“What is ‘meh news’?” Lane asked.
Chanté shrugged but kept typing. “Not good or bad. It just is.”
Monica exhaled, annoyed.
“Meh news first, please,” Kierra chimed.
“Okay, just as I suspected Mehmeti’s using an IP scrambler.”
“What’s the bad news?” Monica ground out.
Chanté exhaled. “His IP is in a different location every seven minutes but I need at least nine minutes to track his actual server down. And then I’d have to hack into it.”
“How long would it take to hack?” Lane asked.
Chanté shook her head. “There’s no way to know that before I locate the server. Who knows what his security is like.”
“So we need to stick with our original plan to get him into a private session to give you more time,” Monica announced. “What’s the good news?”
Chanté smiled but kept typing for a few minutes. The briefing room was quiet but for the tapping of her long acrylic nails on her laptop and the faint sounds of Maya’s moans from the live broadcast. Finally, she smiled and looked up at Monica, “The good news is the Setter brothers aren’t nearly as cautious. I’m downloading their hard drives remotely as we speak and they get off,” Chanté said, nodding toward the screen.
Monica didn’t smile but Chanté could read her approval in the gentle nod of her head.
Lane exhaled. “So now we just need to get Joseph Mehmeti to request a private session with Maya and soon?”
They all turned toward the screen where Kenny was rolling Maya’s nipples between her fingers as her hips spasmed around her internal vibrator, her orgasm very close.
Monica tapped at her tablet. “I don’t think we’ll have to worry too long about that,” she said. “He’s already tipped her close to five hundred dollars and she still has another twenty minutes left.”
“So we wait,” Kierra breathed.
Chanté chuckled and started tapping at her computer again. “Ooooh I don’t do patience well.”
“Are you going to start sifting through the Setters’ hard drives?” Kierra asked.
“Nah, I created some code to sort what we’re looking for: bank accounts, correspondence, passwords, etc. While I’m waiting, I thought I might see what Asif’s up to. And maybe buy myself an early early Valentines present.”
“It’s September,” Lane said with a chuckle.
“I said early early,” Chanté replied.
Monica turned to her and squinted. “You two have such a strange relationship.”
Chanté raised her eyes and both eyebrows, but Kierra replied before she could, with a reassuring pat on Chanté’s arm.
“We’ve fucked in every room of Command and Maya and Kenny are fondling each other for all of the internet to see. Let’s just all agree that no one else’s relationship is up for discussion.”
Monica smiled and went back to her tablet. Lane reached across the table to snag Kierra’s bag of pretzels and sat back to enjoy the rest of the broadcast.
Chanté turned to Kierra, who smiled at her with a wink. “Wanna steal a purse?”
nine
Maya ended the broadcast by pushing the power button on her camera’s remote and toeing her laptop closed with one shaky foot. In fact, her entire body was shaking with the aftershocks of her orgasm. She stretched out and lifted her arms over her head. She grasped Kenny at the crown of his head with both hands and held onto him for dear life. Kenny fought against that touch, her fingernails scraping along his scalp. He bit back a groan and tried to still his hips – he wanted desperately to pump into her. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close.
“Touch me,” she begged in a tight, strained voice that wreaked havoc on his resolve.
He moved his hands to her breasts and began to knead gently, the soft flesh spilling out of his palms. When he moved his thumbs to her nipples she groaned and gasped and arched her back in beautiful distress. He focused on touching her in just the right way – just the right pinch of her oversensitive nipples, his mouth pressed to her temple. He ignored his own physical needs and the signs of his arousal; his hard dick in his underwear, his rapid heart rate, his panting breaths.
“Oh fuck, I’m coming again,” she groaned, convulsing in his arms.
“I’ve got you,” he whispered directly into her ear.
She planted her heels onto the bed and lifted her hips, her thighs shaking, her labored breath filling the room. His dick pulsed, wanting her. He held her through this final climax. It took a few minutes for her hips to lower back to the bed, and her breathing to slow.
