He’d fucked up royally.

Damon stood in the middle of Paddington station, the Saturday crowd milling around him, the smells of coffee and baked goods filling the space, and considered the problem he’d created for himself.

He’d completely lost his cool. He’d damn near rubbed his cock all over Penelope Cash and then wondered why on earth she didn’t want to work with him. The entire afternoon before had been a classic fuckup. He’d been a tosser and she’d been a prude. Well, at least on the outside she’d been a prude.

Why didn’t she want to work with him? He hadn’t been insane. He really had felt her pulse, seen her eyes dilate, gotten a hint of the sweetest arousal coming from between her legs.

If he’d slid his hands up that plug-ugly skirt she’d been wearing, if he’d caressed her thighs and made his way to her pussy, he was damn sure he would have found her wet and squirming. And all right in Nigel’s office. How would she respond to him when he got her in a dungeon?

There was a whooshing sound that signaled the arrival of the train he’d been waiting on.

Paddington station was a massive hub, a testament to the power of London transport. To his right, he could get to the Tube and go just about anywhere in London proper. But the train platforms in front of him led to the rest of England, and more importantly to Heathrow.

The Heathrow Express pulled into the station, stopping quietly, its shiny silver doors opening with almost a preternatural quiet.

What came out of the train wasn’t quiet. What came out of the train was likely to be a pain in his arse.

“I’m just saying you didn’t separate Li from his newborn.” A big man with military-cut dark hair and broad shoulders was complaining as he muscled out with a duffel bag over one arm and a massive suitcase handle in the other.

Ian Taggart had his own baggage. “Li doesn’t have a partner. If you wanted to get paternity leave—god, I just vomited a little—then you should have manned up and gotten your own girl. Adam won the battle fair and square. He gets to stay with the wife and rug rat.”

“It wasn’t a fucking battle. It was rock, paper, scissors, damn it. I think Adam cheated.” Jacob Dean frowned as he looked up and finally caught sight of Damon. “Hey. You suck. Don’t you have like a whole fucking country of Brits to do your job for you? You have to hire us?”

So not everyone was happy with the assignment. Lovely. “Sorry about that.”

“I have a kid who’s going to grow up while I’m gone, thanks to you. I need some coffee. Your immigration officers suck.” Jake walked off, his every move a testament to his annoyance.

Ian just grinned as though he loved the chaos.

The rest of the crew had stepped off the train and were rearranging their baggage. Charlotte Taggart smiled as she looked around the station, her blue eyes taking in everything. Simon Weston had seen it all. He had come home and didn’t exactly look happy about it. Jesse Murdoch rubbed his eyes as though he’d just woken from a nap.

And then there was Chelsea Dennis. She pulled her suitcase out of the train, the last one to leave. She was a petite woman, twenty-seven years old. She favored her left leg. He recalled she’d had both legs broken quite badly, but the left had never healed properly and she walked with a limp. Pretty enough, though there was a darkness about her, like a cloud followed her around.

God, so unlike Penelope. She was a little light even though she obviously didn’t know it. Her light wasn’t brilliantly bright like Charlotte Taggart’s. She didn’t light up the room when she walked into it, but a man could look at Penelope Cash and know that she would try her damnedest to take care of him.

No one took care of him. No one ever had really. Not since his parents had died.

Fuck. He wasn’t a child. He didn’t need someone to take bloody care of him. He just needed a sub, and like it or not, Chelsea Dennis might be the answer to his problems.

Taggart stepped up, his hand out. “Knight. Good to see you. Sorry about Jake. He’s had a rough day. He got a pat down at security. I’m pretty sure Adam arranged that. He’s been pissy about it ever since.”

Damon clasped his friend’s hand. Yes, Big Tag was a pain in the arse, but he’d been a damn fine friend. It had been Ian’s home he’d gone to once he’d gotten out of hospital. It had been Ian who pushed him to get strong, who hadn’t given him a minute’s pity.

Penelope likely would have held his hand and baked him biscuits. Yeah, he didn’t need that.

