The Negotiator

by Gadziala, Jessica

  "Because her life is half the world away."

  "Exactly."

  "People can move house, you know," he said, rolling his eyes.

  Oh, to be young and foolish again.

  "It's not that easy, Alexander," I told him, looking away from the window. "She has a life there. She has friends that are like family. She has a connection to that country, that town. You can't ask someone to give all of that away."

  "For love?" he asked, shaking his head. "I think you can," he told me, going outside, jogging down the path, Laird following closely behind.

  Maybe for love, you could.

  Maybe.

  It was still asking a whole hell of a lot. More than I was willing to give up. How could I expect that from another?

  But this wasn't love.

  Not yet a little voice in my head said.

  And likely never.

  Eventually, and I hated to admit this, she would have to leave. I would need to let her go.

  Chernev wouldn't be on the run forever.

  We would ferret him out.

  I would make my men hold him so I could make my way to whatever rock he was living under, and exact my justice myself.

  And then, I would have to tell her.

  That it was safe.

  To go home.

  To leave me.

  I didn't want to, of course. I wanted to find some excuse to keep her here where I had her within reach at all times.

  I couldn't do that, though.

  I remembered once when I was a boy. My father took me to a colleague's house in Australia. And there were these brilliant-colored macaws that would come up on the back deck to beg for food because he had been feeding them since they were babies. I asked why he didn't take them inside, turn them into pets.

  He said something that had always stuck with me.

  When you love and respect something, you never cage it, you never shrink it, you never force it to fit into your world just because you want it there.

  I'd never had a pet after that.

  And I couldn't make one of Melody.

  She had a life. By all accounts, a big life. Full of adventure and intrigue. She had people who loved her.

  It wouldn't be right for me to ask her to give any of that—let alone all of it—up because I liked seeing her across from me at the dining room table.

  It would be like clipping her wings.

  Like sticking her in a cage.

  Like breaking her spirit.

  I couldn't do that to her.

  Much like my father's friend and his birds, I respected her too much.

  "That is a grim face," Melody said, breaking into my swirling thoughts. I looked over to find her head cocked to the side, looking at me with curiosity. "What were you thinking about?"

  "Parrots."

  "Parrots," she repeated, brows scrunching. "That is, ah, strange," she decided, putting down the fresh herbs she'd gathered, going to the sink to wash the dirt off her fingers.

  "Have you ever seen them?"

  "Parrots?" she repeated, shooting me an almost worried look. "Of course I have."

  "In cages, or in the wild?"

  "Both," she said, shrugging. "Why?"

  "It's wrong to cage them, isn't it?"

  "Well, I mean," she started, eyes going considerate. "I guess that depends, doesn't it?"

  "On what?"

  "On if it grew up in the wild? Because taking something from the wild, no matter what it is, is wrong. I think we can all agree with that. But if the bird was bred and hatched in captivity? I don't know. I guess I don't see it as any different than a Guinea Pig or cat or dog. They were all wild once. But they are happy to eat your lettuce, knock your glasses off the counters, and lick your face when you get home from work."

  "You think they're happier?"

  "I think there are different kinds of happy. There is wild happy and there is domestic happy. They're both different, but they're not necessarily better than the other. What is this about? This is a very philosophical discussion to have before noon," she told me, shaking her head. "I was just remembering these wild parrots that ate nuts off my father's friend's porch when I was young."

  "I had a goose bite me on the ass once," she told me, surprising me enough to get a choked laugh out of me.

  "What?"

  "Yeah. Right on the ass," she declared, shrugging. "I mean, I laugh about it now. But those fuckers are vicious. And it hurt."

  "Hm," I said, stalking closer to her, hands going around, sliding down, sinking into her ass. "This ass?" I asked, squeezing.

  Her eyes went from amused to molten in a blink.

  I never saw a woman come alive with the smallest of touches the way she did.

  But I damn sure wasn't taking it for granted.

  "Mmhmm," she said, head tilting to the side, smile going devilish as my fingers gathered her skirt, pulled it upward, fisted it as my other hand grabbed her, turned her, pushed her up against the sink, face staring out the window, back to me.

  Her arms shot out, hands bracing at the back of the sink as my hand grabbed her panties, yanked them down, exposing her ass to me.

  My fingers palmed the soft round cheeks for a second before one hand slipped forward, between, stroked up her clit, thrust inside her pussy, feeling her walls tighten immediately, begging for more.

  There was a time and a place for slow and sweet and explorative, for divine torture, for lingering builds to multiple orgasms.

  With Collis just forty feet away, with Alexander and Laird eventually making their way back, this was not the time or place for that.

  This was the time and place for fast, hard, desperate.

  Judging by the way her hips rocked against me when my fingers turned and raked over her top wall, she was game.

  My fingers pulled from her, grabbing one of her wrists, pulling it up, pinning it on the window frame to brace her, then taking the other wrist, guiding her hand between her legs, pressing it against her clit.

