by Eva Chase
When I unzipped his fly, his breath stuttered against my mouth. He kissed me harder, his fingers dipping to stroke over my breast, but I didn’t miss the quiver of his thighs at the same time.
This wasn’t the best position for him with that injured leg.
No need for that to stop me. I scooted back on the bed, tugging John with me, and he followed. He broke the kiss to ease my blouse up over my head. Then he was freeing my breasts from my bra, tipping one up to meet his descending mouth. His tongue swiped over my nipple, searing hot. I ran my fingers over his soft hair and hummed encouragingly.
His hands started to travel lower, reminding me of my earlier intentions. I nudged him down on his back on the fluffy bedspread and delved into the path I’d opened in his trousers.
“Fuck,” John murmured as I closed my hand around his rigid cock. He was thick and silky and already beading precum at the tip. I flicked my thumb over the head and was rewarded with a groan.
Working him free from his boxers, I bent down at his side. I set my other hand carefully to avoid the jagged scar on his hip. A rough sound reverberated through his chest when my mouth closed over his cock.
His skin smelled clean and fresh like a light spring rain shower, with a hint of salt on my tongue as I swirled it around his cock. Alongside the bob of my head, I cupped his balls. John’s hips bucked up encouragingly. Oh, yes, he liked that.
He was the kind of guy I could enjoy giving a blowjob too—responsive and eager but polite about it. He kept those hips in check while I sucked him down again, rocking with my motions but not jamming his dick down my throat. The panting I’d wanted to provoke rasped over his lips. The sound of it made me wet.
In this moment, you are mine. Mine, mine, mine. Just for this moment, this bright golden man wanted me more than anything else in the world.
John touched my waist and pulled at my body. It took me a few seconds to realize what he was after. I swiveled around, barely breaking my rhythm, until I straddled his shoulders. He eased my slacks and panties down and then pushed himself up to slick his tongue over my clit.
Oh, God Almighty. The number of guys who’d offer this generosity when I was already working them over was vanishingly slim. With my legs splayed over him, every part of my core felt doubly exposed and sensitive. The gentle pressure of his lips made me tremble. I wasn’t going to last long like this.
I teased my teeth against the underside of his cock. John’s hips jerked. He groaned against my core, the sound flooding me with pleasure. He was close too, but the throb of need inside me demanded more than this.
I slipped off of him and grabbed my purse to retrieve a condom. When I swung around to meet him face to face, John was waiting to draw me in for a kiss. Our breath mingled and our tongues collided as we kicked our pants and undergarments the rest of the way off. He slipped his hand between my thighs, one finger and then another slicking deep inside me until I couldn’t have been readier.
At my tug, he rolled on top of me, bracing his weight on one elbow as he prepped himself. His mouth found mine for another kiss. I lifted my knees to his sides, and he slid right in, filling me with that perfect blissful pressure.
John’s breath washed over my neck. He nibbled my clavicle, gripping my thigh at the same time, easing back and plunging even deeper. My head tipped back with a whimper.
“Your mouth felt fantastic, but this is even better,” he mumbled against my bare skin.
A giggle escaped me. “My sentiments exactly.”
I wouldn’t have needed it, but he tucked his hand between us anyway. His thumb grazed over my clit and then pressed harder. His thrusts picked up speed. Pleasure flared from that little nub and seared along every nerve around my core, surging high and fast with the combined stimulation. I dug my fingers into the folds of his shirt and held on as ecstasy split me down the middle.
I came shaking and moaning, clinging on to him so tight my knuckles ached. John bucked into me faster still, sending another swell of sensation through me. Then he was biting down on my shoulder with a strangled sound.
He drove deep a few more times and swayed to a stop with a ragged exhalation. And in the aftermath as he sank down beside me, his arm looping around my waist, my mind leapt to the moment, soon, when I’d have to make my excuses and leave.
