On Her Master's Secret Service (17 page)

You’re just a little whore. That’s all any of you are.

She shivered in the cool of the room and closed her eyes, thinking soothing thoughts. It was the only way to make the bad images go away. She deserved her peace. She deserved to have a life that wasn’t filled with the man who had raped her. She was a damn psychologist. She wasn’t some warrior princess. She’d taken plenty of self-defense classes, but she hoped she wouldn’t have to use them.

She wasn’t hiding. She was helping out. She was here because she was the best person for the job and because Alex was her responsibility.

Her brain floated back to the day she’d told her parents she was marrying Alex. She hadn’t told Kristen what their response had been. They’d been all smiles on the day she and Alex had married, but they hadn’t been happy about it. Her mother and father had planned on her marrying a doctor or a lawyer, not an FBI agent. Alex had been too rough for them, too possessive, too real.

Her parents hadn’t known about the life they’d led. She’d hidden it from them. They still didn’t know.

She wasn’t hiding.

Eve stood up, straightening her clothes. Well, what there was of her clothes. Damn it. Why had she come here?

To make sure Alex survived. That was why she was here. That was why Sean was here. No matter what that Kristen girl said, she wasn’t hiding and she had a purpose.

She glanced at the mirror, smoothing back her hair. Evans didn’t matter. Alex was the only thing that mattered.

She turned. She would figure it out later. Right now, all that mattered was getting through the next couple of hours until she could talk to Alex and make him understand that nothing had really changed between them. She’d thought about changing their contract, but that had been a mistake.

I’ll fuck you when I want, where I want, how I want, and I won’t listen to your protests. You belong to me. Mine. You’re fucking mine for however long this lasts.

Nothing had changed? He seemed to think so. He seemed to think she had a real role to play. His sub. His slave. His.

His to command. His to control. His to fuck and love and satisfy.

It was like a drug she’d managed to kick long ago. Submitting to Alex had always been a high. She hadn’t needed to think about anything when Alex was in control. She only needed to feel, to give over.

And that hadn’t gone well. That had ended in pain and misery.

No. She wasn’t going down that path. Nothing had changed between them. They were still divorced. They still had all of the same problems that had been between them since the incident with Evans. This was just a job.

She walked out the door, determined to put a good face on things, and ran straight into a nicely cut chest. She just about fell back, but two hands gripped her arms, balancing her so she didn’t fall.

“Hello again.” Jesse Murdoch loomed over her, his handsome face staring down. Sandy blond hair and ice blue eyes. He really was perfection with his sensual lips and a strong jaw, but no one had moved her since the moment she’d caught sight of Alexander McKay. No other man would ever make her heart race. No other man would ever force her pulse to pound through her body. She could appreciate them on an intellectual level, but there was no man for her but Alex McKay.

But she had to play a part now. She smiled up at him. He was the one Kristen couldn’t figure out. If there was one thing Eve could really contribute to the team, it was her instincts for the human psyche. But she needed him to trust her first. “Hi. Is my Master finished with the meeting?”

She wasn’t going to lead him on. He needed to know she was the “good girl.” Men would do a lot for a woman they seriously considered to be innocent and pure. Jesse had that look about him.

He smiled, but there was a sadness to it. “So you’re pretty much into him, huh?”

She put a hand on the collar at her throat. “He’s my Master. I would hope I would like him.”

“Sometimes that’s not the case around here.” He was still standing close, but something had changed. The tension was gone. He was just friendly now. “Sometimes a woman stays with a man because they don’t have anywhere else to go.”

She took particular note that he’d called her a woman and not a sub. He hadn’t followed her lead. It could mean nothing or it could mean that he wasn’t as invested in the lifestyle as he wanted them to believe. Jesse Murdoch wanted to be the white knight. He wanted to charge in and save someone. Unfortunately for him, she didn’t need saving. “I love him.”

He sighed a little. “Fine. All the pretty ones love someone else. Anyway, if you need anything, you call for me. If your man isn’t around, you call for me. Can you do that for me, sweetheart?”

