Siren Unleashed

Chapter Fourteen

The front door opened, and Nat couldn’t help the way her heart thudded in her chest. They were here. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about them all day. They were clouding her damn mind.

“You look gorgeous, hon,” Abby told her, winking her way. “They’re going to love it. Trust me. My Jack loves a little role-play. I know this is all about your case, but I think the playroom might get some use tonight.”

God, Nat hoped so. She’d fallen asleep. She couldn’t think of anything less sexy. They had aroused her and played with her pussy and spanked her and she’d fallen asleep on them.

“I like your pink hair better.” Josh frowned up at her, his dark head shaking. His emerald-green eyes studied her critically. “And how did they make your skin look like that? It’s prettier the other way. I want you to look like my Nat.”

Nat glanced at herself in the mirror. She looked exotic. Georgia had done an amazing job with the bronzer. Her skin looked darker than normal, like she was a girl with a great tan. The pitch-black bob she had on came from something Abby called her Roaring Twenties Flapper Girl kit.

Only her face was bronze, though. Georgia had explained if they wanted to do the rest of her body, they would have to use a self-tanner. Abby had nixed the idea of heading into town to buy some until Chase and Ben approved.

Joshua Barnes-Fleetwood did not approve at all.

“Well, I think you look lovely.” Sam Fleetwood gave Nat a wink. “I can only think of one woman who looked better in that wig. Damn, darlin’, good times. We should really play BDSM speakeasy again. Abby and I owned the underground club, you see. We were just trying to bring some fun to the people. Jack just had to raid us. You wouldn’t believe what the FBI required in its searches back in the twenties.”

Nat could imagine that it included some seriously pleasurable body cavity searches.

“That sounds like a fun game, Master Logan.” Kitten sat with her head on Logan’s lap. “We should play.”

Logan just stared at Georgia.

“Well, I think you look like pop-star hot. I totally would take a bunch of pictures and put them on Facebook if Logan over there wasn’t being such a jerkface about it,” Georgia said, pouting a little.

“Uhm, should we go over the meaning of undercover?” Logan’s hand found Kitten’s hair, but every bit of that boy’s attention was on the blonde in the room. “I don’t think it’s smart to change Nat’s Facebook page to ‘Natalie is going undercover to catch a killer. Please comment on which look is best.’”

“I don’t even have a Facebook page,” Nat admitted. She could hear Ben and Chase talking to Jack Barnes, saying something about a package they had bought and that they’d gotten rid of it. What kind of package? Where had they been?

“OMG! Seriously, Nat? We’re going to hook you up. I’m the queen of social media.” Georgia squealed a little.

Logan growled. They seemed to have a whole language of their own going on. “It’s been hard on you not to have a phone, hasn’t it?”

Georgia turned, her pretty face furious. “And who do I have to blame for that?”

“Watch the fighting around the kids.” Sam’s voice had gone dark, proving he could alpha up when he needed to.

“It’s okay, Daddy.” Olivia Barnes-Fleetwood piped up from her place beside her father. “Josh and I don’t mind the fighting. It’s funny.”

Josh frowned. “As long as the fighting don’t lead to kissing. So many times it leads to kissing and that’s just gross.”

Abby got to one knee and started explaining grammar to her son, but Chase walked in, his big body filling the doorway, and Nat couldn’t think of anything else.

“Hi.” The greeting came out way breathier than she’d meant it to. It had come out sounding like an invitation. She’d fallen asleep on the poor man. She’d backed off from him. She’d slept with his brother. Tonight she wanted to make up for all that.

But he didn’t look interested. His eyes scanned her from her head down to her toes, and she could tell so easily that he didn’t like what he saw.

“I don’t like it. Take it off.”

She took a step back. “What?”

Chase followed her. He didn’t seem to care that they had an audience. “I don’t like it. Go back to the guesthouse and take it off. I want you properly dressed without all that makeup on before we have dinner. Do you understand?”

“You told Georgia to experiment.” Hurt burned at her gut. Maybe she didn’t look as nice as she thought she did. She’d thought she looked exotic and mysterious, but underneath it all she was still just plain old Nat. She’d known all along that she wasn’t in their league.

