Jason’s confession is still echoing in my mind hours later, when we leave the hospital through the service entrance.
True to their word, they’ve kept Caroline safe the whole time. Now we’re going back to their offices to regroup and decide on the next step. Cole wants to find a safe house of their own and hire a private team to protect her.
Jason doesn’t agree.
“I think we should call in the U.S. Marshals. We can go outside your division, outside the normal reporting chains if need be. But the longer we leave them out of the loop, the more questions they are going to have about why,” he says to Caroline. Grudgingly, I have to admit I like the way they include her in the conversation. They recognize that she has a unique perspective here as both a victim and a professional in this area herself.
She plays with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. She got to shower and change at the hospital, and came out of the bathroom looking determined and fierce—every inch the prosecutor that she is. “Do you have a contact in mind?”
“Deacon Webb. He’s former Secret Service. Recently left the president’s detail. I would trust him with my life.”
Caroline glances over at me. I don’t know what to do. “You could stay with me,” I say, but the uncertainty is clear in my voice. “It’s not ideal, though.”
I want her surrounded by real life GI Joes. I’m clever and fast, but a bodyguard I am not.
She squares her shoulders. “I’ll talk to him. Let’s start with that. We can document the case at the very least, and making a random connection outside the division is low risk.”
Her logic makes sense. There would be no way it would make any sense for this Deacon person to be lying in wait for Caroline. And marshals have a better network of resources than the Horus Group does, at least on their own.
Jason has access to significant resources through his half-brother, but that relationship is complicated. “I agree,” I tell her quietly. “For what that’s worth.”
She squeezes my hand. “It’s worth everything.”
Two hours later, the cavalry arrives. Deacon Webb has a terrifying presence, a sharp machine of a man, and yet there’s something about him that is soothing and calming, too.
It turns out he and Caroline have a mutual acquaintance in common, a prosecutor in the financial crimes division out in California, and through that short handed code they immediately bond.
“We’ll keep her safe,” he promises me, and I believe him. “Nobody outside of my team will know we have her.”
Wilson works up a digital cover story that has Caroline in the hospital with appendicitis, then she makes a couple of carefully worded phone calls to people on her team. Exhaling after the last one, she puts her phone down on the table. “And if anyone was tracking those, they look like they came from the hospital?”
Wilson nods, then pockets the phone. “I’ll keep it charged and pinging off that repeater until we’ve found who did this to you.”
“Magic,” she says weakly. “Before we go, can I have a minute alone with Melinda?”
They nod and excuse themselves. She glances around the room. It’s almost certainly wired. I pull out my phone and play some dance music at top volume. She leans in, her lips right next to my ear. “If I don’t make it out of this alive, there’s a safe deposit box with your name on it.”
Fear wraps its fist around my throat. We don’t have time to dig into the why of that. We should have compared notes weeks ago, but she swore an oath to work within the law.
Taking a deep breath, I squeeze her tight. “That won’t be necessary. Now go and be safe.”
A shudder racks through her body, and she gets up. She doesn’t walk all the way to the door, though. She stops, her eyes wide. “We’ll get coffee soon, right?”
“A full night of drinks, I promise.”
She gives me a bittersweet smile. “Do you ever think, if maybe we had made a different decision back then…”
Every single day. “You’re going to be okay, Caro. I’m going to get him.”
I’m still waiting in the boardroom when Jason returns—alone.
“She’s off?”
He nods.
I turn back to the bank of dark screens on the wall. “You’ve had a tech upgrade in the last five years.”
“Some things have changed, yeah.”
I ran my fingers under the table, looking for the button to turn the screens on. “And some things have stayed the same.” I frown at the dossier there. It’s my own. “Not funny, Jason.”
“We’re nothing if not thorough.” He walks past the screens and waves at my headshot. “Although we don’t have many details on our newest client’s closest friend…”
“What other dossiers have you pulled for her case?”
“That’s classified.” He sits next to me. Close enough for me to see that he’s got a full day of stubble on his jaw now. Close enough that when he turns his gaze on me, I feel the full weight of his piercing blue eyes. “What do you know that you might want to add to the investigation?”
“Nothing.” My reply is instantaneous and truthful. I know very little. I have my instincts, and loose pieces that almost fit together, but nothing is sure right now.
“You know what I’m going to say. We can’t help clients who keep things from us.”
“I’m not your client,” I say softly.
“You’re her best friend.”
“And an investigator in my own right.”
Jason frowns. “That’s what concerns me.”
I change the subject. “Do you ever worry about having a conflict of interest between clients?”
