Tease Me: A Stark International Security Novel

by J. Kenner

  I nod, completely shell-shocked.

  “She was killed. Shot in the chest and shoved off the train into a raging river. There was no way she could have survived.”

  “Ryan, I’m sorry.”

  The hint of a smile flickers on his lip and he squeezes my hand. I look down, not realizing until then that I’d reached for him.

  “I’d failed in the one thing I was supposed to do—protect her. And an innocent woman was dead.”

  I clutch his hand tighter. “But she’s not?”

  He hesitates, then moves closer and takes the other hand, too. “Three days ago, I got a text from someone who insisted I meet her at a pub but wouldn’t leave her name.”

  “It was her?”

  “Maybe. I got there but the woman was gone. She’d left a note for me. All it said was I’m sorry.”

  “That she stood you up.”

  He shakes his head. “Maybe. That’s what I thought at first. But I was concerned. Considering my line of work, this woman could be in trouble. Or setting me up. I had Baxter pull footage from nearby cameras.”

  “And you recognized her? It was Felicia?”

  “I always knew I married a smart woman.”

  I give him a playful smack, but I’m not irritated. I’m scared and a little freaked, but I’m not upset. Not like I was. Now I just want answers. The same ones Ryan wants. “It was her, wasn’t it?”

  “The video wasn’t conclusive, but I saw enough to say for certain that it damn sure looks like the woman I knew.”

  “The woman you saw die,” I say.

  “Or not die.”

  I shiver and tug my hand back, then clutch the pillow again. “She’s alive. But how?”

  “That’s the question. The section of the river the bridge crossed was wild and remote. That’s part of what made it such an effective border. No one could survive that fall without help or a miracle, especially not in her condition. If it was a miracle, well, good for her. But if it was help, I don’t think it was from a Good Samaritan. Unpopulated and impoverished? Who would have had the ability to get sufficient medical care for her?”

  “So what does that mean? No, wait. An extraction.”

  He almost grins. “See? All those scripts you read and spy movies you watch actually are relevant.”

  “Well, duh.” I grin, too. “Is that honestly what you think?”

  “It fits.” The ice in his voice matches his eyes, and I know that Hunter is back. “For one thing, it explains how I survived.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They didn’t throw me over. They left me to bleed out, and I got lucky. Why? I always wondered. Now, I think that it wasn’t worth the risk of getting me close to the extraction team. I could just as easily die in the train car as in the river. They left me out of an abundance of caution.”

  “Maybe,” I say dubiously.

  “Plus, there was always the question of how the rebels got into Mikal’s father’s complex. It was highly protected. They had to have someone on the inside.”

  “Felicia? But why?” Immediately, I push the question away. “Actually, I don’t care. That’s old news and not the problem.” I suck in air, fighting back a sob. “What I want to know is why is she back? Is she back? You never actually saw her face to face. Maybe someone is pretending to be her. Leaving the note and sending the text. You said the video wasn’t actually clear.”

  The thought perks me up, but Ryan shakes his head, his expression so sad that I can’t help but be afraid. Immediately, my world starts to crumple again. “What?” I demand. “What do you know?”

  “I need you to listen to me, Jamie. No, no, I don’t care if you listen or not. What I need you to do is obey. Can you do that, Kitten? Without a collar—in real life—can you do what I say without question?”

  “I—” I swallow, then lick my lips. “Ryan, you’re scaring me.”

  “Good,” he says. “If you’re scared, maybe you’ll do what I say.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Go home, Jamie. Go home and stay with Nikki and Damien. Or go to New York and stay with Dallas and Jane. Their place is a damn fortress.”

  I wince. Our friend Dallas used to head up a vigilante organization that rescued kidnap victims and other innocents in situations where official channels didn’t work. He has enemies. Lots. And the house really is secure. But it’s a long way from our home in LA and a long way from here. And I don’t understand why he wants me gone.

