The Job

by Jove Belle

  “’s Tuesday.” Sera’s voice was heavy with sleep, and her body was warm and loose in Tor’s arms.

  “What?”

  Sera rolled over and kissed the side of Tor’s mouth. “It’s Tuesday. Alarm’s for you.”

  She dropped her head back on the pillow, but her hands moved over Tor’s body with more purpose than the previous sleep-filled touches. She was waking up and class was the last thing on her mind.

  “No, baby, it’s Wednesday.”

  Sera’s hands stilled and her brow crinkled in the adorable way that said she was trying to solve an especially difficult problem. She wore the same look when working on her calculus homework or when trying to decide what to order when they indulged in Thai takeout.

  Finally she shook her head. “No, I’m sure it’s Tuesday.”

  This wasn’t the first time they’d had this early morning conversation. It seemed like every other day they debated who the alarm clock was for. Tor had learned one thing for sure from the experience. The only way they were going to find out was if they checked their calendar. Unfortunately, it was attached to the refrigerator, and their phones were on the chargers in the living room. After Sera had accidentally answered her phone one morning when they were both still asleep, Tor had nixed keeping them in the bedroom. It’d taken far too long to explain to her daddy why someone else had answered her phone. The phone wasn’t the issue so much as the fact that she hadn’t been alone at that time of the day, combined with the fact that Sera sounded half asleep when she said hello. That would have been okay by itself, but he refused to let go of the fact that Sera had called her “babe” as she handed her the phone.

  At this point, it didn’t matter who had class, because neither of them would be able to go back to sleep. She smacked Sera on the butt and said, “Come on, let’s get moving.”

  Sera yelped and wiggled away from Tor and out of the blankets. She smiled wickedly and gave Tor that damned grin that made her brain stutter every single time. Then she tackled Tor and held her down in the bed. “Take it back.”

  When they played this game, which was often, Tor was never sure exactly what Sera wanted her to take back—the smack on her ass or the directive to get up. She was certain, however, that whatever it was, “No!” was the appropriate answer.

  She squirmed and tried to get out of Sera’s hold. She knew it was hopeless. Sera spent a ridiculous amount of time weight training. Tor, with her noodle arms, didn’t stand a chance.

  “Are you sure?” Sera switched both of Tor’s hands to one of hers and pulled them over her head. She wiggled her fingers over Tor’s side, mimicking tickling without actually making contact.

  Tor struggled even harder, the movements impeded by the laughter rising in her chest. “No! Don’t!”

  She bucked her hips up, not really to try to unseat Sera—she knew that was hopeless—but more to get her attention. The only thing she had working for her in this situation was sex. Sera was just as distracted by it as she was. It was a tricky line, though. Just the wrong combination of movement and pressure, or laughing uncontrollably from being tickled, and Tor was definitely going to pee herself. Her bladder was screaming for mercy.

  Sera rode the wave of Tor’s movement like a surfer, but the look of concentration mixed with arousal said Tor had more of an effect than Sera wanted to admit. She smiled even though she knew it was a bad idea.

  “You think that’s funny?” Sera asked, her voice dead serious, yet full of subtle amusement. Then, rather than tickling Tor, she did something much better. Or worse, depending on how she looked at it. She kissed Tor, gently at first, letting the passion rise naturally between them.

  Sera ended the kiss and gazed at Tor with intense need. She released the grip on her hands, but Tor left them where they were. The sudden shift in Sera’s mood, from playful to something Tor couldn’t quite identify, left her breathless. She was afraid to move and break the spell. Sera moved slowly, as if she shared Tor’s fears. First she brushed Tor’s hair out of her face and tucked it behind her ear. It was pointless to try to smooth it into any kind of tamed fashion. Sera had woken up with her enough times to know that, but the tenderness in her touch was so sweet. Her heart felt lighter with every brush of Sera’s fingers over her skin.

  “I love you.” Sera barely whispered the words, and Tor worried that she’d heard her wrong. Sure, they’d said it before, but only during sex. “Oh yes, right there, I fucking love you!” panted in her ear as she made Sera come didn’t have the same heart-seizing effect as the three words barely whispered the first thing in the morning when they were both wide-awake and nowhere near orgasming.

  Tor blinked a couple of times, then shook her head. “What?”

  Sera bit her lip. “I love you.”

  Sera’s hair—dyed an unnatural cherry red that still shocked Tor even though it’d been a few weeks—hung loose around her face and neck, and if she bent a little closer it would provide a perfect shelter for Tor to hide in with her. As important as it had seemed to keep her hands where Sera had put them, the need to pull Sera closer overrode all other desires. She moved her hand to the back of Sera’s neck and guided her closer until that shocking, bright, perfect, candy-red hair barely touched the pillow on either side of Tor’s head, blocking out the rest of the room until all that existed was her and Sera.

  “Say it again.”

  “I just…I love you. So much. And I’ve wanted to tell you for ages, but it was never the right time. I’m done waiting for the perfect moment because I realized that every moment I get with you, when it’s just us, here, together, is perfect. I couldn’t wait another second to say it. I love you.”

