by Tara Brown
I needed to take men off the table completely.
Chapter Two
Four days ago
Sitting up, gasping for air, I paused and waited for the world to end.
Surely my visions had been prophetic and everything around me was about to burst. My fingers clutched to the sheets, almost pulling them back as my eyes focused and I realized I was in my room at home. I didn't need to run down the hall, wheezing through smoke and debris to find my children.
I blinked again and had a feeling I was in Dubai—no, Helsinki.
The many trips and lives ended in the past six months had started to blend. For each one, a drop of my soul landed in a bucket with a hollow sound, not the splash I expected. I didn't know where the pieces of me were going, but I felt them sloughing off.
There in the dark, the holes they were making were even more evident.
At the rate we were killing and destroying, there would be nothing left of me. Old Evie would be a distant memory, a fond one I had imagined. The bumbling mother of two with a messy bun and stretchy pants was slowly being forgotten.
I blinked again and the room cleared enough for me to realize I was home. I was in Canada, leaving for Dubai tomorrow on a mission with CI, and the smell in the air was Coop. I turned, not seeing him in the bed but smelling him there nonetheless.
The moon was in the middle of the sky, casting shadows of silver light about the room. I swallowed hard and brushed away cold sweat from my forehead before sliding off the bed and sauntering down the hall.
There was no casual walking in the middle of the night anymore. I glanced around corners and listened¸ paranoid of the things that lurked in those silver shadows.
Perhaps killing, running, and hiding was a habit that once formed, was impossible to avoid.
The entire top floor of the house was bedrooms—five of them. One for me, the kids had their own, one for my mom, and one for Fitz. The main floor was the living area with a kitchen, dining room, living room, and all the space a large family needed. The basement was where the rec room and theatre room were and Luce and Jack slept.
In the wide windows of the living room I found him—Coop. He was sitting, wrapped in a blanket and staring at the cold night. I didn't speak. I didn't need to. He knew I was there. His breathing changed ever so slightly.
In the light of the moon and the dark of the night he was stunning, even though the silver light made his features sharper.
I walked straight to him and nestled in, taking some of the blanket to cover my tank top and shorts.
In the silence of the room we mentally exchanged blows, still fighting about the one thing—one person we couldn't avoid fighting about. I leaned against him, offering silent apologies and wishing he would understand my stance on the whole Servario thing. But he remained rigid and stoic, unbending on the entire affair that never had been anything more than an affair.
“I hate that I put you in his arms. I made you go to him.” He whispered it, but it felt like he had screamed in my face. “I can see how much you love him.”
There were lies lingering on my tongue, ones that wished they could spare Coop from the pain of my feelings for Servario. But I didn't bother to insult his intelligence with them. I sat, silent and guilty for a moment, a weight of a million tons crushing my heart in my chest. It was a weight made of self-loathing.
How had I been so foolish to fall for someone so toxic and distant? The answer was easy; if you met him, you understood it. Even Luce had high fived me for the entirety of it.
“I asked you to do all those things and I can’t forgive either of us.” He got up, leaving us. The blanket, me, and the weight.
In my heart of hearts, I knew the solution. I knew what I needed to do. It scared the hell out of me, but I knew what to do. Instead of doing it, I put a pin in it and got up, following him to the kitchen. I wrapped my arms around his broad body, nestling my head in the middle of his back. “Did you have sex with people before we met?”
“Yeah.” He was curt.
“Did you have sex with anyone after we met?”
He paused and nodded. “I did.”
“And do you think you owe me an explanation about any of them?”
He shook his head, not answering me.
“I know I have said it over and over, but can’t we leave the past where it is?”
“But you still love him, he’s in our present.”
“No. I have feelings for him, but they are dying off in differing ways every day. You and I have clearly left the honeymoon stage—”
“Clearly.” He snorted.
“But we aren’t an old married couple yet. Can’t we just stay here for a while? Dating and laughing and being friends who are building something or just being?” It was the thing he dreaded the most. He wanted to talk about the future. He was a keener. He was also a child who had never been married and never had kids, and wanted both of those things.
He nodded and turned. “We can stay here.” He cupped my face, lifting it to force me to look into the steely blue stare that was ripping my heart out. “Is that what you need?”
“Yeah.” It was a lie. The answer was there, but I refused to even acknowledge it.
The problem with spies lying to one another was that the truth was more obvious to us both. But he smiled softly, lowering his face on mine and caressing my lips with his. The kiss never moved past soft and withheld. It was a classic representation of our love for one another. Everything was always held back just a little bit. He worried I wasn't ready to start something serious, and I worried he was too young to take on my brand of serious.
Refusing to be these people, I switched it off—my heart, my feelings, and my sorrow. I forced an effort and a response, climbing him like a tree and wrapping my legs around his waist.
His grip became savage, no longer holding back or subtle. It was angry and vicious. It was exactly the sort of feeling I needed. He tore at my shirt, his fingers ripping and plying until I was naked on the counter. He didn't wait for me to agree; he dropped his shorts and shoved his cock inside me, forcing a gasp from my lips.
