But it still didn’t make her status feel any higher up in his book. “Bad move on Chase’s part.”
“Yep.”
“Why would he send her C-4?”
“Besides to kiss her ass?” Jake hesitated. “Every one of our team brings something unique to the table.”
She sat on the blanket and took out her knitting. “Yeah? So? What’s so special about Blondie?”
“Have you heard the expression not the sharpest tool in the shed? Well, Kate is the sharpest tool in every shed, in every town, in the entire country. Kate is…a genius. A genius who makes bombs, in a nut shell. She’s working right now on explosive bullets and other evil scientist things. Someone was giving her a hard time about a C-4 shipment, so Chase made it happen.”
“Oh.” Tia felt even more shallow. Her image of Blondie as the traditional dumb blonde was just blown out of the water. The insecurity nagged at her, made her feel even more insignificant. She brought nothing to the table. “And this made her happy?”
“Immensely, I guess. Kate does love a good explosive.”
She assessed his golden sex appeal as he sprawled across the blanket and decided the conversation needed to be steered away from Blondie and how awesome she was. “And what do you bring to the table?”
“I have many skills, but Chase likes that I can go in anywhere. I can be as visible or invisible as needed, despite not being too bad-looking for a guy. That’s why Chase is the boss, you know. He is immediately recognizable. Memorable. Not a good thing for a spy.”
“He’s too pretty.” Chase was a gorgeous man, one who women immediately noticed and wanted. Everyone but her. Tia found Jake exactly to her liking, for a fantasy cover.
“Yep. But he’s a damned good boss. He notices everything, is always prepared, and has this sick sixth sense about intelligence resources.” Jake shifted and cocked his head. “You done being angry with me?”
“Yes. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to rip into you like that. I shouldn’t have told you my secret, either.”
“Honey, you can tell me anything. You needed to get that off your chest. It doesn’t change you from the woman I admire. Come here.” He patted his chest, and she crawled over and leaned against him. He put his arm around her, and they sat for a long moment, listening to the birds in the trees, his breathing even under her cheek. There wasn’t much of his skin showing. He had on a long-sleeved shirt, since the morning was still cool. But that didn’t stop his heat from warming her, beckoning to her.
He kissed her cheek and whispered, “You going to ever tell me why you can’t come properly, most of the time?”
Well, that took care of some of the heat. It wasn’t at all what she expected him to ask. “I came last night. Twice.”
“Yep. And we both know that’s not a given. That was the wedding sex talking. So what’s the problem?”
“I don’t want to go there.”
“Why not?”
“It’s not a pretty story.” She sighed, glad she didn’t have to look into his eyes at all. “I already told you one horrible story this morning. You don’t need another.”
“Most stories that are true aren’t pretty.” He stroked her hair in long, soothing strokes.
“No, but I’ve given you enough to think poorly of me. You don’t need more.” Maybe he did need more, though. If she pushed hard enough, he’d run. He’d leave. She didn’t know if she could take telling him, though. Too much pain, even for her.
“I’m already going be damned for eternity for all I’ve done, honey. I’d broken every important commandment but the adultery one until last month, and I finally trounced that last one right to hell. There’s not much you can say to shock me. And I’m sure as hell not going to judge you.”
“You didn’t commit adultery with her. Chase shared. It was legal in my book.” More legal than her adultery.
She felt him tense under her. “In my book, I committed adultery, and that’s the worst of my sins. So confess yours. You’ll feel much better.”
The idea of telling him, not to push him away but to make the pain go away, was intriguing. She hurt so badly again. Could she tell him? Could she trust him? She barely knew him out of bed, but she felt closer to him than she ever did to anyone else in her life. Would unloading this make her feel less pain, so she could suffer through the weekend easier? “I’ve never told anyone before.”
“Maybe it will help.” He wrapped his arms tighter around her, holding her closer.
She didn’t know if it would help, but what she finally hoped was, if she told him, he’d finally see who she was—what she was. If she told him, he wouldn’t want wedding sex any longer. That pain she definitely couldn’t handle. That was enough incentive in her book. “My mom wasn’t around much when I was a kid, you know? She…” She swallowed. She couldn’t tell him.
