Take Me (The Submission Games Book 2) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Book Two of The Submission Games

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Epilogue

  CHAPTER ONE

  Copyright © 2018 Tamara Mataya

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. References to real people, places, organizations, events, and products are intended to provide a sense of authenticity and are used fictitiously. All characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and not to be construed as real.

  Cover art © 2018 Cait Greer

  Cover image licensed from Bigstockphoto/ contributor /Conrado

  Table of Contents

  Copyright Page

  Dedication: | For those of us who never thought we’d make it through the darkest shadows of ourselves. | It gets better. Never give up. | Please note: Take Me deals with some dark themes, including self-harm, that may be triggering to some readers.

  TAKE ME | Book Two of The Submission Games | By Tamara Mataya

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Epilogue

  The End

  Also by Tamara Mataya

  Acknowledgments:

  Author’s Note:

  CHAPTER ONE

  Dedication:

  For those of us who never thought we’d make it through the darkest shadows of ourselves.

  It gets better. Never give up.

  Please note: Take Me deals with some dark themes, including self-harm, that may be triggering to some readers.

  TAKE ME

  Book Two of The Submission Games

  By Tamara Mataya

  CHAPTER ONE

  Mark

  On her seventeenth birthday she offered herself to me.

  On her eighteenth birthday, I accepted.

  I was six years older than Tessa, and I was the help for Christ’s sake. I held out as long as I could, hoping she’d find someone else, someone who wasn’t supposed to stay emotionally detached, someone who was more compatible with her class. She was the Councilman’s daughter, and had grown up with serious wealth my family had never even dreamed of. Hell, I’d joined the army right out of high school so I could have a future and three square meals a day. I wanted her but knew it was wrong—and pointless. I wasn’t—and never would be—good enough for Tessa Winters.

  Little did I know the choice was taken out of my hands the moment she decided I was hers.

  The irresistible force to my immovable object. I put my heart in a box and buried it beneath the weight of the duty I’d sworn to her father. The job was the opportunity of a lifetime. Protect her and her twin sister Sloane. That’s it. Crossing that line meant compromising my future. The way I felt about her should have been irrelevant. Tessa dug the truth of my feelings from me with the precision of a surgeon. She was never afraid of getting her hands dirty.

  Spending so much time paying attention to her, protecting her, had made it impossible to ignore her. We shared conversations, looks, thoughts...everything but touches. It was a year of delicious torment being that close but never giving into our attraction.

  So much had already happened between us by the night of her eighteenth birthday, it was hard to remember the misery of my life before her. The shadows she cast on my mind were like the path of totality in an eclipse until all I saw was her. She strolled in with coltish legs and old eyes and blurred the rough edges of my past, softening everything except the one thing that shouldn’t have been hard.

  And she knew it. She knew it and wanted me as well—never bothering to hide her interest from me.

  And now I’ve been summoned by her father—I’m assuming, though I’d rather it be anyone but that bastard.

  The car was sent for me promptly at ten this morning and, as instructed, I got in and enjoyed a winding tour of Seattle for an hour. We’ve been idling for ten minutes in an alley behind a restaurant. That they didn’t frisk me for weapons before letting me in the car indicates they’re too stupid to know who they’re dealing with, or they’re too powerful to care.

  Judging by the car itself, a new Maybach 57S, I’m guessing the latter’s true.

  The man on the phone said he got my number from an old friend in the force with me—which I confirmed—but beyond the instructions on where to meet, I got nothing. This cloak-and-dagger bullshit reeks of wealth and politics. Councilman Winters to a T.

  A good soldier follows orders. I was special ops for four years and am used to being sent places without all the information I’d like, but this is different.

  I’ve been retired for over a year, since my thirtieth birthday, hence the freelancing to make a living. The severance from the army wasn’t enough to make a life with, especially after medical bills.

  The door opens and a tall man in an expensive suit slides in and takes the seat next to me. “Mark James.” He doesn’t offer his hand as he says my name.

  I identify him immediately, a ghost from my past. “Councilman Winters.”

  He smirks. “Governor Winters, now.”

  He’s slithered his way up in the world. I nod. “Of course.”

  He’s gotten greyer and gained twenty pounds in the seven years since I’ve seen him, mostly muscle. “You’ve been doing well, I see.” His gaze drops to my leg, and with that one move, I know he’s read my file and learned about my forced retirement from the army. He gives the driver an address uptown and angles himself so he can address me more directly. “What’s new?”

  His warm brown eyes and dusky skin remind me of his daughter Tessa, so much so that I grit my teeth and push thoughts of her from my mind. There’s no point attempting niceties. “What do you want?”

