The little fool was setting herself up for trouble.
“Where did you get an idea like that?” I asked her. “Fucking TV?”
“It's not hard. I looked it up on the internet.”
“You're avoiding the question, and you damn well” — I broke off — “wait. Internet? What internet? Where the hell did you get access to the internet?”
“Your phone.”
“My — okay, I'm not going to bother asking what the fuck you were even doing with my phone, but you know those kinds of searches get earmarked by the powers that be, don't you?”
“That doesn't happen as often as you think.”
“I don't care, Christina. I don't even want to risk it. And I really don't want to have Uncle Sam breathing down my neck because of your exploits — and you know why.”
“That won't happen. I used disabling keystrokes.”
Christ. “Did you learn that during your little phone-stealing spree, too?”
Christina frowned at me. “I didn't steal your phone, I borrowed it. I wouldn't have even done that if you hadn't been such an asshole. And no, I learned keystrokes and keylogging from my dad. You can't look up that kind of stuff on the internet. Hackers guard that kind of information pretty jealously. If you go to a website that claims to have codes about hacking and cracking and stuff, the only thing you'll end up with is a computer virus.”
“I'll be sure to remember that. In the meantime, don't touch my fucking phone.”
“I already looked up everything I needed.”
“Yeah? Well, just so you know, they won't let you bring in any outside technology. Anything you do take you can be sure they'll run it through an electronic sweeper. And that means no bugs.”
She rolled her eyes. “I know that. Obviously. But it's been a while since I've worked with computers. I have the knowledge in my head, but that's just not the same as actual hands-on experience.”
No. No, it wasn't.
I wished she hadn't used those exact words. Now I was thinking about other kinds of hands-on experiences. The kind that usually ensued from the type of look she'd been shooting my way earlier.
“Do whatever you think you need to do then,” I said roughly. “Just don't be long.”
“Okay,” she agreed.
She didn't spend more than ten minutes in there. Far less time than I'd thought she'd be. I guess she knew what she wanted. But then, she always had.
“Let me carry some of that,” I said, as she came up to me loaded down with bags. “People are going to think you're a pack animal, for Chrissakes.”
“You don't have to.”
“I know I don't have to. I want to.”
I shifted the bulky canvas shopping bags to my right hand, casually grabbing hers with the left.
“Just like I want to do this.”
Her fingers jerked in mine.
I half-expected her to pull away. If she had, I would have let her. I'd been caught in the throes of impulsiveness. But she didn't, and I was concerned by just how much that pleased me.
Chapter Five
Explosive
Christina
Less than two years ago, my biggest concern was how I was going to find a male escort to a dance at an all girls' school. I fretted about my weight at the insistence of my dysmorphic-minded mother who believed neuroses were meant to be shared out like the candy she wouldn't let me eat, not even as a child.
I dutifully followed the ins and outs of fashion trends, as if they were rituals that could protect me from all the evils of this world. I did my homework. I colored between the lines. More rituals, all superficial.
I had been superficial.
All that had changed so quickly and suddenly, it was enough to make your head spin.
Mine certainly had.
It hadn't taken much of a knock to disillusion me, to make me realize that the fragile niche of existence I had spent the last eighteen years carving out for myself was neither as polished nor as secure as I had previously believed.
Michael checked the door for the hair he'd stuck between the latch. It was gone.
“Maybe it was the maids,” I said hesitantly, folding my arms.
He tapped the DO NOT DISTURB sign. “I don't think so. We're being watched.”
“Is it safe to go in?”
“I'll check.” He set the bags down outside and went in alone. I leaned back against the wall.
At least I was alive. Good thing, too. It took more bravery than I possessed to become a saint.
“It's safe enough,” he said, when he came out. “Only one bug. Pretty standard.”
“A standard warning.”
His smile was grim. “You're catching on.”
“It's a simple language,” I said.
“But full of doublespeak.”
The phone rang. He walked over to pick it up. Listened for a moment. Then handed it to me.
“Hello?”
“Christina Parker?”
The inflections of the voice on the other end of the connection crackled with static. It didn't sound like a real person was speaking. It sounded automated.
“Yes,” I said. “This is she.”
“I believe you are currently residing at the Hotel Azul. If this has changed, say so now.”
I said nothing. There was a beat of silence, then more clicks and whirs in the background.
“Tomorrow a car will come for you. The driver will be a tall man with a beard named Martin. He will take you to your destination. Be ready.”
If he was driving me to my destination the BN couldn't be sending me to England.
Unless they're taking me to an airport.
“We look forward to working with you.”
Beep, then dial tone.
I placed the phone down on the desk. “You think the BN were the ones who bugged the place?”
“It's a distinct possibility. Among others.” Michael twisted the cap off one of the bottles from the fridge. “I'm assuming that was Hawk.”
“A recording of him, anyway.”
“So. You got the job.”
I watched him drink straight from the bottle. I couldn't stand it anymore. “Don't you think you should stop that?”
“No.”
“But your liver — ”
He bared his teeth. “My liver can hold its own.”
“Give me that bottle. I'm serious.”
Michael held it out of reach. “What did he want?”
