by Lexi Blake
“Serena cried. She said it was really beautiful,” Adam explained.
“Did she take notes?” He was not going to end up in one of Serena’s pussy-ass Dom romances where the sub manipulates the hell out of the Dom.
“I believe she was too busy taking mental pictures,” Jake said. “She wants Charlotte to know that she really admires her breasts. Serena actually has a deep appreciation for the human form, whether it’s male or female.”
Jesse frowned. “Wait, are you guys saying Charlotte got like twelve kinds of nekkid and I missed it?”
Three different hands came out, slapping him upside the head.
“Damn it.” Jesse shook his head. “I don’t see what the big deal is. You guys see each other nekkid all the time.”
“I’m putting you in elocution lessons,” Simon said, seemingly unfazed by everything except his charge’s redneck speak. “Why did I get left with the backwoods version of My Fair Lady? It’s because I’m British, isn’t it?”
It was time to move past his porno. “Adam, give Simon everything you have on Chelsea Dennis. Now tell me what the plan is.”
“I’ve left a trail for the Russian to follow. I couldn’t make it too obvious or he might get suspicious,” Adam explained. “I used Charlotte’s credit card to book a room in a motel in Waco. I hired Karina to drive down in Charlotte’s car in a blonde wig. She leaves in an hour. She’s going to be passing several traffic cameras, and I told her to blow through at least one red light.”
Karina Mills was a Fort Worth-based PI they worked with from time to time. She was also a submissive at Sanctum. She was tough and thorough and tended to charge out the ass. Another thing to lay at Charlie’s doorstep. “So she’s checking in as Charlie and waiting for Zhukov?”
“Nah, I thought you would prefer one of us to actually do the takedown. Li is with her. Jake and I are on Avery duty. Li and Karina are going to settle in at the motel. We went over procedure. They’re going to keep the shades closed so he can’t take them out from a distance. I checked out the surroundings. There aren’t a lot of sniper positions. It’s a busy motel. He’s going to have to get up close and personal if he doesn’t want a bunch of heat on him.”
Meaning the assassin would be forced to break into the room. He would very likely try to make it look like an everyday, normal break in. He would steal some cash, maybe rape the girl. He would discover very rapidly that Liam O’Donnell didn’t appreciate his person being violated.
“Liam knows I want this guy alive, right?” He wanted to know exactly who had hired him and how far Nelson’s ties to the Denisovitch syndicate went.
“Alive, but fucked up, right? Because Liam apparently really wants to fuck this dude up. He claims he’s gone too long without a good fight,” Adam explained.
As long as the fucker was capable of talking, Ian didn’t care. “Tell Li to take out his frustrations on the guy, but I want him able to answer a few questions. It’s a good plan. You’re still hired. Go and set it in motion and then go and erase that fucking tape.”
“You know there’s not really a tape per se.” Adam seemed to get the gist of the nasty look Ian sent him. “I’ll take care of it. Why don’t you guys come with me?”
The four men walked out, all of them smiling behind their hands.
“Hey, Jesse’s right, you know,” Alex said quietly. “There wasn’t anything on that feed that you haven’t done at Sanctum a hundred times.”
Oh, but there was. He didn’t cuddle the subs afterward no matter what he told Charlie. Every encounter was negotiated, and the most aftercare he would give was praise for a job well done, some ointment on abrasions if he left them, and the occasional massage. Sometimes he would offer orgasms if he wanted the sub sexually.
But he didn’t cuddle with them afterward and he didn’t sleep beside them. He would never admit it. Not ever. He wouldn’t admit that he could fool himself during sex. He could close his eyes and pretend the sub under him was Charlie, but the minute he held them, the illusion was gone and he was hollow and empty again.
They didn’t smell like her, like lemons and sugar. They weren’t as soft as his wife. Their skin didn’t seem to sink into his. When his partners talked, they didn’t have her sweet sarcasm.
They hadn’t lied to him. They hadn’t betrayed him.
Fuck.
