The Love You Hate: A Charge Man Novel (The Charge Men Series Book 1)

by Rachel Robinson

  Nate presses my body against the wall behind me with his own. I can feel his cock, steely and hard through his jeans. His lips are demanding and his hands slide from my wrists up to intertwine with my fingers. Chancing a peek, I open my eyes to find his screwed shut, lashes butted up to the crease beneath his eyes. He’s either completely lost in desire or he’s trying desperately to pretend he’s not doing what he’s doing right now.

  When he pulls away, hard eyes boring into mine, I know it’s the latter. Nate licks his lips when he stares at mine. “You’re my Principal! I have sworn an oath to protect you with my life. If anything happens to you, I will lose my life. If I kiss every square inch of your body it won’t be enough. No, I’ll want more. I want it all. Do you know what happens to humans when they have all of anything?” His voice is strained, but I can answer yes to his last question. I can’t move my mouth, or control my breathing, or tear my gaze from his face. He releases my hands and palms his chest. “I’ll be a gluttonous fool, and you’ll be the one to take the fall.” Nate grasps the side of my face with a touch so light it doesn’t feel like his. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth. I’m sorry I let you believe what you wanted. I know it was lying, but you have to believe I never expected to fall in… lo—” Nate breaks off. We both know what came next, but I won’t call it out.

  As mad as I am, I understand. “I know,” I say, voice cracking. “That might be the one truth that can save you, Nate. This whole time I’ve wanted you, and could tell you were holding back.” If I turn it around, it almost makes me the guilty party.

  Nate kisses me slowly, sinking his tongue into mine languidly for a few moments before pulling back. “Somewhere along the way I realized making you happy, made me happy. Even if all I intended was to keep you busy enough with things to keep you positive about Gold Hawke and this new chapter, what I got in return was unintended.” Nate swallows hard. “You could say I was working overtime to make up for my failure with… Cecil.” He has a hard time saying his name. “There was a point when I wanted to tell you so at least you’d know why I wouldn’t… give in. My feelings for you are forbidden.” Forbidden. A chill slides up my spine.

  “I don’t think it would have mattered if you told me or not, Nate. I would have fallen for you even if I knew who you were and why you were here. It wouldn’t have changed anything except the trust between us.” It’s embarrassing how encompassing my feelings for this man became. How quickly they developed from one thing to another, too.

  “And you? You were supposed to start a new life without any outside influence. My job, guarding you, would have been a daily reminder of your past. Of those you lost. Of everything that happened.”

  I lock my hands behind his back and blink a few times. “Make me forget.” Swallowing, I still taste him on my tongue. “Make me forget everything.”

  There’s a second when I think he might refuse, or walk away. Or in the world’s biggest joke tell me he’s just fucking around. The ferocity in his gaze vanishes completely. Nate is crestfallen, a strong man beaten down. “I can’t.” His voice cracks.

  Then he picks me up, brings me to the bedroom and sets me on the floor. “I’m sorry.” He kisses me one more time, a desperate plea for what, I’m not sure. His hands are hard on my head as he forces my mouth open. When he pulls away, his lips are shiny and red and his eyes are hungry. He leaves my room and closes the door. I stare at it for a few seconds in shock. A loud whirring noise vibrates the thin door and like a zombie being awakened for the first time, I spur into action.

  He’s locking me in. He’s locking me inside this room. Alone. My fists pound against the cheap door recklessly, but it doesn’t budge. Nate’s phone rings and I hear him answer with a crisp, “Sullivan.” He says nothing for several seconds, presumably listening, then says, “I understand.”

  “This is for your safety, Presley. I’m so sorry. My replacement should be here soon.”

  As if I didn’t have enough to process right now. Nate is abandoning me.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Nate

  When I dream of my death, it always tastes sweet. Cyanide is usually tasteless and odorless so it never made sense. Now it does. Death tastes like Presley Cohen’s lips. Unlike cyanide, I gladly let this venom pass into me. Kissing her gives me life and steals it at the same time. Take from me. Take. As long as her lips always make me feel alive.

