Tease

by Nathalie Gray

  Settle down. She needs to nail this thing.

  For her safety and his apparently. Unless Adriano was just being skittish.

  Yeah, probably it. And anyway, how does he know something big is going to happen tomorrow? Who is he anyway? He lives in Italy for all I know. Baww, let him worry. Chickenshit.

  As the moment of the dreaded Reverse Knee Spin approached, he could tell Joan was getting anxious, if only by the determination tightening her mouth. With a huff, she grabbed the pole, wrapped the outside of her leg around then kicked off so she’d slide backward and down in perfectly controlled manner so as to land gracefully after two exact clockwise turns and not thud on her ass. Archer swore there was a “click” when she nailed the move. Nailed it!

  The electric guitar wailed its last peak and then there was silence, only occasionally interrupted by Joan’s panting. Wet hair stuck to her forehead. She looked at him, her eyes searching. For his approval?

  So this is what they’re talking about.

  When they mention the moment a man knows he’s fallen—and fall was the exact word for his case, and something told him he’d be landing hard too, with Joan’s foot stamped in his ass—fallen for a woman. Fallen bad. It was true then, the feelings bad poets described—the euphoria, the fear, the hope. All mixed in with a good dose of apprehension and the last few shreds of denial clinging to his heart. He couldn’t fall for Joan. Not like that. He’d lose her in barely a day. There’d be tomorrow then there’d be never. There’d be him watching her back at The Quicksilver while she did her thing, caught the bad guy and received all the accolades her role duly merited then there’d be the screaming, possibly the Archer ass-kicking. And then he’d be alone in a posh house too big for him and filled with nothing but pictures of his dead parents. Good times, good times.

  Archer knelt so he could sit on his heels. “Joan,” he began, trying not to let his heart ooze out of his eyes. “That’s the sexiest, most beautiful dance routine I’ve ever seen. If they don’t take you, I’ll kick their asses. I don’t care if Laramée has twenty goons around him.”

  She blew hair out of her face and came to kneel in front of him. “He shouldn’t have twenty goons with him, that’s why we want to sting him at his club, when he expects it the least. As far as he’s concerned, we don’t know he’s back in Canada. But thanks.” After a quick look back at the pole, Joan cocked her head. “Is everything okay?”

  Archer felt his heart squeeze as though someone had just lassoed it and tugged it down and out through his ass. Ugh. “Why do you ask?”

  He was desperately trying to hint at the trouble Adriano had warned about without rousing her suspicions. But he was good at lying, wasn’t he?

  “You look worried. Is it about tomorrow? You’ll have the wire. My colleagues will be inside the club in a matter of seconds if things turn ugly.”

  “I’m still thinking about the goons. What if the place is crawling with them? A few seconds is all you need to get shot.”

  What if the one who’s supposed to watch your back is a liar and a cheat and an opportunistic prick who’s too much of a chickenshit to tell you what’s on his mind? What about that guy? The one whose heart is breaking?

  Her eyes narrowed and for a split second, Archer was going to tell her. Right here, right now. He even took a breath to do just that. But the thought of her so close to him, the disgust that would twist her face.

  I’m such a coward.

  And selfish. He wanted to remember her this way and not pollute the moment with stuff like, well, the truth. Man, he wanted a drink right now.

  He framed her face with both hands, gently brushed her cheekbones with his thumbs. He didn’t say anything, could hardly breathe as it was. Archer couldn’t believe it. He really did love her.

  Joan stared into his pale eyes and saw something that hadn’t been there before. Affection. Warmth. It enveloped her, made her feel warm and tingly. Wow. Such a difference!

  Archer kissed her gently, tenderly, with only his lips and not that wicked, wicked tongue. She responded in kind. While he caressed her shoulders, her neck, she did the same to him, as if she were discovering him all over again, this new man. And when he applied a bit of pressure to indicate she should lie down on her side, she acquiesced immediately so she could better savor the change of pace and what lay ahead.

