Pride and Prostitution

by Penelope St James

  It was more than his washboard abs and the perfect curve of his ass. It was the seduction of it all, the way he made her feel smart, sexy. It was the look in his hazel eyes, as if he wanted to kiss her until she couldn’t breathe.

  The orgasm hit her like a brick wall, not soft, subtle waves. The pleasure exploded through her and lights filled her vision as her back arched. She stifled a cry and bit her lip. One last circle shook her body and she relaxed, breathless, back onto the mattress.

  A deep warmth filled her as she looked up at ceiling. Son of a bitch.

  * * * * *

  David closed the door and leaned against it. The other agents were back, all double- and triple-checking the surveillance they’d gathered before Samson came. He ignored the buzz and listened to the words in his head. It was there. Locked in his head, even if he never saw her again. Someone thought he was amazing.

  “What did lover girl say?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Right. You’re practically swooning. Man up. Samson’s going to be here—”

  The hotel room door burst open and his boss stood there, all six-foot-four of him in a black suit and darker look.

  David stood at attention, as did Renner, as fast as he could.

  “Where’s the hooker?”

  David looked at Renner who pressed his lips together.

  “Still off the grid, sir,” David answered.

  Samson walked toward Renner and shoved his chair across the room. He studied the three computer screens.

  “What’s the other hooker got to say?”

  David’s blood raced and his body coiled with tension. Renner put his hand on his partner’s shoulder to keep him from pouncing on their boss.

  “Miss Howard has been in contact with Miss Fuller and I believe she is on the verge of flipping, sir.”

  “And you’re going to sit here and wait for the woman to make up her mind?”

  David looked over at his partner, whose hand still held him back. Renner let out a deep breath and shook his head.

  David pulled away from him. “Miss Howard has been a valuable asset in this investigation.”

  “She was a mistake, agent.”

  David clenched his jaw to keep the words in.

  “You’re trying to cover your ass.”

  Renner stepped in. “Sir, she really has given us insight into the—”

  “And you’re trying to cover his ass. Get her in here.”

  The double doors to the bedroom flew open and Gemma stood there looking like a dream. She’d tied her shirt to make it tighter around her waist, taken off her glasses and her dark hair curled around her face.

  “Someone order a hooker?” she asked, her lips a blood-red.

  David’s jaw hit the floor. This was not his Gemma. This was something new, someone who sent excitement up his spine and made him stir with longing again.

  “That is what you asked for, right?” she asked again.

  Even Samson stood straighter when she walked into the room.

  “Because that’s what any pretty girl having a drink in a bar is, right? For hire?”

  David watched as this amazing woman completely owned the room of officers. Papers stopped shuffling. Surveillance feeds were ignored. The buzzing stopped.

  “You must be Samson.”

  His boss finally stepped forward. “I need to ask you a few questions.”

  Gemma walked slowly over to Renner’s chair and sat down. “I’m all yours.”

  David’s entire body sizzled. Gemma was suddenly the girl from last night, the one who shone, the one who set each of his nerves on fire. Her shoulders were relaxed as she leaned back in the chair, and every man in the room watched as she lifted her ankle and slid one long leg down the length of the other, locking them tightly together. She ran her finger down the arm of the chair and surveyed the room like a predator searching for prey.

  When she flicked her gaze over to him, he knew he wanted her. There was an ache on the underside of his balls that tightened as if she were raking her nails across his chest and not just her eyes.

  This was some type of foreplay he’d only experienced in books. Seduction from across the room. Maybe she’d been reading too much Austen because she’d mastered the power of a coy smile and it took everything in his power not to grow hard in the midst of his coworkers.

  Chapter Eleven

  Gemma knew that the plan was to distract Samson long enough to let Annie have the time she needed to figure things out, but within twenty minutes of being grilled Gemma wanted to smash Samson’s face in with his shoe. He was a broken record. He was too persistent that she was at fault here.

  Like the time at the bookstore when the manager insisted she’d lost an entire order of bestsellers, when really he hadn’t ordered them at all. There was a reason she hated her job and it was more than just the long hours and the customers. She was the first to get blamed when something didn’t go right, and she was tired of cleaning up her boss’s messes.

  “People get angry when they’re guilty of something,” she grumbled.

  “What are you yammering about?”

  She focused back on the agent before her. “Oh. I’m yammering now?”

  A bead of sweat rolled down the side of Samson’s face and dripped onto his black suit. It wasn’t hot. She was actually a little cold. She looked around at the other agents who were stiff as boards, but not sweating.

  What could make a man sweat like that? Was he nervous? Desperate? Her own boss had sweated like that when corporate had come down to survey the store after a bad audit, right after he had nearly deleted the entire inventory from the computer. And then he’d promptly laid into her for the mystery section being three books short.

  “I can go all night,” he snapped.

  “So can I. You have it on record.”

  The man’s jaw dropped.

  Finally some quiet. She needed a moment to think. Samson was nervous. Why? Why was he more nervous than David had ever been? David was the one with his job on the line. David should have been the one sweating this. Not Samson. This was just a case for him.