“Yes.” A muscle twitches in his jaw. “Do I have a conflict of interest that you think I should know about?”
“That’s not my job.”
“What is your job, exactly?”
“We’ve been over this.”
“Did you go to journalism school?”
“What does Wilson say?”
“He tells me I should stop obsessively thinking about you.”
“Smart man.”
He gets up and paces. After a few silent minutes, he gestures toward the kitchenette. “I’d offer you something to eat, but it may not be up to your standards.”
I blink at him. “I don’t have standards.”
He frowns. “The bagels and muffins?” He groans. “Of course that was an act.”
“No, that was a job. And an act, sure, if we’re being literal. But aren’t all jobs acts on some level? I haven’t slept properly in a very long time. Most days, I run on coffee, salad, and sandwiches, all prepared by other people. Whatever you have is fine. A granola bar sounds grand.”
His hand clenches into a fist on the table. “How long has it been since you had a good meal?”
The night before I left Malibu. “A while.”
“Can I buy you breakfast?”
I should say no. I want to say no, but I want to say yes even more. And right now, I’m too tired to deprive myself of a good meal, even if it comes with complicated company. “Sure. Why the fuck not?”
He gives me a faint smile. “That’s the spirit.”
It’s early enough that when we arrive at a diner a block away, we have a booth to ourselves with a healthy amount of distance from any other customers.
The coffee is good and our food comes quickly, and Jason lets me refuel in quiet. It’s not until I slow down and put my fork down, my plate mostly clear, that he starts a conversation. “Yesterday, you asked me about PRISM.”
I’m genuinely surprised that he’s voluntarily returning to that subject. “Is this breakfast on the record?”
He doesn’t look amused. “Nothing is ever on the record between us. Got it?”
I roll my eyes. “Got it.”
“What do you know about it? Why were you asking?”
“I know enough, and it’s deep research for a story. You seemed surprised when I brought it up.”
“It’s not like they have Wikipedia page.”
“I spent years investigating Gerome Lively and Amelia Dashford Reid.”
“Is that what brought you here in the first place?”
“Here?” I glance around the diner.
“D.C.”
“The first time or the second time?”
“Now.”
I hesitate. “Yes.”
His eyebrows hit the roof. “Is that a little bit of truth that I hear, Ellie?”
I shrug. “If we’re trading information, it’s only fair.”
“I’m not the enemy here.”
“That remains to be seen.” I play with a sugar packet. “I know about the incriminating documents.”
His expression doesn’t change. “What documents?”
“If you don’t know, I’m not going to tell you any more than that.”
That gets me a small twitch on his temple. “You’re fishing.”
“I’m not. I know that there are many people implicated, and I also know there are bad actors floating false flag reports, too.”
That gets a bigger reaction. His jaw rocks to the side, then he leans in. “I’m very interested in that part of it.”
“Mayfair?”
“No comment.”
“Jason—”
“I can’t. If I could, I would. But let me make some calls later, while you sleep, and I’ll see if I can share more later today.” He gives me a charming grin. “Over dinner?”
“Two meals in one day is really asking a lot.”
“I’ll ask again after you get some rest.”
“I’m fine.”
“No heroics. So we’re going to keep going about our business like last night didn’t happen, but you cannot pursue any investigation without checking in with me first.” Jason catches my chin in his hand. “Can you do that?”
How am I supposed to know what will come up? “Sure. Yes.”
He doesn’t look like he quite believes me—smart man—but he accepts my answer. “Good. Who knows where you live?”
“Nobody.”
“You haven’t taken anyone home, even a total stranger?” When I raise my eyebrow at the question, he doesn’t back down. “I don’t care. I’m asking as a security specialist.”
“Nobody. Not even Caroline, although she knows I’m in her neighborhood. I—I got some death threats when I released my book. I was anonymous before that, but once those came in, to my publisher and my agent, we took extra steps. My home in California, this apartment…they’re rented by numbered corporations, which can’t be traced back to me.”
“That’s slick.”
“I take my privacy very seriously.” Even as I look at the bottom of my second cup of coffee, I realize I’m bone tired. And suddenly, I’m done with Jason not believing me. “Come on. You want to be the first person to know where I live?”
He throws some bills on the table to cover our breakfast. “After you.”
We loop back to his office to get his car and I give him the address.
He nods approvingly. “Good location.”
He repeats the sentiment once we park and I lead him in the side entrance and up to my apartment, which probably doesn’t look anything like what he thought his Ellie’s space might look like. I’m not her, though. I’m the girl with Spartan taste and few belongings. The bed is still rumpled from when I jumped out of it last night, but I don’t care. I’m more interested in showing him the view out my windows.
