Sweet Seduction Surrender (Sweet Seduction, Book 4)

by Claire, Nicola

  "What do we know about this Tremayne guy?" he asked, hands clenched in fists on his thighs. I wished he'd reach over to soothe me, but Jason was in no mood to offer affection; he was fit to throw a fist, not entwine fingers in mine.

  "Nothing," Dom admitted. "Harvey Stone admitted he's just popped up out of nowhere. No priors, no history. Zip. We only know what Katie's told us."

  And that brought Jason's anger filled gaze back to me. I shrank back in my seat, not missed by him, and he sighed. Ran a hand over his face in frustration and then purposely reached out to clasp his fingers with mine. His thumb running over the skin of my knuckles was too quick to be considered soothing, but it was progress, nonetheless.

  "Something Pierce said," Dom added speculatively, "just before we left. The tech forensic team won't be trawling through ASI's systems until tomorrow morning. He wouldn't have mentioned that if it hadn't have been helpful to our case."

  "I'm not an employee anymore," Jason pointed out. "I wouldn't have access to their systems. Nick would have seen to that."

  "I'm not sure. I'm going to head back in and have a few quiet words with my brother, if I hear of anything that could help, I'll phone." Dom opened up the door, ready to climb out. "In the meantime," he said looking back up at Jason, "if you've still got contacts in the Army, now would be a perfect moment to reinstate them."

  Dom offered me a warm smile, which was shadowed by the concern obvious on his face, and then he slipped out of the car and crossed the street back towards the entrance to the Police Station. Silence followed his exit for some time, then Jason reached his free hand up to wrap around the nape of my neck softly.

  "How are you really?" he asked.

  "Scared," I admitted. "None of this makes any sense. If it is insurance fraud, why choose ASI and me to make it happen?"

  "Easy target? Wrong place wrong time?" Jason suggested, but from the tone of his voice he didn't believe his words either.

  "Tremayne sought me out," I mused. "He knew of me when he approached me at that party. I'm beginning to wonder if he even knew the Montgomery-Smiths at all. He never went inside, I never saw him with them. He cornered me on the terrace and then left."

  Jason sat back and let a long controlled breath of air out. I realised why he was being so careful when he next spoke; eyes forward, staring out of the windscreen and not at me.

  "Did you invite him to Gen and Dom's barbecue, or did he invite himself?"

  His hand had stilled in mine, his body had tensed all over. He was still breathing, but I think that had more to do with his training than his emotional state.

  Thankfully I could answer this question easily.

  "He cornered me. Told me he had to fly away on business the next day and the time constraints of the project made it seem logical we meet that evening for drinks to discuss his requirements, in particular the pieces he wanted the design crafted around."

  "You could have arranged to meet him after the barbecue," Jason all but accused.

  "Yes," I admitted, feeling dreadful revisiting this. "I was not myself," I offered as an excuse.

  His head turned on his neck, still resting back against the headrest, and sad eyes looked at me.

  "Is that all?" he asked. What did he mean is that all? I was not myself because of him!

  "That's quite enough, don't you think?" I spat back.

  "Kate, do you know what I felt when I heard you at the door to Gen's house telling Dom you'd brought a friend? A friend called Richard?"

  I swallowed painfully, my throat thick with emotion. I knew exactly what he felt, because I'd been immobile with fear that he'd have one of his blonde busty bimbos with him, and I'd have to see her fawning all over his body. A body I had claimed as mine for such a short period of time.

  "It could have gone any number of ways," I pointed out, turning my head away to stare blindly out of the window.

  "You think I wouldn't have been hurt?"

  This was not all about him! "You left me, remember?! Not the other way around."

  "It doesn't matter," he said dismissively, releasing his grip on my hand and starting the car.

  "Of course it matters," I mumbled. "It mattered to me."

  "What did?" he bit out, pulling the vehicle into mid morning traffic.

  "If you'd brought one of your bimbos," I said softly. Silence met my entirely too honest admission. Then the car rolled to a stop around the corner in the first vacant carpark he could find.

