Trained for Seduction (20 page)

She huffed in a breath and gave him a pointed glare. “But all this hand-to-hand combat training you have me doing… I know this means I’ll be fighting my way in or out of something. And yeah, I took Charlotte down once, but you know as well as I that I don’t have enough training to take a man. Not like Jake, or you.”

He hated to admit it, but she was right. “No.”

“I… You’ve trained me to seduce. But what if it’s not enough? What if I can’t do it, if that’s what I have to do? I can’t fight my way out, Chase.” A note of hysteria clouded her voice, and it set Chase on edge.

“What are you afraid of, love?”

She swallowed, her eyes wide and nervous. “I don’t want to be forced to have sex. Of all the things we’ve prepared for, we can’t prepare for that.”

He closed his eyes for a few rapid heartbeats, so loud in his ears. He didn’t want that, either, and he had no clue as to what to say to ease her fears.

“You’ve never had to worry about that.” Her tone wasn’t accusing, just stating fact.

“No. It’s different to be a man.”

She pushed the tiles around in the box again, so dark and brooding, more like him than his bubbly Kate. “I am so not ready for this. Am I?”

“You’re going to be fine.” If only she knew how unprepared she really was. Jesus, how stupid was he, sending her out, only knowing him?

Suddenly everyone around him was too right—Jake for being hands-on, kissing her. His uncle for telling him to walk away. Even Charlotte for texting him after Kate had pinned her, asking him if he was in his right mind for loving Kate with everything at stake. Charlotte knew him almost as well as Jake did.

His sense of control spiraled as he stared at her, and he cursed Lady Luck for doing this to them, to her. If she had never met him, she wouldn’t be here, contemplating what would happen if she failed. And failure wasn’t ever an option in his book.

Kate looked at him then, studying him as if he were something new, the key to her fear. “You could force me.”

“What?” Chase’s need for control spiraled faster, becoming an intangible dark vortex. He stared at Kate, unable to believe she’d make the leap from her worst fear to making him take her there. If it had been anything else, it would have been easy to deny her. But this…asking him to force her, something he’d done consensually to lots of other women was like a sucker punch in the gut from Lady Luck.

Kate nodded, as if she’d thought about it and decided this was a good decision. “You could force me. I trust you not to hurt me too badly. If you forced me, I’d know what to expect, how to react. It wouldn’t be the same, but it would be better than not knowing.”

And as hard as Chase had avoided the dark side, here it now loomed, holding Kate’s hand. “It doesn’t work that way, Kate.”

“Why? You force me, I fight you, and…” She looked away. “Please, just do this for me? You made me a woman, Chase, so it would be easier if I had to do it with another man. Don’t let another man hurt me first.”

The Dom inside him rose up, ready to step forward. Wasn’t this the control he sought? Wasn’t this what he needed to be sane?

He shook his head. No, he didn’t need this. The old Chase needed this depth of control. Now he’d be happy with a little bondage, submission. Maybe he could convince her to go a different way with this.

“It won’t work because it will probably excite the hell out of you. It’s a fantasy of many women, you know. To be forced. Consensually, of course. You like rough sex. Trust me, it won’t be the same.”

Her brow wrinkled with confusion. “It’s a fantasy? How do you know this?”

Dark side, this is Kate. Kate, meet the dark side.

“Because I’ve done it before.”

Her eyes widened, and he braced himself. But instead of attacking him with censure, she merely cocked her head, looking even more confused. “Women have asked you to force them.”

“Yes.”

“How many?”

He ran his palm over his face, not wanting to do the numbers game. His fact sheet looked really bad next to her one tally mark. But it was who he was, and he couldn’t change it. And though he wanted to believe that number didn’t make him less, he always thought so.

He felt like he was on a cliff, barely hanging on, slipping further down the slope toward the chasm, away from safety. “I don’t keep score, Kate. I have no clue.”

“More than one?”

“More than five.” His hold slipped on control, and he held it by the fingertips.

“Do you enjoy it?”

“I have in the past. I don’t know if I would enjoy it with you.”

Her chin came up and her brow furrowed. “Why not? What’s wrong with me that you can’t do that to me?”

