The Pleasure of Panic

by JA Huss

  Not like a nightmare though. Which I have to ponder for a moment before I let my thoughts wander down the inevitable path.

  Like a dream. And even though most of it has the potential to be—well, let’s be honest here since I’m only talking to myself—scary as fuck, I’m decidedly pleased with last night.

  The sex. Was. Fantastic.

  And I’m not even talking about the wall sex at my house, or the kink-play we did when we got here to his place. I’m talking about the stuff we did after that. The slow stuff. The seductive stuff.

  “Oh, you’re awake?” Finn is standing in the doorway, leaning up against the wall. His head is cocked to one side, like he’s not sure what kind of mood I’m gonna be in, and his expression is something between fear and excitement.

  The pleasure of panic, I realize.

  It’s sexy as fuck. And he’s looking hotter now—wearing nothing but those same cut-off sweat shorts—than he did last night in his black Fed suit.

  “I’m awake. What time is it?”

  “Nine am. I should probably take you home.”

  “Oh.” Well, that deflates me.

  “So you can change, ya know. And get ready for your seminar.”

  “Oh. So… what are you doing today?” I’m trying to feel him out, which is what he’s doing to me.

  “What do you think I’m doing?” He grins. Wide. “I’m your bodyguard, Ms. Grey. I’m following you around, playing chauffeur, and generally being your muscle.”

  I smile. Pretty wide.

  “Not that you need muscle,” he continues, walking slowly towards the bed.

  I can’t take my eyes off him. The planes of his stomach are perfect. His unshaven jaw just makes me want to picture him between my legs. And his shoulders. Damn. They are so wide. Wide enough to be the perfect pillow for my head last night.

  I cuddled with him.

  The thought is startling. Mostly because I’m not really a cuddly person, but also because I might want to turn into a cuddly person. With him.

  “What are you thinking about?” he asks, sitting on the bed near me. He sinks into the mattress and I let my body roll towards him a little, until my face is right next to his thigh.

  I lift my head, scoot closer, and rest it right on his leg.

  Yup. He makes me want to cuddle.

  “Do you want some breakfast before we go?”

  “What are you making?” I ask, looking up at his hazel eyes.

  “Cereal,” he whispers.

  “Sounds great,” I whisper back.

  “OK,” he says, throwing the covers off me and slapping my thigh. “Get up. And come as you are.”

  He leaves without looking back so I get up and follow. Just like I am.

  Boxers and t-shirt. Both his.

  Maybe I’m his too?

  I don’t know why I’m thinking this shit. This really isn’t me. I’m not usually this girl. Not with men, at least. Yeah, I put on a good front for the business. And yeah, I’ve been through some major shit. I’ve done things. Things I’d call courageous.

  But this is something else. It’s… vulnerability.

  I hate being vulnerable. It’s why I crave control. It’s why I’m always the one in charge. It’s why… it’s why I needed this game.

  It’s not a game, Issy Grey. This shit is real and that should scare you so bad. Because what he told you last night is information you didn’t need to know.

  “Dayum,” he says, when I appear in the main room. He’s got one of those open-concept places where the kitchen, dining, and living rooms all run into each other. “Your bedhead is pretty fucking sexy.”

  I sigh. Because he’s saying all the right things. And man, I really hope this isn’t a game, because I like him. He’s done so much right since we were forced together last night. And men who still say all the right things the next morning have potential, right?

  Even if they did kill their—

  “Here,” he says, handing me a bowl of cereal. It’s got multicolored mini-marshmallows in it, which only makes me like him more.

  I take it and climb up into a bar stool at the island. He pours some milk into his bowl, then starts eating it with a giant spoon.

  I look down at my bowl. I’ve got a giant spoon too. Which makes me chuckle. Because I’m not even sure it’ll fit in my mouth.

  “It’ll fit,” Finn says, winking at me. “I got that demonstration last night about the volume capacity of your mouth, so I know things.” He taps his head with his spoon to illustrate his point.

