Sparks (A Special Agent Novel Book 1) Page 16

  “Twenty. Thank you, Sir.” The pain was almost unbearable now, but I managed to hold the tears at bay. James wouldn’t want to see them any more than I would.

  “Lois, don’t fight me.” There was another heavy thud of his hand, and I choked back another sob. I couldn’t for the life of me fathom what he meant.

  “How can I fight?” I whispered between choked breaths. “You have me trussed up so tightly I can barely move.”

  “Ahh. You misunderstand me, Lois.” He lowered my legs to the bed and made a clicking sound with his tongue as he thought about what to say next. Personally, I was glad of the reprieve, as it gave me a chance to catch my breath. The stinging throb his hand imparted had worked its way up and down my body. Everything prickled with pain and heat, and there was a bitter taste in my mouth as I tried not to swallow.

  Rubbing his hand across his chin, he looked tired as he tried to work out what he wanted to say to me. I wondered how many hours he had put in today, and I guessed it was probably more than I had, which was saying something.

  “At Carte Blanche, the men and women get off on your fear. Not all of them, but there’s a sizeable bunch of wackos who do. You need to give them what they want and quickly. The longer you take to give them a piece of yourself, the worse shape your body will be in by the end of it, because these guys won’t stop until they have what they want.” He frowned and brushed his hand over his chin again, letting me hear the soft scrape that his stubble made against his skin. “Do you understand what I’m saying, Lois?”

  “You want screams, blubbering, and tears.” I got the message loud and clear.

  “To be clear, Lois, that is not what I want. I’m here to teach you the skills that will enable you to stay alive long enough to go in and do what you need to do. They, however, will want tears, but that’s not all they’ll want.”

  I sniffed, swallowed down a mouthful of unspent emotion, and gave him a sardonic look. “What do they want then? Blood?” I almost choked against the hysterical laughter that began to bubble up my throat, but one look at James silenced me. He was shaking his head, and there was a beautiful, soulful look on his face that spoke of depths of sadness that I could never begin to uncover. Something awful had happened to this man, and this was the first glimpse I’d been given past the façade that he normally wore.

  Lifting up a damp tendril of hair that had been stuck to my forehead, James placed it gently behind my ear. His touch was horribly unsettling, but I managed not to jump at it.

  “They might, but I think you’re too pretty a morsel for them to harm in that way.” My eyes flew open in shock at that, and I couldn’t prevent the reaction. “Yes, Lois. There is an awful lot you’ve yet to learn.” He blew out a long breath of hot air, which seared my skin.

  “What am I missing?” I whispered.

  “The whole goddamned point. But that’s why you’re here, Lois.”

  Thirteen

  James didn’t say a lot after that. He looked weary as he picked up my legs once more and rubbed the tender flesh of my ass, noting that I winced as he did so. He warmed the area up with his hands for a good few minutes before I felt compelled to speak. I needed to get this over with.

  “Do you still want me to count?” I whispered. If he did, I was in trouble - I had no idea what number we’d ended on, and the thought of going back to the start was unbearable.

  “No. This finishes when you cry. You can either look at it as a personal challenge to have the sorest backside in the UK, or you can give me what I want and then try to get some sleep. It’s up to you, Lois. It’s four am now, but I can and will go as long as it takes to get you to that place.”

  “I don’t want to go there,” I whispered. It wasn’t the pain I was frightened of, it was the tears. Once they started, it was almost impossible to stop them.

  “I know you don’t, Lois, which is why I’m being upfront with you. You need to go there. Daily. It’s going to hurt you, psychologically, but that’s nothing compared to what’s going down once you begin this op. All I can do is prepare you for it, and I’m telling you that you need to get comfortable with tears. I’m here for you. I won’t let you fall. You can do this.”

  “Remember, you asked for this,” I whispered.

  “No, you asked for this, Lois, and it will probably rank as one of the craziest things you’ve ever done.” His hand began slamming into my rear with frightening intensity, and I couldn’t catch my breath. The man was serious about his threat, and if I ever wanted to sit down again, I needed to give him what he wanted and quickly.

  My mind fluttered back to Kiel, against its better judgement. I’d already compartmentalised him to a back locker of my brain, and he’d been filed under ‘Deceased. Do not open.’ There was no other option that would give me what James wanted, though, so I had to open the box of worms and take the inevitable suffering that would accompany it. Even so, my fingers hesitated as they grasped the lid of my memories. Whilst the box wanted to be opened, the lid burned my hands. As I fought to prise it upwards, an incandescent light began to spill out everywhere, and then I was everywhere and nowhere… all at once.

  The tears were almost instant. In my head, Kiel was very much alive and well. He was wrapped around my body, his legs entangled between mine, our naked skin deliciously warm under the thick double duvet that encased us lovingly in its grasp. I felt his arms wrapped around me, one gently kneading a breast as the other reached between my legs. The divine feeling of contentment was fleeting. I tried to cling on to it as long as I could, but once the box had been awakened, it could not be stopped. There was one moment of transient pleasure, and then all the awful crap that had been violently squashed into that box exploded.