  Was he afraid? If he was really that worried, he’d be ordering around cops and making more FBI agents squirm. But he was in here with her. Asking leading questions. Asking the same questions over and over, trying to catch her in a lie.

  She looked up at David who leaned against the far wall as if he were holding it up. David was watching her suffer Samson. As if they all had watched before. Or at least as if they had all listened before.

  Heat grew in her cheeks. She wasn’t a sideshow. She wasn’t a paid attraction. She wasn’t a paid anything. This guy was wasting her time, when it was her full intention to waste his. Annie was out there and so was someone who killed prostitutes.

  And all these agents were just standing around and letting it happen. David was letting it happen after he’d promised to help her.

  Samson was distracting all of them from the case and she was helping him.

  “You conniving little Wickham. What are you playing at here?”

  “What are you going on about?” Samson asked.

  She needed to get Samson out of here and buy David enough time to figure out what was going on. She needed to break up this little party so someone could get out there and actually solve this case or find Annie. Well, if her books had taught her anything, it was that a spot of violence usually drove the plot forward. But this guy had nearly sixty pounds and eight inches on her.

  But there was one thing she knew was effective at shutting up talking men.

  “You’re up to your neck in trouble, girl. You’d better get serious about giving me some real information.”

  She jumped up. “My name is Gemma Howard,” she shouted.

  She reeled back and punched him as hard as she could.

  Apparently she’d been holding back with David. Samson’s nose cracked as her knuckles connected with his face.

  Blood spurted and the man cried out and cupp
ed his nose. She looked down at her hand to see she’d reopened the cut from punching David.

  Even as the other agents flooded in to hold her down and get Samson out of there, this punch really made her feel strong. As though she was finally taking some action in the right direction.

  After the flood subsided, she was left with two agents pushing her into a chair.

  Gemma looked up and sweetly smiled at the female agent. “I think I’d like a lawyer and a bathroom break now.”

  * * * * *

  David ached. He’d spent the first hour of the interrogation pressed against the wall, firmly stationed behind a chair. Samson was laying into her something fierce and she bore it with grace.

  Samson grilled her about her job, her travel habits, her relationship with her manager and she answered his questions calmly.

  He saw the shift in her, the tension as it rippled across her body, already tight with tension. She’d found a plan and was going to do something.

  David had to hold back a cheer when she clocked Samson.

  When the other agents shuffled Samson out of the room, David went to her side. “Are you okay?”

  Her cheeks were flushed and he could smell the sweet floral scent of her. “Feeling raked over the coals, but I’m fine.”

  Ignoring the two agents hovering above her, he slid his hand under hers. Gemma squeezed as she took a deep breath, her eyes fluttering shut for a moment.

  “Anytime you want a job at a bookstore, I can totally put in a good word for you.”

  “After this I might need that recommendation.”

  Her lashes fluttered open. “He’s going fire you.”

  “It’s a little harder than that in the bureau, but it’s going to be a while before Renner and I see daylight.”

  “Especially if you don’t get on the computer or something and start holding up your end of the plan.”

  David frowned. “There was a plan?”

  “I stall Samson. Stalling done. You figure out where his intel is coming from. I thought that’s what you said in the bedroom?”

  Bedroom. Right. He knew he’d said something, but really what he’d been focused on were her worried lips and the way that the sheets had made her hair stick up as it had the night before. “Right.”

  “Samson is hiding something. You saw him. He was trying to trip me up. If I didn’t know better, and I don’t because I’m not the one trained for all this, I’d say that he’s in on it somehow, or connected to it, or being blackmailed by it.”

  “By what?”

  “I don’t know. That’s where you come in, Agent Bond.”

  “Is that the only spy novel you’ve read?”

  Gemma nodded.

  “Then I am going to have so much fun introducing you to the world of spy thrillers, get you out of that Regency bubble.” David smiled and pushed a curl out of her eyes. His hands tingled at being so close to her and he didn’t want to stop at the one soft touch. He wanted to run his hands through her hair, let the silk slip through his fingers as he explored her mouth once more.

  He could feel the stare of the agents above him, weighing down on him. He pulled his hands back to his sides.

  A static voice echoed through the speakers on the computer. “Sitter, this is unit three. We’ve got eyes on a potential suspect.”

  “What?” he asked as Gemma echoed him.

  David raced to the computer and picked up the headset. The rest of the agents slowly filled the room to hear what was going on.

  “Repeat that, Agent,” he said.

  “We’ve got a lone female matching the original suspect’s description.”

  There was a shuffle behind him and Samson leaned over his shoulder, blood soaking the towel covering his nose.

  “What have we got?”

  David pulled up the locations of the few agents still out at the hotel sites. “She’s at the Marriott Times Square.”

  “Can we confirm it’s the one we are looking for?” Samson leaned down on David’s chair.

  “Unit three, can you confirm the original target?”

  The line was silent. David held his breath. What if it was Annie? Was she trying to get caught? He wanted to ask Gemma, but there was a wall of agents between them.