  “You’re dirty,” I say, scooping up some cereal and shoving it in my mouth.

  He watches me. And I’m thinking, who makes eating cereal sexy?

  “Dayum,” he says again.

  “What’s that mean, anyway?” I ask, chewing slowly. I haven’t had sugar cereal in like a decade. It’s delicious. Why don’t I eat this crap daily?

  “Just…” He shakes his head. “I was thinking about you all morning.”

  “How long have you been up?”

  “Hours,” he says. “Many, agonizing hours.”

  “Why didn’t you wake me?”

  “I wanted to enjoy the fact that you were sleeping in my bed for a little longer.” He grins around his spoon and I have to look away because I think… I think I blush.

  “Anyway,” he says. “I was thinking about you all morning. Wondering if you’d be mad at me when you woke up. Wondering if you’d try to ditch me. Wondering if it was just gonna be a one-night thing, or…”

  “Or?” I ask, when he doesn’t finish.

  He shrugs. “I don’t wanna be that guy.”

  “What guy?”

  “The one who falls for the girl and she’s just… being casual, ya know? So she gets spooked and ghosts on him. I don’t want that. So I’m just gonna put it out there. I know what’s happening is kinda weird, but I like you. And I hope you don’t ghost on me.”

  I don’t know what to say to that, so I take another bite of sugar and chew slowly to think about it.

  I was gonna say, I’m not a ghoster. But it’s a lie. And I don’t want to lie to him. I am a ghoster. I’m the fuckin’ queen of ghosting on people. I’ve done it so many times, in so many places, I just can’t deny it with a straight face. And I don’t really want to start this conversation unless I can finish it.

  I’m not ready for that. At all.

  Finn takes the hint and reaches for the TV remote, turning up the volume.

  I swivel around in my chair to stare at it, for lack of anything better to do, and that’s the moment that makes my heart skip.

  Makes my hand freeze halfway to my mouth.

  Makes me gasp with surprise.

  Makes me question every thought, every action, every choice I’ve made over the past eight years.

  Because that’s when my past catches up with me.

  The room goes dark everywhere except the TV. It’s like I’m in a tunnel and there’s a spotlight on the screen.

  Two faces.

  “Holy shit,” Finn says. “That’s Declan.”

  But that’s not the face I see. It’s the face of the man standing beside Declan.

  It’s Caleb.

  “And he’s with…” Finn continues. “What the fuck?”

  And isn’t it ironic that I was just thinking about how well I ghost and there he is? The man I walked out on eight years ago. The man I ran from.

  The only man who knows who, and what, I really am.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - FINN

  “Issy?” I ask. Because while I was talking about Declan being on TV with Caleb, she zoned out or something. “Issy?” I say again. But it’s like she doesn’t even hear me. She gets up, walks over to the big screen mounted above the fireplace, and just stares at the interview going on in front of the Capitol building.

  “Issy?” I ask, walking over to her. “Are you OK?”

  “What is this?” she asks, turning to look up at me.

  “This?” I ask, looking at the TV.
“I dunno,” I shrug. “An interview.” I read the ticker at the bottom of the screen out loud. “FBI joins forces with the Inmate Exoneration Project. Celebrating the release of Caleb Kelly after being incarcerated for—”

  “Eight years,” she whispers. “Eight years.” She looks up at me, eyes wild. “They let him out?”

  “Do you know him? Oh, man. That was the Caleb you mentioned last night, wasn’t it?”

  Fuck.

  “Holy shit,” she says, spinning around, grabbing her hair in confusion. “Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit!”

  “What?” I ask. “What the fuck is happening? Do you know him?” Which is a stupid question, because obviously she does. “Did he hurt you?”

  She doesn’t need to answer. I see it all over her face.

  “What did he do? Issy? What did he do to you? Is he the reason your background profile is so incomplete?”

  She just looks at me. Then she says, “They said he was going away forever! They promised me!”

  “Tell me what’s going on! How do you know him?”

  But she just shakes her head. She turns away, walks to the bedroom, closes the door, and locks it behind her.

