No Going Back (Club Aegis Book 6)

by Christie Adams

  “Trying to tell me it’s time to head for home?” He sighed. “I suppose you’re right.”

  The slow ride back afforded Guy a further opportunity to think. By the time he settled Khamseen back in his loose box, he’d decided on his next steps regarding Maddie. They both needed closure, but once the past was settled, the future could be theirs to take and mould into something they could call their own.

  If Maddie agreed.

  >>><<<

  Guy started the car and set off back to the hotel. As far as he could see, the first potential hurdle was the key card in his pocket. If Maddie had already deactivated it, then convincing her to allow him in to talk to her could be problematic.

  Making his way through the hotel, he passed a few staff members who greeted him with the same friendly acknowledgement as usual. Cautious optimism stirred within him. Maybe she hadn’t yet said or done anything to change the status of their relationship in the eyes of her friends and colleagues. Not that he’d expect her, or anyone else for that matter, to broadcast the end of a relationship to all and sundry.

  He might still have a chance to put things right.

  At the entrance to the staff wing, he paused. Moment of truth, and all that. When the light turned green and the lock gave a telltale click, Guy let out a long, controlled breath. He went through the door and made his way to Maddie’s quarters.

  At her door, he raised his hand to knock but stopped short. What if there was no reply? He didn’t have a contingency plan for that, but what he wouldn’t do was give up—on her, or on them. After all, she’d known exactly who he was the moment he’d walked into her office with Ros. She could easily have turned him down when he asked her out.

  His sharp rap on the door was answered within seconds. A pale face greeted him, showing evidence of tears. His heart contracted. A long time ago, he’d got off on giving her the pain she’d craved, but not this kind of pain.

  “We need to talk. Will you let me come in?”

  Without a word she stood back, opening the door wider for him. At least she hadn’t rebuffed him without giving him a chance. That alone allowed him to hope there was something left to save.

  He followed her to the sitting room, where she chose to curl up in the armchair, leaving the sofa for him. Fair enough—he couldn’t blame her for trying to protect the heart he’d come so close to breaking again.

  “Do you mind if I…?” He gestured towards his coat.

  She shook her head. “Make yourself at—comfortable.”

  “Thank you.” He draped his coat over the arm of the sofa, using the time to weigh up his strategy. He’d already proved he was stupid—time to keep it simple. He went to Maddie, and knelt in front of her.

  “I’m sorry—”

  “Shh.” He laid a gentle finger over her lips. “I’m not sure where this conversation starts—what I do know is it doesn’t start with you apologising.”

  “But this is my fault.” Maddie twisted the belt of her robe into knots. “I should have said something the moment you walked into my office.”

  “No.” He laid his palm against her cheek. “Ros was there. It wasn’t the right time.”

  “When you asked me to dinner, then. I should have explained, or… just said no and walked away.” Her eyes shone, and it wasn’t with happiness.

  “Whatever happens now, I’m glad you didn’t say no.” That was a truth that came straight from his heart. “If you had, I’d never have found out you were still alive.”

  “Perhaps that would have been for the better.”

  “Don’t say that.” Guy slammed the door on his sudden urge to put her over his knee. “I do think, however, we’re starting this discussion in the wrong place, in more ways than one.” He glanced at the sofa. “Would you sit over there with me, and let me hold you while we figure this out?”

  He offered her his hand, and as he stood, she unfolded her legs and then followed him, but stopped short of the sofa.

  “Maybe I should make us some coffee. Or would you prefer something stronger?”

  Some props might be a useful diversion. “Coffee would be fine—thank you.”

  She made the drinks, but the two cups remained untouched on the coffee table. Guy wasn’t about to complain, though, when the trade-off was having Maddie curled against his side. A positive sign in his book.

  “So where do we start?” Maddie asked. “When you and Ros walked into my office?”

  “No, I think we need to go back further, to when you went undercover.”

  “Ah.” She digested his suggestion for a moment. “I understand what you mean, but for me, it began even before then.”

  “That bloody mission. I should have told you.”

  “Tell me now—all of it.”

  “You already know most of it. I was asked to go deep undercover in the Middle East, on a need-to-know basis. I was the only officer with the set of skills needed to pull it off—it was highly sensitive, and… there was a chance I’d never make it back. I was ordered not to discuss the mission with anyone, especially you. I used that to justify saying nothing, when the truth was, I could have defied that order and explained everything.”

  “So why didn’t you?”

  “Because I couldn’t bear to see the look in your eyes when I told you there was a high probability of it being a suicide mission. I thought if I made you hate me, it’d be easier for you to move on if I didn’t come back.”

  “That’s why you went so quiet and distant—you were preoccupied with the mission?”

  She was right—he had gone quiet. Distracted by the mission, the details, everything associated with it, he’d shut down on the one person with whom he should have shared everything.

  “Yes, but not as much as I was preoccupied with what to do about you and our relationship. If I didn’t come back—and there was a high risk of that being the case—I didn’t want you grieving for me. I didn’t have the guts to end our relationship, so I thought I’d make you hate me instead. As for the mission, the brief was… complicated. But that was no excuse. I messed up. I’m sorry.”

