Own (Command Force Alpha #1) (6 page)

Maybe she liked that.

The bouncing, pinging thoughts inside her head were fading. They weren’t
gone
. There wasn’t anything as magical as that, not considering the last look she’d gotten of her father and the way, even while sleeping restlessly, dark shadows had carved under his eyes. But that never-ending chant of
don’t die don’t die don’t die
had faded into the background so that she could fold the shirt she clung to.

It was an old shirt, stolen from her dad so many years ago that she couldn’t count them all. Once it had trailed down to her ankles. She’d wrapped up in it for bed when Dad had gone away to Bosnia. She’d been five. Grabbing it tonight had been a matter of instinct. Now it made her sad to see the wrinkle down the front from the way she’d had it shoved into her drawer, and more wrinkles because of how she’d shoved it again into her duffle bag.

She held it by the shoulder hems and flicked it out flat, then folded it in thirds. Military style. She smoothed out the wrinkles the best she could with her palm. Without thought, without receiving another command, she set it to the side and reached for the next item. This one really was a thong. She untangled the blue lace from a green-and-white-striped bra. Somewhere in the pile were the matching panties.

She even folded the thong, wrapping it around her hand and tucking it into a neat triangle. She set it next to the T-shirt though, because those two things shouldn’t be stacked together.

She purposely, intentionally, didn’t dwell on the fact that she was obeying orders. She should have felt degraded by the man who’d burned her the worst way possible. She’d been eighteen and probably expecting a little too much. That didn’t mean he’d needed to hide her the way he had. He shouldn’t have
dropped
her like she was something dirty when her own father had offered him something better. She’d at least deserved a farewell before he left for Spec Ops training. A promise to pick up the way they’d been was out of the question. She hadn’t been that naïve, but an “It’s been fun, honey,” would’ve taken some of the burn out of his abrupt, heartbreaking departure.

There was no explaining this. There was nothing real. Why was she still kneeling?

He had hardwood floors too, though covered with a lushly woven rug. Her legs were still getting sore. The pain was working its way from her knees into her hips.

She didn’t leave. He hadn’t said she was supposed to stay there, and even by his orders she would
have
to get up to put things away in the drawers and on the vanity. But she folded and tidied everything up where she was. Though she had to stretch forward to reach some far-flung items, she did it without slipping out of position.

And she felt strong for it.

God, she was fucked in the head.

Finally, she stacked her hands on her knees, palms up. Her breathing was slow, steady. Her eyes weren’t burning anymore. She could breathe again. Deep, filling gusts of air loosened her grip on the world. “May I get up?”

He let her twist for a moment. Like her, Evan hadn’t shifted from his position on the bed that would presumably be hers. On it was a soft purple blanket that she wanted to bury her face in. He ought to have looked less intimidating on a blanket that fuzzy and feminine, but nothing about Evan would ever be
less
. The slim jeans he wore only accentuated the thickness of his thighs. He’d rolled back the sleeves of his button-down when they were still in the hospital. His forearms were covered with golden hair. In the silence he built for her, she could see each muscle as it shifted.

“What will you be doing?”

“Putting things away.” Something inexplicable made her voice go up and down in a strange way.

“And?”

“Righting my mess.” How she knew the words to use…she wasn’t sure. But they hovered there, at the back of her tongue, waiting to access the part of her that responded so well to orders and simple rules. She’d thrived in boarding school. There had been girls who slipped out the windows to talk to boys on the main road. Girls who hemmed their school-issued skirts to be just an inch shorter. Girls who’d cracked under the pressure and begged to be returned home.

Kat hadn’t begged her father to come home. She’d known better. He wouldn’t have brought her back to Boston, anyway. He’d have been stationed in Georgia or California or Kansas, not living in the home her mother had seamlessly shared with flighty in-laws. Her dad’s parents, Nana and Pop, had always been a mess, zooming off on two seconds’ notice to follow art commissions that could take Nana years to complete. Maybe they’d passed their wanderlust to their only son. It had fallen to Katsu’s mom to maintain
home
—a place for everyone to return to, no matter how scattered.

And it wasn’t like Katsu could have taken care of herself during his deployments. She’d have been a fourteen-year-old living on
omurice
and miso soup. The boarding school had been the safest option.

Strict rules had been proof of the school’s safety and of her father’s love for her.

Yup. She was bent. Beyond recovery.

Evan gave a small nod. A blessing of permission.

She shuddered. Kat wrapped her hands together before pushing up from the floor. She was suddenly and perfectly aware of the way the position must be putting her cleavage on display. She froze for a brief second before standing all the way up.

“Don’t worry, Katsu.” He had a lazy drawl when he wanted to. “I already saw down your shirt. That red lace bra. It cups you perfectly. But then you wore it so I’d see it. Didn’t you?”

She licked her lips and swallowed past the dryness in her mouth. He had to have heard that click. As if of their own accord, her hands kept stacking clothes in the drawers of the small dresser. It was an old piece, with inlay work across the front and edging in copper across the top.

“I asked you a question. Answer me.”

She jumped. She shouldn’t have, because she’d been expecting him to push. She’d
wanted
him to push. The words poured from her. “Yes. I wanted you to look. So that you’d see what you lost. And because I’ve gone up a half cup. I’m a solid C now, and I know it looks good on me.” Her voice dropped as she finished. “I wanted you to miss me.”

Oh God.

He wasn’t going to say anything in response to that. He was all mountain, and a mountain didn’t talk. They only waited…then erupted.

Evan leaned forward though, resting his elbows on his knees. The look he graced her with was intensity and fire and every cliché that her brain couldn’t process fast enough. The look was
blue
. Blue in feeling and thought, not only in color. “I missed you already, Katsu. I miss what we had and the lightness you made me feel. I hate that I think sometimes about what we could’ve been, in some other life. But you know why there had to be space between us.”

