She Took Down the Rogue, Now He Can't Look Away novel · Chapter 3 of 3
Chapter 3: What He Calls Duty
Passion confronts Jamison with her private record of every assignment she was passed over for, forcing him to hear exactly what his protection has cost her, and when he cannot answer, she leads him into the med room where he begins to undress.
The release he had withheld arrived before either of us could dress.
It tore through me with my back against the washroom wall, his hand still working between my legs, and I bit down on the sound because the lodge was full of trackers.
Jamison watched my face the whole time.
He watched me come apart on his fingers and he did not look away once, and that was worse than the pleasure, the way he studied me like I was a report he was finally allowed to read.
Afterward, the steam-warm silence settled over us.
My breath was still uneven.
His was not.
'We should return,' he said, and his voice was the same low, level thing it always was, as if he had not just had his hand inside me.
I wanted to hit him.
Instead I cleaned myself up with a towel and pulled my clothes back on, and I did not look at him while I did it.
The washroom door opened onto the private lodge.
It was a small room off the main hall, reserved for the Alpha when he visited the tracker barracks, and it was empty at this hour.
Jamison followed me out and closed the door behind us.
'We need to talk,' he said.
I laughed.
It came out sharp and tired.
'Now you want to talk.'
'Sit down, Passion.'
It was not a request.
I sat.
The chair was leather and old, and it creaked under me, and I hated how aware I was of him settling into the chair across from me, his dark wool coat still buttoned, his hands resting on his knees.
He looked like a man who had just finished a meeting, not a man who had just had his fingers inside one of his trackers.
'What happened in there,' he began.
'Was a mistake,' I said. 'I know. You can spare me the speech.'
'It was not a mistake.'
That stopped me.
'It was not appropriate,' he said. 'But it was not a mistake.'
I stared at him.
'Then what was it?'
He did not answer right away.
He looked at the fire in the corner, the low flames throwing shadows across his jaw, and I watched him choose his words the way he chose everything, carefully, like a man who had never once in his life said something he did not mean.
'You were bleeding,' he said finally. 'You killed the rogue alone. You could have died.'
'And?'
'And I am your Alpha. It is my duty to see to your recovery.'
There it was.
Duty.
I felt something go very still inside me.
'Your duty,' I repeated.
'Yes.'
'So that was duty. In the washroom. Your hand between my legs. That was you seeing to my recovery.'
His jaw tightened.
'You are twisting my words.'
'Am I?' I leaned forward. 'Because what I heard was that you touched me because you had to. Because protocol demanded it. Is that what you're telling me?'
'I am telling you that my concern for you is not new.'
'Your concern.'
'Yes.'
I stood up.
The chair scraped back against the floor, and I crossed to the small desk by the window, and I pulled open the drawer.
The folder was where I had left it.
I had been carrying it for weeks, waiting for the right moment, and this was it, this was the moment, because I was done letting him hand me his concern like it was a gift I should be grateful for.
'What is that?' he asked.
I dropped the folder on the table between us.
'Open it.'
He did not move.
'Passion.'
'Open it, Jamison.'
It was the first time I had used his name like that, flat and hard, and something flickered across his face before he reached for the folder.
He opened it.
Inside were the records.
Every assignment I had been passed over for in the last three years, printed out and dated.
Every time a male tracker with less experience had been given a mission I had earned.
Every time my name had been crossed off a roster with a note in someone else's handwriting.
And at the bottom of each page, the signature.
His signature.
'I kept a record,' I said. 'Every single time. I thought maybe one day I would need to prove it.'
He was quiet for a long moment.
His eyes moved down the pages, and I watched him read his own name over and over, the decisions he had signed, the career he had shaped without ever once asking me what I wanted.
'You passed me over for the ridge patrol last spring,' I said. 'You gave it to Marcus. He lost the scent in two hours. I found the trail the next morning in ten minutes.'
'Passion.'
'You assigned me to border watches for six months straight. Six months of walking the same perimeter while the others ran real missions. And every time I asked why, you told me it was for my own protection.'
'It was.'
'It was control.'
He looked up at me then.
'You think I wanted to hold you back?'
'I think you did not want me in the field because you did not trust me. And now you sit here and tell me your attention is duty. Your concern. As if you have not spent three years deciding what I am allowed to do with my own life.'
The fire crackled.
Neither of us moved.
'You are right,' he said quietly.
I had not expected that.
'I signed those decisions,' he said. 'I made them. I told myself it was protection. I told myself you were too valuable to lose. But I did not ask you what you wanted, and that was wrong.'
He set the folder down on the table.
'I am not going to apologize,' he said. 'Apologies are cheap. But I am going to tell you the truth.'
'What truth?'
'That what happened in the washroom was not duty.'
My heart kicked.
'It was not concern,' he said. 'It was not protocol. It was me wanting you, and not knowing how to stop.'
The room went very quiet.
I could hear my own breathing.
'And now?' I asked.
'Now I am still not stopping.'
I held his gaze.
He held mine.
And I thought about the pregnancy, the secret I was carrying, the thing I had not told anyone, and I thought about how much I wanted him, and how much I did not trust him, and how those two things had been at war in me for years.
'There is a med room off the main hall,' I said.
His eyes darkened.
'Passion.'
'You said you wanted me. So stop talking about it.'
I crossed to the lodge door and opened it.
The hallway was empty.
The med room was two doors down, and I walked to it without looking back, and I heard him behind me, his footsteps steady on the old wood floor.
I opened the med room door and stepped aside.
I gave him permission with a look.
Jamison crossed the threshold.
He closed the door behind him.
And then he reached for the first button of his shirt.
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