Tease Me: A Stark International Security Novel

by J. Kenner

  “Hunter? What is it?” I prop myself up on my elbows and watch as he hurries into his clothes. A cold chill washes over me, and I grab the edge of the comforter and pull it over my bare legs. “Ryan?”

  “It’s nothing. Just some work stuff I thought could wait. It can’t.”

  I swallow, then pull the blanket higher to cover my breasts. “Will you—”

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  He barely looks at me. But as soon as he’s dressed, he grabs his work phone, then hurries to the door. He pauses, then glances back at me. “I love you, Kitten,” he says, coming over to kiss me on the cheek. “I love you so damn much.”

  I’m reeling at his change in attitude. But before I can ask, he takes a breath and hurries out, leaving me wondering what the hell is going on.

  I’m still wondering after I’ve slid off the bed and wrapped myself in the hotel robe. I sit back on the edge of the mattress, thinking that maybe I’ll order one of the hotel’s adult movies, just to take the edge off, when I realize that Hunter walked off without his personal phone. I pick it up, and the face recognition feature causes the screen to pop on immediately. Not odd, since we added each other to our phones months ago, but I gasp anyway.

  Not in surprise that I have access. No, I’m gasping in shock at the text that’s now staring me in the face. A text from a number I don’t recognize.

  I’m sorry I ran from you.

  But please believe me—

  I need you again, Ryan. Now. Desperately.

  Our last kiss burns in my thoughts.

  You know what it meant for both of us.

  Meet me at the same place.

  Don’t let me down.

  Love, F

  Chapter Four

  Goddamn fucking son-of-a-bitch!

  Ryan pressed the call button for the elevator a second time, as if that would do anything, then forced himself to step back and lean against the wall.

  After all, someone on his team might be monitoring the elevator bank, and even if the feed was unwatched, he hardly wanted a permanent memento in the video vault of him losing his shit. He needed to try to look like everything was normal.

  But it wasn’t. Everything had stopped being normal three days ago.

  That, he thought as he stepped onto the elevator, was when things had gone completely off the rails.

  And, yes, that was when he should have called and told Jamie everything. But how could he when he hadn’t understood what the fuck everything was? When he still didn’t understand?

  All he knew for sure was that three days ago, he’d gotten a text on his work phone from someone who insisted that Ryan come to a meeting at a pub near Marble Arch.

  You helped me a long time ago. Now I need you again. Will explain in person. Please don’t let me down.

  Curious and concerned that the mysterious text might be connected to one of Stark Security’s pending cases, Ryan had gone to the pub. But no one had been waiting for him.

  He’d stayed for fifteen minutes, hoping the contact would show, before he spoke with the hostess.

  “You must mean the lady who left the note,” the hostess had said. “She told me a guy with dark hair and blue eyes might ask about it.” As she spoke, she reached into a drawer and passed Ryan one of the pub’s napkins.

  He’d glanced down, then frowned at the two neatly formed words: I’m sorry.

  “Did she say anything else? Did you see which direction she went? Did she pay with a credit card?”

  “No, she didn’t say a thing other than describing you. And she actually went out the exit in the back through the kitchen,” she added, pointing behind her. “Said she was going to the restroom, then suddenly the damn alarm’s going off.”

  “How about a credit card?”

  “I don’t know, but I couldn’t tell you her name even if she did. I mean, that’s—”

  “A moot point unless she used a card,” Ryan had said. “Can we at least find out? If she did, I’ll speak to your manager. If she didn’t, maybe I can at least chat with her waiter.”

  Her nose had wrinkled, but she’d nodded, then gestured for a tall man with bright flaming red hair to come over.

  “Can I help you?” he’d asked in a voice thick with an Irish lilt.

  The hostess had explained, and the waiter shook his head. “Cash. Good tip, though.”

  “Did you speak to her at all?” Ryan had asked.

  “Just to take her order. Red wine and chips. And water. Why? What’s going on?”

