Behind the Veil

by Kathryn Nolan

“But I was always a physical kid,” she continued. “I grew up in Glensbury State Park, up north. Both of my dads were rangers there, and we lived on a property inside the park. Just our cabin and the woods, basically. From the time we woke up, until the time we went to bed, my siblings and I tore through the forest like hellions. Running, jumping, climbing, building…” She beamed at the memory, watching me with bright eyes. I liked seeing her distance herself from the distraction of Mark.

  “How many siblings?” I asked. She punched a few times, but it lacked the heat of earlier.

  “One sister, one brother. We were all adopted one year apart. Max is five years older than me. Elizabeth is two years younger. My dads wanted their children to grow up in kid-paradise, basically.”

  “I was a city kid,” I said. “We had two trees on our block. I rode the subway to school. The idea that you can climb a tree is bizarre to me.”

  “You should go sometime,” she said. “Up to Glensbury. It’s beautiful.”

  “Maybe you could teach me how to climb a tree?”

  “Yeah,” she smiled. “Yeah, maybe.

  “I’d like that,” I said. Our arms were loose at our sides—I was immersed in the details of Delilah’s private life. They felt like rare jewels. I wanted more.

  “Okay.” She clapped her hands together. “Enough chit-chat. I’m here to kick your ass, remember?”

  “Oh, I remember,” I drawled.

  Her cheeks flushed pink. “That’s the basic strike move. If you and I are out in the field, being attacked, you’ll focus on the weak spots of their body.” She reached up—then stopped. She ran her fingers through her hair and huffed out a breath. “It feels a little…weird to touch you when we’re not pretending to be married.”

  I wondered if we were ever going to talk about the coat closet; the five minutes of stolen affection. It was just my cheek—and it was only a moment—but it had cracked me wide open.

  “Do you want to pretend now?” I asked.

  Her lips parted, blue eyes dilating. “I don’t…actually, it’s fine. We’re sparring. It’s not weird, right?”

  “No, it’s not.” It wasn’t weird at all. In fact, part of me wished it was weirder.

  “Let’s get back to it. Your goal is to strike at their vulnerable places.” She touched my forehead. “Their eyes. Their nose.” Her hand landed on my jaw. “Their jaw.” She gripped my throat. “Their throat.”

  “Got it,” I said hoarsely.

  “And, uh…” She glanced between my legs. “Well, you know about that part.”

  In my fantasy, Delilah squeezed my throat, dragged her palm down my chest, over my stomach, down to a cock that had been achingly hard this entire time. I’d be entirely at her bidding, eager to serve.

  “Right,” was all that I managed to say.

  “Come close, right in front of me.”

  I took a big step, crowding into her space.

  “A common attack would be someone reaching for your wrists. Trying to pull you into their body to subdue you. So go ahead and make a move toward my wrists.”

  I did, completely unaware of what would happen next. Which was Delilah yanking my body forward as she used my body weight to lean back on her leg with the grace of a ballet dancer. Her right leg extended straight up into the air—foot stopping six inches from my face.

  “Got ya,” she teased, then let me go.

  Those few seconds had been a blur of admiration for her dexterity combined with the sight of her long, muscled leg hovering in the air. An urge to lean forward and kiss her ankle gripped me like a kind of madness.

  “You’re so fast.”

  “I’ve had a lot of practice.” She shrugged, like it was an ordinary feat. “Now we’ll do it slow motion.” She nodded at me to go. I grabbed her wrists again.

  “It’s about using your attacker’s body weight against them,” she said, our eyes locked together. “As you lean forward to grab me, I’m leaning backwards, bringing your face closer to my body.”

  “You want my face on your body?” I asked.

  “I’m bringing you into my knee, basically.” She pulled, hard, and as my head lowered, she shot her leg up and out again, this time balancing her foot on my shoulder. “This is one way to do it.”

  She wobbled and I grabbed her foot to steady her. My hand wrapped around her ankle.

  “You okay?”

