Own (Command Force Alpha #1) (12 page)

“I do,” he said firmly. He got out of the car and came around to meet her at the passenger side. She was barely a head taller than the roof of the long, squat Oldsmobile. “And you were right, by the way. I won’t tolerate vulgarity from you anymore. If you cuss any more, I
will
spank you. Bare ass. My hand. Got it?”

She rolled her eyes, but again, there was the spark of what could only be
yes, please, more
.

Rather than kiss her, he grabbed their bags and angled his head for Kat to follow. He trudged down eight steps that led to the basement residence.

The building also housed a coin-operated laundry, which meant the brick-sided walls were thick with industrial paint. Constant traffic in and out of the small parking lot did well to conceal comings and goings. Soon Evan would duck back out and hide the Oldsmobile around the corner for the night. The obliging landlord, Mr. Reilly, had needed funding after almost losing his shirt in a bid to hold off recent gentrification attempts. CFA had provided him a substantial financial reason to rehabilitate his basement into a tiny apartment.

Evan used the thumbprint detector hidden behind a loose brick to open the electrified steel door. From the outside, it looked like old wood in need of some TLC. Kat raised her eyebrows. Funny thing though, the tension in her shoulders loosened. She might be pretending to shrug off Evan’s protective measures, but those same measures seemed to set her at ease.

He flicked on the light just inside the door then made his way down another six steps. The corridor was narrow and painted stark white. Once Katsu was out of the way and he dropped the bags in the small living room, he went back up to secure the door.

“It’s technically a fire hazard, isn’t it?” she said, assessing the place. “No windows.”

He met her in the living room, hands in his pockets. “Some of the best safe houses have views of concrete. Now stay put. I’m going to ditch the car. Then I have another small task to attend to.”

Fifteen minutes later, Kat watched as he moved around the apartment. Her gaze was like a touch as he went from security camera to security camera…and turned all of them off. He needed to smash two. There were eight in all, even one in the bathroom. Normally he’d consider that invasion of privacy a small exchange for the protection afforded him back at HQ. With Jayden and his Melbourne-based partner, Evie Kitjana, on computers, and Fletch’s people watching all of the installments, he’d be safer than if he were tucked in a headquarters in the Green Zone in Bagdad.

Tonight, however, he didn’t want anyone to witness whatever took place between him and Kat.

“Privacy?” she asked quietly, still rooted to the avocado-green shag carpet.

“Yup.”

“Thank you.”

“It’s not just for you.” He smiled, and it felt good. “Believe me.”

“No?”

“Would you want to go into work in the morning and know
everyone
had seen what you were up to the night before?”

“Hell no.”

“Shall I give you a warning or—” He crossed his arms and fisted his hands beneath his armpits, trying to ignore the painful jump of adrenaline in his chest. “No, fuck it. You got your warning in the car.”

“You…” She backed up as he advanced. “You can cuss but I can’t,” she said, her words petulant.

“Don’t take another step away from me.”

She stopped, dropped her head, exhaled.

Holy shit.

Only then did Evan really take in the full extent of her body language. He dug past his damn libido and assessed her with the eyes of a man who read people for a living—among other things. She was exhausted. It showed in the slight pout around her sharp chin and the extra softness of her cheeks. In truth, he was exhausted too, which was probably why he couldn’t stop this runaway train. First, he needed a release. Maybe she did too.

“Katsu, be honest with me. Right now. This is important. Lift your head and look at me.”

She did as she was told, but her mysterious eyes were clear of the subservience he craved. She was herself. And she was ready to be serious. “Yes?”

“You’re tired. You’re scared. None of this is normal.”

“All true.”

“Do you want this?”

“What is…this, exactly?”

“I intend to own you tonight.”

She actually covered her throat with one hand, but Evan saw the tight swallow where it shifted her stubborn jaw. She never looked away. “I want this.”

“Then here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to give you the spanking you just earned yourself. Then we’re going to go get something to eat.”

