The Pleasure of Panic

by JA Huss

  “Fine,” I say, feigning surrender. Take me home means sexual fulfillment fantasy, right? Why else would he make that offer? “Let’s go then. It’s late and I have to be up early to prepare for my next Go Fuck Yourself seminar at noon tomorrow.”

  He studies me a little longer, his hazel eyes searching mine, darting up and down my body with what might be a look of fascination.

  Men react to me in one of three ways. One—they find me annoyingly aggressive. Two—they find me inexplicably mysterious. And three—they ignore me completely.

  If I didn’t start this evening out with that meeting with Jordan Wells, I’d have chosen number three for good old Finn here. But we are in that game, he is the man I’m playing with, and as far as game pieces go—well, let’s just say… having Special Agent Finn Murphy fuck me in a sex club is probably gonna be the highlight of my life.

  He’s tall, a foot taller than me at least. His sandy brown hair is cropped short on the sides, but has some length on the top. Enough length to give him a bed-head look. You know the one, the just-woke-up-after-fucking-all-night kinda style. And his eyes are hazel. Not brown, not green, but both.

  He opens the door to the interrogation room by punching a sequence of numbers on a keypad, which he doesn’t even try to hide from me—yet another clue that this whole thing is bullshit. I wonder how he got his people to play along?

  Ah, but that would be Jordan’s job, right?

  Fuckin’ Jordan. Mid-winter holiday? Really? That’s all he could come up with?

  Then again, it was all that was needed, wasn’t it? Why bother with details that won’t matter? I called for him, his office gave me a plausible excuse, I accepted it, and we’ve moved on to phase two of the game now.

  Playing.

  Which is the best part, right?

  Finn waves me forward, through the door, into the hall, where I wait for him to lead me out of here. I’m ashamed to say I wasn’t paying attention when they brought me in, so I don’t remember the way. A slip in protocol, I admit. And if this wasn’t all bullshit just to set up the sex that will surely be happening tonight, I’d be harder on myself for the lapse.

  I just follow him instead.

  We pick up my stuff from a woman behind glass at a counter. My purse is returned in a large, clear, plastic bag. And once all that is settled, we make our way to the garage where his car is parked.

  He opens the rear door and smiles again. “I’m afraid you’ll have to sit in back, Issy. Civilians aren’t allowed to ride shotgun.”

  I shrug, giving in again. I really do have a seminar tomorrow and I like to be up early to prepare. It’s already getting late, so we need to wrap up the deviant sex game quick so I can get some shut-eye before dawn.

  I sit behind him, then scoot over to the passenger side so I can study him better as we drive. We’re at the Federal Building, all the way over in Lakewood, so the drive into downtown will take at least twenty minutes. I sit back and enjoy my view as he starts the car and makes his way out of the garage.

  “So… I got a glimpse of your file, Issy.”

  “Yeah,” I say, my mind on the shape of his lips as he speaks. They’re nice lips. Kinda full, but not too full. I bet they would feel wonderful between my legs.

  “See something you like?” he asks.

  It’s only then I realize he’s looking at me in the rear-view mirror. “I’m just curious, is all.”

  “About?”

  “You, of course. You know, how you got mixed up in all this.”

  He frowns in the mirror. Squints his eyes at me. “Mixed up in all what?”

  Oops. He must take this game stuff more seriously than I do. I guess I need to stay in character.

  “Wait,” I say, putting my actress hat back on. “What file do you have on me?”

  He glances in the rear-view, but only for a moment as we get on the 6th Avenue Freeway back towards Denver. “Same file we have on everyone once they get our attention.”

  “So you just put it together today?”

  “I didn’t, the department did. That’s what they handed to Declan when we got interrupted.”

  “Yeah, right before you guys decided to let me go. So what’d it say? To make you change your minds?”

  “It’s not the file that made us change our minds.”

  “Then what?”

  “The news that came with it.”

  “Which was?” Jesus. Am I gonna have to lead this guy into participating in a decent conversation now too? I mean, shit. You’d think banter would be included in the sex game package, right?

  “Chatter, Issy. Chatter about what happened to you tonight.”

  For a second I think he’s referring to my conversation with Jordan. There are several silent seconds of me irrationally picturing these guys listening in on that.

  “Were you guys spying on me while I was at Chella’s?”

  “Who’s Chella?”

  “The tea shop, you idiot! Did you have bugs over there? Did you hear—”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he says. “Calm down, ninja. We didn’t have bugs over there.” He glances at me in the rear-view again, cocks his head slightly as he squints his eyes. “Why, you hiding something? What was really going on over there?”

  I take a few moments to consider if he’s lying. I can’t imagine Jordan bugging the tea room. Like… this whole thing is about discretion, right?

  “Issy?” Finn prompts. “You got something you need to share with me?”

  I huff out a laugh. As if. I laugh again. As if I’m going to be the one to initiate the game play. Nope. If I wanted to ask a man to fuck me in front of strangers, I wouldn’t bother playing Jordan’s Game and letting all these people in on it, now would I?

  “You know there’s a confidentiality agreement, right?”

  “What?” he asks.

  “Between me and Jordan. I signed it, he signed it, and that means he can’t talk to you about shit.”

  “Yeah,” Finn says, getting off the freeway and easing onto Colfax. “That’s typically what lawyers do.”

  “So did he talk to you? Did he tell you anything?”

  “Who?”

  “For fuck’s sake,” I yell. “Jordan!”

  “He’s out of town, remember?”

  I cross my arms and lean back into the seat. “Right.”

  We’re quiet after that, but I catch him stealing glances at me in the mirror. I don’t tell him where I live, but he finds it anyway—must’ve been in my file—and parks right out front of the fixer-upper I bought when I first came to town. It’s an old house that needed a lot of work, so I got it for the amazingly cheap price of just over a million dollars.

