You Only Love Twice (7 page)

“Your way?” Her voice deepened, her body prepping for
battle. This was what she needed. She needed him to see the real her. She
needed to test herself against him and find out who was going to come out on
top.

“Yes. Mine. I don’t suspect you’ll like my way so it would
be easier to give me what I want and we can go our separate ways.”

She didn’t want to go her separate way. That was the whole
problem. The idea of even spending a couple more hours with him tempted her
beyond belief. Even if he spent the whole time interrogating her.

She let go of trying to play sweet Phoebe Graham and allowed
Phoebe Grant to surface for the first time in a long time.

Phoebe Grant was what Jesse would very likely call a brat.
She wondered how Jesse would handle Phoebe Grant. “Bite my ass, sweetheart.”

A little thrill went through her spine as his eyes flared,
emotion showing for the first time since he’d walked into the room. “Don’t say
I didn’t warn you.”

He strode to her, his boots sounding even on the carpet. He
scooped her up and tossed her over his shoulder, her ass high in the air.

Phoebe worried she’d bitten off more than she could chew.

* * * *

Jesse pushed through the double doors, his whole being
surprisingly calm. This was what he needed. He’d been sitting in his office
waiting for her to wake up, thinking about how he would handle this
interrogation with some modicum of civility.

It was so good to know civility wasn’t going to be required.

It wasn’t so good to realize that the minute she’d opened
that bratty mouth, he’d gotten hard as hell and he wanted to fuck her more than
he wanted to figure her out. There was a little voice playing in his head that
told him to just get inside her and all those secrets would open for him. All
he had to do was thrust inside her tight body and the mysteries of the universe
would reveal themselves.

Yeah, he wasn’t going to do that. He was going to do his job
and find out who she worked for and then he would walk away from her. He wasn’t
going to hold her tenderly or hope she could love him. No. It was time to grow
the fuck up. How was it being through what he’d been through in Iraq hadn’t
managed to teach him what this one woman had? He needed to shut down and do his
job.

But that didn’t mean parts of his job couldn’t be very
pleasurable.

“Uhm, Jesse, don’t you think you should handle this in the
conference room? It’s where Ian planned on keeping her.” Adam Miles’s voice was
an unwelcome intrusion.

“No.” He knew the old Jesse would have stopped, but this was
between him and Phoebe.

“Adam, I can really explain. This is all one huge
misunderstanding.” Phoebe tried to bring her head up.

That was an easy move to counter. He brought his hand down
on that sweet, sweet ass. Phoebe had the damn prettiest ass he’d ever watched
for hours and drooled over, and now he had zero reason to not spank that
gorgeous flesh. He heard that sound, that smack as his hand hit her and he felt
her shiver. She didn’t scream. Nope. He’d thought if he smacked her good, she
would call him a fucking pervert, but he’d been a dumbass idiot and this Phoebe
just moaned a little as the slap went through her.

It wasn’t the type of moan that would cause him to stop
spanking a sub at Sanctum.

Motherfucker. He knew he hadn’t been wrong about her. He’d
thought there was a submissive streak buried under her “I’m a good girl so
don’t fuck my sweet asshole” exterior.

“The only explanation is I’m a dirty little spy and I need
to tell my captor everything in order to keep him from slapping my ass silly.”
He couldn’t be professional with her. It wouldn’t work. It would only serve to
put distance between them and now he could see that distance was what she’d
worked for the whole time. She hadn’t let him do more than hold her hand and
give her an awkward peck. She’d had him convinced he just wasn’t her type but
he could smell her now. Yeah, that wasn’t sweet or gentlemanly, but then that
obviously didn’t work for her. “She likes me slapping her ass. Take a deep
whiff, Adam, and you’ll be able to tell she’s aroused.”

She gasped and her whole torso came up off his. “Jesse!”

Yeah, she sounded like a pissed off girlfriend, but she
wasn’t his girlfriend. She was the woman who had played him and then nearly
painted her initials on his chest. And he was the idiot who had stood there and
almost begged her to do it.

He cringed at the thought of how stupid he’d been about her.
He knew he was ping-ponging, caught between wanting to understand her and
wanting to throttle her, but most of all, he wanted to get his hands on her.