  “Don’t worry about it, Tommy,” the hostess had said, then added to Ryan, “I’m sorry. This is about more than getting stood up, isn’t it?”

  He’d handed her a business card. “If you see her again, I’d appreciate a call.”

  Her lips pursed, but she’d nodded. “Doubt I will. She wasn’t a regular. But good luck.”

  He’d thanked her, headed out the door, and circled around to the back alley. But there’d been no sign of the woman. All he’d had left was the sick feeling in his gut that someone in trouble had turned to him for help, and that he’d had no way to find her and no explanation why she’d abandoned the meeting that she’d asked for.

  But if she’d expected him to walk away and forget it, she was sorely mistaken. Because the whole incident had gotten under his skin. Was she a witness? A victim? Someone looking for help from Stark Security?

  Whoever this mysterious friend was, he’d been determined to track her down and figure out what was going on. Texting her back hadn’t gotten him an answer, not that he’d expected it would. And when he’d run a trace on the number, he’d learned that it was a burner, not attached to anybody.

  Without anything else to go on, he’d called in Baxter Carlyle, his second in command. Baxter had immediately gotten to work, and soon Ryan had video of her leaving from a neighboring store’s security camera. The quality was for shit, but Ryan had recognized her build, the angles of her face, even the way she walked.

  He knew her; dear God, he knew her.

  Felicia.

  There hadn’t been a doubt in his mind. The woman on the video—alive and well—was the same woman he’d watched get shot in the gut and tossed off a train into a raging river.

  The woman he’d failed more than a decade ago.

  The wife who couldn’t possibly be there.

  And yet that had been her image on the tape. Her, or maybe someone impersonating her?

  But how?

  More important, why?

  Now, in the hotel elevator, the tightness in his gut that he’d been battling ever since he’d seen that video returned in full force. A tightness that had only completely faded when Jamie had come to him in London, playing the game that was so very Jamie. A game that made him smile as much as it made him hard.

  A game that had let him escape from his fears and worries for just a little bit.

  Christ, what the hell was he going to tell Jamie?

  As the elevator doors slid open and he stepped into the lobby, he could imagine her voice. Everything, Hunter. Tell me every fucking detail right this second. Turn around, come back to the room, and tell me what the fuck is going on.

  Except he didn’t know what the fuck was going on. Didn’t know the repercussions of Felicia coming back from the dead. Didn’t know what she even wanted.

  He thought about her text: I need you again, Ryan. Now. Desperately.

  Was it his help she needed? Or was it him?

  A fist seemed to tighten around his heart, his mind whirling with possibility. He needed to think clearly, dammit. Needed to be logical. To rely on his training.

  His long strides ate up the ground as he crossed the lobby, his attention only on the door, with not even the slightest glance toward any of the hotel staff. Walking helped, his thoughts clicking into place. The first thing he needed to question was whether the woman even was Felicia. She looked like her, of course, and the carefully worded text suggested that she was.

  He thrust o
ut his hand to hail a cab, his thoughts churning as he slid inside and gave the address of the pub.

  If it was Felicia, that meant she’d survived. Which raised dozens of questions, right there. Her injury had been bad enough, but the fall alone would have been enough to kill her. If she was alive—and it damn sure looked like she was—then maybe everything that happened on the train was an elaborate extraction.

  And if that was the case, then Felicia had never been an innocent girl who hooked up with the wrong guy. She’d been in intelligence, and Ryan had gotten thrust in the middle of God only knows what. Had she been complicit in Mikal Safar’s murder? In the coup itself?

  Hard to believe, but he’d worked in intelligence long enough to know it was possible. And pretty much the only option for her to have not only survived but to have remained hidden for so long.

  And what about the alternative? What if the woman was an imposter? Well, that raised different questions. Why would someone do that? More importantly, why contact Ryan?

  Blackmail? About what?

  Revenge? For what?

