Hate Fuck: part two (7 page)

Hardly.

I know better than anyone how that darkness lurks under the skin of so-called good men and women everywhere. And when those people have power, it’s my job to take that knowledge and use it when necessary. Hoard it when it’s not.

“It’ll be good for
them
if this cracks now.” Wilson says it quietly, but there’s an edge to his voice.

I glare at him. “What does that mean?” I know full well he means the girls. I want him to have the fucking balls to say that to my face, because I would never choose to keep them in peril if I had choice in the matter.

It turns out the edge is something else. “This isn’t convenient timing for you.”

“That’s bullshit,” I grind out. “And if you think for a second Hailey would want me to avoid dealing with this, you underestimate us both.” I flick my gaze away from him and look back at the screen. “It’s only bad if he scuttles under a rock.”

Wilson pauses before changing the subject slightly. “That new bug you put on Morgan Reid’s cell phone is giving us some information.”
 

Morgan’s company had changed cell phone service providers right around the time his oldest daughter, Taylor, decided to blow the Vice President and record it for posterity. Or publicity, the jury was still out on her motivation. I noticed he didn’t have it on him when we were there last time, discussing the magazine article. Took a chance he charged it in his office and won.

I’d just managed to place a listening device in it and slide back into the hallway when Hailey found me. The one and only night I’ve spent with her.

We’d been a little distracted the last two weeks, but Wilson had been digging shit up on the sex tape Hailey’s sister had accidentally-on-purpose starred in. It wasn’t looking good for Taylor Reid, but since we’re bastards, that would stay our secret.

It never ends.

“What do you mean? Texts? Phone calls?”

“Both. Regular travel plans at first blush. It didn’t click for me until the interview this afternoon, but Morgan is going to Miami weekend after next. For four days.”

Which meant a helicopter ride to Lively’s private island. “Disgusting.”

“You should go with him.”

I recoil as if Wilson’s physically hit me. “No.”

“Yes.”

“It’s a good thing you’re not my fucking boss.”

Behind me, Jason laughs as he enters the room and paces to the head of the conference table. “None of us would ever try to own you, Cole. You have a tendency to turn rabid too often. What does Wilson want to make you do?”

“Go to Gerome Lively’s Bahamas compound with Morgan Reid.”

“That’s a good idea.”

“Fuck you, too.” I can’t. Fuck me, I didn’t think this choice would come this quickly. But I choose Hailey, no second thoughts. “Whoever goes will have to fuck the women. I can’t do that.”

The temperature in the room drops ten degrees as Jason says nothing. His silence says it all, but then he opens his mouth and makes it so much worse. “You’ve never had a problem with orgies in the past.”

Before I can launch myself at him, Tag is there, holding me back.
 

“Get off me,” I spit, my muscles clenched and ready for battle. “When the hell did you get here, anyway?”

“Just before Jason decided to masterfully push all your pervert buttons, you idiot. Stop.”

“It’s not the same thing,” I growl, as surprised as my friend that I’m on edge about my sexual history now. Anything—everything—I’ve ever done has been with consensual adults. Sometimes more than one at a time.
Often more than one at a time
. Until Hailey, I’d never wanted anything to be private. Personal. Intimate.
 

“He knows that. What the hell is wrong with you?” Tag shoves me again for good measure and turns to the others.
 

Seething, I back off, but I’m not listening to them anymore. I’m rattled and edgy, and ready to just bring in the FBI or the CIA. Anyone who will take this filth and put it in jail where it belongs.

I pace back and forth, stopping just shy of Tag each time. He’s planted himself between me and our other partners, and he’s waving his hands in the air. I suck in another lungful of air and try to dial down the asshole-reaction long enough to hear him. It’s fucking hard.

Tag ends his tirade with a summation that I appreciate, since it means at least half of us are on the side of me not getting too friendly with Lively. “This is not what we are. We don’t go undercover and we don’t
ever
suggest to each other that we do anything illegal.”

“He picked up a fucking gun and happily got himself arrested for murder the other day. He’s not a fucking fragile flower.” Jason glowers in my direction as he says this. “Until it comes to a woman he has no business fuck—”

“Finish that thought and Tag won’t be able to hold me back,” I grind out.