“I’m sorry about dragging Dean away.” He couldn’t even understand the idea of ankle biters or changing nappies. Jacob Dean was a stone-cold killer. He’d moved through the ranks of US Special Forces, gaining the nickname Ghost for how quietly he could move, how easily he brought death to the enemy.

Now he wasn’t quiet. He was bitching at some poor shopkeeper about his coffee.

“I told him he should have read his job description. It plainly states that he’s an International Super Spy,” Taggart explained. “If he’d wanted to stay in Dallas, he should have applied for Regional Super Spy.”

Jesse pulled his jacket open. “Big Tag made us badges and everything.”

Sure enough he was wearing a cheeky name tag. Jesse Murdoch—International Super Spy.

Sometimes he didn’t understand the Americans. “Well, thanks for coming so quickly anyway.”

“We had a choice?” Weston asked, buttoning his suit coat. He wasn’t wearing a cheeky name tag. He was dressed to the nines, his suit impeccably tailored without a hint of wrinkling. The bastard must have changed. No one could get through a nine-hour overnight flight, hours in immigration and customs, and still look as perfect as Simon Weston. He glanced around the station as though looking for whatever was going to try to kill him next.

“Simon, chill,” Taggart ordered with a smile on his face. “It’s all good. Charlie here isn’t in Brit jail and we had a nice first-class flight.”

It was time to fuck with Taggart. “I’m so sorry, Tag. You do understand that we’re not actually reimbursing you for that. The deal was that you would do us some favors. Favors that don’t include any exchange of cash.”

Ian turned the funniest shade of red.

His wife stepped up, a frown on her pretty face. She put a hand on her husband’s shoulder as though physically restraining him. “He’s joking, baby. I already got the paperwork started. Now follow Jacob and get some coffee. We’ll expense that, too.”

Ian pointed a single finger Damon’s way. “I will kill you and bury you. Don’t think I won’t.”

He stormed off, and Damon couldn’t help but chuckle.

Charlotte turned that frown to Damon. “Don’t tease him. Do you know what the rest of us have been through? Do you have any idea what a first-class flight costs at the last minute? He’s turned into a penny-pinching asshole. He yelled at me the other day for buying raspberries for four dollars. Four freaking dollars. I’ve heard lectures on getting nickeled-and-dimed for months and all because we had to write you an enormous check. So you will pay for everything while we are here. Are we understood, Knight?”

She was awfully cute when she was mad. And she had written SIS a massive check in exchange for keeping her very nice arse out of jail. She’d also given them information the analysts were still going through. She’d been The Broker, a powerful information dealer. “Yes, ma’am.”

She nodded slightly and seemed to catch sight of something. “Oh, thank god. The champagne bar is open. You’re paying for that, too. Let’s go, Chels.”

Simon followed the women, Jesse yawning at his side.

Damon watched as they walked away and realized why he’d really called them in.

He’d wanted a team. Even if he didn’t really belong to the team, he wanted one around him.

Thirty minutes later, he, Ian, and Charlotte were ensconced in the limo Damon had hired to take the Taggarts to their very posh London hotel. The others had scattered, taking up their respective covers, though they would all come together at The Garden later.

He pulled out the documentation he’d had made up for them. “Here are your passports and itinerary. I think you’ll find the hotel adequate.”

Taggart took the files but didn’t look at them. Instead his eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong with this op?”

“Besides the fact that the previous operation leader and his partner were in an accident?”

“Yes, besides that. Now that we’re alone, I want you to level with me.” Taggart always could read between the lines. It was what had made him a brilliant Agency asset.

There was so much wrong about it, but Damon knew where to start. “I don’t know, but it seems odd that Nature’s Core suddenly decided to get violent.”

Charlotte put a hand on her husband’s thigh, the motion so subtle it was obviously not even conscious. “Didn’t a couple of kids get hurt in a demonstration in Frankfurt a few months ago?”

