Dagger of Lust

by Alexandra Maxwell

  "I'm sorry, Miss Samuels, if you'd called ahead of time, we would have had two rooms available, but at the moment, we can only offer you the one room. The next motel is only a few miles away, but I'm not sure about the vacancies available. If you're up to traveling another hour or so, depending on traffic, we have a sister hotel with more than enough rooms available."

  Tara tapped her foot against the counter, staring at the young woman who'd tried her best to accommodate her and her security guard. The woman's eyes shifted from her screen to Ben then to Tara and back to Ben. It stirred something irrational inside of her.

  “We’ll take it!” Tara said with defiance, garnering an inquisitive look from Ben. “We can make it work. How big is the room again?”

  The woman smiled and glanced at Ben, who nodded with a slight rise in his shoulders.

  "Excuse me!" Tara moved Ben out of her way, flashing her credit card, “I’m booking the room for us. I need you to answer my questions please. What size is the bed we’re going to share?”

  The woman blushed, “It’s, uh, a queen-sized suite with a balcony. There are some chairs-”

  “And I’ll take it, thank you,” Tara insisted with a deliberate slide of the credit card across the counter. She hadn’t any idea where the attitude came from and didn’t want to examine it any further.

  “May I see the vault?” Ben interjected before Tara could say anything else.

  “I’m sorry, what?” Confusion rode the woman’s face.

  “The vault,” Tara repeated for him, “Your website advertises a vault in the manager’s office. May we know the measurements?”

  “Um,” the woman held her hand flat about five inches above the counter, “It’s about yay high and about a foot wide.”

  “That’s not a vault,” Ben snapped.

  “Yeah, that’s barely a safe,” Tara added.

  “I apologize, but we’re really just a mid-sized hotel. The closer you get to Vegas, the more likely you’ll find a hotel with a vault, most likely a casino hotel.”

  Tara glared at Ben.

  “So, do you still want or not want the room?"

  Ben huffed, “Give us a second.”

  Tara pulled Ben away from the counter, “We can’t leave the artifacts in the car.”

  “You’re right about that, and the more I think about it,” Ben scrunched his eyebrows together, "The less I want to leave them in a hotel's vault. How about we order in, take some showers, rest up, and hit the road? We don't have to spend the night. As a matter of fact, we can hash out the details for the rest of our trip, maybe even find a few places I picked out to find out the dimensions of their safes?”

  Tara laughed, “I’d like that. Let’s do that.”

  Ben and Tara spent the next few minutes checking into their room and lugging the rest of their bags to a suite that left much to be desired. Everything screamed beige.

  “This is luxury?” Tara whispered to herself as she made her way to a door toward the back of the room.

  “It’s more like oatmeal,” Ben joked. “Oatmeal colored everything.”

  "Oatmeal sucks. It's the worst of all the hot cereals," she said, opening the door to the suite's balcony. Tara took a quick peek outside and called back to him, "It doesn't suck as much as that balcony, though."

  "Is it that bad?" Ben asked, placing the artifacts case on a table in the corner. He made it a point to hold it the same way she'd told him earlier.

  Tara moved her head up and down slowly, “Yes, because it overlooks the parking lot, and it's not so much a balcony as it is a two by four slab of concrete with a rickety iron railing that probably couldn't stand up to… well, it just looks fragile."

  Ben paused with his eyes darting from the balcony door to Tara, “I kind of want to know where you were going with the sturdiness of the balcony, but I’ll settle for a choice on what to order for dinner.”

  “Order whatever you want, I really just want a drink right now-”

  Ben cut her off, “Vodka isn’t the answer.”

  “Vodka is almost always the answer, and when it isn’t, I'm sure that gin and tequila work just as well."

  “Your best friend is definitely a bartender. I wonder what would happen if we were best friends.”

  Tara giggled, shaking her head side to side, "The way you look and what you do, I'd order a slot at the shooting range.”

  “I can arrange that for you.”