“I'm starting tomorrow.” I held onto his shoulder, bracing myself. “Stop that. Give me the rum.”
“How are you getting there?”
“He's sending somebody. Michael.”
He took another indolent swig, then sit it on the desk beside the phone. That brought him closer, and when he set his hands down on either side of me, I was trapped. “There.”
“You're a mess. I hope you're not going back lack that.” His expression remained unreadable. “Do you think they're going to send me to England?”
“Did they say that's what they intended to do?”
“No.”
“Then probably not. Expect it anyway. Don't rule out any eventualities. That way you'll never be caught off-guard.”
“Says the man who's been drinking like a fish all this time.” There was another question lingering on the tip of my tongue but it took me a moment to dredge up the courage to speak it aloud.
“Will I ever see you again?”
There was a slight softening in his face, a smoothing out of the lines. It disappeared quickly, but seeing it — seeing it almost made everything worth it.
“You'd be hard-pressed to get rid of me.”
I felt my breath catch, a clockwork unwinding in my lower belly as he ground his hips against mine. I arched my body against him, wrapping my arms around his neck to better reach his mouth.
He tasted searingly of alcohol. “I feel like just kissing you would make me too inebriated to drive.”
“I'll take that as a comp
liment,” he murmured.
“You need to stop drinking. You'll kill yourself.”
“Wouldn't that make your life simpler,” he said.
“Don't talk like that, like your life isn't worth living.”
“You'd be the first to believe otherwise.”
“Bullshit.” I unbuttoned my shirt. He bit down on his lower lip, watching me, his eyes riveted to my hands. When the shirt was off and on the floor, he ran his hands up my camisole and fumbled with the clasp of my bra. “You need some help with that?” I said.
“This, I know how to do.” He made a growl of triumph when he got it free, and peeled the straps down my arms. The bra joined my shirt on the floor.
I started to pull off the camisole too, but he caught my hands and pinned them to the tabletop.
“What's your rush? Live fast,” he said, “fuck slow.”
Our lips met. We kissed for what felt like hours. At some point, he released my hands because I felt them slide around my wrists like handcuffs, moving up my arms. When he reached my shoulders, they dropped to cup my breasts. He thumbed my nipples through the thin silk, causing an exquisite shiver of sensation to trickle down my spine like melting ice.
He pulled one of the straps off my shoulder. Even though the air conditioner was running and the room itself was quite cool, I could feel beads of sweat popping out on my skin.
“I'm leaving tomorrow.” The words were heated imprints against my mouth. “Callaghan wants me back in Washington. State, that is. Not Capitol.”
Another shiver traversed down my spine.
Adrian Callaghan was the man who had tortured me, abused me, and nearly killed me. He was the man responsible for the scars on my side, as well as the long-healed gash on Michael's abdomen.
He was a demon with a human face. He got off on pain the way other people used cigarettes and sex. He was evolution gone wrong, a freak of nature, and one of the most powerful and influential men in the world.
“He's evil,” I said. “Evil's hard to kill, because it doesn't care. It's not a matter of whether Adrian lives or dies, because we all die in the end. It's a matter of how many people he takes with him before he does.”
“Not us,” he insisted, “not you.”
“You don't know that. How could you?”
I refused to look at the red wound on his face as I spoke, the one that the Sniper had gouged there out of spite. It looked almost purplish in the yellow light emanating from the floor lamp.
He caught the expression on my face a heartbeat before I could change it. “Don't you dare give that bastard the satisfaction of your fear.” He unzipped my jeans, pulling them down my hips. “That's exactly what the son of a bitch wants.” He stepped out of his pants. “For now, let's focus on what you and I want.”
Michael began to rifle through his wallet, kissing my neck as he inspected the contents. Then he cursed, tossing the offending wallet aside. It bounced across the floor, spilling coins and cards, landing somewhere beneath the bed.
I stared at the trail of quarters and pennies and dimes it had left in its wake. “Why did you do that?”
“Out of condoms,” he growled, resting his forehead against my shoulder. “Fuck me.”
“Was that supposed to be a joke?”
The response was a growl crossed with a laugh.
“Well, what are we supposed to do now?”
Michael lifted his head and kissed me again. “We improvise.” He stepped closer, so that his erection was spearheading my belly through the camisole. “Put your arms around my neck again, and pull yourself up until you're sitting on the desk. I'm going to show you exactly what you missed out on in that little nun school of yours.”
“It wasn't a nun school,” I said crossly. “Only the teachers were nuns.”
“Mmm. Naughty nuns.” He slid both hands under my butt, levering me up until I was leaning on my tailbone. “I like the idea of that as much as the schoolgirl thing. Wrap those legs around my waist.”
That helped me maintain my precarious balance. I sucked in a breath when his penis pressed up snugly against the crotch of my underwear, separated only by a barrier of two very thin layers of cotton.
“Isn't this fun?” he said against my ear, lowering his head again to nuzzle my throat. His hair tickled my face and neck as he kissed along my collarbone.
I giggled nervously, and Michael bit me.
“No laughing.” His teeth scraped along my shoulders as he pulled the strap of my camisole down with his teeth. “Pay attention.”