Taggart ran his hand around the back of her seat. “It’s not the same, baby. That was a protest that got out of hand. This is different. This is far more sophisticated. They’ve always been against biological testing, but now they want to unleash a bioweapon in London? It makes one wonder exactly who’s in charge.”

This was the other reason he wanted Tag with him—because he was a paranoid bastard. “We suspect one of the women on the cruise is working with the terrorist cell. I asked Adam to check into the registry and find anyone with strong corporate or intelligence ties.”

“Fuck me. You think it’s Baz.”

“No. I worry it may be The Collective.” Baz didn’t matter. The Collective was all that mattered. If Baz got caught in the net, it would be outstanding. But he wasn’t going to allow his anger to rule him. Emotion was not his friend. He needed to remain cold, calculating.

Taggart turned thoughtful. “And MI6 doesn’t believe The Collective exists. What the fuck is Ten thinking? I read that report he submitted. It’s a load of BS. He’s playing some angle.”

“Have you thought about the fact that Ten might be working with them?” It was his greatest fear. Tennessee Smith ran a great deal of the CIA’s field operations. If he was corrupt, they were all screwed.

“I can’t believe it.” Taggart shook his head. “He’s playing some angle, but he’s not with them. I know that fucker. He’s perfectly capable of sleeping with anything with female parts—and I do mean anything. I’m pretty sure I caught him with a goat once.”

“Ian!” Charlotte said.

Taggart shrugged. “That woman needed a shave. It’s all I’m saying. The point is, Ten is loyal. So something else is going on. He’s also not an idiot. If he thought he might have a leak, he would want that person to feel safe and he can’t do that if he runs around proclaiming he’s found out the truth. Could that be what’s happening with MI6?”

“No. They really are idiots.” He sighed. Taggart deserved to know the whole truth about what he was getting into. “They’re trying to get me to retire.”

“Excellent.” Taggart clapped his hands together. “I’m thinking about opening a New York office. When can you start?”

Everyone wanted him behind a bloody desk. “I’m not retiring and I’m not managing an office for you.”

“Come on, Knight. I promise to send someone to assassinate you at least once a month. It’ll keep your adrenaline up. It’s not so bad, man. Hell, I’m lying. It’s horrible. You get to sit around and listen to everyone whine constantly. ‘I need time off. My wife is giving birth. I can’t sleep with that target in order to get information because I’m a faithful husband.’ God, they constantly whine at me.”

“You were wrong to ask Li to sleep with that woman.” Charlotte shook her head.

“Well, I really needed her computer and she liked Irish guys. Is it my fault everyone’s getting married? I’m relying on Simon and Jesse as my man meat. And when I need a pretty girl, I have to hire Karina. Do you know what she charged me last time? Two hundred dollars an hour. She charged me two hundred fucking dollars an hour to sit in the bar and flirt while Adam retrieved the stolen corporate data. I could have hired a prostitute for less and she would have blown the dude. The point is, I need Knight because he won’t ever get married, and therefore I can throw him out there when I need someone to charm the ladies.”

Charlotte stared at her husband for a moment and then a brilliant smile crossed her face. “You should be so glad I love you.”

“I am, baby. You’re the only one who gets my charm.” He winked his wife’s way and then gestured to Damon. “But Knight here is a different story. If we can convince him to work for us, we won’t have to worry about beefcake any more. Simon gets touchy about being seen as a sexual object. Jesse is fine if the lady in question wants a fairly attractive insane idiot, but you’re a gold mine, man.”

“I think you’re overestimating my charms, mate. That brings me to my second problem. And just to make things clear, I would never work for you. I would murder you first. You’re an obnoxious nutter, so you can take your whole job offer and piss off.”

Taggart shrugged as though he’d expected nothing less. “All right, then. What’s problem number two?”

He hated to admit to it but Taggart might be his solution. He’d managed to get Chelsea clearance to work the technical side of the op despite her sister’s problems with several major intelligence agencies. Damon had actually tried to hire Charlotte the year before, but she’d chosen to stay with her husband. “I need a sub.”

