“This is going to be awkward,” he warned as he touched her arm with a hand. It took all her willpower not to flinch. “But I can’t make you run home, to my house…” He hesitated, glanced away and then back at her. “I can’t introduce you to my wife worrying about what we did in the past. I need to know that we’re okay. More importantly, that you’re okay.”
She drew in a deep breath and lied, “Of course, we’re okay.”
“Why are you trembling, then?” He touched the back of her hand resting on the arm of her chair.
That gentle touch was like a brand she also felt at her throat. She pulled her hand off the arm and into her lap. “It was a long time ago, okay? You were in a bad place, and I was in a worse place.”
“They say time heals all wounds. Either there hasn’t been enough time or your wound is too big to heal.” He sighed and shifted, obviously uncomfortable. “I didn’t want to hurt you, and I thought I could just ignore this, but I can’t. Every time I look at you, I think of how you looked with my hands—”
“Don’t.” Her throat ached at the memory. She stared at her hands, at her empty ring finger. Jake had been so supportive and she believed when he said her past didn’t matter to him. One glimmering truth at least.
Chase sighed. “I have to ask, Tia. I feel like I should ask for forgiveness, but at the same time, I feel like you should be asking me for the same thing. Why did you drive me there? We never negotiated any of that. And that was my fault for not insisting. I was stupid to not have limits, and so were you.”
She looked up at him and flinched at the raw emotion in his eyes, lining his handsome face—worry, panic, pain. She knew the pain and wished she could take that away. She owed him that. “Yes, I was stupid.”
“Why? Why me?” Chase asked hoarsely. “Is that what you do with Jake? Is that what I heard on the phone?”
She thought of Jake setting her limits and shrank a little in her chair. Another truth. “No. Jake and I… We’re just kinky.”
“Then why me?”
“Because I’m a hard bitch and that’s what I like,” the tough girl in her said.
Chase didn’t buy it, not by the way he squared his shoulders. “You wouldn’t be with Jake if that were the case. Jake is wild, but he doesn’t go that direction, and usually, neither do I. Had you done that before?”
But it wasn’t censure in his voice, or judgment. Just a plea echoed in his deep-brown eyes to help him to understand.
There was no role to play to hide behind, no words to use to dodge him. She couldn’t run from this. Damn it, she had to give in and face what she’d done. Fuck Jake for being right.
“I’d never done asphyxiation. I’d done the rest.” She stared at her hands, horrified. Ashamed.
“Then why me? I need to know. Look at me, Tia.” His voice was soft but offered no other choice.
Heart hammering, she looked back into eyes as dark as hers, his face so damned perfect it made a woman want to pinch him to see if he were real. But that’s not why she chose him. “I chose you because you looked like someone from my past.”
Chase obviously thought some other reason, because surprise lined his face. “He’d done the other things then, to you? This…asshole?”
She shifted and her heart ached. Why couldn’t she have let Jake stay? As much as she hated Kate, she had to give the woman credit for being able to bear this man’s intensity. She squirmed. He waited patiently, expecting an answer.
“No.”
“I still don’t understand.”
“I—” Panic took her voice. She couldn’t do this, not with him. As much as she needed to pay, she felt so small. Shameful, a whore under his gaze. She wanted to curl up and just die. “Please don’t make me tell you any more of this. Please. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I only meant to hurt myself. Not you. Never you.”
Chase sighed and sat back in the chair. She didn’t dare look at him, fearing what he really thought of her. She expected him to bring the battle, to demand answers, but instead, he asked, “Does Jake know?”
She swallowed at the pity in his voice. “Yes.”
“Does he know the truth? All of it?”
She blinked back tears. Hard bitches didn’t cry. She hated Jake a little, for taking her armor. “Yes.”
“I can’t force you to tell me why. I want to, very badly. But I hope to hell you had a good reason. And if Jake knows, at least he can keep you safe.” His voice was sad, full of…caring? For her? Why?
But she knew why. Chase considered her Jake’s. That’s why this mattered after all of these years. It worked both ways. Blondie belonged to Chase, so Jake protected. And that’s what these two did. If she had these two men caring for her, every day, she’d fight for it, too. Just like Kate would. “I’m sorry.”