“I don’t like the experiment. Take it off.” He was in full-on Dom-prick mode, and Nat wondered briefly what had happened to turn him back into the remote, cold man she’d seen that first time. She’d thought they’d connected. She’d thought she’d gotten past his barriers.

“She looks awesome.” Georgia stepped up.

Logan put a hand on her elbow, pulling her back. “Not now, Georgia.”

The whole room had gone silent, every face watching them. Everyone was watching Chase completely humiliate her.

“Come on, kids. Let’s go make sure Benita doesn’t need help.” Sam reached out for his daughter but simply picked Josh up.

“I think I should stay with Nat. I don’t like how that man’s talking to her, though I didn’t like all that stuff on her face either. I was more polite.” Josh kept pleading his case as his dad carried him out.

Nice that the four-year-old knew how to be polite, but Chase Dawson hadn’t figured it out. “I think I’ll just have dinner first. I can take all this off before I go to bed.”

Alone. She didn’t have to do what he told her. She could stand on her own.

Chase crowded her. “You’re flunking the test, Natalie. You’re behaving like a disobedient little brat, and I won’t stand for it.”

Test? He was testing her? “You take your test and shove it right up your ass, Dawson.”

Arctic blue eyes stared down at her. “Get to the room now. Take off the shit on your face and get rid of that wig. Clean yourself up then come back downstairs. I haven’t decided if I’m going to allow you a place to sit or if you can sit at my feet and take what I choose to feed you. I think it will all depend on how nicely you choose to apologize.”

Anger flooded her senses. He thought he could pull this shit on her? She’d completely misjudged him. She’d thought there was a soul under all that Alpha-Dom BS, but he was just like the rest of them. The minute she did something he didn’t like, he turned on her.

She looked back, and Ben stood in the doorway with Jack Barnes at his back. Ben’s eyes were somber, but he didn’t move forward to defend her.

“You in on this little runaround, Ben?” Nat asked.

His mouth tightened. “I think you should do as he says, Nat. We can talk about this in private. Right now, you’re making a spectacle of yourself.”

“Fuck you, too, Ben.” They wanted to treat her like dirt, and she wasn’t about to put up with it. “How about you, Barnes? You want to heap a little shit on me, too?”

If she thought Chase was cold, Jack Barnes could freeze the world with the look he gave her. “I think I would like for you to remember that you’re in my home, and I deserve a little courtesy.”

She laughed, a bitter huff coming out of her mouth. She’d spent the afternoon trying to make herself prettier and this was what she got. Sure, maybe she’d failed, but she didn’t deserve this. “Sure, Barnes. Hey, how about I get the fuck out of your house and then you don’t have to worry about the brat.”

She pulled the wig off her head and handed it back to Abby. It wasn’t Abby’s fault her husband was being a prick. “Sorry. I don’t think he’ll want me to babysit anymore. Please tell Josh and Olivia good-bye for me.”

Abby sighed. “Oh, hon, please think this through. Something is going on here.”

“Bye, Abby.” She started for the door. She could walk back to the freaking spa. Sure, it was fifteen miles away, but she wasn’t about to let one of them drive her home. She could call Gretchen. Gretchen would be thrilled to know she’d fucked up.

“Stop right there, Natalie.” The command in Chase’s voice actually stopped her for a moment.

“Fuck off, Dawson.” She wasn’t going to allow any man to tell her what to do ever again. Not ever. They could all fuck off.

His hand came out, grabbing for her elbow, pulling her back. “You’re not going anywhere, sweetness. We need to talk.”

She barely registered his softer tone. All she knew was that he was grabbing her. Grabbing her to put her someplace where she didn’t want to be. A cage? Did he think he could put her in a fucking cage and she would just go quietly? She kicked out, every instinct in her body screaming at her to get the fuck away and do it now. She wasn’t thinking. She was reacting. Pure fear coursed through her. It was like she was right back in the moment.

She hauled off with her free arm, punching at the man trying to hold her down.

“Natalie! Natalie!”

In her mind, she could hear another voice. The one that ordered her to stay still while he beat her, raped her, used her like she was nothing. She couldn’t be nothing again. Not ever again.