“You have a club. Pick one.”

“It’s not that easy. The submissives at the club won’t pass with SIS. I need a trained female, or one who at least brings something to the operation other than looking good when I spank her.” Penelope likely would have looked lovely. Her bum was a thing of beauty no matter how hard she tried to hide it. That was a big, gorgeous arse on the woman.

“And there’s no one at MI6?” Taggart used the American version of the Secret Intelligence Service. It had once been called Military Intelligence. The sixth section was the foreign section. Hence MI6. James Bond and a rash of like films and movies kept the old moniker alive.

“Yes. I found one, but she doesn’t want the job.” He’d been turned down by an uptight translator. Some Lothario he was.

“How can she turn it down if she’s an operative?” Charlotte asked.

“She isn’t. She’s a translator. She’s never been in the field before, but she’s got all the proper requirements and I believe she’s actually quite submissive. She’s single, so I don’t have to worry about a husband. Her name is Penelope, and she speaks most of the languages we need.”

“And you don’t mind fucking her?”

“Ian.” It seemed like Taggart’s wife said his name a lot.

“Well, that’s what we’re talking about,” Taggart shot back. “We can’t go on a massive floating dungeon and not get physical.”

“No. I wouldn’t mind fucking her,” Damon replied. He’d actually sort of looked forward to it. “But it’s obvious she doesn’t want the job, so I need to ask you about Chelsea.”

Both Taggarts stopped, staring at him for a minute.

“My sister?” Charlotte asked.

“The bitch from hell?” Ian offered and immediately moved out of his wife’s reach. “She doesn’t like me, baby. She calls me Satan. It hurts my feelings.”

She growled a little. “You don’t have feelings. And no. She is not going to play your sub, especially when there might be sex involved. No way.”

“It should be up to her,” Ian said quietly, turning serious. “You can’t protect her forever. The only reason she’s working this operation is Serena convinced her to take Adam’s place so he could stay home and help take care of Tristan. Jake should be shot for letting them pick that name. That boy is going to get his ass kicked starting in preschool. If Serena hadn’t convinced her, she would still be sitting at home brooding about whatever the fuck it is she broods about. She needs a job, and she won’t take one with me.”

“It’s not like she’s going to go to the supermarket and get a job sacking groceries, Ian. But she’s not an operative,” Charlotte complained.

“She’s not trained,” Taggart replied. “But I wouldn’t hesitate to send her into the field. From a strictly business standpoint, she’s made of the right stuff to be a successful field operative.”

Which meant she was cold, calculating. Like they were. Unlike Penelope Cash, who he would have to watch over. He would very likely not need to protect Chelsea Dennis. She could handle herself. It would be better that way. It really would. “So we can talk to her about it?”

Ian leaned forward, his business face on. “You’ll get pushback from Simon. There’s something odd going on with them. She’ll need to go to the shooting range and prove she can handle a gun. And I would watch her closely. Not because I’m worried about her. I don’t know where her loyalties really lie.”

“How can you talk about her like that?” Charlotte asked.

“Because I’m being the boss right now, Charlie. This is an op, and it’s an operation you’re involved in. I have to make sure it runs properly. I would never put you in this position because you’re far too emotional. You work with me and me alone because I don’t trust your safety to anyone else. Chelsea is different. Chelsea can handle herself. God knows she’ll put her own safety first. She’ll be fine.”

Charlotte got a little teary. “She’s not like that. You just don’t know her. Please, Ian.”

Damon waited as they seemed to wage a small but important war.

Taggart’s mouth became a flat line, and he looked back at Damon. “No. Chelsea can’t go in the field. She’s strictly tech.”

Charlotte turned and hugged him, whispering a “thank you.”

Ian Taggart was well and truly caught, and it fucked up Damon’s day.

“Sorry, man. You need to talk to that girl again,” Ian said, leaning into his wife, giving her the comfort she seemed to require. “If she’s perfect, then you’ll just have to convince her. Bring her to the club. If she’s submissive, she’ll be curious. You need to use that curiosity. Let Charlie talk to her. She’s awfully persuasive.”

