Once upon a time Jagger Cates had been one of the good guys, an idealistic police officer who had faith in the system, who played by the rules, and who believed without hesitation that the guys who wore white would always win.
That had been then. Before the brother he had spent years looking for had died from a disease that didn’t care if your hat was white or black. Before his marriage had disintegrated under the pressure of undercover work that sucked up your soul and seemed to go nowhere. Before he had seen the good guys slaughtered in front of him while the bad guys lived in penthouse suites and wore designer clothes.
This was now. Now was about killing those who needed killing, regardless of the rules or dictates of polite society. Now there was nothing black and white about a world he knew first hand only existed in shades of gray that were murky and vague at best.
There was no room in his world for passionate idealism, only a cold detached professionalism that allowed him to do what he did and stay alive to do it again.
The only problem with that theory was that at this moment, his feelings were far from detached and the opposite of cold.
He wanted to kill. That wasn’t the problem. Killing was as natural to him these days as breathing was to most men.
It wasn’t even who he wanted to kill. The man was an arrogant jerk and Jagger figured if he looked hard enough he’d find a thousand reasons why the man deserved to die.
No what was bothering him was why he wanted to kill him. He’d tried to deny it. He’d stood there playing his part in silence for five, ten, fifteen minutes before the urge had grown to intense to ignore and he’d began to fantasize in his mind. He’d start by cutting out the eyes that were looking at her and then move to the fingers that were touching her in a light casual embrace. Jagger’s eyes narrowed as his hand followed the curve of her small back. Okay maybe he’d forget chopping the fingers off and go straight for the entire hand. With a sharp knife. Or maybe a not so sharp knife.
Jagger smiled at the thought that went through his head of Nikolas Cassadine begging for mercy.
That was when it hit him.
Shook him to the core
He was jealous of Nikolas Cassadine. He wanted to be the one sitting next to Emily. He wanted to be the one making her smile. He wanted to hear her laughter.
This was crazy. Jagger’s eyes moved from Nikolas and Emily to the rest of the dinner party. He noted Sarah’s stiffness as she attempted to engage Kosokov in dinner and sensed Morgan’s intensity even from here.
This was not going as planned.
His eyes moved back to Emily and he noted with avaricious pleasure her beauty tonight, the backless gown with the slit up the side showed off her slender beauty and long legs.
Was he only imagining that he saw tension in her as she played her part of the loving fiancée? Was it wishful thinking or did she really draw back from Cassadine just then?
The other night she hadn’t wanted Cassadine. A muscle clenched in his jaw as he remembered what it had felt like to sweep her up into his arms. Almost as satisfying as putting Cassadine in his place.
Now look where Cassadine was. Swearing inwardly, Jagger looked away, pretending to himself that he needed to sweep the crowd, to note the positions of Kosokov’s men discretely placed around the dining room.
That’s it Cates. Stay focused. Stay in control. There’s too much at stake here for you to blow it acting like an overgrown school boy. Your life. Sarah’s life. Morgan’s life. Especially HER life are all on the line here. Things are going badly enough as it is. The last thing that needs to happen is for you to go off half-cocked because some girl you’ve known for less than a week is hanging out with the man she shares one complicated past with, the man she was once engaged to, a man who used to be her lover, a man who...
Anger turned Jagger’s brown eyes molten as he saw Nikolas place a kiss on Emily’s cheek and without consciously thinking about it he found himself moving deliberately forward.
I don’t wanna hear the phone ring
Don’t
wanna hear your voice on th eline
I don’t wanna come to you
I don’t wanna come to you
I don’t wanna give in this time
Girl I’m
lovin’ you lovin’ you against my will
Your love is like a deep dark river
Pulln’ me out to sea
The harder I try to resist you
The weaker I seem to be
Sarah smiled and even managed a giggle at one of Kosokov’s jokes, the hand gripped tightly around her champagne glass the only outward indication of her inner rage.
Play your part Webber, she recited the mantra in her head for the thousandth time in the last hour.
It was easier said than done.
She’d imagined this moment but she had never imagined it like this. In her mind she had seen herself seducing Kosokov and then when she had lured him away from his guards, she’d use the small pistol she kept in a holster on her inner thigh to blow his head off.
