Broken Falcon, page 17
And that didn’t even touch on the fact that he’d endangered her.
He had to tell her, and he had to do it tonight.
First, he had to sort out the emotions that overwhelmed him to find the right words. He doubted the right words existed, though. She would never forgive him, and he couldn’t blame her.
He arrived at the compound and parked the Tesla in the main operations garage and returned the key to the safe.
He could get in serious trouble for using the expensive vehicle for a vigilante mission, but he’d been all in on this for a while now, and there was no question that saving a young girl was worth the risk.
Saving Eden? That had probably taken years off his life.
He made his way to his quarters and keyed his code into the door.
He went straight to his laptop and logged in to Desiree’s site, not allowing himself to think or hesitate. He might get lost in a spiral if he did.
He’d taken the easy way out in not telling Eden when he was in her living room, but he also knew it was the right thing to do, for her sake as well as his. Her online relationships were safe due to the separation. That safety was something she valued more than almost anything else. He wouldn’t take it from her by presenting himself as her worst nightmare while standing in her living room.
He didn’t know if he should be relieved or terrified that she was online. She was in a private session with another client, but the waiting room indicated she’d be back in fifteen minutes and he was first in the queue.
Chapter Nineteen
Desiree
Hank is sweet as usual, but I have no patience for him tonight. I honestly don’t even know why I logged in after Chase left. But I was so wound up and needed a distraction, so I did the fastest makeup job of my life and planted myself in front of the camera.
Might as well make money.
Because tomorrow, this will probably all fall apart. I heard what Chase was saying, but I don’t see how we can avoid the police.
CamDames is trafficking children?
My heart wants to break every time I think of it.
I remember Jasmine—or whatever her name was—running into the shop with fear in her eyes. What would have happened to her if Chase hadn’t been there? If Isabel Dawson and the Raptor operative hadn’t been ready to take her to safety?
All three of them risked a lot to save that girl, and my heart surges as I think of Chase. He’s like Batman, saving people when the cops won’t.
Saving me.
He literally saved me tonight. And then he kissed me like it was his mission in life. I’ve never been kissed like that. I want more.
Truth is, I want to be his, and not just for one wild night. But I need at least four hundred thousand dollars before I can quit this job, and I wish I were joking.
Four hundred thousand would pay off the townhouse and equipment, cover the rest of my tuition, and get me a decent used car. With enough saved, I could get through the postdoc years where I’m doing my hours required to become a licensed psychotherapist. Actually, six hundred thousand would be better given the postdoc years. It would be nice to not have to work two jobs in addition to the required patient hours.
But if the townhouse were paid off, my monthly expenses would drop drastically, so I could make it work if I had four hundred grand.
I think I want the security of a paid mortgage more than anything. A home that is truly mine. I imagine Chase sharing my home, and it’s such a sweet fantasy I can’t help but smile.
“What’s that smile about?” Hank asks.
Hank likes to ask me about other men when we go private. I think one of his kinks might be cuckold, but his wife doesn’t want sex with him, let alone anyone else, so I’m his substitute. I often make up stories for him about all the men I’m supposedly screwing, painting a picture for his mind, sometimes while masturbating, but usually not. He never turns on his camera and sometimes mutes when I’m spinning a tale like Scheherazade, so I have no idea if he takes sexual pleasure in the moment or saves it for later.
When he does talk, he pretends to get jealous and talks about punishing me for being unfaithful, but then he asks for more details. It really gets him going.
One thing that I appreciate about this arrangement is there is no feeling of sexual intimacy with Hank. Not like I’ve felt with Falcon, because he’s not the man I’m screwing in my mind. And I’ll be honest, sixty-five-year-old men don’t interest me, no matter how I play it online. I like men my age with wiry muscles who are perfectly capable of fucking me against a wall.
I smile for the camera. “I met someone,” I say. “And I’m pretty sure he’ll fuck like a god.”
“You haven’t slept with him yet?”
I realize I didn’t tell the lie I usually do—of having had sex already—because I don’t want to share the fantasy of Chase with anyone. It’s my fantasy, and now that I’ve kissed him, it’s his too. Ours.
It’s not like playing with Falcon, when fantasies of Chase spurred my pleasure. I might have been thinking of Chase, but I was following Falcon’s orders. He was the man fucking me in the moment.
With Hank, I’d be the one sharing my fantasy of the very real man I want to have sex with. A man I have kissed. A man who wants to have sex with me.
Hank doesn’t get to have that. It’s mine.
And this is why I’ve avoided dating for two years. I never figured out how to set up proper boundaries between Eden’s sexuality and Desiree’s.
“No,” I say. “We haven’t even kissed.”
“Tell me about him.”
I find myself incapable of spinning a story, and I won’t tell him the truth. I’m not a very good camgirl tonight. He’s not getting his money’s worth.
“Enough about me, Hank. What’s going on with you? How was the visit with the grandkids?”
