Private Eye

by Katrina Jackson

  “Yes, ma’am,” Chanté said in her standard purr. “So I’ve gone through all of the profiles we flagged during the broadcast.”

  Kenny felt everyone’s eyes momentarily shift to him. His skin warmed and his dick twitched as he remembered Maya’s smell, the sound of her moaning, that flash of pink. He refused to shift in his seat.

  “We flagged twenty accounts,” she tapped the smart screen and some ChatBot profiles appeared. Kenny recognized a few of the avatars as regular visitors to Maya’s chatroom. “I discarded fifteen,” Chanté said, tapping the screen to fill with the remaining five profiles. Kenny didn’t recognize any of them.

  He told them so.

  Chanté nodded, “I figured. These two profiles had never visited Maya before.” Kenny tried not to let his pride in Maya pulling in two new viewers show. “These three however have visited Maya’s room sporadically. I crosschecked their viewer histories with Joseph Mehmeti’s.”

  “And?” Kenny asked.

  “Nothing. Sorry.”

  “Fuck,” he breathed.

  “But don’t worry. You guys aren’t paying me the big money for nothing,” Chanté smiled. “I actually recorded the chat.” She turned to Kenny and put her palms up. “Just the chat. Don’t worry.”

  He blushed.

  “Okay, so I went back through and I noticed that at the exact same time Joseph joined the room, two other users joined as well.” She tapped the screen and Joseph’s ChatBot profile popped up alongside two others. “Coincidence? Maybe. But I checked those accounts and guess what I found?”

  “Chanté,” Kenny warned.

  She exhaled loudly, “Don’t try and change me, Ken Doll. I like a bit of flair.”

  “A bit?” Monica deadpanned.

  Chanté preened. Lane laughed. Kenny rolled his eyes.

  “Any. Way,” Chanté said. “What I found is that those two accounts follow Joseph into every chatroom and have for the past four months. So I tracked their IP addresses which – if I can say was far easier than it should have been.”

  “Fucking idiots,” Lane murmured with a shake of his head.

  “Agreed. So anyway,” she tapped the screen a final time and the two ChatBot profiles dissolved into mugshots and what looked like a precis of FBI dossiers.

  “Well I’ll be damned,” Lane said as he and Monica leaned forward to scan the information in front of them.

  Kenny couldn’t help but smile as he did the same.

  “Well, come on,” Chanté said, and Kenny knew she was talking to him.

  He turned to her and smiled brighter. “You did great,” he said. Chanté clapped her hands together and blushed.

  “Aaron and Malcolm Setter,” Monica read.

  “They’re part of a fringe branch of the West Virginia Klan. They call themselves the Pendleton Patriots.”

  Lane scoffed.

  “They’ve been under surveillance at least twice by the FBI in the past five years. But Pendleton County has a population of less than 10,000 and the city – which is a generous word in this instance – where they’re based is so small, outsiders stick out like a dozen sore thumbs. So they manage to fly just under the radar and the Feds haven’t been able to pin anything on them yet.”

  “Then how did they get in contact with a member of an Albanian criminal syndicate?” Monica demanded of all of them, not just Chanté.

  “I don’t know,” Chanté said, a small quiver in her voice. “I’m pulling what information I can from the brothers’ online profiles and banking records for them and their club. They have to be hiding money if they’re brokering deals with the Mehmeti family. I’ll find what I can.”

  “And I have a contact in the ATF,” Kenny said. Monica turned to him with a raised eyebrow. “I’ll see what he can give us.”

  She nodded and turned to Lane. He smirked at his wife. “I’ll just sit here and look pretty while the young ones do all the work.”

  Kenny thought he saw Monica almost smirk, frown and then settle her mouth back to the hard line she normally wore. If she was going to say anything, the door opening behind them cut off her words. Kierra and Maya stood in the doorway and Kenny couldn’t be one hundred percent sure but Kierra seemed like she was about to wreak havoc.

  ***

  Maya would have liked to have driven to Monica and Lane’s house because Kierra was a terrible driver when she was angry. But Maya didn’t know the route and Kierra didn’t want to waste time giving her directions. So Maya had clenched her fists around her seatbelt praying to every god she could think of to let them make it there in two whole pieces. She’d had to run after a very determined Kierra as she’d walked through the kitchen, into the pantry and down to Command.