Quick. Impersonal. Or as impersonal as seducing a man and then killing him could get.
She’d never imagined this. Under the guise of smiling at Jason, she let her gaze sweep the other other occupants of the table. Nikolas looked like....Nikolas. Arrogant. Confident. Subconsciously looking over the situation and trying to figure out a way to turn it to his advantage. She noted with disdain the fact that he was using the dinner party, Emily had told him some story about having to say they were still engaged because Jason’s business partner had made a pass at her and she didn’t want Jason to freak out and kill the man and neither did she feel like being mauled for dessert, so a fiancée had seemed like a good compromise. Sarah didn’t know if Nik was incredibly naive or incredibly smart but he had bought the convoluted story hook, line, and sinker. He hadn’t even blinked an eye when she had shown up in a tight black dress that left nothing to the imagination.
Sarah watched a look of pure male satisfaction cross Nik’s face. Smart. Incredibly smart. The man had way too much Cassadine in him to be naive, however much he pretended otherwise.
She blinked as she turned her attention away from her ex and to Kosokov and asked him some foolish question about his homeland that would reinforce his opinion of her as a dumb blonde. She was a little worried about Kosokov’s reaction to her. She’d caught his eyes drifting to her amply displayed breasts several times and had managed to smile encouragingly each time, but he wasn’t as interested as she needed him to be. Indeed most of the time his attention seemed to be focused on Emily, who as a result was steadfastly focusing all of her attention and charm on Nikolas who was quietly lapping it up.
Sarah winced at how twisted her world had become when she realized that she was worried that the man who had raped her and who had watched while others had raped her wasn’t showing any sexual interest in her.
God revenge might be sweet but it was also sick.
Her eyes caught Kosokov’s and for a second they held and for one millionth of that second she felt her guard shatter and her feelings, all of her feelings, were reflected in her eyes before she blinked and the look of open hostility was gone, replaced by the open invitation of the whore she needed to be. The frown on Kosokov’s face was quickly replaced with a smile and Sarah breathed again.
She had to keep it in control. She looked down and under the guise of studying her desert found herself looking at Kosokov.
She could feel his hands on her, bruising her, pinching her, beating her, groping her, holding her down.
She could feel the dirt in his breath as his mouth roamed hers, invading her, hurting her.
She could could see the sickness in him as he picked up the gun lying on the table where he’d discarded it with his clothing and he twisted it so that the barrel.....
“Dance with me.”
The harshly muttered command and the napkin thrown on her plate brought her back to the moment with a speed that was nauseating in its intensity.
She looked up into Jason Morgan’s blue eyes; cold, distant and remote.
“I’m sorry...” Her voice trailed off as she tried to bring her racing heart back under control. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t happening. Not again.
Jason threw Kosokov a look as if to say what else can you expect from a woman before turning back to the woman who was playing the part of his mistress, the woman who was turning his life upside down while she was at it. “I said dance with me.”
Sarah was about to blurt out some kind of remark about not knowing that Morgan could even dance when she remembered her role and tried another tact.
“I’m sure you and the General have business to discuss.”
“It can wait,” Jason said “Pleasure before business.”
The words were said with a casual arrogance that made Kosokov frown momentarily and then grin raising his shot of vodka in a salute. Pleased that he had read the General right and that the man appreciated men who treated women as casual playthings, he pulled Sarah towards the dance floor.
“What are you doing?” Sarah hissed as she forced her body to be pliant as he pulled her close, not letting enough room between their bodies for a single piece of paper to slip. His hands tangled up in the silkiness of her long blonde hair and he let himself nuzzle the elegant line of her neck. He breathed deeply of her and had to sharply remind himself that this wasn’t real even if the feel of her in his arms made him ache in a way that was all too real.
“I’m trying to prevent you from blowing your cover.” Jason’s voice came out raspy and uneven despite his best efforts. “Or doesn’t your superior training tell you when a seduction is failing.”
God it was hard to think with the warmth of his body this close. For all the times she and Jagger had been intimate, not even the most torrid session with Jagger unnerved her like this. “And you think pawing me like this in front of everyone is going to work even better.”
Jason’s eyes narrowed. “Have you ever seen two dogs go after a bone? 9 out of 10 times the second dog doesn’t want anything to do with the bone until the first dog starts chewing.” A smirk crossed Jason’s face as he nibbled her ear. “Consider yourself chewed on.”
