Elite Metal-ARE-epub (40 page)

He blew out a rough breath then beat tracks to his “office.” A fancy name for a glorified walk-in closet. A work bench took up half of the room and was littered with wires, half-completed projects, and computer parts. Boxes, gadgets, and remote controls lined a crooked path to where the printers were stacked in the corner.

There was one sheet of paper waiting on the tray with only three phone numbers listed several times over. Two of them he recognized as those belonging to the hires they took care of the day before, and by “took care of” he meant Platinum gift wrapped them and delivered them to the FBI office in Dallas. Anonymously, of course.

The third number had an Illinois prefix and was dialed just once. Since that neck of the woods was Platinum’s old hood, he’d be the best bet to look deeper into that contact.

After dropping off the paperwork on Platinum’s desk, Ant made the walk to his next location with his heart climbing up his throat. The impending conversation was not one he had ever, never ever, never ever
ever
, imagined having in his life. He was tempted to take a moment to go put on his body armor, for it was likely he’d be shot for merely broaching the subject.

“Please don’t let me die,” he whispered before rapping twice on the door and standing with feet apart and both hands behind the small of his back.

“Come in,” came the gruff reply.

He blew out another breath and entered, pausing just inside. “Do ya have a minute?”

Chrome looked up from his monitor and nodded after he scanned Ant from head to toe with a curious gaze. “Sure. Have a seat.”

“Great.” He shut the door behind him and made certain it was closed tight.

He sat on the chair in front of Chrome’s desk and rubbed his hands up and down his thighs. Now that the moment arrived, he was horrified to realize he had lost the ability to speak.

“What’s up, kid?” Chrome asked after several moments of silence.

His jaw worked up and down, yet all he could do was utter a few broken sounds. God, this was impossible.

“Boy, are you having a seizure?”

“No,” he coughed and slapped his thighs twice.
Get your head out of your ass.
Beth was worth this embarrassment. “It’s about Beth. And me.”

Chrome’s brows rose, but he stayed silent as Ant tried to figure out a way to best phrase his thoughts.

“You see, uh, yesterday was really hard on Beth. She had to relive memories I think she’d rather never have to remember.”

“I can imagine. This group, more than anyone else, can relate.”

“Yeah, so you can understand when I say she was really, really upset by the entire ordeal. We went for a walk around the grounds to clear her head. And that led us to the river. Yesterday. At sunset.”

It didn’t take long for Chrome to catch on to what he didn’t say. His brows took another trip north before his eyes widened and a rare smile made an appearance.

“Oh.” He cleared his throat and the grin widened. “Caught the show, did you?”

“You could say that. No. Actually, you
can
say that. We did. We saw too much. I’m sorry. We didn’t mean to spy on you.”

Chrome nodded and looked at Ant expectantly.

“Right.” He started in his seat. This was his conversation. “Here’s the thing. I think Beth may be into that, bondage, whips and stuff. She was intrigued, for certain. And when we got back to my place she, uh, I mean we…”

“Fucked like rabbits.”

“Yes, sir. It was hot. Amazing. And then I said something, and she completely shut down.”

“What did you say?”

“I—uh, I called her my slut.”

Chrome leaned forward and barked out a laugh before covering it with a half-assed cough. “You did what? Oh, kid.” His chuckle turned into laughter that rolled into a deep belly laugh that lasted until a tear fell down his cheek.

Hypothesis confirmed. “So I did fuck up.”

“Maybe a little. Calling your girl your slut is something you’ve got to work up to.”

“I think it’s more than that. From what I’ve pieced together, it sounds like her physical relationship with Chesterfield might have included some of that type of foreplay or activities. When I first saw her at Bone Daddy’s, I heard her call him ‘Master.’ I’ve been trying to be gentle with her, go easy, but last night I was rougher, more demanding and it was so amazing, then—deep freeze.”

“Have you asked her about it?”

