“And you don't worry—”
“If you have any additional questions for me”—Sophia's voice was sharp—“you can ask them after Mr. Hirabayashi has arrived.”
“Ma'am, I'm not the bad guy here.”
“Yeah?” Sophia laughed her disdain. “Coulda fooled me.”
Another voice then, the nurse, insistent: “The patient needs his rest.”
There was the sound of a door closing, and then Sophia was back, her hand gentle on Dave's forehead, her fingers interlacing with his. She leaned over him and kissed him, and he breathed in the sweetness of her perfume.
He wasn't asleep, not yet—there was a reason he'd fought to stay awake. There was something he still had to tell her. But it took such effort to move his mouth and he couldn't squeeze her hand no matter how hard he tried.
“Soph,” he breathed, and forced his eyes open.
Her face was right there, above him—beautiful and surprised.
“Oral,” he said. “Sex.”
He could see her confusion, and he knew she didn't understand.
“Didn't… kill her. Wanted to.”
“Shhh,” she said. “It's okay. Go to sleep. I'll be right here.”
“Would have,” he told her. “Didn't.”
“It's okay,” she said again, and Dave surrendered to the darkness, hoping that she was right, but knowing that they were in for a very bumpy ride.
CHAPTER
FOUR
WEDNESDAY
Decker hadn't showered or even changed his clothes, and he was hyper-aware of his high scruff factor as he held open the door to the Starbucks so Tracy could go in first.
Then again, he almost always felt scruffy and vaguely underdressed when he encountered the Troubleshooters receptionist.
This morning, she both looked and smelled dangerously good— which, again, was nothing new. Her long auburn hair shone as it bounced around her shoulders like a living shampoo commercial.
She was wearing a sleeveless top, a pair of those ridiculous pants that ended mid-calf, and sandals. It was meant to be casual-wear, but on her it seemed elegant. Classy. The pants were khaki and had pockets everywhere, none of which looked as if they could hold anything useful, since they, like the pants, hugged her curves. They weren't too tight, but they were very nicely fitting. Very.
Ditto for the shirt, which was a shimmering shade of blue. Probably silk—although he hadn't let himself touch her. Despite that, he knew it certainly wasn't cotton like the one he was wearing beneath his overshirt.
And her sandals? Heels, of course. With the exception of last night, when she'd been in white and pink sneakers, Decker couldn't remember ever seeing Tracy in anything but heels. High ones, that brought her closer to his not-particularly-impressive height.
Not that he was exceedingly short.
But he'd made note last night—and this morning, as she'd emerged from her bathroom, wrapped in a towel and barefoot—that without the heels, Tracy was. Or at least she was significantly shorter than he'd thought.
Which was probably why she nearly always wore heels.
And yeah, he'd absolutely been thinking only about her diminutive height as she'd come out of the bathroom wearing a towel. Kind of like the way he'd only been thinking about the best mall to hit on their way to the safe house this morning, as he'd sat outside her bathroom, listening to her take a shower.
Right.
She'd accepted the fact that she was going to have to be contained at the safe house, and had made the call to Tom from her cell phone, negotiating a week of paid vacation, with two more at lost time. Lost time was exactly that—lost. Which meant she wouldn't be paid for those weeks, so Decker would absolutely be paying her rent next month.
That was going to suck, but then again, there were worse ways for him to spend his money. Like buying funeral wreaths to lay on a good friend's grave.
Last night, Tracy hadn't blinked when Deck had told her they'd leave for the safe house in the morning, and that until then they'd stay in her apartment, with him sleeping on her couch. But his rule about her leaving the bathroom door slightly open whenever she used the facilities had gotten him a disbelieving stare.
“What exactly do you think I'm going to do while I'm in there?” she'd asked.
“I'm sorry,” he'd said, which was the refrain of the day, “but—”
“Just… whatever,” she'd cut him off. “You're worried about Jimmy, you don't trust anybody, including me. I get it.”
