Drive: Cougars, Cars and Kink, Book 1 (16 page)

Chapter Nineteen

Oh shit.
Suzanne had smiled through tears the first time they played. Neil had seen that kind of catharsis before, even from subs who weren’t dealing with nearly as much as she was.

But these were racking sobs. When he asked if she was okay, knowing he sounded like an idiot because she obviously wasn’t but you have to say something, she shook her head wildly, like she was saying yes and no at the same time, and pressed her face into the mattress.

He quickly peeled off the condom and tossed it toward the wastebasket, not even bothering to check if he’d made it, then grabbed his EMT safety shears off the bedside table. In all his years of kinky fuckery, he’d never had to use them, but he always kept them close by if he was playing with rope and this time he was grateful for his paranoia. That position had probably felt great as long as Suzanne was soaring along on the sexy, but if she was going to have a meltdown, she might as well be comfortable doing it.

She flinched from his touch now, but he couldn’t very well get her untied without touching her, so he worked as quickly and efficiently as he could and somehow fought off the urge to say something dumb like “it’s okay” because really, it wasn’t. Not right now, anyway. The woman had just found out her husband had been killed by fucking Iranian spies. Sure, she’d dealt with his death, been ready to move on, but that was when she thought he was a cheating asshole who’d died in an accident. This new information must have jarred all sorts of ugliness loose. They’d both known that. It was part of why they’d both wanted some intense play, to distract themselves. However, when emotions ran high, it could lead to some serious sub drop.

As he pulled the ropes away, she hissed and shuddered. “Rope burn?” he asked, trying to pitch his voice slow and deep. A calming voice, the voice he’d use talking to someone who’d just been mugged or crashed their car.

“Feels too good. Can’t take it.”

That made sense in context. She’d gone from soaring to crashing awfully fast and her body hadn’t caught up. He moved the ropes as gingerly as he’d peel off a Band-Aid. That seemed to work better.

When he finished getting the ropes away, removed the blindfold, she curled up in a ball, shook off his touch, and responded to his attempts to talk with “Go away.”

He backed off to the chair, but he wasn’t about to leave, not with her in this state.

During his time in the scene, he’d been around people who’d melted down for no apparent reason. Sometimes it happened during a scene, maybe even a scene that didn’t seem particular intense to the Dom but struck a chord with the sub. Those were times when you talked reassuringly, tried to figure out what was wrong, or if, in fact, nothing was “wrong” but all kinds of feelings were crashing around and the only way to make sense of them was to have a good cry. Hell, it wasn’t just subs. Sometimes Doms got triggered by something, dropped too hard when a scene was over, and things got weird for a while.

This time, Suzanne had so many reasons to melt down that it seemed foolish to ask, “What’s wrong?” because she could answer “everything” and no one would accuse her of being a drama queen.

Instead of asking questions, instead of trying to touch her when she was already overwhelmed, all Neil could do was just sit on his ass like an idiot instead of fixing the situation. Anything he could think of that might help might also make things worse.

And that sucked.

He clung to one thought. Suzanne was good at communicating. As soon as she could put things into words, she’d tell him what was going on. And then he could help her make it better. It was what he did. He couldn’t solve all her problems. Hell, he couldn’t solve all his own problems at any given moment, and his didn’t involve the Feds and missing plans for some piece of robotic or drone technology that was still so nebulous he could stare at the damn thing and not recognize it. But when you cared about someone, you took care of them, fixed things for them—be it their lawn mower or their case of the blues.

He cared about Suzanne, dammit, so he wanted to take control of the mess she was in and fix it for her.

Even if he didn’t have the slightest idea how.

So he’d sit there until she gave him some kind of clue what would help in the short run.

What had she done? It was one thing to have a crazy fling, even start dating again, eight months after her almost-ex husband ran himself off the road. That was just getting on with her life.

But to keep the fling going, let it get crazier and kinkier and, if she was being honest with herself, more emotionally intense, right after learning Frank had been murdered? That was just twisted.

He’d been using their anniversary as a password to protect his Batphone.

She’d found that out and had gone right ahead with being tied up, whipped and ass-fucked by her new boy toy.

Her brain, not her heart, was scolding her, and that made her feel even worse.