  There was the cop knocking at my door who’d barely been able to get a word out edgeways without stammering. The horror on his face as he delivered his message would always stay with me. I’d almost felt sorry for the poor bastard, but at that moment in time, I had bigger things to worry about. My rug had just been yanked out from underneath me, and nothing would ever be the same again. The horrors didn’t stop there, though.

  It had been a fatal motorcycle accident. The death had been instant, so the officer told me, which in turn meant it had been messy. I’d always told Kiel that his bike would be the death of him. It had been a Ducati Streetfighter, and it was his pride and joy. He drove the thing around like it had rocket boosters, but the last person he’d ever listen to would have been me. He knew best. Most of the time he did, but not on that cursed day.

  When I got to the coroner’s office, I asked if I could see the body, but he advised me against it. Basically, they’d had to scrape Kiel up off the ground and he was virtually unrecognisable. The decision was mine at the end of the day, and he didn’t make it for me, but I decided that viewing a mangled lump of flesh covered in blood wasn’t going to help with closure. Besides, I’d seen enough death in my lifetime. I had no desire to stare it in the face yet again, knowing full well it would haunt my dreams.

  On the day of his funeral, I was a wreck. Getting out of bed that morning required an almost inhumane effort, and my best friend ended up dragging me almost bodily to the church. I was so numb that performing even the simplest of tasks became virtually impossible. The glue that had held me together for so long had finally come unstuck, and there was no way I could piece myself back together again. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to. An all-consuming, ravaging guilt ate away at me, and atonement for my sins wasn’t going to be possible. He was dead, stone cold dead. Nothing was going to change that and I need to get onboard with the program. It was easier said than done. Every night I went to sleep, my arm reached for him - every morning I awoke, my body flailed around looking for its missing part. Everything in the house reminded me of him, and it got to a stage where I thought it might be almost impossible to exist without him. We had been united as a whole, and now there was just a spare part. Me.

  “Lois.” The voice sounded so far away I could barely hear it thro
ugh my choked, hiccupping sobs. Breathing was almost impossible, and the flood of tears prevented me from seeing a damn thing. Besides, I was lost within my own little bubble of misery, and I was quite happy there, because Kiel was back beside me, and I hadn’t thought of him for so long now.

  “Lois, come back to me.” The voice was stronger now. Cajoling, almost threatening, but I ignored it. What did I care for a voice? There was only one voice I needed to hear, and he could only speak to me in this place. ‘I love you, more than you’ll ever realise, Kat. You will never lose me. I intend to get so far inside that body and mind of yours that you’ll need life support if we’re ever apart.’ If only he’d known how close to the truth those beautiful words had been.

  “Lois! Look at me, Lois. Breathe.” The volume of those words was impossible to ignore and my eyes snapped open, though the image of James towering above me was blurry at best. Realizing I hadn’t sucked in a breath in quite some time, I took a huge, sucking gulp of air and tried to calm myself down.

  “That’s it, Lois. Nice and easy. Focus on the here and now. We got where we needed to go. The session’s over and we’re done for the night. I’m going to stay with you for a bit. I don’t really want to leave you after all that you’ve been through.” James’s arms were now tight around my body, and I realized that he’d unfastened the cuffs at some point. My arms were now free, and although they were a little sore, they’d work well enough come morning. I’d deal with James then. Right now I was so damn tired, I thought I was melting into the bed sheets.

  “I’ll be okay,” I mumbled sleepily, but I was already drifting off. The exhaustion of the last few hours had finally caught up with me, and my body was shutting down. I hadn’t the will or energy to fight him. Tomorrow would be another day.

  “Yes, you will. I’ll be right next to you, Lois. Sleep well, my little lioness.” I felt his hands in my hair, taking soothing strokes down its length, and I let my body relax. It felt nice to spoon with a warm, breathing body behind me, even if it wasn’t the one I wanted. When sleep came for me in a few minutes time, I would neither care nor be worried about the fact. Analyzing all the implications of our rather sordid, temporary relationship could come later - much, much later, hopefully.

  The nightmares that had been absent these last five years returned with a vengeance. Everyone that had ever held a knife to my throat or a gun to my back seemed to reappear in my brain, over and over again. It was bizarre, really. Now that I didn’t fear death, and was almost actively trying to meet it head-on, they’d reappeared for kicks. I found myself running down dark alleyways, thrown into deep, dark holes, and covered with mud, before scrambling over rusty barbed wire fences that cut my skin to ribbons. They were just a few of my dark hours, but thankfully I awoke, gasping for breath, before I got to my favorite one.

  Trying to move my arms and tug the cover up over my body, it was with shock that I realized I was stuck solid in position, with a pair of arms wrapped around me.

  “Lois? You okay?” My arms were then released gently, and I was flipped over so I came face to face with my dark tormentor. He looked concerned, which was never a good sign.

  “Sorry. Nightmare. I’ll settle down now,” I whispered, trying to turn back to my previous position, but he wouldn’t let me.

  “Do you have them regularly, Lois?” I didn’t mistake his question for concern. He was worried I was going to flip out on this op, and would use any excuse possible to get rid of me. He’d need to try harder.

