by K. T. Samois
He drops off of the concrete, and even though he’s quiet, he isn’t silent. Riona whips around with her laser at the ready, even as he’s pulled the trigger on his. Her vest vibrates as he pins her back to the wall with his body, and she giggles to hear its hard rumble through the concrete. Hardin kisses the chuckle out of her mouth in retribution. When he returns the nip to her lower lip, he’s gratified to hear her gasp.
“Well done, Riona. You made me work for it.”
His leather-gloved thumb and forefinger cup her chin, and can see her pupils go wide with…
Arousal.
The flush of desire has stained her cream-pale skin, highlighting cheekbones he’d like to run his thumb over the way he tests the keenness of a new knife. Her plush lips have parted, and he can see the sheen of them in the neon’s glow. Her eyes are heavy-lidded but fixed on him. If the world keeps turning, Hardin doesn’t notice it.
He wants her so badly he burns.
But that’s instinct, and there’s no elegance in the obvious. He presses close, letting her feel the heat of him crowding her against the wall. He can feel puffs of hot air against the skin of his throat, can hear her panting inhales. Her eagerness is invitation enough, so he closes the distance and trails his lips along the shell of her ear. Riona arches into him, and he knows he could have her here and now.
“Catch me if you can.” Hardin orders instead, and melts into the shadows. Ree’s muttered curse makes him grin.
***
“Fuck!” Ree snaps as he disappears around the blind corner and back into the maze.
Her hand presses to her throat; her pulse thuds in her ears, and she licks her dry lips. Worse, her legs tremble, and it’s got nothing to do with fear. Ree wants Hardin; wants his hand on her chin and his body pressed to hers, wants the smell of his cologne and leather all around her. She’d guessed that Hardin knew what he was doing. Now she’s sure.
And you won’t get any of what you want standing still. She puts one foot in front of the other, trying to shake off the buzz of lust. Ree skulks around corners, making her way up to the high ground. She succeeds, spider-slinking her way behind the wooden bannisters and up to the balcony.
Keen eyes spot the boot-lace without trouble. Moira had a childhood phase involving doorways and tape, so Ree’d learnt to be aware of booby-traps early on. She steps over the lace, but then thinks better of it and doubles back. Twisting the boot-lace into the shape of a heart, she scampers down the ramp with a wicked grin. She retraces her steps, tucking herself into one of the concrete pillar’s blind corners. Ree’s careful to look up, laser at the ready, but Hardin seems to have retired that little trick. A flash out of the corner of her eye catches her attention. Ree shoots. The brown-haired girl from earlier mutters a curse but sprints further away, giving Ree the clearance to slink closer to the vantage point.
She tilts her mirror around the corner, but doesn’t see any threats. Taking a breath, she tucks it away, keeps low and sprints—
Right into Hardin’s chest, knocking a gasp out of her.
He grins down at her with leonine amusement. He doesn’t fire, and Riona scrambles behind a fortification before he can train his sights on her.
“I found your heart,” he teases, dangling the boot-lace from gloved hands.
Finders keepers, Ree thinks, but is smart enough not to say. Just because he didn’t run away screaming at the waiting until marriage thing doesn’t mean you should push your luck on the hot/crazy scale.
“Come out,” Hardin says, voice gentle. “I won’t shoot.” he says in a voice like dark chocolate. As though that’s what she thinks he’ll do. They both know it isn’t.
“I take you at your word as a gentleman.” Ree says anyway, because she has a sense of humour.
“I’m not a gentle man, kitten,” Hardin replies, because he’s honest. “Come here.”
He says it like a man used to being obeyed. It works; she responds with a full-bodied flush and a breathy, “Oh. Okay, yes.”
Ree is a good girl — a gifted student, a kind friend, a supportive sister, a dutiful daughter. She’s a people-pleaser to the bone. She’s made her peace with that. Right now, she wants nothing more than to please him, specifically. Ree closes the distance, no hesitation in her footsteps. He watches her take every one. When she closes the distance, and he hasn’t shot her, she doesn’t relax. That isn’t the game he intends to win.