“Please, sweetness.” Two sets of big arms wound around her, pressing her in and catching her between them.

“Calm down. Calm down. It’s over, baby.”

Ben was behind her, one arm around her waist. Her vision started to clear. Chase had a scratch on his neck from her nails. She’d hit him over and over, kicked him and scratched. And he hadn’t fought back. Not once.

He stared down at her, his eyes cloudy with some unnamed emotion. “You have to understand we can’t take you with us.”

“Abby, why don’t we take everyone to the dining room and let our guests sort this out.” Jack Barnes put an arm around his wife’s waist and touched his head to hers, an intimate gesture. “It’s all right, baby. She’s going to be safe.” He turned back. “I asked them to test you. This whole thing is moving too fast. You can’t go in with them.”

Chase had said something about a test. They were testing her? By being cruel?

The crowd fled, Logan pulling Georgia out with him. Finally they were alone, but it was far too late.

“Let me go.” She pushed at them.

“Please, Natalie.” Chase’s arms tightened. “Don’t be mad. I couldn’t let you come with us without knowing. Don’t be mad. I’m trying to protect you. God, I need to protect you, sweetness.”

He kept trying to get close to her, but she couldn’t stand it.

“Let me go, Chase. Let me go now or are you as bad as the rest of them?” She just wanted to get away. Her heart was thundering, blood pounding. All the ugliness she’d survived was right there at the surface. It boiled and bubbled, threatening to scald her.

Chase’s hands dropped immediately and a blank look settled onto his face. “Of course. If you want to go get your things, I’ll drive you back to the spa now.”

“I don’t want to go anywhere with you.” She didn’t want to see him again. Her hands were shaking. It was all right there under the surface. How had she thought for an instant she could trust them?

“All right then.” He turned. “Benjamin, I believe I’ll skip dinner this evening. Let me know when you put the call in. It doesn’t matter who it is. This op is still on.”

Chase walked out without another word.

And she looked up at the reasonable one. Ben Dawson, nice guy, had a look of rage on his face that made her take a step back.

“You just ripped his fucking heart out, and I don’t know if it can be repaired.”

“Well, maybe he should think about that the next time he acts like an unconscionable prick.” She took a deep breath. What the hell had just happened? One minute she was trying to flirt and the next she’d been fighting for her life. Just like that. She’d been back there. She’d attacked them.

What had she done?

Ben stepped back, his hands up as though he didn’t dare to touch her. “Natalie, he got scared today. We went out to the strip club where we think all the contacts happen for the underground club. We were able to buy drugs and make contacts, but when we left, someone put a tail on us. A man already died and probably because someone at that club killed him. Someone who doesn’t have a problem with hurting you.”

“You two just hurt me.” It was an automatic response. A defense. But his words were starting to sink in.

Ben huffed, his hand scrubbing through his hair in apparent frustration. “If you couldn’t handle that, how the fuck do you expect to survive in a hard-core underground club where Chase and I have to look like badass Doms? It was a test to see if you could handle it and you can’t.”

She’d fucked up. Brutally. Finally. She wasn’t ready for anything. She wasn’t ready for them. Not ready to help. Not ready to love. She’d gone right back to that nasty place she’d been in for years because now she realized she’d never left that cage. Her body was walking around, but everything that mattered about Natalie Buchanan was still trapped in a cage, and she couldn’t get out.

“Well, I can’t handle some prick pushing me around, so I guess Chase is done with me. He can’t handle a girl he can’t put on a leash.” Why did that shit keep coming out of her mouth? She didn’t mean it, but she couldn’t stop. She’d fucking failed. She hadn’t even thought to ask what he was doing. He’d been nothing but kind to her and she hadn’t thought to ask him why he was being a jerk. Hell, he’d told her he was testing her, and she’d just pushed on like she needed to find some boundary behind which the Dawson brothers could neatly be hidden away.

Then she wouldn’t have to come out of her cage.

Ben shook his head, his eyes narrowing in pain. “Fuck, I can feel him. Do you understand that? I can feel his fucking pain, and it’s like a damn knife in my heart. He might look like he doesn’t give a shit, but he is howling on the inside because he loves you.”

