He quickly does as I’ve ordered, and I can’t help but notice how perfect his gray suit and tie remain, not a wrinkle to be seen, when my world is one big wrinkle. He’s always perfect, so smooth, just as he was in our dinner with the Reynolds couple early tonight, but he is not perfect at all, and I am such a fool.
“I did not kill your parents,” Seth repeats, “any more than you committed espionage. Think about this, sweetheart. We were both framed and we need to find out by who, and why.”
“Do not call me sweetheart,” I bite out, “ever again.”
“Hating me, dividing us, gives power to whoever is behind all this.”
“Whoever. Right. The nameless whoever.” I motion with my gun. “Go to the operations room, where I have my lab set up. Where the many ways I can kill you are at hand. And if you think you might grab me and the gun, I’d think twice if I were you. See, I never told you all the ways I can poison you. I guess I never really trusted you.”
“Yes, you did,” he says, moving toward me, and I don’t back down, because I don’t back down, not to mention I’m in slippery stocking feet, a small detail people like us don’t miss.
He encroaches on my space, stopping directly in front of me, the gun all that is between us. That always spicy scent of him is no longer delicious. I shove my gun at his chest, over his heart, while my heart is shattered, my eyes meeting his. “It would be poetic justice to shoot you in the heart right now.”
“We both know you don’t want to do that. I’ve never lied to you and I’m not lying now. You know that.”
I laugh without humor. A bitter, odd sound, even to my own ears. “You never told me you were the Assassin. Omission of information is a form of lying.”
“I told you why I didn’t.”
“You were worried I’d look at you differently. And if that worried you, I bet you really didn’t want me to find out you killed—”
“I was in another state when they died.”
“How can I know that? But that sounds like a well-planned reply. You’re so smooth, Cage. So cool. You used to be so good at making me believe you. But the kill order—”
“Is a lie,” he says. “We are not.”
“Prove it. Prove it now.”
“You want answers,” he says. “We’ll go find them together. We’ll kill whoever did this, together. I’ve told you everything I have to tell you, so if you believe I did this, then kill me now. Do it and then get the hell out of here before they kill you, too. Make your decision.”
“I should kill you now. You won’t tell me what I want to know.” But I don’t. I just . . . don’t. I think about pulling the trigger, but I can’t seem to feel my finger. I start to shake again or maybe I never stopped. Now I’m shaking harder.
Seth’s eyes narrow ever so slightly, and I know he’s seen the weakness in me, when I am never weak. But I have given the proverbial blink and that is all it takes with a man like Seth Cage. He grabs the gun, and I don’t know why, but I don’t stop him. I don’t poison him. The next thing I know, I’m pressed close to him, his arms holding down my arms, and he’s cradling me against his hard body, his lips at my ear. “I love you,” he declares roughly. “I need you more than I need my next breath. I would not hurt anyone you love. Ever.”
His words are low, raspy, real. They feel real, and just like that, my body melts into his, and tears start streaming down my cheeks. I never cry. But I am now, and that image of my dead mother is destroying me. Overwhelming me. She’s gone. My father’s gone. My head spins and I can’t feel parts of my body again. Except my stomach. Oh God, my stomach.
“I’m going to be sick,” I whisper, shoving against Seth. “I need to—I’m going to be—”
“I’ve got you,” he says, scooping me up, and starts walking, presumably toward a bathroom.
My throat burns and I roll toward Seth, my head pressed to his shoulder. My hand wrapped around his tie. The stupid red hair of the wig I’m still wearing is plastering my face and nearly choking me. I’m really going to be sick. Afraid I’m going to do it right here, in Seth’s arms, I try to twist away from him, but I am trembling so very hard. And then he’s setting me down on the bathroom floor, on a rug, and just in time. I grab the toilet seat, the stupid red hair falling forward again. Seth is suddenly on his knees beside me, and he pulls it back. This man who is the Assassin is taking care of me when now would be the perfect time to kill me.