Chapter Eleven
Bash
The moment I ducked through the window of Jemma’s hotel room, I knew she’d just hooked up with one of her marks. I’d seen her post-seduction enough times to recognize the signs. Her hair hung straighter and darker than usual, damp from a recent shower, and her pose where she was sitting at the little table next to the window had the languid air of physical satisfaction.
She perked up in an instant at the sight of me, leaning her arms on the tabletop. The white hotel bathrobe she’d thrown on over her pajamas looked a little bulky on her slim figure, but the understated authority of her presence filled it out just fine.
“You got it?” she said.
I dropped into the chair across from her and pulled out the package I’d been carrying. “Exactly as you requested, Majesty.”
Jemma gave me a mock grimace at the nickname and unwrapped the thin slab of metal. She ran her fingers over the etching on its surface, tracing the pattern of embedded gems.
“I doubt it’ll fool the owner for more than a second,” I said. “The forger said he needed to improvise some since you couldn’t give him a visual reference.”
She shrugged without any sign of concern. “I don’t need to fool the owner. I just need to know my three do-gooders won’t realize there’s been a theft until I’ve had a chance to leave the building. They won’t be paying attention to the details of this piece.” She looked up at me with a sly smile. “Thank you. This is perfect.”
Her damp hair made her deep-set eyes look even larger. That and the familiar smile took me back seven years to when I’d first met her. She’d been as scrawny as she was now and way too young to drink, but she’d tapped my shoulder in the middle of a rowdy bar in downtown Detroit and said with balls as big as Oberon’s, “I hear you shoot people for pay.”
How could I have said no to that?
“Your other plans are coming along well?” I asked, nodding to her get-up.
Jemma’s smile widened, and my gut twinged with a little jab of the jealousy I’d thought I had reined in. “Very well, I think. Officer Moriarty of the Freising Police Department is much admired.”
I’d seen the coy glances and flirty touches she used to work her wiles when she needed to. It wasn’t as if, given the choice, I’d have traded places with any of those men. I got the real Jemma Moriarty, without pretense or artifice: focused, brilliant, and brutal. And in all that brilliance, she’d seen fit to rely on me above anyone else in her vast schemes.
No, being her right-hand man was the real honor.
She swept the replica engraving off the table and slipped it into a concealed compartment in her suitcase. “Was Corbin satisfied with his payment? I didn’t expect the blows to land quite that hard.”
I thought of the big Irish guy I’d handed off an envelope to this evening and chuckled. “He whinged a bit about having walking-stick bruises, but he looked very happy with the cash. He just made more in a day than I’d bet he usually does in a month. That’s worth a few bruises. The good doctor has some spirit to him, does he?”
“Oh, he does,” Jemma said, in a tone that told me exactly which of her marks she’d been with tonight. “His reaction to that little bit of theater was very enlightening. He’s well on the hook now.”
“How does our timeline look from here onward, Mori?”
That nickname brought a slight softness to her smile. I could have called her “Jemma” these days—she’d switched from “Moran” to “Sebastian” to “Bash” quickly enough the closer we’d worked together—but part of me liked having a name for her that was only mine.
“I expect we’re only a few days from putting the heist into motio
n,” she said. “They’ll want to wrap things up for my sake before I have to go ‘home’ from the conference. You should get those rooms booked in Algiers—the second passport names.”
“Right,” I said, making a mental note. “And the flights?”
She shook her head. “I’ll handle those. We’ll want to take the first one out of here once I’ve got the prize. By the time they realize what idiots they’ve been and start looking for me, there won’t be a trace left behind.”
I gave her a teasing salute. “Your worthy deeds do claim no less than what you stand for.”
Normally Jemma would have ribbed me about the bastardized quote, but her gaze had gone momentarily distant. She might not even have registered more than the gist of the words.
It took a lot to distract this woman. There were complexities to this latest scheme I didn’t fully understand—stakes that for whatever reason she was keeping to herself. All she’d given me was a warning, a week ago. In about a month, I might just… vanish. And if that happens, I won’t be coming back. I’m only telling you because I need you to promise me something. Don’t go looking for me, Bash. If I’m gone, I’m gone.