“That simple?”

It wasn’t that simple, not really. Considering the break-in at Katsu’s apartment, the stakes were obviously escalating. They had to have gotten some sort of information out of Laurie for Katsu to have been found. But she needed something light to cling to. Her eyes were huge and her fingers trembled.

If Evan could give her this, it would be worth staying carefully on guard. “Do you want it to be complicated? Because I can tell you what to wear if that floats your boat.”

Her whole body jolted. Her eyes brightened until onyx burned like fire. The pout leached out of her mouth, and her dusky pink lips fell open on a silent gasp.

Evan was in serious trouble here.

He did the only thing he could. He took it out on Katsu.

“Come here,” he said, his tone gratifyingly even. There would be no anger, no roughness. It felt right. The calm of the moment felt
so
damn right. They were perched on the edge of something life-altering, and he didn’t care. It was like floating.

Kat walked to where he stood by the couch.

“Turn, now. Face the armrest. Unzip your jeans and pull them down to your knees.”

She did, with a quiet whimper. He was going to fucking explode.

“Your panties too. Down to your knees.” He watched her hands tremble as she complied. “Bend over.”

With one hand on the too-soft cushion and the other braced on the back of the couch, she leaned over the armrest. Her ass was bare, smooth, pert. The lighting was too harsh, but he could still admire the perfect golden glow of her skin. It wouldn’t be perfect much longer.

“What did you do to deserve this, Katsu?”

“I cussed.”

“That’s right.”

Without warning, he slammed his hand down on one firm ass cheek. She yelped. Her knuckles went white where she gripped the back of the couch. A bright red palm print the exact size and shape of his hand welled on her skin. It was all he could do to resist sliding his fingers between her folds. Was she as wet as he was hard?

“Now,” he said, still eerily calm despite his raging arousal. “Panties and jeans up. We’re going to get you dressed.”

Chapter Eleven

“Beer nuts and nachos weren’t what I had in mind when you mentioned eating out.” Kat scooped up melted cheese with a super-salty tortilla chip.

Evan sprawled back in his seat and hooked an arm over the ladder back of the chair. He licked yellow cheese off the thumb of his other hand. “Don’t lie. You love the jalapeños.”

“True. But I thought you hated pool halls.” That they sat in chairs, not on one of the cushioned booths that flanked the room, was probably intentional. Kat squirmed on the hardwood. One smack. One smack was all it had been…and that had been enough. She tingled, which felt like a permanent condition.

Evan had big hands.

“I don’t hate pool halls.” He had ordered a cola instead of a beer, and she was thankful. The idea of her guardian being even a little buzzed seemed like a really, really bad idea, and left her cold—exposed. Instead, Evan was keeping her safe. When he sipped, his throat worked in such a way that she wanted to bury her face there, with her legs wrapped around his waist. “I hate you being alone in pool halls.”

“I don’t normally look like this when I’m in them.”

When packing in an apartment with the ominous awareness that an anonymous, possibly deadly creepster had shoved his hands in her drawers, Kat hadn’t thought to pack a leather skirt. So the outfit Evan had put together for her to wear retained a general air of respectability…but he’d created a combination she never would’ve worn in public. The tight gray leggings weren’t meant to be worn alone. She would’ve paired them with a mid-thigh-length skirt. All he’d provided was an oversized blue jersey blouse that brushed her hips. The open boat-neck draped over one shoulder. If she bent over, she’d be unable to keep from showing off the neon-blue lace bra Evan had selected. That wasn’t
such
a big deal. She’d flashed her cleavage at marks before. But the neckline of the shirt was loose. Anyone she played would see all the way down to her stomach. He’d also told her to put on the knee-high, flat-soled boots she’d been wearing with her skinny jeans.

Combined, her outfit looked…risky. Did that make any sense? Maybe it was just the knowledge that she wore nothing that he hadn’t personally chosen.