I barely finish the thought when I heave and my entire body quakes. Another flash of my mother in my mind, a bullet in her head, blood pooling around her, and I heave again. And again. I hold onto the toilet seat, panting with the aftermath. Catching my breath slowly, my heart racing, breaking with heartache. Suffocating in the wig, I push off the toilet and start unpinning the damn thing. Seth helps me and pulls it away. I yank my blonde hair from the clip holding it on top of my head, needing the pressure off my scalp, then press my hands on the floor, head forward, deep breathing. Pulling myself together. Wanting the real me, the familiar me, the one who controls her emotions, back right this minute.
“I need to brush my teeth,” I say, but I don’t look at Seth. I don’t want to see betrayal. I can’t bear it right now. I push to my feet and he stands too, and when I sway, he catches my elbow. The touch, his touch, affects me. I want to just fall into him in every possible way, just dare to trust him, but right now, I’m not myself. I need . . . him. God, I need him. I turn away from his touch and walk to the sink. Aware of Seth sitting down on the ledge of the tub. Staying close. Watching me.
I find a toothbrush and toothpaste and by the time I have the paste on the brush, I’m angry. I don’t even have a real source of that anger. It’s just anger, which is better than heartache. I start brushing and brushing and brushing. I don’t stop. I need an outlet, and for this moment and the next, it’s a damn toothbrush, at least until Seth’s hand comes down on my back. “Amanda,” he says, softly and only then do I realize that the anger hasn’t dissipated at all and I’m still really not good.
I drop the brush and rinse my mouth, gripping the sink. Seth stays close and is no longer touching me, but somehow, when I’ve sworn I won’t look at him, my gaze lifts and collides with his in the mirror. I don’t see betrayal. I don’t even see pity at how out of control I am right now. I see love. I see understanding. I see anger, but not at me. “I’m not good right now,” I admit, aware that the admission itself is a form of trust.
“I know,” he says simply.
“I’m not this weak.”
He turns me to face him, his hands on my hips, and I press mine to his, holding onto him. Just needing to feel him right now. “This that you’re experiencing,” he says, “is not weakness. This is being human, which we rarely allow ourselves.”
“Would you be this human?”
“If I lost you,” he says, “I’d lose my fucking mind, and kill half the planet before it was over. And then find someone else to kill. It would not be good and it would not end well.”
“I would rather feel that kind of focus and I don’t know why I don’t. We are killers.”
“I’m a killer, sweetheart. You are something far more complex, and human, but still strong, even if you do not feel that is the case. Give yourself permission to be human now. Be a killer later, and when you are ready, I’ll be here, ready to load the gun for you.”
“You really are a romantic, aren’t you?” I joke, and then immediately swallow a massive knot in my throat. I ball my fist at my sternum, my chin settling on my chest. “I hate feeling like this. I want it to stop.”
He cups my face and tilts it up to his. “I can help.”
I believe him. “How?”
“Now is when you need me to spank you.”
I blanch. “What? No.” I try to move away but he holds onto me. “I can’t believe you—”
“What are you thinking of right this moment?” he demands.
“That you’re crazy.”
“What else?”
“I can’t be spanked,” I say.
“What else?”
“You’re crazy,” I say again.
“Good. Because that’s all you’re thinking. The spanking is already your escape. It’s already leaving room for nothing else. It’s an adrenaline rush, to replace the pain.”
“With another kind of pain?” I challenge.
“With pleasure, sweetheart.” His thumb strokes my cheek. “Trust me to make it about pleasure.”
“This is about trust to you,” I say, my hands settling on his chest. His heart thundering with surprising force beneath my palm.
“This is about escape for you. But yes. I want your trust. The kind of trust no one can steal from us. And we need that kind of trust. We have enemies and we’re going to go to war.”
He’s right. We do. And I need this man to be the one person I can trust. My lashes lower and I whisper, “Yes. Okay.” I open my eyes. “Spank me.”
