“We should separate,” Mira said.
When hell froze over.
From their vantage near the bar, he kept a watchful eye on the door and on the guests arriving.
The night showed no signs of getting interesting, which was fine by him. He was ready to bury his cock inside Mira's willing body.
There was a buzz of activity near the door, and he kept his gaze there.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the evening's emcee announced, “your next senator, Nathaniel Sinclair!”
Shouts of approval and loud claps filled the ballroom. The media magnate came in with a wave, Aimee at his side.
Sinclair made his way to the stage and said a few words of thanks. He seemed completely at ease, without a care in the world.
In a security nightmare, he left the stage and started glad-handing all the attendees. People queued up to meet him, and they blocked a smooth exit. Torin figured Aimee would unobtrusively move Sinclair toward safety and keep her body between him and the guests as much as possible.
“I'll be back,” Mira told him.
“Mira…”
“I want to meet him.”
She walked off.
Since he could scan almost the entire crowd and see the door at the same time, he remained in the same general vicinity.
He kept a surreptitious eye on Mira.
She stood in the line with several other women, and she appeared to join in the conversation.
He noticed that she took one of the women by the arm as if they were old friends. Mira started talking loudly. If he hadn't been so in tune with her expressions and reactions, he might have missed the subtle look she shot him.
As it was, he keyed his mic to alert the others and headed her direction.
“I'm sure I've seen your picture before,” Mira was saying.
The woman's stiff smile, obviously surgically enhanced, started to fade. “You're mistaken,” the blonde said.
“Are you a movie star? Can I have your autograph?”
Torin moved in, cutting off the woman from her other friends. “Everything okay, honey?” he asked Mira.
“I think this woman is a movie star!”
Torin shrugged like a helpless male. “I'm sorry. She's an autograph hound. If you'll humor her…”
The woman had a sheen of sweat on her upper lip.
“Here, I have a pen right here,” Mira said. She opened her purse. “Oh. No!” She got louder and more animated. “I don't have a pen. What am I going to do? Do you have one?” she asked the woman. “Can I borrow yours?”
She was drawing the attention of a lot of people, and Aimee whispered something in Sinclair's ear, then kissed him on the cheek, looking like a lover who was anxious to have her man all to herself. He shrugged, as if unable to resist the womanly wiles.
Inamorata moved toward Sinclair.
“Darling, I'm so excited! She's going to sign an autograph!” Mira gushed at Torin.
The blonde snapped. “I don't have a pen.”
“Just look,” Mira implored. “Please?”
Her expression more a snarl than even a politely civil smile, the woman made a show of opening her pocketbook.
Mira acted. She jostled into the woman, forcing her to loosen her grip on the purse.
Crap!
Mira's instinct had been completely correct. He keyed his mic. “Gun!”
The woman reached into her purse and grabbed the revolver then pointed it straight at Mira.
Pandemonium erupted in screams of hysteria.
Mira, gaze determined, leaned over and surged forward.
The gun discharged. The roar deafened him.
Chapter Nine
Pain shredded Mira's upper arm. It seared and burned. But she was focused.
She rammed her body full force into the blonde's painfully thin frame.
She knocked the woman over, and Torin moved into action, pinning her to the ground.
Trace Romero was there in seconds, securing the assailant's wrists while Torin hustled over to Mira.
“She winged me, Torin,” she said. “The bitch winged me.”
“Saw that. I made sure she is staying down.”
“My hero.” Her body refused to support her weight, and she couldn't stand up. “You mad? I wasn't sure I was seeing what I thought I was seeing.” She struggled to keep him in focus. Then the world went black.
When she opened her eyes again, she was on a stretcher in the hotel ballroom. An IV drip ran into a vein, and Torin stood next to her, his jaw set in an uncompromising line.
She hurt like hell. And there was no one she wanted to see more than him.
A paramedic strapped her to a stretcher, and she struggled for the control she always had. “My dry-cleaning bill's going to rival the national debt,” she said. “I like this dress.”
He shook his head. “I'll buy you ten more.”
“And go shopping with me for them?”