Damon stared out as the limo slowed, caught in the never-ending London traffic. To his right, Hyde Park looked peaceful, tourists and locals milling about on a nice Saturday. Not a care in the world.

What was Penelope Cash doing?

And how was he going to convince her?

 

* * * *

 

Penny closed her laptop, her face heated, her heart pounding.

Submission. Dominance. Discipline.

If she took this assignment, she would find out just what those words meant. Kinky sex stuff. It was kinky, weird sex stuff. Distasteful. She should march right back into Nigel’s office and shove his file in his face and tell him she was a lady and she wouldn’t be used as a prostitute.

Except it wasn’t really distasteful and she was rapidly discovering she wasn’t the prude everyone thought she was.

She’d known that. She’d never cared what people did in their own bedrooms. Or dungeons. Or playrooms. Or wherever people wanted to do the consensual things they did. She just didn’t think she wanted that for herself. She’d always imagined herself with a nice man, a quiet intellectual who she could talk to and raise a family with.

Of course, she’d had that man. Peter had been kind and quiet and should have been perfect. So why had she avoided sex with him after a couple of months of being engaged? She told herself that it was because her mother had gotten sick, but there had been chances to see him, chances to keep their relationship together, and she’d let them all drift by. By the time he’d left her, she’d actually felt grateful.

Her mobile trilled, the sound surprising her a bit. She looked down. Her sister. Diana was trying. Trying hard, and it wasn’t like she hadn’t lost anything. “Hello, Diana.”

“Pen. I wanted to ring to see if you need any help packing. I’ll see you at the wedding, but I can come down today if you need me. I know how much work there is to do. I really think you’re going to be happier, but you know you can stay as long as you want. George and I don’t mind. The house is yours.”

She felt a small smile crease her lips up. “I want to go with something smaller, and I’m going to split the money with you.”

They’d been having this argument for months, but it made her feel oddly secure. There was a lot of money in the house, but her siblings weren’t fighting her. She was having to fight to get them to take their portions. George was handling the legalities, and Diana had pitched in.

It made her realize how much she’d pushed her siblings away, how much she’d taken on her own shoulders.

She got up and walked to the largest of the three bedrooms. Her parents’ room. She’d put it off long enough, and now she was packing up her mother’s things, keeping a few items, but giving away the clothes and knickknacks that represented her mother’s life. She pushed the speaker phone option and continued talking to her sister as she worked, emptying the dresser. “I’m fine, Diana. I’m almost done. There’s just the bedroom and then the kitchen. I’ll be ready to put it on the market in a couple of weeks.”

“All right. I just want to make sure I’m helping.”

She was overcompensating. “She knew you loved her, Diana. You came every week.”

“She didn’t know me at all at the end, Pen. And George and I let you take the load. I should have moved her in with me.”

Around the children? Her mother could get violent when she had an episode. “No. Please let it go. I don’t want to talk about this. We’ve discussed it and you’ve apologized.”

“Fine, I’ll let it go for now. I’ll see you tomorrow, right? You won’t leave me and George alone with the horrible Hendersons, will you?”

Their cousin, Beatrice Cash-Henderson, was marrying some posh nob and Penny had gotten dragged into the wedding. It was being held at some expensive club where Bea and her nasty sisters would lord it over the rest of the family.

And she’d promised to go.

“I think I feel a bout of Ebola coming on, Diana.”

“Oh, don’t you do that. There is no hemorrhagic fever in London. You’re going and that’s that. I’ll see you there. Do you want me to get you a date? I met a nice doctor the other day. He works at University College. I think you would like him.”

Her skin nearly crawled. The last time Diana had tried to set her up had been with an accountant who spent the entire night bemoaning the British tax system. “No. Oh, no. I’m fine going by myself.”

It would be miserable because everyone would ask her who she was seeing and why she’d let Peter go, and oh, did she really want to become an old maid and everyone knew some nice man they wanted to set her up with. Then there were a few who really thought she was a lesbian and tried to set her up with a nice lady.

