Chapter 46: Complicated
He'd parked his GTO about half a block down; they both made it in record time, well ahead of the security goons that ran out the front of the Nikolai mansion. But because of the crowd of cars disgorging the arriving guests, by the time the goons made it to the front gate the GTO was just turning the corner at the end of the street; it would be impossible for them to follow John and Joss with the traffic involved. Especially with the added presence of the news van that had been invited to get a story about an attending Senator.
He still drove as fast as he dared, wanting to put some distance between them and the Nikolai mansion. They were about five miles away before he finally pulled over to the side of the road and looked at Joss, who'd dropped into the passenger seat next to him. "Are you crazy? What did you think you were doing in there?!"
"Setting her up just like she tried to set you up." Joss's tone was very casual. "I don't know how much Harold's told you about her, but she's made a habit of doing this. She targets rich men at her parties, drugs them, takes them to the library where there's a camera, then takes advantage of the drug haze to rape them. On camera, it looks consensual; and there's no audio, so no one can say otherwise. The drug also has a nasty habit of wiping out memory after it does, so the man she picked has no choice but to give in and pay her asking price not to reveal it. John Riley, investment trust fund manager for Riley and Hedges, must have been too tempting a target to pass up." She looked at him and grinned. "Not that I can blame her."
And with that memory crashed back. "You have to go, Joss," he said, his face darkening. "You're not safe around me."
"Hold up there. You're not going anywhere." And suddenly there was a bright silver handcuff locked around his right wrist—and the other side of the cuff was locked around Joss's left wrist. He stared at it for a full minute, trying to process what had happened, then turned to see her dangling the keys to the handcuff in her other hand. "I haven't seen you at all in the last three days. You haven't answered my calls or texts. Neither has Harold. I'm making sure you don't disappear on me again."
"Joss…I'm…"
"Shut up, John." There was an edge to her voice that told him she was pissed. "I'm not going to discuss anything with you until I have your complete and undivided attention. I came here in a cab, you're going to drive back to my house and we're going have a talk."
"Joss…"
"Shut up and drive, John."
Getting out of his car was a bit of a challenge when they were connected at the wrist; John grinned a little, hearing her curse when she bumped her knee on the steering wheel as she tried to climb across the bucket seats. "You could always unlock the handcuffs," he said, feeling a little of his old humor return. She wasn't acting like she was pissed—okay, yes, she was pissed, but somehow it didn't feel like she was pissed about…that.
"Uh-uh. Not letting you go." She finally climbed out of the driver's side door of the car. "Keep your hands where I can see them; you're not picking that handcuff lock."
He actually had been thinking of doing just that as she'd climbed out; but he'd decided that whatever she was going to do to him for what he'd done to her was justified, and he deserved it. Well and truly deserved it. He'd promised he would never hurt her—and he'd gone and hurt her. He deserved whatever she wanted to do to him; if she was going to haul him into the station in handcuffs, he'd go.
She unlocked her front door, pushed him in, then turned and locked it behind her. Then she paused in her darkened living room and said, "Finch. I know you can hear me, I see John's earpiece in. Turn it off. John and I have some…things to discuss…and I want it private. I have a few things I wanna discuss with you too but that's gonna wait until later."
"John…" Harold started to speak.
John sighed. "It's okay, Harold. I…had this coming." And he switched it off, took the earpiece out of his ear. She held out her right hand for it, a wordless request; he dropped it in her palm.
Her right hand reached out, deposited it on a low table by the door. And then that hand came up, swung in an arc and connected with the side of his face in a stinging slap. Hard.
His free hand came up involuntarily to his cheek as he stared at her. She was magnificent when she was pissed; eyes full of fire, her cheeks red. "That's for avoiding me and refusing to answer my calls the last few days. You're lucky I love you." Without waiting for an answer, she marched—yes, marched—off down the hall. Caught by surprise, he followed after her—the tug of the handcuff around his wrist reminding him that he didn't really have a choice, unless he wanted to dislocate her shoulder by refusing to move. And that he wouldn't do.
He felt uncertainty creep in when they stopped in her bedroom. "Joss, I'm not sure this is a good idea."
She stepped up to him, toe to toe, and even though she was shorter than he was, he was still taken aback at how much sheer presence she had—and he realized he was slightly intimidated with her inside his personal space. And John Reese was never intimidated. Intimidating, yes, but he'd never been intimidated before.