  “I’m going to kill them,” she muttered to herself – or Maya, it was unclear – just before she threw open the door to the briefing room.

  “Hi, hello. Sorry we’re late to the briefing you never told me about,” she blurted out in a hard tone. “What’d we miss?”

  “Well, good afternoon to you, too, sweet girl.”

  Kierra held up a hand. Lane quirked an eyebrow at her, his amusement at her temper evident. Maya didn’t need to see Kierra’s face to know she had focused all of her attention on Monica. Maya had been playing with a theory – when she was trying to distract herself from thinking about Kenny’s mouth wrapped around her fingers – that every time Kierra had a problem, she laid it at Monica’s feet. Lane might have been loud, and Kierra might have had them trailing after her like she was a piece of rare meat, but clearly whatever ship they were on was being steered by Monica.

  “Hi Kierra. Hi Maya,” Chanté said from the front of the room, with an excited wave.

  Maya stepped from behind Kierra and waved back. “Hey girl. I love your hair like that,” she said gesturing at the two cornrows on either side of Chanté’s head that she’d accented with small metal baubles.

  “Thanks! I like your dress,” Chanté grinned as she ran a hand over her hairstyle lightly.

  And Maya, shameless lover of compliments, grabbed the skirt of her dress and spread it out to best show off the geometric pattern.

  “Don’t you think that dress is so pretty on her, Kenny?” Chanté asked.

  Maya’s eyes crashed into Kenny’s for the first time in just over a day. And like he had then, his eyes boldly drank her in.

  “Beautiful,” he whispered, more to himself than to Chanté or Maya.

  She gulped.

  “We need the room,” Monica announced.

  “No,” Kierra said. “Let’s keep going. We’re smart. We’ll catch up.”

  “Like I said, we need the room.”

  “Yep,” Chanté and Kenny said in unison. Kenny jumped from his seat and moved aside to let Chanté walk past him and exit first.

  Chanté whispered “sorry girl” to Kierra as she slipped out of the room.

  Kenny stopped next to Kierra but looked across her to Maya. “You should come with me,” he said matter-of-factly.

  And maybe if he’d said ‘us’ she might have said no. Or if Kierra had been able to tear her eyes away from Monica, she might have had a reason not to say, “Okay,” in a soft voice that seemed to make Kenny’s jaw tick, which made her own pulse race.

  ***

  There was an air of finality that Maya accepted as she walked into the hallway. She heard the briefing room door close and felt the vibration of Kenny’s steps as he followed her into the foyer. Awareness of his body radiated from the soles of her feet, up her legs, swirled in her sex and made her nipples and scalp tingle.

  Chanté met them in the foyer.

  “Oh man, that’s gonna be epic,” she said, pointing toward the briefing room. “Wish I could see it.” And then she tilted her chin up and looked at the ceiling. “Well, I could hack into the security feeds,” she said but shook her head quickly. “Invasion of privacy. Not my forte. Well, unless I’m being paid. Or checking in on Asif? So um, does that mean we’re done here?” She asked Kenny, who was stand
ing just behind Maya.

  He moved closer, his body still partially behind hers, their arms almost touching. “Yeah, probably.”

  “Okay good, I’ve got a shift at the club later and I need to go home and pick out my gear.”

  She turned to Maya, a big smile on her face. “You should come see me dance,” she exclaimed.

  Kenny cleared his throat.

  “Maybe. We’ll see. I’ll let you know,” she said and backed away hastily. At the top of the stairs she turned, “You two have fun.” And then she was gone and it was just the two of them in the foyer. Maya could feel Kenny’s body heat where they almost touched. Hear her own ragged breaths. She scrunched her nose. “Is that room soundproof?”

  “Yes,” he replied.

  She turned to him, “Where’s your office?”

  He swallowed hard, which made Maya feel powerful. But she jumped as his hand settled on the curve of her back. That made her feel vulnerable in the best way possible. He steered her to the other side of the foyer, down a hallway.