He launches into a story about his ten-year-old grandson who’s a Little League star in Missouri, and I make sure the relief I feel doesn’t show on my face. I’m dressed demurely tonight, fully clothed, and glad Hank isn’t in the mood to watch me touch myself.
We wrap up our session, and I debate logging off for the night. I’m not into it. This was a mistake. I’m mooning over Chase and already grieving our coming breakup. A relationship that never was.
I’m about to sign out when my eyes flick to the waiting room and see the only name that could keep me online.
Falcon.
And he’s already dropped five hundred dollars into my account.
Guilt seizes me. I want Chase. I enjoy Falcon. I’m not even dating Chase, and yet it feels wrong to fantasize about him with Falcon moving forward. So is it cheating on Chase if I fantasize about Falcon while fucking him virtually?
But how is it cheating when Chase and I aren’t in a relationship?
Falcon and I have an intimacy that definitely would be cheating if I were seeing another man. And it’s that intimacy I crave from both men.
And sex. I really want sex from Chase. And more kissing. Lots more kissing.
I don’t know what to do with this emotional tangle, but Falcon has paid me five hundred dollars for my company, so I owe him my time. I send him a link to a private room and position myself in front of the camera. I consider unbuttoning a few buttons, but decide against it.
We’ll just let this late-night session take its natural course. If Falcon wants sex, I’ll give it to him, I decide.
I don’t really owe Chase anything, and Falcon paid up front. I literally owe him something.
Falcon’s smooth, deep voice enters my bedroom through the speaker mounted above the camera. “You look beautiful as always, Desiree.”
I smile. “Thank you. I’m surprised you’re here so late.”
“I could say the same to you.”
Once again, I remember that it’s much earlier for him. I’m the one keeping odd hours. “I had…an errand in the middle of my shift, so I decided to pull some late hours. A girl’s gotta eat.”
I never pretend I’m not doing this for the money. They know it, and they tip me to keep me here.
“I know. That’s why I always tip up front. I want you to have everything you need. Always.”
“Aren’t you sweet?” I unbutton the top button of my blouse. He should get a peek.
“No!” he says sharply.
I rear back, surprised by his tone. “No?”
“I didn’t pay you for sex. Not tonight.”
There’s an edge to his voice that feels like a jab. I can’t help myself, and I say, “You don’t want me anymore?”
But this isn’t the pouty thing, the begging for compliments that some guys like. No. This pain is real. I’ve opened up to this man. I told him about my farce of a marriage. What if he’s saying goodbye?
“I always want you, Desiree. From the first time I saw your face, I’ve wanted you. I will keep wanting you for the rest of my days.”
“You sound so certain.”
“I am.”
“Then why don’t you want me to undress for you?”
“I want something else from you tonight.”
“You want to talk? To cuddle?”
“No. I want you to listen. And to see.”
There’s a pain in his voice and I don’t even know why, but my heart begins to pound. This is important. Deep in my heart, I know everything is about to change, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out why. “What’s going on? What do you mean by to see?”
“I’m going to turn on my camera.”
A jolt of pleasure hits me. I’m going to get to see Falcon.
I have literally stared at his dick pic for hours in the last week. Which is ridiculous. I mean, it might not even be his dick!
But I think the picture is real, and now I’m going to get to see the rest of him.
His camera is turned on, and my screen splits with equal-sized windows for each of us in the gallery. But his camera is covered so his rectangle is black.
He removes the cover, and it takes a half a second for the image to buffer and clear.
In that half second, my whole life does indeed change.
I feel shock at first. Then horror.
Chase’s expression is unreadable. But his mouth says, “I’m sorry.”
Rage grips me, and I lunge for the camera to cut the feed. Instead, I knock it over, and it tumbles onto the bed. I yank at the cord, pulling the plug from the wall. No power. No image.
But the computer is still running. I’m still logged in. I can hear him say, “Eden, please—” right before I snap my laptop closed.
Chapter Twenty
Chase stared at the blank screen for five full minutes. Maybe she would come back.
But he knew she wouldn’t.
His heart still pounded in his chest. His lungs still took in oxygen and expelled carbon dioxide. But everything was numb. He figured some part of him wanted to cry, but he didn’t know how to do that anymore. Didn’t know if it was even possible to feel that deeply.
Or maybe it was the opposite. He was feeling too much. He was in overload, and his emotion sensors had shut down.
Ever since the chip was removed, that was how he thought of it. Like he was Data on Star Trek: The Next Generation and his emotion sensor was out of whack.
Funny thing was, as far as he knew, he’d only ever seen a handful of episodes of that show. He knew the main character names. Their rank. For some, even the planet they were from. But he couldn’t remember a single plot.
Had he been a Trekkie in the Before Times?
Maybe.
All he knew was tonight, he’d been through the most intense emotional spiral of his post-chip life and he was now literally shaking with the inability to process.
He studied his trembling legs.
Legs with muscle memory that meant even in his most disjointed moments, he could fight. Find release in the gym.
And right now they were trembling.