  “This is the first one I’ve had in five years. I thought I was past them. Perhaps it’s just the emotional trauma of the day making itself known.” I sighed softly, and he allowed me to turn around this time.

  “We’ll keep an eye on them. There are meds I can give you, but when you enter Carte Blanche, you go in empty handed, so it’s better if you don’t rely on drugs to sleep. If you need them to get a couple night’s decent sleep, though, I’ll get some down here.”

  “I’ll be fine. You needn’t worry about me,” I whispered.

  I couldn’t help but wonder why the nightmares had returned. Maybe it was because James had got one over on me today. I wasn’t used to losing. Perhaps that had triggered them. He was probably the best thing that could have happened to me right now. Together we could hone my edge to a fine, sharp point, which wouldn’t do me any harm when faced with a bunch of street thugs shortly. I’d probably need all the help I could get, and I was more than willing to take it.

  His arms tightened around my body, as if trying to reassure me that nothing was going to happen to me, but the sentiment was wasted. It was going to happen, and my life was a ticking time bomb until that day arrived.

  When I awoke the next morning, the sun was streaming through the window. It was so bright the time must have been approaching midday. I couldn’t remember the last time I had slept in so late. What the hell was wrong with me? Bringing my hand up to shield my eyes, I was not amused to find myself back in handcuffs. My fist moved an inch and stopped abruptly with a loud clang. How the hell had he managed that while I was asleep?

  “You bastard,” I yelled as loudly as I could. My words were met with silence. Great. If he’d gone shopping and left me like this, I could be here for an hour or more. Banging the handcuffs against the bed frame in annoyance, I flailed my legs about on the bed like a two-year old. Get a grip, Lois.

  “Nice look.” James sauntered into the room, freshly showered, wearing nothing more than a pair of jeans and a towel around his neck. It did not improve my mood.

  “What the hell do you think you’re playing at?” I yelled.

  He picked up the towel, rubbed at his damp hair, and took a leisurely look up and down the length and breadth of my body. It was just as well he’d used the cuffs, otherwise I’d be trying to decapitate him right now.

  “Exactly what I’m supposed to be playing. Today is the day I show you who’s boss, because believe me when I say Dumortier will. You need to learn to obey immediately and without question, no matter what the command. There is no room for questions at Carte Blanche. You need to focus, Lois. By the way, you omitted the word ‘Sir,’ and that will need to be addressed later.”

  “Yes, Sir,” I said through gritted teeth. He was right. What on earth was I doing? I could not think straight around this man, and it was frightening. He had my body on edge and my hormones clamoring for attention.

  “You’ll need to work on that, too. You have to say it like you mean it, Lois. You say the word ‘Sir’ like it’s about as attractive as venereal disease. It’s a term of respect. If you can’t whisper it like a lover, at least try and make it sound respectful.”

  “Why are you making this so difficult?” I got out through gritted teeth.

  He looked at me, narrowed his eyes, and shot back, “And what do you think it’s going to be like with Dumortier? A walk in the park? You’ll have some fun, sever his jugular, and be home in time for tea and cakes?” He gave me a sardonic look.

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Then it should be. I’m going to make this as difficult as possible for you, and if you cave along the way, so much the better. I wouldn’t put anyone inside that building with more than a twenty percent chance of coming out alive. That twenty percent would be some of the best operatives I’ve worked with, and you don’t feature anywhere on that list, Lois. So listen to what I have to tell you and pay attention. Whilst we’re at it, you need to shut up. You have two ears and one mouth, and you’re going to need to remember that. Listen and learn, Lois.”

  “Yes, Sir.” Having been duly chastised, with a keg of paraffin liberally doused over my ego before it was set on fire, I tried to remember my objective. He was the boss. I needed to remember that.

  “I’m going shopping. I’ll be back in an hour.”

  “Can you untie me first?”

  “Absolutely not. And I’m doing a thorough strip search before you go, so I don’t walk back in here to find a gun at the back of my head. The o
nly way you’re escaping that setup is if you have something on your person that can pick locks, and I’m about to make sure that you don’t.”

  “Is there a gun in here?” I asked innocently.

  “No, but even if there was, you wouldn’t be able to kill me with it. I’m fucking immortal. Haven’t you heard?”

  “You’re hilarious. Go do your shopping. I like my bacon crisp and my eggs over easy, by the way.” I winked at him, and in hindsight, that was probably the wrong thing to do.

  The man was between my legs in a heartbeat, and before I knew what was happening, he’d sucked my entire clit into his mouth. My mouth opened, but all that came out was a whimper. What rare and unusual punishment was I to face this time?

  “Stop that,” I managed to whisper, but either he didn’t hear me or he didn’t care. His fingers began to dip inside me, and I was mortified to find I was already wet. The man had only been in the room ten seconds. My body had no shame. Immediately tensing up, he began to soothe me with his fingers and hands. They were running up my legs, over my stomach, kneading the flesh of my breasts, and I couldn’t think. If you’d asked me what day of the week it was, I would have been lost.

  “Relax,” he whispered, stopping for a moment to look at me. His lips were glistening and his eyes were dark. It seemed I wasn’t the only one aroused. Closing my eyes to block out the image he presented, I squeaked, “Found anything down there yet?”