Filthy Wicked Games (4 page)

“
A
deal
.” Harley forced a smile, already knowing she didn’t want anything he had to offer. “What kind of a deal?”

He was lying. She could feel it in her gut, no matter how solid his poker face. He was here without permission and any promises he made weren’t worth the paper they were written on.

“The best thing we can do for Jasper is to make sure Marlowe never finds him,” Clay said, his voice thick with worry. “We need him to disappear and I can make that happen. I have the connections to change his name, his appearance, and erase all connections to Marlowe or anyone else who might want to hurt him. I can keep him safe and give him a chance at a normal life.”

A normal life.

Even knowing Clay was incapable of delivering on that promise—Marlowe wasn’t so easily escaped—the phrase still sent a sharp pang through her chest. It was all she wanted for Jasper, all she’d ever wanted.

Clay eased closer, sending the familiar smell of him sweeping through her head. “All you have to do is tell me where he is.”

“And in exchange?” she asked, fighting to hide her hurt and anger. He had mentioned a deal and she was curious what Clay assumed was a fair price for handing her child over to a man who had nearly killed her.

“In exchange, I destroy the file I have on you.” Hope flickered in his eyes, there and gone in a second, but long enough for Harley to see how much he wanted this to be over. She might have been the one in the cell, but Clay hadn’t enjoyed torturing her. Apparently he hadn’t become a complete sadist in the years that they’d been apart.

Someone should give him a medal.

A big, heavy one, swung straight into his handsome face.

“I haven’t shared what I have on you with anyone else in the agency,” he continued. “It can go directly into the trash and you can go free. I can even help you find a place to hide until Marlowe is in custody and it’s safe for you to show your face again.”

“Safe for me to come see Jasper,” she said, arching a cool brow. “And help give him a normal childhood.”

Clay’s jaw tightened. “We can never be sure that we’ve captured all of Marlowe’s associates. His network is too wide. I know it will be painful for you, but the best thing for Jasper is to let him go.”

She kept her breath long and smooth, refusing to shout or let this devolve into a rage fest the way it had the first time he’d told her that she would never see her son again. This time, she would use logic, appeal to the compassion he felt for his son, and hope that Clay had cooled down enough to listen to what she had to say.

He didn’t seem as angry as he had that first day on the island. Maybe the two weeks she’d lost would be worth something, after all, if they gave her a shot at making him see reason.

“I told my share of lies when we were together,” she said, keeping her tone even, reasonable. “But I wasn’t lying about my mother. She abandoned our family when I was ten years old. One day she was there helping with homework and teaching my sister and me to cook from this old French cookbook and the next day she was just…gone. Even knowing that she’d left of her own free will didn’t keep me from loving her, needing her, and praying every day that she would come home and be my mother again.”

Clay’s lids dropped to half-mast. “That must have been hard.”

“And then she came back,” Harley pressed on, needing him to know the whole story, to see the bigger picture. “But she wasn’t the same. She didn’t want to look at me, let alone teach me how to make French pastry. It sickened her to be in the same room with my sister or me and that never stopped hurting.
Never.
Even now that I know why she came home fucked up and stayed that way, the fact that my mother decided to stop loving me tears me up inside.”

“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” Clay said, “but I don’t—”

“I’m not asking you to feel sorry for me.” Harley stood up straighter. “I just need you to understand that I know firsthand what it’s like to lose a mother. It’s not the sort of thing you grow out of. It’s the kind of thing that damages you and leaves you believing that you’re not good enough. That you’ll never be good enough or worthy of being loved for the person you are.”

She paused as a warm breeze swept between them, setting the leaves to rustling overhead, the light clatter of the palms seeming to echo her plea for compassion. “Is that what you want for Jasper? To be abandoned by the only parent he’s ever known? And to blame himself for it? Because he will, Clay, it’s what abandoned kids do.”

He was quiet for a long moment, his eyes searching her face. For what, she wasn’t sure, but she lifted her chin and let him look. She had nothing to hide. She was speaking the truth and if he could step away from his anger long enough to think clearly, he would see that she was right.

“What’s he like?” he finally asked, the question breaking her heart a little.

It was sad that Clay didn’t know his son. It was even sadder that the wonderful man she’d once known had become someone she would be reluctant to leave alone in a room with Jasper.

“He looks like you,” she said. “But he keeps his feelings close to his chest like me. He’s incredibly smart and curious, but he hates to make mistakes. He likes to do things right the first time. When he doesn’t, he gets angry, but in a quiet, private sort of way. He doesn’t lash out or get aggressive like some boys. He’s…very sweet.”

