Tuck had told her to move on and staying in his building while trying to do that would’ve been ridiculous. Losing Tuck was a catalyst for moving on, it made sense to her then as it still did now. Except she didn’t leave the business to move on with her life, she left it to chase her old one, hoping that if she found Tuck and persuaded him that it was insanity for them to break up, she’d never have to tell Dempsey the truth. She’d believed for months that if she’d tracked him down, they would have an emotional reunion and she would get what she wanted from Tuck, the truth. Man, had she been wrong.
“Pretend,” he said on a breath of laughter. “You stupid woman.”
The decisions she’d made were driven by emotion, as she so often was, but it wasn’t her fault she’d been unable to read Tuck’s mind. He put too much of the blame on her and didn’t own up to his own failings. If he’d told her how vital she was, beyond using the word “love”, maybe she’d have made different choices.
“Thanks,” she said. Twisting to roll in an attempt to get off the opposite side of the bed from where he stood, she didn’t succeed in her departure. Tuck launched himself toward her and pulled her to her previous place, flattening her on her back, with his body on hers again.
“I fucking love you, and you know it,” he whispered against her lips.
Her body sagged into the mattress, hearing the words broke her, it snapped the hold she’d had on her grief and it all came spilling out in one gush. Filling her body and squeezing her heart, her soul left her body and she drifted, looking down on herself like a spirit unable to cope with the weight of devastation she’d been damming.
“You don’t love me,” she said as tears seeped from the corner of her eyes. “You left me. You promised you would never… you left me, Tuck.”
His arms tightened around her and he pulled her with him when he shifted to his side. His lips touched her scalp, pressing so deep she felt his imprint with the heat of a branding iron. “To save you from me. You were unhappy, what was I supposed to do?”
“Take me with you,” she said. “You were supposed to take me with you.”
He quit rocking her wriggling body and she caught a glimpse of his frown. “You wanted to come with me?”
“I told you that you weren’t the one that had to change. I wanted to be with you. You did have some safe contracts.”
“I had no idea.”
Rating him on his openness had brought him up short by her measure. Being pissed off that she couldn’t read his mind went both ways. In her defense, there had been no time to finish the conversation they’d started after screwing in the office. If he’d stuck around long enough then she could have told him what she meant. Except she hadn’t and he’d taken off believing that she’d have a better life without him, without actually consulting her on what she wanted.
“No,” she said. “And you didn’t ask me. You went ahead and made a decision for both of us on your own.”
“You didn’t fight me, you told me to go.”
She did, in a moment of insane arrogance when she was sure he’d come to his senses before he got back to their apartment. “I came after you,” she said. “I thought you would be at home, I wanted to make-up somewhere near our bedroom. You weren’t there so I went to the basement… and found your envelope. I couldn’t believe that you’d gone so fast, I thought we still had time, that we’d have time to talk it out and I would be able to make you see that I could be trusted.”
“I wanted to protect you, to keep you safe. Concealing the details of what we do, it’s meant to protect people like you, people we care about.”
“I stayed in the basement for a week,” she said. “Surrounded by that deafening silence. I lay in the sheets we’d made love in and tried to remember what it was like to be in your arms. I knew you were gone the minute I opened the door, and saw that the lab was dead. A part of me died right there.”
“Kadie—”
“Don’t call me that,” she snapped, and tried to push at him. Opening herself to him was making her forget their peril, forget how she’d ended up here and what she was trying to salvage. He hadn’t heard her when she said she didn’t want to be herself here, he ignored her request not to use her real name. Hearing that word, being in his embrace, it was too familiar and she couldn’t afford to be complacent. “Get off me. Let me go, let me—”
“Stop,” he said, grabbing her wrists and pinning her down when she tried to break free of him. “We’re in this together now… When I go, you’re coming with me.”
“No,” she sobbed, and shook her head against the sheets. “No, I can’t.”
Stern and determined, Tuck wasn’t messing around. “I didn’t ask you a question,” he said. “You’re coming with me.”
“He’ll kill you if you undermine him.”
Sikorski didn’t care about playing fair, he cared about winning. His victory was sweetened by how bitter the defeat of his opponent was. If Tuck showed her too much favor, Sikorski would use her to destroy him.
With an answer for everything, he didn’t waver. “I’ll make sure you’re part of the deal.”
“Me for Game Time?” she asked. She hadn’t forgotten what had been said in the bar and what had gotten Sikorski so interested.
“Among other things,” he muttered.
“What is it? Game Time?”
For a second, he said nothing. If he lied to her, that would be it, the proof that she couldn’t forgive him. “A device designed to kill people in a horrible way.”
Knowing the truth made her feel better about her relationship with Tuck, it didn’t make her feel better about what Sikorski was capable of. “Oh.”
“It can disseminate viruses in public places, making innocent people very ill. Tracking the source would be near impossible for authorities if the right diseases were used.”
Steeling herself, she didn’t break-down or whimper. Tuck was giving her trust, she had to prove she could handle whatever he told her. “Something like that in his hands—”
“Trust me,” he said.