“Please,” she whispered, exhausted.
He reached for the remote control for her vibrator and shut it off. Her body sagged against his. The room filled with the beautiful tinkling of her post-orgasmic laughter. He groaned. She gently stroked the backs of his hands on her chest. Kenny was still painfully hard but this moment was beautiful; intimate. Even more intimate than everything they’d shared so far.
“Are you close?” She whispered after a while.
His body was still rigid with his own lust. He nodded.
She turned slowly in his arms and he moved so they could make eye contact. She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth.
“Can we wait?” He whispered.
She raised an eyebrow. “Wait for…?”
“After our date,” he said and felt his cheeks warm.
The smile that slowly spread across her face was surprised at first and then dirty. “You’re a sweet one, Kenny,” she said.
His blush was intense. “Not really. I’m just selfish. I want to be the one to get you this hot before I fuck you.”
She smiled wickedly, “We’ll see.” And then she moved away from him, crawling from between his legs. When she stood she turned and her eyes trained on his hard dick. “Are you sure?” She asked, her eyes never leaving his lap, her tongue swiping across her lips.
“Don’t tempt me,” he said in a strained voice.
“That’s kinda my job,” she shrugged. “But if you’re sure.”
“I am,” he said and then mumbled, “unfortunately.”
She moved into her bathroom and he had to avert his eyes from her retreating form. He looked around her room for his clothes before remembering that he’d followed her across the hall nearly naked without thinking about his return journey. But as he thought of his short walk back to his apartment, it wasn’t his exposed skin that occupied his mind. It was leaving her.
“Hey, Maya,” he called to her.
She appeared in the bathroom door, “You change your mind?”
“Do you want- I was thinking maybe we could watch a movie?”
He was becoming addicted to her easy smiles and knowing that they were for him, only for him, in real life. “Does this count as our first date?” She asked with a suggestive purse of her lips.
He laughed. “Yes. If you want it to.”
She licked her lips, her eyes falling to his dick again. “I do,” she whispered, each word dripping with lust.
He ducked his head and smiled. He remembered what she’d told him and lifted his head to make eye contact. “Okay. I’m just going to run home and...”
“Relieve some tension,” she offered helpfully.
“Some of it at least. I’ll be back in a bit.”
“Okay. Oh wait,” she said before he could even turn to go. She sauntered across her bathroom and he gulped at the soft shimmy of her fleshy thighs and hips. When she was right in front of him, she leaned forward to press a kiss softly, chastely to his lips. He smiled and moved his lips against hers. It was innocent but it still made his body tingle.
“I was already hot for you, by the way,” she whispered against his lips.
***
After Kenny left, Maya took a quick shower and changed into her favorite pair of baggy sweatpants and a tank top with a shelf bra that gave her the illusion of support without the restriction of an underwire. The lack of actual bra o
r the equivalent was usually how she demarcated the space between work and relaxation. That and the glasses she shoved onto her face after she took her contacts out.
She walked to the kitchen, trying not to overthink her current situation as she waited for Kenny to return by keeping her hands busy. She started rummaging through her cupboards pulling out every kind of snack she could find. But then she remembered that he didn’t snack – and didn’t like candy – and she put them all back with a frown.
Finally, she gave up on being a good hostess and grabbed her phone from the charger on her nightstand, thinking she might check her chatroom or text Kierra. But when the knock came at the door, Maya was standing in the kitchen, staring off into space, thinking about Kenny’s groan in her ear. She took a deep breath, gave herself a hard mental shake and walked across the living room on shaky legs. Just before she pulled the door open she took another deep breath, straightened her back, pressed her chest forward and fixed her mouth into her sexiest smile.
The pizza delivery woman’s eyes widened as her mouth fell open. “I… I...” she said, her eyes trained on Maya’s chest.
Maya squinted her eyes. “What the hell?”
