He settled his hands on my hips. “I’ve worked too hard and too long on this relationship to not reap some kind of reward.”
I didn’t shove him away, but I didn’t pull him any closer either. “One week and a couple bouquets of flowers constitutes exceptional effort these days?”
His grip tightened as he pulled me closer. I eyed my abandoned purse down the hall and hoped I’d correctly predicted his next move. If there was no aggression to do the job for him, hopefully a magic pill was stuffed in some medicine cabinet.
“It is for a man like myself,” he answered.
I was about to argue when I realized he was right. For a man like Rob Tucker, a one-week relationship with a woman he’d just met was a notable effort.
“So?” I raised an eyebrow, waiting and trying not to stare at my purse.
“So . . . why don’t you lie down and get comfortable.” His eyes scanned the bed as he backed away from me . . . toward the bathroom. “I’ve got something I need to do before moving on to our extracurricular activities.”
As I turned toward the bed, I smiled. I couldn’t have managed the situation any better. “You’ve got something to do in the bathroom?” When it came to Rob Tucker, I was going to take every jab and cheap shot I could. Having “business” in the bathroom included.
“My office just so happens to connect through the master bathroom,” he replied.
Since his back was to me, I rolled my eyes. “Have fun with your business. Don’t keep me waiting too long.”
“Just get comfortable, and don’t go anywhere. This will take me a little while,” he said as he disappeared into the bathroom and closed the door.
Yeah, it’ll take anywhere from fifteen to thirty minutes if that pill’s the fast-acting kind. Dealing with the advanced age of the Targets I generally worked with, I had more experience with those magic little pills than a woman my age should.
I waited a few more moments to make sure I was in the clear, then I flew across the bedroom and snatched my purse from the floor. I should have plenty of time to get everything set up and ready, but I wasn’t going to chance it. Rob seemed like the kind of man who might change his mind and come back swinging, hoping for a more natural solution to his erectile problem. Digging the phone from my purse, I scanned the room for the ideal place to put it. I wasn’t too worried about making sure it had a good view of the head of the bed because I could manipulate what positions we tangled ourselves into. The Kama Sutra had nothing on the ways I’d managed to contort my body.
My attention shifted to what must have been Mrs. Tucker’s dresser. How fitting . . . So many items were propped on that dresser that one more small one would easily blend in. If I did my job right, Rob wouldn’t be thinking about dressers or foreign objects or even be able to remember where he was when I was finished with him. As I hurried to the dresser, I double-checked the available memory on the phone to make sure there was plenty of space for several minutes of footage. If I was doing my job right, getting the evidence wouldn’t take longer than a few minutes.
After adjusting a couple pictures, I slid the phone in between them so that only the camera sensor was showing. As I finished placing the camera, I heard the telltale sound of pills tumbling out of a bottle. If Rob needed the same amount of time to pop a pill as I took to jimmy-rig a hiding spot for a camera—all, might I mention, while buck naked—he didn’t have a future in espionage.
After that, I waited. I waited so long, I found myself checking the window for the sunrise. I checked and rechecked my hidden camera. I ran across the room to check it from that angle. I jumped on the bed and checked it from that one, too. By the time I heard the bathroom doorknob twisting open, I’d been about to check the angle from the closet. Good timing, because if I wasn’t already manic, I was one more check away from it.
I waited until the door started to open to tap the record button. Then I glued on a smile and sauntered back to the bed. Game time. My skin nearly erupted in goose bumps when I realized that I was seconds away from sleeping with the most vile person I’d had the displeasure of meeting. So I reminded myself that in a mere few minutes, I’d never have to see said vile person again.
“The last guy who left me waiting that long never saw me again,” I said as I propped myself on the edge of the bed. A casual inspection of his below-the-belt region revealed that his problem had been solved, and he was already suited up as a bonus. The miracles of modern science . . .
His smirk was back in place as he approached. “But the last guy wasn’t me. I’m not the kind of man a girl can just walk away from. And to prove it, you’re still here.”