  She wasn’t sure how many doors they passed, her entire attention was taken up by the heavy presence of Kenny’s hand on her, the heat of it searing through her thin dress. At the end of the hall, he reached around her to push open a door. She crossed the threshold and stood in the center of the basically empty room. When the door closed behind them, she closed her eyes and sucked her bottom lip into her mouth. She listened to the sound of his slow steps across the room and around to her front. She knew where he was primarily by the way the hairs on her arms stood on end and moved to follow his body.

  “Maya,” he whispered.

  She opened her eyes. He was so close.

  “Tell me,” she said, not even sure herself what she was asking him.

  “Chanté identified two of Joseph Mehmeti’s associates in your chatroom on Tuesday. They’re members of a white supremacist gang from West Virginia.”

  Maya inhaled sharply.

  Kenny’s hands lifted but stopped just before they touched her. The part of her brain that wasn’t consumed with fear was gleeful at the simple question in that gesture. She nodded. He ran his hands up and down her arms. “We think they’re Joseph’s US brokers but don’t know for sure. We still need to gather more information. No one’s going to get near you while I’m around.”

  She looked up at him through her eyelashes. They stood there, staring at one another, their breaths mingling. “This is so fucking dramatic,” she said.

  They smiled.

  “I laid it on a bit thick. I’m sorry.”

  She swiveled her head to take in the room. “There’s nothing in here,” she said. She wished she hadn’t said it when his face went from bright and open to wary and his hands fell away.

  He shrugged. “I just got here. Haven’t moved in yet. Maybe I…” He didn’t finish the sentence.

  She nodded.

  “I know you don’t want me to apologize anymore. But I really am sorry, Maya.”

  She pursed her lips together and pulled a slow breath of air in through her nose. She exhaled loudly, but whispered. “Were you really never going to tell me who you were?”

  He scrubbed his hands over the crown of his head and turned away from her. She licked her lips, realizing she wanted to rub her hands over his head in that way, to run her fingertips across his lips, over his chin and down along the column of his neck. She wanted to be as near to him as she could get.

  When he turned back toward her, he grasped his hands together in front of his chest and shook his head. “Never,” he admitted.

  Maya hadn’t realized how much she’d been hoping for the fairytale answer. She wanted to hear that at some point he would have broken down under the weight of his deception and told her who he was. Hearing that that would never have happened hurt, much more than it should have for a man who was, until recently, just a blank gray avatar.

  “I wish I could give you a different answer. But if I’d tried to tell you who I was without being able to tell you what I did,” he grimaced and shrugged. “I would have had to lie to you forever. And lying to you for the past six months has fucking sucked.”

  Maya scraped her teeth over her bottom lip.

  “You know I can tell your mood by how you chew your lip?”

  Her eyes widened. She smiled. “What mood was that?”

  Kenny’s eyes lit up. “You’re hurt, pissed.” There was a long pause. Maya knew there was more coming, she waited with bated breath. “And horny.”

  Maya smiled her best, dirty smile at him. “Assuming you’re right,” she said, even though he was absolutely correct. “That doesn’t mean that I’ve forgiven you.”

  “Good,” he said, walking toward her with slow steps. “You should make me work for it.”

  Maya couldn’t stop the breathy sigh that left her lips. Of course he would say something like that. The exact thing she’d been thinking since yesterday. MasquerAsiaN had always known the perfect words to dig right under her skin and stroke her into an excited frenzy. Oh, she thought, that’s an idea.

  She lifted her best eyebrow at him, “Work for it?”

  He was right in front of her now. Their chests almost touching. She could smell the clean, barely-there scent of his cologne. “Just tell me what you want.”

  She lifted her chin, and her lips fell apart in a soft gasp that purposefully drew his eyes directly to her mouth. What she wanted was for him not to have lied to her for six months. What she wanted was for them to have met at some café or at a trendy, overpriced wine bar. But Maya’s mother had raised her to be a practical woman who took control of her life even when everything seemed decidedly out of control. And wishing that she could change the past was an impractical endeavor that would lead nowhere, she had to deal with the here and now of reality. Or, she thought to herself, she had to make reality look like her fantasies. And she’d once had a very detailed dream about MasquerAsiaN that she could absolutely turn into reality. Correction, they could turn that fantasy into reality.

