Chapter 16
Ethan
My mind kept looping and spinning in wild circles as I lay in bed, dazed and confused, with that stunning, enigmatic girl in my arms. The contact with her skin was thrilling.
I kept pulling her close to feel the rush again, all along my side, my arm around her shoulder, her silky hair coiled up against my neck, tickling my nose.
It didn’t matter how many times we’d had sex. One fresh squeeze or stroke or caress, and my dick just sprang up for more, more, more.
Like it was doing now, but I ignored the impulse so I could think. Something at which I usually excelled. But it was hard to think straight around Kat Banner, woman of mystery, object of extreme desire, because I kept getting derailed by feelings about her. And that fucked up everything.
I was ninety-nine percent convinced that she was not a honeypot spy. If she’d wanted to hurt me, she’d had many opportunities, with me naked and dozing.
She hadn’t. She’d cuddled me, and dozed herself. Boneless, relaxed. She would have to be skilled sociopathic liar to put on a show like that, and I was dead sure she wasn’t. She was passionate, intense. On fire with fierce integrity.
I was inclined to trust her. To believe what she told me. Maybe I was a dickhead idiot, but fuck it. I still had to figure out what her problem was, and how I could help her solve it. Letting her walk away wasn’t an option. Nicole’s people would kill her.
I wasn’t going to let that happen.
If that involved throwing my weight around and making her hate me, then so be it.
If I had to violate her precious privacy to figure out who the fuck was gunning for her, so be it.
In any case, I would lose her. That part was inevitable.
But me, taking care of business? That gave her a fighting chance to survive. That was all that mattered.
That was how my reasoning went. No point in sharing it with her because she didn’t know how to lean on anyone. Still. Making her hate me was going to suck.
This past night had been like nothing I’d ever imagined.
There had been a completely different woman in my bed than the one I had expected.
I thought I’d be in for a hot, stimulating romp with a confident, athletic woman who knew exactly what she wanted.
But once I sneaked past her enormous defenses, I had found the opposite.
Kat had been so open to me. So vulnerable, astonished by pleasure, overwhelmed by emotion.
Touching her was like hanging on to raw electricity.
I’d spent the whole time doing a balancing act on the extreme far edge of my self-control, terrified of hurting her, scaring her, or triggering her defense system.
And now, as dawn slowly lightened the sky, I was becoming fully aware of what I held in my arms. She was precious, rare. She’d forged herself into a magnificent weapon, at the expense of everything else that life could give her, and she had never complained, because complaining was for losers.
I was as vulnerable to her now as she was to me, which was inconvenient and dangerous. But whatever wrenching emotions I was going through, it didn’t change the plan. I just had to grit my teeth and fucking do it, already.
Just then, she shifted with a murmur, and turned onto her side, snuggling back so that her ass pressed against me. The effect was just about what one would expect. A frantic hunger to fuck her once again.
I figured I might as well. It was the last chance I was going to get, before the inevitable storm hit. The little voice in my head was self-serving and cynical, but true.
I stretched out my arm and groped for another condom, and swiftly suited up.
Then I rolled onto my side, guiding my stiff, aching dick up into the juicy cleft between her thighs.
We had drifted off to sleep together right after the last time, and lucky for me, because she was wet enough to take me inside with no elaborate preliminaries.
I slid my hand around, caressing her clit, and she woke up with a gasp, stiffening. “Oh, my God.”
I didn’t answer, just kept petting her. She trembled in my grip, but after just a few minutes, she was moving against me, opening to me.
I rolled her over so she was flat on her belly, me on top, writhing and gasping and eased inside her.
Slow, sensual pumping thrusts. She tried to speak, but the sound kept breaking off into tiny, whimpering pants as I moved inside her, sliding my hand around to work her juicy little clit, and tease it.
Petting, circling, two fingers, whole hand…
I made her melt around me, releasing more lube. So slick, so hot.
I brought her off twice, freezing in place and doing that breathless balancing act so I wouldn’t climax too soon, not even while her hot little hole squeezed and clenched around my dick, not even while she sobbed her pleasure into the pillow.