“See?” I grin. “Who would try to break in through the back, and get caught on camera by the US Navy?”
He moves in behind me to follow my pointing finger. “Smart.”
“I try.”
“You succeed.” He says it grudgingly, but there’s enough warmth in his words that I believe him.
He moves his attention from the view to the desk space in front of the window, and Monica. “And you have a plant. That’s properly domestic.”
I don’t tell him that I named the aloe vera. “It’s good for cuts and bruises.”
His gaze narrows. “Do you get a lot of those?”
“I joined a CrossFit gym.”
“Liar,” he mutters.
I shrug. “I have a brand and I like to be consistent.”
“Dishonesty?”
“With you? It has its benefits.” I have to keep him on his toes.
He swears under his breath. “I need to go back to the office. Can you promise me you’ll stay here and get some sleep?”
I’m going to fall into that bed the second he leaves. Not that he’s made any move toward the door. He’s still standing right next to me. “I’m working a story.”
“You promised—”
“Not Caroline’s story,” I burst out, pivoting so we’re facing each other. “Jesus Christ, Jason. I told you—”
“How am I supposed to trust—”
I cut him off with a furious kiss. I jam my mouth against his and my heart leaps into my throat. His lips part in surprise, a sweet, soft brush of still-familiar flesh, and I pull back. He glares at me, and that makes two of us that are struggling to process what I just did.
“I shouldn’t have—”
He’s the one to cut me off this time, his mouth hard and hungry against mine. His tongue seeks mine out, and our bodies have no trouble at all figuring out what comes next. My breasts swell, my nipples tightening, and I arch into his touch as he trails his fingers down my neck and across my fabric covered chest.
Yes, yes.
My hands reach for his hips, the tight muscles of his ass, and I pull him against my core. He’s hard for me already, and I rub against his erection.
He groans, his mouth on my neck now. “We can’t do this.”
“Obviously.” I wait a beat. “Your hand is on my tit, though.”
He tightens his fingers around my eager nipple. “What’s your fucking point?”
“It might seem that despite our agreed upon decision, we’re doing it anyway.” I shove him away, but he doesn’t get very far, because his other hand is tangled up the back of my shirt, palming my side.
He squeezes my flesh hard enough to make me gasp. Memories flash through my mind. The same sound, the same squeeze. Different time, different place.
Jason never fucked me in anger before. He always let me take the lead, and it was me that seduced him with cunning and ease. Surprisingly sweet, not-so-surprisingly effective. I liked him back then. I don’t like him anymore.
He’s proven himself kind—but I knew that. The thing is, I’m older now. Jaded. Brittle to the bludgeon of truth that it doesn’t matter how kind a man is if he’s also a criminal. A henchman of the worst sort.
A murderer—or at best, an apologist for murderers.
The biggest mistake I ever made was falling for him. I won’t do that again. But use him for some stress relief? I can do that. And it’s even better if he’s mean about it.
“I need a shower,” I whisper as he hauls me back into his arms.
“You think I fucking care about that after five years?”
I cry his name. He swallows it, then my next sound as well.
He grips my hair in a gentle fist and tugs us apart. Then he gives me the sternest fucking look I’ve ever seen. “I want you bent over the bed. That’s how I liked you best, remember?”
My thighs shake. I remember just fine. Never a bed, but he did like to bend me over his desk, plant one of his solid hands on my back to hold me down, and pound me from behind. I liked it, too.
“I want your ass in the air so high your pussy aches from being exposed to me.”
I always did like his filthy mouth. Both for the words it can string together and the way it moves against my skin. The chemistry between us hasn’t changed in my absence. If anything, it’s even more incendiary now than when I was his dirty little office secret.
But he wasn’t the only one keeping filthy lies to themselves.
He’s still not.
This is a terrible idea. I don’t care. He strips me naked and I crawl onto the bed, presenting myself to him shamelessly. I need this. I need an escape, I need to slither back into an old version of myself that could do this with wild abandon.
See me.
Want me.
Need me.
Take me.
Of course it’s not that simple. Tomorrow we’ll be at odds again, but right now, I’m a body in need of pleasure and Jason’s brand of punishing fucks delivers precisely what I want.
He swats lazily at my ass, then my thighs, wordlessly correcting my pose. I get a pleased squeeze when my cunt is shoved up enough, then his fingers slide between my eager wet folds.
I’m already soaked for him, a needy mess, but he doesn’t rush this part.