A smile trembled across her face. “He always has been. Since the day he was born. And I’ve done everything I could to help him stay that way. To help him grow and learn and be happy.”

She sniffed, fighting tears as she pushed her hair away from her face, suddenly so exhausted it felt like the light breeze drifting in from the ocean might blow her over.

She was so tired, so very fucking tired. She’d been worn down, worn out, and desperate for a break in the non-stop drama and danger before she ended up here. All she wanted was peace for her and Jasper and if the only way to have that was to cut a deal, then maybe she and Clay could work something out.

But not his deal—hers.

Jasper truly was an extraordinarily sweet, clever kid. He wouldn’t do anything to provoke Clay, and Clay seemed to want to keep Jasper safe—surely that extended to protecting his son from his ugly new temper.

“Listen, I know you hate me, and you have every right to.” She clasped her hands together in front of her, not too proud to beg if that’s what it took to find her way back to her son. “But I never meant to keep Jasper from you. I didn’t even know you were alive. Now that I do, we can work together to give him the best life possible. I’m willing to cooperate, even share custody if we can come to an agreement that works for both of us, but I can’t desert him. I won’t. I know he needs safety and stability, but he also needs his mother.”

Clay shook his head slowly back and forth. “You are…a piece of work.” He sounded nearly as tired as she felt.

Her shoulders sagged. “Not a good piece of work, I’m assuming.”

“You would have been an amazing spy,” he said, not bothering to answer her question. He didn’t have to. It was clear from the flat look in his eyes that he didn’t believe she had anything to offer Jasper.

“I don’t want to be a spy,” she said bitterly. “All I want to do is get out from under my father’s thumb and Marlowe’s thumb and find a safe place for Jasper and me to build a life. I’m trying to work with you, Clay, even though you’re clearly out of your damned mind. Why won’t you at least try to—”

“You’re the one who’s crazy if you think happily ever after is in the cards for you.” He lifted the Taser, pointing it at her chest. “I told you the day we arrived, you’re not calling the shots. You have no power here and you will never convince me that you are anything but walking, talking poison.”

Harley fought the urge to lunge for him and pound her fists on his stupid, stubborn chest. Touching him was dangerous—awareness still simmered in the air between them, underscoring the anger like a relentless drumbeat—and she didn’t want to get sucked into another encounter unless she had a plan to use his attraction for her to her own advantage. Besides, she wouldn’t be able to do much damage with her fists before he Tasered her again, and she couldn’t afford to lose any ground she might have gained in the past ten minutes.

Clay hadn’t changed his mind, but at least he’d listened to what she had to say and refrained from trying to kill her.

At this rate, by the time Jasper graduates from high school, he’ll be down to slapping you around once a week.

The thought sent a sour taste flooding through her mouth.

“These are your options,” Clay continued in a tight voice. “One, you tell me where Jasper is right now, this very second, and I let you go free. Two, you keep fighting me, giving Marlowe time to find Jasper, and when I get the information I need from you—and I will get it, make no mistake about that—you will go directly into CIA custody. And by then, our son might be dead.”

Harley’s heart stuttered and her blood went cold, but she refused to let Clay scare her.

Jasper was with Dom, and Dom, for all his goodness, didn’t fuck around. He had plenty of experience dealing with bad men and dangerous situations. He would do whatever it took to keep Jasper safe. He would keep his guard up and Jasper out of harm’s way and even if she were out of the picture for a while, he wouldn’t be in any hurry to drop Jasper off with Jackson and Hannah.

Thank. God.

Jackson was Clay’s friend and wouldn’t hesitate to hand Jasper over to his biological father. No, sending Jasper to Hannah wouldn’t work. Not anymore.

Which meant that Harley had to survive, get out of here, and get to Dom. And then she could plan what to do next, even if that meant spending the rest of her life running from Marlowe and Clay and anyone else who tried to take her son away from her.

Life on the run was its own kind of hell, but she would rather go through hell with Jasper than escape to heaven without him.

Drawing on the last of her strength, she lifted herself up as tall as she could stand in the heavy combat boots Clay had found for her and met his hard gaze. “There are never only two choices. Fate is too fickle to make life that easy for you or anyone else. There are always other options. Always.”

“If you’re hoping I’ll shit myself to death, you’ll be waiting for a long time,” he said. “I haven’t been sick a day since I was discharged from the hospital after the accident.”

“I’m rarely sick, either,” she said calmly. “I’m too stubborn.”

