by Tara Brown
He stood, tearing my underwear off and lifting me into the air. I rested against the wall, seated on the handrail. He wrestled with his buckle and pants for a moment as we explored each other’s mouths, gripping each other with desperation.
When he released himself, he plunged into me. We both moaned, filling the quiet elevator with noise. His thrusting echoed off the walls, bouncing my body. In the flashing light I caught a glimpse of us writhing and grinding against each other. His hands cupped my ass. He spun me around, holding me in the air. I planted my feet on the railing on the wall and let him rock me up and down on his cock. I gripped him, pushing with my legs, desperate for the orgasm I had been denied for forty-eight straight hours.
“I need you, Evie. I need you in my life.” He pulled me into him, gripping and grunting into the silence.
My body riding his began to clench down as his fingers bit in. We came at the exact same moment.
He thrust harder for the last few strokes, jerking into me as I quivered over him.
He pushed the “open door” button on the elevator and walked us back down the hall to my hotel room. The door was still ajar so he just walked in, closing it and leaning against the back of it. He let me slide down him, but he continued to grip me. “Let’s take a shower, Evie. I adore our showers.” He led me to the bathroom, closing the door and starting the hot water so we could rinse off everything, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
When we got into bed he held me, but even there in the safety of our La La Land, I saw their faces. I felt the hot blood running down my fingertips. I saw all the levels of sin in the world in color. Joining that horrid imagery was the knowledge we would go back to the real world tomorrow and this would end. This bliss of true love would be over, and I would have to face my feelings, my fears.
He kissed my cheek and whispered into my skin, “I want you in my world, but I have to change the world first.”
There was no response for that. So I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep, letting him hold me in that place built on the lies we told ourselves.
I woke, confused to see a strange room in a hotel.
“Hey.” Luce smiled at me from the chair in the corner.
“Where are we?” I blinked and rubbed my eyes. “What happened? Where are we?” I asked again, realizing my throat felt funny, and I couldn't seem to shake the fog in my head.
“Europe,” she answered like I should know where we were. “You don't remember coming here? We arrived two days ago.”
“No. I don't remember anything.” It was true, I didn't recall the trip. I remembered we had talked about Europe; Coop and I had fought about coming. But everything else was muddled, consisting mostly of flashes, images I couldn't place.
“What do you remember?”
“I was in—” I paused and thought back to the last thing I recalled: the jet with Servario and something about a red dress.
Or was it?
Was I wearing a red dress in the memory?
Everything was a haze.
“Why are we here? Did we do a job?” I lifted my head, swallowing hard. “Did Servario abandon me again?”
“Sort of.” She sighed. “And he said he took your memories with some drug. He said it was better for you. I didn't think it would work. He asked me to sit here until you woke.” She was cavalier. Consistent for Luce. It could’ve been her middle name.
Her words filtered in slowly and did laps around my mind until they landed, firmly. “Wait, he said what? Why did he take my memories? Or better yet, how? What’s better about this? I feel sick. Jesus, what did I do?” My heart raced as I struggled to reach the memories that were gone and wondered what in the hell he had talked me into that I needed to forget. “Oh God, did he—” I flexed my butt to make sure he hadn’t conned me into that. Thankfully, it felt normal.
“Did he what?”
“Nothing.” I gave Luce a look, unsure of how I could possibly explain my avoidance of ass sex without the long conversation about giving birth. “Where’s Coop?” If I was safe with anyone, it was him. He never would have erased my memories, and he’d never asked to play the back nine.
“We’re in Belgium.” She paled a little, gazing downward. “Coop’s dealing with the brothel you raided in Dubai.” Same human traffickers we’ve been chasing all along.” She said it weirdly, as if she was embarrassed to tell me.
“What brothel?” It hit me then that I had clearly seen something Servario knew I needed to be rid of. “Was it bad? Did he whore me out?”
“Much worse than that, Evie.” Her eyes were haunted.
“He took my memories on purpose? Because he made me do things?” Rage began to build inside me, replacing the pity I’d felt a second ago. “Oh my God. I always sort of assumed he’d keep me relatively safe. Oh my God.” I had fooled myself when it came to him on a lot of things. This one left me blood lusting but too weak to fulfill my desires.
“No, wait.” She shook her head. “No. He didn't make you do anything. You killed and went savage and then saved some teenagers. I think he wanted you to forget the way you kill—it’s just better. Trust me.”
“Oh.” I frowned at Luce and sighed in relief. “You sure?” I squeezed my thighs, noting the sex I had definitely had.
“Yeah. He said you shouldn't remember how you kill; it’s not cool.”
“Huh?” I leaned back again, confused but oddly grateful I had no idea what she was talking about. I had killed in a way he knew I wouldn’t want to remember? That was a bad sign, but I was oddly relieved. Shit was wrong with me. “How bad?”
“Bad.” Her pale face emphasized the word “bad.”
“Like on a scale of one to ten—one being Betty White murdering people and ten being a woman who just gave birth while killing with a machete—how savage?”
