by Caisey Quinn
She shrugged. “You’ve shut me out pretty hard. Not that I don’t deserve it, but . . .”
Chase set their plates aside. “About that. You were right. We should talk. I need some answers and I’m hoping my clearance is high enough that you can give them.”
Vivien’s gaze lowered to where her hands sat in her lap. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know regardless. I owe you that much.”
Chase cleared his throat and she braced herself for the onslaught of questions. “First, what’s with the name change? Did you get married at some point?”
Vivien gawked at him. “Of course not. But after everything, it felt like Vivien Brooks had truly died that day on the base. So after I went into protection with the name they gave me, Montgomery, I decided to keep it. The last name anyway. Maybe that’s lame, but it helped me to start over.”
Chase nodded. “I suppose I can understand that.” He breathed out slowly, staring steadily at her before continuing. “You said you were in protection for two years. But you’ve been gone for four . . .”
Vivien wanted to cross her arms over her chest, pull her knees up, something, anything to protect herself from how exposed she was about to become as Chase stripped away every layer of the past.
“These last two years . . . what have you been up to? Besides not letting me know you were alive.”
She swallowed hard, his pain ricocheting around the room and landing on her. “I was . . . It was . . .”
“If you can’t tell me, I’ll try to understand. It’s just hard not knowing what it was that kept you away.”
She closed her eyes and blurted out the truth. “It was you. I stayed away because once I’d been cleared for release from the program, I came to find you.” When she opened her eyes Chase was staring at her as if she were speaking a foreign language he couldn’t comprehend, so she did her best to explain. “You’d just started with the department here. I was able to get your address from your employment files. I went to your house and waited.”
“When?”
God this part hurt. Vivien wanted to fast-forward past it but she knew she couldn’t.
“New Year’s Eve. Two years ago.”
He still looked perplexed.
“You were out late. At a party or a bar, I assume.”
He scrunched his brow as if trying to remember.
“You came home around two in the morning.”
He stared at her blankly.
“You weren’t . . . alone,” she choked out.
Realization must’ve hit him hard because he sucked in an audible breath. “Jesus, Viv. You were there and you just . . . what? Stayed in the car?”
She nodded. “You were smiling, laughing. Kissing her. A blonde with a body I’d kill for. Her hands were all over you. It didn’t look like the first time. You seemed . . . familiar with each other.”
Chase’s eyes slid shut briefly. “I can’t even remember her name, Viv. I can’t remember most of their names. After . . . after you, I was so fucked up that I didn’t bother to learn most of their names. I don’t think I’ve had sober sex since . . . well, since the last time you and I had sex.”
“Still hurts.” Her words barely escaped over the lump of pain in her throat. “I know I have no right to feel that way, but I’d been excited about finally being free to contact you, to come back to you, and it fell apart that night. Before my very eyes. It wasn’t just about the girl. It was that you looked happy. You’d moved on. You were fine. I didn’t want to blow back into your life and obliterate that. Which I guess I did eventually anyway.”
Chase scooted his chair closer until his knees touched hers. “Listen to me,” he began softly. His warm hand cupped her chin until she looked up. “There hasn’t been a single day that I haven’t thought of you, haven’t missed you, haven’t hurt from the loss of you.” He inhaled again and continued. “I have been the furthest thing from fine. I’ve been trying to pretend to live when I’ve been dead inside since the day I thought I lost you.”
Tears blurred her vision. “Same” was all she could say.
“I’ve handled this so badly. Trying to shut you out when what I should’ve done was dropped to my fucking knees and thanked God you were here. Alive. Breathing air. Heart still beating.” Chase leaned in and touched his heavy warm palm to her heart before kissing her forehead gently. Too gently. She wanted more. Needed more. Needed deep and punishing and real. A bruising kiss on her lips that would never fade the way the memories of their time together had.
She gripped his thighs and leaned her forehead to his. “I still feel so many things for you. It’s hard to sort them out from day to day. You hurt me. You make me crazy. I miss you. I ache for the time we lost. I can’t help but feel like things are supposed to be different between us. Better, without all this . . . pain.”
Chase licked his lips. “I need to know why it happened, Viv. Why did you do what you did and how did you walk away from me when what we had was so damn good?”
She took several breaths to steady herself before looking up into his mesmerizing eyes. Once she began speaking, she felt as if he were hypnotizing her, pulling the truth from her like the never-ending scarves magicians employed as part of their show.
“When I was very young, some men with guns came into our home. My parents almost seemed to be expecting them. We had a shelter room built in a hall closet, and my mom kissed me on the forehead the way you just did before putting me in it. The look in her eyes, I’ll never forget it. It was so sad. Apologetic. The last words she said were, ‘Don’t come out until Papa’—my granddad—‘comes for you. Stay put until then, like hide-’n’-seek, Vivien. You have to win this time. You have to stay hidden. Promise Mommy.’
“I promised and I stayed hidden for three days. But I ran out of water and there was nowhere to . . . relieve myself. It was meant to be a short-term safe room. It was terrifying. Then my grandparents came and rescued me.”