In the black lights, the streak of silver in his hair ripples like a lure; she feels like a fish, compelled against its own good to follow its nature and strike.
“Hands above your head, Riona.” he orders, cops-and-robbers cool.
He isn’t expecting her to obey, and she can see surprise in the minute widening of his eyes as she does as he asks. It’s a thrill to know she can outmaneuver him.
With her hands above her head, she can feel her shirt ride up and expose a sliver of belly between her shirt and her jeans. Hardin notices it as well and is quick to cover it with the leather of his own gloves. The lambskin is skin-warm and supple as it strokes the sensitive flesh of her abdomen. His thumb strokes along the waistband of her jeans, letting her feel the way the leather strokes over her skin.
Then he shifts, bringing one thigh up between both of hers. The pressure is decadent. The keening noise she makes leaves her cheeks painted a fiery red. She’d be embarrassed if she had the two brain cells left for that emotion. She doesn’t. Lacking orders not to, she rolls her hips against him, seeking friction. He responds by crowding her against the wall until she’s on tiptoes, panting into his shoulder.
She trusts him to keep them out of the security camera sight lines, and in the neon dark, she doesn’t have to worry about anything or anybody but him.
“Oh my God,” she breathes, desperate for something — anything, just please touch me, touch me and never stop— and sees his jaw clench down.
“Quiet, Riona, unless you want an audience.”
She doesn’t want to share Hardin with anyone, and her mouth clamps shut so hard on his shoulder she feels, more than hears, the groan he makes. It’s lust-filled, which doesn’t help her problem in the slightest.
I am going to die. I am going to be like one of those spiders that has amazing, mind-blowing, once-in-a-lifetime sex, and then drops dead. He’ll be the death of me.
She’s pretty sure she isn’t actually dying, but when he clenches the muscle of his thigh hard as steel, leaving Ree with no choice but to grind against it, it feels that way.
Ah, Ree thinks, in the little last brain cell not devoted to memorising the flex of his thigh muscles against her core. Le petite mort. O might have been on to something with that…
“You may move,” Hardin orders her, voice a gravel-rough tenor that does absolutely obscene things to her libido. Ree obeys as though he were a dance master, shifting her hips in a desperate bid for more friction.
“Good girl,” he snarls into her ear, and just like that, the iridescence pops like a bubble, and Ree digs her nails into his shoulders hard as she comes. She’s careful not to speak, but she can’t help her little breaths as she shifts and rubs against him, even as his lips press hungry kisses along the blade of her jaw.
“Thank you, sir,” she murmurs when her brain gets back online. She’s pretty sure that’s what breaks him.
Taking both of her wrists in her hand, he lifts her onto his hips, pinning her to the concrete like a butterfly on a board. He’s everywhere — hand at her wrist, mouth at the thundering pulse at her throat, heavy and thick against her and oh, wow, that’s big-
The lights flood on all at once. A klaxon sounds like it’s announcing the end of the fucking world. It’s a testament to Hardin’s professionalism that he doesn’t drop her when Ree let go in shock. Were it not for him, she’d have fallen on her ass like a sedated koala. He puts her down gently, but she staggers anyway.
“Holy shit.” Ree avoids looking at the chipped paint on the wall. She has matching flakes on her back, for sure — not th
at Hardin seems at all guilty about it. In fact, he looks downright smug.
Deep breaths, she tells herself, but all the yoga breathing in the world won’t soothe her nerves. She feels flustered and electric, like a cat rubbed the wrong way. Hardin’s reached into her instincts and stirred; ideas and images bubble up to the top like the effervescence of champagne.
Given that the jeans are a write-off, she thinks she could use at least a glass or three.
***
They’ve each scored 10, which is so low as to be negligible.