  Slowly, I shake my head. “What’s going on? Come on, Hunter, talk to me. Why do you want to send me away?”

  “For Christ’s sake, Jamie, I want to keep you safe.” The words burst out of him, their force launching him to his feet. He paces in front of the couch, and I simply watch him, not understanding why he’s so concerned about me.

  “You think because we’re married she’s going to try to take me out or something?”

  “If she’s alive, then I think there’s a good chance she’s in intelligence—or that she was all those years ago. And that she was working with the dissidents. If she’s popping up now, there must be a good reason. Something she needs desperately—apparently from me. Something she will do anything to get. Including leveraging my wife.”

  I swallow. “Like what?”

  “Kitten, I don’t know. But I don’t think it’s because she wants me to help her book a suite at one of Damien’s hotels.”

  “No. Probably not. Wow.” I grew up in Dallas with dreams of becoming a movie star. And though I’ve watched a lot of spy movies, I never truly touched upon the world of spies and intelligence and security until I met Ryan. For that matter, I hadn’t touched upon much of anything until I moved to Los Angeles and my best friend got involved with Ryan’s boss, Damien Stark. You see a lot of interesting things when your bff gets involved with a billionaire. But never once in all the years since I started living in the Stark orbit did I think that I would somehow end up inside some sort of bizarre espionage plot.

  I frown. “Leverage me,” I repeat. “But—but she doesn’t even know I exist.”

  “She does,” he says. “And she’s already shown me that she can get to you in a heartbeat.”

  I gape at him. I don’t have a clue what he’s talking about.

  He sits beside me, then takes my hands. “Kitten, I need you to answer my question.”

  I blink, completely confused. “What ques—?”

  “The cafe, Kitten. Who were you with in the cafe?”

  “Gabby? She’s a friend from college. What does she have to—” I sit up straighter, then shake my head. “Oh, no. No. That’s crazy.”

  “Maybe it is,” he says. “But there are only two things in this world I trust with absolute certainty. You. And my own two eyes. That’s her, baby. The woman in the cafe is Felicia.”

  Chapter Nine

  “Gabby?” Jamie shook her head. “No. Ryan, that’s impossible.”

  “Is it?” He sat next to her, then took her hand. “Because, honestly, I’d be thrilled to know that she’s not really Felicia.” So would Jamie, he thought. And not just because such proof would mean that Gabby wasn’t a liar at best and a spy at worst. But also because of the rest of it.

  The worst of it.

  But Jamie hadn’t gotten there yet, and he didn’t intend to push her. She was still numb, but she’d see the horrible truth soon enough. Right now, they just needed to go over the facts.

  And maybe—just maybe—it would turn out that Jamie was right. Maybe there was no way that Gabby could be Felicia. Maybe the texts were a hoax. Maybe there was nothing at all to worry about.

  He hoped that was the case. But he knew in his gut that it wasn’t. Even so, he nodded. “All right. Tell me the story. Why can’t she be Felicia?”

  “Because I’ve known her for years. And she’s not British. You said Felicia was British, right?”

  He nodded.

  “See?”

  “Kitten, it’s not that hard to hide an accent. You tell me tha
t yourself every time we watch a movie with a British actor playing an American.”

  She made a face. “Okay, fine. What about school? She went to the University of Texas with Nikki and me.”

  “She’s your age?” A tiny bit of hope bloomed in him. Felicia would be older than Jamie. Of course, if she’d changed her identity, she’d likely be lying about her age, too.

  Jamie shook her head. “A few years older. She was a grad student finishing up her masters when Nikki and I were freshmen. She had the apartment above us. We used to hang out at the pool. Drink. That kind of thing.”

  “When was this? What year?”

  She told him, and he nodded, that tiny bloom of hope starting to open. “That’s after the mission, but you said she was a grad student. That means she’d been there at least a year doing graduate work and then four years before, right? As an undergrad?” If she’d been in school in Texas during the mission, she hardly could have been in the Middle East with him.