She paused, pursing her lips. “What’s Betty White killing with?”
“A gun, just a regular death.”
“You were full machete, covered in the blood of childbirth.” She lifted her hands like we were putting this to bed. “Worst ever.”
“Yikes.” There were things I didn't need to remember, I could admit that. But I had a bad feeling some of the things I did need were gone with the rubble. “Can you give me the Cliff Notes version of what you know, maybe clean up the savage killing a little?”
“Yeah.” Luce began the story with the jet ride I had a slight recollection of.
The story took turns I didn't expect, but in the end I decided the headache and confusion were worth not knowing what in the hell had happened. I hated human trafficking more than any single thing in the world. And when my job involved children and human trafficking, I wasn't sane. I was something else. We all knew it.
There was no way I wanted to sit and think about it all. I was tired in a way I didn't understand, but all I could do was hope Servario had protected me and chosen to wipe my memory because of horrors I had seen and not horrors I had experienced. I had to trust him. It was an icky feeling.
“What do we do now?” I couldn't find anything in my head. I didn't even entirely remember why we had come to Europe.
“We go home to Canada and let Coop and Jack clean this mess up.”
“Okay,” I conceded, wishing I could have more than just the slightest of hints as to what all the job was. It felt too much like a Servario game to me.
8
Today
I blinked and the room moved closer and then back, wobbling a bit, suggesting I was still dreaming or drugged. But that wasn't it. I was exhausted. Falling asleep after the STI testing wasn't easy. My brain did laps, especially after the nurse told me it would be three weeks before the results were in.
Three weeks.
Three weeks of wondering if I had contracted something heinous I could give to my kids.
I groaned and climbed from the empty bed, realizing Coop hadn’t arrived. A thought trickled through my mind: maybe he had come home, but had chosen not to come to bed.
Luce’s
version of the story didn't hold me in a very good light. It sounded like I had run off with Servario again. Which was exactly like something I would have done. I grabbed my phone and turned it on to see a text from a random number. I opened the message, losing my breath and ability to stand.
Sorry you feel that way. You know how I feel. How I will always feel.
I scrolled up, reading the text I had apparently sent from Belgium. It didn't seem like something I would’ve sent, but the wording was perfect, exactly, for what I had been thinking all along.
Servario, I am done with this. I am done with us. You are the wrong choice, the selfish one. I want to be with you, but as a mother I have to pick my kids. I am so sorry but from this moment on, we will be work only.
Every single word stung as a small whimper slipped from my lips. I deleted the conversation, frightened the two messages would be seen by Coop. Something had happened in Dubai or Belgium. Something that had caused me to make the decision I was already planning on making but feared I wouldn't. From the moment I took the STI test, I knew I couldn't keep being Evie the hooker. I had to be Evie the agent who kicked ass and didn't need to be sexy to win over the confidence of marks or targets.
My insides were on fire, my heart was broken, and everything felt cold. I slipped from the room, wishing I hadn’t deleted the conversation. I didn't know the random number he had sent the message from. I couldn't text him and take it back. I was sealed in the choice I had made before he drugged me.
That seemed weird.
He had to have seen me to drug me.
Unless of course he had slipped the drugs to me in a beverage that I didn’t drink until after I sent the text.
I realized it didn't matter as I was on the stairs and Jules came bounding up them at me. She was the reason for the message. I was a mom not a porn star. I needed to act like one.
“Mom, can I get a horse?”
“What?” I gasped.
“Uncle Fitz says all little girls need a horse. He says it’s part of growing up.”
“I never had a horse.” I folded my arms.
“Right, Evie.” Coop walked to the bottom of the stairs. “That's not a great example of why not to get her a horse.”
My jaw dropped. He wasn’t joking. There was no spark in his steely blue eyes. It was an insult because he was pissed at me. “If Uncle Fitz wants to get a horse, he can take care of it with you.”
Jules jumped up and down clapping and I realized the horse was already here. The asking was an informality. She jumped and kissed my cheek before sprinting back down the stairs as she shouted, “Yay! We can keep it!” She ran off, leaving Coop at the bottom of the stairs and me close to the top. He looked hurt; there wasn't any other way to see it.
I had hurt him.
Apologies and other words I knew I shouldn't speak aloud sat on the tip of my tongue, threatening to slip out and make all this more uncomfortable.
He furrowed his brow, obviously lost in thought and hating me. It took seconds of him maybe filtering or just fighting the urge, before he spoke, “You want to give me a few minutes in the bedroom so I can move my stuff to the basement?”
I swallowed hard and nodded. Had I texted him with a high school breakup as well?
“You don't want to talk?” I asked softy, hoping my kids weren’t nearby. They didn't sound nearby.
“No, Evie. I think this last week has pretty much summed it up for me. I think I see where your heart is.”
I opened my mouth to protest but it just sat open, catching flies and all.
“See, you don't even have an excuse, do you?”
