He’d felt them, raised lines on her legs, but at the time he’d been more interested in getting his fingers inside her pussy than anything else. “So she was in an accident? I know a little about her history. Is it something that happened to her when she was held captive?”
Natalie, along with Kitten and the other woman, Gretchen, had been kidnapped by a man who used BDSM as assault and battery and rape. Kitten had been held for months, Gretchen for over a year. Natalie had only been with the man for a matter of a few months before she’d managed to maneuver him into a place where she’d used a knife and killed him. And good for Natalie. He’d read that file and even before he’d met her, he’d known she was a survivor. She’d been caught, held, tortured, and she hadn’t broken. She’d fought. She’d done what she had to.
Damn it. Knowing who she was didn’t make him like her less. It made him want her more, and he’d kind of craved her before. Two seconds after he’d come, he’d been getting hard again just thinking about her riding his face, his tongue deep inside that sugar of hers.
Sugar. He hadn’t missed what Chase had called her. Sweetness. The word had played through his brain the whole time he’d been with Nat. Even before she’d walked his way, he’d looked at her and thought about how sweet she would be. Now he had to wonder how much of that had been his reaction and how much had been remnants of Chase.
And he had to wonder if it even fucking mattered since she’d made him feel so damn much.
“I don’t think she got those scars from him,” Chase explained. “She did that to herself.”
Ben stopped, the knowledge hitting him hard. He couldn’t imagine her sitting there hurting herself. “She’s a cutter?”
Chase’s eyes came up, flaring briefly. “She thinks she can get rid of the emotional pain by taking a little physical pain. Know anyone like that? Because I walk through a dungeon full of them every fucking night. We’re all fucked up, Ben. Well, most of us are.”
Yeah, he just might punch his brother. “Screw you, Chase. You think sharing an emotional state with you is easy? I assure you I’m totally fucked up. Constantly feeling what you feel is a goddamn curse. The best thing that’s happened to me lately is hooking up with that pink-haired slice of heaven, and now I get to spend the night wondering what was real and what was you, and I already decided that I don’t give a shit. I just want her.”
And if she was totally fucked up, then maybe he was the one who could help her. Chase was right about that. Ben had started his BDSM training long before Chase had gotten into the lifestyle.
He’d started on Ada.
Chase softened, his shoulders slumping. “God, don’t go there. Please.”
“It’s hard not to.”
“You didn’t really love her,” Chase said, leaning forward. “I think you fooled yourself into thinking you did. It was the first time we’d really been separated, and I think you kind of fell in love with that, too.”
The shower was going, steam seeping from under the door. Natalie liked it hot, it would appear. Ben leaned against the wall, the whole crapalicious day weighing him down. Chase was right. The Navy was the first time they’d been forced apart for more than a few hours. After BUD/S training, they were placed on two separate SEAL teams, and Chase had gone to Iraq and Ben to the ass end of Asia where he’d met his fellow team member, Leo Meyer. Leo had been the team’s sniper. Hanging out with Leo, learning from him, had been a huge turning point in Ben’s life.
“You can’t know that.” The last thing Ben wanted to do was think about Ada because thinking about the gorgeous translator always led to him thinking about her death. And the fact that he’d been in love with her and she’d been in love with Leo.
“I can. Look, I know you hate this whole freaky link thing between us, but it comes in handy from time to time. I know you didn’t love Ada because I never loved her.”
“You never freaking met her.” Ben felt an odd need to defend her.
Chase shrugged. “I didn’t have to. I felt that fucking bullet hit your shoulder during that raid in Kabul. I nearly passed out when you took that knife to your back. I would be asleep in Baghdad and wake up because I could feel how happy you were sitting around a campfire with your buddies, and I knew damn well one of the reasons you were so fucking happy was that you didn’t have to share them with me. I wasn’t around to screw everything up. Tell me I’m wrong.”
He wanted to tell his brother he was full of shit, but he wasn’t. There had been a deep freedom to those years with the SEALs that he hadn’t felt before or since. Just for a little while, he’d felt almost whole, like he didn’t need Chase to complete him. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
But he had. Even while Chase had felt his joy, Ben had caught the edges of Chase’s misery. Chase had hated everything about Iraq. He’d hated the death and the poverty he saw. He’d shrunk back into himself until his whole squad had given him the nickname “Wraith” because he almost never talked. Silent death. The Grim Reaper. Yeah, he knew how much Chase hated that shit.
“Doesn’t matter,” Chase said, blowing it all off. “But, Ben, in all that emotion, I never once heard her name whispering across my brain. Not once. You didn’t love her. You were in love with the idea of not having to share her with me.”
“That’s not true.” It couldn’t be because he’d wasted long passages of his life if it was.
“You can lie to yourself, but you can’t lie to me. Ashley Donaldson. Eleventh grade. You met her in math class. By the time I walked out of chemistry, I was crazy about her and I hadn’t met her.”
Ashley. Pretty. Tall. Blonde. And very flexible. Yeah, they’d done her in the back of an SUV. Thank god for high school gymnastics. She’d been their girlfriend for two years before she’d left for college.
“Laura Evans from college. I felt that shit from three miles away. Damn, that was a kinky girl. She didn’t even ask who I was when I showed up. She just looked me over, said, ‘Yes, twins,’ and pulled me inside. I think about her a lot, actually.” Chase got a little smile on his face.
Ben got caught up. “Hey, I wasn’t the only one who could find a hot perv. Do I need to mention Sheri?”
Chase’s eyes rolled back. “That was an open-minded girl. And the things she could do with whipped cream.” He looked back at his brother. “I never even knew when you were having sex with Ada. But you knew that I called that little piece of heaven in there sweetness.”
The shower shut off. Her fifteen minutes were almost up, and it sounded like she was taking Chase’s threat seriously.
“She’s the client.” He wished he’d known that before he’d gotten inside her. Would it really make a difference? He was careful. He believed in separating business from pleasure. But he wasn’t sure he wanted to in this case.
“No.” Chase’s words were very precise. “Julian is the client. I’m not fucking Julian so everything is okay.”
His brother was maddening at times. Most of the time. “We’re investigating her.”
“Yes. So it’s up to us to keep track of her. I think the best way to do that is to be on top of her most of the time.”
“She likes to be on top. She needs it.” And he was talking about this why?
Chase growled a little. “Yeah, you would know.”
“I like her.” He wasn’t just going to step out of the way because his brother had decided to be a possessive, idiot asshole. And he wasn’t going to step out of the way because of his moral code. If Chase didn’t see a problem with it, then Ben could handle it, too.
The door opened, and Natalie stood there looking younger than she had before, her pink hair slicked back. She was slender but with nice curves. She needed someone who would make sure she ate three meals a day and indulged in dessert. Natalie looked like a woman who rarely indulged in anything.