  She seemed a little dazed. She dropped all the way back. “Yep.” Bouncing on her toes, she wiggled her shoulders. “Try and grab me again.”

  I did—three more times, each time adding another layer of sexual torture. It was the force of her yanking me into her body, as if she craved me like a drug. The scent of her lavender shampoo and her full lips curving into a smirk because she liked besting me.

  And God help me, it was her leg. Every time she kicked up, all I saw was the flexing muscle of her inner thigh, the curve of her hamstrings, the barest swell of her ass exposed by her tiny running shorts. Delilah’s legs were becoming an erotic film I was forced to watch, over and over. A fourth time. A fifth time.

  On the sixth time, she wobbled hard—and instead of her ankle, I grabbed the inside of her leg by mistake, a clumsy meeting of limbs and fingers. Her cheeks blazed red, and we were both panting like marathon runners.

  “Still a tough fucking teacher, Barrett,” I said, wincing as I dodged a jab. “How am I doing?”

  “It’s too early to tell.” She tsked.

  “Liar,” I scoffed. “I’m a natural.”

  “You’re something all right.”

  I made a tepid move to grab her, and she danced out of my grip. “You’re getting tired, husband.”

  “Never,” I said. “You’re my wife. You know I never get tired.”

  “You and I both know that’s not true.”

  I shook my head. “If only Victoria was here to see this real-life marital banter.”

  I made another attempt for her wrists, grabbing them harder than I intended. For a single second, we were locked together, poised for action. She was struggling not to laugh. I was struggling not to lean in and kiss her.

  Instead, I moved—jerking her into me with all of my strength. But I’d underestimated the skill of my partner. I pulled, she pulled—and at the exact moment I thought our faces might collide, her leg shot out with the force of a high-speed train and kicked me square in the chest.

  “Don’t even try,” she panted. She was balanced on her back leg like a crane, but her ankle was shaking. Eyes locked, both grinning, I made a move for her back leg—with purely comical intent. But she gasped out a “fuck,” grasped my tee-shirt with both hands, and tumbled both of us to the ground.

  23

  Delilah

  Henry and I landed on the mat with a shared groan. I experienced the unsettling sensation of falling backward—and then the incredible paradise of his body landing on mine.

  His hands hit the mat on either side of my head, controlling his body weight. For a delicious, delirious thirty seconds, we stared at each other like lovers. He’d taken off his glasses to practice—without the added barrier, his dark brown eyes burned with lust. The knowledge of it felt like a fist tightening in my low belly—my body was eagerly attuned to the call-and-response of his need. My legs were spread, his hips cradled between my thighs like he’d always belonged there.

  His cock was an unyielding pressure against my sex. His smoky-cedar scent enveloped me. His full lips, this close, confirmed a thought I’d been secretly coveting the past few days.

  Henry’s mouth would wreck me.

  I heaved in a breath, knew I should shove him off before I made the exact same mistake I had with Mark: allow my passions to cloud my judgment. But these thirty seconds beat between us like a rapid heartbeat, mimicking the blood roaring in my ears. My hips tilted up of their own volition, seeking completion.

  “I guess this means…I won?” he said.

  “Or maybe it’s all a trick? To lure you into a false sense of complacency?” I
taunted.

  His jaw tightened. My arms were still thrown back—what if he reached forward, interlaced our fingers? What if I let my fake husband pin me down, slake his sexual need on my willing body?

  “This doesn’t feel like part of the official training manual, Delilah.” His rough voice caressed every syllable of my name.

  I shivered, contemplated my next move.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about, newbie.” I levered myself up onto my elbows, bringing our faces dangerously close. I could kiss him right now. Thread my fingers into his curls and crush my mouth to his. He’d tear my shorts in two, shred the barrier of my underwear.

  “I’m pretty sure I know my wife,” he whispered, almost dipping his mouth down. I could see him considering it: the stakes, the consequences, the fallout. It was in this brief moment of mental distraction that I wrenched my hips up, twisted my left leg up and over.

  Flipped Henry Finch onto his back.