  “I need your help.”

  “I don’t owe you a goddamned thing.”

  He rubs his hands together and steeples his fingers beneath his mouth for a moment. “My girls are missing.”

  His words drive my heart into double time. “Since when?”

  “About three weeks for Sloane, maybe six weeks for Tessa.”r />
  My fingers curl into a fist at the thought of someone hurting them. “Have there been any demands?”

  “No.”

  “Any witnesses as to who’s done this?”

  “We don’t think they’ve been taken, exactly.”

  I turn in my seat to mirror his posture. “What are you saying?”

  He turns to look out the window. “The squeaky wheel gets the grease, as the old saying goes. Sloane’s always been my squeaker, piping up when she shouldn’t, nagging me to do things that don’t necessarily need to be done. Tessa’s always been the quiet one, doing things behind the scenes as and when she wanted to do them. I wasn’t worried when she went silent. It’s something that’s become...more frequent these last couple years.” He turns back my way. “But now my squeaky wheel’s gone silent as well, and based on our last conversation, that worries me.”

  “What was the last conversation?”

  Governor Winters chuckles. “Now, you know I can’t tell you the details until you agree to help me out.”

  “Why not?”

  He pulls a briefcase onto his lap and pulls an envelope from it. “Sensitive information, though not much of it. The owner’s slipperier than I expected. I don’t want my girls in any more danger than they’re already in.”

  I’d never hurt either of them by selling them out and he knows that. He means there’s potential scandal for himself here. “Why me? With your connections, you could have anyone look into this for you.”

  He traces the edge of the manila envelope. “I can trust your skills for this. And I know you’re good at taking orders.”

  That hits me like a boot to the nuts. Yeah, I’m good at taking orders. “Hell, I proved that seven years ago when I left, didn’t I, sir? Not that you gave me a choice. So why bring me back for this when all you wanted was to keep me away from Tessa?”

  His hard stare softens. “I know you cared about my girls. Someone else may use this situation as leverage. You wouldn’t use this information in a way that might hurt either of them.”

  “You mean in a way that might hurt your career.”

  He shrugs. “In this case, they’re one and the same.”

  I should slam his face against the window and get the hell out of this car. Walk away while I’ve still got the chance. But if Tessa and Sloane are in danger, can I risk abandoning them? If there’s even the slightest possibility they could be hurt... “What do you need me to do?”

  “Find out what they’re doing in this “underground” and if it’s unsafe or potentially damaging, extract them. I want you to retrieve my twins.”

  I want to say no to this man who ruined me seven years ago when he ordered me away from the love of my life.

  But if Tessa’s in danger, I have no choice. And being this close to seeing her again?

  “I’ll take the job.”

  WAITING UNTIL HER EIGHTEENTH birthday didn’t make me less of a bastard, but I’d resisted, tried to do my duty and keep my hands to myself for as long as I could. I’d rather have cut them off than hurt her. But she figured she’d waited long enough.

  The Councilman had thrown Tessa and Sloane a lavish party at the country club, mostly using the chance to show off his beautiful daughters and charm everyone in sight with his family. The girls hated these events, would have preferred to stay home and celebrate in private, having already spent too many years under constant scrutiny because of their father. He preferred doting on them in public where his devotion could be seen.

  Ever the politician, even then I could never tell if he loved them or loved what they did for his career more.

  At the last minute, Tessa came down with a vicious flu, leaving her feverish and tired—symptoms she faked easily enough, knowing we’d be left alone in the house together while everyone else went ahead to the party. She held up the charade until an hour after they’d been gone—until after they’d called to check on her before devoting their full attention to the party—before calling me into her room.

  I was walking into a trap sprung by a woman who was going to get her way by any means necessary.

  The only other guard on duty was working the perimeter, patrolling the grounds, though we weren’t expecting anything to happen. The Councilman was well-liked and we’d never had a threat before. We were mostly for show than out of necessity.

  The memory’s as fresh as if it was last night.

  “Mark?”

  The hushed urgency in her voice had me hurry down the hall on full alert, but even a seventh sense wouldn’t have helped prepare me for the sight that greeted me in her bedroom.

  That smile stopped me in my tracks.

  Tessa lay back on her bed on a mound of pillows in a short, filmy nightie, long bare legs stretched out toward me. The road to hell, shaved with bad intentions.

  I swallowed hard, checking the room with my gaze in case there was an intruder and that’s why she’d called for me. “Everything alright?”

  She shook her head. “Not even a little bit.”