Shit, no, don’t go there, Kate. It’s not you. “Nothing’s wrong. I feel differently about you. I care about you. I didn’t care about them, and that opens a whole new can of worms on the situation.”

“You care about me.”

“Of course I care.”

She still wasn’t convinced. “Well, why? Why is it different?”

“It just is, Kate.” Shut her down, Sanders. “Jesus, do you have to know everything?”

“Yes. Why won’t you do this for me?”

Because I love you. Because I’m afraid of hurting you.

“I just don’t wish to, that’s all. It’s not appropriate. I’m your boss. Fuck, you shouldn’t even be here. This is why I should have listened. You should have been Jake’s. Not mine.” He clamped his lips shut before he said too much and hurt her.

“I trust you not to hurt me,” she said softly. How did she know that was his worst fear? “That’s what this is about. You don’t want to hurt me.”

“Kate—”

“How did you keep from hurting the other women?”

“They had a safeword to stop me if it was too much.”

Once he gave her a safeword, what was there to stop him from taking her fully there? It was like a BDSM cover charge—have safeword, welcome to the dark side club. Yes, he was afraid of hurting her. But if he introduced her, and she liked it and she never came home…

“A safeword.”

He nodded. “You would say stop or no, as part of the pretend part. The role-play. You’d need something else, something different so I would know it’s too much for you. That’s what a safeword is for.”

“Like…Christmas?”

“Yes.”

No. Fuck no. But he couldn’t seem to stop himself from talking, from telling her what she needed to know to access that part of his world. “That would work.”

“I can do that.” Her blue eyes were no longer conflicted as she assessed him from the end of her table. No Emma, all Kate. Brave, strong, ready to take him on.

He faltered. “I can’t do this, though. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t make me go to Jake for this. Please.”

“You wouldn’t.” Chase swallowed bile as his stomach churned a bit.

She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin, and he recognized the set in her jaw as something she learned from Jake, the most stubborn person in the world. “Yes. I would.”

“You want this. You really want me to do this.”

“Yes.”

He swallowed, harder than he’d ever swallowed before. Closed his eyes. Prayed to Jake’s God because he didn’t believe half of the time. No, the devil resided in him, as she loved to remind him. But he nodded. “I’ll do this.”

“Thank you.” She looked relieved, scared, and excited all at the same time as she took her first step into the threshold of true kink. Hardcore kink.

“Christmas is your safeword?” he asked.

She nodded. Swallowed. But looked so brave, her eyes huge in her pale face.

Shit. He had to do it now, or he’d back out. “Here. Now. I’ll take you on the couch, okay?”

He rose and took a deep breath because already each one was shallow, his lungs becoming like a vise, clamping down. His heart accelerated, and he slipped into the controlling skin he wore when he did his dark side activities. It wasn’t that much different than his boss skin. Not really.

Her hands trembled as she pushed back from the table and stood near the corner of the dining room. She clenched the fabric of her skirt in her fists, her eyes so dark blue, pupils wide from a mix of fear and desire. “Okay.”

He made a grab for her, and she dodged him. She didn’t get far, though. He had her backed into a corner of the dining room. She raised her hands, leading with one shoulder, ready to fight him.

“I’ll scream,” she warned.

“Go ahead. Scream all you want.”

“I’ll bite you.”

She tried to run, and he grabbed her arm, yanking her into his chest. He wrapped his arms around her, squeezing her into submission. She kicked at him, her bare feet hitting his shins, her hands grabbing his shirt, digging into his chest. He held her tighter, pinning her arms behind her back, twisting just enough to bring her to heel.

Normally, he’d try to kiss a woman now, but he couldn’t. It surprised him that this failed to excite him because he’d done it so many times, with so many women. He lied about five. The number was higher, and fuck if he hadn’t loved every second of it.

Until now. But he did his part, restraining her. He could feel her excitement. She panted, her breath heaving as she struggled. He snuck a glance at her face, into her wide, dark eyes glazed with desire. The fact that she was turned on sparked life into his cock. The fact that her breasts were pressing against his chest, then his arm, as she twisted…

He picked her up and carried her, kicking and screaming, to the couch and tossed her down.

“Lay still,” he commanded, exciting her further.

