Beck & Call (25 page)

Was he asking Mia to pity him? His mood was too unusual to be certain. And he should have known she wouldn’t answer the way a normal person would.

She tipped her head to consider his question. “You might not be missing as much as you think. The sensation of being safe is probably a misconception in most cases.”

He stroked her cheeks with his thumbs, amused and glad of it. “That’s a very cynical answer, one I wouldn’t expect from someone with a spirit as sweet as yours.”

“I’m not trying to be cynical. It’s just the truth. You only know how reliable people are when they’re put to the test.”

Damien’s gaze slid to Jake. “He’d be there if you needed him.”

She shrugged. “If someone were trying to kill me, sure.”

Jake barked a single laugh.

“He’d take a bullet for you too,” she added.

Maybe he would. Something like giddiness brushed him, an invisible feathered wing. Damien slid his hands down Mia’s coat sleeves to squeeze her soft fingers. “Let’s go somewhere. Côte d’Azur. Belize. My helicopter can be here in ten minutes. We’ll take Jake with us too.”

Jake snorted. “Obliged, I’m sure.”

“I get it,” Mia said. “If I were you, I’d be tempted to run away from what’s bothering me. Unfortunately, you’re too smart not to realize that’s what we’d be doing.”

“Maybe I wouldn’t care.”

“Don’t you want to tell me … tell
us
why you and your dad are at odds? Don’t you want to get it off your chest?”

“I feel like I could,” he said, “but maybe that’s a misconception too.”

“Well, I won’t force you, but let’s go in. I’m freezing my butt out here.”

She tugged his hand, and he didn’t resist the pull. Jake held the door for both of them.

“I would have chosen Belize,” he said as Damien passed him.

Damien knew this was a joke, but he wasn’t ready to laugh. Mia took his coat and sat him on the single couch in the living area. He felt surreal, like his brain was ticking over at quarter speed.

“Drink this,” Jake said.

He held out a glass of water. Damien drank and then, because there was no table nearby, set it aside on the floor.

Damien liked his furniture spread out. When Jake pulled two light chairs closer, it startled him.

“You’re talking to us,” Jake said, gesturing for Mia to sit in the second one. “Ever since we left your dad, you’ve been acting like a zombie.”

Damien leaned forward and dragged both hands down his face.

“You can tell us,” Mia assured him. “Think of the things we’ve already done together. Neither of us will judge.”

Maybe they were right. Maybe he would feel better to get this off his chest. He pressed his palms to his thighs, pushing his torso upright again.

“All right. When I was seventeen, my high school guidance counselor seduced me.”

Mia’s eyebrows rose.

“She didn’t force me. She was attractive. I was flattered and hormonal. Plus, I looked old for my age.”

“I remember. You said you had the brain of a nerd and the body of a Greek god.”

She’d supplied the second half of that description, but he didn’t correct her.

“I was physically mature,” he agreed, “though perhaps not emotionally. Anyway, I wasn’t going to turn her down. She was my first sexual partner. She denied it later, but I don’t think I was the only male student she’d deflowered.” He shrugged uncomfortably. “It’s a gray area. Boys at seventeen often are sexually active. I don’t know how many would have complained if she’d approached them.”

“It’s a power differential,” Mia said. “She was an adult. And had authority over you.”

“Yes.” He sighed. “Be that as it may, my youth and inexperience seemed to be part of my appeal for her. Perhaps because she knew what she was doing, the encounter was more successful than it might have been. I allowed her to talk me into repeating it three more times.”

He rubbed his jaw, remembering the hurried and increasingly awkward sessions in her cramped office at the high school. Would he always smell chalk dust and Shalimar when he thought of her? He shook his head to throw the sense memory off.

“Then what happened?” Mia asked.

“I suppose it dawned on me that I was embarrassed. I didn’t have the slightest urge to brag to my peers, despite this counselor being the object of many fantasies and me no longer being a virgin. Her wanting to sleep with someone my age felt wrong. She had a … forceful personality. I screwed up my nerve and told her I wanted to stop seeing her.”

“I take it she didn’t like that,” Jake said.