She'd been uncharacteristically silent out in the hall and on the stairs, unlocking the door to her apartment and gesturing him inside.
And still she didn't speak, having correctly deduced that he'd need to sweep the place for surveillance devices. She was right—he'd unzipped the duffel and gotten to work.
Her place was smaller than Tess and Nash's, but had the same light, airy feeling, with big windows overlooking the street.
It was messier than he'd imagined, with books overflowing the one enormous bookshelf in her living room, stacked in towering piles nearby, and scattered across her coffee table. Catalogs were everywhere, too. Unlike him, she apparently didn't immediately throw them away when they came with the mail. She actually looked through hers—some were open, with pages marked by bent corners and Post-it notes.
Her bathroom was cluttered, too—the sink counter filled with bottles and jars. The room itself was thick with recently hang-dried nylons and lingerie in a rainbow of colors and styles, which, as far as décor went, absolutely worked for him.
But Tracy brushed past him and quickly gathered it all up as he went over the area thoroughly with the bug sweeper. A bathroom—particularly that of a beautiful woman—was a favorite place to hide a mini-cam.
“Please don't tell me if you find anything in here,” she said as he pushed back the shower curtain and encountered the equivalent of a drugstore's inventory of shampoos and conditioners—and, whoops—a neon green dildo balanced artfully on the handle atop the in-the-wall soap dish. It had an on-off switch at its base, which, probably, technically made it a vibrator.
It was a disconcerting discovery, but only because it was so absolutely in the shape of an enormous penis, as if someone had taken a knife to the Jolly Green Giant. For Deck, as for most men, knife and penis didn't work well together in a single sentence. On the other hand, the thought of Tracy in the shower, using that thing, was a gleaming, golden, five-star, confetti-and balloon-falling winner.
“Oh, shoot,” she winced, her arms full of silk and lace panties and bras. It was clear that, were he not standing between it and her, she would have grabbed the thing and run. Instead she just laughed her dismay. “I'm going to pretend you don't see that, okay?”
“See what?”
It wasn't the first time Decker had seen her green … friend. It had once fallen out of one of her bags, back when the entire office had gone on a winter training exercise in New Hampshire. He'd ignored it then, too.
But he couldn't hide his smile as he moved on down the hall to her bedroom, where he stopped short in the doorway. “Whoa.” Clothing was everywhere—on the floor and covering the unmade bed. It looked as if the room had been tossed—possibly by the extremely un-jolly giant, searching for his missing dick.
Tracy, however, didn't indicate that anything was out of the ordinary. She kicked aside several pairs of jeans and a random shoe or two as she brought her underwear to a dresser and dumped it into the top drawer. “Sometimes I have a problem deciding what to wear.”
No kidding. Decker dodged the larger piles and began to sweep the room, as she folded and put away her clothes with the speed and skill of a lifetime Gap employee. She quickly threw the bed together, too, moving her laptop case onto the floor in order to pull a colorful quilt up over an array of comfortable-looking pillows.
Her bedside tables contained more books, along with candles of all shapes and sizes, their wicks black from use. And yes, Tracy in candlelight would be something to behold, and that
was a fact, not any kind of wishful thinking.
More nylon stockings hung from a ceiling fan, and as she stood on her toes and reached to pull them down, her T-shirt separated from those low-riding jeans. And Decker had to be honest because okay, yes, maybe there was a little wishful thinking going on right then, inside of his head.
“I've really got to get one of those drying racks,” she told him, as if he gave a flying shit where she hung her underwear.
“This is your place,” he pointed out. “You're allowed to live your life the way you want.”
“As long as I leave the bathroom door open at all times,” she reminded him.
“That's just for tonight. When we get… where we're going,” he said, being vague because he hadn't swept the entire place yet, “you'll have your privacy back.”