My fingers curled into the mattress, both from the girl reference (yet again) and his assumption that he was the one man a woman couldn’t walk away from. On the contrary, he was exactly the one man a woman should walk away from. Delusion was a powerful thing.
“No, Rob. The last guy wasn’t you.”
Out of nowhere, Henry’s face flashed through my head. That was the second time Henry had managed to materialize in the middle of my final seduction of a Target. Last time, it had unsettled me, but this time it somehow managed to ground me. To center me, even. Oh, dear god . . .
I put myself back into character, gave Rob a slow smile, and beckoned him closer. As he approached, I glanced at the hidden phone to make sure we were at a good angle. I adjusted my place on the edge of the mattress a few inches. Better to be safe.
When Rob was in front of me, he shoved my knees aside and stepped between them. The crooked smile that curved into place gave away just how much he enjoyed looking down on me. “You know I could be overpowering you right now? You know I could be holding you down and turning you into the same unrecognizable mess as last week, don’t you?”
Vile. Of the plethora of unsavory designations one could assign to Rob Tucker, that one topped the pile. God, I loved knowing he was going down. If it was allowed, I would have been in the front seat, all day every day, during his divorce trial. Pumping my fist every time Mrs. Tucker’s attorney stuck it to him. But it wasn’t time for fist pumps or victory dances yet. I had to play the part and finish the job.
Lowering my eyes, I forced out the words I needed to say. “I know that. Of course I do.”
He was barely touching me yet, but those words made him groan as if he was two thrusts deep into his orgasm. Without another word, he shoved me onto my back, collapsing onto me. He didn’t hold his weight carefully above me, nor did he enter me gently—not that I’d expected him to. Just because hitting was off the table didn’t mean he wouldn’t assert his dominance in other places.
As he moved and grunted, I glanced behind me. At that angle, anyone could identify with absolute certainty that the man throwing me onto my back was Rob Tucker. I turned my face into the mattress to allow myself one small smile, but when he gripped my hips and pulled them back toward him, my smile fell. No victory dance yet. Not quite.
Moving quickly and just as powerfully, I spun around and broke free of his grip. As I crawled across the mattress, I met his scowl with a playful look. “Only good boys get to do a woman that way. And you are not a good boy.” I shook my head maybe a bit too adamantly.
“Something tells me you don’t have a lot of experience with good guys.” Rob reached for my ankle to pull me back, but I kicked his hand away.
Sitting up on my knees, I patted the mattress. “You’re right. I don’t. But I have more than enough experience with bad ones and how they like it.”
Rob examined me, the mattress, and me one more time before laying down. “I like this view better anyway.”
I pivoted over him. Looking down at him, just as obviously as he had with me moments ago, I drilled my fingers into his chest until he grimaced. I might have gone a little deeper after that. “So do I.”
“All right, sweetheart. You talk a big talk. Let’s see what you’re actually made of.” He spread his arms wide, giving me an expectant expression. When I continued staring down at him, unm
oving, he grabbed my hips and moved me into position. “Listen. I thought I made this clear, but just in case things are a little foggy in that peanut-sized brain of yours, here it is one last time. If I say jump, you jump. If I say go, you go. If I say shut up, you shut up. And if I say fuck, you fuck.” He sat up on his elbows and lifted a brow. “Got it?”
Other than my blood heating, the rest of me stayed frozen in place. “Fuck—”
“Me. Now,” he interjected.
“Fuck . . . you. Now,” I tacked on when he opened his mouth.
“That’s correct. Fuck me. That’s your marching tune for the rest of the night.”
“Let me get this straight, you know, given my peanut-sized brain . . .” I cleared my throat and resisted the overwhelming urge to slap him. “You want me to fuck you. Is that right?”
When I waited for an answer, his fingers curled deep into my hips before pulling me down on him. “Does it look like I’m about to object?”