  He remained intense but silent as he ran his hand along her shoulder and side, down over her hip and thigh, even reached down to her knee and calf, which he used as a canvas to draw serpentine shapes with his index finger. She shivered with pleasure.

  “Archer—”

  He shook his head. “Shh.”

  So when he lay in front of her, likewise propped up on an elbow, Joan didn’t move or try to touch him in return. He clearly wanted to do this by himself. Who was she to complain?

  Soon his subtle touches triggered shivers, his gentle caresses palpitations. There was a longing in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. Joan couldn’t reconcile the man with the phantom mint and the affectionate lover presently touching her. Both were intoxicating, yet the current Archer rose by a head and shoulders above his Casanova half for the solicitude of his touch and the passion in his gaze. Joan couldn’t believe it, but Archer was acting in a loving way.

  Man, she would’ve poked at that angle more had she not been afraid to burst the fragile bubble. So maybe she was special. Maybe there weren’t so many notches on his pole.

  Even if he never said a word, she understood him perfectly when he pressed against her hip, rolled her over onto her back so she lay supine beside him. The tiny discs sparkled quietly in the amber light as if it’d rained gold. She was sure he touched every individual one too, smoothly circling each tiny penny, treating her navel to the same attention, coming higher and toying with the last row along the bra. She could hardly breathe!

  His gaze on her, he leaned over and kissed the shallow dip below her sternum. No tongue. Just lips. Tender, tender lips. Then he blew on her skin, creating a bloom, a deep need in her that only he could properly attend. She felt as if she’d melted between the legs. As she began to rub her thighs together to show her hunger, Archer’s hand left her bra and dipped below her mons. At once, juices seeped from her to him, which he collected and rubbed over her vulva. And if this simple pleasure didn’t just make Joan want him even more! She arched against his hand. A cordial finger entered then two. In and out. Slowly, knowing exactly how to please her. It wouldn’t take long.

  While he made love to her with his fingers, his mouth wasn’t idle. Like a pearl necklace of kisses, he pressed his lips at regular intervals between her breasts, higher on her neck, her face. Joan just closed her eyes and accepted his sweet gift. Pleasure soon built up, cramped her thighs. He must have felt it coming too for Archer accentuated his cadence, but only slightly. Instead of the brain-melting sex she’d had with him, what they presently shared felt deeper, closer, even if he was just using his hands.

  “Archer…”

  “I know,” he whispered against her mouth. “Shh.”

  A spasm bloomed her pussy, warmth spread to her butt then cum coated them both as she exhaled the most profound orgasm. As if she were sharing a secret pleasure with him, pleasure she hadn’t known was there. He breathed in her gasp, kissed it out of her and into him. His reward. Her gift.

  Archer smiled as he pulled away. Replete, she didn’t mind when he slipped his fingers out, kissed her on the forehead.

  “Thanks,” she murmured, knowing she smiled like a fat, lazy cat.

  He shook his head. “No. Thank you.”

  And Archer meant it. He was thanking her for sharing this quiet pleasure with him, for allowing him into her body and her life, even for a few days, even if it’d all come to an end the next day. At least he’d had this with her.

  After he lay down beside her, but on his belly so he could rest his head on his crossed arms, he stared at her a long while. The vestiges of climax soon faded from her blushed face. She was so
beautiful this way. So…

  I really screwed up this time.

  She mirrored his position, eyes half closed.

  “Don’t these jobs scare you?” he asked. “Stings, I mean.” It did him.

  She shrugged. “Sure. But I’ve been trained for it. And you should see the size of my partner’s gun.”

  They shared a quiet smile.

  “I know. Still… Why do you even have to be at the club in person? Can’t you guys catch him any other way?”

  “We’ve tried before but he’s a slimy fish. When you think you have him pinned down, he slips out of the country. It’s not that we don’t have enough to charge him this time, we do, but we have to get him—physically—I mean. He’s been gone several months, in Eastern Europe from what INTERPOL says, and now that he’s back, we have to try to tag him again. Only this time, we’ll play dirty.”

  “Tag?”