  Another shock of electricity courses through my body. Not enough to kill me, just enough to jolt me and my mind into another place. Somewhere where Presley isn’t a person that I’m in love with. “Nate, we’re going to start the simulation.” It’s not working a second time. They know it. I know it. Unless I can put on the world’s greatest show and control my vital signs, the career I’ve fought my entire life for is over.

  Raya isn’t the simulation any longer. Presley is. The past four times I’ve reacted negatively when the virtual form of her comes on the screen in front of me. I’m exhausted. “Okay,” I call back, hitting the button to cast my voice outside of the chamber I’m strapped inside of. Coldren is directing all of my training, forcing all of the other physicians into the lab to study my every heartbeat. They haven’t encountered anything like me before. The whole deprogramming thing has always worked. Their guess is it didn’t take and hold because what I had with Raya wasn’t true love. I have my own ideas how this went sideways, but I don’t say them out loud. Worrying about someone else’s happiness so much that her desires telepathically morphed into my own. I went off book for my own operations as a typical Charge Man and Principal situation and it opened this can of worms. Is that what love is, though? Caring about someone more than you care about yourself? If that’s the case then I’ve been in a weird kind of love with every single one of my Principals. Their lives always come before my own. Presley, wearing a low-cut dress, barefoot, with her hair down flashes onto the screen. She’s pixelated at first as they try to recreate her down to the beauty mark on the left side of her neck. When the image sharpens, it steals my breath. It’s been two months since I’ve laid eyes on her in the actual flesh. They’ve had me trapped in the lab running every test under the sun. I suck in a breath and hold it for as long as I can. Think about something that pisses me off, I think.

  The virtual Presley calls my name, and I close my eyes for a few seconds to clear my head. Her voice is identical. They have a video stream of my face so I can’t close my eyes for too long. That’s cheating, and they’ll know I’m trying to take the easy way out. I have to pass this. I can’t let them take her from me. It’s the only feeling that makes me feel like…me. I let my eyelids open and pick a spot to focus on. Her knee. Something unassuming that’s not going to turn me on. Except it does. Everything about her causes a reaction. I exhale noisily and think about Gray.

  His report is why they picked me up and sent him back to watch Presley. His report and the fact that Tray and Mya told them everything they saw the night in the abandoned warehouse and at the club before it. I could have told them it was acting, that I was just playing a part to keep her safe, but there was little use in lying when they realized how wrapped up in her I actually was. They won’t tell me anything about her even though I ask daily. Even a concerned Charge Man would want details. If this works, if they think it works, and they deprogram me to be desensitized to Presley, I can go back to Gold Hawke. Not because they think I’m the best fit for her protection, because they want to test their lab work in the field. I’m a test subject at this point. They want to see if their efforts to erase emotional love and lust for a second time will work. I focus on the fact that I’ll be back with Presley. If they’re successful, at least I’ll have a chance to fall for her again. If she’ll even look at me. My stomach turns as I remember the last time that I saw her. I had to lock her in the trailer to make sure she was safe until Gray got there. I’d never forgive me if I was her, but somehow, I think she will. I know what this means—that I’ll have to give up my job and everything tha
t goes with it. The life I crafted for myself will be obsolete, and yet, as I stare at her virtual knee, I know I’d give up even more. I would die for her, but not in the way my honor has bound me to. I’d give my life in her place because that means she would exist to make the world a better place.

  Virtual Presley is naked now. Knee. Knee. Knee. That asshole Gray. It’s not working. A sheen of sweat breaks across my naked body. I can’t not think of her when she’s in front of me, so instead I think of her getting hurt. Falling down as she skates, dogs attacking when she’s unaware, someone chasing her through the wood, Rayleen and her fucking shot gun aimed at her. This is familiar Charge Man territory, and my pulse steadies. This is where I can control my thoughts and actions. When it feels like work. I make up more scenarios and put her in direct danger. Gray turning on her. Mya hiding in a hallway waiting to capture her. Dirty old men pawing her naked body at the club. A sinkhole. A predator stalking her on a run. Her naked body has little effect when I’m focused on preserving her heartbeat. The simulation lasts for another ten minutes, but it could have carried on for an hour and I would have been fine. There are millions of ways I can fictionally put her life in danger. When she blinks away, pixelating into the dark screen, I’m imagining her ordering the powder Cecil used.