“It’s okay, Tia.”
His arm hugged her closer, and she found a little strength. “She was addicted to drugs, alcohol. And she was always out, getting high. She’d go through phases. She’d clean up for a bit, and my world was complete. She’d be the mom I was supposed to have. Dinner on the table, laundry done. Horseback riding lessons. But then she’d break up with a boyfriend or lose her job, and she would belong to the drugs again.”
“That’s a hard childhood.”
Tia shrugged, but she wished she were strong enough to agree. Yes, it was hard. When other girls dreamed of weddings, she dreamed of more of those days when her mom was sober and loved her. Those days were few and far between, especially as she grew older, and her mother saw her as a threat instead of a child. But it didn’t make what she did any better. “It’s no excuse.”
“Excuse me?” He stiffened a bit.
“It’s no excuse for what I did.”
He relaxed his tense muscles under her. “It’s probably nowhere near as bad as you think.”
Oh, it was every bit as bad as she thought it was. The thought of Jake seeing the real her terrified her less than the idea of more wedding sex, though. So she drew in a breath.
“When I was fifteen, she had this boyfriend. I thought he was a nice guy—very handsome. Dark-haired. Not too old—he was probably in his early thirties. He had a good job and offered her stability. He was nice to me. But then she got pregnant, and she lost the baby. And the drugs came back into our lives.”
“And?”
“And…” She swallowed and gritted her teeth. “Why is this so hard to face? I’ve killed bad men. I’ve conned more people than I can count in my lifetime, but I can’t tell you this?”
“It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me.” He kissed her forehead.
“But I do, because then maybe you’ll understand.” She sucked in a breath and decided to take the leap. “My mother loved me when she was sober, and sober didn’t happen often. She started hitting me when she was drunk, and the things she said…I know it was the alcohol, but those things stay with you.”
She shuddered at the remembered pain, the tears, her begging. Submission for her had started early, in a bad way. “She had already accused me of sleeping with him—her boyfriend. She told me I was nothing better than a whore, and how did I like taking her sloppy seconds? She never accused him—only me. I don’t even know if he knew, because he worked second shift when she was home, drinking.”
She trembled, and Jake smoothed the hair at her forehead.
“But one night, she went out, and he was home for some reason, drinking alone, so sad. I knew how he felt, and he offered me a drink, and I took it. After two, three drinks, I hugged him, just to say I was sorry, and he kissed me. I should have stopped him—he was my mother’s boyfriend for Pete’s sake. But I just wanted to be loved, you know? And I was already taking the heat for it.”
Her mind flew back to that night, and it was Billy’s arms around her instead of Jake’s, though he’d been shorter, less muscular. Still very handsome. She shook away the memory, wanting Jake again.
“I remember him kissing my lips, and how it hurt because she’d hit me and her ring had cut my lip. But I also remember how good it felt for him to kiss me, and that hurt, too. In a different way. That was my first taste of sadomasochism. She’d hit me because she said I was lying about having sex with him. That kiss convinced me that if I was going to do the time, I wanted to commit the crime.”
“I’m sorry, Tia,” he said, sounding so sad. She had expected anger, for him to jump up and leave right then, but he stayed. And held her.
“You asked when the last time I had vanilla sex…He was my last true vanilla sex. It was wrong, it was exciting, and I came with him the second time. And after, I felt so cheap and dirty. I had become the whore my mother accused me of being.”
Jake shook his head. “You weren’t a whore, honey. That was statutory rape. He was an adult. He shouldn’t have done that with you. He got you drunk and raped you, in my book.”
He just didn’t get it. “I had wanted him, Jake. Pure and simple. And the next time she went out, he came back for more. This time, I didn’t want to be second best, because he had said he loved her, and I was just easing the pain for him. But what he offered was too much for me to say no to. Even though I was trash, in his arms I felt beautiful, and the orgasm he’d given me was something I tried to give myself, and it hadn’t happened. I figured it was fate. So he made me come, again, and then my mother walked in, and the shit hit the fan, big-time.”
