Chapter 6 #2
Maintaining his cover and not piling trauma upon trauma onto the poor women who found themselves victims of Azure was always a balancing act, but so far, he’d managed to maintain it, and he would keep doing so no matter how badly he’d love nothing more than to haul this gorgeous woman into his arms and spend hours learning every curve of her sweet body.
But not like this.
Never like this.
“I’m showing you I'm thankful for the meal,” she said. Her voice wobbled slightly, but she jerked her chin up in defiance.
“You don’t need to thank me,” he told her, and he meant it.
There was zero need for her to offer thanks for this minuscule amount of common human decency.
He was the one who owed her a lifetime of apologies.
Maybe he wasn't responsible for her being there, and he’d done everything he could to mitigate the damage, but he could figure out a way to get her out if he really wanted to, and he hadn't.
Wouldn't.
Couldn’t.
Not if he wanted to ensure he maintained his cover, and that had to remain paramount no matter how much this particular set of ocean blue eyes was getting to him.
That chin of hers jutted out another inch, that now familiar spark of defiance and fight lighting in her eyes. “I know what I'm doing. I'm making the choice to show my appreciation.”
“Oh, blondie,” he said sadly, palming her cheek and sweeping his fingertips across her temple. “You can't consent to anything right now, can't make any choices, not while you're being held against your will.”
Frustration all but bubbled out of her, and tears swam in the depths of her beautiful eyes, but he knew without her having to tell him that they were tears of anger and helplessness, not of defeat and fear.
“Then what do you want with me? Why are you doing this? Why do you keep being nice to me? I don’t understand.
I know why I'm here, I know that your friends are trying to break me, but I don’t know what you're trying to do.”
His fingers tightened against her skin, almost to the point of bruising. “Not my friends, blondie.”
“Colleagues then. They’re here, you're here, you're not in a cage like me and the rest of the women. That means you're on the same side as them.”
Actually, that couldn’t be more untrue, but he knew he couldn’t tell her that.
Wanted to, though.
More than he ever had before. There was zero reason this woman should mean anything more than any of the others.
He wanted to save them all, hated that they suffered, that they were paying the price for the greater good, even though they hadn't willingly signed up for any of this, but the thought of Emma being sold left him barely able to breathe.
“You keep telling me to stop fighting, that’s what I'm doing. I'm giving you what you want.” Her fingers, which were still resting against his thickening erection, began to stroke him, and without thinking, Nathan snapped out a hand, circled her wrist, and yanked it away.
Just because he was wildly attracted to Emma Beaumont didn't mean he intended to do anything about it. What he’d said was true, even if she thought she was doing this because she thought she had to, even if she thought she was in control of her choices, she wasn't. Couldn’t be.
Kidnap victims couldn’t consent to anything.
“You don’t want my hands on you?” Emma asked uncertainly. He got that from her point of view, he was probably giving her whiplash with his seemingly contradictory actions, but he was offering her all he could. “My mouth?”
When she dipped her head toward the tent in his pants, his length jerked in anticipation, obviously not having gotten the memo that this wasn't a partner but a victim who was trying to … do whatever the hell she thought she had to in order to survive.
“Don’t,” he ground out, harsher than he’d intended, but she was testing his control. If she was trying to make him be the one to snap, she was doing a damn good job of it.
“You don’t … want me?” There was a vulnerability in Emma’s voice, and he got that they were dangerously close to developing some sort of sick, twisted Stockholm syndrome-type situation.
Since he still held her wrist, he yanked her hand back to his crotch and placed it over his length, which jerked immediately. “Feel like I don’t want you, blondie?”
“Then why?”
“Told you. You can't consent.”
“I didn't think my consent was necessary here. In fact, I thought my lack of consent was the entire point.”
“Necessary to me,” he growled. Nathan had never touched a woman sexually who wasn't a one-hundred percent willing participant, and he didn't plan on changing that now, no matter how badly his body craved Emma’s touch. He’d done some terrible things in his life, been forced to in the name of justice, but not this. Never this.
“You're very confusing,” Emma said, her brow furrowing into the cutest little frown.
“And you're adorable,” he shot back, brushing his thumb across the crease on her forehead.
“Adorable, but not … sexy?” she asked, and her cheeks heated. Did she want him to think she was sexy?
“Don’t get hard like this from adorable alone, blondie,” he told her, pressing her palm into his crotch before abruptly releasing her. He needed to get away from her before he did something he couldn’t take back, before he took advantage of this brave, strong, incredibly foolish woman.
“Then let me make you feel good.” Taking advantage of his distraction, she jerked herself out of his hold and sat herself down on his lap.
Her naked center ground against his erection, and before he could shove her off him, she had her lips pressed to his in a kiss that seemed to sear itself into his soul.
It would be so easy to fall headlong into this earth-shattering kiss.
But it would be wrong.
Would shatter any last shreds of decency he had left in him. Working undercover meant leaving your pride at the door, leaving your self-respect behind, immersing yourself in a world you hated, and accepting that it would blacken your soul.
Only having Emma’s lips on his felt cleansing in a way he thought he’d never feel.
“No.” Somehow, he clung to control and pulled himself back before he let her take this any further than it had already gone. There was no way he was going to be a monster who raped her, because that was what it would be, even if she thought she was making her own choices.
Breathing hard, her gaze searched his. “You really don’t want me? Even if I'm offering myself to you?”
Aching to be gentle with her, to frame her face with his hands, caress her soft skin, he couldn’t.
Now that she was on his lap, she was in full view of the camera, and they’d catch the intimate gestures.
So instead, he gripped her hips and held her pressed against him, a punishment of sorts for himself for letting things get as far as they had.
“Don’t want you like this,” he admitted softly. “Not when you can't consent, not when you don’t really want me, not until—” Nathan broke off abruptly before he could admit to his true role in Azure, and put them both in a whole world of danger.
“Until what?”
She was right to ask that question. Did he really think that when Emma learned the truth about him, she’d really want him?
Even if he was undercover, he’d still participated in her humiliation and torture.
She’d hate him, even if she could understand.
Even if she could forgive him and see him as something other than one of her tormentors, he had no idea how long it would take to find what he needed to bring down Azure, and he couldn’t expect her to wait.
Lifting her off him, he set her on her feet. “Go back to your cell, Emma.”
“But—”
Bringing his hand down on her bare backside with a firmness he hadn't used the day before, he made her yelp and dart away from him.
“Now. Don’t make me have to punish you,” he said, firming his voice. He had to get a handle on this attraction to her. It was too dangerous, and he hadn't come here, devoted months of his life to this job, just to have it all fall apart because he was thinking with the wrong head.
Yet as he watched Emma scurry toward the door, her hurt eyes glancing at him before she hurried through it, all he wanted to do was throw away all the responsibilities he shouldered daily and drag her into his arms, promising her the world.