  He turned to me, a small smirk playing on his lips. "Is that why you caved to his suggestion? So you could wear him like armour when faced with a potential date on my arm?"

  "Blonde busty bimbo," I said through gritted teeth. "Let's not call them something they were not."

  He started chuckling. "Baby."

  "Don't call me baby."

  He laughed harder.

  "It's not funny either. You're a playboy. Everyone knew it."

  "Was," he whispered, the laughter stopping completely.

  I frowned at him in confusion.

  "I was a playboy, Kate, you're right. But none of them meant a thing. Nothing. And there were no blonde busty bimbos after I'd tasted you. There was no one, after you. How could there be? There's only one you."

  I stared at him, my chest tight for lack of breath. My mind spinning trying to catch up on where this conversation had taken us. I let a slow breath of air out and then blinked a few times to clear my head.

  "I brought Richard to the barbecue because I thought you'd have a woman with you and I couldn't face it," I whispered. "I'm not sure if it was coincidence, or if he took advantage of my state of mind to turn up and talk shop with Brook, making it look like chance. Instigating the entire evening, in order to scope out ASI and my connection to it, in order to put his master plan in place."

  "There now, baby," Jason purred, reaching up and cupping my nape again, then leaning forward to lay a soft kiss on my forehead. "That wasn't too hard to admit, was it?" And he wasn't referring to my speculation on Tremayne.

  "Jackass," I muttered, but my lips were twitching.

  "Language, baby. It doesn't suit you." But he was smirking too. "So," he said, getting the car started and out in traffic again, "the fuck-knuckle could have planned this all along. You were a mark, a means to an end." His dancing eyes flicked towards mine. "A sex-kitten means to an end, but thankfully you've got taste and he didn't get far on that front."

  Taste. I was smitten with someone else. A smitten sex-kitten. A bubble of laughter sprang up my throat. I coughed to clear it away.

  "So what now?" I said, bringing myself, more than Jason, back on track. "We don't even know where Tremayne is. He didn't tell me where his business meeting was being held, if it was a business meeting at all."

  "Exactly. He could still be in Auckland, or as I suspect, is out of town, providing himself a decent alibi. My guess though, is he'll come to us. How many people have their workplace burgled, over six million dollars worth of artwork stolen, and not return to the scene of the crime to liaise with the Police? If he wants to keep this charade up, he'll be back, if not already landed."

  "But what then? He's here, the artwork's... where?"

  "That is the more pressing matter," Jason admitted. "We'll get to Tremayne tonight, I should think. The artwork and the trail leading there is more important for now."

  "Can you get anyone in the Army involved? Would that help us?"

  "I doubt it, but I can make some calls. The Army has access to satellite imagery. If we can get coverage of Auckland from sun-up, we might find something of use."

  "What about during the dark, when the shop was supposedly burgled?"

  "That's going to require another source. Radar."

  "Radar? As in radio waves to determine distance?"

  "No, as in Auckland's underground radar. The one Nick uses to see what's hot and what's not in the underbelly of Auckland crime."

  Oh. "And to use that...?"

  "I need access to ASI."

 
Great. "Great," I said with defeat.

  "Kate," Jason chastised. "Why do you think Pierce warned Dom about the tech forensic team?"

  Oh. "Letting you know how long you had to use ASI's systems before you'd be caught."

  "Exactly, baby. Your brother is not stupid. Either he already had my access cleared, due to some intel he'd heard on the radar. Or Pierce gave him sufficient unobserved time, after the arresting officers arrived at his door, to reinstate my clearance. Either way, Pierce knows that's what I'd have to use in order to get any leads. He's giving us time."

  And the means to figure this out and get Nick and his team out of custody.

  "Do we go to ASI now?"

  Jason scoffed. "We are doing nothing. You are going home and waiting for my or Dom's call. I am going into ASI, stealthily. The place could still be under surveillance. The cops aren't stupid either, even if Pierce is making their jobs more complicated than usual."