  Coldren cackles loudly. “Nate, Nate! You passed that one. How do you feel?” His voice echoes my chamber. “You passed.”

  He would never expect me to use my skills as a Charge Man to deflect the truth. How do I reply to his question though? What should be said to make it believable. That the love and lust I feel for Presley is now a hollow, dark cavern? “What did I pass?” I ask.

  Coldren’s lips pull back to expose a scary smile, his face now visible through the glass tube I’m strapped in. “I think you’re fixed. It worked. It took longer, but it worked!” Actually, I am fixed, just not in the way he thinks. “There wasn’t a reaction his time, well, not an abnormal reaction for a Charge Man.” I’m still lost in thought, in worrying about Presley, and now realizing this old fucker just watched her naked body, even virtually pisses me off, for as long as I was watching her solitary knee. That’s something new since I met her. Jealousy. My, oh, my, does it sting. When I saw her at the strip club talking to other people, exposed, I thought my head might explode. There was no other option but to remove her from public consumption. I didn’t anticipate not being able to control myself behind closed doors, no, that wasn’t planned at all. I’d be angry at myself if I didn’t enjoy touching her, kissing her, having her pressed up against me. My throat is dry, and the hunger for her is bone-deep.

  Nothing is planned when it comes to Presley and I think that’s one of my failures as a Charge Man. Instead of establishing a plan the first day, I let her moods and emotions guide me along. Her list. Her stupid bucket list. Even filthy rich, she had a difficult life. Because I couldn’t imagine growing up in a spotlight so bright that there’s nowhere to hide, I opened myself to feeling for her. The chamber hisses as the pressure equalizes as Coldren removes me—unfastening the wires and electrodes. It can’t be this simple to fool all of this technology. They’ll find something on a report indicating I still react to Presley on a subconscious level. They have to. He’s talking animatedly about sending me back to Gold Hawke to test a theory, one he won’t tell me about. He hands me the robe, but I don’t take it. I’m still angry. He’s a doctor, I tell myself. He doesn’t look at her the same way I do. I exhale.

  “Do we have to do the interview right now? I’m tired.” It’s a weak attempt to get out of here.

  He furrows his bushy brows. “Of course. While it’s fresh in your mind. Are you not feeling okay?” He’s sensing the shift, and I need to watch myself.

  I nod. “Of course. It’s been a long day is all.”

  We don’t go to the offices like usual, we go to the other side of the lab and sit at a table. Coldren hasn’t left here since I returned. He was waiting for me, half filled with anticipation, half filled with dread that he failed the first time and wouldn’t be able to fix his blunder. A lot of funding and programs rides on his ability to keep a perfect track record. I fucked it all up and I can tell even if it’s not my fault, he’s blaming me. “Well, if we get through the interview quickly I’ll let you get some sleep.”

  Sitting, I prop one foot up on my knee and tighten the belt of the robe I eventually accepted. The freezing air reminding me that even if I give up this life, I’ll never be like a normal man. Normal men haven’t been through any of this. If my years as a Navy SEAL taught me anything, it’s that it’s impossible to pretend to be something I’m not. Maybe that’s why I wanted to be a Charge Man so badly. Now, though? I want Presley. I want her so bad that my heart pounds. I don’t want to protect her either, I want to pillage and plunder. Her kiss was enough because I still wasn’t sold on a different life. A life like Felix created for himself. I’m open to that now. Her poisonous lips unsealed a portion of my mind that negated a million different things. “Water,” I croak. “I need a drink of water.” The thought of her lips and a different life is throwing me off.

