Page 469 of Tease Me


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He ignored that inquiry, as well. He narrowed his eyes and observed my face. “Yes, she looks alert,” he said, obviously not speaking to me.

I leaned sideways and peered behind him, tension growing between my shoulder blades as I waited for armed men to appear. I grabbed my blanket around me and pressed into one corner of the couch, ready to kick with all my might if someone appeared with zip ties and a gag. I wouldn’t go quietly like I did last time I was grabbed by goons.

“Jesus.” TJ set down the plate on the coffee table and knelt in front of me. “Yes, I can see that,” he said curtly to his invisible friends. “She’s in fight-or-flight mode.” He softened his voice. “Ms. Armand, I’m sorry for frightening you. You’re safe.” He held up his hands. “I promise.”

I dropped my shoulders a fraction of an inch but remained on high alert. “Where are the rest of them? And why can’t I hear them?” A new thought occurred to me. Maybe there wasn’t anyone else. Maybe this time my kidnapper was certifiably insane instead of downright evil. Although, who was to say he couldn’t be both?

“Going dark,” he said to his invisible friend. He inserted a fingertip into his ear and pulled out a tiny, clear wire with a black dot the size of a small ant at the end of it.

I leaned slightly forward to get a better look at it. “What is it?”

“An in-ear comms unit. I’m not crazy, and there’s no one else here with us.” He pushed the tiny thing back into his ear. “My team is nearby, but they won’t come closer until I’m ready to leave.”

“Okay.”

If any of this was for real, who was this man, and who—and where—was his team? And were they the good guys or the bad guys? In the past few months, I’d come to the conclusion that there might not actually be any good guys, so my expectations on that front were depressingly low. My career-induced curiosity should have had me voicing a hundred different questions, but since the incident, it went into hiding any time my overriding survival instinct kicked in.

“Have you seen a therapist?” he asked.

“What?” I tried to make sense of how that fit into anything that was happening right now.

“Did you get counseling after the kidnapping? It can be a lifesaver.”

I dropped my eyes to his tattoo, now in full view. What had he said last night? The military and its corps weren’t my area of expertise, but it had something to do with intelligence. “Army INSCOM, right? So, are you speaking from personal experience?”

“Experience of a few of my buddies.”

His smooth, reassuring voice calmed me enough for my curiosity to claw its way to the surface. “Is this an Army operation, then?”

He sighed and stood, then sat down beside me on the sofa, leaving a couple of feet of distance between us. He smelled as great as he looked, fresh and warm and comforting, and I involuntarily leaned toward him. When I caught myself, I sat back in my corner. A small smile tugged at his mouth. He’d noticed, but he was polite enough not to mention it.

“You have my name and my Army division,” he said.

“Not your whole name. Care to enlighten me?”

“TJ Russo.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. It was like a choir of angels was singing inside my head. “You’ll learn I was honorably discharged five years ago, and since then, I’ve worked as an executive with a boring job in a government contracting company.”

I was calm enough to be fully intrigued by the mystery surrounding him. “And how much of that researchable bio will be a lie?”

The corners of his lips pulled down, the only outward sign of his annoyance. Or maybe it was sadness. “Ms. Armand, I know what you’re looking for, but I have to warn you, this is not a job for civilians. What happened to you was only the tip of the iceberg.”

Was he aware he’d shown too much of his hand? But I still wanted him to share more, so I switched to investigative reporter mode, which meant I needed to build a rapport. “Two things. One, given our... unusual circumstances, I think you should call me Ashlee. And two, tip of the iceberg is one of those phrases that keep reporters up at night.”

“I’m sure it is.”

That was the moment I realized the two of us weren’t playing the same game. The phrase he’d used to describe my kidnapping also pertained to him and whoever his team was. The FBI was in charge of investigating my case, so I could only assume he was a fed, but something didn’t add up. I’d met the detectives on my case. Neither of them had ever mentioned a man like TJ or his team. Every word he spoke, reaction he revealed, and detail he hid were strictly calculated and controlled.

This man’s secrets ran deep, possibly treacherously so. I’d been so close to deciding he was a friend and not a foe, but if, as I suspected, there were no good guys in his world, how could he be anything but an enemy? And if he was my enemy, why was there a magnetic force field between us, willing me to touch him, sapping all my energy as I fought the urge?

“I need you to know, your ordeal hasn’t been forgotten,” he continued. “It will be dealt with. But I hope last night’s escapade proved to you that you can’t have any part in it.”

I bristled again, this time with anger. His hypnotic voice didn’t cover the arrogance of his words.

“I was doing just fine until you interrupted me.”

“Oh, yes.” He crossed one knee over the other and reclined against the back of the sofa as if he were settling in for a long conversation. “What was your backup plan for breaching the desk lock you were so woefully incapable of picking?”

“That was a temporary setback. I was considering what I could use to smash the lock when I noticed you lounging in the doorway.” At least, I would have considered it, eventually.

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