“I got it,” Kenny yelled from down the hall, jogging the delivery person and Maya out of their stasis. “Got it,” he said again, waving the money in his hand. “Here you go.”
There was a moment where Kenny tried to negotiate handing over the money in one hand and grabbing the pizza with the other. It shouldn’t have been an ordeal, but the poor woman was flustered and Kenny, actual spy, seemed to be an adorable, gangly mess. Maya had never thought the he might be so physically awkward while they were chatting or in the few days they’d known each other offline. She was charmed.
Her eyes zeroed in on his lean waist and she licked her lips.
“Maya,” he said, pulling her out of the trance his body had put her in.
Her cheeks warmed at the realization that he’d caught her ogling him. But when she raised her eyes to his face and found him smiling warmly at her, they warmed for another reason.
“Sorry,” she said and backed into her apartment to let him in.
He moved into the living room and set the pizza on the coffee table.
“Um, I’ll get plates,” Maya said, closing the door and turning the locks, ignoring the way he already had her hands shaking. “Do you want something to drink?” She called from the kitchen.
“Just water,” he said.
She grabbed plates, napkins, the pitcher of water and two glasses, turned, and almost dropped them all. Kenny was standing in the living room, his hands in the pockets of his sweatpants, his hard chest pressing through his tight Henley, his eyes raking over her.
She gasped and blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “How do you know what I like on my pizza?”
He grinned, “You told me.”
She squinted at him. “I did?”
He shrugged and lifted his eyes as he very clearly quoted her, jogging her memory. “Extra cheese, meat, lots of meat, veggies but only like the right veggies: peppers, onion, mushroom, ugh so many mushrooms. I’ll slap someone for putting fruit on my pizza. Hard.”
She giggled.
He smiled at her and inclined his head. “Come on. Let’s find something to watch.”
She put the water and glasses onto the tray in front of her and walked toward him.
He extended his long arms across the couch and grabbed the tray from her hands.
“I’ve got it,” she laughed.
“I know,” he said, pulling the tray from her anyway.
Maya sat down on the couch, a respectable distance away from Kenny and navigated the TV to the on-demand schedule. “Are you in the mood for anything in particular?” When he didn’t answer she turned to find him staring at her. “What?”
“You’re so far away,” he said in a voice that felt like velvet as it washed over her.
She shivered, stood from the couch and moved to sit next to him at the center. There were still a few inches between them. Kenny bounced along the couch and pressed his side against hers.
She tried to stop the smile from spreading across her lips, which only made her cheeks puff out more. “Close enough?”
“For now,” he said. “I love your dimples.”
She raised her eyes to his. “You have beautiful eyes,” she whispered.
“They’re just brown,” he said around a laugh.
She leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his neck.
He froze.
“Beautiful,” she whispered against his skin. They were so close that she felt the shudder that rocked his body in hers. Maya was in no rush to move. “I don’t like horror,” she said.
They both laughed. She sat back to watch the way the smile brightened all of his very serious features.
He nodded. “I don’t either. Wanna watch a romcom?”
Maya sat back in shock and raised her best and second best eyebrows at him. “Are you just saying that to butter me up?”
“I like romcoms,” he said defensively. And then, “But is it working?” He laughed, and Maya tried not to get lost in the deep lines bracketing his mouth or the flutter of his eyelashes. It was all too much.
She turned to the television, toggled to a romantic comedy she’d been waiting weeks to watch. And then she turned to him. “Yeah. It’s working,” she whispered. She lost the internal battle she was fighting and leaned forward to kiss those laugh lines to the right of his mouth. “Definitely working.”
Kenny blushed and looked away from her to open the pizza box. “This wasn’t the dinner I’d planned when I asked you out.” He dished a slice for her onto a plate and handed it over.
“What did you plan?”
He laughed, “I hadn’t thought that far ahead yet.” He grabbed a piece of pizza for himself.