I smiled. I couldn’t have helped it if I tried. “No, Rob. No, it doesn’t. It looks like you are practically begging me to fuck you.”
Some things were just too damn ironic.
I moved down him a few times, which was followed by a, “That’s more like it.” A few more times after that, he could barely remember to breathe, let alone form words. When he was close to coming—the vein popping through his forehead gave that away—I slowed down. Then I stopped completely. Glancing at the camera one last time, I winked. No one would see the last few seconds of the tape but me, but there was enough satisfaction in that.
“What the hell, you stupid girl. Keep going before I make you.” He panted, his face red and his eyes bloodshot.
G would be pissed if she knew I’d cut things short right before the grand finale, but Rob Tucker . . . he didn’t deserve satisfaction. What G didn’t know . . . G didn’t know. Grinning at him with the overdone smile I’d mastered, I readjusted my position over him. So my knee was between his legs. A foot away from his balls.
“I warned you to stop calling me girl,” I said in a sing-song voice right before I drove my knee into the only soft spot Rob Tucker possessed.
He grunted and curled into himself. It was strange how a man made the same sound when he was climaxing or getting kneed in the balls, but I supposed that whenever his manhood was involved, the sounds were the same. My fake smile turned into a genuine one as I threw myself off of the bed. With Rob curled on the bed as though he was dying, I used his distraction to retrieve the phone from between the pictures. The video was still running, catching every last precious detail that would give Rob Tucker the proverbial shaft in divorce court.
It was time for the victory dance. As I zipped back into my dress, slid into my heels, and grabbed my purse, I gave Vile Human Being #1 one last look. Even curled in pain, he still made me want to squirm.
“Well, Rob Tucker . . . it looks like I really fucked you.”
He couldn’t even work up a simple, no doubt derogatory, reply. He might not have even heard my final words to him, and that was okay. I kept smiling the whole way down the stairs and out the front door because whether he’d heard my words or not, he’d live with the repercussions for the rest of his life.
FINALLY
AFTER THAT WHOLE ordeal, I needed a shower. Not the cutesy, tongue-in-cheek kind, but an actual shower. The kind with scalding water and plenty of soap accompanied by a fresh loofah. Something that would remove the physical grime Rob Tucker had left on me. The other kind of grime? That would never go away, but I had plenty of experience repressing grimy memories, starting with the man I was flying back to see tomorrow morning.
I’d get to see Henry tomorrow.
Why did my subconscious sound like an eager, frolicking school girl instead of a grumpy, pruney old shrew? Add evidence number 2034 to the pile of confusing shit I felt when it came to Henry Callahan.
After all but moonwalking out of the Tucker household, I had to walk a good mile before I made it to a road busy enough to warrant a taxi. Once I’d managed to hail one and climb inside, I was craving that shower so badly, I considered tossing the driver aside so I could put the pedal to the metal back to my hotel. I distracted myself by texting the V for victory to Mrs. Tucker and G. Despite the fact that communication was restricted to emergencies or me texting one-letter messages, Mrs. Tucker almost immediately replied with a smiley face.
I didn’t know exactly what her smile looked like, but I could imagine it. Even if she was still a ways from smiling for real, a smiley face text was progress. A step in the right direction. I imagined texting back We got the bastard. But as unlikely as it might be that a lawyer could get his hands on the phone Mrs. Tucker was about to destroy, it wasn’t worth the tiny risk. Not when it came to a man like Rob Tucker.
My G phone didn’t ping back with her usual reply, which was unusual. Her replies were usually so instantaneous, I might have thought she was just staring at the phone, her finger at the ready. So either she was busy or . . . I checked the time. Nope, she couldn’t be asleep yet. The woman didn’t believe in going to bed before midnight.
After paying the cab driver, I practically sprinted for the elevator. I tapped my foot impatiently as it scaled every floor, then I charged for the door to my room. Once I was inside, my dress was off and tossed on the bed faster than even Rob had managed it.
