Wicked Games: The Complete Wicked Games Series Box Set
Page 63
“She’s fine,” Connor reassures me in a soothing voice, caressing my cheek. “She’s great, actually. She just wanted to find out what time she should come over for our barbeque tomorrow.”
My body sags in relief. I wonder if this is what it feels like to have kids, this constant, sick feeling of worry.
“Oh. Thank God. So why do you look so weird?”
“Do I?”
“Very.”
He smiles. “So I’m obese, cruel, and weird-looking. You poor thing. How do you put up with me?”
“Bacon,” I say seriously. “You make excellent bacon. It’s your one saving grace.”
“Aside from Zeus,” he answers in the same serious tone.
I nod. “Exactly. Now explain your face, please.”
He tugs on a lock of my hair. “Maybe I was just thinking about how much I like the color red.”
I shake my head. “Nice try.”
He looks at the ceiling, pretending to think. “Maybe I was contemplating what I should make you for dessert.”
“Dessert after breakfast? You know you’re a really bad liar, right?”
His eyes meet mine, and his smile fades. His voice drops an octave when he says, “Maybe I was wondering when you were going to put your townhouse on the market.”
“Oh. That.”
When I look down at my plate of food, Connor puts his knuckle under my chin and forces me to meet his eyes. “Yes. That.”
“Um. I can’t yet.”
His brows shoot up. “Why not? You expecting to move back in?”
“No. I mean, I hope not.”
His eyes get wide. I can’t tell if the look he’s giving me is anger or astonishment.
“You hope not?”
Feeling a little defensive, I say, “Well, we haven’t exactly talked about the future—”
“I’m in love with you,” he says abruptly. “You are my future.”
That takes my breath away. We’ve never said ‘I love you’ to each other. Even after the day in the hospital, it’s always just been ‘I loathe you.’ Our little inside joke.
I whisper, “So…then…you’re just one of those guys who doesn’t need the piece of paper?”
Connor looks at me like I’m speaking a foreign language that he doesn’t understand. “What. The. Hell. Are you talking about?”
All of a sudden, my face is flaming. I’m embarrassed and uncomfortable and wish we weren’t having this conversation. But we are, so I might as well get it over with. I blow out a breath, square my shoulders, and look him in the eye.
“I’m talking about marriage.”
Connor’s face transforms. He straightens, takes my face in his hands, and breathes, “Yes.”
I blink. “That wasn’t a question.”
“Yes it was. You just asked me to marry you.”
Is he fucking with me? “Uh…”
“And I said yes.” He flutters his lashes. “Where’s my ring?”
He is fucking with me! I punch him in the shoulder. “You dick!”
Without missing a beat, he says, “Because I already have yours.”
I freeze. I’m pretty sure my heart stops beating, but I can’t tell because I’ve lost all sensation in my body. “You…what?”
Connor gently kisses me. He nuzzles my jaw and then whispers in my ear, “I had this big romantic production planned out—candlelight dinner, horse-drawn carriage ride in Central Park, down on bended knee, the whole thing—but since you beat me to the punch, I’ll just give you the ring and we’ll call it even.”
A little squeaky noise comes out of me.
He chuckles and kisses me again, drawing my tongue into his mouth, gently biting my lower lip. My heartbeat is all over the place. I place my hands on his chest, and they’re shaking.
When he pulls away, he’s breathing hard. His eyes drift open, and in them all I see is love.
I say breathlessly, “So where is it?”
He brushes my hair off my face. “Where’s mine?”
He’s teasing, but I’m in no mood for delays, so I improvise. I tear a strip of bacon in half, take his left hand, and wrap the piece of bacon around his ring finger, tucking the ends under so it stays in place. It’s a big, crumbly, greasy mess. He stares at it, looks at me, and then looks back at his hand.
I ask, “What do you think?”
“I think I can’t wait to tell our kids that you proposed to me with a bacon ring.”
“I didn’t pro—kids?”
He glances up at me with a glint in his eye and a smile playing around the edges of his mouth. “Four.”
My mouth falls open. “Four? You want four kids?”
He pulls me in against his strong chest, leaving a smear of bacon grease on my arm, and wraps his arms around me. He rests his chin on the top of my head. “You’re right. We should have eight. Start our own little army.”
I say loudly into his chest, “I am not having eight children!”
He sighs. “Fine. If you really want twelve, we’ll have twelve. But I think we should definitely consider a nanny at that point.”
I fake a growl. “You’re extremely lucky that I love you, jarhead, because if I didn’t, you’d be missing a few important body parts right about now.”
He stills. Slowly he pulls away, looking down at me with shining eyes. He whispers, “Say that again.”
I know exactly what he wants to hear, but he isn’t giving me my ring, and so I’m not giving him what he wants either. I ask innocently, “You’d be missing a few important body parts?”
He shakes his head. He’s so still, I think he might be holding his breath.
“Um…you’re extremely lucky?”
He shakes his head again, pulls me closer so our noses are almost touching.
“Honey, you’re getting grease all over my silk robe.”
“Say it,” he demands, and his eyes are so full of need, I melt.
Staring deep into his eyes, I murmur, “I love you. With my whole heart. And I will until the day I die.”
He groans and then gives me a kiss I’ll remember for the rest of my life, in no small part because he’s gripping my head with his left hand and now my ear is full of bacon.