  Was there someone out there who blamed him for Felicia’s death? Maybe, though he couldn’t imagine someone who blamed him more than he already blamed himself. After all, her own father was already dead. But immediately after the failed mission—even while he was still in the hospital—Ryan had told Randall everything that had happened in excruciating detail. He felt he owed it to the man.

  Randall had never once suggested that Ryan was to blame. On the contrary, he’d thanked him for trying to help, and apologizing that he’d unwittingly sent Ryan into a hornet’s nest on the verge of exploding.

  Of course, Randall Cartwright did have a stepbrother with whom he’d been close. Perhaps William blamed Ryan for the loss of his niece?

  Maybe. But why wait all these years to do anything about it?

  He shook his head; he didn’t know.

  And the bottom line was that he wouldn’t have a single answer until he met with the woman, which was exactly why he’d run out on his wife and was heading to the pub right now, this very moment, before she could bolt again.

  And, yes, he knew that the odds were good that he was about to get wrapped up in one hell of a shit storm. And yet…

  He couldn’t ignore that tiny whisper of hope. Because if Felicia had survived—if she’d come to him for help—then he’d just been handed a second chance.

  Maybe it was a setup. But maybe she was truly in trouble. And he couldn’t turn his back on that. Not when it might be serious. Not when this might be his chance to make right what had gone horribly wrong all those years ago.

  An opportunity to repair the biggest clusterfuck of his professional career. To ease his guilt.

  But at what price?

  Because the bottom line was that he didn’t know a goddamn thing.

  That reality smacked hard against him, and his blood ran cold. Not a goddamn thing. Not even if Jamie was legally his wife. Because if Felicia was alive, what did that mean?

  Oh, Christ, no. Please, no.

  He drew in a breath, pausing for a moment as a wave of renewed guilt swept over him. He hadn’t said a word to her about Felicia. Not about the first aborted contact. Not about what he’d seen on the video footage. Not about the text he was now chasing. Not even about that mission so many years ago.

  And to top it off, he’d flat-out lied about his reason for walking out on her now, manufacturing a fake work crisis.

  He’d never done that before. Never. And he knew damn well that he needed to tell her the truth. All of it.

  But somehow he couldn’t manage to make that call.

  Because right then, there were only two things he knew for certain. First, that their world was poised on a knife edge. One tip in the wrong direction, and they’d go spinning off into the abyss.

  And second, that Jamie could easily push them past that breaking point. Because if he knew his wife at all—and he damn sure did—he knew that she was going to go completely off the rails. And while Ryan might be a man who liked to be in control of his surroundings, he’d learned a long time ago that he couldn’t control Jamie Archer. Not fully. Not really.

  Despite everything, his lips curved into a smile. Because that was what he loved the most about her. That wicked independence. A delicious wildness that only he could tame. Because he was the only one she’d ever allowed to tame it.

  So, no.

  He couldn’t tell her. Not yet, anyway. And not only because the situation would undoubtedly spawn an explosion, but also because he knew enough to know that if the woman was Felicia—and if she’d crawled out of the grave to find him—that meant that there was something out there a hell of a lot scarier than hiding under the cloak of a faked death.

  Maybe he was justifying his silence, but there was a logic to his bullshit.

  The taxi pulled to a stop and he passed the driver the fare, then stepped out onto the sidewalk, for the second time standing in front of that same pub near Marble Arch. This time, he’d get answers.

  And, yes, coming here was the right decision, no matter how much keeping such a fraught secret from Jamie ate at his gut. At least it was only for an hour or so. As soon as he got back to the hotel, he’d sit her down and explain the whole thing.

  What he knew.

  What he didn’t know.

  All the answers he’d intended to get when he reached the pub. Like who the woman really was—Felicia or someone impersonating her.

  Why she’d bolted that first time, and why she’d contacted him again tonight. Twice, for that matter. First on his work phone with a text that simply said, I’m sorry I bailed before. But need to talk. Same place. Please. Urgent.

