Beyond Shame

scared of anything, that’s all.”

He could sidestep the words easily by claiming he wasn’t scared of Lex, and it was true. Lex herself didn’t frighten him. The thought of how quickly she could come to hate him, though… “Not scared. Cautious.”

“Caution is smart. Admirable.”

“Could you sound a little less convinced?”

“Probably not, though I could try.”

Dallas sighed and drove a nail into the side of the crate. “You’re a lousy jester. All of the truth, none of the jokes.”

Bren shrugged. “I have no sense of humor—isn’t that what everyone says?”

Everyone except Jas, who never failed to comment on Bren’s twisted idea of what was funny. Dallas had always thought it was a lot simpler. “You haven’t had much to laugh about of late.”

“No one has, right?” Bren reached out and plucked the hammer from Dallas’s hand. “I tried to collar Lex once. Did she ever tell you?”

Dallas’s fist clenched around empty air, and Bren was too clever by half. Not that Dallas would have swung a hammer at one of his own men—probably—but the impulse alone was enough to give him pause. “No, she never mentioned it.”

“I’m not surprised.”

Dallas fought to keep his voice even. “So. You tried.”

“I was still new,” Bren explained with a shrug. “I didn’t know yet.”

A leading sort of statement. Its own trap, the kind meant to make him ask, Know what? As if the answer wasn’t hanging in the air—everyone thought Lex was as good as his, and Dallas didn’t bother to correct them. Neither did she, God bless her.

Most of the time, anyway.

With the thought of Lex’s two suitors threatening to rear its head again, Dallas forced the conversation in a new direction. “How’s the girl doing? Six? She getting her head around trusting us yet?”

“Nah.” Bren held out the hammer. “It’s a little soon for that, I think. She’s still half convinced we’re going for the long con. Maximum mental anguish.”

Dallas raised an eyebrow. “Is that what Trent did to her?”

“Yeah. Maybe the worst thing he did.”

It was sophisticated for someone like Trent, a vicious game that required patience and an ability to lie that Dallas had assumed was beyond the bastard. Or maybe it had never been a lie for him—maybe he’d just been that fucking childish. A kid who cherished his favorite toy until he got bored, then shattered it so no one else could play with it.

There was probably a lesson in there, an intensely personal one that Dallas didn’t want to ponder too closely. “She must trust you, at least a little.”

“Getting there.” Bren flipped the crate over and laid strips of wood across the bottom.

Dallas abandoned the pretense of building and moved to the far wall, where Bren had already stoked the fire they kept banked in the massive hearth. Maddox had spent a year perfecting an electric heating element for the O’Kane branding irons, but Dallas preferred the old-fashioned way. The electricity they leached from Eden’s power grid was far more reliable now than it had been in earlier years, but there were still failures and blackouts. Work had to go on, even when the lights were out.

He selected the two largest irons and set them into the flames. “Let me know when you think it’s safe to loosen the girl’s leash. I’m not ready to give her free run of the place, but she doesn’t need to stay locked up all the time.”

Bren hammered the last nail into place. “I’ll let you know when I think you can turn her over to Lex.”

He couldn’t hold back his snort. “I don’t think Lex is looking for another playmate. She’s pretty well enamored of Noelle.”

Bren pulled up short and eyed Dallas with a shake of his head, then returned to the task at hand with an unintelligible mutter. This time, Dallas didn’t feel like poking for an answer he didn’t want to hear. He knew what it would be.

Turn her over to Lex.

Like Lex was his damned queen. Like she wasn’t off screwing a couple of street brawlers just to remind him that he could own her allegiance, but he could never own her body. The harder he closed his hands around her, the more she’d slip away…and the thought of losing her for good made him want to wrap her in chains.

Maybe he should. He could use the excuse of Trent to slap that collar around her throat and show her how good it would be.

If she’d take it. If it would be enough.

No, no use pretending, even to himself. It would never be enough. Not a collar, not a mark. He wouldn’t be satisfied with anything less than all of her—mind, body and soul—and Lex would never give up that much control. They’d destroy each other. He’d destroy her, and that was the one thing he couldn’t bear. Better to take what he could get and leave them both whole.

Mostly.

Chapter Sixteen

In Noelle’s imagination, her seduction of Jasper had started differently.

For one thing, in her imagination she’d had time to prepare. To take a bath, to pick the perfect outfit. The perfect underwear. The perfect jewelry, all wonderfully illicit, turning her on before she even reached his door.

Her fantasy hadn’t included a sick waitress, a club full of rowdy drunks, and Dallas deciding they would damn well stay open until the idiots stopped throwing around fistfuls of money. By the time the bouncer rolled the last one out the door, Noelle was frazzled, a little disheveled, and caught in some jittery place between exhausted and so hyped up she could barely sit still.

She almost decided to forgo the entire thing in favor of a quiet hour unwinding in Lex’s tub and a night of sleep. But as she found herself in the long hallway that led to Jasper’s rooms, then at his door, the truth was stark and undeniable.

He was how she wanted to unwind, even if it meant nothing more than the chance to kiss him before she went to bed without him. So when his door swung open in response to her knock she did exactly that, ignoring all of her careful plans in favor of rising up on her toes to seal her lips to his.

He lifted her in his arms, his mouth still on hers as the door slammed shut behind her. His tongue traced her lips, then eased between them, a lazy exploration he didn’t end until her back hit the wall. “Long night?”

“Endless.” Amazing how promptly her aching feet recovered once they were hovering three inches above the ground. She wrapped a leg around his and smiled. “Dallas wouldn’t close the doors until he’d emptied everyone’s pockets. But the drunker they got, the better they tipped.”

“That’s a good thing, right?”

Noelle dug in her pocket and pulled out the thick wad of tightly rolled bills. She’d counted each one before adding it to the stack, stunned by how quickly they added up, and how freeing it was to realize they were hers. “As long as you promise to take me to the market soon. I promised Dallas I’d wait for you.”

“He’s coming down like that on everyone, not just you.” Jasper stuffed her money back in her pocket and started for the bathroom. “We’re all on restriction, for obvious reasons.”

“I know. Lex is in a mood about it.” Which was the politest way to describe her temper. Everyone had tiptoed around her today—except for Dallas. He’d acted like nothing was wrong, and that had only pissed Lex off worse.

Jasper set Noelle down and cut on the shower. “Dallas has his asshole moments, but this isn’t about some sexist bullshit. I think there’s something else going on with them.”

Noelle couldn’t argue with that, but she didn’t want to discuss it, either. Lex’s pain was too real—too raw—to make gossiping about it anything other than cruel. “Are we taking a shower?”