Suzanne spent the next three days avoiding Declan and preparing to tape her next episode of Angel in the Kitchen. She still cooked meals, but Dec would take his plate into the security room and eat there.
If he’d found a secret entrance to the mansion, he hadn’t shared that information.
Guilt pinched at her heart. She’d panicked and treated him like shit. He’d have been right to walk out on her right then and there, but for some reason, he’d stayed. And just yesterday he’d told her he’d accepted her apology and would continue on the job.
But things were still chilly, and she still felt guilty for being a jerk and for lying. She hadn’t lied about the existence or non-existence of a secret entrance, but she’d definitely lied about the security equipment being glitchy. She wanted to tell him the truth, all of it, but revealing her identity to a human was another one of those forbidden things. Unlike other laws that governed forbidden actions, this one made sense. The knowledge would change his life and, perhaps, his destiny. The truth, in this case, would not set him free.
Her phone buzzed on the counter next to the stack of recipe note cards she’d been preparing for future Angel in the Kitchen episodes, and Cipher’s name popped onto the screen.
“Hey, Cipher. You’re on speaker,” she said as warning to be careful with whatever he was going to say in case Declan was nearby.
“Gotcha, doll. Hey, I got some exciting news.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. And thanks for letting me know you listed me as your contact person for Angel in the Kitchen, by the way.”
“You’re welcome,” she chirped, amused by his sarcasm. “So is this related to my show?”
“You could say that. This is huge, lady.” He paused, probably for effect. He was a drama queen sometimes, but it worked. She was practically bouncing on her toes while she waited for him to continue. “That big science fiction network wants to venture into food programming for nerds or something, and they want you to fly out to New York so they can discuss signing you for a cooking series.”
Too stunned to speak, she stood there. And kept standing there, even as Cipher called out her name.
“Suzanne? Yo. You there? Suzanne?”
She stared down at the phone, her thoughts scattered all over the place. This was what she’d always wanted. A dream come true. Cipher better not be screwing with her.
“Yeah,” she finally croaked. “Yeah. I’m here. Are you serious?”
“As Azagoth’s condemnations.”
“Holy shit,” she breathed. “Holy shit!”
“They’re up against a deadline and they want you there tomorrow. They’re willing to buy you a plane ticket, but I figured I’d get you a D’Angelo private jet.”
“You can do that?” The fallen angel had somehow maintained his ability to navigate the angelic network even after he’d lost his wings, and his reach constantly surprised her. So did his willingness to help. Assisting Memitim in their duty to protect Primori must be part of his plan for earning his way back into Heaven.
“Consider it done,” he said. “I’ll text you the deets and the network’s schedule for you.”
The network’s schedule. This was real! “I can’t believe it. This is crazy. Have you told Hawkyn?”
“Hell fucking no. I’ll let you do that. You know what he’s going to say, right?”
She picked up the cell, clicked it off speakerphone, and lowered her voice. “He’s going to say I can’t do it because we’re forbidden to have too much human interaction or to draw attention to ourselves by getting famous or some crap.”
“Bingo.”
“Well, let’s just keep this to ourselves for now, okay?”
“I’m not going to lie to him.”
“I’m not asking you to,” she assured him. “But do you expect him to ask if you’ve been contacted by a TV network about me?”
Cipher hesitated. “Well, no...”
“Then you won’t have to lie.” She heard footsteps in the hallway. “I gotta go. Send me the details when you can. Bye!”
Declan walked into the kitchen and went straight for the coffeemaker. Damn, he looked good in his jeans, a navy T-shirt that hugged every rigidly-defined muscle, and his sidearm at his waist. His leather flip-flops slapped softly on the tile as he shifted to grab a mug from the cupboard next to the fridge.
“Good morning,” she said brightly, knowing by now that he wasn’t a morning person.
His gruff “Morning, ma’am” amused her even though she hated that he still called her that. She wanted to be Suzanne again. Her name sounded so sexy when he said it.
“I have some news.” She couldn’t contain a grin, despite the fact that things between them were a bit tense.
Okay, a lot tense.
He poured steaming coffee into his mug. “Yeah?”
“We’re flying to New York tomorrow.”
“Great.” He took a sip of his coffee as he swung around to face her. “Why?”
She couldn’t wipe the smile off her face. He must think she was a loon. “Because a cable network wants to talk to me about Angel in the Kitchen.”
For a long moment, Declan said nothing, his expression unreadable. “Congratulations,” he said, finally breaking his silence. “How long of a trip should I pack for?”
His response, or lack of it, stung. She’d felt as if they’d connected, and she was sure he’d told her things he didn’t normally tell people. Especially not people he barely knew. Now he was back to the gruff, serious soldier he’d been when he’d first arrived, and it was all her fault. She had to fix this.