“You're pushing it, Araceli.”
She tried to grin, to keep it light, but she couldn't. They seriously needed a talk. If it had been him who had been injured, how would she have reacted? How did they keep their jobs separate from their real lives? One thing was sure: she wouldn't give up her job, her freedom, or her independence for him or any man, no matter how good the sex was, no matter how much she wanted to experience his lash. She cared about him—loved him.
That
thought made her light-headed again.
She didn't love Torin Carter. The man was strong and dominant, demanding. His world operated by his rules, and he offered no compromise, especially when it came to her and their BDSM games.
“I'm riding in the ambulance,” he told one of the paramedics.
“Sir—”
“I'd save my breath if I were you,” she told the young woman. “In an argument with him, you can't win.”
“At least your brain didn't get damaged,” Torin said with a slight smile.
Inamorata efficiently walked over. “Nice work, Araceli.”
“Except for the part where she got shot,” Torin said.
“Grazed,” Mira corrected. “The slug just took a chunk out of my arm.”
His blue eyes reminded her once again of a glacier. Cold. Determined. The concern she'd seen earlier had vanished. He'd blazed past anger. Now his temper was on a shortened leash. The sweat on her back chilled.
“You,” Inamorata said, pointing at Torin, “can shut up.”
Mira couldn't have said it better herself.
* * *
Mira exhaled.
The last week had sucked. She hadn't required surgery. The doctors had just stabilized her and used some fancy new glue to put her back together. Treated and released.
Clearly Torin didn't see it that way.
He was still behaving as if she needed to be protected, and she'd already resumed weight training.
He hadn't spanked her, hadn't touched her, hadn't kissed her, hadn't made love to her. He'd slept in his own bedroom to be sure he didn't bump her arm at night. He'd fed her, kept her in coffee and food and ibuprofen, and he made sure she didn't overexert herself. And she was tired of it.
She joined him in the office.
He was obviously pretending to work. But she'd seen the hint of an online poker game before he hit a key to switch back to a spreadsheet.
“We need to talk.”
He spun in his chair to face her.
“The way I see it, we have two choices, maybe three.”
“Go on.”
She licked her lower lip. This would be so much easier if he weren't so remote. He remained in his chair, arms folded across his chest. “You can ask for a new partner. We can stop playing BDSM games.”
“And the third?”
“We can end both.” She gave a brave, fake smile that faded instantly. Her voice shook as she added, “But we can't go on like this. I'm almost completely recovered. And I have this to say…” She tucked her wayward hair behind her ear and pretended not to notice her hand trembled. She drew a breath. She had to say what was on her mind, had to get it out. She didn't want to live with the regret of having kept her mouth shut. “I want it all. I want to remain partners. I want you to spank me. I want you to fuck me hard.”
“Mira—”
She interrupted. “All of life is risk, Torin. All of it.”
His posture didn't invite her to continue. His spine was rigid, his mouth unyielding.
“You cannot go off half-cocked. You didn't trust me.”
“I didn't trust
me
,” she corrected. “There was just something about her… The way she was looking at Sinclair…”
“You didn't trust me,” he repeated. “Partners run ideas past each other. Hawkeye might have found you were not at fault, the press may call you a heroine, and the police department may give you an award, but I disagree.”
Her blood seemed to slow in her veins.
“You put your own self-interest ahead of the partnership.”
His cold words fell harder than any lash he'd ever used. “When I believed I was likely right, you were there instantly. No harm. No foul.”
He stood and took a few steps toward her. “And that's the problem. You see it your way and no other.”
“And you see it yours,” she protested. “Like you said, Hawkeye's investigation found that I'd acted appropriately. We can talk about this. Reach a compromise. Isn't that what partners do too?”
His arms were folded implacably. “Partners trust one another. As for BDSM games—” He flicked his gaze down her body, from the top of her head to the tips of her toes, lingering on her breasts and crotch. “Without trust, I have no interest in those either.”
“Torin—”
“I won't beat you senseless at Dark Haven whenever both of us happen to be in San Francisco at the same time, and I won't spend my nights wondering who you're fucking, whether you're taking stupid risks with a new partner.”