She tried to escape, and he dragged her back, tossing her on her back. He fell between her thighs, and she yanked his hair and then slapped him. She froze, her eyes wide as she realized what she’d done.

“Fight me, Kate,” he commanded. “Hit me again. You can’t stop me.”

She could if she went for his eyes or windpipe. Why hadn’t Jake taught her that yet? Jake didn’t think like a girl. He’d have no need to damage another man like that.

“If this were real, you’d go for my eyes, love. Go for the windpipe. You’d want damage. A blind man won’t rape you.”

She slapped him again, harder. The old Chase would have become inflamed by that slap. Would have gone for the kill, so to speak, forcing her harder, fighting her harder. But he found himself to be completely calm, under control, just like he would be if he were teaching her to shoot, or to disarm a person, or to do anything else she needed to come back to him.

He didn’t need this control, not like he had when Tia had driven him there, to hurt her. He didn’t need this, and his heart lightened. Maybe Lady Luck was on his side, after all, when she sent him Kate.

He felt as if he was underwater, and the scene unfolded in slow motion. She went to slap him, and he grabbed her hands, ignoring her teeth on his forearm. He pressed his finger into her gum below her front teeth until she released him and then pinned her hands above her head with one of his.

He yanked up her skirt, knowing she wasn’t wearing panties, just for him. The weight of his chest held her immobile as he slid his fly down and unbuttoned the top button. His pants came down just enough so his cock would pop free, hard despite the disconnect he felt with the event. He slid the head of his dick along her soaked folds, then positioned himself at her entrance.

His hips pressed to hers and he laced all of his fingers in hers, pinning her hands on each side of her head. The fear grew in her eyes as she realized she was trapped. His. His cock was wedged between her soaked pussy lips, and all he had to do was shove. Fear swirled with excitement, and she panted, her entire body trembling under him.

“No,” she breathed but closed her eyes in surrender.

Her surrender was his undoing. As bad as he wanted her submissive under him, he didn’t want her this way.

“I can’t do this to you,” he whispered. “I can’t force you. I’m sorry, but you mean too much to me. I can’t take you there, even in role-play.”

He leaned down and kissed her face, her cheeks, her closed eyes, his lips removing the tears starting to form, dripping on her closed eyelashes.

He swallowed, his throat raw as he fought for the words he needed to tell her. “But now…this is when you stop fighting if it happens because that first thrust is going to hurt like hell. You won’t be ready like you are now, for me. So just lie still.”

He kissed her lips gently. “This is when you retreat to a place where he can’t touch your soul. If you want me to be there, in that place, then I will. I’ll hold you, you’ll be so brave, and we’ll wait. When you get the chance, you’ll kill him. If you can’t kill him for yourself, do it for me.”

He kissed the tears sliding down her cheeks, hating what he had to say. He should never have to say this to the woman he loved. “And when you come home to me, it will be as it always has been. It won’t make a difference. Do you understand? It’s just your body. It’s just an act. Your soul is perfect, and no one can hurt that. Not like this.”

He kissed her lips again and released her hands. He hated her tears, the way she bravely laid beneath him, her face a mask, like his often was. Except for the tears. “Why are you crying, love?”

“I can’t tell you,” she whispered, her eyes still closed. “You commanded me not to.”

It took a moment for her words to soak in. And he sucked in a breath as he watched her cry because she loved him. He wished like hell he could take it back, he could let her, because he loved her, too. But tomorrow it would all change. He’d lay down the law, and she’d hate him. What woman could love a man who sent her into hell with his best friend?

“You need to hate me, Kate. Please. Hate me,” he begged. “Go. Find that feeling and hold on tight. Can you do that? You won’t feel this way anymore tomorrow. Trust me. You won’t.”

She sighed, still trembling with desire. “Will you make love to me, then? I need you.”

She needed him. He bent and kissed her lips, slipping his tongue between them, exploring her mouth gently. Slowly, he eased inside her pussy, so wet and tight around his aching shaft. He inched in, just as he had the first time, taking his time to claim her fully. The devil in him found heaven in that last thrust into her silky sheath. How could he be ready to come already? He ended the kiss to draw in a ragged breath, going to that place with the stats and codes to calm his libido.