  He eyes me suspiciously and pours me a glass from a pitcher on his desk. When I say he hasn’t left this lab, I mean he hasn’t stepped through the doors since I arrived. He has a small kitchen, bathroom, and a cot in the back. I chug down the water and slam it back on the desk. The glass makes a shrill sound and Coldren watches me closely. “Tell me what you’re feeling right now,” he says, lips pressing together. His eyes are bagged in black, and I wonder exactly what’s riding on his success with me. Just money or is it more? His life?

  “I’m ready to go back to Gold Hawke,” I deadpan. “This is the career I’ve always wanted and worked toward. I’m fixed. No more deviating from the task at hand.”

  His brows furrow together, almost touching. “You didn’t say you don’t feel anything.” Ah, the right answer. I missed the mark. “So, what do you feel?”

  “Am I supposed to be devoid of all feeling because I never have been. That would be a lie,” I explain. “I feel anger for being taken off the job. I feel irritation because I can’t sleep when I want while I’m stuck in this place. I don’t feel love or lust toward… her.” Can’t say her name just like I couldn’t say Raya’s name the first time through. Slipping up now isn’t an option. This is protocol, and I answer his next question before he can ask it. “I don’t want her. I don’t want to have sex with her. When I think of her now, there is just a vague sense of familiarity. The urge to protect her life from harm is the only longing I have.”

  He breaks from script. “When you go back, you must employ a different tactic when guarding Presley Cohen. Guarding her will be different this time. If you fall back into the patterns from before there is risk of this happening again, and Nate, I don’t need to tell you that it cannot happen again.” His lips turn down in the corner. Definitely more than money riding on my second deprogramming.

  “Will this happen again? To another Charge Man? Have you figured out where you went wrong the first time?”

  He pulls at his hair with both hands. “The theories are still being worked on, but we think in your case it was the empathy factor that created a barricade to your new program so you defaulted back to the former program. It’s easy to fall in love with a beautiful woman if not only do you empathize with her, but she’s throwing herself at you.”

  I clear my throat. “How do you know it was love?” I say the last word with disdain. The desire to fuck her, yeah, that was there, but I don’t know how they came to this conclusion. “Could it have been infatuation? I didn’t give in when I could have. Wouldn’t that be love? Giving in? Giving her what she wanted?”

  He shakes his head, gaze firm. “The opposite. You could have and didn’t because of the circumstances surrounding your relationship. You knew it would hurt her more if you engaged in the physical aspect of your emotions and then left her in Gold Hawke. You knew the consequences and chose to preserve some of her feelings
. That shows strong emotional knowledge. That shows restraint for no reason other than caring about her or how intimacy would make you feel, or a combination of the two. That is beyond loyal Charge Man concern. That is beyond preserving the heartbeat. That is love. Nate, this wasn’t easy, and even though it has worked, technically, on paper, I don’t know if you’re going to be strong enough. If the human psyche can be steadfast when you’re guarding the object of your desires. I’ve taken away the direct attachment, but what you had with her, well, it defies my testing logic.”

  Everything in my body is coiling—protesting, lighting in recognition. His words ring true, and why would I doubt a man who has spent his entire career erasing emotion? Eradicating love. Making soulless, emotionless war machines. “You don’t have to worry. Being a Charge Man is my only want in life. I will die a Charge Man. Your logic will prove perfect.”

  Coldren’s neck works as he swallows, never taking his gray gaze off mine. “For the first time in my life, I’m not sure of myself.” I can tell he doesn’t mean to say it in front of me. “And that’s terrifying.”

  “I now feel nothing for her.” I give him the words he wants and go a step further. “When Presley Cohen was on the screen, I felt nothing except a protective streak. She is my Principal and that is completely normal.” The lie doesn’t even hurt this time because I know it’s mandatory. The reason they take it away from us is so we can be better at guarding—at our chosen, forever, life. It makes things easier not having to think with anything but logic. Now I know just how powerful the sensations can be, the guilt hits me in spades. Coldren is right, and he doesn’t even know I’m lying. Maybe he does and he wants me to play pretend for his sake.