His eyes warm with heat and affection before he leans in and kisses me. And when his tongue touches mine, I don’t know how I doubted him. I can taste what I can only explain as “us” on his lips. And it is the best taste I have ever known. He tugs my dress upward, and tears his mouth from mine, then lifts the fabric over my head. It hits the ground, and I am left in only my bra, panties, and thigh-highs. And if I expect him to look at me, to truly, intimately touch me right now, he does not.
“Here is what is going to happen,” he says, cupping my face again. “Go to the bedroom. Take everything off and sit on the bed. I’m going to turn on music and I want you to think about the words, the beat, what I’m going to do to you. Let the idea of it consume you. Let it make you nervous and curious and aroused.”
“And then what?”
“I’ll come to you,” he says. “We aren’t going to draw this out the way we will another time. This is about intensity and escape. I’ll have you bend over the bed, your gorgeous ass in the air. Then I’m going to spank you six times. Count them out loud. I’ll tell you when. And then it will be over and I’ll be inside you, and we’ll fuck hard and fast. What are you thinking about right now?”
“You have control and I want it.”
His hands leave my face and settle at my waist, simmering heat in my belly, heaviness in my breasts. “You are in control. You’re rejecting the emotions controlling you and replacing them with something else you trust me to deliver.” He releases me and takes a step backward. “It’s your decision to hand me that control.”
My decision. My control. That’s why he’s sending me to the bedroom first. He’s not just telling me what comes next is my decision. He’s backing it up with actions. I don’t say another word. There is nothing to say. I want what he offers, and not just the escape. We both need to know this is about trust between us: real, untouchable trust. But I still need to do this my way. I defy his command. I don’t immediately walk to the bedroom. I reach up and unhook my bra, dragging it down my arms and tossing it away, my nipples pebbling in the cool air. I then slide my fingers into my panties, and drag them down my legs.
When I would stop there, Seth says, “All of it.” And then he is on his knees in front of me, his mouth so very close to my belly, to the scar there he always kisses, to my sex, one hand on my backside as the fingers of the other hand grip the edge of one of my thigh-highs. His lips are at my hip as he drags the stocking down my leg. And then he shifts his weight, and he’s in front of me, his mouth on my belly. His fingers drag the remaining thigh-high down the other leg, the flicker of tongue on my skin the only silk remaining.
He glances up at me and when I want his mouth on that very intimate place, right between my legs, he defies my need, as I defied his order. He stands up, turns me to the door, and steps behind me, his mouth near my ear. The thick ridge of his erection is pressed to my backside, even through his pants. “Wait for me.”
There is something about the way he says that command, the rough tone of his voice, that tells me he’s not just aroused. He’s deeply affected by the idea of spanking me, and I am affected, too. Not afraid. I suddenly want this. I want it and need it and I don’t even understand what it is that I want and need. I start walking and enter the bedroom, moving to the end of the bed, where I sit down. Nerves flutter in my belly while the music starts to play and not softly. “The Bottom” by Staind. A song I know from a fight scene in a movie we’d actually seen together. It’s dark. Intense. And the words pulse through me. I know the words well. They speak to me now as he knew they would and I shut my eyes, saying the words as they are sung:
You suffocate, you cannot wait
For this to just be over
You wanna run and just be done
But I don’t want to run. That’s what I’ve been doing for three years. I want to fight. And I want this spanking. I don’t want to fear or back down from anything. I keep speaking the words, whispering them at places that gut me, and then Seth is in front of me, his upper torso bare, beautiful, powerful. He is shoeless, his pants unzipped but still in place. He offers me his hand, and as my eyes meet his, I see it as the question that it is. Do I trust him? I don’t hesitate with my reply. I slide my palm against his. His fingers close around mine, approval and heat in his eyes, and while I do not seek anyone’s approval, I find I want his now.