Her heart was just fine with her and Neil Callahan being mutual chew toys, maybe for a good long time. She had so much to learn about herself, and about kinky sex, and she liked the guy as well as lusting after him. Her heart didn’t see what the problem was. Didn’t see that fifteen years of marriage
meant
something, that Frank behaved as he did for a damn good reason and someone had killed him. That he deserved to be mourned, far more than she realized at the time of his death.

And she couldn’t do it. Just couldn’t do it. Couldn’t keep her hands off Neil Callahan the day that Frank had, in a sense, died all over again.

Not that she’d actually had her hands on Neil for most of tonight, some wicked part of her subconscious reminded her; she’d been tied up. That same part of her subconscious thought that had been damn hot. Amazingly hot. Only now she wanted to run her hands over Neil’s skin, touch him as she hadn’t been able to…

God, she was terrible.

Or maybe not terrible, but certainly confused. There was nothing evil about consensual sex with a great guy and maybe she’d needed this night to cope at all with what she’d learned. But she couldn’t go on like this.

She’d been right. She did crave kink and sexual submission, more deeply than she’d imagined. But this wasn’t the time to explore that side of herself. It wasn’t right to use Neil, use her own sexuality, to avoid dealing with the fact that her assumptions about Frank had been wrong.

That she’d judged him and condemned their marriage without knowing the facts.

She flung herself from the bed, started fumbling for her clothes. She was sticky with sex-sweat, cum and lube, and right now it felt anything but erotic. Suddenly she couldn’t bear being naked another second, not even long enough to shower.

Neil stood as she did. She couldn’t help watching him move—it might be the last time, unless for some weird reason he was willing to try again in six months or a year when her head, heart and body could all agree.

Her blood stirred. God, he was beautiful.

Young, brave, beautiful and so very, very good at making her feel brave and beautiful herself, not to mention younger than she’d felt when she was Neil’s age. At Neil’s age, she’d been married to Frank for five years already, and while things were still good between them then, still warm and happy, they’d definitely become settled in their ways.

“Cold?” Neil asked, though he must have known she wasn’t on this warm evening.

She slipped her skirt back on and popped her shirt over her head, not bothering with the bra, before she answered. “I can’t stay here. I need…”
I need to stay here with you
her body and her heart insisted, but she knew that wasn’t right. Wasn’t reasonable or mature or fair to Frank’s memory or her own ability to make peace with the dead. Probably wasn’t fair to Neil either. He might be having fun being used, but she was still using him to cope with everything that was going on. “I need to be somewhere else for a while. Need space and time. Playing with you tonight wasn’t right.”

His mouth clenched into a tight line and darkness veiled his eyes. “Talk to me. Did I do something I shouldn’t have? Pressure you?”

She shook her head frantically. “No.”
No, you did too much right. Made me want and feel too much at the worst time.
“I thought I wanted…no, scratch that. I did want, did need to be with you, to push boundaries. To forget for a little while. But I can’t keep forgetting. Frank and I drifted apart because he was protecting me. I don’t know what this means yet, but I know it changes things between you and me.” She took a deep breath. Neil deserved to know what she was thinking. No, what she felt, burning in her like desire had so recently, dancing on skin left overly sensitive by rope and floggers and a fucking that felt more profound than it really could have been. “I was starting to make this…whatever it is between us more than it could ever become. You woke me up, Neil, and that’s a good thing. But it’s not the right time. I have things to figure out about my marriage before I should move forward. I thought I’d had all that in place, but now I don’t know.”

“I’m happy to be a playmate or fuck-buddy if that’s what you need right now.” He smiled, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes, which were dark and cold like the winter ocean or the night sky, a blue so deep it shaded to black. “Or happy to hang back and let you sort things out in your head. But I don’t want you to leave, and that’s not just the cop in me talking.”

“Stop being so damn understanding.” The words blurted out before she could stop them. She didn’t need this maturity from him. Didn’t need to see again that flash of potential for something more than great sex.

If he was just a random good-looking young dude, her cougar fling, she could walk away and sort things out without hurting either of them. But it wasn’t that simple. Neil was more than that, more mature and dominant and wise than anyone his age had a right to be.