  “I—” Her shoulders slumped, and he knew the answer. “Well, no, actually. She’d only come for one semester because of the collection of medieval texts that UT has. Her field was history. The Middle Ages. She didn’t go to UT undergrad.”

  “Where did she go?”

  Jamie’s brow furrowed. “I don’t remember. Somewhere in New York, I think.”

  The hope withered and died. “I’m sorry, Kitten, but don’t you see? After her extraction, she went under. She got a new life. The history degree. College. All of that was about building a new life. A new identity.”

  “No,” Jamie said, but he could tell her heart wasn’t in it. “No, it doesn’t make sense. She’s my friend. And now it turns out she’s your ex-wife? That’s too crazy to believe.”

  “The world is full of crazy coincidences, Kitten.”

  “But why get in touch with me? She told me how she tracked me down. Nikki married Damien, so of course she saw pictures. And she saw me, too. Lots of Hollywood stuff, right? And she paid attention and learned who I was married to, and—oh.”

  Her eyes filled with fear. “Ryan, she saw that I was married to you. And she knew that if anyone could help her, you could.”

  “Help her?”

  “There’s something wrong. Seriously wrong. She’s scared, but she didn’t tell me why. Running from someone, maybe. And she’s been reaching out to you all along. Hunter, you’ve got to help her.”

  He sat back, trying to process that. “That makes no sense. I showed up both times, and she wasn’t there. And when I saw her with you at the cafe, she bolted. That doesn’t sound like someone who wants my help. Just the opposite, in fact.”

  Her brow furrowed. “Maybe. Or maybe it sounds like someone who screwed you over, and now she’s afraid you know.” She cocked her head. “Hunter, do you think maybe she is on the run?”

  “I don’t know. If she really was in intelligence, I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  “Maybe she thinks you’re after her.”

  “Maybe she does.” If she believed that he’d figured out her ruse and would expose her, then it made sense. Except that Felicia had been off his radar for years. Why now?

  “I don’t know,” Jamie said after he’d voiced the question to her. “I get that maybe she’s not the girl I knew in college—I do. And if everything you’ve said is true—if she did help murder that man and pull off that coup—then she’s nothing like I thought she was. But I can’t wrap my head around it. Honestly, I can’t get my mind around any of it. Imagine living a lie all this time. Being alive when the whole world thinks you’re dead. That would be—”

  She cut off her words mid-thought, her eyes going wide as she tilted her head up and looked at him.

  He’d expected it, this look of understanding. This final punch in the gut. But even having anticipated it, the expression on her face still ripped his soul to shreds.

  “You didn’t divorce her,” she whispered. “You didn’t get a divorce because you didn’t have to. Because you don’t have to divorce a dead wife.”

  “No,” he said simply. “You don’t.”

  “But she’s not dead. If Gabby is Felicia, then she’s not dead.”

  “No. No, she isn’t.”

  Her throat moved as she swallowed. “Then you’re still married to her.” Her forehead creased, her expression shifting into a mask of hurt and betrayal. “And, oh God, Ryan. That means I’m not your wife.”

  “No.” The word burst out of him. “The hell you’re not.” Raw fury burned in his voice. “You’re my everything, Jamie. It’s only ever been you. Whatever is going on, we will figure it out. We will solve it, and we will fix it. You’re my wife. For now, for always.”

  “I believe you.” He could see that she was fighting tears, trying to be calm. Practical. “But Hunter, you can only have one wife. And the first one wins the toss.” She bit her lower lip, thinking. “Except everyone thought she was dead, right? Maybe there’s a death certificate?”

  “There probably is.” He knew that he’d taken the news back to Randall—hell, he’d told Randall everything that happened on the mission—and Randall would have taken care of all the legal details surrounding her death.

  “But she’s not dead now, Hunter. So what does that mean? Legally, about us?”

  “I don’t know, Kitten. I wish I did.”