And as soon as she caught her breath, I lifted myself, gripped her hips, and tugged them until her legs folded and she was on her knees.
Then I sank my cock into her again, with a wrenching groan.
It was so fucking good, those hot sliding strokes, feeling her gasp, seeing her brace herself, jolt down to her elbows, ass in the air.
I cradled her clit between my fingers, squeezing gently around it. “I’m going to come,” I said. “Come with me.”
She laughed, her mouth muffled against the pillow. “This may come as news to you, Masters, but there are some things you can’t command.”
“Yes, I can,” I said, lifting up the hood of her clit and squeezing it tenderly as I swiveled my cock inside her. “This, I can. You’re right on the edge, and I want to fly with you. I’ll just keep on fucking until you give me what I need. One last time. I go for that.”
“Damn it,” she muttered, trembling violently with excitement. Fighting it.
“I want it,” I repeated. “Give it to me.” I was abandoned to instinct, no more thought, no more strategy. Just my naked soul, demanding that intimacy with my body. Pleading, devouring, desperate to have it.
When she gave in, it was the deepest, most wrenching orgasm yet. She cried out, pulling me with her into an explosive joining outside of time and space, where we were our essential selves. No lies. Just light.
But we came back to earth soon enough. I opened my eyes and felt her beneath me, still shaking.
I slid my cock out of her, rolling onto my side.
She pulled away and sat up. “What the hell was that all about, Masters?”
“That was amazing,” I told her. “You came like a supernova.”
“That was master-and-commander sex,” she said. “It was weird. Controlling.”
“Maybe, sort of,” I conceded. “Worked for you, though.”
“That is not the point,” she hissed.
“No? Oh. My bad. Sorry.”
“Screw you! You cannot be flip about this!”
I just shook my head. I had no excuse. I had nothing to say for myself.
She made a growling sound under her breath and slid out of bed. “This is the catch,” she said. “I was wondering when it would show up.”
“What do you mean? What catch?”
“You,” she said. “You’re all sweet and charming all night long, and then in the morning, the truth comes out. You’re actually an asshole. I don’t know why I’m surprised. Just stupid, I guess.”
Here it came. Better sooner than later. “I just wanted to make you come again,” I said. “You’re just angry because you liked it. Get over it.”
“Fuck you, Masters.” She stalked into the bathroom, set the shower running.
I got my clothes, the shirt, suit, and tie. Had to look the part for the lunch with Senator Brickell. I grabbed socks and shoes, and took them to the next bathroom down the hall to shower. The least I could do was to give her some privacy.
I got ready, swiftly and methodically. Shower. Shave. Clothes. Thinking of when I broke it to her that she was going nowhere today made me tense. I’d lied about that. Which was bad. Betraying her trust was a deeply shitty thing to do.
But it might keep her alive for another day, so I was unrepentantly doing it.
Angela had prepared an extensive breakfast buffet.
Grilled sausage links, fresh eggs Benedict, lemon walnut blueberry muffins right out of the oven, fresh squeezed orange juice.
Despite my funk, I was hungry, and I did full justice to it.
Mick walked in, a file in his hand. “I did that background check you asked for yesterday,” he said.
“Let me see it,” I held out my hand.
He slapped the file into it.
“Did anyone come to her home, or to the martial arts school over the night?”
“Not that we could see, but they might have gotten there before we did, or opted for electronic surveillance,” Mick said.
“She never showed, so why expose themselves? I wouldn’t.
I’d stick a camera in a tree. They know she’s with you.
They won’t make it easy for us. I bet they’ll move in a hurry if she comes back, though. ”
I frowned. “Jesus, Mick. I hope you’re not suggesting I use an innocent young woman as bait.”
Mick laughed under his breath. “A woman who fights like that? How innocent can she be?”
I thought about last night, in bed. The pure flame she burned with in my arms. Innocent as the dawn. Like nothing I’d ever felt.
But that was none of Mick’s damn business. “Keep digging,” I said.
Mick’s gaze slid to the door. I looked behind me, and saw Kat in the doorway. Her wet hair was combed back, her color high, lips a gorgeous hot pink, eyes blazing.