"Let me explain something to you, John Reese," she said, each word carefully enunciated. Yes, she was pissed. And damn if his traitorous body wasn't suddenly aching for her. "I don't care if you don't think this is a good idea. I decide what's a good idea for me. Not you. Not Harold. Me. Just because I've decided that letting you into my life, my heart and my bed is a good idea for me, doesn't give you permission to take those decisions away from me. If you keep doing that I might decide having you in my life isn't a good idea."
His heart dropped into his stomach. Life without Joss?
She saw his stunned, suddenly worried expression and sighed. Damn it, Sam was right, he was being much more thick-headed than usual. Even for him.
Well, if a whack upside the head didn't make him pay attention to her, there was one sure way she knew to get through to him.
Since their return from the Catskills he'd been working with her in the gym on her hand-to-hand combat skills. She used those moves now, reaching out with one leg to sweep both of his out from under him. Taken by surprise, he fell backward onto her bed, and she went with him, landing on top of him. The bedsprings creaked alarmingly with the sudden impact of both their bodies on it, but she ignored it; her hands were busy with her handcuff keys, unlocking the link around her wrist. When his hand came up to steady her—such a gentleman, even when she took him by surprise, so predictable—she caught his left wrist and locked it in the handcuff too.
That done, she stood back and admired her handiwork as he stared up at her, looking stunned. Oh, she loved that look of confusion and bewilderment on his face—she didn't get to see it often, he was usually the one in control.
Well, this was one time when he wouldn't be. His wrists were handcuffed to the top of the bed, leaving him vulnerable to all the deliciously wicked things her imagination could think of to do to him. She wondered if he could see her rising excitement, then decided that she really didn't care if he did or didn't. He was going to get the idea in a couple of minutes anyway.
"Now you stay right there. I'm definitely going to want to be comfortable for this chat."
Jesus God, he had no idea what to do now. Handcuffed—to her bed, of all places!—and she'd used the moves he taught her! There was no way for him to hide his growing erection, his body's purely male reaction to being this close to her. There was something else, too; a wild side of her coming out that he hadn't seen before, but that brought the dark stranger Reese roaring to the forefront of his consciousness, wanting to play.
And then it got worse, oh, so much worse, as she started to strip, as casually as if he were not lying on her bed. He stared as she slipped out of her socks and boots, slacks and dark shirt, and finally out of her underthings, leaving her gloriously nude and so…damn…desirable. He ached to touch her; Reese was fighting the chokehold John kept over the darker side of him in bed, the feel of the cold metal handcuffs bringing his pure masculine predatory instincts to the fore.
She came back to the bed, still nude, casually stripping off his socks and shoes. Then, as if completely unaware of the pup tent in his slacks, she crossed the bedroom and pulled a short satin nightgown out of her drawer—and John nearly lost it. Black lace cups barely covered her breasts, deep magenta satin fell to the middle of her thighs, a tiny strip of black lace around the hem of the nightdress just barely covered her sex while still offering him a tantalizing glimpse of the shadowed vee of her thighs.
She hummed a little as she strolled out of the bedroom. He shifted his hips impatiently, willing to wait since that was what she apparently wanted, but ready to pick the handcuff lock if she waited too long. Because damn, he certainly couldn't wait much longer.
But right about the time when he thought he was definitely going to get himself out of the damn handcuffs she strolled back in, nursing a glass of wine. She took a couple of sips as she surveyed him, stretched out on her bed, then put the glass on her dresser as she came over to the bed. One quick move later and she was straddling his thighs, her hands busy on his tie. The next sound he heard was buttons popping; he stared in astonishment as she ripped his shirt open, then grabbed the top of his undershirt and tore that too, leaving his torso bare to her searing hot gaze. He looked up into her eyes…and forgot how to breathe.
They'd made love before. He knew there was a passionate sexy little kitten under her calm, cool, disciplined exterior. But he'd never once seen this wild angel now straddling him, her eyes alight with a savage gleam of desire—no, correction. He had seen this wild angel once—in his fragmentary memories of the night Aleksa had drugged him. And he felt himself lose control of Reese, down inside him; felt Reese rise to meet Carter's predatory, wicked gaze.
"No..." came a savage, throaty purr. "No, this time, I control things."
He yanked desperately against the handcuffs that trapped his wrists, wanting to touch her, hold her, put her where he most wanted her. "No," she growled at him, her hands grabbing his forearms and slapping them firmly back down against the pillow over his head. "You're mine now."