  "Don't stop," I demanded when my hand moved away and her fingers stilled.

  With a shaky inhale, she kept working her clit as I grabbed a condom out of my wallet, then unbuttoned and unzipped my pants, protecting us, then moving in behind her, my cock pressing against her ass cheek for a second until she went up on her tiptoes, arching just right, inviting me inside her slick tightness.

  One hand anchored to her hip, the other moved around her face to clamp over her mouth so as not to alert my guard as I slammed inside her.

  Even muffled, the sound she made was loud, desperate, nearly making me lose it and come right then and there.

  A shudder moved through her as my hand pressed against hers on her clit again, as my hips started withdrawing, then slamming deep again. And again. Again.

  Until every thread of control snapped, making me fuck her harder, faster, her hips slamming against the cabinet, likely leaving bruises. My palm caught her whimpers as her breathing got ragged on the front of my palm. Her pussy got tighter and tighter until her entire body went taut, teetering on the edge.

  My hand pressed against hers.

  My hips thrust.

  And she cried out her orgasm against my palm as I took her as deep as her body would allow, feeling her pussy milk my orgasm out of me, seeming to sap every ounce of my strength in doing so, my body half-folding over hers as I struggled to get my breath again.

  Eventually, I came back down into my body, my hand releasing her mouth, my other sliding from between her legs as I slipped out of her, giving her ass one hard slap as I retrieved my pants.

  She let out a choked squeak at the contact, arms bracing wide on the sides of the sink, taking slow, deliberate breaths, not even bothering to try to retrieve her panties as I discarded the condom, and got my pants back in place.

  There was something more than a little endearing in the way she seemed to forget everything when I made her come.

  Even as Alexander and Laird came back up the path, likely making their wa
y in our direction.

  I stooped down, dragging her panties back into place, flipping her skirt down, and moving away before the door opened, letting in an agitated Alexander and an exasperated Laird who had been stuck on teenager babysitting duty since we arrived.

  "What did he do?" I asked, glancing between them, keeping Melody in my peripheral as her hand slipped to the sink, turning it on, washing.

  "That girl we thought he was visiting with in town? She's a thirty-something-year-old divorcee."

  "Well, older women are a family tradition for first times," Melody offered, shooting me a teasing smile as she turned, drying her hands.

  "Who said it is my first time?" Alexander shot back, chest puffing out. Which pretty much just proved it was. True confidence—like that which came from sexual experience—was quiet. Being loud just said he had no fucking idea what he was doing with a woman yet.

  "Does she know he's underage?" I asked, shaking my head. He was tall and strong for his age. There was still a little baby fat in the face, but other than that, I could see him being confused for eighteen.

  "She knows," Laird told me. "I told her."

  "Hence the sulking," I agreed, jerking my chin toward my brother.

  "I'm not fucking sulking," he shot back, clearly making my point.

  "Watch how you talk to your brother," Melody scolded him before I could.

  "This is a family matter," he shot back, in full-on intolerable teenager mode.

  "Watch it, Alexander," I growled, making him stiffen slightly, realizing he was stepping over a line, one I thought I had made clear just an hour before. "You want to prove you are mature enough to spend your time with grown women, learn how to speak to the ones in this house with a little respect."

  "I hate you sometimes," Alexander hissed as he pushed past me, making a beeline for his room.

  As he went he was chased by Melody's voice, "Then he must be doing something right!" she called at his retreating form. "He's a perfectly nice kid. Right up until he's a little shit," she said, smiling.

  "Welcome to adolescence," I agreed.

  "I kind of understand why all my rich clients ship their high-school aged children off to some boarding school or another. Let them deal with the backtalk and idiocy, send them back when they are more fully formed individuals. Who don't blast terrible music," she added as the stereo came on a few floors above, making the walls shake.

  "I'll have a word with the woman," I told the tired-looking Laird.

  "Thank you," he said, moving off, leaving us alone once again.

  The song above us changed to something louder, more angsty, with a baseline that cut right through your brain even a few floors below.

  "If I have kids, do you think they will be this obnoxious?"

  "Probably," I agreed, moving in beside her.

  "It really makes you develop an understanding for those species who eat their young, y'know?" she added when Alexander decided to lend his vocals to the chorus, making our shoulders pull up to our ears. He never could carry a tune. At high decibels, they splattered around tonelessly.

  "I hear they're sweet when they're little," I told her.

  "That's how they get you," she said, nodding. "They come out fat and squishy and completely in love with you. Then they morph into hormone monsters with more opinion than brains. That's why parents take so many pictures and videos of the fat and squishy phase. To help remind themselves that they love the teenaged terrorists who take over their body in fifteen years."

  Listening to her babble, watching the animated confusion and amusement and wonder play out across her face, I amended my thought from earlier.

  Maybe I was a little bit in love with her already.

  Just a little bit.

  But it had started.

  And I wanted to see where it would go.

  Then he showed up.