He couldn’t love her. She wasn’t lovable. She was too fat. She wasn’t obedient. She was a dumb bitch.

God, she could still hear him.

But now she could also hear another voice. Two, really. Sweet. She was so sweet. She was lovely and sweet like cotton candy.

“I’ll send Logan to drive you back. I can’t look at you anymore.” Ben closed his eyes as though trying not to cry. “He’ll still protect you, you know. I won’t have to ask. That’s what he meant by the op is still on. I’m going to call and get someone down here who can go undercover. We’ll end up spending thousands of dollars because neither one of us can stand the thought of you going to jail. You remember that when you go to sleep alone tonight. We would have loved you, Natalie.”

He stalked off but not in the same direction as his brother. He had his phone in hand, already dialing.

Nat put her hand over her mouth because all she wanted to do was scream.

“Do you want me to drive you home?”

She started, turning. Logan Green stood there. At some point he’d come back and likely he’d heard everything that had happened.

Home? She didn’t have a fucking home. She had a place where she slept and forced herself to eat, and where she struggled to not take a knife to her skin.

She wouldn’t. She would never do that again. She was past it because she’d met two men, and she didn’t need it anymore. It would be a betrayal of them.

Of course, she’d already betrayed them the minute she’d decided they were the same as the criminal who had nearly killed her.

“Don’t worry about it.” Logan stood still, not a muscle of his body moving. “You’re not ready. It’s no big deal. They’ll get over it. So will you.”

Would she? Her brain was still a little foggy. What was she doing? She needed to get out of here before Ben decided to come back and lecture her again. “I have to get my purse.”

It was in the guesthouse—where Chase had gone.

“You’re going to have to actually move if you want to get your purse.” Logan crossed his arms over his massive chest.

“Could you go get my purse?” She couldn’t leave without it. Her little apartment had been trashed. Ben and Chase had immediately gone out and bought her a few things she’d needed like a toothbrush and toiletries and some clothes. They had taken care of her.

“No. If you want it, go get it.” Logan stared at her, those green eyes unmoving.

Bastard. “I’ll get it later.”

She started to move toward the door, but Logan’s voice stopped her. “I want to know how long.”

She turned. Her head was a mire of misery, and she had an aching certainty that she was still making a mistake. “What do you mean?”

His eyes avoided hers. “How long has it been for you because you’re still twelve kinds of fucked up, and I want to know how long because I don’t know if I can stand it much longer. I want Georgia. Fuck, I want her so bad I can taste her. If I was the same guy I was a year ago, I would have charmed my way inside her by now.”

“I don’t see why you wanting Georgia Dawson means we can’t leave.”

“Because I want her like hell on fire and I won’t touch that woman because I’m toxic on the inside, and I want to know how long this fucking thing lasts. How long before I feel like a whole person again? How long before I get to be me again? I have to know.” Logan’s voice came out in a tortured growl. “Because I just watched you throw away a whole lot. Chase is hard and he got soft for you. I don’t think he’ll ever open up again. That’s why I can’t touch that girl. I won’t hurt her the way you just crushed him.”

A little sob escaped. How long? He’d asked how long and she thought she knew the answer. Forever. She was irreparably broken, like a dish someone had brutally tossed to the floor and shattered into a thousand pieces. No one had thought to sweep her up and throw her away so she continued to cut up the people who came in contact with her.

How long?

Until she finally gave in and gave herself that final cut that allowed her to float away.

Or until she decided to not take it anymore. Not from a dead man. Not from herself. Logan asked how long before he got to be himself again.

“I don’t think we get to go back.” Nat wiped her eyes. She wasn’t sure what had happened to Logan, but the pain was etched in his eyes, in the lines of his face. Chase had told her he was young, barely twenty-five, but he seemed so much older as though agony had aged him before his time. “We can’t be the people we were before.”

But maybe she could find a new normal.

“I don’t like who I am now,” Logan said starkly.

Nat didn’t much like herself, either, and there was only one way to fix that. “I need to see him.”

Logan nodded. “Please do. Please show me you can change because I’m becoming certain that I can’t. I can play the happy guy on the outside, but I’m still screaming. It’s just no one hears me. I can’t let them.”