“A couple of days, at least,” she said, going full-out cheery in case it was contagious. “I’ll need to go shopping later this afternoon though, so make time in your schedule for that.”
“Aye-aye, boss.” He started to leave, but she hurried around the island and blocked him.
“Look, can we talk?” At his twitch of one shoulder that she took as a shrug of assent, she launched into her apology tour. “I’m sorry about the other day. I shouldn’t have said the things I did. I shouldn’t have threatened your job. It was a shitty thing for me to do.”
“Yeah, it was.” This time he gave a real shrug. “But like I said, I’m used to it.”
“You should never be used to it,” she said, suddenly angry. “Being treated like you’re lesser than someone is bullshit.”
“I’m used to it,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean I believe it. I know who I am.”
“Well, I’m still sorry.”
He moved a little closer, his gait slow and predatory, and her heart beat a little faster. She felt like a gazelle being stalked by a lion. “You sorry enough to tell me why you lied to me about how you got outside the perimeter fence?”
“Declan.” She looked up at him, wishing for the first time that she had Maddox’s gift to Compel. Compelling Declan to believe her would come in real handy right about now. “There is no secret tunnel from this house to outside.” On that, at least, she didn’t have to lie. “I promise.”
“I’ve gone over every piece of equipment, every frame in every video, hundreds of times. I even sent the digital files to McKay-Taggart for expert analysis. Nothing has been tampered with, and there’s no missing data. So how can you explain Hawkyn getting in and you getting out without being recorded on any of the cameras or setting off any motion alerts?”
“I can’t.” She really couldn’t. Forbidden, and all that. “I wish I could prove to you that I’m telling the truth about there being no secret entrances to the house.”
He eyed her speculatively, and then one corner of his mouth curved in a grim smile her father would envy. “There’s a way to prove it.”
She wasn’t sure she wanted to know, and she hesitated before finally asking, “How?”
He gestured toward the grand staircase with his coffee mug. At first, she didn’t understand. But as he started toward the stairs, she realized that he had no intention of going up to the second floor.
He was heading for the torture chamber beneath the stairs.
* * * *
Declan was at the end of his rope. In three days he hadn’t found a reason for the lack of video showing Suzanne leaving the house and Hawkyn coming inside the house, and even more baffling, the doors and windows, which registered every instance of opening and closing, hadn’t recorded activity during those times, either.
Why Suzanne would lie, he didn’t know. And truth be told, he didn’t think she was lying. But unless someone tampered with the evidence, there was no other explanation. But why would someone tamper with the evidence? Besides, McKay-Taggart’s best techies, including Steve, confirmed that no tampering had taken place.
Something wasn’t right about this entire situation, and he was about to get to the bottom of all of Suzanne’s secrets, one way or another.
He stopped at the door beneath the stairs and tested the knob. It was as locked as it had been every time he’d tried, which was at least twice a day. And yet, Suzanne was able to turn the knob with no trouble.
Had to be some sort of advanced touch-sensor technology in the hardware. But when he asked, she just shrugged and claimed to know nothing about it.
Yeah, something definitely wasn’t right.
“What are we doing in here?” she asked, her fists planted firmly on her hips. Hips he could picture himself gripping as he pounded into her no matter how hard he tried not to imagine it.
Sure, she’d crossed a line when she’d threatened his job, but he believed she was sorry, and he knew she’d been panicked and desperate when she’d done it. She was truly afraid of something—he could only guess that something was her stalker. The fear in her eyes had dimmed his anger and reminded him that he’d promised no one would get past him, and he’d meant it.
“Are we looking for anything specific?” Suzanne twirled in a circle as she took in the room. “Like a secret door behind the... What is that thing?”
“It’s a bondage horse.” An exquisite one, in fact. The four legs and punishment stocks on one end were wooden, but the rest was padded and covered in leather.
“Okay...” She stood there, looking confused and delectable in her blue and yellow sundress.
“Come here, Suzanne.”
“What?”
“I said come here.”
She swallowed, the delicate muscles in her throat rippling, and he had a sudden urge to nibble his way along each one. He wanted to nip a little too, a pleasurable punishment, but not for treating him like a serf, which he’d forgiven her for. No, she was still keeping something from him and despite that he wanted to fuck her in the worst way.
Angry sex was still sex.
But that wasn’t what this about. Not entirely, anyway.
“Why?” she asked.
“In the pool you said you wanted sex. You begged me to touch you. Do you remember that?”
She swallowed again, her face going bright red. “Yes,” she whispered.
“Do you still feel that way?” At her wide-eyed nod, his cock twitched, all stupidly happy. Down, buddy. This might not end that way. This really wasn’t as much about sex as it was about opening up, breaking down barriers, and building a connection. Sure, it was unprofessional as hell, but, as he was discovering on a daily basis, this wasn’t a conventional job. And he wouldn’t do anything she didn’t want. “Do you trust me?”
She didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
“Do you really?” He gestured to the bondage horse and stocks. “So if I cuff you to this, you would trust me not to hurt you?”
Her chin came up, and her eyes sparked with determination. “Absolutely. But why do you want to do that?”
“Because I don’t trust you, and that’s a problem.”
She folded defiant arms across her chest, pushing her breasts together and deepening the cleavage. God, she was killing him. “You really think you can torture me into telling you what you want to hear?”
“Yes...and no.” He snagged two sets of handcuffs from where they hung on the wall. “This is going to be an exercise in trust, Suzanne. For everything you tell me, I’ll tell you something. That’s how it works.”
For a moment she stared at the handcuffs, and then she squared her shoulders and marched over to the bondage horse.
“Go ahead. You’ll see that I’m not hiding anything.” Smirking, she held out her wrists to him, almost taunting him.
She was going to learn a lesson about teasing.
Without warning, he moved on her, slipping the cuffs on her wrists even as he maneuvered her body, angling her over the bench so she was lying on her belly, arms outstretched, her legs spread and her feet barely touching the floor. The fabric of her dress was stretched tight around her knees, so after he secured the cuffs to the stocks, he hiked the dress up to her hips.
He wasn’t counting on the sight of her creamy, toned thighs and the bunched-up pink silk panties that barely covered her tight round ass to grab him right by the cock. An instant erection strained at his fly, the impatient bastard.
“Declan!” she gasped. “W—what are you doing?” She tried to look back at him, but her position didn’t allow much movement.
“Your safe word is...halo.” He wasn’t sure why that word popped into his head, but it seemed to fit Suzanne, and it definitely matched up with his damned angel wings tattoo. “If you want me to stop at any time, say it.”
“Stop...what, exactly?”
He slapped her ass, just a light one, and the sound echoed off the walls. “Shh. I ask the questions.”
“But—”
He slapped her again, a little harder, and a rosy blush began to bloom on her right cheek.
“I ask the questions,” he repeated. “I told you that’s how this works. You have a safe word, and you can use it if anything I do makes you uncomfortable.” He pitched his voice low, quiet with an edge of command. “Understood?”
Irritation put color in her cheeks and a hot flare in her eyes, but she nodded and looked forward again.
“Good girl.” In reward, he cupped her bottom, feeling the heat from the spanks in his palm, and used his thumb to stroke her inner thigh. She trembled when his thumb brushed the fabric of her panties, and when he added pressure, she squirmed.
Nice.
“Now, tell me if there’s a secret entrance to this house.” He slipped his finger beneath the fabric and used the tip to caress, ever so lightly, the smooth, plump flesh between her legs.
“There’s not,” she blurted. “I told you.”
He deepened his touch, adding more pressure and easing his finger inward, so he was stroking the seam of her labia. She went utterly still, but her breaths came in small bursts that shook the bench.
“Are you sure?”
“Well...there could be.” She broke off on a moan and when she spoke again, her throaty voice had gone even lower. “But if there is, I don’t know about it. Like this room.”
Despite evidence to the contrary, he believed her and moved to reward her. Gently, he dipped his finger between her folds and nearly groaned at the silky moisture he found. She did groan, a hearty, needy sound that made his balls clench.
“Okay.” He kept his voice to a low, soothing murmur. “Do you have the building plans to the house?”
“No.”
He believed that, too. “Now it’s my turn to tell you something.”
“Your tattoo,” she blurted breathlessly. “I want to know about that.”
Reflexively, he jerked his hand away. He didn’t want to talk about his fucking tattoo.
“First of all,” he said, as he pinched the tender area he’d spanked, “you don’t get to ask the questions.” He brought his hand down on the spot he’d just pinched, and she hissed even as her lovely ass, framed by all that flowing fabric from her dress, rose as much as she could manage to meet his palm. Hmm, she liked this. It opened up a lot of fun possibilities. For later. Right now this was business. Mostly. “Second, my tattoo is off the table.”
He swore she growled. “Then this isn’t about trust, is it?” she asked. “If so, you need to give me something you don’t want to give up.”
As right as she was, he didn’t want to hear it. This time, he pinched her between the legs. Not enough to hurt, but enough to startle her into making a squeal of both surprise and outrage. But when he began to pet her there, easing the throb he knew she was feeling, she moaned.
“Tell you what,” he said softly. “You tell me who you really are, and I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
She went still. Even her breathing stopped. “What do you mean?”
Her wetness soaked through her underwear, proof that she wanted everything he was doing to her, and he had to hold back an appreciative moan of his own.
“I mean, take away your money, and who are you?” He slipped two fingers under her panties and pushed them between her labia, loving her shocked gasp. “Tell me, Suzanne.”