I wasn’t prepared, and yet I had never been more ready. He grunted as he thrust, slapping our bodies against each other. He didn't kiss me. He didn't caress me. He fucked me like he hated me and I let him. I owed him that and sometimes I hated him back.
Instead of worrying about someone seeing us, I leaned back and let him pummel me like animals did.
His fingers would leave bruises and his anger would leave that dirty one-night-stand feeling, but as I came all over his cock in convulsions and jerks, I didn't give a shit.
He fucked me until he was limp, gasping and shuddering. He leaned over, pressing his face into mine and whispered, “You are mine, Evie.”
His words were not his own. I had heard them before. They made everything we had just done disgusting and filthy, but it was my shameful cloak to wear.
I loved two men. Not equally and not wholly. But enough to torment us all.
Chapter Three
Hello, Servario
The dark of the night made it impossible to see what he was thinking. Coop paced, passing by the window and casting shadows about the room. I kept my breathing even and relaxed so he wouldn't know I saw him there.
The angry sex the night before hadn’t fixed the little problems we had. And, if anything, the trip was making them worse.
There, in the dark room with the handsome young man pacing back and forth like a caged cat, I knew which one of us was to blame for the moment we were each wordlessly having.
The lights of the airport in Denver shone through the blackout curtains we hadn’t closed all the way. They provided the dim glow I needed to see the doubt on his face. The doubt I required to justify my desire to end things.
We had been playing at our secret agent—spy—lover—instant family roles long enough for all the dust to be settled. Unfortunately, the dust had been filtering out the important things, blocking us fro
m them so we might be fooled by the lack of clarity. But there in the dark room, I believed we both saw it for what it was. I was a single woman, desperate to fill the void my husband’s many betrayals had created. I was a single mom, even more desperate to not be parenting in the world alone. And lastly, I was a broken woman struggling with the possibility that I had caused my husband to stray because there was nothing desirable about me.
Coop healed all those places.
He loved my kids. He made me feel beautiful. He made us all feel safe. Something we hadn’t felt in a long time. We weren’t alone with him, none of us were. He slipped into the holes, like plaster filling them up and patching the cracks.
And the worst part of it all was that I had let him. I let him, knowing full well what this was. It wasn't love.
I had been selfish and greedy enough in my desire to be normal again that I had forgotten the one sacred rule about relationships. That one special thing that will always find a way—true love.
He continued to pace, pausing in the window. His abs were flexed, making me wish I could push it all away—all the doubts and worries about us and the lack of love I feared I felt for him. The lust could be enough if I let it.
I closed my eyes, letting myself believe that was a better option. Lust could turn to love. I would let it.
Somehow I slept with that as a blanket, tucking me in and telling me to sleep, like my mother had when I was a girl.
When I woke, Coop was staring at me from the chair across the room. He was dressed in a tee shirt and jeans, and ready to catch his flight to England. I rubbed my eyes, praying the stone-cold expression upon his beautiful face was caused by the sleep in my eyes. But when I blinked it was still there—the awkward stillness in him from the night before with the pacing.
“I think you should go home.” Finally, he had spoken the words I could tell had kept him up all night; only they weren’t what I had expected. I had thought he would tell me he didn't want to see me with Servario again, not even as a teammate.
I cocked an eyebrow, confused and too tired to actually fight again about whether we should both be on a mission with the kids at home with my mother and Fitz.
He lifted a hand, holding off the argument I was brewing in my still foggy brain. “I think you should go home and try to keep some sense of normalcy. Luce and Jack are coming. We are meeting Servario in Dubai. I think you should let us take care of this.” Luce and Jack were our partners, people we trusted with our lives and those of the people we loved the most—my kids.
I shook my head. “My mom has the kids. She’s fine. She and Fitz are better spies than you and I will ever be, and ten times the assassins.” The image of my mother peeling the flesh from a man who was still alive would haunt me all the days of my life.
“That’s true.” Coop nodded, grimacing as well. Neither of us would ever recover from the viciousness of my mother and Fitz. Thank God they were on our side. “The point I am trying to make is that”—his eyes darted to the ground—“this is going to be another human trafficking case, Evie. I don't want you to see it.” I couldn't help but wonder if that was really what he was worried about. Or if he just didn't want me there because he knew of a certain arms dealer.
Granted, the memory of rescuing children from human trafficking still haunted me. It was something I would NEVER recover from. It was a stain that had permanently dyed my heart and soul black.
Not all of me, just the parts that had been previously innocent or naive in any way. They were gone, completely. But the idea of backing out because it would be hard, like I was some sort of delicate female, actually made me annoyed. The stubborn bitch inside me dug her heels in. “I’m coming.” I had a terrible feeling this was more about me seeing Servario and less about human trafficking. Either way, I was his equal and didn't need to be coddled.
