Lexi Blake - Dungeon Royale

But it was obvious she did. He rather hated the sad look on her face. “And what on earth were you thinking to do with that tiny man?”

A ripple of laughter went through her. “He’s six foot, Damon. He’s hardly tiny.”

“He might weigh six stone soaking wet. I could break him with one hand.” He couldn’t help but laugh a bit thinking about what she’d said before. “Did that idiot really say you were too rough with him during sex?”

She turned the sweetest shade of pink. “Damon, we’re in public.”

He stopped at the corner. “Penelope, no one is listening. They’re off in their own worlds. We can safely talk about your very sad former fiancé. How did you meet him?”

The light changed from red to yellow to green. She kept up as he crossed the street, staying firmly in what Londoners called the zebra walk. “I met him through a mutual friend. We went on a blind date and didn’t hate each other, so when he asked again, I said yes.”

He was actually a bit surprised the idiot had managed to ask her. He would bet that Peter was almost as subby as Penelope. His e-mails to his fiancée showed a pitiful habit of begging to be forgiven for the most innocuous of flaws. His bride-to-be sent him text after text of things for him to do for her and vicious messages when he didn’t do them properly.

He and Penelope would have been a nightmare together.

She needed a firm hand and someone patient enough to retrain her to find worth in her own strengths and actions.

She needed someone who would teach her just how good sex could be.

“He wasn’t the right man for you.”

“Obviously not.” She frowned a little. “I don’t pine for him. But I will admit, it hurt that he bought her a ring. He wouldn’t buy me a ring. He said it was too expensive. Not practical. He was a very practical fellow. I think that’s what hurt most today. Everyone knew he didn’t think I was good enough for a ring.”

He stopped in the middle of the walk. She’d been honest. She likely would struggle to be anything else. His earlier intimacy had the intended effect. She had softened toward him and he needed to bring her even closer for his plans to work. He pulled her into his arms and hugged her against him, lending his warmth. “He’s an idiot, darling. And that cousin of yours will make him miserable. According to her texts, she’s cheating on him anyway.”

Her head came up. “You have to stop that. You can’t invade people’s privacy like that.”

“Of course I can.” He really didn’t see the problem. The means were there at hand, and the boys in tech were easily bribed with pizza.

Turning into Liverpool Street station, he glanced back and noticed she’d already pulled her Oyster card.

They walked toward the underground. Damon guided her to the Central Line escalators, placing her in front of him as the crowd rushed by on the left.

It was a long ride, the escalator on a steep embankment. He ran an arm around her waist. “Do you miss him?”

“No. I didn’t really love him. I think I just wanted to start,” she explained. She leaned back into him, naturally falling in to intimacy the moment he gave her the choice. How hard had it been for her to go without the physical affection she so obviously required? “I spent all my time studying when I was younger. My father pushed me to excel.”

She’d passed her A and O levels brilliantly. He’d looked through her school records. When she’d gone to university and proven her skills in languages, SIS had recruited her. She’d likely been a lonely girl trying hard to please a distant father. At school she would have been in the shadow of her showier siblings when it came to making friends.

It wasn’t a surprise she’d tried to search out a relationship.

He wondered if she knew Nigel had considered her for field training. Likely not. By then her mother had been diagnosed and she was considered too risky for a high-level clearance. Somehow her brilliance had gotten lost in the shuffle of daily work and poorly timed family issues.

“I suppose I just fell in with him really,” she explained. “It was easy. And then it wasn’t. Mum got sick and I had to take care of her.”

So many would have let her go to a facility, but not Penny. She’d taken on everything herself and everyone had let her.

“He left you?” If Peter had been a man, he would have married her immediately and moved in to help her out.

“We drifted apart and one day he realized he wanted something more than I could give him.”

She sounded wistful. She alone had proven to be the difficult one to profile. He’d found enough information on everyone in her life to write books on all of them, but she was a bit elusive. Apart from cheery e-mails she sent to friends and texts to her siblings that included an enormous amount of emoticons, she was fairly quiet. Her social networking profile seemed to be nothing but a way to like and comment on photos of her nieces. She talked on her mobile to her family and a few friends. As far as he could tell, she lived a rather blameless life.

Was he doing the right thing by bringing her into the field? She was sweet and soft and his world could tear a person up. If she’d made it through proper SIS training, she’d likely be harder. He didn’t have the time to put her through it, didn’t even want to. He liked her soft.

He took a long breath and caught her scent. God, she still smelled like sex, and he knew in a moment that it didn’t matter. He wanted her. He wanted something sweet in his bloody life and he’d have her. He would protect her. “Did you ditch the knickers? I’ll warn you, if I find out you haven’t, I intend to spank you, love.”

He felt her shiver against him. “I took them off in the loo. I threw them away.”

He could picture her rushing to the stalls to comply before anyone saw her. “That must have been quite difficult. Those stalls are very tight. I’m proud of you, Penelope. I think we’ll get on quite well together.”

Her face tipped toward his. “Oh, I didn’t go into the stalls. My perfectly horrid aunt accused me of being a trollop, so I took them off in the salon and tossed them away right in front of her. It was all quite scandalous. Maybe she can put that in her yearly holiday card.”

Her cheeks were stained with pink, but she held her head up.

One orgasm and his sub was turning into a cheeky brat.

