Page 97 of The Truths that Deceive

But he picks up the slack as he shifts his leg, lifting it to rub against me. “Fucking wet. I can feel you.” He drops his head to my throat, lips skimming my flesh, his tongue shifting over a spot where he’s bitten, making me way too aware of all the things we’ve done. “Instead of running? Instead of finding out about who’s responsible for the weapons? What’s your game? Because you know what the end is here.”

“I told you. I want to bring down the bastard who raped my mother.”

“The bastard who might be your father? The bastard who might be dead?”

“The bastard who might be alive,” I correct. “And if we do that, if I can find the wife and then him, and you promise to make sure my brother’s okay, then you can have all the stuff I have. Whatever it all is.”

Some of it’s the blueprints, some of it might be a coded buyers’ list. I don’t know. I’m not sure I want to know. Because I can almost hear his next words before he says them.

“I’ve got eyes on your brother. Protection,” he says. “Whatever you have’s worth money. And taking people down with the stuff you have is gonna take more time than you have.”

The first and last lines tell meeverything I need to know.

His fingers slip under my chin as he raises it. “You hear me, right? I’ll make sure your brother’s okay, but we don’t have time to solve a mystery of the weapons buyer and save you. It’s got to be one or the other, Calista.”

My heart stops. The breath rushes out.

“What are you saying?”

“That if you help me with the Collectors, give me all you have as payment, I just might help you get out of this alive.”

My knees buckle and he slips a hand around my waist. “Come on.”

I want to ask. A billion questions crowd my brain.

But in pure Smith form, he doesn’t let me. Instead, he moves us down the hall, back to the party. He hands me a scotch after taking two glasses from a passing tray. I sip it gratefully, preferring the leathery smoke of the hard liquor to the sour bubbles of the champagne.

He loops an arm around me, pulling me against the hard lines of him. “I know you feel like you’re spinning your wheels when danger creeps in. You want to do something. Run, seek it out, hide, pick a fight. Shit, any and all the above, but none of that’s going to help from getting in deeper than you already are.”

“I don’t know if I can stop it all.” My voice trembles and I hate that he can see through me.

“What were you doing in Germany?” He pauses. “Unless you were planning to sell to the highest bidder, which I doubt, you were spinning your wheels as you got information on your maybe father, Trenton. Now you’re closer so it all seems to be pushing at your door, but let me work my magic so we can move forward. The CIA wants you, but they haven’t pushed in and ripped everything down for you. What does that say?”

“They’re either watching or I’m not high on their list. Orthey’re confident they’ll eventually get me.” I take a shuddering breath. “I’m going to the bathroom.”

I don’t give him a chance to say anything. I down my drink and move toward the restrooms.

When I find the big, opulent room, I lock myself in a stall, sink down on the toilet, and put my feet up against the door. My eyes float closed, my breathing slow.

Maybe the CIA isn’t coming after me, guns blazing, because they know who has me.

That one leaves a bitter taste. And that’s the problem. I don’t trust Smith.

But… I want to.

I just want to curl up and sleep without worry, to feel his body there next to me, knowing he has my back. But only one person has that. Me.

Smith…

He’s got his own agenda, and we’re both playing each other. That tires me to the core.

If I could play sex games, have him chase me down, fuck him wherever, whenever, however we want, I would. No holds. No strings. Just hot, twisted sex that borders on controlled… I don’t know what to call the real deep primal games. It’s not nonconsensual, it’s not dubious. It’s a careful setup of rules and safe words, and then exploration of dark desires in perimeters.

Letting go with someone like Smith in that would be incredible. I’ve had a taste and yeah, I want more. Just like—God help me—I want that dark and sweet vanilla sex we had.

I want it all.

And if I could just indulge, I would.

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