“Or what?” I said. “You'll hit me with a ruler?”
“Naughty girl.” He smacked my butt. “I'd make you stay after class every day. No rulers, though. Desk work. I'd bend you over the desk and make you work. Extra-credit if you finish on time.”
I didn't completely understand what the goal of this was. Not at first. But then he began to rock against me, and the straining bulge in his briefs rubbed against raw nerves and hypersensitive skin, eliciting sparks that seemed to congregate in the backs of my eyes. I gasped into his mouth.
“Like that?”
Cold air made my breasts tingle as he bared them to his inspection. The nipples puckered up, and Michael lowered his head to kiss them. I closed my eyes, head tilted back to give him better access as he began to suck, lick, and bite, teasing me until I thought I might pass out from the pleasure.
He kept one hand at my spine for support. The other was on my thigh, sliding up and down. It felt good. My grip on his shirt tightened. Really good. Soon I was breathing as hard as he was, and his mouth rose to devour the sounds issuing from my lips.
“Your breasts,” he said, between kisses, “my fucking God. And your mouth. You have the kind of mouth most men can only dream about having wrapped around their cock.”
I made a face. “That sounds gross.”
“It's fucking amazing.”
I tore at his shirt buttons, baring his throat. His golden skin was beaded with a sheen of sweat that sparkled under the lamplight. “Is that your natural hair color?” I asked on seeing the springy brown hairs just a few shades darker than the ones on his head.
“No.”
“No?” I blinked, startled. “What is it then?”
“Black.”
Black? I stared at him, disbelieving, trying to imagine him with ink-black hair, and he laughed. “I'm fucking with you. Yes, I'm a dirty blonde.”
I felt my brow furrow. “A dirty blonde, Michael?”
“The dirtiest.”
“I'll say.” I lowered my head to lick him, sliding my fingers just under his waistband. Michael inhaled like a man in the desert who had just tasted water.
“You want to play rough?”
He recaptured my mouth, changing the angle of his hips so that he was directly stimulating my clitoris with each purposeful thrust.
“Don't hurt me,” I said.
“No pain,” he promised. “Just pleasure.”
I tightened my grip on his shoulders. I was touching bare skin now, and that made everything so much more real.
“You didn't answer my question, Christina.”
It took me a moment to remember what the question was. Did I want to play rough? “How rough are we talking about?” I asked, between breaths.
“Hair pulling, maybe. Biting. A little scratching. Faster pace. Nothing that would break your skin.”
The rough, confined pleasure — sweet and hard, tender and chafing — was tinged with such exquisite intensity that I thought I might lose my mind.
“Yes,” I said, “oh, God, yes, anything — ”
“No, no, no. Or I might just take you up on that. Be very specific, baby doll. Tell me what you want. Tell me exactly what you want.”
“You.”
“More specific than that.”
“I want you to fuck me.”
His penis jerked and both of us gasped. “Well, well,” he said, in a voice no less raw that mine. “I'm afraid that's not on the menu. Not yet.”
His shirtsleeves were pooled down around his elbows now, his shirt open to his waist. I began kissing his chest, tasting his skin, exploring the supple flesh stretched taut over the firm muscle beneath.
Michael, denied access to my mouth, leaned his chin on my head, breathing in heavy pants as I navigated the map of nerves and erogenous zones on his front with my lips, teeth, and tongue.
One of his nipples slid into view. I circled the shell pink flesh with my tongue, and the hand on my back tightened. “That feels…so fucking good.”
Feeling more daring, high on the power that came from being able to elicit such a powerful response from so stoic a man, I turned to his other nipple, already pebbled in anticipation, and bit him, gratified by his full-bodied shudder.
“Fuck,” he said, his voice ragged. The hand at my back wove through the strands of my hair, pulling my head back. “No more foreplay.”
He dropped to his knees in front of me. Gently, he bowed me backwards against the desk so that I was forced to lean back on my arms. He licked his fingers. “Hold on tight now.”
My panties slid down easily as he hooked his fingers through the waistband. Then he sealed his lips between my thighs as his fingers slid inside of me —
I woke up gasping, with his name on my lips. I was disappointed to find myself in a different room, miles away from the one in my dream, but I could remember what had happened next.
He used his mouth on me until I could hardly stand. Then he laid me down on the bed, and told me not to move. As If I could.
He pulled on his jeans and shirt and, without bothering to do up the buttons, dashed out of the hotel to the drugstore down the street to buy condoms and champagne.
Michael had been in such a rush, he had forgotten his wallet. Luckily, he had a twenty in his jeans that hadn't slipped out when he’d kicked them aside.
The moment he had the door locked behind him, he tore off his clothes. “That's better,” he said, as he set the box and the champagne bottle beside the bed.
He picked up his discarded tie from the evening we'd met with Hawk, pulling the dark silk taut between his hands as he leaned in to tell me, in a voice that left me feeling all shivery inside, “I want you to tie me up.”
“Are you sure?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Put your arms over your head,” I said, and he obliged, crossing his wrists. They were quite thick around, prominently veined. I bound them together using a knot I learned while out on a friend's boat, but it took me several fumbling tries.
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