15. Jezebel

CHAPTER 15

JEZEBEL

“ H arder.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You’re not fucking hurting me.”

The shrink I’d quit seeing would say I was hurting myself, but at least I was enjoying the ride.

Cole’s fingers dug into my hips as I straddled him—on a chair because my cast meant I couldn’t kneel—and I gasped as his magic cock hit exactly the right spot. He thrust up, I ground down, and we collapsed against each other as we came.

We were at a crossroads.

I’d slept at his place again last night, but that was all we’d done—sleep. When I arrived at close to midnight in answer to his “just finished work” text, he’d looked so shattered that I took pity, crawled into bed beside him, and let him pass out.

At five past eight, he’d woken me with a kiss and asked if I wanted coffee. I’d followed him downstairs, and the rest was history.

But did I want our brief affair to go the way of the dodo ?

My head said I should toss him aside, but my fractured heart hesitated. And Ari wanted me to pump him for information. Maybe extending the expiration date of our not-a-relationship by a week wouldn’t hurt? Once the hit squad mystery was solved, I could vanish into thin air, and Cole could head back to the Black Diamond and wait for a more appropriate woman to come along.

Pros? Orgasms, no funeral to attend, and an entertaining leisure pursuit to fill the time while my leg healed.

Cons? Cole might become more invested than I did, but that was his problem, not mine.

He stroked my hair away from my face. “Penny for them?”

“They’re not worth the money.”

“Try me.”

A long sigh escaped. “This is turning into something it was never meant to be.”

“That’s a problem?”

“I told you at the start, I don’t do commitment.”

“And I told you, I’m getting the hell out of Vegas as soon as humanly possible. But while I’m here, I like having something to look forward to doing after work.”

The sigh turned into a huff. “Well, if you’re going to keep doing me, could you be less of a gentleman about it?”

“What?” He looked slightly shocked. “ Less of a gentleman?”

Should I go there?

If I had to spend another week with this man, I might as well enjoy it. Either that, or I’d scare him off for good, so I wasn’t seeing a downside.

“You can whisper as many sweet nothings as you want, but I’ll never come as hard as I would with your hands around my throat.”

Okay, now he looked horrified. Cool.

“Is this a joke? ”

“No, it’s a kink. One I happen to enjoy.”

His tan had faded since he’d been in Vegas, and now he lost the rest of his colour. “You’re into…BDSM?”

“I’m into specific elements of BDSM. Breath play, spanking, a touch of light flogging. Fingernails being raked down my back. If you bring a rope anywhere near me, I’ll tie it around your scrotum and tighten it until your balls drop off.” I leaned forward on his lap and rested my elbows on the back of the chair, trapping him. “Do you have a problem with that?”

His expression said he absolutely did, but his cock suggested otherwise. It was already hardening again.

“Fuck.” He ran a hand through his messy hair. “Fuck, what if I tried it and hurt you?”

Hmm. Not an outright “no.” I felt myself smile.

“My safe word is ‘kittycat.’ If I use it, you stop what you’re doing immediately. Understood?”

Usually if I wanted my urges satisfied, I found an asshole and kicked him out of bed—literally—when I was done with him. This was only the second time I’d tried turning vanilla into a chocolate fudge sundae, and the first time had been relatively straightforward. Brax had been online, researching BDSM for a possible new business venture, and I’d happened to look over his shoulder. The theory behind breath play had piqued my interest. Could a little drop in oxygen levels really heighten an orgasm? In those days, Brax had been willing to experiment, and I’d soon discovered the answer. I’d also learned about a new, tenebrous side of myself.

Cole swallowed hard. “Got it.”

“Good.” I kissed him on the nose and climbed off his lap. “You want that coffee now?”

“Wait, we’re not going to…?”

“No. You’re gonna go to work and think about this discussion, and if you want to see your handprint on my ass, you’re going to call me this evening.”

With that said, I made his coffee, got dressed, and headed back to the Cathouse.

“If you don’t stop getting in my way, I’m going to force-feed you Dusk’s special cookies,” Marcel whined.

Since Dusk had been bitching about the world in general and Senator Presley in particular at lunchtime, Marcel had put extra weed in them today, but even a dozen cookies wouldn’t take the edge off my mood.

Until I caught myself pacing, I hadn’t realised just how much this morning’s conversation with Cole had affected my psyche. He was one of the few people I’d let see a part of the real me. Even Bastian hadn’t known about the kink—I’d been too busy trying to be the woman I’d thought he wanted. And to be fair, I’d succeeded. Except, as it turned out, he hadn’t wanted a wife. He’d wanted someone with a compartmented security clearance.

I hadn’t engaged in pillow talk, and I hadn’t talked to him about my job, but since he was also in intelligence, he had an idea of what I did. His Russian handlers had no doubt helped him to fill in some of the gaps. And not only had he bugged my engagement ring, but he’d also rented the apartment next to mine and eavesdropped through the wall, plus I very much suspected he’d drugged me and used my fingerprint to unlock my laptop. Although I never discussed operations with him, he knew when I was leaving the country, and by watching what I packed, he had an inkling of where I was going.