“No. She told me I shouldn’t be afraid of the difference in our ages; that she and I were meant to be. We were in love, and love transcended boundaries. She rented a secret apartment where we could meet and tried to give me the key to it. She slid notes into my locker scented with her perfume. When I didn’t cooperate, she began calling my parents’ house and asking to speak to me about school business.”

“She stalked you,” Mia said.

“Yes. I didn’t know the name for what she was doing, but I realized I couldn’t give in to the harassment. As I saw it, resisting was my only viable option.” His palms were wet, so he dried them on his trousers. “I went to my father. Told him everything that happened. He runs—and ran—a successful chain of dry cleaners, so he wasn’t without influence in our township. He agreed to speak to her, to warn her to leave his son alone or lose her job. I’d never felt so grateful to him. I hadn’t been sure he’d support me. Now I was relieved it was finally going to be over.

“Except it wasn’t. I don’t know how Janine did it, but somehow during their conversation she seduced him. She convinced my father I’d pursued her; that she’d given in because she was weak and upset over a bad breakup. She swore we only had sex once and that she was mortified about it. She was truly sorry I’d become fixated, but it would never happen again. She actually suggested he get me counseling.”

“And he believed her,” Mia said, not making it a question.

“He wanted to. He was forty-seven and tired of being married to his wife. Janine was twenty-six and hot and told him whatever he wanted to hear about himself. Almost before I knew it, my parents were divorced and she was marrying him. My mom … had her own issues. During one screaming match the two women had, Janine insinuated
I’d
arranged for her and my dad to hook up, that I’d
wanted
it to happen. Suddenly, I was to blame for everything. My mother cut me off completely. I haven’t spoken to her in over a decade.”

“Jesus,” Mia murmured.

Damien heaved a sigh. “It was pretty fucked up. I don’t know if it should be a consolation, but at least, since I never publically accused Janine, there was nothing for reporters to dig up when I started making news with my companies.”

“Do you think she’s repeated her behavior with other minors?”

This question came from Jake. Damien appreciated how unemotionally he’d asked. He shook his head. “I’ve kept an eye on her, unobtrusively. I have the tools for that, you could say. After she married my dad, she quit her job at the high school. I’d think she was genuinely devoted to him if I didn’t know she’s still obsessed with me.”

“Still?” Mia asked.

“She finds ways to get messages to me a couple times a year. She’ll send a gift, purportedly from my father, and drench it in her perfume. Or I’ll get an email of a naked woman—no face and from a spoofed address—but I’ll know it’s her. I can’t go home to visit him. She always tries to maneuver me alone. She likes that I can’t prove what she does to my dad. It might be her favorite part of the game she plays.”

“You don’t want to confront her?”

“It seems to feed her when I try. And it’s not like the courts lock up stalkers and throw away the key. So long as she’s focused on me and not violent, I guess I can live with it.”

Mia mulled this over.

Jake leaned forward in the chrome and black leather chair he’d chosen, his six-foot-something frame causing the sling seat to creak. At some point, he’d shucked his coat and undone his tie. His collar was unbuttoned and his shirt cuffs rolled up. A spot of heat expanded in Damien’s chest. Had he noticed before how tan the skin of Jake’s corded forearms was? Jake rubbed his callused hands together in a loose fist.

“So,” he said, drawing Damien’s eyes to his. The expression in Jake’s was sympathetic. “You don’t allow yourself to get close to women because you’re afraid Janine will harm them.”

Damien surprised them both by laughing. “I don’t allow myself to get close to women because I’m concerned they’ll harm
me.
”

“You,” Jake said, utterly gobsmacked.

Damien let himself enjoy that for a heartbeat before he sighed. “Janine was just the first in a series. I haven’t had a single woman fall in love with me who didn’t end up going overboard.”

“Are you sure they aren’t normally interested?” Mia asked. “Ordinary people can get intense when they especially like someone. Daydream about them. Think of ways to please them. They aren’t necessarily unhinged.”

Extra color rose into her cheeks. Per usual, she gritted her teeth and ignored the reaction. For once, Damien didn’t care if the flush was for him or Jake. It was adorable.

A moment later, weariness settled back over him. “I’m afraid I don’t mean normally interested. I’ve concluded there’s something in me, something physical that brings out the crazy in females. Perhaps I have odd pheromones.”

“You don’t think it’s your bags of money?” Mia suggested.

Jake choked on his amusement.