  Tor tugged her in the rest of the way until their lips were mashed together and the words she said were mostly incoherent, but it didn’t matter because she couldn’t stand to not kiss Sera right now. “I love you, too.”

  Sera gave in, like she always gave in with Tor, and kissed her the way she wanted. She let Sera set the pace, lying pliable and open and ready for whatever Sera wanted to give or take from her. Sera kissed her softly, her lips barely brushing over hers, her tongue skating out to lick over Tor’s lips. God, the gentleness of it brought a moan from deep inside Tor until it overflowed into Sera’s mouth, and Sera dipped her tongue inside to draw it out even longer.

  Then, before she remembered that she had hands, before she could rest them on Sera’s waist and slide them under her T-shirt and up to cup the weight of her breasts, Sera pulled away with a sigh.

  “I wish you didn’t have class.”

  “I don’t have class. It’s Tuesday. I told you.”

  “Come on, then. Let’s go check.”

  Sera climbed gracefully out of the bed and extended a hand to Tor. They walked hand in hand into the kitchen, and Tor did her best to calm herself. Inside, however, she was running around with pom-poms screaming, “She loves me!”

  “Grab your phone.” Sera stopped in front of the fridge to study the calendar, but that only told them so much. Tor opened her phone and there, on the wallpaper, it said very plainly that it was Tuesday. Not Wednesday, like she’d thought.

  “Fuck. I’m going to be late for class.”

  She ran back into the bedroom and started throwing on clothes. She hated it when she overslept and started the day in a rush. She liked to eat breakfast and review her assignments. More than that, though, she liked to shower. She didn’t have time for any of it.

  Sera followed her at a much more leisurely pace. She pulled on her running gear and gathered Tor’s books for her.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m already up. I might as well go for a run. I’ll swing past that bagel place you love and meet you after class?” Sera pulled her hair into a ponytail as she spoke, turning a simple sentence into a question in a way Tor found adorable. It was the little things like that, the small displays of insecurity that Tor was still discovering about her, that contradicted the confident girl who’d approached her in the lib
rary almost a year ago. She loved learning all the nuances about this girl, all the quirks that made her unique and special and hers.

  “That sounds perfect.” She wanted to climb back in bed and forget all about class, especially with Sera smiling at her like that. Sera loved her. She’d said it. More than once. The last thing she cared about that morning was the relative social order of some rare monkey species in Africa, or whatever else her anthropology professor had planned for his lecture. But that’s not the way she and Sera worked. They both went to classes, they both studied hard. As much as she wanted to blow off class and stay in bed with Sera, it would ruin them somehow if Sera actually let her do it. It was better to simply not test the status quo.

  Sera walked Tor to the bus stop, her feet already bouncing in anticipation of the run ahead. Sera was funny that way. Whereas Tor was happy to listen to her headphones and study on the bus ride, Sera had to be in motion. Even when they had class at the same time, Sera would run or ride her bike rather than take the bus. She’d tried to take the bus once, but her legs had jiggled so much during the ride that it had ended with Sera feeling restless and caged and Tor completely pissed off that her study time had turned into a bounce-a-thon. After that, Tor had decided she’d rather ride alone. As much as she liked holding Sera’s hand, she also recognized her girlfriend’s need to not be confined.

  As they waited for the bus, Sera worked through her stretching routine. Tor did what she always did when Sera worked out in front of her. She watched and tried not to drool.

  When the bus pulled into view, Sera kissed her lightly on the cheek and said, “I’ll see you soon.”

  Tor climbed the steps and found her seat as quickly as possible so she’d be able to watch Sera as she ran up the hill toward campus. She crested the hill before Tor’s bus even pulled away from the curb.

  Tor sighed happily. Life couldn’t get any better.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sera evaluated the room. She’d already taken inventory of the stock on the shelves, but she hadn’t looked for possible exit points.

  As far as supply rooms went, it was fairly large, with room for them to move about without tripping over one another, and there were three rows of shelves full of supplies. The backside of the bays provided decent cover for intimate conversations, and even a kiss or two, as Sera had learned earlier with Tor.

  Sera searched the walls and ceiling first for doors or windows, then for signs of heating and cooling ducts. The openings she found were too small, even for a petite woman, which she was not. The ceiling was made of those drop-in acoustic tiles. Maybe she could push one of those up and climb out through the ceiling, assuming the structure would hold her weight. Also, she had to factor her cracked rib into the equation. She was having a hard time standing in one place just breathing. Would she realistically be able to do that much climbing? Yes, she decided, painful or not, she could do it if necessary because their lives depended upon it.

  “There really aren’t any ways out of this room, are there?”

  “Other than the obvious, no.”

  At that, a woman started crying. “Oh, God, we’re going to die, aren’t we?”

  The man next to her pulled her into a hug, and Sera had never been so thankful in her life. She didn’t have the energy to comfort a random stranger at that moment.

  “Maybe they’re not watching the door?” Tor made the statement with a weird, almost screechy lilt at the end.

  “Maybe. Want to find out?” Sera wouldn’t leave that door unguarded, but Marcus’s focus had been fractured for a while. He’d lost control of the situation and his men, so it was possible.

  “Do we have any other choice?”