“I need you and Eve to come out to the house and stay with us. If this plan works, Li will bring the asshole out to my place for the interrogation.” That might solve one of his problems. Maybe if he knew Alex and Eve were there he would keep his hands off the girl.
Maybe.
Alex studied him for a moment. “All right. That should work out just fine. We’re having the house we bought renovated. It was supposed to be ready when we got back from Hawaii. We were going to stay in a hotel, but your place might be so much more fun. Might I ask why? You could handle an interrogation yourself.”
Well, he sure as fuck wasn’t going to tell Alex he needed help keeping his hands off Charlie. Alex seemed to be morphing into Oprah, and Ian was certain all sorts of mushy advice would follow. “I want Eve to work up a full evaluation on Charlotte and her sister. She can do it better if she’s watching them outside an interview.”
“Are you sure you want to treat her like a suspect? This might be the time to try to get to know her again.” Yep. Oprah was in the house.
“The only way I want to get to know that woman again is whether or not she’s telling me the truth.”
“That’s not what it looked like on that tape, man.”
“I am attracted to her,” he allowed.
“You’re attracted to a lot of women. You don’t cuddle them and rub your cheek against their hair. You don’t look peaceful when you’re close to them.”
He sent his best friend a hard stare. “Have you been reading Serena’s books? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Alex held his hands up in surrender. “Sorry. You’re not ready to talk about this. Eve told me to take it slow, and I’m pushing you.”
He had to get a few things clear. “I’m attracted to Charlotte, but I’m not going to let her play me the way she did last time. Maybe she’s here for all the right reasons, but she’s too late. I won’t let her in again. I might fuck her because it’s almost inevitable, but as soon as this plays out, I will dump her ass and I won’t look back. You guys seem to be waiting for me to have some grand revelation. Well, let me tell you something, Alex. I already had it. I had it when I realized she was willing to use me, to let my team suffer the consequences so she could solve her own problems.”
“She was trying to save her sister.”
“I would have saved her sister,” Ian nearly roared back, the betrayal so close to his surface. He forced his rage down. God, he didn’t want to do this, but no one seemed willing to let him be. “She was my sub and she trusted that fucker Nelson over me. We’re done.”
“I hadn’t thought about it like that, Ian,” Alex said, his eyes grave.
Ian turned and saw Charlie looking right at him. He was pretty sure she wouldn’t have been able to hear what he’d said, but she obviously hadn’t missed the way he’d said it. Her face went soft as though she could offer him sympathy and peace from another room.
He felt himself go cold. Yes, that was better. Cold was infinitely better than the hot anger that threatened to overtake him. “Well, it’s the only way I can think about it.”
“I broke trust with Eve and we still made it.”
Ian rolled his eyes, turning away from his onetime wife and back to his best friend. “No, you were stupid. You didn’t listen to her and you both got hurt. Then you were stubborn for a really long time. It’s different. I knew fairly soon into the relationship that Charlotte wasn’t what she seemed to be, but I loved her. I knew she was in some sort of trouble, but I didn’t want to push her. I loved that woman more than anything I’ve loved in my life. More than Sean. More than my mother. I thought we had a bond. I married her because
I thought she would turn to me. I gave her every chance to trust me. Instead, she let Nelson nearly kill her. She took a drug that probably had a fifty-fifty chance of ending her instead of turning to me. No. I will not trust her again. No. I will not let her back in. I know you think I’m missing a piece of myself. You think I’m a bastard and that somehow a woman is magically going to fix me, but you’re wrong. She was my shot and it didn’t work. We don’t all get to find our Eves. I understand if you would rather hang with the married guys. Women tend to get nervous around me.”
He hated the idea of losing Alex. Really hated it, but he didn’t let it show.
Alex sighed, standing up and putting a hand on his shoulder. “I’m backing off now. Not from you. You’re my best friend and you have been for damn near my whole life. You can’t lose me. And Eve loves you. Grace loves you. I don’t know where these nervous women are because Serena really was taking notes and probably will put you in a book soon. You can rail at her and she’ll just smile at you. The only woman around here who’s scared of you is Phoebe, but then she screamed about a spider the size of a dime the other day. So I’m not too worried about her. I’ll go talk to Eve and tell her we’re sticking close to you for a couple of days to watch your back.”