She stepped off the escalator and moved toward the platform, the wind from a departing train blowing her hair back. “Oh, no. I dropped my card.”

He turned to see if he could still catch it.

And that was when he saw him.

Basil Champion the third stood right in front of the escalator, his eyes trained on Damon. “You look good for a dead man.”

Damon stood stock-still, almost unable to believe his eyes.

Baz. The man who’d been his best mate for ten years, who’d helped him found The Garden, who had stood beside him and fought back their enemies.

Now Baz was the enemy.

Baz leaned against the large median that divided the escalators. It was a shiny metallic, roughly two feet wide. All around him people were getting on or off the escalators, a crowd protecting him. “Come on, Damon. Surely you have something to say to me. It’s been almost a year after all. And look at you all up and moving about. I knew you’d pull through. Oh, did your girl there drop this?”

He held up the blue and white card Penelope had dropped.

“Damon, I think we should call the police.” She started to move, pulling out her mobile. “You’re wanted for attempted murder, Mr. Champion.”

Baz threw back his head and laughed. He was dressed in all black, a ball cap on his head. He would blend into the crowd, easily moving about the city. Damon doubted that the CCTVs would pick up his face. He was too well trained. SIS had made sure of that. “Good god, man. You’re shagging the help. How the mighty have fallen. Get rid of the girl. We need to talk.”

Damon reached out, pulling Penelope behind him. This was one of those things he intended to avoid later. He would teach her to always stay behind him in a dangerous situation. “You don’t move a muscle. That’s an order.”

“But Damon, I can’t get a signal,” she complained. “We need to find the authorities.”

The authorities wouldn’t be able to handle Baz. They would only cause trouble and this was between him and his ex-mate. He needed to get Penelope somewhere safe. “And I need you to keep your mouth shut for a moment. This is none of your concern. Get on the next train toward Holborn. Change to Piccadilly and a friend of mine will be waiting for you at Gloucester Road. Do you understand my instructions?”

Her hand clutched his arm. “Damon, I can’t leave you.”

Anger and fear were a toxic mix in his system. “You bloody well can, and if you can’t follow orders then I have absolutely no use for you. Are we understood? I am your superior and I expect to be obeyed without question, so you will move your arse and if I find out you’ve called anyone, I’ll make your life a living hell and you know I can do it.”

He knew he’d been too harsh, but she was standing right in front of a hardened killer who wouldn’t think twice about slitting her throat if he thought it would get to Damon. He couldn’t be gentle with her.

And damn it, she was supposed to obey. He glanced briefly at her, enough to see that she’d gone bright red, tears shining in her eyes, but her mouth remained stubbornly closed and she nodded.

“I need my card.” She moved toward Baz, holding her hand out as though he would just politely give it back to her and not use her as a hostage.

Damon gripped her wrist, pulling her back. “Bloody well take mine and get the fuck out of here.”

“You’re being terribly rude, Damon. I hope he doesn’t shoot you again, but only because I’m a better person than you.” She turned and walked off.

Baz chuckled. “Isn’t she that stick-up-her-arse translator? She’s gotten a bit cheeky. Maybe you took the stick out and replaced it with something more personal, eh, mate? You always did like the chunky ones.”

“Give me one reason I don’t kill you right here.” Because now that Penelope was out of the line of fire, he couldn’t think of a single good one.

And he was definitely getting her a gun and making sure she knew how to use it.

Baz twirled his finger, gesturing to the large crowds around them. “Well, first of all, you don’t really want me to open fire on all these very nice people. And then there’s all the CCTVs. I don’t think Nigel wants his golden boy featured on telly. Or maybe that would solve his problem. They don’t want you in the field, you know. You’re used goods, done up and all that fun stuff.”

He needed to stay calm, but he felt his anger rising, a real visceral element threatening to take over his body. “You don’t know a damn thing.”

Baz shrugged negligently. “Course I do. I read your medical records. When I need a good laugh, I read them again. They’re my favorite bedtime story. You can’t seriously think we don’t still have people at SIS, do you? As for that, I work for a company that has even better access than SIS. Taggart’s crew did a good job hiding your medical records. SIS doesn’t even know you saw a doctor in Dallas. You know, the one who found the issue with your heart. It’s getting worse, isn’t it?”

He thought Adam Miles had hidden those files. The doctors who had saved his life hadn’t found the damage to his heart. It had only been once he saw a specialist in Dallas that the true extent of the damage had been discovered. Taggart had helped him hide it from Nigel, but it looked like the news was out. “That’s really none of your business, is it?”

“It’s all my business. But don’t worry that I’ll tattle. I like the idea of playing this game with you.” He stopped for moment, his eyes looking up and down Damon, making him uncomfortable in a way only Baz ever could. “I meant what I said though. You really do look good.”

He tried to ignore Baz’s personal comments, sticking on the more professional statements he’d made. The thought turned his blood cold. He’d been gone for months. He hadn’t really thought about the fact that there could be more moles. He couldn’t even convince Nigel that The Collective existed. “If you have people in SIS, I promise you I’ll find them.”

“Maybe you already have.” His eyes drifted to where Penelope had disappeared. “She would be the perfect mole, you know. She’s so innocent looking no one would suspect her. Maybe your new girl is really working with me. After all, how else did I find you so quickly?”