Realization dawned, lighting Chase’s steady gaze. “The claustrophobia. It stems from—”
“Yes. From that.”
He nodded for her to continue, so she did.
“No one ever told me what happened to my parents. Once I started school, I heard whispers. Teachers, students, other kids’ parents all said the same thing. My parents were dead and I was being raised by my grandparents.” Vivien shrugged. “Eventually it just became my narrative and that was that. My grandparents were good to me and I had a happy, healthy childhood, with the exception of the absence of my parents and that horrible memory that induced debilitating claustrophobia.”
Chase’s chest rose and fell as he listened. She concentrated on the muscles there and the veins in his neck, the ones she used to trace with her tongue as they made love.
“Anyways, I worked for my granddad after high school, as you know. Took a few business courses, then decided I wanted to do more than test containment vessels in a lab. I wanted to be an EOD tech. So I enlisted, finished basic and moved on to become a specialist. Then I hooked up with a hot guy at a bar who ended up being my CO.”
She paused, contemplating her next words carefully. But so much was out in the open now. She’d pulled her flesh aside and bared her soul. It was time to lay it all out on the line.
“Then I fell in love with him.”
To his credit, Chase remained mostly stoic but a smile teased both corners of his mouth.
“Then the FBI pulled me into a car and told me my parents were most likely alive and if I ever wanted to see them again, I’d cooperate.”
The room began to feel completely void of oxygen.
“I see,” Chase said quietly. He reached for her hands, taking them both in his before running the pad of his thumb over her tattoo. “I can’t fault you for that, Viv. I just wish I’d known . . .”
“There’s more.”
Chase sat back in his c
hair but continued holding her hands.
“There was a man. A Russian man. Dmitri Vetrovsky. My mother’s father. My grandfather.” She sighed. “He was not a good man.”
She slipped her hands out of Chase’s and wiped her sweaty palms on her bare knees. This was where it got truly messy. Where she had to explain why she’d gunned her own grandfather down. Why she’d been free from protection only after he was dead.
“I need to back up.” She lifted her bottle of water and drank deeply from it. “My father was an agent with the Bureau. Cecil Brooks. He was placed undercover to investigate a Russian militia ring selling guns and heavy artillery to groups with Taliban and Islamic State ties. When the Bureau stared digging, they found so much more. My father uncovered a human trafficking ring run by Vetrovsky as well.”
Her heart ached thinking about her father. His kind eyes. His hair that matched hers. His warm hugs and strong arms. The way that man had been starved and tortured until he was a shell of his former self by the time she found him.
“He was posing as a middle man fencing weapons and ingratiated himself with Vetrovsky until the man began treating him like a son, even letting him court his only daughter. My mother.” Her voice cracked on the last word.
“Babe . . .” Chase reached for her. “If this is too much to—”
“I’m fine. You need to know. I need you to know.”
She took another fortifying breath and continued. “My parents fell in love. I’ll never know all the details but I have my mother’s journal so I know the gist. She suspected my father was not who he said he was, but she loved him anyway. When the time came for him to blow the whistle, the CIA was already involved, and he basically led them in circles and left them chasing their tails. He knew my mother would be taken into custody as well and he didn’t trust the government not to mistreat her. They secured false identities and hid out all over the place, finally using my granddad’s military connections to move to a safe house. But they found us.”
“So the CIA took your parents?”
Vivien shook her head. “No. Someone leaked our location though, so Vetrovsky’s men did. But there were still undercover operatives reporting back. My mother died of complications from pneumonia a few years after they were taken. My father was . . .”
Her voice broke. It was all so much—too much. And she’d never revealed this much to anyone outside of the agents involved in her case.
“Shh,” Chase said, wrapping his arms around her and stroking her hair as she began to sob. “You don’t have to do this all right now. I’m not going anywhere.”
She relaxed into his warm embrace for as long as she needed. But once she felt whole again, she straightened.
“Vetrovsky found out about me. Considered me a loose end, wanted to use me as a way to further torture information out of my father. He wanted him to name the other operatives in his employ so he could dispose of them. My father never did.”
“But Vetrovsky found you.”
Vivien nodded, impressed that he’d put the pieces together. “At Fort Jackson. The official documents had always made it seem like I was my grandparents’ daughter—a late baby they weren’t expecting. But once they’d tortured my father’s true identity out of him, they tracked my grandparents and Vetrovsky recognized his own daughter’s eyes in my face. The FBI received intel that he was watching me, planning to grab me to use against my dad.”
“So they faked your death.”
She nodded again, grateful to have this off her chest and out in the open. “Wait.” She placed a hand on his chest to stop him from moving in to kiss her. “There’s one more thing. Something I need you to know.”
Chase froze.
“Even with all that, I still wouldn’t have walked away from you the way I did. Not even at the possibility of learning more about my parents. Because I wasn’t sure they weren’t playing me.”
“But you did.” There was still a wounded edge to his voice.