He pressed his hands on his thighs to try to stop the shaking and wondered if this was adrenaline overload. Usually after a fight, he was swamped with adrenaline and would go for the gym. But tonight, he’d been with Eden, so he’d kissed her, and that had been an entirely different kind of high.
But those ups and downs hadn’t prepared him for revealing himself. For her reaction.
The utter shock in her beautiful eyes. The pain. The agony of the sounds she’d made as she attacked her camera as if it were a predator.
He’d done that to her.
The only person who he’d felt a connection to since the chip was removed. The only person who made him feel. And he’d done that to her.
He’d had moments in the last year—ever since he’d woken up in the hospital and Isabel had gently explained what had happened to him—when he’d wondered if his life was worth living.
Was his brain salvageable, or was he nothing more than a tool programmed to do a monster’s bidding?
More than once, he’d gone into a spiral, and in his disassociated state, the idea of removing himself from this earthly plane had appealed. But his Raptor family had pulled him back from that edge each time.
And then, when he’d embarked on the mission to save teens from trafficking, it had helped to solidify his resolve not to let those sneaky, deceptive demons, who whispered his life was without merit, win.
And then he found Desiree, and his limited emotional repertoire opened up to include sexuality. Pleasure. Joy.
Had he now lost all that?
Had his deceit cost him the one person who made his existence better than rote?
After everything that had happened, Raptor was his family, but even so, there were only a handful of people he could truly trust with the darkest part of his soul.
A few days ago, Isabel had shared that she was pregnant. He couldn’t reach out to her or do anything that put her in the crosshairs. Josh was in Oregon. Hawk didn’t live in the compound anymore. Tricia was recovering from a traumatic brain injury.
There was only one person he could turn to when he was still pumped with adrenaline after a fight with three assailants and seeing a gun pressed to the temple of the only person who made him really feel, then being rejected by the same woman because of the lies he’d let her believe. Only one person who wouldn’t ask questions, wouldn’t press for details.
A person who felt equally awkward among humans and who was one of the few who’d known Chase in the Before Times, even before Godfrey stuck his claws in his brain.
Mothman had been at the Alaska compound when Chase was a new hire and something of a golden boy with his hand-to-hand combat skills. But the computer specialist had never fit in at the compound full of high-testosterone operatives and former special forces operators.
Mothman was gay and on the autism spectrum and had admitted to being quite lonely in the remote compound, where his dating prospects were even fewer than Chase’s.
They’d formed a friendship in the early days when Chase’s mind had still been intact. Later, when Mothman transferred to the Virginia compound, they’d resumed the friendship with another layer: Mothman wanted private hand-to-hand combat lessons so he didn’t feel like such an outcast amongst the operatives.
Chase had agreed, and over the last year, Mothman’s skills had grown.
Now Chase called in a long-standing agreement. His emotions were in turmoil, and he needed to do something. It didn’t matter that it was after one a.m. He needed a friend, and he needed exertion.
His text was simple: Spar in the gym in ten minutes.
Chase could easily beat on a bag as he tried to figure out his emotions, but he knew Mothman would show up and be the friend he needed, just as Chase would do the same in the reverse situation.
Sure enough, when Chase stepped into the gym, Mothman was already there—hair sticking up because Chase had pulled him from sleep—but still there.
If there was anyone employed by Raptor who was more different from the members of Falcon team, it was Mothman, who preferred to go by the moniker of a mythical West Virginian monster to his own name, which might be the most telling thing about him.
In the last year, as Chase struggled to figure out emotions, he found himself looking to Mothman, who had similar struggles. They were more alike in that regard now than they had been when they first met.
They were also of similar age and height, but where Chase was wiry, Mothman was lanky. Where Chase used muscle, Mothman used brain.
Mothman could speak Klingon, while Chase wondered how he knew so much about Data and Captain Picard.
There was a lot Chase didn’t know about himself. And he was afraid he never would find out.
He should be focusing on the whos and whys of the night, but for the moment, he was more focused on Eden’s reaction and wondering if she’d ever speak to him again. And trying to figure out how to process it all.
The only thing he could be certain of when it came to his muddled mind was she was everything to him. Without her, he didn’t know if he’d ever find a path to feeling again.
“I was thinking you need to work on your roundhouse,” Chase said by way of introduction.
“Yeah. I’m sure it was my roundhouse that has you worried at two in the morning.” But even so, Mothman ran through his warmup exercises to get his body loose, then positioned himself in front of a bag and offered up a few halfhearted kicks.
Friends really didn’t get any better than that.
Chase figured this other feeling that was bubbling up inside was gratitude. He took a second standing bag, and they practiced in parallel. Twenty minutes later, they were both drenched in sweat and the workout was no longer halfhearted.
Coming here was a good call. He’d needed the physical exertion after the adrenaline from the fight and then the sexual windup that couldn’t go anywhere. But working out alone would have been a bad idea. He could spiral into a frenzy and not be able to pull out. More than once in the last year, he’d ended up bloody and bruised when he couldn’t manage the onslaught of emotions and turned to the gym for relief.