Her privacy, but not her freedom. She was silent as she led the way into the eat-in kitchen, as he tried to convince himself that he had to look at her—she was in front of him—but that that didn't mean he was watching her ass. But Jesus, the attitude in the way she walked was outrageously attractive, and the fact was, he liked the woman. He had right from the start.
Tracy had grown into her job as Troubleshooters receptionist, although truth be told, she was really functioning now as office manager. She was also the face of the company. She was the first person clients saw when they walked into their San Diego office—similar to the way Sophia Ghaffari was the face of the company with clients out in the field.
In the United States, that is.
The international “field” was another story—one that required a completely different kind of face. Something a little less lipsticked and a little more cammie-painted, equipped with the latest weaponry and technology—and the skill to use it. For years, that had been what Decker—and Nash—had provided.
Decker, for one, itched to get back out there. And the sooner Nash re-habbed and was on his feet again, the sooner they would find the men who wanted him dead—which would get them back to work, hunting down terrorist leaders and making dangerous places a little bit safer for the diplomats and the humanitarians, who were essential participants in the Western World's ongoing war against terror.
And okay, there. He'd made it all the way into the kitchen without thinking solely about sex or Tracy or sex with Tracy.
Except, great—she'd just asked him something, and was waiting for him to respond.
“Sorry,” he said, “what?”
“I have some fish I was going to grill for dinner. Have you eaten?” she asked. “Would you like some?”
Dinner. Jesus. The reminder made his stomach rumble, and she smiled. “I'll take that as a yes.”
He forced a smile, too. “Thanks. That would be great.”
Her kitchen was cluttered, too—the counters crowded with more books and unopened junk mail and a couple of bags of groceries that she hadn't yet put away—but it was squeaky clean, the sink shiny and white, no dishes piled up.
Like the rest of the place, it was also free of surveillance devices. But Deck reset the bug sweeper and went through the apartment again, as Tracy cooked the meal.
“Can we talk freely now?” she asked as he came back into the kitchen, as she set two salads topped with grilled fish on the table, as they both sat to eat.
It was delicious—Alaskan halibut over locally grown greens—but seriously lacking in heft. Decker resigned himself to going hungry—it wouldn't be the first time and it sure as hell wouldn't be the last.
“Let's not,” he answered her as he tried not to wolf down the food. “I know you have a lot of questions, but there are such things as long-range listening devices. And yeah, I seriously doubt anyone's tuning in, but I'd still rather wait until we get to the safe house.”
She nodded as she ate slowly, delicately wiping her mouth with her napkin. “We could duct-tape George to the window pane and turn him on.” She laughed at his confusion. “George. Green. Large? In the bathroom?”
He was surprised—and not just because she named her dildo George, but because taping a vibrator to the window absolutely disrupted that kind of surveillance. “How do you know to do that?”
“I don't watch much TV these days,” she told him, which seemed a complete non sequitur until she added, “but I do TiVo this one really good show about this really hot former spy who practices something he calls grunge tradecraft. He did the personal-massager-taped-to-the-window trick in one of the episodes.”
Personal massager. Was that really what she called it? When she wasn't calling it George … ?
A picture of Tracy in her shower sprang to mind and he knocked it aside, but not quickly enough.
Because as she leaned forward, curiosity lighting her face, to ask, “Does it really work?” he had to take a moment to remember that she was talking about duct-taping George to the window. As opposed to its more traditional function.
Decker nodded as he used his tongue to fish a piece of lettuce from between his teeth. “Yes, it does.”
“Good to know,” she said with a nod. “I'll make sure I pack it. You know, just in case.”
She was trying not to smile, but one slipped out, making her eyes sparkle, and he laughed. “I thought we were pretending I didn't see …”
“We both know exactly what you saw,” she countered, pointing at him with her fork. “And it was the elephant in the room. Or one of them, anyway. I think there might be a full, bright green herd in here with us.”
Deck laughed again, even as he agreed. “There have been a lot of secrets these past few months.”
“Like the whole budding romance thing with you and Tess,” she said. “How's Jimmy feeling about that?”