“But I’m still going to keep the townhouse,” I say when we finally draw a breath. He does his bristling cat impression, all glaring eyes and hackles raised, hissing through his teeth. “Why?”
“Because the loft doesn’t have the right wiring for the quantum computer I’m going to build.”
He blinks. “Quantum…”
“Computer. Yes. What, you think I didn’t upload the source code from Søren’s system to the cloud before you showed up to rescue me?” I make a tsk of disapproval. “Honey. You should know me better than that!”
He’s looking at me in total astonishment, which makes me feel pretty damn good. I love being able to surprise him, even though he knows me so well.
He protests, “The CIA said his whole system was corrupted. They examined it for weeks. They couldn’t get it to work—”
I bark out a scornful laugh. “You think I’d let the government have it? You know what they’d do with that kind of technology! No way, José! They can try to build their own. But if and when they do, they’ll have a little white cartoon kitty cat watching their every move.”
He looks like he’s trying to wrap his head around the idea and not having much luck. “So…that’s what you’re going to do with it? Watch over the government?”
I lift a shoulder. “That’s just a side gig. Its primary function will be saving the world.”
After a long, silent interval, Connor begins to laugh. It’s quiet at first, a low chuckle, but quickly builds to roar, until finally he’s laughing so hard he’s gasping.
“I always knew you were a superhero,” he says, shaking with laughter and drawing me close.
I wrap my arms around his neck and beam at him. “Can I please have my ring now?”
And the man that I love responds,
“Princess, you can have anything you want,” and kisses me once more.
Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed Wicked Sexy. If you’d like to be notified of my new releases, please join my mailing list. Turn the page to start reading Wicked Intentions, book 3 in the Wicked Games series.
Acknowledgments
Huge thanks to Jim Tierney of Digital Anarchy and Greg Strause of Hydraulx for sharing their knowledge of computer theory, systems architecture and design, and all things automating algorithmic processes that scale. You guys are geniuses.
Thank you to humoropedia.com for inspiration for some of the caustic comebacks and barbs Connor and Tabby shared.
As always, I have to thank Geissinger’s Gang for their support and encouragement. Facebook wouldn’t be the same without you.
Thanks to Jay for being patient and accommodating when I’m in my writing cave, and for having my back, no matter what. I’m lucky to be on your team. Marrying you was the best decision I’ve ever made.
Finally, thank you to all my loyal readers who have followed me on my publishing journey since my first novel came out four years ago. Without you, this whole writing business is just me amusing myself at a keyboard. I appreciate you more than you know.
Wicked Intentions
Wicked Games Book Three
Wicked Intentions
By
J.T. Geissinger
Contents
Wicked Beautiful
Wicked Beautiful
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Wicked Sexy
Wicked Sexy
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Wicked Intentions
Wicked Intentions
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Also by J.T. Geissinger
About the Author
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2017 J.T. Geissinger, Inc.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by J.T. Geissinger, Inc.
ISBN 978-0-9969358-9-0
Cover design by Letitia Hasser
To Jay, for everything
1
Mariana
When sizing up a potential mark, a thief of any intelligence must answer one crucial question before committing to the job.
Is the risk worth the reward?
I know it sounds simple enough. Believe me, it’s anything but.
Take my current situation, as an example. After weeks of painstaking planning and an airplane flight halfway around the world, I’m tucked into a comfortable chair at a table in an outdoor bar at a luxury resort in St. Croix, sipping a strawberry daiquiri and pretending to flip through a travel magazine while actually performing covert reconnaissance through the mirrored lenses of my sunglasses. My target—or mark, in criminal parlance—is sitting on the edge of the infinity pool several meters away, laughing loudly, blond head thrown back, straight white teeth glinting in the tropical sun.
Americans. Always the boisterous laughs and good dental work. I envy everything about them.
This particular one has the muscular, golden good looks of a Hemsworth. At first glance, he could be mistaken for an actor or model, maybe one of those self-obsessed Instagram pseudocelebrities shilling soft drinks and designer clothing to a legion of teenage fans. But on closer inspection, interesting details emerge.
The Marine Corps tattoo on his right shoulder. The hawklike awareness in his blue eyes. The trio of shiny round divots marring the taut skin of his stomach.
I’ve seen enough bullet scars to recognize them. That he survived three shots to the gut makes him intriguing. In my experience, most people die after one.
Golden Boy sits on the edge of the pool, legs dangling in the crystalline water, chatting and laughing with the most unlikely of companions. A redhead with a constellation of tattoos on her slender limbs has her arms linked around the waist of a beast of a man with linebacker shoulders, close-cropped black hair, and a megawatt smile. A two-hundred-pound African-American woman in a neon-yellow bikini and matching turban—both of which she somehow elegantly pulls off—canoodles with a pale man half her size in a black speedo who has a wild thatch of hair and insane-asylum-escapee eyes.
Strangest of all is the teenage girl with the rat on her head.
She treads water in the pool a short distance away from her companions. With her mop of curly brown hair and distinctly Latin facial features and skin tone, she doesn’t look related to any of the adults. The fat black-and-white rat, contentedly perched atop her h
air as if it’s a permanent fixture, seems to be enjoying the conversation as much as the warm afternoon sun.
After a few moments, the girl swims to the edge of the pool and pulls herself up with her skinny arms to sit beside Golden Boy, her back turned to me.
I wince when I see the scar.