“Is that an order?”
He shook his head. “No. It’s a fact. If you find out Byrne is endangering people or betraying his country, you’ll turn him in.”
Her heart twisted at the absolute trust he was showing her. He was saying and doing all the right things, being the exact person she’d dreamed of. “I work in a world where most people will do anything to get ahead. I mean anything. So how can you be so sure I’ll do the right thing simply because it’s the right thing?”
His lips curled in that half smile he got when he was sentimental. How could she still remember every one of his smiles? “Because you’re Madeline Hill and you always will be.”
The words brought tears to her eyes because sometimes she wondered. “I don’t know about that. I feel so far away from that girl I was. There are days she feels like a dream I had.”
There were days she could still feel the cool grass under her feet as she ran across the yard of the house she’d grown up in, her father chasing her while she giggled madly and the world seemed warm and cozy. Some nights she woke up and she could still feel how Deke would hold her, how much space he took up and how she adored the way she tucked under his arm.
And there were days and weeks and months that went by and she didn’t think about them at all, times when her research was all that mattered and someone had to remind her to eat. They were exciting times.
They were lonely times. They felt infinitely lonelier now that he was standing in front of her.
He held a hand out and helped her up. When she was on her feet, he didn’t release her hand. He brought it up to his chest, palm pressed to his warm, muscled flesh. “It was a long time ago, but it feels like yesterday to me. I trust you to always do the right thing. I hope you can trust me.”
She could trust him with anything but her heart. That had to remain true. “For the mission, yes. I’ll follow your lead, but you have to know that I’m not going to fall for you again. I’m a different person when it comes to that part of my life.”
“Then you don’t have anything to worry about,” he promised even as he stepped back and her hand fell away. “I’ve heard your warning and know what I’m getting myself into. If I do fall for you, it’s on me.”
She frowned at him. No matter what he said or how accepting the D/s world was, he was totally out of her league. Even more so as an adult. “Deke, I’m being serious.”
“I am, too. I’ve told you there isn’t anyone who compares to the way I felt about you. Maybe it was first love. Maybe it was teenage hormones. I don’t know, but I’d like to find out. We’re about to play a role that puts us in very intimate contact. Even the training is going to be intimate. I think it’s inevitable that we wind up in bed together, and I’m not going to fight it.”
“Well, I am.” She didn’t pretend that there would be nothing to fight.
He stood over her, his eyes warm and inviting. “Tell me you don’t want to know. Tell me you didn’t read those books and think about what D/s sex would be like.”
She couldn’t. She’d read the books and thought about what it would mean to be tied up and helpless with a man she could trust, to be able to let go of every single worry she had and concentrate on pure pleasure for an hour or so.
What Serena had said finally sank in. Yes, she was playing a role, but what she was truly doing was unleashing a part of herself that never got fed. What she would be doing was fulfilling needs she hadn’t dreamed of, but that had always been there, simmering under her shiny, intellectual surface.
“I think it would be a bad idea for us to go to bed together. I know we need a certain level of intimacy in order to fool Nolan, but it has to stop there.”
Deke took a step back. “I won’t do anything without your permission. Consent must always be given, and even if we’re in a heavy scene you can stop me with a single word. We should agree on a safe word.”
She hated that he sounded hard again. Not cold, but he’d put his Dom hat back on. He was in teaching mode, and for a moment they’d felt like something more.
Which was precisely why she needed to keep her guard up. At least she knew about safe words, and she knew they would have a contract. Those were things she could deal with. Those were logical things, steps they needed to take.