He shook his head again. “Don't use his name.”
“Sorry.” His reprimand shut Tracy up for about ten seconds, but then she spoke again. “It must have been weird,” she noted. “But you did it really right. I honestly believed you were … You know. Conflicted. It felt vaguely like shoplifting because it was so soon, and yet… It was very well done.”
Shoplifting. Damn. Decker wondered what Tom, his boss, thought of him, seemingly going after Tess mere days after Nash's death, but then pushed that far away. It didn't matter what Tom or the rest of the world thought. The only thing that mattered was Nash—alive in that safe house, in Tess's arms, healing and getting stronger every hour, every day.
“And yet you had doubts,” Decker pointed out. He still couldn't quite believe that, out of everyone, Tracy had figured it out.
“Hope,” she corrected him. “I had hope and—”
He stopped her. “I definitely want to talk about this more—tomorrow.”
Tracy nodded. And ate in silence for another ten-second stretch. Which apparently was as long as she could go without talking.
“Since you don't want to talk about… the thing you don't want to talk about,” she said, “then maybe we should discuss George.”
He laughed his surprise, because, Jesus. “Is there really anything left to say?”
“Aren't you surprised?” she asked. “Or even just curious? About why my longest-term relationship is with a sex toy named after George Clooney?”
She completely cracked him up. “Clooney, huh?”
Tracy nodded. She was trying her best to treat this seriously, but another smile slipped free. Goddamn, she was a beautiful woman.
“Well,” he said, slowly, choosing his words carefully, because he suspected that this sex-toy talk was her testing the water, so to speak.
They'd start with a discussion of her dildo and then move on to cock rings and genital piercings, and then over to hard-core bondage. And he'd end up spread-eagle and tied with scarves to her bed, a hood over his face as she first whipped him and then rode him hard, and yeah, as appealing as that was, thinking about it was not a particularly good idea. At least not right now, while trying to eat dinner without spilling it down his shirt.
“It's been my experience that romantic relationships,” Decker continued,
“especially sexual ones, are complicated. Too much so. And as far as sex for the sake of sex goes? The guilt can be a bitch, because even if she says she's on the same page, she's either lying to herself, or you are. Lying to yourself, I mean. So … There's just too much room for misunderstanding.”
She was nodding, in complete agreement.
“I think you're smart,” he told her, “for sticking with George. For right now, anyway. Until you meet someone who's … a good fit, for more than … generating heat.” He forced another smile. “Me too, you know? I have my own … handy solution.”
She smiled her understanding of his wordplay but then looked away, maybe because she was embarrassed for him. Or maybe she was disappointed because she'd understood his subtext: Honey, despite the weird spark between us, we are absolutely not going to spend tonight or any other night having screaming-hot, bag-over-the-head, tied-to-the-bed sex-for-the-sake-of-sex.
Although—and this didn't happen often, because he had better control than that—he'd once again given himself the solid beginnings of a hard-on, just by thinking about it, about her. He shut himself down, willed it away. He'd lived without sex for a long time. There was no reason on earth his physical needs should interfere now.
Except shutting it down wasn't working for him tonight.
Tracy was sitting there, across the table from him, quietly finishing her salad, taking a sip of water. She met his eyes as she set her glass down. “I'm sorry about Sophia.”
Jesus Christ, this woman had no fear. Either that, or no idea of personal boundaries. “I don't know what to say to that,” he admitted.
“You can say whatever you want,” she told him evenly. “And it won't leave this room. You can pretend otherwise, but I know that you cared about her. And I'm pretty sure that she's with Dave because of… your pretending you're with Tess.”
Decker stood up. Took his plate to the sink. “Now, see, you're oversimplifying what is—was—a complicated … thing.”
Thing? It was never a thing, not in the way most people would use the word, but it wasn't a relationship, either. It had been a non-relationship. A relationship version of a demilitarized zone.
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