Fingering me was always Jason’s preferred foreplay. Sometimes it was the whole deal. He would get me off, then carry the scent of me on him as he went about his business.
I think it’s more than that, though. I think there’s something about putting his fingers inside my body that is even more intimate for him than fucking me with his cock. Right now, he’s behind me and I can’t see him, but I can imagine that he’s watching, hypnotized by the view of his fingers sliding in and out of my pink hole. Stretching me, taking up space where it literally didn’t exist until he pushed those thick fingers into my pussy.
It’s a head game for him. His fingers, a cunt he’s going to ruin with his cock. I feel tight around his fingers, however will his massive dick fit… But even as I mock that a little in my head, I squirm against his slow, thrusting digits. The head game works on me, too.
I love being destroyed by him. I love the way he stretches me and consumes me.
“Jesus,” he breathes.
And I realize the dirty talk had drifted away, that we were both just panting now. Needy, horny, and way too emo for my liking.
“Fuck me, Jason,” I breathe. He liked it when I used his name. I’m never above manipulating him for my own purposes. “I want to feel it. Make me feel it.”
He growls and rolls me over, roughly, then looms above me. He’s naked now, a beast of a man. Rippling muscles and a heavy, rigid cock. He has a condom on, and that’s all I can see—the club he’s going to impale me with, and oh how I’ve missed this. I’ve missed him. The realization ripples through me like a bladed shiver. It’s a dangerous thought. I can contain it, of course. I’m made of sterner stuff than melting desire. I can want Jason right now, savor all the horrible things he’ll do to my body, and still walk away.
I have to be able to walk away.
Missing him is just the price of having had him inside me.
I close my eyes and rock my hips up into his hands. Fuck me, I say, but it’s probably just inside my head. Maybe it would be better if we don’t talk, if I just give him my body to do with what he will.
I feel him drag his cock through my wetness, up to my clit, then back again to my entrance. I whimper in anticipation, then he thrusts, and I make the same sound again because the anticipation was accurate.
He’s so big, and it’s so good.
He fills me to the point of too much, until I think my skin might break apart from the sensations, and then he stops.
“Look at me,” he growls.
I roll my hips, urging him on. Fuck me. Take me.
He grips my face in his hand. “Look. At. Me.”
“Fuck me.” I say it out loud now, my eyes flashing open and grabbing his gaze. That’s the deal, that’s what we’re doing here.
“I need you to stay safe,” he growls. “And you can’t come until you promise me that you’ll do that.”
“Fuck you,” I spit. I can get myself off, I don’t need him for anything. Not that, not security. Nothing. “This isn’t why I kissed you. We make no deals.”
He rolls his hips and buries himself deep to the root again. “Come on,” he cajoles.
“Not like this,” I whisper. “Please.” Every emotion possible has spiraled through me in a hot second. Anger, sadness, fear, hunger. Happiness. “Don’t make this about something I can’t promise.”
“Ellie,” he groans.
“Just fuck me.”
He swears under his breath and thrusts his hips, but he’s holding back.
I want more. I want him to turn me into a pathetic, drooling mess. I want him to wring me out, leave me broken and haunted with good memories instead of bad.
I want, I want.
I can’t have.
This is it, this has to be enough. I need to let my guard down this once because I never can again. “This isn’t fair,” I mutter, and he laughs. Gently, and…lovingly, in a way. For Jason. I close my eyes, say a prayer, then look at him. “I’ll be as safe as I possibly can.”
He strokes my cheek as he moves again. “Who are you?”
“Just a girl asking a boy to get her off,” I quip.
He kisses me. I shudder against him and go as soft as I can, welcoming his tongue, his hands, his cock. All of him, in all of me.
I’m Ellie, I want to tell him. Part of me is still Ellie. But it’s so much more complicated than that, so I let it go and close my eyes again. I give in to the sensations of his body on top of mine, our first time in a bed.
Our last time, almost certainly. I don’t want it to end, and it doesn’t, not for a while. He fucks me like he knows it too, until the urge to come apart is too great and suddenly my orgasm is upon us. I clutch my limbs around him, grinding my clit against his pelvic bone as he thunders to follow me in climax.
When he falls beside me on the bed, I glance across him and out the window. We fucked through dawn, and now it’s bright out.
He scrubs a hand over his face. “I should let you get some rest.”
I could invite him to stay and sleep next to me, but I can’t handle what that would unlock. “I’ll triple chain the door after you leave.”
It’s the only acknowledgment of what he tried to make me promise during sex. He doesn’t reply.