Not to mention she wasn’t sure where to go and still be safe. She’d been trying not to think about that aspect of the problem.

“You’ve had some major shocks over the past few days.” He shrugged, held out his arms to the sides in a gesture that might mean “I got nothing” or “I need a hug”. Maybe, under the circumstances, both. “I probably count as one of them. Neither of us expected this when I stopped to check out your car. Okay, I thought you were even hotter than the car but I didn’t think anything would come of it except for some fantasy fodder.”

“Yeah, same here. I blame Janice.” Not that
blame
was the right word. If circumstances were different—if circumstances were what they’d seemed to be when she’d told Janice she wanted to meet a kinky new man—they’d be thanking Janice. Maybe if Neil was as patient as he seemed, they’d still end up thanking Janice. But right now,
blame
definitely came to mind.
Thanks a lot, bestie, for setting me up with exactly the guy I wanted, but can’t handle yet.

Neil took a few steps forward, closed the distance between them. She didn’t know whether to sidestep, which her brain prompted her to do, or give in to her body and heart’s demands and melt against that broad chest, let those strong arms close around her.

In the end she did neither, just stood there, her bra dangling ridiculously from one hand because she didn’t want to leave it here. Neil was too close for comfort, close enough she smelled their combined musk and the sex-sweat on his skin but not actually touching. He looked as frozen as she felt, like he desperately wanted to touch her but knew it wasn’t a good idea—like he wanted to grasp the back of her neck, tangling a knot of hair in that big hand, pull her face up to meet his, kiss her until she shattered, until she stopped caring about the past or the uglier aspects of the future, the ones involving federal agents and spies and God only knew who else and slipped back into the moment.

Or maybe that was just what she hoped he’d do.

Giving herself some space to think without his overwhelming physical presence to distract her was her only hope.

“I have to go,” she said, striding toward the bedroom door. “If I drive fast, I can still catch Ly Vo at the office. He always works late.”

“Shouldn’t I—”

“No,” she cut him off firmly, knowing what he was going to offer. “I’ll go right to Mayhew, I’ll call when I get there, and then I’ll come back here. I promise. No unnecessary risks. They have really good security, and I’m sure the FBI or the NSA or whatever is still watching the place even though the Iranians have been arrested.”

“You can have the bed,” Neil said. “I’ll sleep on the couch.”

She grabbed the bag that held her keys and both her phone and Frank’s, then literally ran out of the room.

She’d clean up and put her bra on in the downstairs bathroom. Another second in Neil’s company and she’d lose her resolve.

She’d be the one sleeping on the couch, she told herself as she hurriedly washed off the residues of sex. The bedroom was already stocked with delicious memories and tempting smells she needed, God help her, to avoid. Even if she had to stay at Neil’s for her safety and his peace of mind.

Chapter Twenty

Suzanne dodged traffic on the back streets until she reached Route 95. Traffic was still heavy this close to the city but it gave her something to think about. In a Prius, she couldn’t be a lane-changing, speeding fool, and she thought painfully of the Mustang. Wouldn’t have been safe to take it for a spin, she knew. It was too distinctive a car, unlike the anonymous little blue Prius. But it would have been cathartic to open the Mustang up, take it on some side roads somewhere.

She laughed at her own thought. A decade and a half with Frank had just about broken her of that urge. Cars were so much Frank’s thing that they couldn’t be hers anymore, even though the car collection had been part of her initial fascination with the man. A few days hanging out with Neil and she was back to admitting she was a car buff and just a little bit of a speed demon. Not that she’d tell Neil the speed-demon part, seeing that he was a cop.

Not that she knew
what
she’d be telling him from now on. Neil was very much alive and Frank was gone, but that didn’t matter in some aspect. Not when Frank was haunting her the way he was now.

How could she move on—with Neil Callahan or without him—when she didn’t even know who Frank really was and how he’d felt about her? How she felt about him, for that matter?

She felt her mind split as she drove. Part of it focused on the road and the cars around her, focused on driving a little fast, but safely. The rest lost itself in thought and memory. Memories of Frank when they first met, when she was charmed by him and everything was good. He’d always had a cool edge to him, and at first that was part of the attraction. It reminded her of a Dom during a scene, that way of being a little distant while still being focused on her in the bedroom. Even though he’d turned out to be utterly vanilla, the attitude had been enough to make her hot. Looking back, she thought she could pinpoint when he must have started working on the top-secret projects. That was when the pose of distance started to become real.