Mine. The word, uttered in that throaty sensual growl, undid him completely. "Joss…"
She ignored him, scooting down the bed to his waist, unbuckling his belt, then unbuttoning and unzipping his pants. "Let yourself go, John. Let go of Reese and John and just…let go. You don't always need to be so controlled. You don't always have to be the one in control. Sometimes true strength is acknowledging that you can give that up to someone else."
Something shifted inside John at that moment. Yes. Control. He always needed to be in control Always wanted it. He'd never let go. Never allowed himself to let go. Hated being out of control. But then, he'd never, ever been with someone who wanted him to let go either. Never had he had anyone so willing to accept what and who he was.
"You don't control this. I do." She dropped light, feathery kisses on his chest, along his collarbone, and then in a completely unexpected assault on his senses, she bit him. He nearly screamed, then; his hips rose, pumped, desperate, frantic; but she backed off, looked at him writhing there in her bed.
"Joss…Jesus…please…" wild, anguished pleading tore from him. He needed, desperately. If he didn't get her, he was going to burst…
"You're on my schedule, not yours," she panted harshly in his ear, and he groaned, going limp under her. He was hers, completely; she could do whatever she wanted with him. He couldn't fight her anymore.
No. He didn't want to fight her anymore.
She felt the shift in him, felt the moment when something crumbled inside him, a wall that he probably hadn't even known was there. He was hers in that moment. She didn't feel any tension or conflict in him now; he wasn't trying to hold something, anything back. All or nothing.
John Reese was finally hers. All of him.
But as she pushed herself off him and looked into his eyes, she realized he didn't understand. He knew something had just changed, but he didn't understand. She sighed as she reached for the handcuff keys, released his wrists from the cuffs, tossing them aside, then bringing his wrist to her lips and kissing the inside of that wrist gently where he'd pulled so hard the cuffs had left marks on his skin.
"I don't know what kind of relationship you've had with the other women in your life, John. God help me, I don't think I really want to know. Sam said that Zoe sought you out when you were still wound up after a fight and couldn't settle down; after the night Aleksa drugged you, I think I understand why. But Sam also said that Zoe didn't stick around because she didn't want to deal with the softer side of you, the complex tangle of emotions that don't have anything to do with the harder part of yourself you try to lock away.
"Jessica was, I think, the same way. You don't talk about her much, but she really hurt you when she left and chose someone else. I don't think you realize, as I do, that she did you a favor." He sat up in bed, looking at her quizzically, and she struggled to find the words to say what she knew but that he still couldn't see. God, he really was dense. "We sit in the evening and talk. Anything and everything. God, there's nights when it's hard to go to bed; there's so much to say and not enough time to say it. But I've noted that sometimes we start talking, then you stop, and I've gradually come to figure out that these were topics that Jessica didn't want to talk about, topics that appeal to Reese, not John."
Joss knelt in front of him, bringing both hands up to cradle his face. "Jessica loved the man called John, but she didn't want to deal with the killer called Reese. And that's why she didn't wait. You lost a chunk of your life because she'd rejected you, and never realized that she did you a favor. You would never have been truly happy with her, not as long as she rejected any part of you.
"Love is an all or nothing thing. You don't pick the parts of yourself you want to show the one you love. You can do that with friends, with enemies, with people you see every day, but you can't do that with the people you love. Three nights ago I finally saw all of you. And I loved what I saw.
"I've never hidden my wild side; not from Paul, not from you. Paul…Paul couldn't deal with it. Heck, he couldn't even deal with himself, let alone me, and Taylor. So when our divorce was final, I decided I'd never have a relationship with anyone again who couldn't accept himself.
"Over the last few weeks, I've come to the realization that I love you. I need, and love, both 'John' and 'Reese'. I want you to be just who you are, no holding back. But you don't understand that, even though I've tried so hard to show you that I want both, love both, need both. I blame Harold a little bit for that—everyone in your life, actually. Everyone seems to be happy with the status quo, everyone seems to be okay with how you compartmentalize and split. Well, I'm not. And I don't know if you are, but that's something you're going to have to figure out for yourself.
"So I'm giving you your space. I'm not going to call you. I'm not going to bug you. We're friends, you can still call me for whatever you want, whatever you need, but there can't be an 'us' until you decide what you want."
A tear spilled down her cheek. "I can't live with—and love—half a man. I don't want John. I want John Reese."