Jake pulled Tia closer, so sorry he’d taken her here, to these dark memories. Once again, he’d underestimated her. He had seen Tia as a tough, masochistic girl, a cold bitch at times, insatiable in bed. Now he saw her for what she was—incredibly brave. Strong. And so insecure. Now he knew why wedding sex scared her, because he had tossed something she felt unobtainable in her face.
He felt like an asshole, a schmuck. A dick. He kissed her cheek and closed his eyes on a realization, one that made his heart want to bleed for her. “He looked like Chase, didn’t he?”
He didn’t need to ask—he knew the answer already. That’s why she had gone darker with Chase. A part of him that wanted to love Kate suddenly jumped ship and swam to Tia’s side. Kate had said she didn’t need him, but Tia did. Tia needed someone on her side. She needed…him.
“Yes. He looked a lot like Chase. But Billy didn’t hurt me. I think I wanted Chase to do so, so I paid for what I did.”
Jake nodded. It was twisted, but it made sense to him. He was starting to see a pattern with her masochistic tendencies, why she sought out some pain. If she was anything like him, she ran just as hard from other kinds of pain. Like love.
“But why then? Why Chase, then?”
“Because I’d started tracking down my mother two days before, wanting to know what happened. Wanting to make amends. Billy, her boyfriend, called me that day to tell me she had died the week before. I’d been too late, by a week.” She bit back fresh tears, refusing to cry. So brave, his girl. “He basically wanted to hook up again, and I couldn’t stand the pain. So I turned to Chase.”
“Why would you run from that pain only to have Chase hurt you? I don’t understand.”
“I don’t know. I told you I was twisted. There are different kinds of pain, both physical and emotional. The few times I’ve come at all, it’s been because that pain was laced with the pleasure. I guess that kind of pain never laced that way when I had a man inside me, though I tried.”
But she had come with him. “I didn’t hurt you during wedding sex.”
“It hurt. Trust me.”
“Emotionally?”
She didn’t meet his gaze as she nodded.
Jesus, he’d never thought of it that way—that something so pure and beautiful like their lovemaking from last night would hurt her enough to make her come. Jake held her tighter, wishing he could take her pain—the bad kind. She’d experienced so much of it. “Where did you go, when you ran away?”
“I had some money saved, and I looked older than I was. I got a job at a bar, waiting on tables. The guy who owned the place was my first Dom. I saved more money, moved on, found another Dom… He was a bastard and got himself arrested—hard time—or I would have stayed with him.”
“Why? Did you love him?”
Tia swallowed. “No. He was…he was my seventh circle of hell. I thought I deserved to stay in that hell.”
Jake blinked, and bit his tongue to keep from asking. From what she’d already said, any circle of her hell would be absolutely terrifying for him. He’d taken her deep enough for one day. He would lead her off that mental path to hopefully something safer. Away from hell. “So then what?”
“I got my GED and went into the service because I wanted to go on to college, but I couldn’t afford it. And when I finished my deployment, I ended up sleeping with the right connections to become an agent. I fucked my way here. Pretty story, huh?”
“You didn’t fuck your way here.” He hated that she felt that way about herself. She had a shitty childhood that would drive anyone to extremes. He knew it all too well, the extremes one could be driven to, even though his childhood had started out just fine. “Chase hired you because you were good.”
“Maybe. But maybe he felt he owed me.” She shrugged.
“Chase doesn’t think that way.”
She shrugged again. “What do you think of your role-play wife now?”
He knew what she wanted him to say, and she was going to have to suffer the truth for a change. “I think she’s brave. I think she’s much harder on herself than she needs to be. I think she’s wonderful, beautiful, and special. And you deserve so much more.”
He rolled so he could look down at her, pinning her slightly. Her brown eyes glistened with unshed tears, and he marveled that she could keep them at bay this long. Maybe she had cried enough last night.
Jake stared down at her and what started as a niggle of fear escalated to full blown terror. Where would her next spiral lead her? If her last had almost left her dead in Chase’s arms, where could she go from there? She was his partner. His. And just as he’d been protective of Chase and Kate, and another agent, Charlotte, who he’d also helped out of a shitty life, that same drive for Tia now grew, flourished.
Jesus, he had to get her to stay on the right tracks somehow, because sexually, she was a freight train out of control. He had her now, but eventually she’d jump the tracks and leave him. What then?