  She lifted haunted eyes to him, and he died a little bit. He’d done this to her. Hurt her so damn deeply. And even though he knew it wasn’t his fault—knew that he’d had no reason to expect Felicia’s return from the dead—he still wanted to put his fist through a goddamn wall.

  “Jamie. Kitten. Talk to me. Do you want a blanket? Some wine?”

  She shook her head, then nodded. “Yes. I mean no. Fuck wine. I want whiskey. A double shot of whiskey. And after that I want another.”

  He almost smiled. That, at least, was a spark of the woman he knew.

  “I’ll be right back.” The bar wasn’t far away, and he watched her as he poured them both a double, neat.

  “We have to find out the truth,” Jamie said when he returned with the drinks. “If she’s in danger, I want to help. And if it’s the opposite…well, as much as I hate the thought that Gabby’s been playing with me, it would be worse if it turns out she’s a danger to you.”

  He nodded. If she’d come in from the cold, there must have been a reason. And as he was one of the few people who knew her before, he was a liability.

  But if she intended to kill him, why not take advantage of the earlier opportunities? Too public? No nerve? Sentimentality?

  It all curled back to the basics. Until they knew the truth, they’d never find answers. And they needed answers to get to the truth.

  “Shoot her a text,” he told Jamie. “Tell her we’re both worried. Tell her we want to help her.”

  “Okay. But just for the record, I’m not going back. I’m staying right here with you.”

  He couldn’t hide his smile. “Kitten, I know.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to get Baxter on her trail, and then I’ll text her the same damn thing. And hope to hell she believes me.”

  She finished the text and put her phone on the table, then took a long swallow of whiskey. “No reply yet.”

  “I’m not surprised. Either she’s Felicia and she’s determined to avoid both of us now since you know the score, or she’s Gabby and she’s in danger and thinking it over first.”

  “Do you think that’s possible?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. She looks a hell of a lot like her. But it’s been a lot of years.” Even so, he trusted his instinct. But it was going to crush Jamie if it turned out her friend had lied to her all along. And if it turned out that the friend wanted Ryan out of the way? Well, that was a hell that he didn’t want Jamie to suffer until they were damn certain of the truth.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, scooting closer and twining her fingers with his.

  His brow furrowed. “Sorry? Sorry for
what?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t even know.” A tiny choked sob escaped with a burst of laughter. “For melting down, I guess. And,” she added as she gave his hand a quick squeeze, “for not trusting you.”

  She looked him right in the eyes as she spoke, and the sincere regret he saw in her face just about melted him.

  “You trusted me, Kitten. You always have and you always will. Do you think I don’t know that?”

  One shoulder rose and fell. “I doubted you, Hunter. I really did. And I hate myself for it.”

  “No,” he said firmly. “You don’t have a thing to apologize for. You were jealous and confused, and that’s on me. I should have called and told you the moment I recognized her in the video feed. I didn’t, and,” he added with a hint of a smile, “I deserved every lash that well-honed temper of yours doled out. Okay?”

  “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  A tear snaked down her cheek. “For always getting me.”

  “Well, Kitten, it’s been a long course of study. But I do enjoy getting educated.”

  She started to laugh, but he silenced her with a kiss, relishing the taste of Jamie mixed with whiskey. A familiar taste and one he never tired of.

  He started the kiss slow, but it didn’t stay that way. His wife was responsive as hell and always had been. Her lips parted in a silent demand that he kiss her harder. At the same time, her fingers curled around the back of his neck, pulling him closer in an equally strong demand that he deepen their kiss. Their connection.

  She squirmed on the couch, her soft moans shooting straight to his cock, and all he wanted in that moment was to claim her. To take her right there. To hold her hair as she sucked him off, then take her hard and fast as she screamed his name.

  He wanted to own her. He wanted to do every dirty thing he could think of to her, just to prove she was his. Just for the joy of knowing that she would obey. More than that, that she wanted to.

  But he couldn’t. Not now. Not tonight.