“I’ve tried. But she’s female. She says she’s fine, but I know better.” He took a breath and continued. “Yesterday, when we saw you and Cammie together, afterward, when you held her, Beth cried. She said, ‘He really loves her. I never realized,’ and then she didn’t finish her sentence.”

Chrome sat back in his chair and nodded. He gazed off at a spot behind Ant and drummed the fingers of his right hand on the arm of his chair. After a few tense seconds, his eyes narrowed as if he had come to a decision and then he turned that steely gaze on Ant.

“Why did you come to tell me this?”

“I feel Beth pushing me away. I need your help to figure out how to fix it.”

That cocky grin curved his mouth. “Kid, let me give you one of the most important life lessons a man can ever learn, and believe me, I just learned it recently myself. And that is, there is no fixing people. They are as they are. You have to love them as they come.”

“I do love Beth, as she is. I guess what I need to learn is how to show her she can trust me with her, all of her.”

Chrome nodded again and folded his hands across his belly. “I think Beth may be suffering from a version of Stockholm syndrome.”

Red-hot anger flared through him at the idea. “She’s not in love with Chesterfield.”

“I know, and that’s not what I meant. Chesterfield used her body as a tool, a weapon, if you will. And Beth was given a choice, use her body or the people she loved got hurt. She trained her body to respond in order to survive, and those triggers are still active. Hell, we’re all trained to react in specific ways when a chain of events are set in motion. Only in this situation, instead of a man she despises being the one in control, it’s a man she cares about, and to have a similar reaction to both is probably confusing for her.”

“So how do I convince her that I want all of her? How do I give her what she needs?”

“Do you? Do you know what she needs?”

Good question. What did he know about whips and bondage, about asserting control over another person? It was different on a mission when everyone had their tasks and an order of command. To take charge in a situation like that was business.

But to have complete control over another individual, someone he loved with everything inside him? The responsibility of holding that power hit a magnitude that was so far off the Richter scale, he didn’t think he was ready. However, the thought of messing up and losing Beth again burned a hole in his chest. She was his heart and soul.

“She needs to feel safe and loved,” he finally responded with a voice rough with contained emotion. He hadn’t realized he had placed his hand over his heart until he glanced down to put thoughts into words. “She needs to feel free to enjoy us coming together physically and emotionally.”

“Amen, brother.” Chrome shifted in his seat. “What do you know about BDSM?”

He was about to fudge the truth but realized this was too important to appear like a bigger stud than he was. “Nothing, to be honest.”

“Good. Then you already know lesson number one. Honesty.” He shot him a little wink. “If we boil ourselves down to our primordial ooze, there are two types of people. Those who like to be in control and those who prefer to give that control to another. Where the magic happens is when one of each kind come together and realize that while one may be the Dom and the other the submissive, control is actually exchanged between the two in a symbiotic wave that ebbs and flows with each scene.”

“You lost me when you started using big words.”

Chrome chuckled. “It’s about pleasure. The sub serves the Dom because it gives them pleasure, and the Dom gives the sub tasks and directives because it gives
them
pleasure. What shitheads like Chesterfield do is taint the beauty of that exchange to use a sub’s need to serve as a way to abuse them for their own sadistic needs. In their relationship, it was never about Beth’s happiness, but his own. And because Beth herself never had the proper training, she doesn’t know what exactly it means to be a submissive.”

“I think I understand it now. But how do the whips and other stuff fit in?”

“The greater the danger, the bigger the risk, the more trust is involved. And when you come out on the other side…” He shook his head and whistled. “Fuck, man. The high is unbelievable.”

“Will you teach me? Show me how to provide that for Beth? I don’t want to guess and fuck up even further.”

Chrome sucked the air in between his teeth. “I’d like to help you, brother, but if I touched another woman, or even saw one naked, Cammie would cut my balls off and make ‘em into earrings. But…there is someone who may be of service.”

The light in his eyes and low chuckle made the hair on Ant’s arms stand on end. Just what was his commander thinking?