Saving lives and taking down maniacs, she trusted him to do that. Until now, she might not have realized just what it was he did and she still didn’t understand exactly how he did it, but something told her this kind of task was up his alley.
She nodded, he skimmed a hand up to her face. “Why would you want this for yourself?” he asked. “This life?”
“I didn’t come here to be a whore for this man,” she said. “Approaching him was a mistake, then it got away from me. I can’t leave, not yet.”
Stroking her, he brushed a kiss to her head. “Why not, Toots?”
Telling him the whole truth could damage him. Chasing Sikorski with the belief he’d bring her to Tuck seemed crazy now, but she’d been so sure at the time. Explaining to him that Howie had gotten mixed up in the scenario too would just be another layer of guilt to add. Too much uncertainty existed about what they were to each other, she still couldn’t trust him all the way.
“I’d never be able to live with myself if I ran away. And what’s the alternative anyway? I have nowhere to be, I have nothing.”
“You have me.”
Adrenaline and emotion made it difficult for her to muster an expression to go with her words. “Once upon a time, not anymore.”
“You’ve always had me,” he said. “Just because I wasn’t beside you didn’t mean that every fiber of my being didn’t belong to you. You’re my reason, and that hasn’t changed, not for a second. I want to make the world safer and happier for you. I do it for you, not for anyone, or anything else.”
Tuck was good at selling what he said and after what she’d seen in the bar, she knew he was good at acting. “How can I believe you?”
“Everyone told you I was bad news,” he said. “Everyone. You trusted me.”
Yes, she had. Tuck was an enigma, but too mysterious for most women to take a chance on. Kadie had fallen hard and fast, no one could have convinced her not to be with Tuc
k. “I was a kid,” she said. “I didn’t know what was good for me.”
“Did I ever deny loving you? Did I?” She took a deep breath and shook her head because that was one thing he hadn’t declared out back of the nightclub. “We’re here together, this whole thing stinks, we’re both in danger.” He rolled away from her, freeing her from his prison. “If you’d rather go to his bed, go, I won’t stop you.”
Sitting up, she looked down at him. Without any expectation on his face, she wanted to know what was going through his head. After a pause, she shuffled off the bed, and started for the door, lifting her bag on the way. Doing what she needed to do and getting out, that had been her plan before Tuck appeared in her life. There was no reason for her to change that plan now.
FIFTEEN
Upon reaching the door, she grabbed for the handle, but froze without pushing it down. The man on that bed was the only one capable of hurting her, he destroyed her once, and there was a good chance he would do it again. Sense told her to leave, to forget any of this happened, to have another girl sent up in her place to really put a period at the end of her association with Tuck. But, if he was telling the truth, he wouldn’t want anyone else.
If anyone found out they were in cahoots, both of their lives would be over. Leaving him here didn’t eliminate that as a possibility. When the car had stopped after their dramatic accident and he had lifted her from the stationary vehicle, his world narrowed to her. She’d been with this man for half a decade, he was the love of her life, and he always would be.
If she left him now, she could be giving up her last chance to feel again. But with feeling came fear, and that was it. In the back of that limo, when his eyes had touched hers as the vehicle was careening out of control, fear flashed in his eyes. It wasn’t fear for himself, it was fear for her. Deluding herself that this, and everything they’d shared, had been a ruse was a defense mechanism and one that wouldn’t hold up for long.
He could make her feel, and she was the only one capable of showing him that he was human and therefore vulnerable. Without her he had no vulnerabilities, he didn’t care about himself, and that made him reckless.
Who would look out for him when she turned her back on him? Would there be another woman capable of giving him the reason he attributed to her? Did she want to give him the chance to find out?
Dropping her bag, she turned and went to the bed without looking at him. Instead, she climbed onto the mattress and twisted her body onto his. Sliding a hand around to the back of his neck, she closed her eyes and pressed their mouths together.
“Be sure,” she whispered on his lips. “I’ll hurt you one day.”
His lips curled up under hers because they were the words he’d said to her on their first night together. “I look forward to it,” he said. “Give it your best shot, because you won’t see me going anywhere without you. Never again.”
“Anywhere?” she asked, lifting her mouth to look at him.
“Anywhere,” he replied, and swept her under him. “Can I hold you?”
She nodded. Asking to hold her was his way of being respectful, which made sense being that he was the one who’d been a prick and dumped her. But she hadn’t come back to be held. Reassurance would wait, as would explanations. What she wanted was to put her mark on the man who’d thought he could escape from her.
“After three or four orgasms,” she said, matching her smile to his.
Nine months was the longest she’d gone without indulging in his body since they’d met. With proverbial guns pointed at both of their heads, being cautious about her desire could end up being her major regret. “Yours or mine?” he asked.
“I was sent to this room to please you,” she said, grabbing his tee shirt in her fists.
“Maybe,” he said. “But I have some apologizing to do.”
Lifting his lips to hers, he began to kiss and taste her skin, her neck, even that soft spot by her throat he remembered made her weak and receptive to his every want and need.