“I know you are,” he said, his expression softening the tiniest bit. “But I’m not playing games, Harley. This is your one and only chance to have this end well for you. I won’t offer a deal again and every second you spend fighting me is a second that Marlowe gets closer to our son.”

“I’m not playing games, either.” She stared up at him unflinching, willing him to see that he’d met an immovable force and put them both out of their misery. “I won’t let you scare me into abandoning Jasper, and if something happens to him, it will be on your head as much as mine. Compromise is the only way forward. If you can’t bend, we’re both going to break and take an innocent little boy down with us.”

His eyes roamed her face, but he didn’t speak, and in the silence, the drumbeat of attraction pulsed louder. She didn’t know how it was possible, but she still wanted to pull his mouth down to hers and taste him, even now, when he had proven that he was a stubborn madman intent on putting Jasper’s life in jeopardy.

It would make her hate herself if she wasn’t already there.

She’d hated herself for longer than she could remember. She’d hated herself as a child for not being able to win her mother’s love, she’d hated herself as a young woman for her sick compulsion to destroy every man who came into her life, and she hated herself now for creating this living hell that she was trapped inside. The legacy of her sins was inescapable, and if it were only her life to consider, she might have given up on it a long time ago.

She’d given up on romantic love and a relationship with her sister and love from her parents and recognition for her art and everything else she’d secretly, or not-so-secretly, craved when she was younger. Giving up on breathing wouldn’t have been far behind, except for one little boy and the promises she had made to him, promises she refused to break, no matter what fresh hell came seething into her life.

“All right,” Clay whispered. “Then break it is.”

Without another word, he turned and led the way into a darker part of the jungle.

T
hey traversed
the five-mile trail leading to the other side of the island in silence. Clay had no idea what Harley was thinking, but his thoughts were a steady mantra of
don’t fuck this up.

This was the moment when their course would be set, one way or another.

Clay had been involved in enough interrogations to recognize a turning point when he was in the middle of one. By the end of today, he would have either broken Harley’s resolve or she would have double-downed on her silence and committed to seeing it through to the end.

Maybe even the bitter end.

He didn’t plan on using enhanced interrogation techniques beyond what was available with the sensory stimulation cell—that kind of torture didn’t work; no matter what a few idiots in the FBI seemed to think—but even if he did, at this point he wouldn’t put it past Harley to do exactly what she’d sworn to do. She might let herself be water-boarded to death before she gave up Jasper’s location.

She was so fucking stubborn.

That’s why you have to make today count. Push slow and steady. She’s exhausted and vulnerable and worried about Jasper.

This is your shot; don’t fuck it up.

Don’t. Fuck it. Up.

“Turn right,” he said when they reached the third fork in the trail. “We’ll take this loop up around the cliffs by the sea and then back around the other side of the island.”

Harley obediently turned right, but her boots dragged in the dust as they started up the incline toward the cliffs. He’d found several pairs of tennis shoes in an old storage room, along with scrubs in various sizes and female uniform pieces he could have given Harley to wear, but he’d chosen the boots instead. They were heavy and would wear her out faster, and his boxers and tee shirt clinging to her sweat-soaked skin would help remind her that she was powerless. She was under his control, dependent on him for everything from the food she ate to the clothes covering her nakedness.

But she wouldn’t be enjoying the privilege of even humble clothing for much longer.

A part of him hated that it was going to come to this—the fact that he was even considering what he had planned for when they reached the falls on the other side of the cliffs proved he was off the rails. But the other part of him was simply grateful for an excuse to be skin to skin with her again, to take things slow this time and memorize the way it felt to fuck this woman who affected him like no other.

Love her or hate her, Harley got to him. Got under his skin and in his head and drove him fucking out of his mind with wanting her.

He’d been semi-hard all day, just the smell of her drifting to him as he walked behind her on the trail enough to make him ache. It had been hard enough to resist her when she’d been an image on a monitor. With the flesh and blood woman close enough to touch, the temptation to get her naked and underneath him was overwhelming.

Visions of the way she’d looked with her hand working between her legs and her nipples pebbled tight beneath her fingers haunted him, along with fantasies of the way she would arch beneath him as he pushed inside her heat. But this time, imaginary Harley wasn’t crying or fighting or cussing him. She was as eager and turned on as he was and just as relieved for a break in the tension vibrating between them.

The shift in the direction of his fantasy world was a positive sign for his psyche but bad news for the success of this mission. Harley wasn’t the only one weakening. For a split second this morning, he had been tempted to see her side of the situation with Jasper.