And what I’d be doing when I got there.

I’d started out in the US Army and made it to the rank of sergeant before I got poached by the DIA. They liked my ability to ferret out information, and not only that, I was good at the hard stuff too. Following a particularly challenging hostage rescue, the assholes in my unit had nicknamed me the Incredible Knightcrawler.

The DIA had honed my skills, both in intelligence gathering and in acting on that intelligence. Nobody wanted to admit assassins existed, but people like me were the reason men like Cole could sleep at night. Okay, perhaps that was a bad example. I didn’t want Cole to get much rest, but the other citizens of Las Vegas could have sweet dreams. I lurked in the shadows so they could live in the light.

But all good things must come to an end.

The ambush had happened in Rostov. One of my colleagues and a local asset had died, and I’d made it out through Ukraine by the skin of my teeth.

My first hint that Bastian had been involved came when I arrived home and the motherfucker looked surprised to see me. As in, he was neatly packing my belongings into boxes. Obviously, his contacts hadn’t yet realised that there was one fewer body than expected in the remains of the burned-out building, and he’d garbled an excuse about hearing the mission had gone wrong.

That was the day something inside me broke.

Something else .

If I was honest, I hadn’t quite been whole since I realised my dad had abandoned me.

Anyhow, I turned to the only people I could still trust. My girls. There had only been two of them in those days—Echo and Dice. Dice convinced me to bring Priest into the mix, and after a few tears, a liberal amount of alcohol, and plenty of brainstorming, we decided to set Bastian up.

Together.

Priest had never met my father, but he knew him by reputation. Jeremy Pope had been one of the agency’s rising stars, at least until he disappeared while working under non-official cover. And until Bastian did his worst, Priest had never met me. But when he did, he proved to be a rock. Hell, he’d even offered to take care of Bastian, but I wanted to do that myself. Well, “wanted” was too strong a word. I’d felt it was my duty. I’d inadvertently screwed up, so I had to fix it. In the end, Priest travelled to Russia with Dice and handled that end so I could focus on the US issue.

But while I was feeding false information to Bastian, the folks at work had been quietly investigating the leak. My job was on the line. So, Priest had stepped in again and found a solution. We might have busted each other’s chops constantly, but he’d always have my back, and I’d always have his.

He hadn’t wanted to head up the Choir, or as we were officially known, Point Team Golf. No, he’d been quite happy surfing in Hawaii until the guy who’d been slated to take the job—a transfer from one of the other point teams—died in a car wreck. A semi shunted his vehicle a hundred yards into a utility pole and snuffed him out in a heartbeat. There was something unjust about that—folks like us were supposed to die creeping around in foreign lands, not on the side of the highway because our car broke down. Looking at you, Thelma. Anyhow, Priest initially said no to the job, but with me on the way out at Langley and Dice determined to follow in her father’s footsteps, he’d grudgingly agreed to hang up his wetsuit. The Choir was born. The name was a play on his—Rayner Chapelle—and in the past three years, he’d taught me more about death, destruction, and general sneakiness than I’d thought it was possible for one person to know. He’d turned me into a living weapon.

He’d believed in me.

For a moment, I considered calling him for advice on the Cole situation, and then quickly rethought that. Priest’s track record with women was appalling. He’d just congratulate me on the sex and warn me to stay away from the Little White Wedding Chapel.

But why was I so tense, anyway? I’d spent the morning on the shooting range, an activity that usually relaxed me, and then worked out in the gym until I felt like a limp spaghetti noodle. Yet still the nervous energy flowed through me like a swollen river, threatening to burst its banks.

My phone buzzed, and I snatched it out of my pocket.

Cole was calling.

I hotfooted it out to the terrace because Marcel did not need to hear this conversation.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey.”

Was this goodbye? “Did you think about what I said?”

“I thought about it.” When he didn’t continue right away, I squeezed the phone so hard my hand hurt. “I’ll agree to your terms on one condition.”

“Which is?”

If he mentioned handcuffs or golden showers, I was out.

“You let me buy you dinner.”

I stopped in my tracks. Buy me dinner? That was a suggestion I hadn’t expected.

“I don’t do…”

“…commitment. Yeah, I know. But what you’re asking for is more than a casual hookup. There’s trust involved. And if you want me to do this, I need to see you outside the bedroom. I need to see you when the adrenaline and endorphins and whatever else have worn off and know you’re okay.”

He’d been googling. That was a good sign. He hadn’t freaked out and run. He hadn’t laughed in my face, and he was offering me what I wanted. If I could survive being ambushed in Rostov and escape to tell the tale, I could make it through a meal with Cole.

And he was right—there was trust involved.

“Don’t expect me to go anywhere fancy.”

The tension seeped out of me, and I sank onto the dick-bench by the tennis court.

“Wonder Burger okay?”

“I’m buying,” I said.

“That’s not?—”

“Take it or leave it.”

There was a long pause. “Are you coming over tonight?”

“Give me half an hour.”