She’d spoken as coolly and matter-of-factly as she normally did, but it wasn’t like Jemma to talk fatalistically. She was a master at turning an impossible situation around to her favor. I’d only ever seen her falter once, years ago. She hadn’t mentioned the possibility of her disappearing again, but the memory still left me uneasy.
I wouldn’t pry. That wasn’t how we operated. That wasn’t how I operated. The fact that I cared about her at all, let alone as much as I did, still socked me in the gut with surprise sometimes.
I’d thought I’d been happy living out a life of random crimes for hire before I met her. No, I’d thought I couldn’t be meant for more than that. But I was something more now. I might be joking when I called her “Majesty,” but she ruled the world we moved through with the power of a queen, and fuck if I hadn’t somehow become the dark knight who stood beside the throne and made sure the unworthy bowed down. Without her, I’d just be that guy who shot people for pay again.
So, if there was a way I could keep her out of that fatalistic place and be the rock-solid foundation beneath her if her balance got momentarily shaky, I’d lay down at her feet in an instant.
“Is there anything else you need me to put in place?” I asked.
Jemma’s gaze snapped back to me, as alert as ever now. “I wouldn’t be surprised if I need you to give another nudge or two during the conference. I can pass on those details online. And it’s time to put that worm in the police chief’s ear like we talked about. Otherwise, keep on as we discussed.”
“Then I shouldn’t keep you from your beauty rest,” I said.
Jemma snorted at that comment and got up from the table as I did. I was just turning toward the window when an odd fluttering of light washed over the wall beside the bathroom door. It shivered and jerked like a body seizing—and then it flickered away.
When I glanced at Jemma, she had her gaze firmly on me, a hint of defiance in the set of her chin. I knew better than to ask any questions about the odd sight. The strangeness had popped up here and there across the time I’d worked for her, and she clearly didn’t like it but didn’t think it was worth bothering with. If she ever thought I could do something useful about it, she’d tell me more then.
“There is one other thing,” she said abruptly. “I’d imagine our friend Richter suspects I’ve followed him to London. He’ll have people on the lookout for me in case I reach out to the local element—word will have gotten around by now. Let’s remind him of the dangers of meddling with my business.”
I grinned, the implicit order perfectly clear. My work with Jemma was always steady and never dull. “A job I’m happy to do.”
She shot a smile back at me, fierce in its warmth. “Thank you, Bash.”
I went from Jemma’s room to my own in a much smaller and shabbier hotel where no one asked very many questions and the cleaning staff had loads of respect for the Do Not Disturb sign. My ninth floor view looked out over the few buildings between this one and Jemma’s, giving me a clear line of sight to her window if she needed to signal me surreptitiously.
It was a quick change: Bright orange rugby shirt, matching cap, contacts that turned my light green eyes a deep indigo. Give people parts of you to stare at and they won’t remember the bits that could actually identify you the next day. The jersey had the extra benefit of easily concealing the holster I slid into my jeans against my hip.
Suitably prepared, I headed for the narrower, grittier streets of London’s underbelly. Often the trick to getting what you want is making people think you’re giving them what they want, a con I’d seen Jemma pull off more times than I could count. I might not be able to manage it with the same degree of polish, but I could put on a good front when I wanted to.
Along the way, I dialed up the police’s media line on a burner phone. “Hello,” I said in a brisk British accent I’d picked up from listening to a grifter in New York City. “I’m calling from the Telegraph. Can anyone there comment on what I’m hearing about a Stefan Richter suing Scotland Yard for their interference with his business affairs? I understand he opened a similar case against the Paris PD.”
“I—ah—we don’t have any official statement on that,” the woman on the other end said, sounding bewildered. “I’m sure if there’s anything to report, we’ll share a press release shortly.”
She hung up, presumably off to pass on word to the chief that someone believed a guy named Richter might be going to sue them. One of tonight’s jobs done, one more to go.
