Provoke by Missy Johnson

that relationship.
    So I had. And I vowed never to put myself in that kind of situation again.
    I sure knew how to pick them.
    #
    Now for the fun part.
    Tracking Ben down would be no problem: he was a decorated army officer who had worked with my father for years—hence Dad’s love for the guy. Tracking down email addresses of current army officers was surprisingly easy. Which had always struck me as weird, considering the whole protecting-the-nation thing.
    I grabbed my laptop and navigated to trusty Google. It took all of five minutes for me to be staring at his email address. Did I really want to do this?
    Where Mace was scary and short-tempered, Ben had been the complete opposite. Way too calm and collected. His ‘interests’ had scared the fuck out of me—enough for me to get the hell out of that relationship.
    But I didn’t see another way. As much as our relationship had gone downhill fast, in an odd way, Ben was the only person I felt I could trust—probably because I could ruin his reputation in half a second if I wanted to. Having that kind of power over someone made them a very trustworthy confidante.
    Okay, do this before you change your mind, Leets.
    Ben,
    Long time, huh? Hope you are well. You’re probably wondering why the hell I’m contacting you after so long, and well, I need a favour. A big one. Get back to me. My number is still the same.
    Leeta
    Short and sweet.
    There was no point going into detail without knowing if he was willing to help me or not. Sighing, I closed the laptop and put it on charge. I needed sleep. I was so past tired, it wasn’t even funny.
    I changed into my pyjamas and climbed into bed, exhausted. Fumbling through my bedside table, I found my stash of Valium. I rarely used sleeping aids, but I had so much crammed into my head right then that sleep felt impossible without assistance.
    I lay there waiting for the tablet to take effect. It didn’t take long for me start to feel woozy. I closed my eyes and tried to force all the negative thoughts out of my head.
    All this, I’d deal with tomorrow. Right then, nothing seemed as important as getting some sleep.

Chapter Ten
    Mace
    She knows.
    It all added up. She had to know. She was at my house, my computer had been used, she didn’t want to see me . . . and then when I’d turned up, she couldn’t stand to be touched by me. It all added up to one thing.
    She fucking knew. She had to have seen the videos. I hit the steering wheel in frustration. Christ, why hadn’t I deleted them?
    This was a nightmare.
    A fucking mess.
    There was no way to put a positive spin on this. No matter which way you swung it, what I was involved in was unforgivable. Of course, what she was thinking was a thousand times worse than the actual reality, but the reality was still pretty bad. I wanted to tell her, but what would I say?
    Hey, it’s okay. I wasn’t raping them. I was just fucking them.
    I laughed. I was a stupid idiot for getting involved with her in the first place. The smart thing to do would’ve been to build a friendship until all this blew over. But friendship with Leet was never going to work. How could I be friends with someone I couldn’t stop thinking about?
    I felt bad for betraying her, but I couldn’t feel bad about what I was doing. This was so much bigger than her and me, and I wasn’t going to apologize for that. The thought of hurting her in any way tore me up inside, but I wasn’t going to back down on this.
    I couldn’t.
    There was only one way to resolve this: I had to stop her talking. I had to make her calm down and listen to me, however long that took.
    I revved the engine and took off.
    #
    Four in the morning, and I was back out the front of her unit. I scanned the dark street, looking for signs of life, but there were none. It was dead quiet. My heart pounded as I reached for the gloves, sliding them over my shaking hands. I took a deep breath and grabbed the bag. This was the only way .
    I walked up the