She understood. Logan wasn’t ready to share what happened. He hadn’t found someone to share that burden with. But Nat had. She just had to pray that she hadn’t ruined everything.

She loved them. She loved Chase and Ben. She needed them.

Chase sat down at his computer and started running files, his fingers flying across the keys. Work. Work was what he needed. Calming, interesting work. Work had always been his refuge. Ever since he was a child, he would sink into a problem and let his mind roam free, logic and not emotion being his haven. Work had never ripped his heart straight out of his body and stomped on it with pretty little feet. Work had never made him feel idiotic and helpless.

He’d come across the yard to the guesthouse hoping he could get away from her, but he could still feel her eyes on him, accusing him of all manner of crime. The small space in the dining room of the guesthouse wasn’t far enough to run.

He’d pushed her hard, but how else could he convince her she couldn’t do this job? Taking her in with them would be a death sentence. The brown sedan had convinced him of that.

Someone at that club had put a tail on them. The minute they had pulled away, the brown car had slid out, like it didn’t mind that they knew it was following. It had been a warning to a smart man that they were watching. Ben and Chase could play their games, but the rules were harsh.

And then there was that wall of pictures. He’d noticed it as they were walking out, drugs stashed neatly away. The bartender had been welcoming once they’d flashed a bunch of cash. They’d been given the dope they wanted and promised more pleasures once Cooder had checked them out. Then Chase had looked up and been assaulted by a pictorial history of Wispers, crap-ass rural strip club. It was a wall of pinned-up snapshots of drunk men partying with the girls of the club. The higher-up photos were Polaroids, and the ones closer to the bottom looked like they had been taken off phones and printed from a computer.

Chase hadn’t had time to study them all, but he’d looked at them while Ben was getting the car, carefully storing them away in his memory for later perusal. A few seconds were all he needed to memorize them and to know that something was off.

Yes, that was what he needed. He needed something to get his mind off the way Natalie had looked at him.

Unfortunately, his eidetic memory would have that vision stored away forever. Big green eyes wide with horror and anger as he’d pushed her past her limit. When he’d reached for her, she’d fought. He’d wanted to pull her close and beg her forgiveness and she’d clawed and scratched at him like he was trying to kill her.

He closed his eyes and concentrated. The pictures. There was something about them. The sooner he figured the problem out, the better. The sooner he got Natalie off the hook for murder and safe from whoever did the deed, the sooner he could go back to Dallas, crawl into his nice little shell, and never come out again.

He would support Ben. The next time Ben found a woman he was interested in, Chase would be nice to her and take care of her so Ben could have the family he wanted. Chase would be fine being the second cock, only taken out for bedroom fun because it was far easier to deal with that humiliation than the horrible ache he felt in his gut now.

She would never have to know that he loved one woman and she was so far from him he could never have her. The one woman he wanted was the one who could never accept what he needed.

Concentrate. Why couldn’t he fucking concentrate? He could always concentrate. It was what he did. He could filter out everything else and focus even when the world was exploding around him. Several black ops teams and the CIA had tried to recruit him for his skills. He was cold and nothing ever got to him. He could memorize a battlefield and know its strengths and weaknesses in mere seconds. He could assassinate a man without a second thought.

One girl with pink hair and a shy smile blew all those talents right out of the water and now he was just like the rest of the men of the world, unable to think about anything but a woman.

She was his Delilah and somehow, without even sleeping with her, she’d cut all his powerful hair right off and left him weak and helpless.

“Hey, brother, are you all right?”

Chase kept his eyes closed. The last thing he needed was Ben’s sympathy—or worse, his anger. Ben was crazy about her, too. “I’m fine. I’m thinking.”

“Don’t you think we should talk?”

His brother always wanted to talk. Talk was overrated. Burying shit deep down until he no longer acknowledged the pain—that was what worked. “There’s nothing to talk about. She failed the test. We need someone else. I doubt they’ll let us in without a female. You know how clubs work.”

“I know how you work. Come on, Chase. We need to get down there. She got spooked. She’s going to leave.”