  “No, don’t!” She laughed, “The way that woman down there looked at me while looking at you, she’d be right in my sights.”

  “Really?” Ben cocked his head to the side.

  “Yeah, really! The way she dragged her eyes over you, I thought she'd ask you out. She was extremely judgmental like you wouldn't want to share a room or a bed with me. I'm babbling. It doesn't matter. A burger and fries are fine with me," she giggled nervously.

  “A burger and fries are good, but you shooting the check-in girl may have to wait until we come back here for a vacation and not work. For the record, I don’t mind sharing a room or a bed with you, but I can take the floor or the chairs.”

  She ignored his comments on the sleeping arrangements, “Right, this is work. A neverending trip that ends with me being fired.”

  “At least, it’s an all-expenses-paid trip to unemployment.”

  "Ha, ha," Tara threw a pillow at him, "I really would like to come back here, though. Not specifically this khaki calamity, but I’d love to see LA.”

  “I think you’d like it, most east coasters do. I know a few spots you can eat at.”

  “Is that an offer for a guided tour?” Tara’s curiosity in Ben piqued. The longer she stared at him, the more she wanted to know the man behind the handsome face.

  "I can do that for you," Ben said with a much more severe tone than she anticipated.

  Excited anticipation filled Tara, right before she caught a glimpse of the large black metal case. It called to her as a subtle reminder of why she was sharing a room with the hot bodyguard in the first place.

  “I need a shower,” she said more to herself.

  “You’re right-”

  “Wow, I know we had a nice rapport building a few seconds ago, but I didn’t think we were in a place where we agreed on me needing a shower.”

  Ben stifled his laughter, "I only meant that we agreed on stopping here and booking the room for that exact reason, Tara. Still, we should eat and relax. You hop in the shower, and I can have food brought up."

  “Okay, I can do that.”

  6

  Ben watched Tara with infatuation and lust building inside of him as she headed into the bathroom. The sound of the water followed by billowing steam from under the closed door propelled him to his feet with images of her wetness pulsing through his mind. He wanted to feel her wetness wrapped around him in ways he hadn't felt in a very long time. To have her fingertips tracing the contours of his torso, running through his hair, pulling it back for her mouth to play along his neck, it called to his more primitive urges.

  The very idea of him slipping inside of her, every throbbing inch, sent him practically running from the room. He had to get out of there to stop him from breaking into the bathroom like a sex-crazed lunatic. Instead of having food brought up, he opted to clear his head to refocus on the job he’d been paid to do. A short elevator ride to the lobby helped a lot, especially when he noticed the young lady behind the counter.

  Tara was right, she’d been staring at him the entire time. The closer he got to the desk, the more she tried to be sexy, but it came off unappealing. One hair flip too many made him want to go the loner route he was used to and order food through an app. After a deep breath, he pressed on, forcing himself to socialize.

  “Hey, I want to grab some good burgers and fries. Anything good around here? A diner or something?” he asked her.

  “Oh, there’s plenty of good things to eat around here,” she said with an obnoxious wink.

  Ben didn’t realize how tired he was until that
statement. He wanted to be in the shower. He needed to be back in the room to make sure nothing happened to those priceless artifacts. He tried to curb his irritability, "I mean, is room service available? Can I place my order with you?"

  “Sure,” she forced a smile to greet her rejection, “Just so you know, you can order room service from your room. The phone or the tv remote allows you to do that.”

  “You know what? You’re right. I’ll take your suggestion for the next time, but since I’m here, can you have two orders of burgers and fries, and three large salads brought to our room? You can apply it to this card.” The woman took the credit card he pulled from his wallet. He understood that Tara, well MoVA, was supposed to take care of food and incidentals, but he had a company card while he was on the job too. It didn't sit right with him, putting the food on the room's tab. He finished signing for the order and stepped away from the desk, wondering if he should give the hotel a preliminary assessment.