Chase cleared his throat. “Tell me you won’t be afraid to be in a room with me any longer. It was hard as hell bringing you into our division, knowing you were terrified of me. I’m taking a big risk, because you need to trust me when I send you out. I’m going to make you do things that push your limits as an agent, and I won’t always have the answers as to why until debriefing. I have to trust that you’ll do your job and not do something asinine. Jake is enough of a handful, as impulsive as he can be. I don’t need another rogue agent on my hands.”
Tia forced herself to look up and into his eyes. So dark, hard to read again, the emotions put back inside, where they belonged. Jake had said once she was hard to read—like this?
Talking diminished her fear of Chase some. She had no right to be afraid. “I’ll try not to be afraid. I realize it wasn’t you—it was the scene. I have regretted it every day, and I am sorry.”
He nodded. They sat quietly for a moment, and Tia sensed he wasn’t done. God, what else could he want?
“That brings me to another touchy subject.” Chase shifted in his chair again. “I won’t lie. I’m pissed at Jake right now. I hope to hell it doesn’t last and I’m wrong. But if you want to be a part of Jake’s life, unfortunately, Kate and I come with it.”
Yes, she knew that. Kate couldn’t be a hard or soft limit. Tia had to accept her if she wanted Jake. “Yeah. I’m so excited to meet your wife.”
“Believe it or not, she doesn’t want to meet you, either. She may not be talking to me, but I know how much this hurts her—you being Jake’s partner. I made her an agent, you now. I gave her this world, and then I took it away. And she idolizes Jake. At one time, I was her world, but Jake was…he was her moon if that makes sense. And you can’t stop the moon from ruling the tides.”
She could see that. The two of them moonstruck over each other. She hated Blondie and this magical hold she seemed to have over these two usually sensible men.
“I’m not going to lie, it sucks being second to the two of them at times. They share inside jokes and I’m sure some are about me, because I have to be the boss and I know they hate that. They’re friends—more than friends—and I know she doesn’t love him the way she loves me. But it’s still hard.”
Tia looked up at Chase then. Maybe befriending him could be beneficial. He was on her side of their twisted relationship. “Does she call you Jake?”
“All the time. And it’s not to hurt me most of the time—she is—was—with him so much, his name comes easier than mine, especially when she’s pissed. Sure, there are times where she will use Jake to get a rise out of me. But there are other times when she has no problem remembering my name.” Chase gave the hint of a smile, and Tia realized he was talking about during sex. “He’ll call you Kate if he hasn’t already.”
“He already has.”
“Welcome to my world.” He glanced at her, and she saw him as Kate and Jake must see him—without a mask. Just an incredibly handsome man, conflicted, in a chair. “You have to get over being afraid of me, Tia. When the smoke clears eventually, I will need an ally. Someone that can be on my side, because they gang up on me and I have no one. I need you to bat for me now and then. What do you say?”
“I don’t know about that.” She wanted to be his ally more than anything, because that would mean Jake was hers. “We’re done romantically, because I can’t be more than his partner. Not if I want to do my job well.”
“I told him a weekend away was a bad idea.” Chase’s brow furrowed. “If you’re uncomfortable, I can change you after this next assignment. I need you to stick it out with him for another month, so he can train you. And then I can make it easier on you.”
“I can handle it for now.” She felt a little mean for calling her old boss about the European position. She should tell Chase now, but she’d wait until tomorrow. Or maybe…she should stop running there, too. And just suck up and deal as Jake’s partner.
Chase smiled, and she could see exactly why Kate loved him—he was breathtaking. “You should get going. Thanks for talking to me.”
“Thank you. And I’m sorry.”
Sorry for hurting him, sorry that he’d always be second best, like her, to Jake and Kate. Sorry she’d never be his ally.
Sorry she couldn’t give in.
****
Jake and Tia walked the length of the driveway to Chase and Kate’s home after a fairly easy ten mile run. It’d been unsettling to watch Jake run in front of her as he lead the way. He was so damned hot, his ass so hard, and Tia had a hard time not picturing her fingernails digging into those firm globes as he fucked her.
And that right there was unsettling all on its own, because she should still be ripping mad at him. She didn’t want to think about sex with him last night. Or any night. He was a liar.
His ass beckoned again, rounded in blue jogging pants. Okay, maybe she wasn’t being fair. Maybe it had been his safeword, but for Christ’s sake, she didn’t believe him. Paris. Fucking Paris. Images of Jake and Chase danced in her mind, the two so gorgeous. She knew how they both kissed, and she fused that feeling, wondering how either could kiss the other and not go bi.