Fuck, she was beautiful. Mick was dumbstruck. There were a few silent seconds.
“Good morning,” I offered. “Want some breakfast? Angela outdid herself.”
Kat’s gaze snapped onto the file in his hand. “Is that about me? Let me see it.”
“This doesn’t concern you,” I said. “Coffee?”
“No, I do not want your fucking coffee.”
Mick gave me a nervous look. “Should I, uh, go?”
“No,” I said. “Stay right here. I have to take off in a few minutes if I want to get to that press conference.
“Good. I’ll go get my coat and bag,” Kat said.
“Not you,” I said. “You’re not going anywhere. Just get some breakfast.”
She sucked in air, eyes widening with outrage. “What? You asshole! All that stuff you said last night was bullshit?”
“Only the part about you leaving today,” I told her. “The rest of it was as non-bullshit as I have ever been in my entire life.”
“You can’t keep me here!”
“The same thing I told you yesterday holds true today,” I said. “If I let you loose on the streets of Seattle, anywhere at all, you’ll be dead in a day, and I am not okay with that. Therefore, for now, you stay right here. I’m sorry it upsets you.”
Kat crossed her arms over her chest. “That’s how you get off? I should have known. The captive sex slave vibe? That’s your kink? Because I won’t play.”
I took the final swallow of my coffee, and slammed down my cup hard enough to make both her and Mick flinch. “We’ll discuss the captive sex slave issue at great length when I get back,” I told her.
“The hell we will, dickhead!”
Mick made a desperate sound under his breath. “Ethan, I don’t want to hear this. Can I go?”
I ignored his pleading. “Mick here, plus three more extremely competent ex- special Forces soldiers, will guard you while I’m gone. I’ll be back in the evening.”
“Sweet Jesus,” Mick murmured.
“I will leave,” she said. “You can’t keep me here.”
“Yes, we can, and no, you will not be allowed to leave. You can go wherever you want inside the complex. You’ll have every comfort.”
“What I need is to order a car and disappear!”
“That option is not on the menu. Use my library, watch TV, use any computer. Just click on the guest account icon, and use the words ‘trusted visitor’ plus today’s date as the password. Full disclosure, though. Everything you write or click on will be monitored in real time.”
“I’ll call the police,” she said.
I smiled. “No, you won’t.”
Her lips tightened, and I knew I’d called it. Whatever her secret problems were, they weren’t problems she could share with the cops. Which suggested many interesting possibilities, but no time for that now.
I walked past her on my way outside. “It’s just a few hours,” I said. “Please don’t hurt my staff while I’m gone. It would be unfair. Save it all for me.”
“No promises,” she said.
I didn’t look back as I beckoned to Mick. “Walk me out to the car.”
I waited until we were outside before waving the file. “So? What did you find?”
“Not much,” he said. “All the stuff she told you about San Diego, the mom, the dojo, it checks out. But it’s thin.
Thinner than a real girl living a normal California life.
It’s thin here in Seattle, too, in my opinion.
I mean, she’s here, she’s on record as having a degree from UCSD, there are records of her living and working in San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, various jobs.
Six years ago, she settled here, rented this dumpy little place in Rainier Beach, and started teaching martial arts to women and girls.
She temps occasionally, as a secretary, a paralegal, a receptionist. Won a few championship titles for karate, judo, aikido.
But there are no pictures of her. Not on the dojo website, not on any social media platforms. She’s like a ghost.”
I took the file. “Keep digging,” I said. “And watch out for her. She’s extremely dangerous if she wants to be.
“Yeah, I heard.” Mick looked pained. “Wrangling this girl is your job, Ethan, so get your ass back here as soon as possible to attend to it.”
“Absolutely,”’ I promised.
Trey and Cade were waiting for me in the helicopter, which was ready to go. I got in, strapped in. Trying to justify and re-justify my decisions to myself.
So fucking ironic, to find a woman who blew my mind, and then be forced by circumstance to make her hate my guts. The last thing I wanted was to betray her.
No, that was the second to last thing.
The last thing was to find out my enemies had slaughtered her.