Elijah swallowed hard. “For me to be happy? What does that even mean?”
“I don’t know. If you’re going to keep hiding from me, you’ll need to just speak plainly. Just tell me what I can do to make you happy.”
“Even if it’s something you don’t want to do?”
“That’s the second time you’ve said that. What’s on your mind, rabbit?”
That was an excellent question. Elijah was having a hard time forming cohesive thoughts with Shep’s bulky frame separating his thighs and his rough fingers caressing his arms. “I just want to know who you are… or who you used to be.” It was partially true.
“If telling you about my past will make you happy, I’ll do it. But you have to understand, the things I did… In war, there are rules of engagement, rules that deal with the use of force. Rules that no longer applied once I became a private contractor. I won’t lie about the things I’ve done, but I don’t know if you’ll get any comfort from the truth.”
Elijah felt like his heart was lodged in his throat. He didn’t know how to respond to that. “What did you do for the private army people?”
His gold eyes shimmered as he gazed up at Elijah. “I extracted information from unwilling assets.”
Elijah replayed the statement on repeat for a full thirty seconds. “You tortured people.”
Shep shrugged, lifting his hand to brush Elijah’s hair from his face. It was a disarming move that had Elijah’s dick taking notice once more. “I was occasionally asked to use enhanced interrogation techniques to extract necessary intel from unwilling assets.”
Why wasn’t Elijah more disturbed by this big reveal? Did that make him a bad person? “So, yes?” he asked, breathless.
“Sometimes, yes.”
“But not always? They didn’t just call you in to do horrible things to people?”
“Interrogation isn’t about pain, it’s about pressure. It’s about figuring out what drives them, what they love, what they hate, what they need and applying the right pressure to convince your subject that betraying his country is better than the alternative.”
“What’s the alternative?”
“It’s different for everybody. Some assets remain… untethered for a reason. If you have nothing you care about, you have nothing to lose. They are often the hardest to break. Like you.”
“You think I’m untethered?”
“Yes, I think you keep yourself to yourself, as my father would say. You would have made a wonderful agent.”
Elijah preened a bit. “These untethered agents or assets… you had to torture them?”
Shep nodded. “If you can’t break an asset psychologically, you often have to break them physically.”
“How do you know what they want?”
“You learn to read people.”
“What does that mean?”
“People reveal their true selves all the time. They trained me from a very young age to read people, their micro-expressions, their tells. Which way they shift their eyes, whether they lick their lips, whether they’re sweating or have chills. Once you know what to look for, it’s easier than you think,” Shep said, tracing Elijah’s cheek with his finger.
Elijah steeled himself against the touch, even though he longed to lean in. “But you can’t read me?”
Shep tilted his head. “Sometimes I can. When you let your guard down like right now.”
Elijah swallowed hard. “What am I thinking right now?”
“I’m not a psychic,” Shep said but there was just the barest hint of something in his expression. Amusement, maybe. “Your pupils are dilated. You keep licking your bottom lip. Your breathing is heavy, but not like earlier. This isn’t about sex and you’re not afraid. You’re excited.”
“Should I be afraid?” Elijah asked, mouth bone dry.
Shep smiled then. “No.”