  I was straddling his waist, seated firmly on a cock that had grown even harder in the space of a single second. He looked surprised, then delighted, then hot. His hands stayed on the mat, fingers digging in.

  I raised my arms overhead like a boxing champion. “Delilah Barrett for the win!”

  He laughed, the vibrations echoing up my thighs. In the flip, his tee-shirt had ridden up a half-inch, exposing a sliver of ridged abs. I stood up as quickly as I could—before I planted my palms on his chest and ground myself against him. It would have been so fucking easy, so fucking good. At the height of sneaking around with Mark—stealing kisses in the hallway or making out in elevators—I hadn’t felt as achingly turned on as I did in this single moment.

  “I told you,” Henry said, bouncing up and off the mat. My neck craned to maintain eye contact as he regained his height. “I’m just a librarian. I have no skills.”

  “That’s not true and you know it,” I said lightly. “You’re incredibly skilled.”

  “Not compared to you.”

  “Different skills,” I clarified. I threw a few, silly shadow boxes his way and he ducked, laughing.

  “They are markedly different.” We were both still grinning—I hadn’t felt this light-hearted in a long time. “And I do have talents you’re not aware of, wife.”

  I smirked at that, attempted to ignore the rush of heat his words sent through me. “Cocky husband.”

  My fists lashed out again, but this time, he caught my wrist. Tugged. I fell against his chest easily. One arm tightened around my waist, trapping me, while his hand gripped my face. Eyes wide, lips open—I could only stare up at him in absolute adoration.

  “What…what are you doing?” I panted. Henry was dropping his mouth low…then lower.

  “Delilah,” he whispered, and I could hear his restraint. We weren’t kissing—not even close—but if I’d pushed up on my tiptoes our lips would have connected. And I wanted to—I wanted to. He was too warm, too sexy, too hard, too charming. And this ghosting of Henry’s mouth, inches from my own, felt magnificent.

  “Maybe this is all a trick,” he said, repeating my taunt back to me, “to lure you into a false sense of complacency.”

  His eyes sparkled with humor.

  “I see the student has become the teacher,” I said airily.

  “Except I don’t want to stop these lessons.” He pinned me with a look overflowing with honesty.

  Codex’s office door creaked open, and Henry let me go, clearing his throat and waving to our coworkers. Freya was yawning, bun messier than usual, eyes bleary behind her glasses. Abe was immaculate in his suit.

  “I’ll make an educated guess that Delilah won,” he mused, flipping on lights and beckoning us to follow him into his office. We did, obedient as schoolchildren. Freya yawned again and leaned into me for a hug.

  “Mark was there last night,” I said, giving her a big squeeze.

  She reared back, brow furrowed. “Do you need someone to help hide his body?”

  “Delilah threatened to put her stiletto in his face,” Henry said.

  Abe arched his eyebrows at me. “Not with Victoria around, I’m assuming?”

  “Please, I’m a professional.”

  Freya snorted, reaching into her bag. “You deserve this gift I brought you even more.” It was a greasy breakfast sandwich from my favorite food cart. My stomach growled at the smell.

  “You’re an angel,” I said. “Victoria confirmed our invite to the gala,” I said, relaying the details from the night before: Francisco’s anger, Victoria’s revealing comments, Mark, my faint.

  Behind Abe, Freya had hung a whiteboard on the exposed brick wall, where she was keeping track of the various online personas she kept active online. Her notes were scattered, filled with underlines and exclamation points and a short-list of suspects that also could have taken the Copernicus.

  In the middle of the board was our countdown.

  Days Until Copernicus Exhibit: 13

  Freya was listening enthusiastically, biting her nails like I was telling a ghost story. Abe sat impassive, expression neutral.

  “Francisco called me this morning,” he said when I finished, drumming his fingers on the desk. “He wanted to convey his disappointment in the two of you last night.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “At which I repeated what Delilah said to him, only with a few extra choice words.”

  “You’re not worried you’ll piss him off? That he’ll drop our contract?” Henry asked.