Anger flared in Sarah, driving away the last vestiges of the fear that her flashback had brought. “You are a true bastard Morgan.”
“That’s what Alan and Monica tell me.” Jason’s casual tone belied his relief at seeing her recover her spark. He’d seen her face earlier at the table and the panic and fear in her expression had unnerved him almost as much as the rising need to kill the bastard with his bare hands.. He nodded his head towards the table where Sarah could clearly see Kosokov’s attention on them. “It worked.”
Resisting the urge to slap him, Sarah settled for gritting her teeth instead. Don’t let it go to your head Morgan.”
Jason cocked an eyebrow. “It would just about kill you to admit that I was right, wouldn’t it? Why is that? Because admitting that I was right would mean admitting that you were wrong?”
She had to forcefully remind herself that slapping him would definitely blow her cover. “I’m not the arrogant jerk in this relationship.”
Jason grinned. “Relationship? We have a relationship?”
Sarah winced mentally pledging from this point forward to think before she spoke. “The only relationship we have is a working relationship.” Keenly aware that this situation at least was rapidly getting out of her control, Sarah studied Jason’s Italian leather shoes as if she had to write a thesis on them.
Jason stared at the pink flush on her cheeks in bemusement. Sarah embarrassed? He shook his head even as he decided that pulling her closer was sure to convince Kosokov that she was his mistress and after all wasn’t that the point of this evening, to somehow fix things so that Kosokov would f*ck Sarah and then get totally f*cked himself when she killed him?
Jason was unprepared for the sudden surge of fury that last thought filled him with. He bit back his own bile at the thought of Sarah having to willingly sleep with the man who had raped her. The man who was responsible for the deaths of her parents.
His blue eyes grew suddenly intense as he touched her cheek. His voice when he found it was unexpectedly soft. “It’s not too late.”
She didn’t even pretend to not know what he was talking about. “He has to die.”
“My men can do it.”
She shook her head. “He’s too heavily guarded.” She looked around the restaurant. “He has a small army with him just in this room. Do you know this is the closest anyone outside of his private army have been to him in years? It’s only his desperate need for guns that have brought him this far out in the open. He goes back to Europe alive and we’ll never get another shot at him.”
“You yourself said he had a lot of enemies who want him dead.”
“And let him be a martyr to his cause.” She shook her head again. “No way. All I need to do is get him alone and wait for my chance.” She looked over at Kosokov. “He’s a dead man, he just doesn’t know it yet.”
“How are you going to let him touch you without vomiting?” Jason’s increasing unease made him brutally honest.
“I’ve managed with you,” Sarah said caustically, almost regretting the words when she saw the subtle flinch in his eyes. Almost. She needed to carry out her plan without thinking and something about Morgan was making her think. About all kinds of things.
“I almost forget you like playing the martyr don’t you?” Jason growled as he bent his head. “Let me give you something to really suffer through.” And with that softly voiced threat, Jason lowered his lips to hers in a kiss that was almost as much about punishment as it was about pleasure.
A kiss that she found herself returning with equal fervor.
I don’t wanna turn down your side street
I don’t wanna pull in your drive
Don’t wanna see you standin’ there
Don’t wanna see you standin’ there
Don’t
wanna see that look in your eyes
Girl I’m
lovin’ you lovin’ you against my will
Your love is like a deep dark river
Pullin’
me out to sea
The harder I try to resist
you
The weaker I seem to be
“Your brother and his ...friend are putting on quite a display,” Kosokov’s words in his heavily European accent made Emily wince even as she forced herself to smile. “His wife must be very understanding.”
Emily picked up her champagne and stared pointedly at Nikolas. ”Let’s just say that Carly has interests of her own.”
Forgive me Carly. I didn’t mean it. I’m in out of my league here. If you have any pull with my guardian angel I could really use some help here Emily whispered silently.
“Ahhh.” Kosokov grinned in a way that could only be described as lewd. “Are all American relationships so European?” His eyes drifted to Emily’s breasts.
“I don’t know what you mean.” Emily lied glibly. “Have you ever been to Paris General?” She tried changing the subject.