  "Now wait just a minute, Jason Cain," I started, turning in my seat and placing my hands on my hips.

  "Ah-oh," Jason joked, shaking his head and keeping eyes forward, smirk in place.

  "I am more than capable of helping. You might need a look-out."

  "Pfft," was his reply.

  "I'm good on a computer, I spend all day on one. I've watched Eric work. Are you good on a computer?"

  "Of course! Do you think the Army just teaches us to disassemble a rifle and rub mud on our faces for camouflage? They're a little more technologically savvy than that, Kate."

  My turn to pfft.

  I received a glare for that comeback.

  "I will be armed," I offered.

  "No you won't be. Because you won't need to be. Because you won't even be in danger in the first place."

  "It's ridiculous to do this alone, when you have resources at your command and...

  "You're not a resource," he interrupted, "even if you are at my command." Smirk.

  I huffed in frustration. "I'm coming with."

  "Kate," he warned.

  "Jason," I imitated his growly tone.

  He pulled the SUV to an abrupt stop, making me fall forward in my seat and have the seatbelt dig into my chest. I wheezed out a breath and looked out the window. We were home.

  "Get out of the car," he growled.

  "No," I replied, crossing my arms over my chest and glaring back.

  "Woman! Don't make come around there and haul you out over my shoulder."

  "It won't work."

  "Three."

  Oh God, he was giving me the countdown from three.

  "Nah-uh," I replied ineloquently. I shook my head to emphasise my inarticulate response.

  "Two," he ground out between clenched teeth.

  "What? You're going to go all caveman on me and make a scene in the middle of the street?" What happens at one? We didn't get to one last time. One was still a mystery. Would I like one? I was thinking, right now, probably not.

  "One!" he shouted, making me jerk as he opened his door and stormed around the hood of the car. I reached up and slowly lowered the lock at my window, my eyes meeting the furious chestnut of his.

  We stared at each other for several seconds and then he smiled. It was slow and wicked.

  "Zero," he mouthed. I didn't needed to hear the whispered words, I could make them out quite clearly through the closed window. His intent obvious and the hungry stare holding my gaze making me breathless.

  He lifted up his hand, which had been out of sight at the side of his leg, and pressed the button on his remote access key chain. The door unlocked and he jerked it open.

  "Easy or hard way, Kate?" he asked, still smiling that wicked smile.

  Oh, hell. "Hard!" I bit back at him.

  "Baby," he said shaking his head. "I was so hoping you'd say that."

  My seatbelt came undone and he leaned in to grip my body, under my arms. I batted away his hands, wishing my satchel was closer, not in the back footwell of the car out of reach. Then remembered that Jason usually had a knife sheathed at his waist, so I started searching for that instead.

  I don't know why I was fighting him. Adrenaline had gotten the better of me. The morning's events taking their toll and making all reason abandon my thought process. I just felt the need to fight back. To argue this point with Jason. To not let him out of my sight for fear he'd never come back.

  And not because he didn't want to. I knew he would always come back if he could. But if something happened to him, and God alone knows what was going on inside that mentally unstable mind of Tremayne's, he may not be able to come back. The thought of losing him now spurred me on, even as I was hauled from the vehicle screaming, and thrown over Jason's shoulder like a sack of spuds.

  I started rifling through the various pouches and holsters dotted along Jason's belt. He realised what I was doing so landed a swift smarting slap to my butt cheek, making me yelp, lose focus long enough for him to get the front door open and get us inside, before I started struggling against his hold and flicking the safety latch on his knife loose.

  My fingers wrapped around the hilt and then I was suddenly on my back on my bed, the springs making me rebound from the force with which Jason had thrown me, my hands losing their grip on the knife and making it tumble to the wooden floor with a clatter.

  A loud click, followed by a second, filled the space between Jason's grunts and my screams. Then the cool sensation of metal at my wrist.

  I stared at the handcuffs attaching me to the bedpost and turned a frosty glare on Jason, who was bending down to pick up the knife and with a smirk in my direction, sheathed it out of sight on his belt.