And that would be for the best. “Have Logan take her back. Can we get back to the case? Something was off about that club, and I can’t put my finger on it. I saw something. I just need to figure out what it was I saw. And we need to rerun the background checks on every single employee at that spa, including the suspect’s closest friends. Pay close attention to the other massage technicians. They would have had keys or had access to keys to the massage rooms.”

“Suspect, Chase? Really?”

He opened one eye. “I’m distancing. I suspect you should do the same.” A terrible thought hit him. “Unless you’re planning on pursuing her alone. She probably isn’t as mad at you. You might have a shot.”

His brother frowned. “I agreed with you. I agreed with Jack. You did exactly what you needed to do. You had to find out how she would react to strong control, to control that didn’t feel fair. We can’t walk in there and spend all our time tiptoeing around our submissive. Even if she could handle the two of us, how do we know how she’ll handle watching other subs with even tougher Doms? Now we know she would have likely gone commando on everyone, and we all would have been killed.”

“I know.”

Chase’s eyes flew open because that hadn’t been Ben. Natalie stood in the doorway to the dining area on the first floor of the guesthouse. She’d washed every bit of makeup off her face and looked fresh and so fucking young and fragile it hurt him to look at her.

It really hurt him. She’d hurt him. Not in a little tiny “hey, I don’t like you like that” way, but in a gut-wrenching “my world is fucking over without her” way. He’d never been in love before, and now he realized that might be a good thing. Love hurt.

“I’m not ready to go into something like that.” Her green eyes were wide as she shifted from one bare foot to the other. “I need more time. I need to work through it and it won’t go fast, but I want to be better.”

Ben walked straight up to her, pulling her into his arms. She went up on tiptoes and wrapped her arms around Ben. Her eyes closed as though she’d been afraid of her welcome.

So she’d figured out they weren’t really pricks. Well, Ben wasn’t. Ben would have come up with something else. Chase was the one who went straight for her weak spot.

She was his weak spot. Chase wasn’t sure he wanted a weak spot.

“Are we all right, baby?” Ben asked, putting his head to hers.

“I want to be,” she whispered. “I want you to forgive me. I’m so sorry I said the things I did. I wasn’t talking to you two. Not really. I went to someplace bad. I know it sounds stupid, but it was like I was back there for a minute.”

Ben’s arms tightened. “It doesn’t sound stupid at all. Your therapist would probably kick our asses for doing that, but she would also agree that you had to see that you couldn’t go in.”

“Forgive me.” Her voice sounded small, plaintive.

Ben’s lips found hers. “Always. Now, I’m going to make some arrangements. We want to get this whole thing over with as soon as possible so we can concentrate on the good stuff. You need to fix him, Natalie. Please. Whatever he says, know he’s crazy about you. I know. I can feel it.”

Ben, his weasel, dick-crap-faced, turncoat-for-a-little-pussy brother, gave him a grave smile. It was his “don’t fuck this up” smile. He turned and walked out of the room. Chase heard the front door close.

“Do you want to go to dinner? I’ll sit at your feet. It might start making up for the whole Warrior Princess routine I went through. I have to apologize to Jack, too.” Nat stayed where she was, wary and on edge. Her eyes slid away from his.

He turned back to his computer. Ben might be ready to jump right back in, but he needed some time. He didn’t like the knowledge that one small woman could have so much fucking control over him. Ben could take care of her. Maybe in time, he could be the second dick.

Fuck, no. He couldn’t do that. Not with Natalie.

“I’m not really hungry anymore, Natalie. You can go. Ben will take care of you. I have some work to do.” He glanced back at his computer, unwilling to show her a moment of his emotions. It never did him any good. He was shit at expressing them. He was shit at handling them.

He had to face a few facts. He wasn’t built for the emotional crap. He was built to solve problems, and Natalie needed that, too. He’d thought for a minute in there that he could handle it, that she was the one, but he had to face facts about himself. Some men weren’t built for intimacy.

“He constantly told me how ugly I was.” Natalie moved closer, her hands together, wringing a little as she spoke. “It didn’t matter how hard I tried. I get that it wasn’t about me. He said that as a control mechanism, to break me down. But I tried really hard this afternoon. I never wear makeup. I don’t bother. Today, I wanted to look pretty for you.”

