jock and Wren and Roarke, who were all staring at her with concern and sympathy, and fuck, this was all too much. Too damn painful…
“Him,” she whispered, eyes on her wringing hands in her lap. “He bought me. It was him.”
“Knew he looked like a smarmy fuck.” Jock’s voice was tight, and she wondered if he’d ever get to the point when he’d be disgusted with her. When she’d have to say more, when he’d face these men who saw her as nothing but flesh and holes. Would Jock look at her through different eyes?
“I need to shower,” she said abruptly. She clenched her fingers in Sundance’s fur, which grounded her, but all this talk…she needed to get clean. She needed soap, scalding hot water, a robe, and her bed. Alone.
“Fiona,” Wren whispered.
Fiona finally met her friend’s eyes. There wasn’t the pity there she expected. There was love, nothing but love shining out of Wren’s deep brown eyes. Fiona brushed Wren’s hair behind her ear. “I’m okay. Well, I’m not okay, but I’m not bad. I need a shower, and I need my bed.” She lifted her gaze to Roarke’s. “I can answer more questions later. I need a break.”
Roarke waved her on. “Of course. You don’t need to explain to me.”
She nodded and looked to Jock. But he stood with his back to her, looking out the living room window into their backyard. He didn’t turn around, and she didn’t call to him. Instead she turned around and walked upstairs, Sundance at her heels.
She stripped quickly and scrubbed her skin until it was pink and painful. Then she pulled on a big pair of sweatpants and a large sweatshirt—even though it was eighty degrees outside—and crawled under the covers. She stayed like that for a long time, Sundance lying beside her, his big body warm and soft.
Voices filtered up from downstairs. Eventually she heard the front door open and close. Then there was silence. She closed her eyes and opened them a little while later to a darkened room. Jock was beside her in bed, his eyes open and alert. He lay on top of the covers, wearing a pair of pants and nothing other than his big black watch.
He was watching her. She stared back. He didn’t reach out to touch her, didn’t say a word, just watched.
“Hi,” she said softly, feeling the sleep leave her body as if it was a receding tide.
“Hey,” he said back.
“I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”
“You’re allowed.”
“Where’s Sundance?”
“Fed him and let him out. He’s downstairs now with a bone.”
“Thank you.”
He didn’t reply.
She didn’t feel like herself. Her skin felt itchy and tight, the bed beneath her body like quicksand, uneven and waiting for her to move so it could give way.
“I don’t know how to be,” she confessed. Wren had always been able to get Fiona to talk when it was dark—sometimes she even drew her into a closet. So here, in this darkened room, Fiona felt like she could open up. “Maybe I don’t know how to be because I don’t know myself. During the years I was supposed to be figuring out who I was, I was recovering from what they did to me—to my body and my mind. And now…I don’t want to be defined by what happened to me. Even with you…” She swallowed. “I know you because of what happened to me. Why couldn’t we have met like regular people? At a dog park, or a grocery store where we both reached for the same bunch of bananas and our fingers touched. So we would have laughed awkwardly and started talking, then you’d ask me out.” He stared at her, and that made her smile. “Okay, I realize you don’t laugh awkwardly, but you know.”
She rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling. “I want to be something else, something not connected to my past. But that’s not possible, is it?”
He didn’t speak for a long time, and when he did, his voice was low and gravelly. “Can be.”
She rolled her head to the side. “So how do I do it? How do I move on?”
“Cauterize it. Take care of it, walk away.”
“Jock, I’m not like you. I don’t think that’ll work for me.”
“That’s the point of this mission, isn’t it? To shut down everything so you can move on.”
She turned onto her side. “Well, sure, but my past is still my past. I’m still haunted.”
He made a tsk sound, like one of disgust, and it irritated her.
“What? You have a past, don’t you? You walk around pissed off and determined to raze the earth. You’re telling me you were born like that? Or something happened that made you that way? Even if you cauterized it, as you say, it sure as hell changed you.”
His body went tight, so tight that she could feel the vibrations of tension through the mattress. “You don’t know a thing about my past.”
Each word was an arrow, shot straight and true with fire. He meant for that to hurt. And it did. “You’re right. I don’t.”
“Past is over,” he spat, and the fire in his blue eyes sparked. “Done with. Taken care of. That’s the way it’s going to be for you.”
He didn’t get it, not at all. “Humans don’t work like that—”
He knifed up in the bed and swung his legs to the side. “Humans can work like that,” he snapped as he stood up and turned around to face her. “They can, but some of them are just too weak to put in the work.”
Wow, that cut was deep. She flinched. “Excuse me?”
For a moment, indecision crossed his face, but then he hardened again. “You’ll be
fine. Once this is over, you’ll be fine, and you’ll move on.”
There was something to this conversation she was missing. She wasn’t sure they were even talking about her anymore. “J, you can’t just demand it—”
“You’ll be fine!” he roared and then stomped out of the room. She heard his feet jog down the stairs and then Sundance’s tags rattle.
She wore heavy layers of clothing and lay underneath a comforter, but she felt cold, so damn cold. She was sleeping with a man she didn’t know, a man who she struggled to read, who she feared couldn’t interact on a basic emotional level. She was putting so much of her effort into him, and what would she get in return? He’d taken such care with her this far but it was clear that, as this went on, he was only capable of so much. Or he was reaching his limit.
She closed her eyes, let the tears fall, and then went back to sleep, still unsure who or what she was, but knowing she sure as shit wasn’t going to get over her past because a man demanded it.
* * *
Jock sat on the couch in the dark, staring out the patio doors to their backyard. Sundance sat at his feet panting, as he’d just run around outside for fifteen minutes.
He didn’t like how he felt unbalanced and anxious. Anger, he was used to. He lived with anger so deep in his marrow that it was a part of him. It fueled him just like the blood in his veins. The anger had dulled over time to manageable levels so that he wore it like second skin. Everything else he was feeling, though? It was itchy and uncomfortable.
He knew he’d been out of line with Fiona, but he wanted…Well, he didn’t know what he wanted. For her to be better, happy, fulfilled. That was the point of this mission, at least for him. He could act like a savior and say it was for the good of other women. That would be what a good guy would say, but he wasn’t really a good guy. He never pretended to be. His actions were often fueled by selfish rather than altruistic reasons. Preventing the abuse of other women was a great side effect of taking down these men so Fiona could breathe free.
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