  "Kate, Kate, Kate," he murmured. "Haven't had you tied up for my pleasure before."

  "Come a little closer, baby, and I'll show how much pleasure I can give," I taunted.

  He started laughing. "Feisty," he said with a shake of his head and then promptly sat down on the end of the bed, just out of kicking distance. I should know, I tried to land a foot to his privates.

  "Argh!" I screamed, rattling the handcuffs. "Release me!"

  "Not gonna happen, baby. You are your own worst enemy. Just because you can flip a knife without getting a cut, does not mean you can run hell for leather into danger and I'd let you."

  "You arrogant arsehole! You don't get a say in the matter!"

  "Language! And I'd say my word is the only one that matters right now, wouldn't you?" he asked, flicking the handcuffs' key in his hand.

  "Why are you doing this?" I asked on a defeated sigh.

  "Because I love you, Kate," he replied without hesitation. "And I can't lose you again."

  We stared at each other for longer than Nick and ASI had to spare. Then he stood up from the bed and went into the bathroom, returning with a glass of water and the waste-paper basket, which happened to be water tight.

  Oh good grief, no. I was not peeing in that!

  He placed the glass on the table next to the bed within my reach and the basket on the floor beside the bed.

  I picked the water up and hurled it against the wall across the room. Glass shattered and liquid dripped onto the floor in a satisfying display of my rage.

  Jason just stared at me, shocked.

  "I can't lose you again either," I said, having now got his full attention.

  I watched his chest rise and fall too quickly. I watched the chestnut in his eyes fade to warm, melted chocolate brown. And I watched as his shoulders fell and his face fell with them, and his heart was displayed openly on his sleeve.

  "Kate," he pleaded.

  "Together. You said it was you and me, always."

  "Even when we're apart, baby," he reminded me. Damn! That argument wasn't going to cut it.

  "Three years I've been training, Jason. I know how to defend myself." He stared at me, unmoved. "You wanted to see my knife collection," I offered my own little reminder. "Then let me show you how good I actually am."

  "Do you really think me seeing your knives will change my mind?"
>
  I answered honestly. "Yes. Yes I do." His eyes narrowed, but I could see the curiosity behind those captivating orbs. It was a piece of the puzzle he'd been trying to fit together, the little part of me that surprised him the most. Jason liked being surprised, but more than anything he liked a challenge. Figuring me out had been his biggest challenge yet.

  "Just remember," he said, reaching over to release the handcuffs from my wrist, "I can have you back in these within minutes."

  I rubbed my wrist and eyed him warily, then offered my best Katie Anscombe smile.

  "Baby," I said with a smirk. My tone similar to when I used 'darling' on anyone else. Jason frowned. "It might be wise to remember that every blade I show you, I know exactly how to use."

  He took a step back, his frown turning into that wicked smile he so often wore in my presence.

  "Lead on, Ms Anscombe. Do your worst."

  Oh, I wasn't planning on doing my worst. I was planning on appealing to the soldier in Jason, on enticing the 'Army' out of the man. I was planning on doing my wickedest, and going straight for his Achilles heel.

  And he thought I needed the protection. Pfft!

  Chapter 26

  Into That Dark Abyss

  It's not like I had a room decked out in rows and rows of gleaming, sharp knives. This wasn't a movie, but real life. Although, being an interior designer meant I did have access to competent builders and the ability to draw up architectural plans that made my little cubby of blades difficult to detect.

  I stood up from the bed and rubbed my wrist again. I'd only been handcuffed for mere minutes, but it was enough to know that sort of bedroom play was not something I would tolerate easily. Jason watched me ease the faux ache in my wrists with keen eyes. I could only hope he'd come to the right conclusion and avoid metal restraints from now on.

  Of course, if he were to use a fabric, such as velvet ribbons or silk scarves... I shook my head to clear those images. Being around Jason in any capacity played havoc on my imagination. But then, he'd opened a Pandora's Box when he introduced me to his alter ego. I wasn't sure if he realised that yet.