  However, as Ben walked away from the counter, something caught his eye. There was someone outside of the hotel. They paced around the parking lot like they were lost. He’d brought his bag with his weapon upstairs already and wanted to kick himself for walking around unarmed.

  The nagging feeling in his gut returned to him, forcing him to explore his instincts. Ben kept to the shadows like a predator stalking its prey. He watched diligently while trying his best to sneak out of the lobby without being spotted. He wasn’t sure how much time went by, but the longer he surveilled the stranger, the more he suspected him. There weren’t any indications of any threat level other than his gut.

  When a car packed with kids, and a woman behind the wheel, pulled up alongside the stranger for him to get in, it slammed Ben with insecurity. He’d trusted his gut for a long time, but maybe something was wrong with him. He pulled out his phone with thoughts of reaching out to Tate or Tork, even Dr. Alvarez at this point should be able to get him straight. He hated second-guessing himself.

  Ben retreated from the lobby, chastising himself the entire way upstairs to the khaki calamity. He laughed, remembering that Tara was waiting there for him. Tara and the priceless artifacts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. He needed to focus even more now once he attached a dollar amount to the package they were transporting. The first thing he planned to do was locate his shoulder holster.

  The minute Ben stepped off of the elevator, the aroma of burgers met him outside of the room door. He hadn't realized he was gone that long. When he stepped into the suite, the first thing he saw was Tara hunched over the food cart with a burger the size of her face ready to be devoured. Hunger. He wanted her to look at him the same way.

  Tara wore a towel wrapped around her head with a matching robe. She stopped mid-bite to eye him before completing the primal act with a hint of ketchup sticking to the corner of her mouth.

  “That looks really good,” he told her.

  She bounced her head up and down to a beat only she could hear, answering him after a hearty swallow, “It really is. You should have some. Sit down and eat. We can go over the rest of our route.”

  Ben obliged Tara by pulling one of the chairs closer to the opposite side of the food cart. His mouth salivated as he pulled the cover off of his piping hot plate of food. Taking his first bite felt like heaven, but he ran into the same dripping ketchup issue as she did. The main difference was an entire blob of it coming out of the bottom of his burger and dripping onto his shirt.

  "This is good," he told her while putting the burger down and pushing himself away from the cart. He headed toward his bag but didn't want to put on a clean shirt until he'd showered. He tossed her an inquisitive look, “Do you mind if I take this off? I’d rather not get another shirt dirty until after I’ve showered.”

  “Go ahead, I don’t mind at all,” she said with her focus solely on the food in front of her.

  Ben removed his shirt in a single tug off of his body. He grabbed his food and headed toward the balcony door. The night breeze cooled him off, but it also let him look into the parking lot. His instincts from earlier couldn’t have been that off. There had to be something triggering this reaction in him. He refused it to be paranoia.

  With his eyes glued to their car in particular, he finished his food on the balcony before heading into the room to shower and change. Heat and steam engulfed the room, which helped put him at ease. A piece of him wanted Tara to walk in and catch a glimpse of him fully undressed, but he checked his hormones.

  The reflection of the man in the mirror looked tired, and the job just got underway. His eyes darted toward the door where he heard Tara’s voice.

  “...Danny, I have no intention of doing anything with him. This is for work … he looks like he was pulled off the cover of a magazine...”

  With his ego boosted from his moment of eavesdropping, Ben got into the shower with thoughts of Tara on his mind and in his hand.

  7

  Tara spoke to Danny about the sexy security agent taking a shower in the other room. She tried to remember her last relationship and what they looked like compared to Ben. Memories of lovers long ago didn’t seem to measure up to Ben physically.

  Emotionally?

  Intelligence?

  All of that has yet to be seen.

  While she thought they’d take off as soon as he finished showering, Tara stifled a yawn telling her sleep took precedent to traveling. So she laid down on the bed, staring at the views of the darkened sky from the window accented with its beige blandness egging her to close her eyes. A wave of exhaustion crashed over her dragging her into a slumber before Ben could even get out of the shower.