My heartbeat picked up its pace with just the mention of Servario inside my thoughts. He was the one bad thing I wanted for myself, but being a mom and a responsible human being had prevented us from ever testing that water out. He was the bad guy and I was the good girl, and never the twain shall meet, not in this world. Not even by accident. I had ended those accidental fuckings. We hadn’t done one in ages, but the thought of the previous ones still stopped my heart and then quickened it with desire.
“I’m coming.” I glanced at the tense look in Coop’s steely blue eyes and nodded, not so much at him but just in general.
“You need to consider what we will see when we get there.” His voice was firm as if he were giving me an order.
“I don't care.” I shook my head. “I’m going to take it as it comes and pray we aren’t put into a situation that's worse than the others we’ve already survived.”
“Fine.” He stood abruptly, not looking pleased by my choice, but it was still my choice. He might have been my superior at work, but I could tell the order was coming from the guy having the relationship with me. As my boss he had no reason at all to try to make me stay behind. Not since I had saved his ass, last time we were counting. He still had scars from the bullet that should have ended his life.
We wiped down the room, as always. We left it stripped and ready for housekeeping. We looked like we might be polite and were helping the hotel staff out, but honestly, we didn't like leaving behind traces of ourselves.
Not that there was much on the bed. We hadn’t made love since the kitchen, and there had been no love involved there.
He didn't take my hand as we walked down the hall, and he didn't say goodbye when he left me in the hallway. He just hurried his pace and grabbed his own cab, leaving me like he normally would. Only it didn't feel normal.
When I boarded the plane I was fortunate to be sitting next to an older lady who was content to show me pictures of her grandkids and tell me about the garden she had grown in the summer. She reminded me of my mother, before my mother had confessed to being an international spy and assassin.
Now I saw her more as something from a movie. She wasn’t soft, she wasn’t sweet, and she didn't ever let anyone off the hook. The whole thing was insane and bizarre, and yet somehow true. Finding out my parents were both spies was about the biggest lie I had ever been the victim of. Bigger than the affairs my husband had before he died. Bigger than the lies the government told the rest of the world. Bigger than the lie I told myself about my feelings for a man who was too dangerous for my own good.
Coop had taken the flight before me, just an hour earlier. He was meeting Luce and Jack in London at Heathrow, and they were all meeting me in Norwich. We were then flying from Norwich to Dubai on a private jet.
It would have been exciting, had it been for any other reason than the one we were traveling for. No one ever said being a spy was fun, no one who actually did the job. The rest of the world saw James Bond and Mission Impossible and believed it was all glamour, sex, and disguises. The movies rarely filled people in on the dirty side, like letting a piece-of-shit cartel rat put his dick in your mouth because it served the greater good. The image of stabbing the last man who had done that to me made me feel ever so slightly less dirty.
My mind drifted as the older woman rattled on and eventually I was asleep.
When I woke, the plane was landing in Norwich.
I cleared customs as Barbara Newton, a Canadian on vacation and visiting her great aunt who was on her deathbed. When I rounded the corner to the baggage claim, my bag caught my eye. Not because it was lime green and bulging from being stuffed to the max with vacation clothing, but because the hand holding it made my thighs tighten and my heart race.
Not a single woman in the world could say that Gustavo Servario wasn't the most beautiful man on the planet.
His firm grip and large body made me quiver at the sight. My gaze didn't lift to his face. I didn't need to see it or the smug look upon it. He would grin and flash his dimples and I would be done for.
I knew his hand well enough to know it was him holding my bag.
Glancing around, I was
n't certain what my options were. The man holding my bag was the man who also, coincidentally, held my heart captive. He was the ultimate package and not in the way you would expect or want. He was the sort of man who could make you want him—make you choose him over considerably smarter choices.
Everything about him was too much.
His intense kind of love was the type you dreamt of and avoided at the same time. It burned too hot for you to survive it, but it was the passion women dreamt of when they were lying next to a perfectly decent guy.
Then there was the mystery surrounding him, like an appetizer—something to whet your palate and get the games started in your head. Just when you thought you had him figured out, he did something incredibly evil or saintly or sweet. It was beguiling in every way. He took opposite stances on discussions regular people wouldn't ever consider thinking about.
He was a very bad man in all the right ways. A bad man my vagina happened to have a fondness of.
Before my eyes drifted farther than his hands on my bag, he turned and walked from the airport. That was his way of telling me I had to come with him.
He was the secretive double agent no one knew about and the international millionaire bad boy that every woman in the world wanted to love. But to me, secretly and on a level of down low I didn't even understand, he was the man who had been in love with me for years, watching from the shadows and protecting me.
I paused before I followed him. My vagina tried to convince me to go with it, while my heart desperately wanted to turn and go the other way.
Being around him was nearly impossible. He was the choice I was never going to make. I was a mom, a daughter, and an agent—and completely in that order. Those didn't match his cover—international arms dealer who dabbled in human trafficking and drugs.
It wouldn't have been so bad, had he not loved his cover like a real job, but he did.
Every step my ballet flats tapped across the airport, and then through the parking lot, went in the wrong direction in my opinion.