  “Can I get you anything? For the fever?” I suddenly felt a little hot myself.

  “There’s no fever. I faked it. But there is something you could do for me.” Slowly, she spread her legs just enough that I could see she wasn’t wearing panties. Christ.

  I closed my eyes and swallowed hard. “Tessa—”

  “You know what today is. You owe me, Mark. You promised—and you always keep your word.”

  I hadn’t said the words exactly, but I had put her off in as many ways as I could to save us both from temptation. She’d taken ‘you’re too young’ and basically started counting down the days to her eighteenth birthday. It was the last argument I had—she didn’t care if I lost my job, she figured it would be worth it.

  She’d battled anorexia long before I started working for her father. My reasons for not giving in to our attraction had all been truthful, but varied from ‘I’ll lose my job’ to ‘you’re too young’ to ‘you’re too thin.’

  The last argument had been fairly wily on my part. I’d argued that she was unhealthily skinny, and if she gained and maintained a better weight, that I’d reconsider. The last part had been a lie, but I’d wanted her healthy and wasn’t above letting her think what she wanted if it put some meat on her bones. I was a dumb kid, not realizing that criticizing her looks even that way could have fucked her up worse.

  Fortunately, it hadn’t.

  Unfortunately, twenty-five pounds and five months later, she’d been parading her new curves in front of me, an even stronger temptation than before.

  Sometimes, I’d like to kick my own ass.

  I holstered my gun. “Tessa, we’ve been over this. I...we can’t. Your first time should be with someone you love, someone your own age. Not some broken asshole like me. Trust me, this is something you’re going to remember for the rest of your life. It’s special, and I don’t want to take that experience from you.”

  “You’re not taking anything. I’m offering it. Do I need to get a platter to serve it to you on? We have some nice silver ones in the kitchen, I’m sure.” She slipped a strap off her shoulder and traced her collarbone. “Don’t be antiquated and act like this is a monumental thing that will diminish me. It’s important, but it’s my choice. I’m ready.”

  “You deserve more than me for your first time.”

  She rolled her eyes and rummaged around her nightstand for a second, coming back with a dildo. “Please, Mark. I’m not a pure as snow little girl. I’ve been using this bad boy on myself since a month after we met. I may be a virgin, but I know my way around an orgasm. You wouldn’t even have to be gentle. I’m not.” She stroked it up and down before turning the head and drawing the now-vibrating member between her breasts, to her belly. She paused as she spread her legs. “I can’t even tell you the number of times I’ve done this and imagined it was your cock stretching me, filling me. Making me come.”

  Every word made me harder than the last.

  She licked her lips an
d pressed the head to her clit, writhing her hips while staring into my eyes, bold as a woman with a lifetime of experience at seduction as my blood turned to fire in my veins. “I want you, Mark. I want my first time to be with you, now. For real. If you don’t make love to me, I’ll make you watch me with this instead, and I’ll still cry out your name when I come. And then I’ll haunt your every step every minute of every day until you finally give in and give me what I want. I know you want this too.”

  I shook my head, not knowing how I could tell her ‘no’ when every cell in my body was screaming ‘yes!’ and telling me to go to her.

  Her gaze softened. “You’re the thing that’s made me okay. Without you...I want it to be you, not some random asshole. Please. I need it to be you. Give me what we both want.”

  I don’t remember walking to the bed, I just remember the relief and happiness in her eyes when I knelt over her and threw the vibrator across the room. How warm her silky nightie was against my palm as my starving hands gently—finally—devoured her body.

  She lay back, chestnut hair fanning out on the burgundy pillows, and spread her arms, letting me drink in every inch of the body I’d denied myself for over a year. It wasn’t just her body I loved and wanted.

  I loved her.

  Tessa was intelligent, tough, fiery, and haunted. Her eyes were so old, sometimes it was like staring into a fae being, something ancient in a young woman’s body. I’d come back from the army broken but holding it together somehow, going through a hell of a lot of motions.

  Tessa made me feel stronger. She made me fight to get better, fight the darkness that had invaded me when I saw one too many of my buddies die in front of me. She kept the murky stain inside me at bay. I wasn’t good enough for her, but she made me want to be.

  She made me want to live again instead of just exist.

  And now I wanted to show her how very much she meant to me. Every touch of my unworthy hands on her body was a desecration that brought me closer to God. I kissed a path across her collarbones and up her throat. Her fingers dug into the nape of my neck as she pulled me closer. I couldn’t stop, didn’t want to stop, could no longer try. Maybe I wasn’t good enough, but I loved her and she wanted me and goddamn it, that had to count for something.