  Tara’s dreams played tricks on her mind as they brought her back into the hotel room. The room remained beige, but the energy shifted drastically. It went from strangers who clicked for a work assignment to two people who wanted something more than stolen glances of desire.

  Ben stepped out of the shower with a towel wrapped around his waist. Tara pushed herself out of bed, greeting him with a kiss, soft and tender on the lips. His mouth was firm, taking from her kiss everything he needed and more. The strength behind his hands as they slipped her robe open made her pulse quickened with anticipation. Every place he touched, he left a trail of goosebumps for his tongue to taste and follow.

  The swirling kiss of passion turned into lustful urgency the longer they went at it. Like two teenagers under the bleachers, Tara let Ben take control of her as he slid her robe down over her arms. His mouth left hers to kiss her on the shoulder, biting it gently as he traced an imaginary path making sure to hit every zone to make her squeal and squirm with delight. He moaned against her skin, sending vibrations of his desire to her core. Tara’s breathless pants of ecstasy bounced off the walls while she tried to keep herself composed under his seductive touch.

  When Ben reached her stomach, he circled her navel with his tongue. A devilish glare glazed over him as he laid her down on the bed, wrapping her legs around his face to bury himself in a place he wished he could stay forever. Heights of pleasure crashed over Tara as Ben moved his magical tongue back and forth over the most tender spots of her body until he brought her to climax. One after another, Ben didn’t let up until his appetite for her was sated.

  Tara ran her fingers through his thick black hair, finding the rhythm to the beat his tongue strummed against her slickness. When he finished, he moved up her body, having let the towel hanging off of his waist fall to the floor. The moment she felt the pressure of him pressing inside of her, Tara arched her back but tightened the grip of her thighs around his torso.

  Ben smirked, followed by the delicate biting of his lower lip before he leaned down to kiss her. He kissed her with intensity, pushing passion through her to get her to relax and open up to him. He hooked his hand behind her neck while the other explored peaks of her body, teasing, taunting, pulling them to electrify every reaction. When she climaxed again, he slipped inside of her as if they were always meant to be together. They moved in
unison with Ben holding her in place to dig deep enough to stroke that elusive spot making her cry out in ecstasy one more time.

  Tara shot up from her dream with her fingers smelling like sex. Her robe came off at some point as she patted the bed down to search for it. The sheets covered her body, a body that only wore a t-shirt and short shorts from the shower she took earlier. She could tell that she’d slept in the bed alone. The darkness of the room made her squint as she searched for Ben. He sat in a chair in front of the balcony door. His legs stretched out with his ankles crossed on top of the rickety railing that she was sure couldn't stand up to a decent balcony romp.

  Heat flooded her cheeks when she noticed Ben’s eyes were open. He’d been awake during her sexual dream whispers, at least, she hoped they were only whispers. She searched for her phone, only to find it plugged to her charger on the nightstand. It was nearly one in the morning. She couldn't believe she'd slept for almost six hours when that salacious dream seemed to pass by in minutes. She wondered if she went back to sleep right now, could she pick it up from where the dream left off.

  “Ben?” Her voice barely rose above a whisper.

  “Yes, Tara?” If he’d heard anything, he certainly didn’t give it away.

  “We can get out of here if you want. I know the chair isn’t the most comfortable.”

  “It’s okay,” he assured her, “It’s far more comfortable than the car. Besides, it’s late, and I’d feel better if we both got some rest. We can head out in the morning.”

  “Okay," she nodded, slightly thankful she could go back to sleep. First things first, she opted to wear her pajama bottoms for the rest of the night, hoping the barrier would keep her fingers from playing with her desire while she slept. When she finished slipping the pants over her flimsy shorts, she glanced at Ben, who simply held a stoic gaze still fixed to the peaceful world outside of the balcony door.

  “You can share the bed with me, Ben,” she offered once she was dressed. “We can sleep head to toe, you know?”