Chapter Ten

He really was very cute, Beth thought as she snuck a glance at Ant from beneath her lashes. Especially when he tried so hard to make her happy. All afternoon, he had given her the space she needed, only checking on her every few hours and never pestering her for anything more than a quick hug. He was the model of the perfect boyfriend that made her wish…that she wasn’t her.

After reexamining the events of the day before, she knew Ant hadn’t purposely set out to insult her. In fact, he spoke nothing but the truth. She loved being dominated by him. Reveled in the power of his arms and legs as he had pinned her to the door and took what he wanted. When he had sprayed his cum all over her, she was ready to lap up every drop from his skin, but then the truth of who she was smacked her right in the face.

Now here he was, holding her hand and smiling at her like she was the best thing since the debut of the
X-Men
. God, she’d give anything to go back in time to high school and reject the star football player and hunt down the young man who worked his family’s ranch and drew cartoons during lunch period.

If only…

What were the lyrics to that song?

If only it were so, those are the loneliest words I know.

Her stomach knotted as she strode beside him along the path to the main house. They couldn’t continue this way. He deserved so much better than her. And soon he was going to realize she wasn’t the girl he had fallen in love with. Then where would that leave her?

Homeless, jobless and heartbroken.

But to stay with Ant just because she was afraid of being on her own was almost as bad. She had nothing to give him—well, nothing but her respect and affections. And she loved him too much to deny him someone more worthy.

The thought of seeing that smile fade from his eyes when it came time to tell him she was leaving made her heart clutch. Another tragedy to add to the list that made up her life.

“Before we go to dinner, there’s something I want to show you,” he said.

“Okay.” It wasn’t as if she were hungry anyway. Since the other night when she saw him at the bar her appetite had gone down to nothing.

He led her around the side of the main house to another building that was about the size of one of the cabins but not nearly as welcoming by any stretch of the imagination. Signs were posted along the walkway warning of explosives, chemicals, and certain death if one continued forward without authorization.

“Ant.” She stopped and pulled on his hand. “What are you doing?”

“We’re going inside.”

“Inside there? Can’t you see the signs? There’s even a drawing of a man blown to pieces, and is that—is that a man peeing on the body parts?”

“Yeah, isn’t it great? I drew that.”

“This does not bring me comfort.”

“Don’t be scared. Nothing bad is going to happen. I promise.”

“Why are we even here?”

“You’ll see.” He winked and took her through a back door.

The hallway was dark, cold, and even less welcoming than the front, if that were possible. A chemical odor tickled her noise that reminded her of the Fourth of July after all of the fireworks had all been lit.

“Relax, sunshine,” he chuckled and patted her fingers where she had wrapped them around his biceps as if she were holding on to a lifeline.

“Says the man who knows why we’re here.”

“We’re here for you to meet someone.” He came to a stop in front of a door that looked as if it could withstand a blast from a missile and knocked twice.

“Who?”

The door swung open, revealing the scariest-looking man Beth had ever seen in real life, and Brandon had known some seriously frightening men.

She looked up, up, up at the man who could have easily played the villain in a superhero movie. He stared at her with wild eyes, and the scar on the left side of his face twitched with his smirk.

He grunted and looked at Ant. “This is her?”

“Yep.”

“I thought you said she had nice tits.”

“I thought you said you weren’t going to be an ass.”

The smirk deepened. “Still haven’t learned, have ya, cowboy?”

Oh dear Lord. The knot in her stomach twisted like a kite in a windstorm as Ant dragged her across the threshold.

“Clean up when you’re done. You won’t want to leave behind any of your DNA.”

“No problem. Thanks, Merc.”

The giant grunted again and left, closing the door behind him.

The breath eased from her lungs. “That was who you wanted me to meet?”

“I believe he was talking about me,“ said a voice from her right.

Now this stranger standing in the center of the room wasn’t quite as terrifying. Well, at least in comparison to the big, scary giant. Actually, she found something oddly comforting about him, despite the imposing sight of his wide shoulders and bulging biceps. Ant hadn’t been joking when he said he was smaller than the other men in his unit.