“I—I don’t know.”
He withdrew his touch and brought his palm down on her hot ass. “I don’t believe you.” He slapped her again. “Who are you?”
“I don’t know!”
Another, and she cried out with a sob. “Tell me.”
“I. Don’t. Know!”
“Bullshit.” He drove his hand between her legs again, cupping her intimately but not giving her any stimulation. Just the hint of it. “Some people are defined by their money. You’re not. You act like you are, but I don’t believe it. You’re hiding something, Suzanne. What is it?”
“Please, Declan...”
“Please what? Do you want me to stop? Do you want me to uncuff you?”
She shuddered, and her voice trembled. “No.”
“Then what?”
“I want you,” she whispered. “Since the first time I saw you, I’ve wanted you.”
God help him, he wanted her too. But not yet.
“What else?” When she said nothing, he started rubbing circles on the pillowy pad of her pussy, still over her underwear, taking care to put extra emphasis over her clit. “Come on, Suzanne. Tell me what else you want.”
Several moments of silence ticked by, and then, as if a dam had broken inside her, she blurted, “I want to be free. I want to cook. That’s what I am.” She let out a sob. “I’m a cook, and I’m social, and I want to choose my own path and be free of all the damned rules!”
Rules? There were rules for being rich? But actually, when he thought about it, maybe for people like her, there were. Maybe she felt constrained by her family name or the expectations that came with belonging to the D’Angelo empire. All that money, and she still felt trapped.
For a moment, he wanted to tell her to snap out of it. There were worse problems than having money. But obviously, her feelings were real, and she was sobbing as if this was the first time she’d admitted it.
For all of that, she deserved as much from him.
He tunneled his fingers beneath her panties again, and this time, he eased one finger just inside her. They both groaned as he tested her slick, tight channel.
He wanted to do more. He wanted to drop to his knees and lick her until she screamed, but unfortunately, he had other plans for his mouth. He had to give her something he didn’t want to give up.
He had to tell her about the tattoo.
This was going to cut deep.
“Back when I was in the military,” he began roughly, “I had a friend named Gareth. We were part of a joint special forces team made up of members from the Air Force, Navy, Army, and Marines. He was a Ranger.” The team had gone on dozens of missions together, and Declan had patched them all up at one point or another. “I earned a reputation of being a good luck charm, and Gareth got everyone calling me their guardian angel. It was a fucking stupid nickname, but it stuck because whenever I was with a unit or team, no one ever died. Hell, we were freakishly lucky all the time. Enemy RPGs would fly off course and hit empty buildings, IEDs would fizzle out before they detonated... Once, a mountain landslide took out thirty enemy combatants before they could ambush us. So anyway, once when we were on leave, Gareth got me drunk and made me get this tattoo. I don’t even remember getting it.” Which was probably a good thing, because his life went to shit afterward. He drew his finger up her slit, spreading her satin cream over her swollen flesh. “Back to you now.” He made some slow circles around her clit, and she began to pant. “You say you want to be free. Why can’t you be?”
“I—I think I can. I think...this is a start.”
“This?”
She wiggled, rattling her cuffs. “I’ve never done anything like what we’re doing. It’s terrifying. But I have to take risks if I want to be happy, right?”
If she thought he’d be surprised by the fact that she’d never toyed around with BDSM, she was as crazy as her assistant. But he got what she was saying. Sometimes your comfort zone doubled as a prison.
“Keep doing that,” she whispered, straining to push into his touch. “And tell me why the tattoo bothers you so much. I don’t think it’s just because your friend got you inked while you were drunk.”
No, it wasn’t. “I wasn’t even mad. I was cocky. I was a fucking good luck charm, a guardian angel.” And after a childhood of being invisible at best and a means to an end at worst, being needed, being important, was something he’d craved. “But then we got back to work. And one week later, Gareth died when the Humvee he was in ran over an IED. I was in the vehicle behind his. Saw the whole thing. And I couldn’t save him.”
“I’m so sorry, Declan.” Her soft voice held a slight tremor, a testament to her ability to feel empathy for others. “You know it wasn’t your fault, right?”
His heart jerked painfully against his ribs. It was his fault. Because everyone, including him, believed he had some kind of good luck mojo going on, and they’d gotten careless. Gareth had paid the price, and that emotional laceration was never going to heal no matter how many times someone used the words “It wasn’t your fault” like a bandage.
“Whatever.” He moved between her legs and let his fingers play on the satin skin of her inner thighs and ass. Touching Suzanne was far more pleasant than reliving the past. “Now you know something no one else does. Please don’t make me regret telling you.”
“Never,” she swore, the tremor still in her voice. “But Declan?”
“Yeah?”
“Halo.”