Chapter Nine #2
“Oh, I assure you that you can, and you should if she does something that could get her killed. I’ve stopped my wife from doing things she considered her job, though I don’t think you’re there yet because you haven’t even played.
She’s been crazy about you for a long time and you’re both into forbidden fruit, but you haven’t spent a damn lick of time actually getting to know each other.
” Taggart sat back and looked a lot like a king on his throne.
“We know each other.” But did they?
“Oh, I’m sure you know each other in a biblical sense. I wish I wasn’t. But how many dogs did she have when she was a kid? Did she like school? How close is she with her brothers? What’s her nephew’s name?” Taggart peppered him with questions.
Questions he couldn’t answer. Even though he knew he’d heard the nephew’s name.
It started with a C, or was it a K like her and her twin?
He was the son of one of her brothers, but he couldn’t remember which one.
He was the one who should have worn a condom.
He could feel his face heating, but he needed to save this.
“We’ve talked. We would have talked a lot longer that night at Top if you hadn’t sent Dare in to distract me. ”
He watched Taggart to see if he would admit it.
The man simply shrugged. “She wasn’t ready to tell you, and we had to save her sister.”
“I would have helped,” he insisted. Would he feel differently if she’d reached out for his hand that night and told him her secrets? Would he feel more certain of her? Would he look at these people without suspicion?
“She wasn’t ready.” Taggart’s voice had gone soft. “Not then.”
“What changed?” He was a little worried he knew the truth, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about it. “Was it because Kala was injured and can’t go into the field?”
“You have to understand how careful they’ve been,” Cooper began. “How hard they’ve worked to get to this point.”
TJ sighed, his muscular arms crossing over his equally muscular chest. “What you have to understand is that they’ve pretended to be the same person for so long, I’m not sure Kenz knows who she is. I mean she knows but she doesn’t.”
“You are both a little brainless and extremely aware, TJ.” There was an odd approval in Taggart’s eyes.
“He’s right. Look, Kenzie and Kala have always been these odd shadows of the other.
They were completely different and also capable of shutting down and becoming one person.
I know everyone views Kala as the more difficult of the two, the darker one. ”
Cooper’s head shook. “Kala has always known who she is. Kenzie… I’m worried about her being out there without her sister. Kenzie is the bubbly one, the one everyone talks to.”
“Talks at,” TJ corrected. “Everyone unloads all their problems on Kenzie and almost no one knows what’s happening in her life.
She’s that woman. The one who seems to be the center of everything but is actually lonely even when they’re surrounded because no one asks the sun how it’s doing.
They simply expect her to shine. She doesn’t have a Lou. ”
“She’s never had a Lou,” Taggart said quietly.
“Kenzie has always had friends around her, but she’s never once had the kind of connection Kala found with Louisa Ward, and don’t think I don’t praise the day Boomer brought that kid into our lives.
I would trade all the friends Kenz had before for her to find one half as loyal and lovely as Lou.
She’s had her sisters, but she has to share them.
I’ve always known Kenzie’s best friend will be the man she falls in love with, but I worry she’s struggling right now and won’t be able to make proper choices and won’t have that one friend who could change her mind. ”
He’d had a friend and it wrecked his whole fucking life.
Ben took a long breath. He wasn’t going to let Manny in today.
Not now. He wanted to understand the gorgeous woman he couldn’t stop thinking about.
“How is she struggling because she seemed competent earlier today. Hence me thinking I’m kind of an asshole for considering spanking her.
She did take Gabby down, and she did it without harming her. ”
“And you can praise her while you spank her,” Cooper explained.
“Look, I would never tell anyone to discipline a woman or man who didn’t enjoy and choose to be disciplined, but after an op, you need a debrief and not merely about the intel collected.
If you’re involved, you both need to come down from the adrenaline and talk about how it made you feel. ”
Scared. Proud. More than a little hot. Outraged at the chances she took.
He admired her. “It’s hard for me to follow my instincts.”
“Because they were so very wrong once,” Taggart said slowly.
“Because you didn’t see the threat until it was far too late.
Benjamin, don’t let that man ruin your life.
It’s admirable that you want to hunt him down and bring him to justice.