It was the burden of being single and in her thirties.

She should date, but all she could think about now was Damon Knight and his devil’s bargain.

Diana chatted on for another few moments and then they hung up. Penny was left alone with the sum of her mother’s life. She took a long breath. Soon this house would belong to someone else. Some other group of kids would run and play in the garden in the back. They would fight and share secrets and grow up right here where she had.

It was odd to think that she’d spent her whole life in one place and now her future was somewhere else. It was a bit frightening.

She could stay here. George and Diana wouldn’t mind. She would be comfortable here. She could move right into her mother’s room and nothing would change.

Her hand came up against something hard in the last drawer. Odd. The dresser only had clothes in it. She pulled it free. It was a small notebook. A long sigh came from her chest. Her mother’s recipe book.

A sheen of tears hit her eyes as she sat back on the bed and started to flip through her mum’s personal versions of Yorkshire pudding, pot roast, popovers. All her favorites. The book had gone missing a year before and she’d been worried that her mother had lost it.

The recipes were written in her mum’s steady hand, each one a memory for Penny.

Until she got to the last page. It wasn’t a recipe she found there. It was a letter.

 

My Dearest Heart,

 

I’m lucid now. The times that I remember are getting further and further between and I need to talk to you but you’re at work. The nurse is kind, but I don’t trust her to remember what I need to say to you. George and Diana will be fine. They took after your father. They’ll find themselves and forge their own lives, but I am so worried about you, my Penny.

I know you’ve put life on hold to take care of me, and I can’t thank you enough. I wish it weren’t necessary. But I fear that you will continue to put your life on hold. Much as I did.

There is always an excuse to not do something. I wanted to go to university. I wanted to teach. But it was always something I would do next year or after the children were grown or after your father was settled. Tomorrow never comes when you keep telling it no.

I loved your father, loved you children, but I wanted more. I wanted something for myself. I fear if you continue down this path, you will have nothing for you, dear girl, and that would be a tragedy.

I’m going to leave this out and hope you find it. If you don’t, then you will likely discover this after I’m gone and I want you to stop grieving. Stop it this instant. Do one thing for me. I will only ask one thing more of you, my darling girl.

Say yes.

Say yes to one thing that frightens you, that intrigues, that you think you can’t do. Say yes and don’t look back. It will or it won’t be, but you’ll never know if you don’t say yes.

 

Her mother’s handwriting became indecipherable, the script turning into doodles as the dementia had obviously overtaken her again.

But the words had penetrated Penny’s soul. She stared though she couldn’t see through her tears.

If she stayed here she would never start her life. She would never begin that essential piece of a life—the part where she had no idea what the next day would bring. She’d gotten comfortable with the daily rituals of serving her family.

It was time to figure out who the hell she was, and she couldn’t do it here. She couldn’t do it if she was always, always so afraid.

Her mother had sent her a lifeline, a prayer for her.

Without another thought, without letting her brain take back over, she found her phone. The number she needed had been left in the file, and she dialed it with shaking hands.

One chance. If she didn’t do this, she likely would wake up tomorrow and come up with some excuse to go back to her safe life, but some decisions had to come from emotion, from instinct—from love.

The phone rang once and then again.

“This is Knight.” His deep voice rumbled into her ear.

If she did this, she would likely have sex with him. She would know what it meant to be Damon Knight’s lover.

“Penelope? Darling, are you there?” He was back to oozing charm. He must have seen her name on his caller identification.

“Yes.” She said it.

“Yes, what?”

“Yes.”

She could practically hear his satisfaction. “Yes. You said yes.”

“I’ll see you Monday.” When he’d said they had to start training. God, she was going to let him train her. In kinky things. In things that made her heart pound. Maybe she would finally understand what sex meant.

She hung up before he could say another word.

Clutching the tiny notebook, she sat down and cried, the tears somehow purifying.

Penelope Cash was finally and truly ready to begin.