by S. K. Lessly
She shook her head. “So much work for a simple task.
“It was a big deal to get a girl to go down on you back then, and rumor around school was that she had a talent.”
“Well, did you ever get that blow job?”
My smile broadened. “What do you think?”
She laughed
I continued my confessions. “Let’s see. Oh yes, when I was a senior, I had a brief affair with a teacher’s assistant. It basically involved me banging her in the coat closet of the classroom she worked in at the school. She wanted to get me to make house calls, but that wasn’t something I wanted to do. She was a good lay, and that was it.”
“How old was the assistant?” Misty asked. She looked at me skeptically probably thinking statutory rape, which would have been right if I was underage, I wasn’t.
“Twenty-one, I think. I was eighteen. Look, you’ve seen our high school pictures from back then. I was already at my full height and all muscles by the time I was seventeen. When I was a senior, I could’ve passed for someone at least in their first year of college. She didn’t care one way or another. As long as I broke her back, she was good.”
Misty smiled, amusement dancing in her eyes. “I bet you got good grades that year?”
“Of course, but I was a good student anyway. There wasn’t anything she could do for me in terms of my grades. But she did bring me lunch every day and she let me use her car when I wanted to.”
“Did Malcolm or Josh know?”
“Of course they did. There wasn’t much they didn’t know. We were close like that. Malcolm ended up knocking off one of her friends.”
Misty ran her fingers through my hair and dragged her hands down the sides of my face to my chest. I resisted the urge to open the sheet and get another peek at her incredible body; maybe pop a nipple into my mouth to get her hot and bothered. Maybe we’d go for another round and wake up the neighbors. I behaved, though. It was hard, but I concentrated on giving Misty what she needed instead of indulging in what I wanted. I could be selfless.
“Even though we pulled pranks on each other a lot or wrestled in the locker room before football or baseball practice, no one messed with one of us that didn’t require they meet all three. It didn’t matter where we were or what we were doing. If you messed with one, you got your ass kicked by all three. Most of the time that ass kicking happened one at a time. We didn’t need to jump anyone. But if someone got reinforcements, then yeah it was a brawl.”
“I’m surprised you guys didn’t get kicked out of school.”
“Nah, baby, that wasn’t going to happen. We were stars in that school. If we had left, we would’ve taken our sports talent to a rival school and that wasn’t something that our coaches did not want to happen. So, needless to say, we got away with a lot of shit.”
Misty laughed and shook her head. “Oh, I bet that was rough for you guys.”
I smiled back. “Oh, it was, but we managed.”
Still smiling, Misty asked, “Have you ever been in love?”
I kept my eyes on her, doing my best to stay passive, keeping my true emotions from my features as I spoke. “I’ve had many women come and go in my life. There were only about five that I’ve claimed for my own, and out those five, I fell in love with only two.”
I noticed Misty’s eyebrows rise as she studied me. “Claimed? Are you referring to women as objects now, Major Cooper?”
“Not objects per se, Gunny. If I claim a woman, that means she’s mine completely. Every part of her belongs to me. Her body, mind, and soul is just the surface. Her past belongs to me as well as her future. Her painful memories, her triumphs, struggles, dreams, and aspirations are all mine. Listen, I’m different. In a relationship, I have to be in control.”
“So you want a woman that doesn’t have a mind of her own?”
“No, I’m not saying that at all.”
Frowning, Misty moved from my lap back to her seat. A sigh escaped my lips as I knew she was putting up that wall of hers. “Okay, Cooper, explain yourself because to me it sounds like you want to control your woman.”
“That’s not true, Misty. I want a woman who thinks for herself and speaks her mind. With the type of personality that I have, if she didn’t, I wouldn’t stick around. I like a challenge. I need a woman to challenge me not obey and appease me to death.
Misty grew quiet again, her unnerving eyes watching me, undoubtedly analyzing me.
I sighed deeply and met her gaze.
“All right, Cooper, answer me this. Let’s say your wife comes to you and says that she hates her job and wants to quit. Will you allow her to quit or will you insist that she stay employed until you say otherwise? Or what if you guys have a family and you want her to quit her job and become a stay at home mom. What would you do if she said no?”
“You’re being ridiculous now, Misty.”
“How is that ridiculous, Shane. You said you need to be in control. Those are examples of a man controlling his woman.”
We both fell silent and judged each other with just our eyes.
Finally, I sat up, rested my elbows, on my knees, and laced my fingers. “Let me address your scenarios. Hypotheically speaking, if my wife came to me and said that she wanted to quit her job for the reason you mentioned, I would suggest that we sit down and talk about it. Of course, I wouldn’t want her to be in a job she hated. That would make her miserable all the time, and in turn our house would be out of sorts. So, let’s say for argument’s sake that I was fully aware of why she hated her job. I would ask her what her plan was to look for another job. We would sit down and talk about our family goals and what would be best for her and our family. I’m not going to make a hasty decision and I won’t let her do the same.” I grew quiet, letting what I’d just said sink in before I continued. “Now as far as your other scenario goes, that would be up to her. And again, it would be based on what we could afford. Look, Misty, you have a misconception about what I said.”