Her heart stopped momentarily, and her knees felt weak. “So option number three?” Her voice was hardly a whisper.
“You're not going to give up working for Hawkeye,” he said flatly.
“No.”
He nodded.
How could she have been so blind? Of course he'd already chosen option number three. He'd already left their relationship. He was only still here because Hawkeye had placed her on a leave of absence. He wouldn't walk away until she was completely healed and his reassignment came through.
He might have been a wonderful caretaker, but she should have realized the significance of his refusal to touch her. Everything he'd done had been out of a sense of obligation. It was what partners did. Her heart seemed to break into a thousand tiny pieces. “I mean nothing to you?”
“Not true. You mean too much to me. I can't live with your recklessness.”
“So that's that, then?”
Instead of answering, he walked around her. He left the room and closed the door behind him.
Shattered, she collapsed in the chair he'd just vacated and stared numbly out the window, no longer able to think.
* * *
Torin cursed himself for being ten kinds of fool.
He was five miles into a punishing outdoor run, and he wasn't even close to leaving the demons behind.
She was right that he was rigid in his thinking. No one but him would call her a fool for her actions. No one but him was in love with her. And that was the biggest problem. Somewhere along the line he'd fallen in love with the stubborn Mira Araceli. It'd be easier to cut off a limb than leave her, but he didn't have a choice.
Eventually they'd both get on with their lives.
He just wished the devastation on her face didn't haunt him.
Finally, after another mile, winded, he turned back around. She'd be cleared to return to duty in a few days, a week at the most. He'd get a new partner, a new assignment.
And so would she.
The idea pissed him off.
If he were honest with himself, he would admit there wasn't much about her that wasn't pissing him off at the moment.
She couldn't be cleared soon enough to suit him.
When he returned to the house, he discovered she'd closed herself in her bedroom.
He didn't like the lack of interaction. But he needed to get used to it.
He stayed up later than he usually did, waiting to see if she'd join him in the living room or maybe head to the kitchen for an evening snack. As far as he knew, she hadn't had dinner, not that it should matter to him. She was a big girl, capable of making bad decisions all night long.
Finally he gave up and headed for the shower, remembering the sex they'd had in the small stall, the way she'd ground her hot little cunt against his thigh, the way she'd screamed out her orgasm as he'd inserted a finger deep in her rectum.
His cock was hard, demanding. He'd gritted his teeth and endured it most nights since her injury. Some nights he'd masturbated, but the vixen had supplied the fantasies that made him ejaculate in a hot spurt.
He turned the water to a colder setting and then waited until goose bumps raised on his skin and then turned off the faucet. He towel dried his hair but left his body wet and went into the bedroom.
She was there, waiting for him. She was naked, on all fours, his belt held between her teeth.
His body reacted instantly, his cock straining with an erection.
His mind lagged a few seconds behind.
When rational thought returned, he knew he should send her back to her room. But his body was having none of that. Blood surged, demanding release. “Why are you here?”
She removed the belt from her mouth. She kept hold of it, though. “You said I mattered to you.”
“It's too late.”
“You were right,” she admitted. “I was foolish. Reckless. I wanted to prove something, that I'm strong, capable, independent.”
She kept her legs parted. He forced himself to focus on her words, but he had a hard time not responding as a dominant. Her pussy was spread wide, and he wanted to possess her. He wanted to use that belt on her rounded ass, punish her hard for the stupid risk she'd taken. He wanted to return things to the natural order.
“And the truth is…”
He saw her swallow and look down before continuing.
“The truth is I love you. You—we—matter more than what I want. I realize I am stronger, more capable when you and I collaborate.”
“I'm not a bastard, Mira. I was well within my rights to expect that you would share your thoughts and feelings with me about what was happening that night downtown. Despite what you may think, even if you're in a submissive role, I don't think of you as weak or stupid. I'm not the type of man who expects his woman, his sub, to keep her mouth shut. I respect your brain. I'd be insulted if you thought I didn't want you to use it.”