Chapter 13
Tate
The study door clicked shut behind Stella, and I sat there like an idiot, staring at the empty doorway where she’d walked through just seconds before.
I want to go to The Players Club with you.
She had no fucking idea how badly I wanted to do exactly that.
I scrubbed a hand over my face, letting out a long breath.
The image of her standing there—chin lifted, eyes blazing with defiance, that stubborn set to her jaw that drove me absolutely insane—was burned into my brain.
She’d looked like a woman who’d made up her mind about something, and God help anyone who stood in her way.
Including me.
But I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. Right now, Stella was a client. My responsibility. And I wasn’t going to be used as a form of rebellion against her parents, no matter how much I understood the impulse. No matter how much I wanted to give her exactly what she was asking for.
I thought about what it could cost me. My job. My reputation at Noble and Associates. Everything I’d built since leaving the military—the careful, methodical reconstruction of a life that made sense, that had rules and boundaries and clear lines that weren’t supposed to be crossed.
Sutton had trusted me with this assignment. Stella’s parents were paying a fortune for my services. And here I was, contemplating throwing it all away because a beautiful woman with fire in her eyes had demanded I take her to a sex club.
But you want to.
Christ, did I want to.
Her insistence had lit up something dark inside me. That part I kept caged and controlled, the part that wanted to push back, to challenge her, to ask if she really knew what she was getting herself into.
You want to see what you can handle, sweetheart? Trust me, I can show you...
The thought sent heat pooling low in my gut. I pictured her at the club, not as she’d been that first night, curious and tentative, but as she was now. Demanding. Defiant. Deliberately provoking me.
I pictured chasing her through the maze. Catching her. Pinning her down and—I cut the thought off before it could fully form.
She’d be horrified if she knew. If she understood the specific nature of what I craved. The hunt. The chase. The primal satisfaction of pursuing and capturing. The consensual non-consent that walked such a razor’s edge between fantasy and something much darker.
It was difficult to explain to someone who didn’t already understand those urges. And Stella, for all her bravado, for all her insistence that she could handle whatever I threw at her—she didn’t know. Couldn’t know. Not really.
So yes, it was better to keep my distance. Better to let her hate me for being overprotective than to show her exactly what kind of monster lived beneath my carefully controlled surface.
* * *
I avoided her for the rest of the afternoon.
It wasn’t difficult. The house was large enough that we could exist in separate areas without crossing paths.
I heard her moving around upstairs occasionally, the soft sounds of footsteps and doors opening and closing, but I stayed downstairs. Stayed in my fucking lane.
I ate dinner alone in the study, some leftover pasta I’d reheated in the microwave, barely tasting it. The food sat heavy in my stomach, or maybe that was just the guilt.
Afterward, I did a perimeter check. The evening air was cool and I walked the property line slowly, checking the fence, the gates, the motion sensors. Everything was secure. Everything was exactly as it should be.
So why couldn’t I shake the feeling that something was about to go very wrong?
I went back inside and settled at the desk in the study, rechecking the security on my laptop. Multiple screens showed feeds from cameras positioned around the property. Front gate—clear. Driveway—empty. Side entrances—nothing. Back yard—
Something had moved. A flicker of a shadow at the edge of the frame, there and gone so fast I almost thought I’d imagined it. I frowned, rewound the footage, and watched it carefully. And then I saw it.
There. A figure, darting across the backyard in the darkness. Moving fast, staying low, heading away from the house toward the back wall. And the way they moved, the feminine gait, the height and build...
A suspicion formed in my mind. Cold and certain and absolutely fucking infuriating.
From my laptop, I quickly accessed the back door I’d installed on Stella’s phone.
I’d set it up almost immediately after taking this assignment, not to invade her privacy, but to keep her safe.
To vet any texts or calls that might indicate a threat.
Standard protocol for high-risk protection details.
Her recent messages loaded, and I scrolled to the most recent conversation, which was with Melissa. The friend who’d taken her to The Players Club the night we met.
Stella: Hey, think you can get me into the club again tonight?