Maya smiled, her lips pressed together, and she ducked her head. She poured them each a glass of water and then pressed play on the movie. As it began, they both settled back onto the couch in a deep recline, as if they had synchronized it. It might not have been the date he would have planned, but as far as Maya was concerned, it was the best date of her life.
***
His apartment was dark and quiet when he let himself in. And it felt cold, much colder than Maya’s warm apartment and her body wrapped along his side on the couch, her cheek smushed into his shoulder and her soft snores drowning out the audio of the movie that had put them both to sleep. He smoothed his hand over the back of his head and let his smile fully form in the dark where no one else could see it. The kitchen light flickered on. When Kenny turned, Chanté was glaring at him.
“And where have you been?” She asked in a deep, serious voice before dissolving into giggles.
Kenny rolled his eyes.
“Tell me everything,” she screeched.
“Why are you up? Why are you here?” Kenny said irritably, breezing past her into the kitchen.
“I had an early shift. I woke up to get some water and then I heard you trying to sneak in.”
He pulled open the refrigerator door, “I wasn’t sneaking in. I don’t need to sneak.”
“Sure, sure,” she said, grabbing two glasses and setting them on the counter between them.
Kenny pretended to concentrate on pouring the water, hoping that Chanté would drop the subject, even though he knew she wouldn’t.
“Was it good?” Chanté whispered.
His hand slipped and he spilled some water onto the counter. Chanté cackled loudly. Kenny grimaced and reached for a paper towel to clean up the mess he’d made.
He shoved a glass into Chanté’s hands. “Drink.”
“That good, huh?” She whispered over the rim of the glass and took a sip.
Kenny ignored her question again, turning back to the fridge.
He drank his glass of water slowly, trying to avoid Chanté’s raised, nosy eyebrows. She put her glass of water on the counter and had opened her mouth wide to ha
rass Kenny some more – he rolled his eyes preemptively – when a small shuffle from the hallway leading to their bedrooms interrupted them.
Kenny’s eyes widened as a tall woman with dark brown skin and long dreadlocks came into view. She was slipping a leather coat onto her shoulders.
“Oh no. Did we wake you up?” Chanté said in a soft voice that made Kenny turn to her with his own nosy, raised eyebrows.
He watched her walk across the kitchen and meet her… friend in the living room. And then he watched them embrace with needy hands grabbing at exposed flesh and hungry, wet kisses. Kenny smiled in shock. The woman was whispering to Chanté too low for Kenny to make out her exact words, but whatever she said made Chanté laugh and growl at the same time.
Kenny cleared his throat.
Chanté came to herself and pulled slightly away. She had a shy smile on her face. “Kenny, this is Tracy,” she said, while clutching the other woman’s arms and bouncing up onto the balls of her feet – a move Kenny recognized as her adorably smitten pose. “Tracy, this is my roommate and best friend, Kenny. He’s just getting home from his girlfriend’s apartment and I’m interrogating him.”
Kenny rolled his eyes as he walked toward them. He extended his hand and grasped Tracy’s. “Nice to meet you, Tracy. She’s not my girlfriend. It’s complicated.”
Tracy laughed a husky, deep breath that Kenny knew had probably turned Chanté’s knees to jelly the first time she’d heard it – she had a thing for great laughs.
“Nice to meet you. You two are definitely best friends,” Tracy replied. “Don’t let me interrupt.”
“No. Please. Interrupt,” Kenny said.
“Yeah stay,” Chanté breathed.
Tracy turned to Chanté and smiled. “I’d love to, but I need to go home and get ready for work.” She wrapped Chanté more fully into her arms and pressed a kiss against her cheek. “When can I see you again?”
“Whenever you want,” Chanté said. Kenny smiled in shock and his eyebrows rose even higher than before.
“Alright. I’ll call you later today,” Tracy said with a broad smile.
“You better,” Chanté giggled.
Private Eye Page 16