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. And fuck. He was not going to give in. He was going back where he was comfortable—in his nice little shell. Screw happiness. He didn’t need this shit. God, he couldn’t leave her standing there. Despite every cell in his brain screaming at him to dismiss her, the words just came out. “You’re always beautiful, Natalie.”

“You make me feel that way.”

“I didn’t today.”

She sighed. “I understand why. Tell me something. Did you like it?”

He couldn’t look at her. The images on his computer screen didn’t make sense, though. They were watery. What the fuck was wrong with his eyes? “I didn’t. I like the way you look, Natalie. You’re my type. I didn’t like the dark hair on you, and I didn’t like not seeing the real color of your skin. Like I said, I have a type.”

Let her think it was just about looks.

She did that snorting thing that he would have found obnoxious on other women and he kind of loved with her. “Yeah, that must have been hard for you, Chase. No wonder you’re single. Pink hair. Pale skin. Tongue ring. Small breasts. Big old ass. You have very specific tastes.”

“I’m picky.”

“You are. You are the pickiest man I’ve ever met.” She moved beside him. She was right there, but he couldn’t reach out to her. “You’re also the kind of man who would risk what he wanted in order to protect it. Or her. I know you’re the kind of man who would stand there while a crazy woman punches him. Is your eye okay?”

She was seriously overestimating her own strength. “I barely felt it. It’s not something you should worry about.” His whole soul had ached as she’d hit and kicked out at a foe who was no longer alive. She’d fought so hard. And he’d been the one who represented everything that had gone wrong in her life. He would always be the hard-ass, the nasty Dom.

A hand touched his shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”

He moved the chair, getting out of her touch. He couldn’t stand it. He wanted her so fucking bad, and now he knew he couldn’t have her. “Don’t be, Natalie.”

“Stop calling me that.”

“It’s your name.”

“No. I’m your Cotton Candy.”

His sweetness. If she didn’t go away soon, he would break because he was so fucking weak when it came to her. It was why he’d pushed her in the first place. The minute he’d realized they’d been tailed, he couldn’t stop thinking about her safety. Now he was thinking about his own. “Natalie, please go find Ben. Ben can take care of you.”

She sank to her knees. “He can, but I need you, Sir.”

He closed his eyes, pain lancing at him. “You don’t. Natalie, here’s what you don’t understand. That was me who ordered you to go upstairs and change. I might have been a little harsher than I would normally be, but I am capable of that. I’m capable of wanting to dominate every minute of your life. I would want to spank you, tie you up, flog you, plug you, fuck you until you couldn’t remember a time I wasn’t inside you. That’s the guy I am. I can’t change that. I want you, Natalie. I want to own you. I want to collar you. I want to know every inch of you belongs to me and Ben and no-fucking-body else. Do you understand? I can’t be the guy you need.”

He looked down, trying to be as cold as possible to let her know this was who he was, but her face was turned up, her eyes filled with tears.

“You are what I need. I didn’t want to change until I met you. Not Ben. I love Ben, too, but it was you who made me want to fix myself.”

“You love Ben?” She loved Ben. Naturally.

“Only as much as I love you. And you were first, Sir Dawson.” She reached out, putting a hand on his leg. “Please, Chase. Forgive me. I want to be what you need, but I need time. I need your patience, and I need your love.”

Chase stood, backing away from her like she was on fire and he really didn’t want to get burned. “I’m not capable of that, Natalie. Ben got all of those emotions. I’m the rough one. I’m the one who needs all those things you can’t give me. It’s better that you stick with Ben.”

He had no idea how he would watch them settle in together, but he would. Ben didn’t really need to put a collar around a woman’s neck and have her sit at his feet. Ben could take care of a woman without having to own her. It was so stupid. He was stupid, and he didn’t even have a reason for it past the fact that he’d had four mothers come and go.

God, was he really that pathetic? Maybe he was the one who needed therapy.

She was on her knees, her face turned up toward him. “I’ll get where you need me to be. Chase, I wanted all of that once, too. I just got off track. Please give me time.”