  “You once told me you’d give your right arm to taste me,” she said in a sultry whisper.

  Kenny’s face reddened. He stepped around her and walked to the door. Her head swiveled. She watched him turn the lock.

  When he turned back toward her, it was Maya’s turn to gulp. MasquerAsiaN had always seemed restrained, nowhere near desperate. He’d was precise and filthy directions accompanied by the sweetest compliments. But Kenny was reddened cheeks and broad shoulders, a tall strong body full of pent up energy. And he was currently looking at her as if he wanted to expend every ounce of that energy on her.

  He stalked toward her, “I did say that. And I meant it.”

  Maya grinned at him and walked to his empty desk. He followed her, heat nipping at the backs of her thighs. She turned and her legs hit the cool metal, a nervous giggle slipped from her lips. “Seems extreme.”

  He leaned forward, the tips of his fingers touching the hem of her dress. His perfectly manicured nails scraped up her thighs, taking her dress with it.

  She moaned, wanting to scream that he was touching her, FINALLY. She put her hands on his shoulders and leaned into him for support. His hands moved around her body and cupped her ass. She gasped as he gripped her harshly and lifted her onto the desk. And then he lowered his long body to his knees, folded her dress up to her waist neatly and smiled up at her.

  “I already know you’re worth it.”

  ***

  Kenny was a serious child who had grown to be a practical man. He valued order and stability and had never willingly broken a rule in his life. Sure, Chanté had dragged him through a few ROTC infractions, but he’d rationalized those moments as necessary to keep her out of too much trouble. But then he’d stumbled into ThickaThanASnicka’s cam room and never looked back as he hurtled through one ethics violation after another.

  As he pushed Maya’s thighs apart, rubbing his palms across the expanse of her smooth brown skin, he accepted that oral sex with an asset in his Ag
ency office was just one more violation and he absolutely did not care. He groaned when the flash of her black underwear came into view. He put his hands underneath her knees to lift and spread her legs, exposing her panty-covered sex to his gaze. His eyes were glued to the apex of her thighs as her hand slid into view.

  She rubbed her fingers up and down her crotch before peeling her panties to the side. Slowly. She ran one finger across her lips, small flashes of pink making his mouth water. He wanted to move her hand to the side and replace it with his mouth. But when he raised his eyes to look at Maya, her bottom lip was back between her teeth and her eyes were playful as she watched him.

  She wanted him to wait.

  So he did. He sat back on his heels and ran his thumbs along the sensitive spot on the inside of her knees. When she gasped, his eyes flew back to her pussy to watch her middle finger slide inside her sex, in and out as his mouth watered. When she had his full attention, she raised her hand to his lips, smearing her taste onto his mouth. He opened his mouth and she slipped her finger inside. He sucked her essence from her skin, wrapping his tongue around her digit.

  “So what do you think?” Her voice was low, husky. He’d never heard her sound so turned on.

  He hollowed his mouth around her finger, not wanting to miss a drop of her. He knew what she wanted to hear. Not that bullshit about her tasting sweet or like fruit or better than the candy she’d fed him yesterday. She wanted to hear that her pussy tasted slightly tangy, with a hint of salt and bright, and that he loved every note of her. But when she pulled her hand away he licked his lips and said, “I can’t be sure just yet.”

  She didn’t try to stop the smile from spreading across her lips. She moved her panties to the side again. “Well go ahead then.”

  Kenny had literally been waiting months for this. He didn’t need to be told twice. He lowered his head between her legs, swiping his tongue up her slit to slowly circle her clit. When he sucked it into his mouth, Maya’s hips bucked and he moved his hands up her thighs to grip her hips, keeping her in place.

  She’d once told him exactly how she liked to be eaten, in excruciating detail, while he’d slowly stroked himself to a shuddering climax that left him gasping for breath, wishing he could call her name without it feeling weird. He remembered every detail of that chat and made sure he gave her everything she’d said she wanted; lots of firm swipes of his tongue and sharp suction on her clit. His fingers dug into her soft flesh, massaging her muscles and keeping her pressed securely to his mouth, except for when he pulled back so that she could hear the wet slurping of his mouth, her favorite sex sound apparently.