  “Have someone make visual confirmation, you know, so he stays put for when the cavalry comes in. My job is to go in there, ID him, hopefully manage to keep a grip on him until the rest show up. That’s why we use the safe word. So it’s nice and quick.”

  “That’s not how they do it in movies.” That sounded petulant and he didn’t care. He really was worried for her. Where would the SWAT guys be? The big guns?

  Joan laughed. “It’s not as climactic but it works. With Claude Laramée, any method is good as long as it gets the job done. We’ve tried the subpoenas, his lawyers just laughed us out of court. We’ve tried to have INTERPOL arrest him abroad, they couldn’t find him after one of their informants, the one who alerted them of his impending return to Canada, was found murdered. So tomorrow we’re coming after him in his own home, something we’ve never done.”

  “Let’s say he’s there and you manage to keep him with you long enough for your posse to get there, then what happens?”

  “We wait and pretend we’re just as shocked as everybody else when they raid the club and arrest everyone for a variety of charges.”

  The irony of life. “Oh, this I can do pretty damn well. I have practice.”

  “Oh?”

  “Don’t ask.”

  She looked as if she wanted to but didn’t. If only he could’ve been born a bit more honest, a bit less self-centered. He might have avoided the big trap he’d set for himself.

  “Everything will be fine, okay?” she said, leaning forward and planting a kiss on his mouth. “You’ll have the wire.”

  Archer had never guessed that someday his life and that of the woman he’d come to love would hang by a wire. Literally. He hoped for both their sakes it was a thick one.

  * * * * *

  “It’s nice that we don’t have to worry about hair,” Chantal said, smirking in the way Mel had done the day before. Did all women smirk this way when they didn’t say exactly what was on their mind?

  Yeah, he waxed his chest and legs! Not only that, he used body lotion too. So what of it? Ladies, they loved the smooth skin.

  So sue me.

  Archer let the gangly woman apply another measure of hypoallergenic tape to his chest—said so on the pink dispenser. That stuff was great and not just for holding J-Lo’s dress together either. It also served to tape wires to cheats and liars such as him. Although in his case, he was wired to watch Joan’s back because she couldn’t wear one herself. So in this case, it was different.

  Sergeant-detective “Pain” Sauvageau looked on as Joan’s partner fiddled with the tiny disc-shaped mike and wire before stepping back to admire her work. Or his pecs.

  “Perfect.”

  “I know. I work out.” He couldn’t help it.

  She grinned a lopsided one that told him this woman was trouble on legs. Attitude on legs. And legs on legs too. She must have been five-ten, but the proportion of legs was just weird.

  “Pas pire pour un maudit anglais,” she said through a smile. Maybe she didn’t know he’d been raised with French kids, despite his mother tongue being English.

  Not bad for a damn English…? Pfft!

  “Merci du compliment.”

  When her eyes flared, he felt like patting her on the shoulder but let her roast on her own fire instead. Yup, thanks for the compliment.

  Sauvageau surprisingly looked delighted. He chuckled as he rearranged his bulletproof vest over his shirt.

  “This is going to hold all night, with the sweat and everything?” Archer asked no one in particular, buttoned his best shirt over the wire and tiny battery pack. His best shirt, suit and shoes for his best performance. The lie of his life. His swan song too for Adriano would fire his ass after he learned Archer had gone anyway, despite being told to sit this one out. Fuck Adriano. Fuck Gentlemen Inc. and his fears about the night’s dangerous events.

  Archer was dressed to kill—or be killed—in his dark gray suit, open black shirt and shiniest shoes, and he felt…

  Like shit.

  Joan’s gaze on him forced back on his nonchalant smirk. Gotta keep up appearances.

  She wore a long cream-colored jacket over her “costume” and had her hair au naturel, just loosely brushed back and spilling over her athletic shoulders. Why couldn’t he have met her before? Under different circumstances too. Bad timing and bad mojo. That just sucked.

  “It should hold. You have the memory stick?” Joan asked for the third time.