In the first bar, I squeezed between the crowded stools and ordered a beer. As the bartender slid it across the counter, I leaned in and let my voice fall into a rolling Welsh accent courtesy of the owner of a different bar I’d spent a lot of time at some years back.
“I heard someone’s asking after a woman just arrived in town, putting out feelers about a big venture. I’ve got information if you know who I should talk to.”
“Can’t help you there, mate,” the bartender said.
I waited about twenty minutes, gulping the cool beer and tuning out the barrage of voices around me, just in case. Then I moved on.
In the third bar, I hit pay dirt. The bartender’s eyes twitched. “I might have heard something about that,” he said. “Stick around, and maybe the guy will turn up.”
After he served a couple more customers, he stepped off to the side with his phone. I nursed the Jack and Coke I’d ordered like I wasn’t in any hurry. It was maybe half an hour before I caught the bartender tipping his head in my direction for the benefit of someone who’d just come in the door.
A burly guy with a drooping jaw stopped by the bar and then pushed through the swarm of patrons to the spot where I was standing. He held up his own glass. “Cheers.”
“Cheers,” I replied, and clinked my glass to his. “What’s the occasion?”
“You have information about a woman who’s assembling a crew?”
“Who wants to know?”
The guy fixed me with a hard look. “My boss, who’s got a generous reward for anyone who can point him in the right direction. Do you know something or not?”
I held up my hands. “Hey, give me a break. This isn’t my usual scene. I’m just looking to make ends meet. It sounds like I ended up in the right place.” I glanced at the people milling around us and tugged on my hat. “Should we take this outside? She’s got a meeting place all set up for tomorrow—I can show you it.”
The guy grunted and threw back the rest of his drink. “Come on then.”
Perfect. He lumbered toward the back of the bar, and I followed, letting my wrist brush against the concealed holster at my hip. While I was a rifle man by preference, a pistol worked just fine when circumstances called for it. My army superiors had called me the best distant shot in the forces, but they’d have hesitated to face off against me at
short range too. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’d contributed to the hurry with which they’d dishonorably discharged me.
Life didn’t work the way Shakespeare and his type wrote it. They seemed to think no matter what else was going on, by the end of the drama everyone would have paid for their mistakes and flaws in systematic fashion. I watched those films for a laugh. It was fucking absurd how brutally fair they were.
In the life I knew, shitty people got away with shittier things the whole day long. But here and there, I could give them the shitty end they deserved. It might not be justice, but the act couldn’t be more satisfying, especially when it served Jemma’s unwavering sense of purpose.
We stepped out into the dank alley. I motioned to the guy, noting the pockets of noise and silence, judging the distance to the river. “It’s just a few blocks over. She roped in a friend of mine. I didn’t like the sound of it.”
The guy guffawed. “Yeah, this crazy bint is a real piece of work, from what I hear.”
I smiled tightly. In a few minutes, he’d be a piece of work—bloody artwork splattered all over a brick wall. And now I was going to enjoy it even more.
Chapter Twelve
Jemma
In the car on the way to the gallery, I wound my hair into a loose braid. John must have caught a glimpse through the rearview mirror, even though he should have been keeping his eyes on the road.
“Felt the need to mix things up?” he said with a teasing lilt.
“I have the feeling I’m going to want it out of my face,” I said, which wasn’t exactly a lie. The larger truth, though, was the red waves could be rather attention-getting when allowed to flow freely. I didn’t want anyone at the gallery taking particular note of me today.
I smoothed my hands over the skirt of my dress, feeling Garrett’s gaze following the motion. It was a modest enough knee-length A-line, navy with a subtle quatrefoil pattern in a paler blue—the sort of thing Officer Moriarty would wear when trying to blend in with an arty crowd while casing a joint for evidence—but it was a lot more feminine than anything the trio had seen me in since the reception. Both Garrett’s and John’s eyes had shot to me the moment I’d stepped into the lobby to meet them for this field trip.