  “But you came back. That last night. Why?”

  Guy tucked her head into his shoulder and kissed her hair. He remembered that night as if it were yesterday. “I had to see you one more time before they flew me out there. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I shouldn’t have come to you, but I—what is it?”

  He’d felt her tense against him, as if talking about that time brought back memories she didn’t want to think about.

  “Nothing. So you went to the Middle East.”

  Guy nodded, knowing she’d feel the movement. “Got to where I was needed… and then I heard you’d died in a fire. Why the hell did you let them destroy your life like that? No mission warrants that kind of sacrifice.”

  “I asked them to.” Her voice was bleak with memories. “Like you, I might not have come back. In the event of something happening to me, I wanted them to dispose of my estate in the way I wanted, not the way they thought I’d want.”

  “Even so, to wipe out everything… Suppose you had come back, what did you think you’d come back to? What did you come back to?”

  “What I wanted—a brand-new start.”

  “But why?”

  She pulled away, so she could look at him. “That was my price—a new life. I needed to start over. I’d lost you. I had no family. All my friends were in the service. You know as well as I do, it’s damn near impossible to build friendships with outsiders when you can’t be honest about who you are and what you do.”

  “What else?” There was something she wasn’t telling him.

  “To avoid temptation. If the mission was successful and I did come back, I’d have been tempted to find you. I was also scared that if I did find you, you’d reject me. I couldn’t bear the thought of that possibility, so I went for the nuclear option, to make it impossible for me even to try.”

  “Death.”

  “It had to be that way, don’t you
see? The last thing I ever expected was to see you in my office.”

  “Which brings me to another point—why the hell didn’t I recognise you?”

  “It’s been a long time. Some people change more than others, and I had the coloured contact lenses, don’t forget.”

  “There’s more to it than that. You never used to wear this much make-up.”

  She tried to laugh it off. “The vanity of a middle-aged woman.”

  “No, not buying it. What’s the real reason?”

  Although she’d nestled against him again, she wouldn’t look in his direction. There was no doubt in his mind—she was hiding something.

  Without a word, she extricated herself from his embrace, and made a beeline for the bathroom. He heard running water, then the sound of splashing. After a few minutes, the bathroom door opened again, but no Maddie.

  “Madeleine? Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.”

  Oh hell. Whenever a woman said that, it spelled trouble with a capital shitstorm. “What’s going on? Come out, please.”

  She obeyed him, but her head was bowed, her now-loose hair falling in such a way as to conceal her face. Guy’s sense of unease increased. Did this have something to do with the heavy make-up she now favoured?

  “Look at me, Madeleine.”

  Her head jerked up almost involuntarily at his soft but compelling command. At first he couldn’t see anything wrong, but as he looked more closely…

  His alarm growing by the second, Guy went to her. He cupped her face in his hands and tilted it upwards. The network of fine white scars paralysed his ability to breathe.

  “The surgeon did the best he could, but this is as good as it’ll ever be. The disfigurement could have been a lot worse.”

  “What happened?” With gentle fingers, he traced the lines closest to her hairline.

  “The car accident that damaged my leg. Just after I returned from Moscow. It was a complete fluke. My face bore the brunt of the damage—just about every bone was smashed. The surgeons did a wonderful job of reconstruction, but it would have taken a miracle for there not to be any permanent effects. The repairs changed the structure of my face just enough for me to look like someone with a passing resemblance to Liz Barton. The therapists taught me how to use make-up to mask the worst of the scarring. As time went on, even though the scars healed pretty well, the make-up became a shield I couldn’t let go. I felt safe behind it.”

  She turned her head away, breaking the contact between his fingertips and her face. Guy coaxed her into looking at him again. The pain and fear in her eyes tore at his heart. “I could tell you you don’t need it, but you wouldn’t believe me. What I will tell you is that when you’re with me, you don’t need to hide anymore. I look at you, and all I see is the incredible woman who stole my heart all those years ago. Your beauty was never just skin-deep, Madeleine.”

  Her eyes glistened. When the first tear overflowed, he caught it with the pad of his thumb. “Talk to me.”

  “Where do we go from here, Guy? We can’t go back.”

  His heart nearly stopped, even though her words echoed his earlier thoughts. “No, we can’t. What would you like to happen?”

  “I want…”

  “Yes?”

  “I want to be with you, Guy, but… there’s an elephant in the room. I’m not sure I can describe it, but I don’t know that we can move on while it’s there.”

  Ah, now they were getting somewhere. “Do you feel we need to draw a line under the past?”

  “I think that would help.”

  “All right. What do you need for that to happen?”

  Her teeth worried her lower lip. In silent admonition, he passed his thumb over the soft flesh.

  She closed her eyes and lowered her head. “A scene. I haven’t… The last time was with you, and with what happened, it feels like… something’s been left unfinished.”

  “And you believe a scene’s the solution?”

  She nodded. “But only if you don’t hold back.”

  That was the last thing he’d expected to hear from her. “When do you want to do this?”

  “You’ll need to time to set something up.”