He relaxed a little. “I don’t think you really need to watch over me. They’re after Charlie.”
“I don’t doubt they would love to take you out, too.”
“Whatever happens, you know that I don’t want Eve putting herself in danger. Maybe I should rethink this.” He was going in circles. He wasn’t thinking of anyone but himself. How could he really put his team in danger?
“Hey, we’re coming with you and that’s final. Eve can handle herself. She’s perfectly capable, and she knows when to duck,” Alex said with a smile. “They’ll be looking for your car. We’ll take mine to Sanctum and then go out to your place. I can get our bags from the hotel this afternoon and be back in time to get us out to the club. Is the backyard entrance to your place passable?”
There was a reason Ian had picked that particular location for his home. He owned several acres of the land around it and had long ago put in an alternative entrance to his place. It involved some country back road driving, but he could get inside undetected when he wanted to. “It should be fine.”
He would like the backup. The thought of being alone and responsible for keeping Charlie alive scared the shit out of him.
Alex winced a little. “I want you to know I’m sorry about putting you in a bad situation with Brighton. I’ll try to smooth that over, too.”
He held back a sigh but realized how much he would miss Alex and Eve if they weren’t in his life anymore. He was just starting to find a relationship with his brother again. Charlie was threatening to fuck all of that up. She was coming between him and the people he loved. She was forcing them to choose sides in this little war of theirs.
Maybe it was time to let her see just how hopeless this operation of hers was.
Alex walked out the door and Ian’s mind started working. He strode by the office she was sitting in, her eyes following him, but he paid her no mind.
He had an evening to plan. He got to his desk and picked up his phone, dialing a familiar number. “Ryan? I’m going to need you to do a couple of things before tonight’s play.”
Fifteen minutes later, he had most everything in place. At least this part of his world was running efficiently.
So why was his gut in a knot again?
Chapter Six
Charlie sat down on the bench in front of the locker she’d been assigned. The locker room at Sanctum was far more plush and luxurious than any club she’d been in before. Certainly nicer than Cuffs, the rattrap she’d been stuck in for months while she was working on the op that finally brought her to Dallas. That place had barely had lockers, much less carefully crafted full-length wooden ones with hangers for clothes and drawers for anything else a sub would need.
The bathroom section of the room held several tiled showers, vanities with various expensive-looking soaps and lotions, curling irons and hair dryers.
The subs at Sanctum were treated like queens.
“The men’s locker room has a row of recliners and a big screen TV. It’s one big mancave. I’ve caught Alex and Ian hiding in there from time to time with a case of beer. They think because it’s a men’s locker room that I won’t go in. They’re wrong.” Eve had the locker next to her. She adjusted the corset she was in. “That was a very nice spanking. Do you need me to lace you in?”
Ian had handed her a small stack of fet wear before sending her into the locker room with Eve. She’d soon found herself in a cozy world where Serena sat in a comfy chair, her feet up and a computer on her lap, while Avery O’Donnell sat in an equally comfy chair beside her knitting away on what looked like a very tiny sweater.
It was weird.
“Don’t mind the pregnant twins,” Eve said with a smile.
“It’s just not what I thought Sanctum would look like and I’ve been to a couple of clubs.”
Serena perked up. “Did Ian take you?”
Avery looked up from her knitting. “Oh, was it in Europe? I so want to go back, but when I mention it to Liam he gets a little green and says our next vacation is going to be in an RV because nothing bad ever happens in RVs. Has he not watched horror movies?”
Eve grinned. “I think he’s never seen an actual RV, honey. So, fess up, Charlotte. What clubs did Ian take you to?”
Should she answer that? Ian hadn’t exactly told her she couldn’t talk in the locker room. But then he’d sent her a nasty glare every time she even looked like she wanted to talk in the car.