The flash of doubt had only lasted a moment before he’d reminded himself that it didn’t matter if she loved Jasper or if she was right about what losing his mother would do to their son. She was a monster who had lived stupidly and dangerously and put her child in unforgivable danger. Now it was time for her to pay the price for her mistakes.

She should have been behind bars years ago. He wasn’t doing anything to her that the American justice system wouldn’t do as soon as she was taken into custody. She was going to lose Jasper no matter what.

At least he was going to give her freedom, and a chance to build a life for herself as long as she stayed away from Jasper. There was nothing else he could offer her. More importantly, there was nothing else he should
want
to offer her. He couldn’t allow himself to feel pity for a monster. If he did, the monster would only use his empathy against him and Jasper would end up paying the price.

“Can I have a drink of water?” Harley asked, her voice rough.

He’d caught her eyeing the canteen slung across his shoulders several miles back, but she hadn’t said a word and he hadn’t made any offers. He wasn’t here to anticipate her needs or provide for her comfort, something he would do good to remember when they reached the falls.

“In a few minutes,” he said. “There’s something I want you to see about half a mile up when the trail curves back into the jungle. We’ll stop there.”

She sighed, but didn’t protest and after a few moments her feet began to move faster, making a grim smile stretch across his face. She wouldn’t be so eager to reach their destination if she knew what awaited her there. But he was all for speed. He was past ready to have her bared to him, her nipples pebbling beneath his fingers, her head falling back as arousal flooded through her veins.

And what if she says no?

Clay dismissed the thought. She wasn’t going to say no; she wanted him as much as he wanted her. It was in her eyes every time she looked at him—hate and hunger in equal measure, proving he wasn’t the only one infected with this sickness.

Ten minutes later, Harley turned a sharp corner on the trail and froze, her breath rushing out. “Oh my God.”

“Pretty, isn’t it,” he said, coming to stand behind her, gazing up at the narrow falls trailing down the side of the grassy rocks to the wide, peaceful pool below. “I thought you might like a swim.”

She glanced sharply over her shoulder but turned back to face the falls just as quickly. “I would like a swim. My feet are on fire. I don’t suppose it’s safe to drink that water, is it?”

“Doubtful, but you can have some of mine.” He circled around her, uncapping the canteen as he moved. “Open your mouth.”

She held his gaze, watchful as she tilted her head back and parted her lips. Clay moved the canteen an inch from her mouth before he tilted it, sending a thin stream of water trickling from the opening. Her tongue slipped out, instinctively helping guide the water down her throat. Some of it dribbled down her chin, but she didn’t move to wipe it away. She drank greedily, her throat working as she swallowed. By the time he shifted the canteen, stopping the flow of water, he was hard enough to club a baby seal to death with his cock.

Needless to say, he would have to wait to join Harley in the water.

He didn’t want her to realize how much power she held over him or that watching her drink had been one of the sexiest things he’d seen in recent memory.

“Should I swim in my clothes?” She held his gaze, her chest rising and falling and her nipples poking through the thin fabric of her shirt.

“You could,” he said, “but that would make for an uncomfortable hike back. Wet clothes tend to chafe.”

“Then I guess I should swim naked,” she said, bending her knees with a graceful, sensuous movement that had Clay’s cock twitching in his pants.

So much for hiding his hard-on. There was no way Harley would miss the bulge behind his zipper, not when she was squatting right in front of him.

“Boots first. I’ve been dying to take these off.” She began to work open the laces, keeping her head tilted back and her eyes trained on his. “But I bet you knew that, didn’t you?”

He inclined his head but didn’t respond. He was too busy admiring the way her shirt gaped at the neck, granting him peek-a-boo glimpses of her tits. She was the perfect handful, with nipples that tilted up, practically begging to be kissed, sucked, trapped between teeth, and teased.

She nodded knowingly. “I bet you chose the heaviest, most uncomfortable pair of shoes you could find, didn’t you?”

His lips curved without his permission. He couldn’t help himself. He should be angry that she could still read him so well—not long ago he would have been enraged by that smug grin lilting across her full mouth—but sometime in the past two weeks things had changed.

There was an intimacy in holding another human being prisoner. It was an ugly, unbalanced breed of intimacy, but intimate nonetheless. He felt closer to Harley than he had before, close enough that the memory of his fingers wrapped around her throat made his gut twist every time it drifted through his head. If he had damaged her or, God forbid, killed her, he would never have forgiven himself. Those blue eyes were nothing but trouble, but he didn’t want to watch them close forever.

