Unnerved by Tony’s steady gaze, James stuffed his hands in his pockets. “You should have stayed in psychology, indulged your need to analyze people and spared your friends.” He knew he was being defensive. Hell, his back had been up since Tony mentioned Lana, but he didn’t need help with her. He just needed time to sort things out in his head, and he couldn’t do that when he was concerned about his cover.
Tony raised an eyebrow. “Practicing law gives me plenty of opportunities for psychological analysis, and the club even more so. My friends get my help, even when they don’t think they need it. And as for me, it was time for a change. New scenery. New people. New career.”
“Most people only make one life-altering change at a time,” James said bitterly.
Tony’s eyes shuttered and his hand clenched on the desk. “I’m not most people.”
Now there was an understatement. Cloaked in an aura of danger and mystery, with a commanding, physical presence, Tony could control a room with only a glance. Even James knew better than to challenge him, although right now, with anxiety pumping through his veins, he couldn’t help but try again.
“How about you help me figure out how to convince the DEU to return the weapons cache? Leave me to handle my own damn nonexistent relationship.”
“You’re about to lose the one thing in the world that means something to you and you don’t even realize it,” Tony replied coolly.
“My life.”
“Roxie.”
Tony’s mild, unthreatening tone belied the danger inherent in the fact he knew Lana’s real name, a name she had said she’d never used since moving to Vancouver. James’s teeth gritted together and his skin prickled. Maybe Tony wasn’t the friend James had thought he was.
“That’s not her name.”
“It’s the name she was given at birth.”
Heart pounding, James leaned over Tony’s desk, dropping his palms to the cool surface. “I don’t see how that was information you needed to collect for the club.”
Although James had breached Tony’s personal space, Tony didn’t move.
“I collect information on everyone who comes into the club, and especially on anyone who manages to sneak in not once but twice. She’s intelligent and resourceful, as well as beautiful. And I’m guessing her kink—and yes, I know she has a kink—is a result of some past trauma, a way of finding control in a situation where once she had none.”
James’s vision sheeted red. If Tony had been any other man, he would have grabbed him by the shirt, hauled him over the desk and tossed him into the wall before wiping that damn knowing smile off his lips. But something held him back. Whether it was Tony’s utterly calm demeanor in the face of James’s anger, or the sense Tony was more than he appeared, he didn’t know.
Still, his overwhelming urge to protect Lana in the face of a threat needed an outlet. With a low growl, he swiped everything off Tony’s desk, taking what satisfaction he could in the sound of pens and books hitting the floor.
Tony snorted a laugh and leaned back in his chair, folding his hands behind his head. “And there, my friend, is the answer to your relationship problem. It’s not casual at all. Not in the least. You’re in so deep you’re drowning.”
In response to James’s quizzical look, he continued. “I highly doubt you would have reacted like that if the object of my inquiries had been Katy, or Trixie…” he tilted his head to the side and said quietly, “…or even Christine.”
Hands trembling, blood still pounding through his veins, James could only stand and stare. Tony was right. He’d never felt this way about Christine. Affection, yes. Respect, definitely. They’d shared similar values and interests. They’d agreed on most things and rarely fought. Being with Christine had been easy, comfortable. He had thought it was enough to sustain a marriage. But in the end, it wasn’t enough for her. And if he was honest with himself, it hadn’t been enough for him. He needed more. Fire. Challenge. Sass.
“You played me,” he said as he collapsed into the chair across from Tony’s desk.
Tony smiled. “I helped you. No thanks necessary. Now that we’ve sorted out that problem, you mentioned an issue with the DEU refusing to release a cache of weapons?”
James scrubbed his hands over his face. Although Tony had been cleared to know about James’s assignment, he couldn’t give him too many details, certainly nothing regarding Bones’s suspicions about his identity or the possible DEU mole. But after overhearing Rex at the beach, he was damned sure Rex had purchased some new weapons and was looking to offload the existing cache on his buyer. Which meant he would be asking James for his weapons in the next few days and the DEU wouldn’t give them up. No way could he involve Ryder again.