For a man with his talents, he could probably tempt any woman he wanted. This man could do anything he turned his hand to. Six years ago, he’d picked her to be his mate. For some unfathomable reason, his adaptive mind that could make an argument for any eventuality had locked onto her. Separating hadn’t been what he wanted, not if she believed what he’d said tonight. He’d given her up, sacrificed his own happiness, because he thought it would ensure hers.
Tuck had confessed to wanting her. Had told her that he planned to help her, to stick by her, and rescue her from this awful place. Making love with him again had been a fantasy she feared she’d never fulfill. Before they got to it, she had to make it clear to him that she wouldn’t submit to his instructions if it meant abandoning what she was doing here. Abandoning Howie.
“I have to tell you something,” she whispered as he unzipped her dress.
“Tell me,” he said, sitting up to pull off his tee shirt and tug down her dress. Throwing both to the floor, he frowned at her corset. “And I thought your labored breathing was a reaction to being in my presence.”
She smiled because he could still make her laugh. With one hand on her waist, he deftly flipped her onto her front and began unlacing her. “I’ve been here for three weeks,” she said, propping her chin on her hands, one was flattened on the other. “And I have my reasons for being here.”
“Which are?” he asked. Rolling her to her back, he slid an arm around her waist to lift her torso from the bed. She unclipped the suspenders at her thighs and he pulled the corset up over her head with the other hand. He undressed her like she was a mannequin, his to contort and display as he best saw fit.
For the longest time, he scrutinized her figure, which was clad in nothing more than her stockings and a wisp of a thong. “I can undress myself,” she said when he didn’t touch the apparel on her body.
“No more,” he murmured, leaning down to kiss the red gouges left in her skin by the offending corset. “I want you naked.” When he kissed the underside of each of her breasts, she rested her hands on the back of his head, savoring the sensation that she never thought she’d have again. “I want my girl.”
Pressing his thumbs to her lips, he tried to scrub the lipstick from her mouth. He kissed each of her eyes and she knew he was wishing away the garish makeup. She might have offered to wash her face before they made love, but she was reluctant to leave this bed and anticipated their reunion with a fervor that kept her in place.
“I’m here,” she said, running her hands into his hair.
This bed and building were foreign, leaving them disjointed in their ability to sink into the moment. Questions dampened desire. “Do you want to tell me your reasons?” he asked, sliding down her body to lick around her belly button.
At some point, her shoes had fallen from her feet and when Tuck kneeled, she wriggled up the bed, opening her legs on either side of his. Curling his fingertips around the top of each stocking in turn, he took his time peeling each one off, his fingers sending shivers to her dampness.
Her reasons for being here required a greater time allotment than they had because she needed him inside her, the craving was growing like a lead weight pressing down on her core from inside. But there was one thing she should be straight about since she’d misled him.
“Are you sure he can’t hear us?” she asked, looking around the room.
Given all that they’d already shared with each other, if Tuck had been wrong then Sikorski would probably be in here by now, pulling them apart and accusing them of consorting. On the off-chance that Sikorski was being nice by allowing them to bond, or collecting more surveillance, she had to make sure that Tuck had no doubts before she revealed something that would make Sikorski lose any notions he may have held on showing them mercy.
He paused, his fingers under the lace strip over her hips that held up her thong. “Yes,” he said as his drowsy eyes flashed with awareness. Some of his desire receded and she was amazed by how quickly he cou
ld turn on his brilliant mind. “What is it?”
“Don’t panic,” she said, sitting up to touch his naked chest. She’d forgotten just how perfect this man was, hard, unyielding… hers. “I just… in the interests of honesty you should know…”
“Tell me,” he said, releasing her thong and folding his arms. His stance told her that sex could wait and she almost wished she’d kept her mouth shut. He sat with one knee on either side of her thighs, half-naked to her almost complete nakedness, and his expression was serious, possessive, entitled. Sex was on his mind, he was just better at side-lining it than she was.
“I’m not allowed to tell anyone,” she whispered. “If he finds out I told—”
“What?” he snapped, grabbing her arms to pull her half-up off the bed. “Did he hurt you? If he fucking touched you without permission—”
“No,” she said, curling her fingers up to his shoulders. “He likes to… sample each of the women before they go on… general release.”
A shiver of disgust went through him that filled her with shame, despite what she was about to reveal. “You should’ve—you should—”
Touching her fingertips to his lips, she smiled. “For the first couple of weeks after I arrived, nothing happened. I was fed, exercised, and our Madame told me how everything worked. I helped in the process, had to watch a couple of times, you know, watch the girls with some of Sikorski’s men, so I would know what they liked. I watched through monitors, you know, not in person…”
Tuck ground his teeth together, and she was sure steam seeped from his ears. “Is this going somewhere?” he growled.
Pissed off as he was now, she hoped what she was going to tell him would make him feel better about what they were about to do. “I’m trying to tell you,” she said. “Nicky didn’t call for me until this week.”
“You’ve been with him this—”
“No,” she said, pushing closer, using his strength to hold herself up when she clutched his upper arms. “No, he… can’t—or he couldn’t… Madame says it happens sometimes. He’s ok for the first week or so, just blames the girl but… he’s been known to get violent, and—”
Swift (Kindred Book 4) Page 17