“Are you coming in?” she asked, tossing her boots and socks to the side of the trail and sitting back on her bare feet.

“I will,” he said. “But I’ll wait for you to get in first and stay between you and the trail. Don’t want you to get any ideas.”

“Too late,” she said with a sultry, feline grin. She brought her hand to his thigh before letting her palm skim slowly up until her fingers molded around his erection, squeezing him gently through his shorts. “This is already giving me ideas.”

“Is that right?” He kept his expression impassive, determined not to show her how good it felt to have her hand on him. “Anything you’re willing to share with the class?”

“Well,” she said, bringing her other hand to the close of his shorts, slipping the button free of its hole, making his heart beat faster. “I
am
already down on my knees. It seems a shame not to take advantage of it.”

She drew his zipper down before curling all eight fingers around the top of his boxer briefs and tugging them up and over his cock. His swollen shaft bobbed free, already thickly veined and flushed with need.

He wanted her lips wrapped around his cock more than he could express in words. He wanted to cradle her head in his hands and fuck her mouth until he blew down the back of her throat and watch her swallow him down, moaning the way she always had before, like the taste of him was better than chocolate.

But he wasn’t a fool. For better or worse, he remembered everything Harley Mason had ever said to him.

So when she moved her lips closer to his cock, he drove his fingers into her hair and made a fist, taking control, making sure she didn’t get close enough to do any damage.

Her eyes rolled up to meet his, an unspoken question in their depths.

“Teeth,” he whispered softly. “Because blow jobs should involve a subtle reminder of who is in charge.”

Her smile burst across her face—unexpected and…beautiful.

She was so fucking beautiful when she smiled like that. There had been a time when he’d lived to make her smile. He’d spent the hours he was away from her thinking of things that would make her laugh, stories to tell her when they were curled together under the covers, exhausted from making love, but not ready to go to sleep, not wanting to let unconsciousness take hold and tear them apart.

“You remember,” she whispered, her smile fading.

“I remember everything,” he said, his throat tight. “Everything you said that made me love you when I thought you were someone else.”

She held his gaze for a long moment while his cock bobbed lightly between them, like a dog too stupid to know that the moment had soured and the time to play had passed.

Finally, she said, “I won’t bite your dick off, okay? I promise.”

“Your promises mean very little to me.”

“But I want to taste you,” she said, her gaze darkening with a hunger that made his balls ache. “I want to suck you until you explode between my lips. I want it hard and fast until I’m drowning in you.”

He took a deep breath, ignoring the voice issuing from the general vicinity of his groin that urged him to trust her, just this little bit, just enough to give him the chance to fuck that beautiful mouth.

But he’d learned to ignore that voice a long time ago. Listening with your dick was pure stupid and he didn’t have time for stupid today.

Or any other day.

The realization that he would never know the bliss of a Harley blow job again—she truly was a master of the art—made his chest tighten, but his grief was short-lived. There were still so many options left on the table and it was past time to start exploring them.

“Take off your clothes,” he said, loosening his grip on her hair. “And get in the water.”

“You’ve gotten bossy in your old age,” she said, but she obediently reached for the bottom of her tee shirt and drew it over her head, revealing her perfect, teacup-sized breasts. “Is that just for me or are you an alpha-hole with all the girls?”

“Now the shorts.” He stripped his own shirt off and tossed it to the ground. “Stand up and take them off. Slowly.”

She stood, a faint grin curving her lips as she hooked her thumbs beneath the elastic waistband of the simple navy boxers and drew them down, inch by torturous inch, revealing the thatch of brown curls between her legs. When the fabric reached her thighs, she shimmied her legs, sending the boxers sliding to the ground to puddle at her feet.

“What’s next, boss man?” she asked. “Since you seem to get off on being in charge.”

Without a word, Clay stepped closer, slipping his fingers between her legs and driving into where she was already slick and swollen, drawing a soft, and extremely satisfying, moan from her lips.

“And it seems like you get off on being told what to do,” he said, fucking her with his fingers—long, slow, strokes that made her head fall back and her lips part. “Or have you been wet for me since this morning?”

“Who says it’s for you?” she asked, her voice breathy. “Maybe I’ve been thinking about someone else, someone with a friendlier dick than yours.”

“My dick is plenty friendly.” He brought his free hand to her breast, brushing his thumb across her tight tip. “It’s the rest of me you have to worry about.”

Harley’s eyes slid closed. “You brought protection this time?”