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“Trying.” She gripped his forearms, pulling at the hairs in her desperation. “Dammit, I’m trying.”
“I know.” He meant it. He felt how she quaked, wanting to lose her shit a lot worse than this, but if this was going down—if the chatter Archer picked up were real—he needed her buy-in on trusting him now more than ever. Yeah, even more than the moment he’d tugged her to the middle of a kink club stage dressed in nothing but a latex kitty hood and electrical tape.
“Luke—”
“Is going to be safe.” He gave it as an order. No way would he let her think otherwise. “You want to know why? Zeke Hayes himself is upstairs, personally making himself the kid’s body armor if it comes to that. He’ll do the same for Mia, Gem, and Ronnie too. He isn’t playing games with this shit, kitten. He even called in Hawkins to help—and that big ape doesn’t ask for help easily.”
As her body settled into longer intakes and exhalations, he tucked her even closer. “This is all probably nothing but a giant coincidence,” he asserted. “But if it isn’t, we’ll handle it. Somehow, we will. We’ll take care of Luke—and you.”
He let his eyes close for just a moment—telling himself to savor this. Exactly this. The perfect weight of her in his lap. The exultation of her total trust, her full belief. Completion. Connection.
The perfect space.
The room he’d been looking for since walking into the kink mansion, all those years ago—though only now arriving at the atrium of epiphany in that place.
BDSM wasn’t the key to his perfect room.
It had only been the door.
But he’d kept pounding on that door, for a dozen damn years…expecting it to magically open…
When he never had the key.
As if the universe really needed to pound that one into his gray matter, Tracy’s soft chime of a laugh echoed through his whole body. Before he even asked, she explained, “You know, if word gets out that the bad-ass dragon was found cuddling on the bathroom floor with his mission target…”
A wry snort escaped. “Dragon’s cover was blown long before we met, woman.”
Weirdly, she reacted to that by pulling back by a few inches—and surprising him even more with her newly insightful gaze. “Because of the op you led in Kaesong?”
Okay, ditch surprised. Astonishment took over, hiking both his brows. “Whoa. That sit-rep made it all the way up the Hill, eh?” Just as swiftly, he let his expression tighten. “That’s comforting, in a jacked-up way. Guess I went out a notorious man.”
“Well, we weren’t passing it around like the newest memes of the day,” she countered. “And when I first heard you mention it, I wasn’t sure you were that guy, from that mission—”
“But now you are.”
Her lips hitched into one of her mysterious smiles. “Yeah.” Her hand, pressed to the side of his neck, squeezed in. “I am.”
Nothing about that smile, or the energy accompanying it, should have had his gut cranking out new acid. Nevertheless, the bite of it had him shifting on his haunches. “And now debating the best way to gracefully exit?”
He meant more than just the bathroom, and she sure as hell knew it. He’d seen a lot of rapid changes to her face over the last week, but nothing like the shadows falling over it now. “The hell?” she spat back.
“Don’t pretend you didn’t hear the juiciest parts,” he countered. “I openly defied CentComm orders, Tracy.”
“Yeah. To let three scientists defect, rather than return to a country who’d use their hard work for destruction and subjugation.”
“And almost started a war.”
“Against a disgusting dictatorship? Like CentComm shouldn’t be behind that.”
One patience-gathering breath. Another. “Some things aren’t that black and white.”
She snorted. “And some things are.”
“Your friend Craig probably wouldn’t have agreed with that.” The sheepish aversion of her gaze confirmed that truth. “I’m wondering, if once you’re filling his shoes, you won’t change—”
He said nothing else, because Tracy didn’t let him. By slapping him.
His ears had barely cleared out the stinging ring, when she seared them all over again. “You know what, Captain? Screw you.” She shot to her feet, efficiently yanking on the leggings now. With a barely disguised grimace, John watched the black spandex cover her ass. He could’ve gazed at those perfect swells for hours—especially when they bore the dark pink reminders of where he’d spanked her, flogged her, fucked her. He was pretty damn sure that wasn’t what her present challenge represented, backed up when she reiterated, “Screw you—and every lachrymose delusion you’re clearly still carrying about this bullshit.”