  “Let me check the ceiling first.” Sera pushed a rolling cart up against the wall next to the tallest shelf. “Hold this for me?”

  “Are you sure?” Tor looked at Sera’s side but didn’t actually say she was worried about her rib. Sera appreciated that. The less the others knew about her injuries, the easier it would be for them to believe she could rescue them all.

  “I think so. I have to try.”

  Tor opened her mouth and closed it again without saying anything. Then, she braced her hands against the cart and said, “Be careful.”

  “You know it.” Sera tried to smile, but her rib picked that moment to pulse with pain, so it likely looked more like a grimace than anything else. Still, Tor returned it, so she imagined it was at least partially successful.

  Sera worked her way to the top of the bookshelf. She had to stop more than once to breathe through a burst of nausea-inducing pain. When she reached the top, she paused to catch her breath and gave herself a moment to get used to her surroundings. The last thing she needed was to lose her balance and fall to the floor. If the fall didn’t kill her—and with how much her rib hurt now, she was pretty sure it would—the investigation into the noise probably would. When she felt comfortable, she stood and pushed a square ceiling tile to the side. She tested the strength of the framework by tugging down on it. One crossbar bent in her hand. Perfect.

  “The door it is.”

  Moving just as slowly, she climbed down. It was easier going down than up because she just had to control her body weight, not lift it. When she reached the floor, she kissed Tor swiftly and surely on the lips, and tried not to think about how she might never get another chance to do it.

  Before she could talk herself out of it, she moved to the door and eased it open. As expected, the door was guarded, but not closely. Reg stood a few yards away with his back to the room. He was close enough to block a clear exit, but far enough that he could still see the other men. A few steps to the right, and he would drop out of Marcus’s line of sight completely. It was possible no one would notice if he disappeared from his post. In a situation where every second counted, that possibility increased the odds of her successfully getting the hostages out of the building.

  The others congregated in the middle of the lobby, near Marcus. He was gesturing wildly, the detonator in his hand. Craig watched him carefully, with a look on his face that said he was torn between crying and punching someone. The others stood with their hands behind their backs, faces impassive. The phone rang constantly.

  Sera strained to hear what Marcus was saying, but all she got was the occasional excited exclamation—nothing meaningful. Marcus’s overall tone, however, further confirmed her belief that she needed to get the hostages out of the building. Talking him down simply wasn’t a possibility.

  Despite her background in psychology, she couldn’t wrap her head around what was motivating Marcus. Clinically, she understood the mentality of a true zealot, a man willing to die for his convictions because of a belief that he’d be rewarded by a higher power in the next life. But there was a long gap to bridge between clinical and practical understanding. She herself was willing to die for the greater good. She might die trying to stop Marcus, but that didn’t mean she wanted to. She hadn’t strapped explosives to a building and then waited calmly for the directive to detonate them, effectively killing herself.

  Before her phone call with Beth, she’d had a lot of unanswered questions, like why hadn’t he pushed the button already? What else was he waiting for? At least now she knew he had a deadline. She’d always been working against the clock; she just hadn’t known the cutoff. Now, she wasn’t sure which was worse, guessing or knowing exactly when the lights would go out if she wasn’t able to stop it.

  Sera closed the door as quietly as possible and backed away a full ten steps before speaking. “We need a different plan.”

  “There is no other plan, remember? The ceiling won’t hold, and that’s the only other possible way out,” Tor reminded her.

  “I don’t remember you being this negative in the past.” That wasn’t exactly true. Tor was always the more practical of the two. Sera took risks, while Tor weighed the odds and always went with the more sensible choice. Sometimes that came across as negative.

  Tor gave her a pointed l
ook. “There are a lot of things I don’t remember about you, like your affinity for criminal enterprise.”

  Should she tell Tor the truth? Surely she’d pieced some of it together, right? After all, she’d talked to Beth. Or maybe she was just choosing not to think about it, just as Sera was choosing not to focus on certain things about Tor. For instance, why Tor was so upset about a bombing across town but stoic when her employee was shot right in front of her? Who was in the other building that upset Tor so greatly? A lover, perhaps? It was a question she wasn’t sure she wanted answered.

  Instead of responding to Tor, she shook her head and turned her focus to the situation at hand. She searched the shelves for something she could use as a weapon. She needed something that would impart maximum damage with minimal effort. She was injured, her strength and range of motion were pitiful, and as far as she could tell, no one else in the group had any training in hand-to-hand combat. She couldn’t afford to go one on one against Reg. He was a big man and she was injured. At her best, she’d have a hard time holding her own. Today she wasn’t hopeful about taking him even with the unfair advantage of an ambush. Not to mention he was armed with at least two guns—the MAC-11 and a pistol of some sort.

  “What are you doing?”

  Sera glanced at Tor and quickly looked away. She couldn’t afford the distraction and was helpless to keep her attention from straying to Tor. It was amazing that she’d ever finished college.

  “I need a weapon.” Sera pulled the bin of scissors off the shelf and tucked them under her arm. So far they were the best bet.

  “A weapon?”

  “The only way out is through Reg. He’s not going to just step aside, even if I say pretty please and smile real nice.”