“Oh yeah? How so?”
“My need to be in control doesn’t mean I want a puppet for a wife. I want a partner for a wife. No hold on let me finish.” I said to her when I noticed she was about to speak. “I’m not talking about me marrying someone that I don’t know and that doesn’t know me. She will be intimately familiar with me and I with her. We would have talked about everything you’ve mentioned and more pre-marriage. We would’ve discussed where we wanted to live and how we wanted to raise our family. She would know and understand that I need to be the man of the house. I can’t take any other role but that.
If w’ere about to go out to dinner, I wouldn’t just pick out some random-ass restaurant that I know she wouldn’t enjoy. I’d ask what she felt like eating and make the decision from there. If she didn’t recommend a place I like, I’d still take her because of my love for her and sometimes it’s about making the person you love happy. Happy wife, happy life.”
Misty gave me a skeptical look, so I added, “Let me give you another example. If something were to break down in the house, I’d handle it. I wouldn’t ask her to do anything. We’d talk about how to handle the issue, but it would be something that would be up to me to do. Baby, it’s all about communication.”
“Okay, what about if my car breaks down?” Misty asked and I immediately stopped talking and just stared at her. The look on her face told me she didn’t have a clue what she’d just said. I started to correct her, but decided not to.
Instead, I replied, keeping in theme of her question, “You wouldn’t have to worry about that because your car wouldn’t break down unless you forgot to put gas in it. And even that wouldn’t happen. If I saw that your gas tank was almost empty, I’d take care of it, especially if I knew you were prone to forget to fill up your gas tank. Other than that, routine car checkups would be handled regularly.”
“Okay, Shane, that sounds sweet and all, but I like taking care of things like that. I like keeping up with the maintenance on my car. I like fixing things in
my house if I can. I like mowing the lawn.”
“That’s fine, Misty. I’m not against compromising. You want to mow the lawn, it’s fine with me as long as you do it when I’m there.”
She frowned. “Why?”
“Knowing you, you’d be half dressed when you work and I love to see you work.”
Misty shook her head disapprovingly, but she couldn’t hide the smile that formed on her face.
I rubbed her leg and grew serious. “When I get married, my wife and my family will belong to me. It’s that simple. I will take care of them because that’ll be my job and my responsibility and no one else’s. I will supply their every need. I will protect them, struggle for them, and I will live for them. That’s what I mean about being in control. I will be the head of my household. That’s not up for a debate or discussion. It’s how I was raised.”
I maintained intense eyes on Misty’s, bringing home my point. What I loved about this woman, and yes, I meant love, was she met my intense eyes with a bit of heat in her own.
“I hear you, Shane,” she said softly but strongly. “But you do know it’s the neck that turns the head.”
I couldn’t help but smile to that. I nodded my head. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Chapter Nineteen
Emily Parsons stared out of the windshield of her rental car at the drab colored six-story building sitting about seventy-five yards across the street from her location. She had made sure to keep a safe distance from the building as to not draw any unwanted attention. Her instructions were to stay in the shadows until she was told otherwise. So far, she’d done what was asked of her without hesitation, and she’d been bored out of her mind. Yet no matter how bored she got, she wouldn’t go against Cupid. No way.
You did what was required of you or he’d make you pay. He wouldn’t just kill you, he’d torture you until you begged him to kill you and he still wouldn’t do it until he felt good and ready. She had seen him prolong a life of an enemy for six months before he killed him.
It was a horrible ordeal for the captured man and for Cupid, but Cupid believed it necessary. The act of the crime against him made it necessary. It was that day Emily vowed to never get on his bad side. If that would ever happen, she’d take her own life instead of leaving her fate up to him.
With that thought, she was going stir crazy. She was a woman of action, not patience. She hated waiting for word from him and dreamed it would come soon. She was itching to taste the blood of her enemies. In fact, the longer she sat still doing nothing, the more she thought of just how bored she was. It had gotten so bad that she’d started rationalizing how easy it would be to do the same thing she was doing now but closer; as inside the building.
The woman she was waiting for had to leave by the front door; she had confirmed the woman’s blue BMW SUV was sitting in the parking lot. Emily had no doubt, if the woman left, she would see her walking out of the front door.
Plus she’d further deduced that it would do her some good to get the layout of the building as well as their security measures. Just in case she needed to carry out her mission within the four walls of the building, she would be prepared to achieve that goal.
Decision made, Emily slowly peeled out of her parking space on the side street facing the building and turned into the visitor’s parking lot in front of her. She located a parking space closest to the lot’s exit and turned off the engine. Emily stared at the building and wondered if she was making the right decision. There was nothing wrong with waiting. She needed to learn the art of patience; that’s what Cupid told her all the time. As a matter of fact, Josh used to tell her the same thing. And yet, the advice given didn’t stick back then and it wasn’t going to stick now.