And yet, Hardin doesn’t feel as though he’s lost. In fact, he’s elated. Riona can’t seem to look him in the face, even as she’s twined her hands around his arm — a sure sign she’s daydreaming. “I thought you were good at this game,” he says, deadpan.
She stares up at him, indignant as a wet cat.
“I am!”
“Not with that score,” he points out, jerking his chin at the scoreboard. She’s at the bottom.
“Only because it goes alphabetically!”
Hardin’s name just precedes hers in the lineup. “And anyway,” she adds, all injured dignity, “You cheated.”
“I do not cheat.”
Ree raises her eyebrow. “You attacked from above!”
“That is taking advantage of the terrain,” Hardin says, pitching his voice low. “Perhaps I’ll show you another time.”
She smiles. “I’d like that.”
***
Isabel watches them with angry eyes. They look good together, like any other happy couple enjoying date night. She hates them both.
And the bitch is beautiful, which just makes it worse. With her perfect oval face and Fashion Week figure, she looks like she’s stepped out of some movie. It makes Isabel itch to claw her forest-green eyes out
The Captain had been with Isabel once upon a time. Called her beautiful, even. Complimented her big brown eyes, her long brown hair, the way she’d been so eager to please and happy to obey. But all of that and she’s never seen him smile. Not the way he’s smiling at the redhead he’s got draped over him like a fox fur. The woman taps at his arm, giggling insipidly about something or other, and Isabel wishes the gun she’d shot her with had been real.
He never took me out, she thinks. He’d made it explicit that no such thing would ever be in the cards for her.
She bites her cheek so hard she tastes blood.
By the time the Uber drops her off at her apartment, she’s got a mood darker than a black hole. She drops her bag to the floor and throws herself into her computer chair. A few clicks later and her computer’s working away; her fingers fly as they search social media. Her phone is open to the photo she’d taken of the woman. Glaring at it, she turns her eyes back to the screen and the insistently flashing cursor.
RIONA A█
Isabel’s good at this — at searching people out on LinkedIn and college alumni associations, social media, and minor press mentions. Keeping tabs on people. The Captain had mentioned it once, and she’d basked in the praise for weeks. Now, she uses it against him. Or would… if there were anything online to find.
She frowns.
This one’s quieter than your average twenty-something. Pinterest—no, that’s not her. Instagram—god, no. There's no hits on the major social media pages either. It sets little bells ringing in the back of her mind. She gropes under her desk for a can of diet mountain dew.
It cracks open with a chemical hiss and she drinks it straight from the can. It isn’t cold, but the caffeine hits just the same. With bile in her gut, she settles in for a long night of stalking. Down she goes, crawling down the search results, trolling through metadata.
A newspaper article of a red-haired woman on the steps of a courthouse. She’s got the same feline eyes, but her jaw’s too sharp.
A selfie taken by some silly model — close, but not quite right. This one looks more like the lawyer, and she tabs away.
Frustration mounts and Isabel strikes at the keys with unvarnished aggression.
An old newspaper article catches her eye; nothing important, just a brief article in a neighbourhood paper about some upper-crust dilettante. Something about the prima ballerina’s solemn eyes catches her attention. She’s younger, face still soft with childhood, but it’s her.
Riona Araby takes centre stage as Odette in the School of American Ballet’s junior production of Swan Lake, reads the headline, and Isabel sneers. Just as she clicks through, her computer terminal gives a high whine. The lights in her apartment surge and then dip, and she can see the tiniest hint of smoke coming from the CPU.
Isabel shoves her chair back, hissing.
“What the hell?”
***
Found you. The grin that blossoms on her face is nastier than an Amorphophallus.
Evelyn’s always been a protective big sister. Sometimes, that requires supporting her sisters — like Sorcha’s ridiculous desire to be famous on the internet, or Siobhan’s noble goal of saving the world through good jurisprudence. Sometimes it means saving the world from them — Moira, for instance, is a Malthusian cheque waiting to be cashed.