Not like Neil. She couldn’t imagine him ever being distant except for kinky effect, and then she could tell he was playing a role. Normally, she imagined, he’d be direct, maybe a little too blunt. Not a bad thing, though.

She shook herself. She’d gotten so lost in thought she’d almost missed her exit.

Mayhew was in one of the towns bordering on Bellwood, but not directly on the highway. She wove her way down a state highway and from there onto the side road that would take her to her destination. It was suburbia, sure, but pretty suburbia, and driving along the tree-lined street pulled her back from her memories and into the now.

And in the now, she realized she’d been unfair to Neil tonight, but worse, she’d been unfair to herself, slamming herself when she’d done nothing wrong. Even if she didn’t know exactly what was going on in her own head and heart, or how things really stood at the end of her marriage, she knew she’d come to care about Neil. She could mourn Frank and what they’d lost in all his necessary secrecy while exploring what Neil had to teach her. She could work through the aftermath of Frank’s life and death while still getting on with her own life. Even if Frank had been ready to get the divorce in part to protect her, the fact remained he’d been ready to leave—not arm her with the truth and a plan of action, not pretend to split up to confound enemies, not find some other way, with that clever mind of his, to stay together and work together to stay safe. Time and complacency as well as secrecy had taken their toll, sapped their desire, made it impossible for them to communicate even in the areas where Frank didn’t need to guard Defense Department secrets.

Inertia was a habit that died hard. Love, on the other hand, died more easily. Frank had cared enough he wanted her to be safe, and she’d cared enough to be hurt by his silence and enraged by his seeming infidelity—but neither of them had cared enough to break through those challenges and get back to what had brought them together in the first place.

Hadn’t cared enough.

Damn, she was turning into a leaky faucet these days. The road was blurring through a haze of tears, and while willpower could keep the tears from turning to Niagara Falls, it couldn’t keep them from welling up, interfering with her vision.

Luckily, she was almost at Mayhew. She made it into the parking lot, checked that her doors were locked, and called Neil. “I’m sorry,” she said into the impersonality of his voicemail. “I think that was what you call a bad drop but my head’s clearer now. I’ve reached Mayhew and I’ll call you after the meeting’s done. It should be quick. Call me.” She might have rambled on to fill the silence, but she wanted to get in at about the time Ly Vo had tried to set up the original appointment. She’d see Ly Vo, make it short and sweet, then go home.

Home. When had that two-family house in Dorchester become home? She smiled at the thought. For whatever reason, it felt more like home than her own house had the past few years.

A big green SUV had pulled in while she was calling. No big deal. The driver and a passenger were just stepping out. Both white guys, one very blond and fairly young, the other older with angular features, graying dark hair, both dressed in the engineer version of business casual. She froze for a second, considered staying locked in the car until they went inside or otherwise proved they were harmless.

No one had been right behind her on the road; she’d have noticed on the narrow, windy road through the industrial park. And if they’d been following her and she’d somehow not seen them, they’d have pulled in right when she did, right? People must come and go here all the time. It was a business, and there was a second shift for the production team, with a few engineers and designers no doubt working late or on flexible hours. No reason to lurk in the car like a big old coward.

She took a deep breath, opened the door.

The two men converged on her, moving fast and with practiced intent. The one who reached her first grabbed her arm.

She did three things at once: she threw her coffee at his face, screamed bloody murder, and fumbled in her pocket, trying to hit redial on her phone.

The young man—he looked old enough to buy cigarettes but maybe not beer, and his hair was so blond it was almost white—cursed in a language she didn’t understand, but only gripped her arm tighter. The screaming was equally ineffective. No one was around.

When the older man—he was hard-looking with a craggy face that looked like it was awkwardly carved from New Hampshire granite—pressed something hard and cold against her back and muttered, “Come along quietly,” she could only hope she’d redialed successfully and Neil would get a phone message full of screaming—and get it soon.

Because otherwise she was fucked.