Wilson rolls his eyes and stands up. “Okay, let’s wind this back to what needs to be done before deciding who will do it.”

He catches up Jason and Tag on what we know, and what the Vanity Fair reporter said to Hailey during the interview. My skin crawls at the thought of her and her sister processing this shit all alone right now.

“So shit’s about to hit the fan for Lively.”

“About to…or will in a few months…or maybe never. Who knows who he has in his pocket? Isn’t that why we’re on it, too? Because PRISM doesn’t trust that he’ll ever be prosecuted, and he can bring down too many big fish?” I shake my head at some of the names we’re protecting. “Seriously, you don’t want to send me to the Caribbean with Reid. I may just massacre the lot of them.”

Jason snorts. “Wouldn’t be the worst idea I’ve entertained, except for the whole global destabilization thing.”

“Hell of a side effect to justice.” Launching us into World War III is exactly what PRISM is trying to avoid. The true cost of that disgusts me, but I understand their mission. I don’t always understand the domino effect of things that they think they can see. Jason does, more than me. Instinct? Intuition? Sometimes I act on them, when I’m not thinking too hard. But I never trust my gut, not really.

I learned early on how emotional responses can lead people to devastating consequences.

It turned me into the hard-ass motherfucker I am today, and usually, I’m just fine with that. Not so much tonight. It feels like I’ve got razor blades under my skin and a fucking marching band of monkeys inside my chest.

Wilson points at Jason. “You need to get us some direction. Figure out what the puppet masters want us to do. Then we can decide who should do whatever it is that needs to be done.” Now he’s pointing at me. “You need to admit that you’re not just sleeping with the Reid girl.”

I shift uncomfortably and cross my arms. “I have no idea what I’m doing with Hailey.” God’s honest truth, right there. “I swear. I haven’t shared because…”

When I trail off, Tag clears his throat. “I get it. Shit gets complicated, it’s hard to talk about.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Seriously?” Jason shakes his head. “No. No relationships, no women, no falling in love. Cole here is proof positive that it makes men weak.”

“Distracted, maybe. Not weak.” Tag shrugs. “If someone threatened Kendra, I’d rip them apart, limb from limb.”

“You know she divorced your sorry ass, right?”

Another shrug. “We don’t live well together. Doesn’t mean she’s not important to me. Doesn’t mean I can’t still do my job while wanting to keep her safe.”

I want to ask Tag how to balance this shit out, still care about the job and care about the woman at the same time. Because I feel fucking tilted. Instead I nod. “Yeah. What he said.”

“He loves Kendra. Is that how you feel about Hailey Dashford Reid? Sweet, good girl daughter of the rich and famous, who has rejected everything your sexy ass in a tux represents?” Jason snorts. “You know there’s not a chance in hell of that working out, right?”

Is this love? If it is, I fucking hate it. It’s painful and uncomfortable, distracting and not nearly naked enough.
 

“Little early to call it anything. I care about her. More than I expected to, I’ll grant you that. You saw that coming, I guess.” I’d wanted her for months. Thought that if I had her, I could get her out of my system. Turns out I wasn’t the only one in the equation, and Hailey wanted more. Fuck me, I
needed
more. We both did. And do.

Two weeks might be my limit.
 

Jason just shakes his head. “It’s almost morning in Geneva. I’ll stay up and make some calls. What we need here is some cooling off time. Take the night, get your head on straight, and let’s discuss a game plan over breakfast tomorrow. Deal?”

We shake on it, and I go back to my office. At the other end of the hall, Jason closes his door without looking back at me. Beside him, Wilson leaves his door open, but flicks off his light. He’s about to fall deep into a pile of computer code and probably won’t sleep before breakfast.

Tag just shrugs at me, apparently his favorite gesture today, grabs his bag and hits the stairs.

I should leave, too. Instead, I log into my computer and pull up the video feed of Hailey’s apartment. We have cameras on the front entrance and her door. I choose the latter and hit rewind. Two hours back, I see Hailey and Alison leaving together. I immediately flip to the front door camera and time synch the feeds, to get a clue as to where they’re going, but Hailey just waits for a town car to pull up for Alison, hugs her goodbye, then heads back inside. I watch her climb the stairs, and if she just locked herself into her apartment, I’d have powered down and gone home.