Ree, though? Ree’s easy to please — all she’s ever wanted are season tickets to the Ballet. She hadn’t even taken an internship, though not for Evie’s lack of offering.
Which is why it’s weird that the first person to hit her web searching for any of her little sisters goes bee-lining for the mostly harmless one. But that’s all right. Let them look, Evie thinks, drumming short, clear-lacquered nails against the marble railing of her ruinously expensive penthouse’s balcony.
I haven’t had this much fun in ages.
Chapter Five
Her phone buzzes against the counter like a small rockslide, and Ree lunges for it. It’s halfway through a misery shift when there’s nothing to do but people-watch, and it’s been one hundred and twenty-eight hours since she heard from Hardin…
But who’s counting?
As though she’s summoned him, her phone vibrates in her pocket. She whips it out, thumbs the message open, and there it is, a text from him.
HARDIN09:02 (BERLIN)
Riona. I have a question to ask.
Ree chokes on her cinnamon-flavoured bubblegum.
RIONA 03:03 (NYC)
Because that doesn’t sound ominous, Hardin… What is it? Are you all right?
It was too good to be true. I went on that date, and then I got weird, and then he left for work and didn’t text and had some time and got some distance. Now he’ll run screaming from my hot-and-cold crazy ass-
His response only takes a minute, but it lasts forever.
HARDIN 09:04 (BERLIN)
I didn’t mean to alarm you, Riona. It’s only — I have a question to ask. I’ve been remiss not to do so already.
The snakepit in her stomach wriggle a bit more now, and Riona’s nails drum against the countertop.
RIONA 03:05 (NYC)
What?
HARDIN09:06 (BERLIN)
I need to ask what you want out of this. You are…
HARDIN09:06 (BERLIN)
. . .
Ree stares at those awful blue dots, stomach churning with the certainty that she might get dumped over text by the man she’s pretty sure she’s fallen in lust with.
HARDIN 09:07 (BERLIN)
Innocent.
HARDIN 09:07 (BERLIN)
You are new to this, and you have said you’d like to wait. I only want to know what that would look like.
Ree stares at her phone as though it’s grown fangs.
Then, in a moment of absolute pique and temporary insanity, she hits the little green call button. She’s never called while he’s on a job before, but she supposes that if he’s texting her, it must be safe. When he picks up, she doesn’t even wait.
“Over text, Hardin?! Really?!”
He starts a sentence, but she rolls over it like a tank brigade.
“NO! No, I am talking. You were going to ask me to play Red Li
ght Green Light over text?! Are you out of your mind?!”
A horrible idea hits her.
“Are you drunk?!”
“It is nine in the morning in Berlin. I am not day-drinking in a German airport!” Hardin squawks on the other line.
Ree laughs, even as she fantasizes about smacking him with a bag of coffee beans. So if he isn’t dumping me, and he isn’t drunk… Elation takes over. Oh, he’s so cute when he thinks he’s being sneaky.
“Are you trying to get my kinks in writing?” Ree asks, and this time there’s a pregnant pause. It’s not a no, so it might as well be notarized. “Because if so, that’s a pretty good idea. You could have just asked, though, and not scared me half to death.”
There’s another long pause.
“I frightened you?”
“Yeah,” she says, tone mutinous. “That was a breakup text, right until you asked to read my diary.”
Ree freezes, struck by the knowledge of a partially filled-out red journal. Her cheeks flare to match it, and she shuts her mouth with a sharp click. Hardin takes advantage of her momentary silence to get a word in edgewise.
“Your diary? Only if you give it to me, Riona. But if you insist — yes. I would like to know more about your particular interests. If we’re doing this—?”
He pauses for a moment, rising inflection in his voice.
“Yes,” Ree says, mouth dry. “We are…”
“As you say. Then I’d like to know more about you. If you object to having this conversation over text-”.
“Emphatically,” Ree cuts in, bone dry, and his snort conveys the sort of weariness only a man familiar with bureaucrats can convey.