Since I didn’t have a loofah, I snagged my bristle brush from the counter, squirted a glob of liquid soap on it, and scoured every last inch of my body. When I was done with that, I did it again. By the time I emerged from the shower, my skin was red and the bathroom was so thick with steam, I could barely find the door. The steam billowed out of the bathroom with me, making me eye the fire alarms. How much steam could they withstand before I doused the entire hotel and its occupants in a cold shower?
Toweling my hair dry, I was about to turn on the television and pour myself a glass (or a gallon) of wine, when I noticed eight missed calls on one of my phones. Of course it would be my phone for G. How long had I been in the shower? Apparently long enough to warrant eight missed calls. Damn. She was going to be pissed.
I had just lifted the phone when it rang again.
I barely answered the call before G practically shouted, “Where the hell have you been? And what the hell have you been doing?”
I held out the phone a bit so she didn’t do any permanent inner-ear damage and started to answer her.
“Never mind. For me to ask implies I actually care, but I don’t. Not the slightest bit. Not when I just got off the phone with our largest Client in history who was informing me that her husband is with another woman right now.”
My eyes closed. “What do you mean Henry’s with another woman?”
“Another woman as in the competition. You remember the girl I all but ordered you to get out of the picture by whatever means you deemed necessary? The very same one our whopper of a Ten is with right this very minute?”
I checked the time. It was just past one in the morning in Tampa, which meant it was just past ten where Henry was. I sighed with relief before realizing that, for business purposes, even ten o’clock was too late to be with his secretary.
“How does Mrs. Callahan know her husband’s with the other woman?” I asked, trying to approach the conversation from a logical standpoint and not an emotional one. That was difficult to do when we were talking about the man who happened to be my ex, the biggest Target of my career, and the same person who’d saved me a week ago. It was all very . . . confusing.
“Does it matter?” G replied in a curt voice.
I’d already rushed into the bedroom and was packing. “It matters because why did she call to tell you that? Was it merely to inform? A warning to step up our game? To gloat?”
“To take us off the Errand.”
That both shut me up and froze me mid-suitcase stuffing. I’d literally just closed the most deplorable Errand of my life, and G was telling me the other one—the one that was important to me fo
r a million reasons—was closed. “My suitcase is packed. I’ll be checked out in ten minutes. I’ll be at the airport in a half hour, and I’ll be in California by morning. This isn’t over.” I clicked the phone over to speaker to wrestle into some clothes.
“It’s over, Eve. Mrs. Callahan said her girl from the other company let her know she was closing it tonight.”
I whipped my head from side to side, not accepting what G was saying.
“It’s. Over.”
“No. It’s over when I say it’s over,” I practically snapped. “And it’s not over, G. Not by a long shot.”
“Eve—”
“No, I’m not giving up. I refuse to take the word of some bitch of a wife who is taking the word of an even bigger bitch of a competitor. I’ve seen Henry with his secretary, and unless something’s drastically changed in a few days’ time, she was about as close to tempting him into bed as his Chief Technology Officer, Aziz.” As I slipped into a pair of heels, I grabbed my suitcase and charged into the bathroom to stuff things wherever they would fit. No time for a professional pack job.
“You’re only believing what you want to believe and refusing to hear what I’m telling you.”
G might be determined, but I was that and more. I wasn’t giving up on the Callahan Errand. I couldn’t. “And you’re giving up much too easily. After everything we’ve been through, all of the headaches and creative Errand solving, why are you so willing to accept defeat on this one? The one we’ve been dreaming about? Why, G?” I rolled from the bathroom into the living room, threw whatever was left into the stuffed-to-capacity suitcase, threw the half dozen phones into my purse, and was opening the door before G replied.
“I’m not the best in this business because I never accept defeat. I’m the best because I know when to accept it and when not to. And this is when we accept it.” For the first time in the conversation, G wasn’t speaking so loudly I had to hold the phone a few inches from my ear. She was almost quiet.
Great Exploitations: Sin in San Fran Page 5