“She isn’t going to do anything except to step away from you and get her ass to my side.”

There was that voice that had a direct line to all her pink parts. Alex stood in the hallway, his big body taking up all the space. Jesse was just as big, just as broad, but somehow he didn’t fill the space the way Alex did.

Eve stepped away, and the minute she came within arm’s length of Alex, he pulled her close and forced her behind him as though there was a threat just waiting to take her out.

“I don’t know how this club has worked up until this moment, but I just officially became the Dom in Residence here, so this just became, for all intents and purposes, my club. So I’m going to teach you the first rule of this club. Don’t you fucking touch my sub. Mine. That collar on her neck was placed there by me. She belongs to me, and this isn’t some happy little office where there are civilized rules and I have to put up with you hitting on my woman with a smile and hope that she doesn’t reciprocate. This isn’t the civilized world and the next time I find you alone with my submissive, I’ll make sure you never do it again. Am I clear?” He was a caveman, a Neanderthal, a freaking possessive maniac, and she kind of wanted to do him hard right then.

“Clear as crystal, boss.” But there was a grin on Jesse’s face.

“It better be.”

Eve wanted to say something, to protest, but this wasn’t the place. Alex turned, grabbing her hand and starting down the hall.

She practically ran to keep up with him. Nothing had changed? She was fooling herself because from the moment she decided to get on that plane, everything had changed.

She just needed to figure out how to deal with the fallout.

* * * *

Jesse Murdoch watched the ridiculously titled Master A walk away, his shoulders squared off and a possessive arm around his…what did they call her? Submissive? Why did they have to fuck things up with different names for shit? He wasn’t sure he got the whole BDSM thing.

Scratch that. He was damn sure he didn’t get that shit. It seemed an awful lot like a way to abuse a woman to him.

The first few times he’d had to watch Chazz take a whip to one of the girls had sent him straight to the bottom of a bottle. He still wasn’t sleeping, but fuck, he never slept. Every time he closed his eyes, he could see the dirty cell that had been his home for so long, smell the shit and piss and blood that had been his life.

The brunette turned slightly, her eyes trailing behind, finding him.

He had to admit, she was a looker. A little thin for his tastes, but there was an almost innocent appeal to her. He gave her a smile and she turned away, disappearing down the hallway with her psychotic boyfriend.

Was Master Asshole the one who had given her those scars on her neck? Fucker.

The new Dom and his pretty punching bag were more than just a curiosity for Jesse. They were a complication he didn’t need.

He glanced once and then twice down the hallway. Empty. By nightfall, the whole place would be buzzing and a mad sort of chaos would take over, but, for now, all was quiet.

Like he liked it.

He slipped inside the women’s locker room. He had to use the women’s locker room because some
asswipe
had bugged the men’s. No prying eyes or ears in there this time of day. He gave the whole place a quick
lookie
-loo. No one in the stalls or the showers. He shoved a trashcan in front of the door. It wouldn’t keep anyone out, but it would let him know if someone was coming in.

He moved back to the shower stalls and pulled out his cell phone, the one he kept in his boot along with his knife. He had two cells. This one was utterly untraceable and had only one number programmed in. Jesse hit the button and waited.

“You have something for me?” His contact was always succinct.

“A couple of new players.”

“Names?”

“Anthony Priest and Amanda King. I just met them. Chazz brought them in to, I don’t know, I think they’re supposed to fuck in front of a crowd or something.” He was still a little hazy on what the
dickwad
was supposed to do. “He’s forty or so. Buzz cut. A couple of tats. She’s a brunette with some scars. Nice tits. She’s less mouthy than Kris. The dude is Kris’s brother.”

“Really? Because as of three months ago, she didn’t have a brother.”

He should have known. “Fuck.”

“Calm down. There’s a reason you leave the intelligence work to me. You’re a useful vessel, Murdoch, but you’re a soldier.”

He wasn’t anymore. He’d lost that as surely as his honor had been stripped away, along with his humanity. “Who the fuck is he, then? And why did he show up now? If Kris is pulling some shit, what does she know that I don’t?”