Kosokov was not to be deterred. “A beautiful young woman like yourself should be free to experiment to discover the pleasures of the flesh.”
Nikolas frowned. “Cassadines do not share.” The words were said lightly but with a wealth of meaning and centuries of tradition behind them they nonetheless hung in the air with a quiet authority. His eyes met Kosokov’s. “Ever.”
“So I have heard.” Kosokov lifted his shot glass in a silent salute to Nikolas. “Of course when we were young men Mikkos and I had many common interests.”
“You knew my grandfather?”
“Who in Europe did not know Mikkos Cassadine?” The general shrugged his shoulders. “I was lucky enough to call him a friend.”
Don’t say it Em. Just don’t say. The words were a silent prayer that ran through Emily’s mind.
Kosokov continued unabated. “It was an unexpected bonus to discover that the fiancée of my charming young friend was the grandson of my old comrade.” He smiled falsely. “You are a lucky young man.”
Emily finished the glass of champagne in one quick swallow as Nikolas acknowledged the statement with a polite smile.
She felt Nikolas hand caress her back and smiled at him like a fiancée would. Like she would have before she’d discovered Carly naked in his bed.
She tried not to flinch from his touch. She owed him for this night. Owed him for his willingness to help without asking questions, she’d been expecting to get battered with questions when he realized that Sarah and Jason were an item, but so far Nik had played the game more like a Spencer than a Cassadine. As far as Kosokov was concerned, Nikolas Cassadine was her loving fiancée.
Not the ex-boyfriend she had kicked out of her house just the other night.
She smiled at Nikolas softly seeing in him for a minute all of the things she had once loved him for.
Her smile disappeared as she saw Jagger approaching.
She lowered her eyes, afraid of the emotions they would reveal. Nikolas had been incredibly charming and attentive all evening and still she had spent most of the evening keenly aware of Jagger watching them from the side of the room where he played the loyal bodyguard. Had felt his presence clear across the room stronger than she had felt Nikolas’s next to her.
A fact which scared her almost as much as it thrilled her. Which was not half as much as it confused her.
“Ms. Quartermaine,” Jagger stopped at the table and looked down at Emily even as she flinched from the angry look in his eyes. Why was he angry? This whole thing was his plan, wasn’t it?
“Yes.” Emily voice was a distinct replica of her grandfather’s, only female and reasonable.
The question seemed to catch Jagger off guard, as if he was making this up as he went along. Which couldn’t be right Emily reasoned since that would mean... she forced herself to stop.
“There is a phone call for you,” Jagger paused uncomfortably. “I told the maitre’d that I would let you know.” He hesitated as Emily stared at him for a second. “I believe he said it was your mother. She asked you to call her back as soon as possible.”
“Here,” Nikolas reached into his coat jacket and pulled out his cell phone. “You can use my cell phone.”
How badly would the Consortium take it if he killed himself a Cassadine Jagger wondered as he forced himself to smile blandly.
Feeling the tension in the air, Emily smiled at Nikolas and kissed him lightly on the lips. “You’re wonderful as always, darling.” She put on a show for Kosokov and tried to ignore the light in Nikolas’s eyes or the flame in Jagger’s. “But you know my mother.” She tried to make the words light but they came out wobbly instead. She hoped the general didn’t notice. “She’ll probably go on and on about some imagined family crisis so its probably better I take it in private. I’m sure the manager will let me use his office.” She smiled at the general. “There are advantages to being the owner’s daughter.”
“If you’re sure?” Nikolas questioned her.
“I am. Be a dear and keep General Kosokov entertained while he waits for Jason, won’t you Nik?” Without waiting for him to either agree or disagree, Emily made her way with legs shaking in the direction of the manager’s office. Speaking to the manager for a minute, Emily convinced him to let her have the office to herself for a little bit.
She had just sat down on the edge of the desk when the door opened up.
She looked into Jagger’s face. “What in the hell do you think you are doing?”
Jagger approached her silently. Without a word, he lowered his head to hers.
“This,” he whispered hoarsely as his lips descended .
I don’t wanna feel your heartbeat
I don’t wanna taste your kiss
I don’t wanna call your name
I
don’t wanna want you like this
Girl I’m
lovin’ you, lovin’ you against my will
lovin’ you, lovin’ you against my will