Melissa: Sure thing! What time?
I didn’t bother reading anything else, knowing that figure on the screen wasn’t an intruder. It was Stella. Sneaking out of her own house like a goddamn teenager, cutting through the neighbor’s yard to avoid the front gate.
To go to a sex club. Without me.
Beyond furious, I was out the door before I’d consciously decided to move, sprinting across the darkened yard. Ahead of me, I could see her—a shadow scaling the back wall, her movements quick and agile despite what had to be a completely impractical outfit for wall-climbing.
“Stella!” I hissed into the darkness, but she was already over, dropping down on the other side.
What the fuck was she thinking?
I reached the wall and hauled myself up and over. The neighbor’s property stretched out before me, a massive yard, easily the length of a football field, with the main house dark and silent in the distance. No lights. No movement inside that I could see.
Thank God. Because if Stella got caught trespassing, how the hell was I supposed to explain this?
I looked ahead and spotted her immediately—a flash of pale legs and long blonde hair, running across the grass like her life depended on it.
She was fast. Faster than I’d expected. And nimble, too—despite wearing what appeared to be a very short skirt and heels that should have made running impossible.
I pushed harder, closing the distance between us. My lungs burned, my heart pounded, and somewhere in the back of my mind, a very different kind of heat was building. The chase. The pursuit. The primal thrill of hunting something that didn’t want to be caught.
No. Focus. This isn’t a Goddamn kink scene. This is a security situation.
But my body wasn’t listening. My body remembered every chase I’d ever instigated with a willing sub, every prey I’d ever pursued in a dark, illicit type atmosphere, every moment of triumph when I’d finally caught them. And now here was Stella—running from me, defying me, daring me to catch her...
She’d done this on purpose.
The realization hit me like a punch to the gut. She’d deliberately run past the security camera. She’d wanted me to see her. Wanted me to come after her. She’d wanted exactly this, even if she didn’t really realize what she’d unleashed inside of me.
The thought should have made me angry. It did make me angry. But it also made that beast inside me howl with something that felt dangerously like anticipation.
I was gaining on her now. She glanced back over her shoulder, saw me closing in, and somehow found another burst of speed. But it wasn’t enough. I was bigger, faster, and I wasn’t wearing heels.
“Stella, stop,” I hissed furiously as I got close enough to grab her.
My hand closed around her arm, but she yanked back with her entire body, twisting hard. I braced my feet to stay upright—and she must have anticipated that, because she went completely boneless, becoming dead weight in my grip.
I stumbled backward, losing my hold on her as she dropped.
“Seriously?” I stared down at her as she scrambled back to her feet, breathing hard. “You’re going to be a child about this?”
Her eyes flashed in the moonlight. “You’re the one treating me like a child. You and my parents and everyone else who thinks they know what’s best for me.”
“So your solution is to sneak out of the house to go to a sex club?” I snapped, my agitation acerbated by that beast trying to claw its way out of me. “That’s your idea of mature decision-making?”
“My solution,” Stella shot back angrily, shoving me in the chest, “is to stop letting everyone else control my life.” She shoved me again, harder this time, forcing me back a step.
“Going to that club where I met you was the first time I did something just because I wanted it. I was good growing up, Tate. I never went to parties, never snuck out, never dated anyone my parents didn’t approve of just to piss them off.
I got good grades. I followed all the rules.
I did everything right.” Her voice cracked on the last word.
“And I’m still treated like I can’t be trusted to make my own choices. ”
Another shove against my chest. “Even by you.”
I tried to remain calm. “Stella—”
“You fucked me that night at the club.” Her eyes burned into mine. “You saw me at my most vulnerable. You saw what I needed, what I wanted, and you gave it to me without hesitation. But now? Now you’re just like everyone else, deciding what I can handle without even asking what I want.”
I grabbed her wrists before she could shove me again. “I know you’re capable,” I growled, my patience fraying. “You’re capable of a lot of things—including driving me completely fucking insane.”
“Go to hell.”