He wanted to see just how much she’d lied about.

“You might want to think this thing through, Jesse,” Adam
began.

He was just about to tell Adam where he could shove his
thought process when Big Tag strode out of his office. A thunderous look
clouded his boss’s face, but Jesse was ready to throw down with whoever he
needed to. This was his op and his…fuck, he didn’t even know what to call her,
but Phoebe was his.

Ian stopped in front of them. “Take her to your office. Do
what you need to do but keep it down. Apparently we’re still having a baby
shower and I have to attend or risk having my balls ripped off my body. I like
my balls, Murdoch. Keep her quiet. Charlie’s serious about this party thing.
When did I fucking lose control? She’s not even an employee here.”

“No. I’m part owner,” Charlotte said, her voice a sharp
instrument. She was a beautiful woman with strawberry blonde hair. She rested
her hand on the bump on her belly that seemed to get bigger every day. “Eve and
I own half this company, you know. And we have all the boobs so try getting
around us. Phoebe, I swear to god if I find out you’ve done one thing to put
this company and our people in danger I will take you apart myself. Is that
understood? You better hope you can prove you weren’t going to hurt Jesse. He’s
one of my men and I will deal with you.”

Phoebe’s head came up again. “Your men? That’s a little
presumptuous, isn’t it? You treat him like a puppy you can pat on his head and
send away. He isn’t yours and if you think you can take me, you’re wrong.”

Charlotte’s lips curled up and Jesse realized Phoebe had just
fallen into a trap. “She doesn’t like the fact that I said you’re mine, Jesse.”

Big Tag was frowning at her. “I didn’t either.”

She waved him off. “I meant as a friend and employee, but
Phoebe’s brain goes straight for the sexual. I wonder why. Li’s right. You’re
going to owe him a hundred bucks at the end of this thing. She’s all
Stockholmed out. Who wants cake?”

Ian’s eyes narrowed as his wife strode off toward the break
room. “Handle her, Murdoch. Any way you can and keep it the fuck down. I still
haven’t heard back from Ten.”

He felt Phoebe’s whole body go stiff at the mention of Ten’s
name. “I still think she works for him.”

“Ten knows when a game is up. He would have told me.”

“Or he would just burn her,” Adam mused.

That was a more reasonable explanation, but Ian seemed
unconcerned. He strode off after his wife and Adam sighed a little and then
followed them.

No one was going to save Phoebe from him. No one would try
to come between them. Satisfaction settled in his gut. At least his brothers
recognized he had a claim on her.

“Jesse, you should let me go. I’m not a threat to you.” She
sounded so reasonable. “Honestly, I’m not a threat at all, but you are still in
danger. If you let me go, I’ll tell you what I can.”

So she still thought he was an idiot. He walked down the
hall and opened the door to his office. He slammed it behind and locked the
door. The office was full of well-meaning busybodies, and he wasn’t about to be
interrupted.

He set her down and then took a deep breath.

She leaned against his desk, needing it to balance her. Her
manicured fingers gripped the edge of the desk, tension throughout her body.
“Can we talk?”

“Who do you work for?”

“I can’t tell you that, but I can tell you that someone sent
me that kill order and they won’t just shrug and walk away. You’re in danger,
Jesse.”

At least they’d gotten past one thing. “So you’re dropping
the whole ‘I’m just an accountant’ act?”

“I am an accountant,” she replied beseechingly. “I have a
degree from Georgetown. Not everything I said was a lie.”

Just the little things. “Oh, I think it’s safe to say you
lied enough. What’s your name? I think I should know the name of the woman who
made me a fool.”

She flushed. “I didn’t, Jesse. Damn it. It wasn’t like that.
And my name is Phoebe. You know it’s easier to work with something similar. A
partial truth is easier to sell than a lie.”

“Yeah, well, the partial part is the one that hurt. Did you
have to pretend to like me?”

“I wasn’t pretending. I do like you.”

“That’s something I can test, you know.” He was feeling a
little cruel. He didn’t like it, but that didn’t seem to matter.

