I reach Jewel’s bedroom, and I’m about to open the door when it flies open and she rushes out and smacks right into me. “Oh,” she gasps, as I catch her arms, heat charging between us that appears in-fucking-escapable. “I didn’t know you were there,” she adds, catching herself with a firmly placed hand on my chest, and just that easily, I’m hard and hot, and if not for Asher’s “weakness” comment, she’d be halfway naked already.
Fuck.
I release her, one hand planted on the doorway to keep it off her damn, perfect body. “How’s your head?”
“Better,” she says. “Thank you for the BC powder and convincing me to nap. I feel guilty for sleeping too long, though. I was just coming to find out what was happening.”
“Nothing eventful,” I say. “Mostly data collection, but let’s eat something and I’ll update you.”
“God, yes,” she says. “I could chew my own arm off right now.”
It’s a joke but neither of us laugh. We just stand there, staring at each other, those naked moments we’d shared earlier between us again now, tempting us, telling us we want more. “You’re not gentle?” she asks, proving her mind is right where mine is, and it’s not on work.
“No,” I say, not about to sugarcoat who, and what, I am to her, or anyone, for that matter. “I’m not even close to gentle.”
“Right,” she says. “You’re hard.”
“Yes.”
“You’re fucked up.”
“Ten shades of fucked up,” I assure her.
“I’m fucked up, too, you know,” she says.
“About twenty shades of fucked up,” I comment dryly.
“Well then,” she says, “if that’s true, together we’re thirty shades of fucked up. That seems like a problem. That and you are a control freak and—”
“—so are you.”
“Yes. I don’t like giving it up. I’d always be fighting you for it.”
“And you’d never win.”
“Of course, I would,” she says, a smile hinting at her lips, which are lipstick free because I kissed it all away.
But I don’t smile. I’m not amused at all with where my thoughts go. “I’m not your fireman, sweetheart. I won’t break. I won’t give. I won’t make you feel normal or good, even for a little while. I’ll make you feel all thirty shades of fucked up, sometimes double. Because I don’t pretend to be what I’m not.”
“Mr. Robot just shuts everyone out.”
“I didn’t shut you out.”
“Yes, you did. That ‘I’m not gentle’ remark was all about scaring me.”
“Are you scared?” I ask, waiting a little too anxiously for her reply when I do nothing anxiously, ever.
“I don’t scare easily. Not anymore. Not for a long, long time. I guess that’s where my twenty shades of fucked up comes from. But let’s just face it. Two fucked up people make really fucked up people.”
I feel those words like a punch I don’t expect. It’s obvious where she’s going. It’s obvious she’s the one putting up the roadblock between us. I should celebrate. This is what I need. This is what keeps her from mattering to me, and yet all I want to do is carry her right back to that bed, and join her this time. Which is exactly why I turn and walk away, heading back to the kitchen.
By the time I’m on the other side, sitting on the stool that I’ve been using while working, she’s standing across from me. “What did that reply even mean?” she demands, her blonde hair in sexy disarray around her shoulders, when I’d like it to be on my naked body, preferably my stomach, with her mouth back on my cock.
I cut off the fantasy of her licking me again. It gets me nowhere but more fucked up after fucking her. “I didn’t reply at all,” I say.
“No reply is a reply, and you know it,” she counters.
“There’s a reason you gravitate to your normal, good guy, fireman.”
“What? Where did that come from? I told you. It’s over with him mostly because he is a normal, good guy, fireman.”
“But you need someone like him to make you feel normal. To give you a dose of straight up good. I told you. That’s not me.”
“I don’t want a damn good guy fireman,” she repeats. “And I don’t need anyone.”
“Two fucked up people make really fucked up people,” I say, repeating her words. “You’re right. We’re just going to fuck with each other. We’re a distraction that can’t exist or one or both of us will end up dead. Which is why, right now, we need to decide if we stay here or go to my place. Here’s your update. The team is researching connections to your uncle and I’ve sent a list of the case files you brought home with you. I have them looking for connections to you. Asher’s wife, Sierra, can Skype with you when you’re ready to profile the slayer and talk through actions and reactions.”