  “Cannot confirm identity, sir.”

  David exhaled. “Thank you—”

  “Sitter, we’ve got a hit on the original target at the W.”

  “What?” Samson railed behind David and he flinched.

  Another agent came over the line. “Sitter, we’ve got a possible hit on the original target at the Plaza.”

  David looked over his shoulder to Samson. The vein in his forehead pulsed with anger.

  “Get out there. Now!” Samson yelled as he spun on the waiting agents.

  David gave the orders to the men on the ground to keep the suspect in their sights no matter what.

  “You too, Hadley. Go find that girl.”

  He couldn’t leave Gemma alone with Samson. But he couldn’t rightly investigate Samson’s intel right under his nose. He slowly rose from the chair and eyed his partner.

  Renner joined him at the doorway.

  “Take care of her.”

  “You’re an idiot.” Renner nodded. “Figure out this mess.”

  He met Gemma’s gaze one more time and his stomach tightened. Everything hummed, buzzed. He wanted to be the one to find Annie. He wanted to be the one to reunite them safely.

  He forced his eyes away from her and went to go complete his original mission—get the girl.

  Chapter Twelve

  Gemma watched as David ran out the door. Just jumped at his supervisor’s orders like a well-trained dog. What was she supposed to do now? Most of the agents had left with David and his supervisor, but Renner and two others were packing up.

  Were they moving? Was she finally going to see something besides the inside of the hotel room?

  The look in Renner’s eyes didn’t exactly communicate freedom.

  “What is it about you, Miss Howard? Charming agents left and right.” Renner hobbled up beside her.

  “It’s a gift. What’s happening?”

  “We’re going back to the office. You’ll get to see where lover boy works.”

  “I’m guessing that I won’t be getting the tour.”

  Renner pulled a pair of handcuffs out of a holder on his belt. “And you’ll have to wear these.”

  Gemma pushed her chair away from him. “What? Why?”

  “You punched an FBI supervisor. Nothing is keeping you out of these now.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yep.”

  She glared at him as she rose from her chair. “You’ve been trying to get me in cuffs this whole time.”

  “I could make a joke that I figured you were used to stuff like this.”

  “But…”

  Renner smiled as he twirled the cuffs around his finger. “But I bet you don’t get much kink at the bookstore.”

  Stunned, she didn’t protest when he turned her around and pulled her hands into the cuffs. “Do we have to do it from behind?”

  “Yep.”

  Her face flushed. “I totally walked into that, didn’t I?” She glanced over her shoulder.

  Renner flashed his award-winning smile. “Don’t worry. I’ll be gentle.”

  * * * * *

  David needed to pace but the small van he had taken over outside of the W barely let him turn around without knocking his knees against something.

  She was fine, he told himself. She was coming in with Renner. She was fine. She might officially do some jail time for hitting a federal agent, but she was safe. Between Gemma punching his boss and whatever Annie’s ring was playing at, both had gotten him enough time to find out what was really going on with Samson.

  What wasn’t David seeing?

  Anything, he thought. He wasn’t seeing anything because Gemma took up every neuron in his brain. Her emerald eyes. Her sweet voice that lulled his overactive brain
into a sense of calm. And lips that riled every inch of his body into a wild frenzy.

  Maybe she had blinded him.

  Maybe he was better off relegated to the van.

  But that’s where he belonged. In the van. Figuring out the puzzle pieces as Gemma trusted him to do. As those girls were waiting for him to figure out.

  He took a deep breath and turned toward the computer.

  David worked as fast as he could. The familiar keys and passwords came back to him as he opened up docket after docket, trying to find any of the ties Gemma seemed to be so sure about. He scanned every report of every case they had worked under Samson. Refreshed every name in his head.

  He didn’t know if he shared her gut feeling of him being in on it, but he knew something was off about the intel.

  David’s cell phone rang and he turned on the Bluetooth in his ear. “Unit two.”

  “Gemma’s safe back at the office. I gave her the tour.”

  “Thanks, Renner. How pissed is Samson?”

  “You have no idea. What did you find at the hotel?”

  “Not Annie,” David grumbled. There were a million slender brunettes in Manhattan. And his boss had them chasing all of them. It gave weight to Gemma’s claim that Samson was hiding something.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I really can’t tell you.”

  Renner sighed sharply. “Shut up. What was all that Wickham stuff?”

  “Pride and Prejudice. He’s the guy that lies to the main character, tries to hide his past from everyone.”

  “How did it end for him?”

  David snorted. “He gets married to the flaky youngest daughter of a poor family.”

  “So, punished. Understood. Now what the hell are you doing, David?”

  He couldn’t lie to Renner. “She’s got a point. Samson’s given us the intel but never explained where he got it. And now it’s wrong?”

  “Crap, you’ve really drunk the Kool-Aid. This is career suicide.”

  “Not if I’m right.”

  “Even if you’re right.”

  David laughed. “Not unless Samson looks up his own records.”

  Renner’s voice dropped and he hissed, “How do you know Samson’s password?”