  And everything changed.

  FOURTEEN

  Miller

  What did you get someone who had absolutely everything?

  Whatever that was, I needed to get one for Bellamy.

  I never thought I would thank a man for drugging, kidnapping, and conning me into taking a job I didn't want to take.

  Yet, here we were.

  In a beautiful home in Zagori, Greece.

  Cut off from the rest of the world.

  With only one another to keep each other company.

  And, believe me, Christopher and I found some very, very good ways to keep each other company.

  Most of our ideas involved nudity.

  And I was all for that.

  I didn't know what was going on with Christopher's investigation, with his plan to track down Chernev. To be perfectly honest, I didn't want to know. Because I worried that if I knew, it would shatter this secluded little life we were living. Where there were no such things as friends or jobs or lives to get back to.

  So long as I stayed willfully ignorant, I could pretend this was all there was.

  The craziest part?

  I was happy with that.

  I was not someone who liked to be in the dark, who left everything in someone else's hands. No matter how capable those hands may be. I needed to be informed. I needed to be involved.

  Except now.

  Where I was pretty sure I would stick my fingers in my ears and hum like someone about to get spoilers regarding a highly anticipated movie, if someone even hinted at news from the outside world.

  Because I was happy.

  I had honestly not been able to name it for an embarrassingly long time. Seven days passed after we made it into bed before I could finally identify the light, floating feeling inside, the way everything seemed brighter and more beautiful.

  But I found myself staring out the window one evening after dinner, my arms plunged in warm, soapy dishwater, watching Christopher run across the deck to chase the quickly disappearing form of his younger brother, who seemed very determined to get his sexual education from a woman almost old enough to be his mother.

  And a big, stupid, goofy-ass grin spread until my cheeks hurt.

  It was right then that I recognized the feeling that had been flooding my system for days.

  Happiness.

  It was approximately five seconds after that when the smile fell, and a sinking feeling settled in my stomach. Because if this was what happy felt like, I wasn't entirely sure I had ever been happy before. At least not for longer than a few moments.

  That was sad, wasn't it? To make it to my thirties without knowing any sort of lasting joy.

  That seemed sad.

  But it made so much make sense.

  Why I chased the fleeting pleasure of a job well done, the pride of respect among important men and women, the praise from my boss and colleagues.

  Because it gave me just enough to keep going, to convince myself that my life was well balanced, that I was happy with it.

  When, if I had even two full days put together where I wasn't darting off to some foreign place to fix someone else's problem, I would figure out that I had more than a few of my own that needed tending to.

  Like the emptiness of my existence.

  Like the fact that, if you asked me to describe happiness, I wouldn't have been able to come up with a single convincing definition.

  And, I guess, if I thought about it, really dug deep and mucked through all the ugly of my life, I would have to admit that I hadn't felt anything but a vague sort of contentment.

  Nothing like this.

  Maybe a case could be made for dopamine and whatever other hormones were released when you were getting steady—and mind-blowing—orgasms on the regular.

  But it was more than that.

  I didn't even like cheapening it to that for a moment.

  Because there was the sex. Which was amazing. There was companionship with a man I was finding I deeply respected, genuinely enjoyed getting to know on deeper levels. There was the enjoyment that came with teasing a teenager, poking at just the right places to g
et a reaction, but also sharing moments of imparted wisdom, of mutual interest. There was satisfaction in the little things. Like a clean kitchen. Like a home-cooked meal. Like sharing conversation and food and being fully, completely present for a change.

  My mind often raced all over the place. Thinking of jobs. Of coworkers. Of my past. Of my possible future. Of what I was going to watch on TV while I stuffed my face with takeout.

  I was never fully immersed in the moment.

  Until I came here.

  I realized with no small stab of guilt that I hadn't even thought about my crew back home in days. Those people who had taken up the dominant places in my head. And I damn near forgot them for a short span of time.

  Even realizing it, though, the thoughts rushed away, immediately got replaced with new thoughts.

  Like what it meant that after all these years, this was where I found my happy.

  In this home.

  In this country.

  With these people.

  Especially Christopher.

  I knew things were new.

  I understood that deep connections often took a lot of time. But even knowing that, I had to admit that what I felt toward him was deeper than any connection I'd had with anyone else.

  Which was saying something. Because I had spent a Russian winter in a shack with my crew, with no way to get away from them. I'd camped out in countless hotel rooms with Kai, bullshitting about life. I'd been to birthdays and Christmases and baby showers with those people.

  They had more of my time.

  But there was no denying that Christopher had more of me.

  I had given it to him. Fully. Without hesitation. All my stories poured out, tripping over each other in their desperation to finally be told, to be heard, to be understood.

  And he did.

  God, he did.

  He understood.

  I never could have anticipated just how good that would feel. To be seen. To be heard. To be understood. And cared for not despite all of that, but because of it.

  There was no denying the fact—and believe me, an insecure voice had tried—that Christopher did. Care for me.