  I turn back to the TV and try to figure out what the fuck is happening. Then I have my phone and I’m calling Declan. It goes right to voicemail, and for a second I think of course it does, he’s on TV. But it’s not live. There’s a little banner with the time stamp, and it’s from earlier this morning.

  What the fuck?

  The bedroom door opens, Issy appears—fully dressed in yesterday’s clothes—and says, “We need to find Jordan. Right. Now.”

  “Why? Does he have something to do with this?”

  “I don’t know,” she says. “But I need answers. I need to know what the fuck is going on. And I swear, Agent Murphy—”

  Agent Murphy? I thought we were past that.

  “—if you’re involved in this, if you were sent to distract me so I didn’t find out until it was too late—”

  “Issy, you’re not being rational!”

  “No?” she asks, pretty much hysterical. “No? Well, isn’t it interesting that you show up in my life the night before that asshole gets out of prison? Isn’t it weird that I was tied up all night fucking around with you while this was happening?”

  “I’ve got nothing to do with any of that!”

  “Really? Then why is your partner at the FBI standing next to him saying he’s a supporter? Huh? Answer me that.”

  But I can’t. Because I don’t know. And it looks pretty fuckin’ bad because yeah. This has Finn is involved written all over it.

  She walks to the door, but I grab her by the arm. Her hand is in throat-chop mode immediately, but I know that move now, so I duck. “You’re not going anywhere without me.”

  “The hell I’m not! I’m gonna hunt down Jordan Wells and get to the fuckin’ bottom of this!”

  “You’ve got that seminar in like…” I check the clock on the wall. “Two and half hours. And it’s all the way down in the Tech Center, which is a thirty-minute drive. So how the fuck do you plan on finding Jordan Wells before that, huh?”

  It’s lame. I know it’s lame as I’m saying it, but it’s all I got. And I don’t expect it to work, or stop her for more than a brief pause to tell me to go fuck myself, sans asterisk—

  But she stops. Blinks. Says, “Shit.”

  Which gives me another second. “I’ll get dressed, you stay here, and then I’ll drive you down to your seminar or whatever, and then when that’s over, we’ll go hunt down Jordan together. Deal?”

  She’s shaking her head the whole time I’m talking.

  “Issy,” I say, grabbing her hand. Not her arm, but her hand. Which she looks at like she might be thinking about breaking my fingers, so I let it go and just make that little surrender gesture, the both-hands-in-the-air one, and say, “I swear to fucking God, I’m on your side here. I swear. I just tried calling Declan to see what’s up and he didn’t answer.”

  “Of course not, because then you’d have to provide me with answers! He’s your partner! You have to be in on this!”

  “In on what? I’m new in town, remember? He’s dirty, I’m here to…”

  “Be dirty with him, right?”

  “That’s not…” I want to say it’s not true, but it kinda is true.

  “I knew it!”

  “Wait,” I say, getting in front of her so she can’t leave. “Wait, wait, wait. OK, I am here because of him.” I shake my head, unable to articulate well under this kind of stress. “But I’m on your side, OK? Not his. Yours! And if you give me five minutes to get dressed, I’ll prove it.”

  “How?” She’s tapping her toe, arms crossed over her chest.

  “I’ll use everything in my power, every FBI resource at my disposal to hunt down Jordan Wells and make him talk.”

  She stares at me, more angry than scared. But still, I can just tell—this is fear talking. She’s afraid of Caleb. And I don’t want to bring that up because… because then I’ll have to go down that road with her.

  I’m not ready to do that yet.

  “I’m on your side, Issy,” I say, voice low and even now. “I’ll prove it. I will. I’m still your protector. So whatever Caleb did to you, he’ll never do it again. I’ll make sure of it.”

  She swallows hard. Like her brave exterior is wilting right before my eyes. So I take another step closer, approaching her like a wild animal, and slowly, so very slowly, take her in my arms.

  “He won’t get you,” I murmur. “He won’t get you. I promise. I won’t let him. We’re gonna figure this shit out together and it’s gonna be OK.”