She leans over the counter, close to me, that damn floral scent of hers teasing my nostrils. “What I was going to say,” she says, “is that fucked up is the only way I live in my world. Fucked up is the only thing that fits me, which is why the fireman does not. And more. I was going to dare to say more, but I’ll just stop right there.” She pushes off the island. “Set up the call.” She grabs her briefcase and sticks it in the box. “I’ll be in my bedroom working.” She turns and walks away.
I watch every step she takes to depart, every single one of them tempting me to follow her, repeating her taunt: I was going to dare to say more. I want to know what more is. I just want fucking more of fucking her. I sit there a moment and consider staying where I’m at for all of thirty seconds. That isn’t going to happen. I pull Asher up on my messages: Set the meeting for seven-thirty.
Done, he replies. Skype me. I’ll put Sierra on.
I stand up and walk to the fridge, grab the bag of sandwiches I ordered from the grocery deli, two bottles of water and my MacBook, before I head toward the bedroom. The door is shut, and I don’t knock. I open it and find her on the bed, legs crossed, her boots on the floor, and her Mac open in her lap. I cross to stand beside her, setting her water on the nightstand. “Drink. It will help your head.”
“You didn’t knock,” she says. “What if I was changing?”
“I’m not that nice of a guy, remember? And I assure you that had you been changing, I would have enjoyed the view.” I reach into the bag and hand her the sandwich. “The best chicken salad on a croissant in the city.” I walk to the chair in the corner by the windowless wall—which works out just fine when it comes to protecting, not so fine if she needed to escape—and sit down. “If you don’t want that sandwich, I’ll eat it.”
“You aren’t getting my sandwich,” she says, opening the container.
“Okay then. Skype is at seven-thirty. Groceries are in the fridge.”
“And you’re in my bedroom,” she says.
“We’re doing this together. That means a door doesn’t separate us.”
“Just a world,” she says, looking at her computer screen.
Only we aren’t a world apart. Not even close. We’re so damn close that I can practically taste her, and it’s killing me. But she’s right. Fucked up, makes fucked up, or I wouldn’t be fucking her on the job. Correction: wouldn’t have fucked her on the job. I can’t do that again. Ironically, it’s because she’s her, while I wouldn’t have done it at all if she was anyone else. We eat in silence and neither of us work. There’s just me and her and the damn bed that she’s in without me.
“You’re right,” she says as we finish up. “It was a great sandwich. You have pretty good taste for an arrogant—”
“Asshole?”
“I was going to say: heartless, never gentle, hard-ass. Do you prefer asshole?”
“Considering you’re the only woman who’s ever gone at me like you do, and the only woman I couldn’t say no to, apparently, I do.”
“What?” she demands. “You say that like I seduced you into fucking me, Jacob,” she says, and the use of my name, over “asshole” actually tells me just how pissed she really is. As if proving that point, she starts to scoot off the bed, and damn it, I can’t leave her alone.
I’m on my feet and standing over her by the time she’s on her feet. “We got to me. We. Us. This. Whatever the fuck it is.”
“Well then, we’ll fix that. Remove yourself from this assignment.”
“You know I won’t and don’t say that’s about Jesse Marks. It’s about you. I’m the one who’s going to do the up close and personal side of protecting you.”
“You don’t need to be in my bedroom to protect me. We don’t need that distraction, remember?”
“I need to keep you close,” I say and it’s a confession to her and myself.
“No one can get past your team and my front door, and live. You don’t need to be in my bedroom.”
“You’re right,” I say, “but I’m not leaving and you don’t want to and you don’t really want me to either.”
“According to you, I want the fireman here, not you.”
“I don’t want you with that fucking fireman.” I pause for effect. “Ever.”
“What happened to me being the distraction that will get us killed?”
“Do you know what Asher said to me?” I don’t wait for a reply. “He said the Tin Man finally grew a heart and a weakness.”
She pales. “Me?”
“Yes. You.”
“Why would he say that? Because you kissed me?”
“Because when he asked me how personal this had gotten I told him ‘real fucking personal.’”
“But I’m a weakness.”