She was begging, and he couldn’t stand it. This is what it would be like. They would both beg and plead and inevitably one of them would walk away and the one begging would just be left behind.

His father had never begged. His father had simply written his wives a check and gone on to find a younger one who would cheat on him and leave him because he was cold and cruel. Like Chase.

“I think I can do what I need to do from Dallas.” He started toward the door. He couldn’t put them through this. “Natalie, I’m sorry if I hurt you, but it wasn’t serious for me.”

“Yes, it was.” She was crying freely now. “It was serious. Don’t do this.”

But he was doing it for both of them. “I’ll send Ben back up. I wish the two of you the best.”

He strode out the door, his heart seizing as he heard her sob.

He closed it behind him only to see his brother standing at the front door. The bastard had heard the whole thing and now he had another fucking fight on his hands. “I’m going back to Dallas. I’ll move out as soon as I can. I think you should take Natalie back to Dallas with you. She needs you.”

He waited for Ben to explode, to call him all kinds of nasty shit, and he would take it because it was all true. Instead Ben crossed the space between them. “You are not our father, Chase. God, how can you even think that?”

Chase had the eidetic memory, but Ben was better at reading his fucking mind. He should have remembered that. “I can think it because it’s true.”

“Chase, it’s not. I know it was hard to go through stepmothers the way we did. They would come and we would get close and they would leave. Hell, he had a string of girlfriends two miles long who came and went. You think I don’t know how close you got to them only to get left behind? They never wrote or called. Hell, not even our mother called unless she wanted something. It’s not that you can’t love a woman. You’re scared to. But, brother, that woman in there is the one, and if you walk away, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”

Ben’s words opened a well of sadness he’d forgotten existed. Didn’t want to remember.

Ben seemed to see the weak spot and went right for it. “Come on, man. This is the rest of our lives. I love that girl. It happened fast, but maybe that’s just how it was always going to be for us. Maybe we were always supposed to walk in and just fucking know. I don’t care. I don’t give a shit how it happened or why it happened. I don’t care that every motherfucker at The Club is going to taunt us mercilessly. I’ll actually like that a little because it means we have something to be jealous of. Chase, she’s crying. She’s finally crying, and it’s not over what happened to her. She could bury that deep down, but the thought of not being with you—she couldn’t bury it. Listen to her.”

It was quiet, but Natalie was crying. Sobbing. Likely into her hands.

And he couldn’t. He couldn’t handle it. He couldn’t stand there while she cried. He was her Dom whether she could handle it or not. Whether he ever put a collar on her or not. He was her Dom because it was what he was born to be. Other men might call it lover or boyfriend, but Chase had his language and it all meant the same thing. He loved her. It didn’t matter what he needed. Suddenly giving her what she needed was all that mattered.

He turned from his brother and nearly ran back to her. His heart, that thing he’d always thought was inconsequential, suddenly thudded in his chest, unwilling to be ignored a moment longer.

She was on the floor, her body laid out, chest heaving. She cried into her hands, muffling what should have been screams.

He didn’t hesitate. She was his, and he should never have fucking walked out on her. It had been cowardly, and that wasn’t what she needed. He got to his knees.

“Ben?” Her face turned up, puffy and red and still so beautiful his heart hurt.

He shook his head.

“Chase.” She shoved up and threw herself into his arms. She was so different from the wary girl he’d met. That girl had been scared and unsure and ready to run. This one held on. He needed her to hold on for the rest of her life.

His arms tightened, pulling her small frame in close, squeezing her to him. “Don’t ever leave me.”

“I love you.” She locked her arms around him, her will a palpable thing. “I won’t ever leave.”

“Take me.” His mouth found hers. Hungry. He was so fucking hungry for her. He felt like he’d waited forever and he had. He’d been waiting for Natalie from the moment he’d been born.

She pressed up, holding nothing back. She opened her mouth and he invaded, his tongue stroking along hers. His cock was already hard and waiting.

He dominated her mouth, pulling her hair back so he had the best angle.

Natalie was his. She’d given herself to him and there was no fucking going back. He intended to make sure she understood he could take care of her.

He intended to make sure she never wanted to let him go.