“Jesse, I can’t make you believe me. I can only tell you
that I’m sorry you got hurt in all of this.”

“You’re sorry? I chase after you for months and you lead me
on and you’re sorry. That’s good to know. Did you bug my house?”

She nodded slowly.

“So that’s why you agreed to come over.”

“The first time, yes.”

Humiliation burned through him when he realized all the
things she would have heard. “Audio or video?”

She bit her bottom lip before replying. “Both.”

How she must have laughed at him. He did a lot of stupid
things when he thought he was alone. One in particular made his blood pressure
tick up. “Did you like the show? Did you like how I would grip my own dick and
call out your name when I came?”

Her face went white as a sheet. “I didn’t watch it. I didn’t
know. God, Jesse. I didn’t get the feed. It went to my boss and he’s never
mentioned it. He never would. He’s not like that, Jesse. He’s a good man.”

“Sure he is.” Now he had to wonder just how close to this
boss of hers she was. “I’m sure he’s a great man.”

She tried to stand, but stumbled, her bound feet a burden.
He cursed under his breath and caught her so she didn’t hit the floor.

The minute she was in his arms, his dick tightened again. He
couldn’t be around her and not want her. He’d wanted her when she was quiet and
shy and he definitely wanted the Phoebe who told Ian he was stupid and told
Charlotte off. Both times she’d been defending him. Had she figured him out so
easily? Had she discovered that someone standing up for him made him soft? That
a woman doing it flipped his switch hard?

She held on to his arms as he sat her on the desk. Her eyes
stared up at him. Dark eyes that sometimes lit up when he walked in a room. She
was that good at her job. She’d sometimes made him feel like the only man in
the world. She’d managed to do it while she held him off sexually, so she was
practically a spy goddess.

Maybe two could play at that game. He would love nothing
more than to send her back to her mystery lover a little less pure. And if that
man happened to be Tennessee Smith, that was all the better. He kind of hoped
his office was bugged, too, and that old Ten was sitting somewhere dark with
headphones on because Jesse meant to put on a show.

He got to his knees, his hands going to her ankles. He
touched the skin there. “Does it hurt?”

“No, but it’s not comfortable. Jesse, I’m not going
anywhere. If nothing’s happened yet, then maybe I have more time than I
thought. I need to talk to Ian. I need to make him understand that you’re in
danger since you don’t seem to get it.”

He was in definite danger, but he was fairly certain no one
was planning on blowing him away through his office window. It was made of
bulletproof glass. He reached into his pocket and came back with his knife. He
carried it with him as often as he carried his SIG. He flipped the blade open
and then gently sawed through the tie, releasing her right foot. He let it go
and immediately leaned back because he wasn’t an idiot. She’d lied to him
before. If she kicked out, he wasn’t leaving his head there to get taken off.
And if she did, then he would put her on her ass and she would quickly learn he
wasn’t playing things her way anymore.

She sat there, holding out her left foot. “Please? I told
you, I’m not going anywhere for now. I will slip away eventually. I have to,
but not until I’m certain you understand what kind of danger you’re in.”

He leaned in again and released her other leg. He closed the
knife and slipped it back in his pocket before reaching for her ankle. There
was a thin red line where the zip tie had chafed. “I got it too tight.”

“It was fine.” Her voice was quiet, her body utterly still
as he moved his hand up to her calf.

“How much of it was a lie, Phoebe? If you already planted
your bugs, why did you keep coming to my place? How many other team members
have bugs? Did you babysit for Li and Avery so you could bug their place?” He
ran his hand over her skin, tightening briefly and then moving on. He ran his
thumbs along her muscles, up to her knees and then back to her feet.

She moaned a little before she replied. “I didn’t do that. I
was only watching you, Jesse.”

Because he was the only one the US government thought might
be working with jihadists. He was the only soldier they thought had been turned
and twisted. There was even a part of him that understood, but it was buried
under her betrayal. He could have handled it coming from anyone but her. There
had been a time when he would have willingly opened himself up in an attempt to
prove he was still faithful, but that time was past.

He wasn’t a soldier anymore. He was Ian’s man and Big Tag
had asked him to find out who Phoebe was working for. He was going to do it.