Her heart leapt just as her mouth twisted. Of course she knew. She’d been complicit in maintaining that distance, avoiding Evan like the plague whenever possible. Still, she put away her clothing, piece by piece, as neatly as if she were in boot camp. No, even better than that. She had years of experience, and they were all bubbling to the surface, effervescing, lifting her along the way. She was lighter than she’d been a half hour ago. She was calmer than she’d been a day ago.

Kat lined her toiletries up on the vanity, which had a triptych mirror and a shimmering mother-of-pearl top. “I think your father’s rubbed off on you,” she said, knowing the dig was probably too far. Apparently her sudden need for order couldn’t keep her mouth from running away from her. “This place…damn.”

He stood, looming behind her. They were both reflected in the mirror, except he was so tall that she couldn’t see his eyes. She could only make out his shoulders curving around her and the way he held his mouth—with patience. “What does that mean?”

“You couldn’t afford it on a captain’s salary alone.”

He gripped the edge of the vanity at either side of her hips. He wasn’t touching her, not anywhere, but she couldn’t have been more aware of him if he’d planted a rough, full kiss on her mouth. She was completely overwhelmed. Every inch of her skin knew where she’d align with him.

“Technically, I’m not a captain anymore. Not so far as the Department of Defense cares. But no. I couldn’t afford this estate on only my salary, not even including the bennies I get working for CFA.”

Regular combat pay. Language bonuses, because he knew French, Japanese and Russian, and by now he’d probably learned Farsi. Temporary deployment pay. Long-term deployment pay. It was possible none of that mattered now, depending on how their money person managed the books and kept the operatives’ pay as untraceable as possible. Still, add it all up and it wouldn’t be enough for a regular guy to buy an
estate
. That took money. Old money.

“When are you buying the horses?”

“When I retire.”

That wouldn’t be for more than a decade. If ever there was a lifer cast in her father’s image, it was Evan. “Think you’ll make it that long?”

He didn’t answer.

She dug harder. “My dad is lying in that bed, and you know he’s the best of the best. He put your whole team together. Picked you all. What makes you think you’re going to make it to fucking retirement?”

He cupped his hand over her mouth, firmly enough that she couldn’t talk. Her breathing ratcheted up, sharp and painful as it burned through her lungs. “You use that language very freely, Katsu.”

She wrapped her fingers around his and pulled them away from her mouth because she didn’t want to think about how much she liked that feeling. The taste of his skin. The surprising comfort of being controlled. She could slip back down that route so easily, only to have the security of it jerked away.
Again.

“What language?
Fuck?
Yeah. I do. I cuss a shitload.” She lifted her chin, daring him to say something about it.

He didn’t. What he did turned out to be even worse, even crueler.

He moved deliberately. She could’ve gotten away, and God knew she should have. Hands lifted, his thumbs caught at her cheekbones. His index fingers settled along the far edges of her temple. His smallest finger tucked under her jaw. The demonstration of his size versus hers was visceral. Evan could command her with words, hold her by force and gentle her at his whim.

He bent down and kissed her forehead. His lips were dry and smooth. The tiny, chaste touch threatened to burn her into ashes. “Thank you for cleaning up, Katsu. You were a very good girl.”

Chapter Six

Evan spent the next two days in a fog, while he and Katsu did their best to avoid each other. It wasn’t difficult in his sprawling country home. Four thousand square feet had its advantages, even if his returns from deployments made the cavernous space feel damn lonely—and vulnerable. Kat’s barb, that Evan hadn’t been able to buy it on his own salary, also stuck deep. He was walking around in a living pipe dream. One day he’d retire and keep horses and walk his acres of woodland land. One day he’d have a wife and kids, and they’d fill the giant home with life. Then it wouldn’t remind him of his parents’ palatial estate up on Prospect Hill, no matter the external differences between his rural retreat and their coliseum.

One day… He and Katsu…

Only, that wasn’t possible—a fact made stunningly obvious as he crept through the underbrush at the far northern edge of his property. Using a voltage tester, he assessed the condition of the electrified fence that encircled the farm. He pulled a tablet from his knapsack and used the interface to test the nearby motion detectors. At every location, he had a trio of cameras permanently installed, all positioned with the hope that an intruder would find one, or maybe two, but never all three. The infrared was online, as was the night vision and high-res magnification.

He stowed his tools and walked along the fence, checking at intervals to make sure the wires were sound and operational. This wasn’t what he’d imagined when he first saw the place. It had been a lark. He’d wanted a place outside of the city, for a little privacy, but a horse farm? Laughable. That hadn’t stopped him from following the real estate agent’s Suburban down the long driveway, and it hadn’t stopped his imagination from making plans that Evan’s occupation meant could never come true.

Evan had been so gobsmacked that he’d actually gone to his father, ye olde esteemed senator, to act as cosigner.

The only reason Evan felt such potential with Katsu was because she was there, in his home, adding her sounds to those of the wind and swaying pines, leaving a faint trail of her lavender scent throughout the house.

After their daily trips to the colonel’s hospital room, Katsu generally holed up in the guestroom, but they ate meals together. She joined him in the evenings for a few hours of CNN and the BBC World Service, plus a dose of
The Daily Show
and
Colbert
. Her laughter made even his massive, hunter’s-lodge-style great room and open kitchen seem cozier, even without the fireplace lit to softly warm and illuminate the area, and despite the fact Kat stayed primly ensconced in a recliner. She never sat beside him on the dark brown suede sectional, only tucked her slippered feet beneath her perfect ass and rested chin on palm, elbow on armrest. Her eyes narrowed to half-moons when she giggled. Her lashes were dark shadows across her soft cheeks, and the profile of her smile was a thing of pure beauty.