Page 23 of Twisted Enemy
My eyes are grainy when I look up from my screen. My office is dark, the shadows barely thinned by the glow from my computer. The small muscles along my spine spark from inactivity.
“Kate.” The single syllable sounds like a rusted sword scraping my throat.
“When did you get home?” she asks.
“A few hours ago.”
“You didn’t come upstairs.” She sounds hurt, like I forgot our anniversary.
“Too much work,” I say, gesturing at the monitors. “I didn’t want to bother you.”
“I—” She starts to say something but stops herself. Her face is in shadows. I can barely make out the curve of her chin, but the light from the hallway turns her hair to copper fire. After swallowing, she says, “There are armed men outside. They have a dog.”
I wasn’t expecting the Sawgrass guards to arrive before dawn. I tell her about hiring mercenaries.
“Is that really necessary?” she asks.
“I hope not,” I say evenly. The entire security team is probably overkill, but I’ll feel better knowing they’re here if Tarasov decides to deliver his next assignment in person.
She nods solemnly. “Come to bed,” she says.
A thick rope of lust twists through my belly. There will never be a night I don’t want to touch my wife. But I still have three client emergencies left to manage—and that assumes no one else calls with a crisis.
“I can’t,” I say. “I have a couple more projects to get through.”
She steps into the room, extinguishing the blazing corona of her hair. I catch the tilt of her head, her quick glance toward the iron bars that frame the dozen monitors on the wall.
I’m certain she’s remembering how I leashed her. I chained her to the frame because she broke a promise to me, because she cut her thigh after she vowed never to harm herself again.
But she kept that promise yesterday. She had me bring her downstairs instead.
Stepping away from the wall, away from the bad memory, she swallows hard. She crosses the room and comes to stand beside me. Without glancing at my computer, she says, “Let me help.”
“I can’t?—”
“You know my code. You’ve seen what I can do. Let me help with your clients, and then you can come to bed.”
She says it without rancor, without the accusations she could have made: You spied on me in Winter Reckoning. You watched me for years without my knowing. You lied.
“They’re my clients,” I say, as if she’s missing the point.
“They’re Lone Wolf’s,” she says. “How many people do have on payroll? What’s one more?”
“I won’t pay you to work for me.” She’s my wife, not my employee. I take care of her, not the other way around.
“Then forget about paying.” She cups her hand to my cheek, where a day’s worth of beard grazes her palm. “Reimburse me in kind.”
Hunger flares inside me, a need more basic than food. My fingers close around her wrist, and her pulse quickens beneath my thumb. But I force myself to keep my tone light. “Not tonight, love.”
She flinches at the endearment, but she doesn’t pull away. “You’re right,” she says. “Weworktonight. You can pay me back tomorrow… Or the next night. Or the one after that…”
“And,” I say.
A question flickers across her face.
My teeth find the fleshy base of her thumb, and I bite hard enough to make her shiver. “Tomorrow,” I say. “Andthe next night,andthe one after that, I’ll take you to the dungeon. But tonight, I do my own work. Go to bed.”
She pouts, but she must recognize the finality in my tone. I watch her hips sway as she crosses the room. I clutch the edge of my desk when she reaches the door. But I don’t change my mind. I don’t call her back.