  True. The playroom was ready and waiting, but there was more to a scene than location. And for a scene like this… he needed time to make it right for both of them. “Friday night. At Stonehaven.”

  “Ros and Simon?”

  “They’re heading into town for the weekend. I’ll give the staff the night off—we’ll be alone.”

  “Thank you. If I might make one request?”

  What was she thinking now? There was a time when he’d have known, or at the very least, had a good idea. “What do you have in mind?”

  “No contact, between now and Friday night.”

  “Why?”

  “So I can prepare. I want to be in the right frame of mind.”

  He could understand the reasoning. “One exception. I’ll email you to let you know when to arrive and what I expect from you. Acceptable?”

  She nodded. “Yes. Does that work for you?”

  He’d make it work, for both of them. With a sigh that was part resignation, part determination, he angled her face so he could place a gentle kiss on her forehead. “I’m going to miss you for the next few days, Maddie mine.”

  Her gaze met his, then she averted her eyes. “I’m going to miss you, too.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “Did you dress as I asked?”

  He hadn’t asked, he’d ordered, but Maddie wasn’t about to draw that to his attention. After all, she had agreed to his terms. She rubbed her thighs together, trying to ease the ache between them. “Yes, Sire.”

  Over a decade since she’d last used the honorific, yet it might have been yesterday. The first time had been a joke on her part, a way of differentiating her Dominant from the man who’d been knighted for services to defence, but Guy had liked it, so it stuck.

  It was no joke now.

  The last few days had been empty without his physical presence, yet he’d filled her thoughts. What she’d felt when he walked out on her after her deception came to light was nothing compared to the black void of the days since. The only ray of light had been that one email from him, with its bullet-point list of instructions and his initial at the foot.

  The last instruction had been that if she agreed to what he proposed, all she needed to do was respond with a single word. Without hesitation, she’d hit reply and typed Yes.

  Since sending that reply, if she’d read Guy’s email once, she’d read it a hundred times. Every attempt to read between the lines had drawn a blank. It was what it was.

  In response to her acknowledgement, he gave a curt nod. The movement was small, verging on insignificant, but the authority it represented made need, hot and heavy, pool low in her abdomen. The hunger was so fierce, she had to stuff her hands under her thighs to save her from folding her arms. When that didn’t work, she bent forward and rocked to and fro to ease the ache.

  “Don’t look at the floor, look at me.”

  His voice alone was all it took to trigger that squirming sensation in her belly. Memories of being with the man flooded her mind. Her mouth became desert-dry in anticipation. A decade’s worth of maturity and harsh experience had only intensified all the qualities that had drawn her to Guy back then. Her nipples were already-hard buds scraping against the lace of her bra, and her matching thong was soaked.

  Maddie lifted her gaze to meet his. There was no softness in the metallic glitter of those harsh, grey eyes, no loving curve to the mouth that had once returned the all-consuming passion in her kisses. Guy was all Dom, seasoned with even more sadist than she remembered.

  Good. Because tonight, she needed the sadist more than the Dom.

  “Ten minutes from now, you will join me in the playroom. At the top of the stairs, turn left and go to the end of the hall. At the door straight ahead of you, you will remove all your clothes, apart from the bra,
thong, and heels. You will fold each garment neatly, and leave it on the table by the door. You will then knock on the door, and wait for permission to enter. On entering, you will kneel and await further instructions. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, Sire.”

  “Ten minutes precisely. If you’re early or late, you will bear the consequences.”

  A curious combination of fear and impatience writhed in her belly.

  His overwhelmingly confident stride took him to the library door, where he paused. “And don’t touch yourself—I’ll know if you have.”

  The implicit threat of more punishment added the heated spice of excitement to the melting pot of needs and feelings he’d created within her. Maddie watched the broad shoulders disappear through the door, leaving behind only the subtle scent of his masculine cologne to accompany the echoes of his presence.

  Unleashed by the promise of what was about to take place, a further barrage of more detailed memories assaulted her. The visuals would have sent her crashing to her trembling knees if she hadn’t already been seated. Before she’d ever met Guy, she’d played with Doms who went in for the stereotype of black leather. With them, she’d never felt much beyond mild arousal, even when she’d seen them practising with a whip before using it on her. No matter how skilled they were, she hadn’t been able to shake the belief they were rank amateurs. She’d always imagined them going back home to their vanilla lives, where they’d be greeted by their even more vanilla wives.

  Her first night at the club where she met Guy had changed all that. Through the evening she’d watched other Doms, but repeatedly gravitated back to him. He’d caught her eye when she’d watched him scene with three different subs. Careful, discreet observation had led her to believe none of them were attached to him. The epiphany had come when she’d witnessed him stripped to the waist, wearing trousers that clearly belonged to an elegant, tailored suit. He’d been wielding a whip with the skill of an undoubted master in the art. She’d set her sights on him and never wavered.

  Maddie dragged her thoughts back to the present. Living in the past was futile. She checked the time. Her watch and earrings would also have to come off before she entered the playroom. Her instructions had been very specific. Rather than sit there, counting down the minutes, she’d take her mind off what awaited her by exploring the library.