  She just shakes her head no and begins to cry.

  And that’s the part that scares me.

  Because Issy Grey is a pillar of strength. And if she feels vulnerable enough to cry and break her tough exterior in front of a man she barely knows… well, she must have a very good reason.

  I take her back to her house to change clothes. Whoever was there is gone now, but I go in first to make sure. Gun ready, trigger finger ready. Clearing each room.

  She walks right past me up the stairs.

  “Goddammit! What the hell, Issy?”

  “No one’s here,” she says. “And if they’re still hanging around, they’re outside. Point your gun outside.”

  Shit. I go back to the door, which she left open, and press myself up against the foyer wall as I look out, gun in low ready, and scan the street.

  The apartment buildings on either side of her little plot of land act like a wall. Which is good, I guess. People can’t really sneak up on her. They have to approach from the front.

  Unless they come in from the back, dumbass.

  Shit. I’m off my game right now. I’m preoccupied with what she’s hiding in her past. I’m not being careful enough. I kick the door closed, then go towards the back of the house.

  She has a yard, but it’s very small and like the front, it’s flanked on either side by the windowless apartment buildings. The patio space is about twenty feet wide, equally as long, and backs up to an old brick garage. Pretty easy to secure, I realize. This place is set up like a tiny fortress in the middle of the city.

  I can hear the shower going upstairs when I go back inside. So I look around at the mess. Couch cushions are thrown about, table upended and…

  Oh, I want to kill someone now. Because the frame that was on the wall—the one with her young smiling face and a gold medal win—is on the ground, the glass smashed to bits.

  Which means this was personal. Whoever came here was looking for her. Not money, not jewelry, not hidden information.

  Her.

  Fuck.

  The shower upstairs stops, then I hear the old floorboards creaking as she walks around. A few minutes later the hairdryer is blowing, then a few more and she’s walking again.

  What could she be hiding?

  It could be anything, but somehow I know it’s not just anything. It’s
something big. Something dirty. Something like what I’m hiding, maybe.

  My stomach seizes and I feel sick all of a sudden. Because I’m getting a very bad feeling about this whole fucked-up situation.

  Caleb Kelly. And Declan was at his side. So I know exactly what this is about.

  The fucking Mob.

  Issy Grey.

  It’s a weird name. Almost… fake.

  Which has me thinking about her missing background.

  Was she…

  No. Not her.

  But she was young. Young people do stupid things. I know that better than most. I did stupid things. My father did stupid things. And now he’s dead and I killed him and now I’m here. Doing more stupid things.

  Yeah.

  The stairs creak, making me look over at Issy as she descends. She’s transformed. Neat feminine suit, cream-colored wide-leg pants, which look amazing on her small frame, and a fitted matching jacket with a silky ruffled edge over a pale pink cami. She’s wearing make-up and jewelry and flat pink shoes.

  “God,” I say. “I want to back you up against a wall right now.”

  She doesn’t smile, she sighs. “I’m ready. We better just… go.” Then she looks around, spies the broken framed picture on the floor, and shakes her head. “I can’t think about this now. I have a job to do. I have three hundred women coming to that seminar to find something. Some kind of hope to keep going. I might be their last chance to turn their lives around and I can’t let them down.”

  “We’ll figure it out, Issy. I promise.”

  “You better not be involved in this, Finn. Or I will…”

  I wait her out as her threat trails off, wondering what she might do to me. Not that I’m worried about it, I’m not involved in any of this. But I want to know. It’ll tell me something about her. Tell me how deep this runs.

  “I’ll just… break down. I don’t think I can take another betrayal. I really don’t.”

  And that’s all I need to know. This is life-changing bad. This is more than some stupid game. This might be her, hanging by a thread. She is those women coming to hear her speak today. She’s been them, changed her future, somehow, some way, and this, what’s happening to her right now, might snap that thin thread she’s been hanging on by. “I’m not involved, Issy. I swear, I’m not.”