She bit her lip. “Because of you. Because Vetrovsky’s men were watching you, too. Because as long as I was there, with you, your life was at risk. And the FBI would’ve had no trouble ruining your career or worse if I would have refused them.” She watched a parade of indecipherable emotions march across his face in rapid succession. “I never would’ve walked away if it hadn’t been to protect you. No matter what happens or doesn’t happen between us in the future, I want you to know that.”
He sat there, seemingly stunned by this revelation, but she continued on.
“I was able to help them, to make some connections that led to finding my father. Because Dmitri was actively looking for me, it wasn’t too difficult to get information about his whereabouts. I pretended I wanted a reunion with one of my only living relatives. I was the one who ended up taking him down . . . my grandfather. Getting my father out of there meant putting a bullet in Vetrovsky. I wasn’t aiming to kill, but he was an old man and he didn’t survive.” She avoided his gaze for the next part, seeing the events play out vividly behind her own eyes. “My father had been treated decently for a few years, but as he got older and less useful, he was beaten and neglected and was already half-dead when I found him. We got him to a hospital but it was too late. I was able to say good-bye at least, before his heart gave out, and I think he knew who I was.” Her body threatened to give out, the same way it had done under the sagging weight of her father’s battered body.
Chase’s face was contorted into a mask of pain, mirroring her own as if he felt it just as deeply. “I’m sure he did, baby. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you through . . . all of it.”
She forced a smile through her tears. “When the Bureau offered me a job, I turned it down at first.” She exhaled, feeling twenty pounds lighter. “As soon as I was sure that none of my grandfather’s people were planning to retaliate, I came to see you and saw . . . what I saw. And so I went back. Went to Quantico and tried my best to move forward with what semblance of a life I had left.”
Chase didn’t speak again. He just sat completely still, soaking it all in.
When he stood, Vivien looked up at him, unsure what to expect.
What she didn’t expect was for him to lift her in his arms and start walking toward the bed.
“Chase? What are you doing?”
He looked at her with eyes full of love and longing and compassion. His expression was a plea for forgiveness.
“What I should’ve done a long time ago.”
Thirteen
The scent of her permeated every inch of space. She’d been staying in the hotel long enough that she was everywhere. In the neatly folded clothing on the dresser, in the obsessively compulsive arranged remote, notepad, and pen on the night table, even the bed had been made in a way that he knew she’d redone it after housekeeping to suit her preference.
That was her. And he loved every damn thing about her.
As he laid her out on the bed, his body screamed at him to rush. To take. To taste her and confirm that she was real, that this wasn’t a dream. That she was alive, was flesh and blood in his arms and that he wouldn’t wake up gasping for air like so many times before. But his heart slowed him down and he took his time removing her T-shirt and teeny tiny shorts. Soon she was bared to him, and the sight of her completely nude took his breath away.
“Say it again,” he demanded.
Vivien eyed him questioningly. “Which part?”
“Why you really left. Why you had to go.”
She took a deep breath, causing her chest to heave in a way that almost diverted his attention from her beautiful face. “Because of you, Chase. To protect you. To keep you safe.”
He pressed his forehead to hers, ran his nose down the length of hers, breathing her in, absorbing her warmth. No one had ever protected him before.
“Your turn,” she purred seductively, gesturing at his clothes. “Tell me w
hy you’re here. Why tonight?”
Chase pulled his shirt over his head and was rewarded with lust filling her heavy-lidded eyes. “Because I couldn’t stay away another second. Because you were right. I was afraid.”
“You’re not anymore?” she asked with a slight tilt of her head.
He nipped her earlobe gently before pulling back to speak against her lips. “I’m fucking terrified. And you should be too.”
“Why’s that?”
His lips grazed hers before his teeth bit her lower one gently. “Because after losing you once, I might not ever be able to let you go again.”
“Who says you have to?”
He steeled himself above her, bracing his forearms on the bed beside her head and wishing he were inside her already. “Doesn’t matter who says it. FBI, CIA, God Himself. Be sure this is what you want, Viv. Last chance to tell me to go. To back off or slow down. Because once I’m inside you again, that’s it. You’re mine.”
“I’ve always been yours,” she said softly, lowering her gaze pointedly toward his pants. “I want nothing between us. I’ve waited, Chase. I’ve waited so long for you. Don’t make me wait any longer.”
He removed his boots, jeans, and boxer briefs as quickly as he could manage. “I know, baby. I’m here.” He hovered over her, kissing her mouth openly. “I’m here and I’m not going anywhere.”
Her eager tongue slid against his, alerting every nerve ending in his body to what was about to happen.
Her hands pulled at him, tugging his hair, the nape of his neck, trying to get as close as humanly possible. He lowered his mouth to her jaw, her neck, and clavicle, before lavishing his attention on her full breasts. He filled his hands with her, thankful for the luxurious curves he remembered so vividly, squeezing and kneading while sucking her taut peaks into his mouth.
The louder she moaned, the harder he pulled her pretty pink nipples with his mouth until he was biting down with just enough pressure to make her cry out.
When she arched her back, bowing her body off the bed, he moved lower. Circling her belly button with his tongue, he splayed his hands across her hips.