No wonder they were so close, why Chase would listen to Jake’s phone sex without batting an eye, why Jake would run to do Chase’s bidding while on vacation. Why Jake was pounding out the miles so his best friend could trash his ass over his wife.
She glanced at Jake. He was sweaty but barely winded. Tia was impressed with how Jake took everything in stride. When she had met him in the parking lot after her meeting with Chase, he hadn’t asked more than if she was okay, respecting the boundary that Monday had put in place. Then he’d handed her running shoes, and away they went.
Damn him, he was sweaty, but not as bad as she. He couldn’t have kept fit like that just fucking her over the weekend. She glared, realizing that once again, she’d been conned. “You lied—you did run this weekend, didn’t you?”
“Yep.” Jake gave her a small smile.
“When?”
“I have a treadmill in the basement. I ran when you went out or when you thought I was doing something else.”
“Because you knew he’d do this.”
Jake shrugged. “I didn’t know, but I fear the wrath of the Lord of the Spies. As should you. Rule one—wear jogging pants and sneakers to any meeting that has nothing to do with debriefing.”
“You’re an ass. You lie about everything, don’t you?”
“Yep. It’s another plus I bring to the table. No morals.” He led the way through the open three-car garage—Chase’s SUV was parked outside while inside were nestled a red sports car, a non-descript compact car, and another truck like Jake’s, only in a deep blue.
“I told you to put sneakers on this morning before we left, and you flipped me off,” Jake reminded her.
“You could have said why.”
He grinned. “Now where’s the fun in that?”
They climbed the three steps, and Jake used a code on the keypad. They entered into a mudroom. He paused and looked serious for a change. “I didn’t lie about the important stuff. Like loving you.”
She gaped. What could she say to that?
He sighed, wiped his feet on the mat, and went into the main house. “Kate?” he hollered. “Chase?”
They passed through the kitchen—the biggest, most well-equipped kitchen she’d ever seen—and into a very formal, elegant foyer with a sweeping staircase.
“Jake?” Blondie was at the top of the stairs, peering over the balcony. Her perfect face lit up, and she tore down the stairs, a hot mess in baggy, ripped sweats and an old shirt. Her blonde hair was half in a ponytail, half out. Usually women dressed for women. Either Kate didn’t know she was coming or didn’t care. Either way, Tia wanted to spit green envy at how beautiful she was.
“Easy, sweetheart. You’ll fall,” Jake said on a laugh. His look was one of deep fondness, and he was as eager to see Blondie as she was to see him. But he looked at Tia, as if asking permission for whatever Blondie was about to do, and she shrugged. Go ahead. What did she care?
Blondie looked like she was going to launch herself into Jake’s arms, but she stopped a good ten feet away and stared at Tia, hesitant. “May I?”
Tia shrugged, shocked she’d even ask. Maybe Blondie thought possession was nine-tenths of the law, too. Then Blondie launched, baggy sweatpants and all, into Jake’s arms. He held her tightly, his eyes closed, one hand on the back of her head, the other around her waist. Tia pictured them taking that next step—Kate wrapping her legs around Jake’s waist, Jake tugging down her sweatpants and riding her hard, like he’d ridden Tia all weekend. But instead, he kissed Blondie’s cheek and set her down. And it thrilled Tia to no end to see he wasn’t the least bit aroused.
Jake glanced warily over Kate’s shoulder, back up the stairs. “I don’t know if that greeting was a good idea.”
“He’s downstairs, and I’ll greet you how I want. I have nothing to hide. You’re my best friend, and I missed you.” Her hand was still on Jake’s shoulder as she turned to Tia. “I’m Kate.”
“I gathered.”
Jake glanced down at Kate. “You look like hell. What have you been doing?”
“Electrical stuff,” she said with a shrug. “He won’t let me do what I want out of the house, so I’m doing stuff that I want in the house.”
“You’re too thin.”
Tia had to agree on that point. She didn’t know Kate, but she looked lighter than her wedding photos and more stressed. She had dark circles under her eyes as well. Tia frowned. Perhaps Blondie wasn’t so perfect after all.
“I’ll fatten up. Give me a couple of months. Chase has his zygote on a special diet. God forbid the mother ship not follow it.” She shrugged again. Then she looked at Tia and back at Jake. She touched the back of his hand, still at her waist. “He’s downstairs. He knows.”