I close the small space between us and slide my hand under her hair to her neck, my other hand at her lower back. “I let his words fuck with me, but I was wrong. He was wrong. Because yes, this is personal, but what that means is that if anyone comes at you that’s personal, too. And only a few people have hit that nerve with me, and they didn’t live to talk about it. Tell me the more you didn’t tell me before.”
“I don’t want gentle. I don’t like being treated like I’ll break because I don’t want to start thinking I’ll break.”
“And yet you believe you’re never ready?”
“Maybe that’s why I don’t want to be treated like I’ll break. I don’t want the good guy, nice fireman. I want you, but how about you protect me, but don’t fuck me like you’re protecting me?”
“You really want to go down this path with me?”
“Who’s scared now?” she challenges.
I don’t need to be convinced. I want her. Incredibly, some part of me needs her, when I don’t let myself need anyone. And I need to taste her need really fucking badly. My mouth closes down on hers, and that’s exactly what I do. I kiss her. I kiss her like I’ll never kiss her again; like I can’t get enough of her, because I can’t. She moans, and melts into me, soft curves, making me harder and hotter, adrenaline burning through me, but none of this steals my control. None of this drives me over the edge, for one reason and one reason only. I still feel the wall between us. I still feel her restraint and I want what I don’t have. I want her to give up control. I want her trust and that means submission.
With that need burning through me with the adrenaline, I tear my mouth from hers. “Undress for me,” I order, setting her away from me.
“Are you going to undress?” she asks, more challenge in her voice.
“When the time is right,” I say. “Right now, I want to watch you undress.”
“Watch me,” she repeats.
“Yes,” I confirm. “Watch you.”
She studies me for a moment, maybe two, and then pulls her blouse over her head, tossing it onto the bed. Her pants are next, and her panties go with them. I barely have time to appreciate that sweet V of her body, or her long legs that I want on my shoulders, and around my waist, before she unhooks her bra.
“Now what?” she says, tossing it aside, and giving me a view of her beautiful high breasts, and puckered nipples. Her eyes meeting mine, but there is no sign of submission, just more bravado, that I now see as a wall between us. And I not only want it torn down, I’m going to tear it down.
I pull my shirt over my head, tossing it, and grabbing her wrists, pulling her to me, her breasts nuzzling my chest. “Where are the cuffs?” I ask. “I know you have some here.”
“I don’t know you well enough to give you that kind of trust.”
“Sounds like a good way to fast forward the trust that I might need one day.”
She pulls back. “Because of Jesse Marks?”
“Quit going to him for everything. We said—”
“We’d put him aside for now. I know. I’m trying.”
“Try harder. And the answer to your question: Why do I need your trust? Because that’s the only way, I become your escape. Your safe place. That’s the only way that you can stop being Detective Carpenter. I want you to know that you can be vulnerable and not pay a price. That is, unless you’re just too afraid of me.”
“I know what you just did,” she says. “I know that was a challenge, meant to hit a nerve, and it still worked. I’m not scared. Top drawer. And it’s not a kinky thing. I keep my gun and cuffs nearby.”
That confession tells me how on edge she lives, how much she lives with the monsters of her work, and her past, every moment of every day. And this realization, not only makes me want her trust more, it makes me want to be safe for her. It makes me want to show her it’s okay to let go with me. I reach around her and open the drawer, finding both a set of steel cuffs and another pair of the plastic breakable cuffs. I choose the plastic, because I know they will feel less intimidating to her. Shutting the drawer, I pull Jewel’s hands together, and she laces her fingers. Her gaze lifts, and she looks at me, and despite more of that bravado in her stare, I find nerves and that vulnerability I want her to willingly embrace. It hits me then that binding a woman because she wants to be fucked and binding a woman who is daring to give me trust she gives no one else is a whole different ballgame. It’s a responsibility. It’s a promise, to be worthy of that trust. And I want that trust, no matter how unreasonable that demand, no matter how soon I’m asking for it. But I don’t seem to care that it’s soon, or that it pushes her limits. I just want her. All of her. And right now, I’m nowhere near having her.
I bind her wrists.
“I can get out of these cuffs, just like you,” she says.
“I know you can but I’m going to make sure you have plenty of reasons to keep them on.”