It sat in his gut—this feeling that she was on top of him. She wasn’t what she said she was. He knew that even before he’d been told to watch out for her. But his contact didn’t want her touched. Not yet. Somehow, it had been there in the back of his head that maybe she played for the same team as him, and he’d been brutally surprised to discover it wasn’t true.

He didn’t want to kill her, but he would if he had to.

“Just lay low for now.” His contact had a deep voice. He’d never met the contact, only been given a phone number along with living expenses and the keys to a
rathole
loft he’d quickly turned into his little hidey-hole, but he’d seen pictures of the man. “I want everything in place when it’s time for me to come in.”

That was his job. Make things right. “What do you need from me?”

“Well, I seriously doubt that Anthony Priest is anything but an alias. I need pictures. I want pictures of him and the woman who’s with him. Do it quietly. I don’t want them to suspect a thing. You’ve gotten close to Chazz?”

“I’m in the inner circle. He’s a loyal employee from everything I can tell.”

“See that he stays that way. I want reports on anything out of the ordinary. And if it comes to it, I might need you to take out the new guy.”

Jesse took a long breath. This was kind of what he’d been dreading and hoping for since the moment he’d decided to move to the dark side. What his father had done was all pure and white hat, but this was something different. It was all he had left. “Yeah, I can snuff him if I need to.”

“And the girl?”

He’d never killed a woman before. He swallowed once and then again. He wasn’t sure he could, but he knew what he had to say. “Yeah. I’ll do her, too, if I have to.”

His contact chuckled over the line. He seemed to have a dark sense of humor, but then that wasn’t so surprising. “It’s good to know I can count on you.”

The line went dead, and Jesse shoved the phone back in his boot. He moved quickly, exiting the locker room before anyone came in. He shoved the trash can back into place and found the hallway empty. He made his way back out on the floor just in time to see Kristen leave with her so-called brother and the pretty brunette he might have to kill.

His stomach turned a little at the thought. Not that he would have to kill her, but that he might like it. He might like it a lot. He was an addict. Oh, he wasn’t addicted to anything so cheap as liquor or meth. He’d become a little addicted to violence, to spilling blood, and he’d been off his own personal sauce for a while now. He was worried that this time, he might not be able to come back.

But he would do it because it was his job, and it was the only fucking thing he had left. Maybe he was still a soldier deep down, and a soldier didn’t falter when the job at hand was a little nasty.

He watched as the big guy shoved out the front door, holding it open for his woman. She was so small compared to him. She had scars that proved her life wasn’t that great. Maybe he would be freeing her in the end.

It didn’t matter. He had to keep his head in the game. Amanda King didn’t matter. Kristen Priest would go, too. Hard decisions would be made, and he would carry them out. He steeled himself.

Anything for the mission.

Alex pulled the SUV into the underground parking garage, his every movement a precise response to nearly going out of control. He’d been on autopilot since the moment he’d realized Eve was here and in danger and had actively attempted to wreck his plans.

It was a betrayal. It burned in his gut. She was sitting behind him, but he kept glancing back at the rearview mirror, looking at her, trying to make eye contact. His brain was working overtime trying to figure out exactly what she was doing. His heart and head had been racing ever since she’d walked through the door.

Watching her smile up at that far too young for her
himbo
had done nothing to calm him down. Too young for her? Was Jesse Murdoch really too young for her? Or was Alex getting too old? He’d thought seriously about choking the fucker when he’d walked in on Jesse looming over Eve. The younger man had her practically pressed against the wall as he talked to her. Did Jesse think he’d invented that move? Dumb fuck.

“What floor are we on?” Sean asked from the passenger-side seat, his voice pulling Alex back into the here and now.

“My place is on three, but the whole building is protected. There’s a security guard at the gate to the island. Once you’re here, you have to have a key fob to get into the building from the front or side doors. Even if someone can get into the building, the elevators are protected. You have to put a passcode in to get to the right floor,” Kristen said, leaning forward. She was sitting in the back with Eve. “I see Adam is already here.”