His eyes gleamed. The dim light of the bar meant it took work to discern the vividness of that unforgettable blue. Evan’s barely there gaze was more intense than most men’s patented dramatic Dom stares.

He’d worn that look on their second date, sitting on an outdoor picnic table and sharing decadent lobster rolls and a bucket of mussels. There had been a moment when their conversation lapsed. They’d been talking about Evan’s favorite classes at Annapolis versus what Katsu expected from heading into Harvard. They’d stopped messing with the last of the seafood when the butter had cooled. He’d simply
looked
at her with so much intensity, more than any touch had ever made her feel.

He was looking at her that way again, although his words were fiercely different now. “There’s nothing wrong with what you wear because no one cares what you’re wearing. You always look like a bite-size fuck toy. It’s just you, Katsu-kan.”

Her chest clenched tight. Her lips parted. She was…caught.

Maybe she didn’t want to get free.

She forced her mouth to press into a pout. “You get to cuss and I don’t. It’s still not fair.”

“Fair is whatever I decide.”

He snatched the air away from her lungs with his simple, decisive arrogance. She folded her arms over her chest and lifted her chin as she looked toward the rear of the bar. It was busy. Light streamed through the open doorway. “There’s money to be made back there.”

“Do you need the cash that badly?” he asked mildly.

“It’s not the cash.” Her teeth worried her bottom lip as she shuffled through which words might get her what she wanted. She cast him a sly smile. “It’s the
can
.”

“Explain.” God, he could be sharper than Headmaster Williams from boarding school. He’d been a mean old bastard. Sometimes Evan possessed that same cold efficiency.

She shivered and pressed her knees together. “I wish I had real job, like the one I was interviewing for at the Department of Commerce. They need a translator with experience beyond a degree in Far Eastern Studies. It’d be nice to be more…” she exhaled, “…more steady.”

After a long pause, when his gaze never left her heated face, he said, “Go on.”

“I make enough money to live on. And Dad gives me all the little presents I could ever want. I’m a princess. I know that. Cosseted and spoiled, and if I’m not careful, I get so entitled that I can’t breathe with it sometimes. So when I walk in places like this and guys see me wanting to play pool and they make their assumptions… Why can’t I give them a lesson? I can’t make them
see
me, but I can sure as fuck make them see that what they assumed was wrong.”

“One demerit.” Trust Evan to hone in on the single
fuck
that had slipped into her speech. He said it almost as a sideline. He was listening to her. Intently. “Which marks would you go for?”

“There’s a table of three men in the back right corner. They’re all drinking good ol’ Sammy Adams. They think it’s fun to slum. I could make seven hundred in progressive bets, mostly because the guy in the gray sweater
thinks
he knows pool.”

“You haven’t seen him play.”

She smirked. Flat-out smirked. Maybe she shouldn’t do that when Evan was assessing her with that laser-blue intensity, but she didn’t feel like hiding her assurance in her skills. Her day had been too fraught with unknowns where she was completely out of her depth.

“He’s running his mouth off and pointing at the nearest table. He’s armchair quarterbacking the other pairing.”

She didn’t think Evan would do anything. Not really. They were both tired, and there was that offhanded
fuck
she’d accidentally-on-purpose slipped into her conversation. Would more than one in a single night get her smacks added to? She needed a whole barrage of them, until her ass was flaming and hot to match the heat of her pussy and the burning fear in her lungs that had yet to ease.

Evan had a sharp chin, even with a two-day growth of golden-brown scruff. That sharpness softened some when he pulled out his wallet. His perfectly carved mouth twitched into a smile, blunting the strong line of his nose. He counted five twenty-dollar bills and set them in the middle of their round table. The condensation ring of her Sprite made the corners wet.

“You’ll take them out in reverse order,” he said, turning a sexy command into what sounded like a military operation. “Start with the guy in gray. Then the wannabe bruiser with the crew cut and frat tattoo. His little buddy with the tacky snakeskin boots bites it last.”