He urges me to my feet, his hand falling away from mine, leaving me craving its return, his touch. We stare at each other, that world of past and present, even the future, colliding in that connection, as it all had on the plane here, the effect waving heat between us. He motions for me to turn and I do so. I face the bed and suddenly my nerves are back. He doesn’t give them time to control me, though. He controls me. He’s on a knee, on the floor behind me, his hands at my ankles. There is something about this moment that exposes me, makes me vulnerable. The unknown, I think. I don’t know what is coming. The answer, for now, is his touch. He begins a slow caress up my calves, the touch leaving me aching for more, my chin tilting toward the sky.
His hands stop at my hips and his teeth scrape one of my cheeks, and while I rarely react verbally, I gasp now. And then he is standing behind me again, his hand on my belly, his lips at my ear. “Crawl to the middle of the bed and wait for me on your hands and knees.”
This is it.
This is when he spanks me and my heart races, nerves erupt. The song radiates through me. Every sense I own is consumed. He steps away from me, no longer touching me, like punishment for my hesitation, when I know it’s him telling me again that this is my decision. Reminding me that I really do have control. I lean over the bed, crawling forward, his stare sizzling over my naked skin.
Stopping in the center, as instructed, I wait for what comes next, my ass in the air, and I am once again exposed, vulnerable. Aroused. Nervous. Anxious. The music stops abruptly and it’s shock that actually steals my breath. The air seems to still, while my heart races. I can hear the rustle of clothing, feel the shift of the mattress. He is beside me then, his now naked thigh at my thigh, one of his hands rubbing over my backside, while the other strokes my sex. I am almost having an out of body experience. I can hear myself breathing, like it’s someone else, more like short, raspy pants. And I am wet. So very wet, my sex aching, nipples knotted. His fingers are stroking the seam of my body, teasing me until I’m at the edge, until I almost forget why his hand is on my backside, caressing it.
Suddenly though, his hand between my thighs is gone, flattening on my belly instead, while the other stills on my backside. “Six counts,” he reminds me, and when I expect the spanking, bracing for it, that’s not what I get. Instead, he begins tapping my sex, over and over, and I am so close to orgasm that I arch my back into the touch. “Starting now,” he says. “One.”
His hand comes down on my cheek, the sting shocking me, and then he’s tapping my sex again and I’m curling fingers around the blanket. “Two,” he says, and his hand come down on me again, harder this time, and then he’s tapping my sex again.
“Three,” he says
, and then his palm comes down on me and this time there is no break in between. There is just the sting, the unexplainable need, the rush of adrenaline, as the next palm comes down. “Four. Five. Six.”
He leans in and kisses my back and then rolls me to my side, my back to his stomach, the thick ridge of his erection pressing inside me. His body wrapped around mine, and I can’t get close enough to him. I press backward, into his body, against his cock. His hand covers my breasts, and I cover his hand, holding it there, but it’s not enough. I need more and he rotates me, placing me back on my knees and driving into me. Harder. Deeper. More. I get my more, and I shatter. God, how I shatter. And when I hear that heavy, guttural sound that rips from his throat, telling me that he’s right here with me, I slide into the aftermath of so much. Seth takes us back down to our sides, pulling my back to his front again. and somehow there’s a towel in front of me.
He pulls out and I sink the towel between my thighs, his lips at my ear. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” I say, and it’s remarkably true.
“What do you feel?”
I wait for regret or anger or pain but those things are not here. But there is a calm now where there was a storm. A dull throb of pain where there had been a bleeding cut. And there is a sense of safety and intimacy with Seth that has always been with us, but it’s somehow deeper now. “It helped,” I say, rolling over to face him, my hand on his chest, his at my hip. “It was just us. No room for anything else.” And I realize then what I should have always realized. “It’s always been just us since I met you.”
“Don’t forget that again,” he says, his tone hard, not gentle, and I know that comes from the way I cut him by leaving him. The way I cut him again tonight by going after him.
I scoot closer to him and settle my hand on his jaw. “I’m sorry. I wish I could turn back time.”
“I was going to propose to you that night you left. I wanted us to leave the agency together. I had a ring. I still have the ring.”
I am stunned. Speechless, struggling to wrap my head around his words. “But you . . . we . . . don’t believe in marriage.”