  He nodded, pulled it out, showed it to her then slipped it back in his jacket inside pocket. Her song was on it, to give to the audition people. Archer wondered if it doubled as a tracking device too. In case things turned to shit…

  Only Chantal and Sauvageau were presently in the locker room, the rest of the team members waited in the underground garage one level down, getting ready to raid The Quicksilver, arrest Laramée’s criminal ass. Even if he was a guy, Sauvageau’s presence didn’t bother Archer since he knew the man regarded Joan as a colleague and perhaps even a baby sister. Archer couldn’t detect any lascivious undertone in the way he looked at her. And for this he was glad because if Sauvageau would’ve made any inappropriate comment regarding her costume, which she’d showed, grinning to her partner, Archer just might have taken his frustration out on the big man and laid the judo technique down on his hairy ass. With the rest of the guys gone downstairs, Joan wouldn’t have to put up with the catcalls and the lewd comments, not that he thought she’d take it. Or that Chantal would let them. That one looked fearsome both verbally and physically. He, for one, wouldn’t cross her unless he absolutely had to.

  A door closed somewhere. “At the slightest sign of trouble, Mr. Archer,” said an older Asian woman as she stepped around the row of lockers, “you say the safe word.”

  She was dressed in dark blue and wore gold and jade jewelry. Now this was a nice suit, cut perfectly for her petite frame. Who said lady cops looked like guys? These three right now looked perfectly female. Well, Chantal did look a bit mannish, but in a sporty sort of way.

  “You say the word, scream it, sing it, whisper it. ‘Rhodes.’ And we’re there.” The older woman snapped her fingers. A deep crease marred her surprisingly smooth brow. She didn’t look happy but managed to keep her cool. Archer instantly recognized her as the Big Boss.

  “It’s all good, Lieutenant,” Chantal replied, her French accent making the rank sound like “Lee-ewtt-naw”.

  “No, it’s not,” replied the boss lady. She gave a pronounced look at Joan. “You be careful, Constable. I’m asking as a mother and a police officer. You make sure you come back with all your bits attached.”

  “Mr. Archer too,” Sauvageau commented through his mustache. He gave Archer an ominous look that said in neon color, “You fuck up and you lose all your bits.”

  After a few last-minute preparations, Archer and Joan got into her car—he buckled in nice and tight as soon as his ass connected with the leather—while the rest would follow in various vehicles ranging from SUVs to Datsun pickups. So unlike the movies with their caravans of black trucks and vans. Where did the Montreal Polic
e get their sting getup? At the used-car dealerships?

  Joan sat, buckled up then turned to him. “I’m nervous,” she mouthed silently.

  Oh yeah, that’s right. We’re taped.

  She tried for a valiant grin but it ended up a grimace.

  Archer thought his heart would break. “It’ll be okay,” he mouthed then pointed to his chest. “I have The Wire.”

  They shared a quick, forced laugh.

  “Okay, let’s go. We don’t want to be late.”

  “But it doesn’t mean you have to drive any faster than necessary, right? Right?”

  “Très funny.”

  She flicked her loose hair back, started her car then drove out of the underground garage. Behind them, Archer could spot at least two of the police vehicles, one of them the converted mail delivery truck in which Sergeant-detective Pain and the Lee-ewtt-naw sat. Chantal had gotten into one of the smaller cars. He didn’t know if the gun hanging under her arm was custom or what, but it’d been huge.

  A lady cop with a killer stare and a huge gun? Good.

  He wasn’t one of those macho Neanderthals who believed himself invincible because he happened to have a dick and facial hair. The more armed people on his side of the fence, the better.

  As agreed, they circled the block a couple of times to establish the communication and make sure everyone received them all right. Because Archer’s wire was meant to send and not to receive, Joan and he wouldn’t have a way to hear the rest of the team. Apparently hiding a receiver was much harder than a transmitter, which could be hidden anywhere on the body as opposed to an earpiece that unfailingly had to be placed in the wearer’s ear. After a few spins, the mail truck flashed the high beams once, the previously established confirmation everyone received Archer’s mike loud and clear.