Emily quickly climbed out of the car, closed and locked the door, and walked toward the entrance of the building. She surveyed her surroundings as she walked; taking in the parked cars, the position of the building relative to the Potomac River and the traffic patterns around her. What she needed to do was familiarize herself with potential exits and create necessary strategies just in case she needed a plan to infiltrate the building undetected at a later date.
One thing Emily wasn’t worried about was getting recognized by anyone she may have known in her past. She had changed her appearance multiple times over the years, using minor cosmetic surgeries to change her nose, cheeks, and lips, to keep her identity hidden from the world.
To go along with her new look, her hair was now brown and short instead of her memorable long blonde hair she’d had since birth. She wore baggy clothes today in order to shield her true shape. She also felt it was important to adjust her gait to make her appear slightly shorter than her natural height of 5’7”. This was all part of the illusion of being invisible in plain sight. She looked bland and forgettable, which was exactly what she’d intended.
Emily looked up at the building in front of her as she walked closer to the entrance. During the time she’d lived in the city, she hadn’t paid any attention to this building, which was a good thing from a clandestine operations’ perspective, she guessed. If the building was forgettable, the occupants going in and out would essentially be too.
She glanced at the brick marquee sitting in the front of the building, which read: The Operations Offices of the Defense Department. Emily knew Josh worked for Military Intelligence. When they met, she had used that very cover as she introduced herself to him instead of her true place of employment. She knew telling him she worked for the agency wouldn’t have gone over very well. Even though the MI and the CIA sometimes worked together on cases overseas, the CIA still wasn’t that friendly agency people wanted to work with.
It had pained Emily back then to deceive Josh the way that she had, but she’d had an agenda to keep as well as her cover. She had never expected for things to turn out the way they had so long ago. Her goal had been to get close to him and his team in order gain information on a case she was working on. She wasn’t supposed to catch feelings for him and she wasn’t supposed to leave him breathing. That outcome, undoubtedly, was the reason why she’d been sent here to do this job. It was payback for her lack of judgment and weakness. There was only one way this job would end. Someone was going to lose their life.
Emily walked into the building and looked around. There wasn’t anything spectacular to the security here. The lobby was large with people moving in and out of the various corridors around a huge security desk. There were four security guards sitting at the desk watching people walk by, answering the questions they were asked by those who approached them. There were metal detectors, manned by a three-man team, set up on both sides of the security desk. The detectors looked to be operating for those who were entering the building, seeking access to the various floors inside as well as those leaving the same aforementioned floors.
Emily noticed two hallways on either side of the security station that, by the sound of it, housed elevators. She couldn’t see the elevators but understood their origins based on the number of people coming and going in both sections. The building had two waiting areas that were positioned to the right and left of the entrance. Emily noticed two large flat screen televisions surrounded by leather club chairs and cushioned benches. The monitors showed CNN and Fox news respectively. In order to look as inconspicuous as she could, she moved forward in the direction of the security desk.
A business directory was mounted on the desk in front of her. She searched the listing to see if anything caught her attention. So far, there was nothing out of the ordinary since this building belonged to the military. She noticed that there were a few labs listed on the bottom floors as well as operational military departments such as the logistics department, technical information department, and personnel divisions department of the military. Emily didn’t believe the bottom floors would house agents of Josh’s rank and skills. Agents like him didn’t find lower-level offices very ideal. It was the idea of having one alternative for escape that did it for them.
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Emily’s finger continued to move further along the list of offices to the upper floors until she saw a couple of offices listed as Security Operations. Her finger stayed hovered over the name as her mind became settled for various reasons. The United States wasn’t very clever when it came to clandestine operations. They believed in hiding in plain sight in order not to draw attention.
Security Operations would be a great cover for Josh and his team. It was what they specialized in back when she knew him. She didn’t believe he’d changed over the years. Once a killer, always a killer was her train of thought.
She was just about to inquire about how to get up to the fifth floor when she caught a flash of a familiar face to her right. She looked up and found the person she had been waiting for walking through the metal detector from the hallway to her right. To keep up with appearances, she still spoke to the security guard closest to her. She smiled and asked him a few mundane questions, and the guard answered her questions just as dryly as she’d asked them.
Emily waited until the woman cleared the entrance of the building before she thanked the security guard for his uselessness and exited the building. She followed at a safe distance from the pregnant woman whose mind seemed to be somewhere else as she walked.
When the woman got to a BMW SUV, she began rummaging through her purse. The woman finally pulled out her keys and looked up and directly into Emily’s eye. Emily never broke her stride or broke eye contact. She remained relaxed and watched the woman for any signs of recognition. If she were to see a hint of it in the woman’s eyes or body language, things would change quickly.
However, the woman had no clue how close to death she was. The pregnant woman gave Emily a genuine smile before entering her vehicle. Emily returned her smile before she moved as casually as she could to her own car. She slid into the driver’s side and started the engine, but she didn’t move. The woman hadn’t started the V4 engine yet, she just sat still doing nothing out of the ordinary.