“I don't have an offense either though. I don't remember anything.” I treaded lightly, but I wasn’t going to play the bad guy if I had done nothing.
“You don't recall leaving me on the beach with a dozen teenagers and running back for Servario?”
I shook my head.
“You don't recall not returning any of my texts?”
Having already shook my head I decided on remaining still. I didn't want to get dizzy from constantly denying whatever charges were being laid at my feet.
“You don't recall the fight we had before we even left, when I told you I thought you were too in love with him and not in love with me?”
That I remembered. I bit my lip on the side. “I remember.”
“You had no real defense. You love him.”
“I love him. I love him in a way that's older than this year. It’s a way I can’t explain and from a time I don't remember. But he is still an arms dealer and a drug dealer and a human trafficker. He might have other things going on, but those things won’t ever go away for him. They are who he is. No one can love someone like that.”
He winced. “I don't want to share your heart with anyone.”
“You won’t.” Tears began to build in my throat as my words lowered in case little ears were creeping about. “I can’t do this anymore. I have to be a mom and stop worrying about me. I’ve been selfish.” I tried to copy the sad goodbye I had given Servario, but the words felt different saying them than they did reading them.
His eyes widened and the hurt in them was more obvious than the pain in my heart. It sickened me, seeing him so devastated. He didn't back off or take the words the way Servario did. He hurried up the stairs, grabbing my hand viciously and dragging me to the bedroom. He shoved me in and closed the door, leaning against it. It felt like he had forced me there but didn't know what to do with me, now that I was with him in the room.
He licked his lips, clearly contemplating his next move.
I lifted my hands to his cheeks. The warmth of him made sparks against my fingertips. I didn't pull him down to me. I just held him and tried not to get lost in his steely blue eyes. “Coop, do you want to have kids one day?”
He furrowed his brow, fighting his answer. “Yeah.” He was curt.
“I can’t have kids. I can’t have any more of them. Don't you want to meet someone who’s your age or closer to it and have children and get married and celebrate that life?”
He pulled his face from my hands, sliding along the wall to get away from me and the questions I was proving the point of the ridiculousness of us with. “I want you, Evie. I love your kids. They’re wonderful. I want to be with you.”
“And never marry and never have a child of your own?”
He winced, maybe wanting to lie to us both but he didn't. “I want that too. With you.”
“I will probably never get married again. Never. I think about it but I also know trusting someone—”
“But that’s just bitterness talking.” He cut me off.
My eyes widened. “Do you blame me? A man pretended to love me and pretended to have a family with me to join the ranks of a government agency. My whole life is a fraud and my kids’ births were based on those lies. I murdered their father. I need to start worrying about being a single parent, not what I want in life. Besides, what if I get together with someone for real and they leave again? What will that do to my kids?"
“I don't want to suffer for what James did.”
“I know.” I grimaced. “It isn’t fair at all, and yet here we are. Plus I can’t have kids. Is this the fate you’re signing on for? Because that's a huge deal."
His jaw trembled, not like he might cry but like he might scream at me. It took him a moment to gain control of the hostile look in his eyes. And in that moment I watched the hostility turn to defeat. He slumped. “We could get a surrogate.”
“Never.” I laughed; I didn't mean to but the idea of baby diapers and all-night feedings and crying on both our parts was about as appealing as marrying James again.
He clenched his fists and then relaxed his hands, stretching his long fingers out. “So that's it then?”
“Yes.” My battered and broken heart didn't have much emotion left for the moment we were having. It was used up. The hell we had been through had taken so much of the empathy and compassion I once had.
He
shook his head, obviously lost in the answer I had given. “Fine.” Anger and rage swam below the surface. It was hard not to hate myself but my brain told me this was the right course. My heart couldn't be trusted. My brain knew that. It told me there was no way I’d ever be allowed to make choices like this one again. It wasn't just my heart involved in the pain and consequences.
“If you want to live somewhere else, I get it.”
He lifted his gaze. “You can give up on me, Evie. That doesn't mean I have given up on you.” He turned and left the room, pausing in the hallway before he silently closed the door.
I dropped to my knees and heaved breaths.
Nothing felt right anymore. Nothing but the fact that the love triangle of doom was finally over.
9
Two months of celibacy is actually nine months in cat spinster years
Sighing under the showerhead, I wiped my face and shut the water off. I climbed out and noted the muscles in my arms. I hadn’t seen them in a decade, but there they were, as though they’d never left. The pull-ups and push-ups and constant bush runs were working. Coop made me run every day, following him through the woods. It had been misery at first, but I had gotten used to running and daydreaming about him pinning me against a tree, ravishing me.
Eight weeks of running and waiting for Servario to contact us with something of a plan was harder than I’d expected.
Many times I had nearly mentioned I was into booty calls from the basement, but pride prevented the words from leaving my lips. Pride and knowing going backward would be a mistake.
The only good day I’d had in eight weeks happened when the health nurse called to say I was fine and the tests had all come back negative. I had cried a little that day.