  Straightforward, and he would have gone based on that text alone, if for no other reason than he wanted answers. Including how she’d gotten his direct work number.

  But then the second text had come in. The text signed by F. That mentioned a kiss. That said she needed him.

  If he hadn’t already been halfway out the door, that one would have pushed him over the threshold.

  That one had come to his personal phone, as if she had to make sure he didn’t miss either text. As if—

  He froze.

  Oh, fuck. His personal phone.

  He’d left his phone in the suite.

  In the suite. With Jamie.

  For a moment he just stood there outside the pub, all of his options running through his head. He had to explain now. Or at least try to.

  But dear Christ, what the hell was he going to say?

  He didn’t know, but he had to say something.

  Before he could change his mind, he pulled out his phone and dialed her number.

  Three rings…and then it kicked to voicemail.

  He hung up, then tried again, knowing damn well that the call was going through. Even if she’d silenced her phone, it was programmed to always ring if Ryan was calling from the business account. Considering his line of work, he’d insisted on having a way to reach her in an emergency no matter what.

  Which meant her obnoxious ring tone was blaring through the suite, and she was ignoring it.

  And that meant that she must have picked up his personal phone and seen the message.

  Fuck.

  This time, when he called again, he waited through her voicemail message. “Kitten, it’s not what you think. I need you to trust me for another hour or so, and I swear I’ll tell you everything. I love you, baby. Just please, wait for me to get back.”

  Hardly adequate, but right then it was the best he could do. He was already at the pub, and the sooner he met with Felicia, the sooner he’d have answers and be on his way back to Jamie.

  He stepped through the door, looked around, and felt the cold bite of frustration when he didn’t see Felicia anywhere.

  Chapter Five

  Ryan’s been gone less than five minutes, and already I’ve read the whorish bitch’s text over a dozen times.

  I need you again. />
  Our last kiss

  What it meant

  The same place

  Love, F

  The words burn inside my mind, and I want to vomit.

  She needs him desperately?

  Their last kiss?

  And what fucking place?

  I’m not sure if none of it makes sense, or if I’m just too numb to process the words. Or to process my thoughts, for that matter.

  How can I, when all I feel is dead?

  I’ve been pacing the suite, and now I realize that I’ve stopped in front of the open balcony door. I have the phone in my hand, and I’m about to hurl it off into space when I force myself to stop.

  For one, I don’t want to give some unsuspecting pedestrian a concussion. For another, I don’t actually want to let it go. It’s the smoking gun. The proof of his lies. His infidelity. And, goddammit, I want to shove it hard up his lying, cheating ass the moment he walks through that door.

  Except…

  Except maybe I don’t. This is Ryan, after all. My Hunter. Could he have done this to me? To us?

  Fuck.

  The curse is lame. A whisper in my head. And I wipe away the tears that now cling to my lashes.

  With a watery sigh, I move back to the sofa and drop down onto one of the overstuffed cushions. Then I open his phone and read the text one more time.

  I’m sorry I ran… need you again… desperately… our last kiss…

  Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  And you know what else? Fuck all of this. I’m not going to just sit here with a smoking gun and do nothing.

  So I tap the number at the top of the screen, put the phone on speaker, and wait for the bitch who’s probably fucking my husband to answer the line.

  One ring. Two. Five. Eight.

  It never goes to voicemail. Just rings and rings and rings.

  I end the call, then stare at the phone as I transfer the whole of the sense of betrayal I’d been feeling about Ryan to this palm-sized collection of plastic and silicon. Without thinking, I hurl it across the room, and it smashes against the wall. I know the things are damn near indestructible, but that at least felt good.

  With a little bit of the weight relieved, I snatch my own phone from off the coffee table. I hit the speed dial for Nikki, not even thinking about the time difference. It’s only when the call rolls to voicemail that I wonder if it’s the middle of the night there. But, no, London is ahead of California. It’s almost ten here, which means it’s…lunchtime there?