Instead, she stops on the landing outside her apartment, her hand on the handle, and looks up at the camera.

The look on her face—tight, drawn,
sad—
destroys me.
 

And I head for the door.

—
nine—
 

Hailey

It takes me a minute to realize why I’ve woken up. It was the creak of the front door that did it, or maybe the beep of the alarm system as he turned it off. I’m not sure, because my first fully conscious observation of the apartment is total silence.

What the hell just woke me up?

Then I hear footsteps.

He’s not trying to be quiet, not really. I have no doubt, if he wanted to be quiet, I wouldn’t know he was here until he was on top of me. I shiver against my will, hating how much that excites me.

“Get out.” I want him here, like crazy, but all of a sudden, the emotions of the last few weeks crash inside me and I’m
angry
at him. Pissed that it took him so long to come. That it’s in the middle of the night and I know he’ll be gone again before dawn.

Livid that we both need this to keep going.

He pauses in the doorway for a second before prowling closer. “I’m not here.”

“And yet obviously…” I sigh as he steps into the moonlight streaming through my window. God, he looks good. Rumpled. Tired. But hard as fuck and sizzling with energy. I want to touch him all over, absorb that intensity and sooth the raging beast inside him. My reaction isn’t selfless, though—not at all.

While we were apart, I could pretend I was getting over him. Now he’s here, and my chest hurts at how much I need him. Emotionally and physically. I press my thighs together, a futile effort against the instant ache he creates inside me.

“In the morning you can pretend this was just a dream. Or a nightmare.”

I shake my head. “Never that. But will this just torture us more? Because tomorrow you’ll be gone again, and we’ll start this cycle all over.”

His eyes glitter in the dark, his teeth flashing white as he grimaces. “Wilson told me about the interview. Is your sister okay? Are you okay?”

“Seriously? You break into my apartment to ask me if I’m fine?” I’m shaking with relief that he’s finally come to me, and angry that it took so long. And I’m still pushing him away. “I don’t know what kind of monster my father really is—I won’t be surprised if it turns out he’s the worst kind—but he never hurt us like that. Thank God.”

“I’m sorry anyway.”

“Why? It has nothing to do with me.” I prickle at the conversation. I don’t want to talk. I want to touch and hold and bite and cry from pleasure, but I don’t want to talk anymore.

“You found out some shitty fucking news today. That kind of thing can mess with your head.”

He would know, I’m sure. The last shitty news he got nearly landed him in jail. Which reminds me… “I’m not your problem anymore, Cole. Remember? I never was, not really.”

“You don’t think you’re my problem?” He slides out of his jacket and unbuttons his shirt. “You don’t get to decide that for me. You can push me away and tell yourself that I’m not
your
problem. That’s fine.” He strides toward me, and I’m so glad my drapes are open and we have a full moon tonight. Cole stripped down to just dress pants, his thick, muscled torso twisting in the moonlight is the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen. He climbs on top of me and shoves the blankets out of the way. “But
you
are
mine
. My problem, my concern, my fucking constant worry because I’m not good enough to be in your bed and at your side, keeping you safe.”

His words are heavy and sharp, and they land on me like that, but they don’t hurt. I can feel them, though, pointy and meaningful, and if I fight against them…that hurts. A part of me wants to relax, and let him slide closer. Slide inside me the way he’s said I’m deep in him already.

He’s already there.
And it’s too much, so I’m in denial.

“This is crazy.” When he’s this close, I can’t remember all the reasons we shouldn’t be together. All I can feel is how right it is when he’s touching me. How perfect it will be when he thrusts himself inside me and claims me the only way I’ll let him. I’m wet. Ready. Swollen and aching and hot for him. Only him, spoiled for all others.

“No shit.” He rolls his face against mine, forehead to forehead, nose to nose…lips to lips. I whimper as he kisses me. I’ve missed him so much. Needed this so much. “Good crazy or bad crazy?”

“Don’t stop crazy,” I whisper, arching into his hands as they move over my body. He strips me out of the tiny sleep shorts and tank top I’m wearing. Was wearing, because now they’re on the floor, along with the rest of his clothes.