But it won’t matter if you lose your soul while you do it.
Don’t sacrifice something that could be the best thing that ever happened to you.
However, you need to actually get to know her.
Spend time with her that doesn’t involve national security. ”
“You need to watch dumb movies and go to restaurants and share food and sleep in all cuddled up,” TJ said. “You need to know her.”
“I’m worried if you don’t know her, no one really will.” Cooper took a long drag off the beer he held. “Ask about her scars. Ask how she got them. You’ll be surprised, and it will tell you a lot about what she’s willing to do when she believes in something. How far she’ll go for her team.”
Her scars? She had several. They didn’t bother him at all. They were proof that she was smart and she’d survived. She was beautiful, and no marks on her body could make her less.
Was her father right? They’d fought and fucked and they had talked.
Shit. He’d talked. She’d asked him questions and he’d soaked up the attention. She knew what his favorite movie was. She knew he missed his mom’s meatloaf and wished he’d had siblings because he felt alone sometimes.
She seemed so perfect, so well put together.
He’d had to talk her down this morning. She’d been damn near feral.
There was a lot of rage under her happy, shiny exterior. But there was a problem.
“We’re on an op. An op that doesn’t exactly have an end date.
We’re going to be stuck in some tiny safe house living on top of one another.
How am I supposed to date her like that?
” He wasn’t sure there would be time after this op.
They would likely have to go their separate ways.
This was their best chance to see if it could work.
Taggart snorted. “Uh, you have your apartment.”
“Dude, The Garden is massive.” TJ looked enthusiastic again. “It’s like fifteen stories in the middle of London.”
“It’s six, and it’s not that amazing,” Taggart countered. “It’s barely even a club.”
That got his attention. “It’s a club?”
He didn’t have to ask what kind of club. He knew. When they’d told him they were going to London since their portion of the mission would be based in Europe, he’d envisioned a cramped brownstone or a cluster of tiny flats they would all have to share. He should have known.
Taggart nodded. “Yes, it’s a lifestyle club run by one of my business partners, a man named Damon Knight. Former MI6. And yes, I’ve already arranged for your Master rights. I might have already known where you trained and what your trainer thinks of you.”
Of course he did. He had no secrets from these people, but they kept everything from him. “And what is that?”
“He told me you were a responsible top, if a bit cold,” Taggart explained as though he hadn’t blown right past all boundaries. “I have my theories as to why you didn’t warm up to the subs.”
“Because they weren’t her,” Ben admitted.
He needed to be honest with the man. He would apparently find everything out anyway.
“I don’t know that I would have trained if I hadn’t met her.
It’s not that it doesn’t speak to me. It does.
I was surprised how much it did. But I trained so I could give her what she needs.
I won’t take another sub. If this doesn’t work out, I’ll be vanilla the rest of my life. ”
“So do you want to game plan?” Cooper asked. “Use this chance to run a real scene with her whether it’s private or public.”
“Private at first, but I’m open to moving into the public sphere of the club if she likes it.
” He knew she did. She’d walked him through her club, The Hideout, one night.
She’d worn a blue corset, and she’d looked so fucking delicious he couldn’t stand it.
Was she sad he hadn’t slapped her ass silly?
Had she been expecting it and he’d been remote because he couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that she could have died? “I have my own room?”
“Yeah.” Cooper ran logistics. He would know the layout and what they would need, and he would likely be the one to assign spaces.
“All the couples are together. Kenzie offered to bunk down with… I’m not allowed to say her name out loud or Kala will appear, and it’s a whole ritual.
I’ve been told it’s how Appalachian witches toss out demons. I’m worried that she knows that.”
Ah, so they were going to be working with Lucy Brooke Flanders. He’d witnessed some of the way Kala interacted with the young woman she called her nemesis.
Taggart stood up. “You and me both, buddy. If you are going to discuss scenes, then it is my time to join my wife.”
Taggart walked off and he was left with Cooper and TJ.
It was kind of nice to be one of the guys when the “guys” weren’t psychopathic narcissists. He’d held back, but it might be better to play this straight. To be honest with them. Let them help him. It could make them trust him more.