“This is a Dom-free zone,” Serena said. “Unlike Eve, they really are terrified of coming in here. When I’m late, Jake stands outside and yells in.”
Avery nodded. “What happens in the locker room, stays in the locker room. This is where we plan most of our bratty behavior.”
Eve leaned against her locker. “They’re right, you know. We subs have to stick together. It’s just the three of us since Grace started staying home with Carys. We’ve started getting friendly with Jillian. She runs the bar here and is married to Ryan, the Dom in Residence. She has a sister who’s come in a couple of times, but she mostly just stands in the back and looks scared.”
“She’s not scared. She’s curious,” Serena said. “So have you been to The Garden?”
She shook her head. She knew about The Garden with its night-blooming flowers and its big bad Dom owner, MI6 agent Damon Knight. Knight had worked with Ian on a few cases, and he would probably very much like to haul her to London for questioning. “No. We didn’t go to any clubs in London. Ian was working. We went to a club in Paris, though. The Velvet Collar. It’s where I met Ian.”
Serena sighed. “See, you just get the sweetest look on your face whenever you mention his name.”
“It actually surprises me. He’s a little intimidating,” Avery admitted.
“He can be. But he can also be very sweet when we’re alone. Well, he used to be. Now, he’s mostly just an asshole, but he has his reasons.” She looked down at the corset and micro mini. He hadn’t left her shoes or undies, though she hadn’t really expected those. She was going to have to make a decision. Who was she kidding? “Can you help me into this? It’s been a while since I was in fet wear. I didn’t have to wear it at Cuffs.” She looked over at the pregnant contingent. “I didn’t have a Dom there.”
Serena tapped her keyboard. Multitasking seemed to be her default state. “I know. It’s where you were working to find the man who nearly killed Eve. I have it mostly written here, though names have been changed to protect the innocent.”
“He’s going to murder you,” Avery said in a singsong voice, as though she’d said it so many times it now had to be sung.
“He won’t read it. Ian doesn’t read anything but the newspaper and reports.” Serena waved her off. “And it’s not really about you and Ian. It’s
just about a woman who’s been on the run for years and her spy husband thinks she’s dead but whoops, she’s not and she comes back for her man. Very little to do with you. What did they call the drug that made it look like you were dead?”
Yep, Ian was going to kill Serena, but Charlie kind of hoped she got to read that book. She definitely hoped it had a happy ending. She pulled her shirt over her head and tried not to think about how her boobs sagged a little. She wasn’t usually nervous. Ian had seen them earlier and he seemed to like them. Or at least his dick had liked them. She stood up a little straighter. She wasn’t a thin thing, but she was nicely curved and no one could accuse her of being fragile.
Eve was studying her carefully. “What just went on in your head?”
Honesty was the best policy, most of the time. “I was feeling self-conscious about being naked. I decided not to be.”
A little smile curled up Eve’s lips. “Good for you.”
“Could you teach me to do that?” Serena asked. “Because I’m always self-conscious.”
She didn’t tell Serena that she’d learned it in the harshest of ways. She’d learned to choose because if she hadn’t, she would have broken. Never forget. You are my daughter. You are Charlotte, and no one gets to take that from you. The last words her mother had told her.
Her father had tried. He’d beaten her. He’d denied food for a while. He could force her compliance, make her do things she normally wouldn’t do, but she hadn’t let him change that core piece of herself that remained Charlotte.
Only one man could do that. The one she’d chosen.
“Are you really always self-conscious? Because I’ve learned that most women aren’t really. Serena, do you like what you see in the mirror? Are you comfortable with your body when you’re alone?”
She thought about it for a moment. “Yes. Actually I really am. When I’m alone, I tend to dance around half naked, so yes.”
Most women were. They only started to hate themselves when other people became involved. “Sweetie, then what does it matter what anyone else thinks? You have to decide what’s good enough for you. If you spend your life trying to live up to everyone else, you’ll have a wasted life.”