Damien smiled. “I expect some women like my money better than they like me, but I wasn’t rich when I met Janine or my next girlfriend. We got together my sophomore year at MIT. I was gun shy, I guess. It took me a while to want to be close to anyone. Two weeks after we slept together, she began exhibiting stalking behavior too. I tried to convince myself I was imagining it, but then she showed up with a homemade Taser at a lecture I was attending. She wanted to make sure I wasn’t talking to other girls. In the end, I had to drop out to get away from her.” He shook his head in remembered frustration. “I
liked
MIT. There were lots of people there like me. Heck, I played on a hockey team. But at least that girl has forgotten me. She wasn’t a natural whackjob like Janine.”

“Two examples aren’t enough to prove a theorem,” Jake pointed out.

“No,” Damien agreed, “but there have been others.”

“Ms. DeWinter!” Mia said. “Except—” Her nose wrinkled. “You didn’t sleep with her, did you? She has a husband.”

“I haven’t slept with her,” Damien confirmed. “And I hoped her being happily married would protect her from whatever odd influence I have.”

“Married women still like billionaires,” Jake said. “And get obsessed with celebrities.”

“True,” Damien conceded.

Mia sat straighter. “Zoe Raeburn has her own money. And she’s totally gone on you.” She wriggled self-consciously in her seat when Damien’s brows lifted. “I, uh, ran into her in the restroom at the fundraiser. She was crying because you haven’t returned her calls.”

“Hell—” Damien burst out.

Mia patted both his knees. “She might not be under an unnatural influence. She could have fallen for your brains or charm. You have both, you know. And the wounded thing. Women go for that too.”

“The ‘wounded thing?’” Damien’s face felt stiff.

“Maybe that’s not the best way to put it. People like rescue fantasies, right? Being rescued. Being the rescuer. Since you’re loaded, they can have both with you.”

“Oh, that’s infinitely more flattering than ‘wounded.’”

Mia’s mouth twisted at his sarcasm. “My point is you’re likable.
I
like you and I’m not crazy.”

“Yet,” he said darkly.

“Really?” Her eyes went round. “You think I’m going to go nuts too?”

Damien relented. “Probably you won’t. You seem genuinely in love with Jake. I’ve observed that provides a shield.”

Mia’s gaze darted to the other man. “I’m not— That is, we haven’t—”

Damien’s patience expired without warning. “Fine. Pretend you’re not in love with each other. How you want to fool yourselves is your business.”

“Well, certainly Jake isn’t!” Mia spluttered.

Damien blinked. She honestly believed Jake wasn’t in love with her? And here he’d been thinking she was more perceptive than most people.

“Maybe we could set this debate aside,” Jake said.

Damien looked at the other man. Jake’s lips had pressed together with disapproval. Surely he was aware of his own feelings. What was wrong with these two? Didn’t they know how fortunate they were?

He opened his mouth to say so.

“It’s late,” Jake said, forestalling him. “We could all use some rest.”

He got up and stretched. The movement did things to his rangy body that drew his
and
Mia’s eyes. His ribcage was solid beneath the shirt, his dress trousers inching lower on his lean hips. Suddenly, Damien wasn’t tired at all.

He was sorry when Jake dropped his arms again.

“
Will
you sleep?” Jake asked, as if the question had just occurred to him. “I could make you tea or something.”

“Don’t
you
treat me like I’m wounded,” Damien snapped. “Or as if I’m your sub.”

Jake’s deeply blue gaze sharpened. “If you were my sub, I wouldn’t be offering tea. I’d be fucking you in the ass up against the wall outside.”

Damien’s body already felt more awake, but these hard words knocked a fresh shock through him. His cock stirred and swelled. He had to return the challenge. His dominant nature demanded it.

“You could try,” he said softly.

JAKE
wasn’t a natural hand patter. He had to force himself to do things like offer tea. He guessed it wasn’t Damien’s nature to accept cosseting. That was fine. Jake preferred a more muscular approach anyway.

Rather than engage Damien head on, thereby obliging the less-experienced fighter to defend himself and possibly get hurt, Jake grabbed the light metal frame of the couch and jerked it toward himself. The sharp tug tipped the whole thing backward with Damien in it. He landed without harm but plenty of surprise.