  “Francisco and I have known each other for a long time,” Abe explained. “I understand what he’s going through. But I reminded him that we have a higher case close rate than the FBI’s Art Theft department and he’d be advised to let us work the way we work.”

  My eyes fell back on the countdown. 13 days.

  “He also wanted to let me know that the FBI have brought in a suspect.”

  “Wait, what?” I asked, leaning forward.

  “Obviously, they won’t give Francisco the name. But since you were just mingling with Victoria last night, I think it’s safe to assume it’s not her.”

  “What does this mean?” Henry asked.

  Abe cast his eyes over at me. “Either the FBI has the right suspect, and we’ve been chasing the wrong one. Or vice-versa. We won’t know unless the person is formally charged.”

  “But the book’s not back yet?” I said.

  Abe shook his head. “No manuscript anywhere. It cannot be found.” He paused. “Doesn’t necessarily mean they have the wrong suspect though.”

  “At the end of the day though, that’s what we want, right?” Henry said. “We want the book back. Who cares who finds it?”

  Abe and Freya shared a bemused look at my expense. Henry had barely been here three months and yet he was more comfortable with the gray area Codex operated in than I was.

  “The book is the most important,” Abe said. “Always.”

  “And at least the FBI can actually arrest them,” I grumbled, knowing I was picking at an old argument that wasn’t going to go anywhere. It would have been hard—but not impossible—to find my way into another police unit. But the experience had left such a nasty taste in my mouth I had hoped becoming a private detective would quench my thirst for chasing down bad guys—but without the bullshit of an office environment, the pesky red tape and bureaucracy. And in so many ways it did, especially after two years of it.

  But my job was no longer to arrest, handcuff, charge, or jail. That was not within Codex’s purview.

  “Unless they have the wrong person,” Abe shot back. “Last time I checked, we were chasing down a strong lead.”

  His faith in me felt like too much pressure, especially in light of what he’d told us.

  What if it was all a bad instinct—Mark all over again?

  “I think we’re chasing the right lead too, but all this trust-building is taking time,” Freya interjected. “Not that the two of you aren’t doing a great job,” she added. “But time is not our friend here.
You two need to get into her private collection. Like immediately.”

  Anxiety gripped my nerves—the detective in me wanted to run to Victoria’s house, barge in, and find that book. If it was there.

  But I glanced at Henry—the strength in his forearms, the curve of his biceps. And I wanted to be back on that mat with him.

  “Which is why I have another present. This one’s for you, Henry.” She waggled her eyebrows at him as she went into our secure storage area, coming back with a small package wrapped in newspaper.

  “A book for the librarian,” she said with a mock bow. “I was up all night working on this.” Freya took out her laptop, typed furiously for a minute, then turned her screen around. “There was a big theft at the Fordham Rare Manuscript Library in Los Angeles last week,” she said. “Thieves broke into the library, stealing twelve rare books in the seven minutes they had before the cops responded to the security alarm.” She nodded at the package. “Open it.”

  Henry did—a big, sexy grin spreading across his face when he saw what it was. I leaned over to see, cheek brushing his shoulder.

  “A Room of One’s Own?” I read.

  “Virginia Woolf’s famous feminist essay on women and writing,” he said. He opened the cover slowly, whistled beneath his breath when he saw the cover page. “Signed?”

  “In her signature purple ink and everything,” Freya said. She adjusted her glasses, shoved up the sleeves of her sweater. “The owner over at Pickwick Rare Books on Front Street is my personal fucking hero. That and Abe, who authorized quite a bit of cash for us to buy this. I basically spread a rumor in the online forums last night that one of the books stolen from LA made its way to Philly. According to what’s been reported in the papers, some of the stolen books were by Virginia Woolf. But they haven’t printed the titles yet. If she’s heard even an inkling of what’s happened, the name will pique her interest.”

  “She’ll think we have the strings to pull to gain access to something so notorious,” I said.

  “What did she say to you guys the other night? About the different levels?”

  I nodded. “We bring her a high-profile gift. Maybe she invites Henry and Delilah Thornhill to see her collection as a thank you.”