  It’s also the only single-family home within three blocks of the Capitol building and there were several developers interested in the property, if only to knock it down and sandwich another apartment building between all the other apartment buildings that have sprung up in this neighborhood over the past decade. There’s two tall, brick buildings flanking the long front yard on either side, and neither of them have windows facing me, so it’s unusually private for the city.

  Lucky me. I am the proud owner of one total piece of shit house. Because it needs everything. New roof, new windows, new floors, new plumbing, new electrical… you name it. It needs it. I have plenty of money to do all that, but time is something else altogether. You can’t buy time and that’s something I never have enough of these days.

  So I just live with it. And I don’t even mind all the noises the boiler makes, or the way the water takes forever to get hot, or how none of the electrical sockets work on the second floor and I have to run extension cords up the stairs to get light.

  After living there for almost a year, I find I actually love the place. Even though it’s practically falling down, it felt like home immediately. I love walking inside after a long day and just falling into the couch cushions and looking around at the mess.

  And I love the front yard. There’s no back yar
d to speak of. Just a cement slab in between the house and the detached garage. But the front yard… those tall buildings on either side… they make me feel walled in and safe.

  I am a control freak about everything but this house. It’s like… it’s like the imperfections are perfect, ya know? So many people have lived here before me and each one of them is ingrained into what makes this place a home. It’s chaos, but not. Because it’s history.

  I check my watch. Almost nine thirty. This guy better have a sex club in mind if we want to get this show on the road. I refuse to show up for a seminar on no sleep, no matter how good the promise of sex sounds, but I’m willing to play along for a few hours if it’ll get this whole fantasy game over with.

  “So…” Finn starts. Like he wants to ask me something but he’s not sure how. Like he’s not sure what to do next. Jesus Christ. Fucking amateurs.

  “So you wanna come in?” I finish for him. “I mean, you do want to come in, right?”

  He chuckles a little. I can still see him in the rear-view mirror. “Are you propositioning me?”

  “Yes,” I say. “So open the damn door and let me out already. I can’t open it from the inside, remember.”

  Our eyes meet in the mirror. Hold each other’s gaze for the count of three. Then he laughs, and I laugh, and he gets out and opens my door. I get out, taking his offered hand to help me, and it’s… normal.

  It’s normal. I don’t know why and I can’t say how it happened, but it is. Maybe it’s the game? Maybe it’s because we both know we’re playing. We both know why we’re together tonight, we both know what’s gonna happen next, and we both need it.

  I’m not sure.

  But I like it, I realize. I like the certainty of how things will now play out. I like the prearranged scenario.

  I like him, too. Sorta. In that new possibilities kind of way.

  I think he’s got potential and I don’t know how or where he’s planning on fucking me in front of other people tonight—hell, maybe this is just a practice run or something? Maybe the game goes on for more than one night? I have no idea—but it’s OK.

  We’re gonna fuck, and then he’s gonna say something like, Hey, I know this place we should go, and I’m gonna say, OK, let’s do that, and then we’re gonna make those plans, and yeah…

  I haven’t had sex in almost six months and I’m way too close to scoring to back out now.

  We walk up the front walkway, which is made of those old cement blocks from like the nineteen forties. You know the ones. They’re all tilted and uneven, so far away from the flat surface they used to be. I’ve tripped over them several times coming home from the corner bar since I moved in. I joked with my homeowners’ insurance chick, Miranda, that they should count as a security system, they’re so dangerous. We had a good laugh at that, but she didn’t give me the discount.

  Then there’s the trees. They are old, and tall, and sturdy, just like the windowless brick walls that surround them. Their trunks are easily four feet in diameter. And the roots…. Jesus, the roots. They are poking up from the earth in all directions. Gnarled, and twisted, and amazing. I’m pretty sure the trees are what killed the walkway. Probably why my plumbing sucks too.

  But I don’t care. I love them.

  In the spring they’re like an umbrella. It rains, and rains, and rains, and almost nothing gets past their jungle-like canopy. It’s a shitty yard for growing anything because there’s no sun. And my front lawn—if you can call some spotty patches of grass a lawn—is a mess, just like the house.

  But it’s a beautiful yard for sitting in the shade and that’s really all I expect of it.

  When I get to the door I turn and smile at him, appreciating him a little more now that I’m no longer handcuffed, as I unlock it.

  “What?” he asks. “Changing your mind? We don’t have to do this, ya know.”

  I grab his tie and pull him towards me. He’s so much taller than me I figure the logistics of kissing will be comical, at best.

  But the kiss isn’t comical at all. There’s no awkward nose-bumping, no Which way do I turn my head?, no teeth crashing.

  He simply bows his head and… there he is. His mouth finds mine, his full lips covering me, then he nips my lip, making me gasp in surprise. I open my eyes to look up at him. Normally I keep my eyes closed for kissing, but the unexpected pain associated with the pleasure of the kiss knocks me off my game.

  Did I enjoy that?

  He doesn’t give me time to decide because he takes my face in both his hands and knocks me sideways as he crushes me with his lips.

  My legs almost buckle for a moment. My heart either speeds up or stops altogether, I’m not sure. My mind spins—maybe from the wine at dinner, but maybe not.

  I think I… swoon.

  CHAPTER FOUR - FINN

  I shouldn’t be doing this. I’m gonna lose my job. I’m gonna get a black mark I can’t afford to have. I’m gonna…

  Fuck it.

  Her mouth is delicious. She tastes like dessert and sweet wine. She tastes like Valentine’s Day. I kiss her harder after that thought, threading my fingers into her hair, then grabbing fistfuls to hold her close and keep her from pulling back, because it’s been way too long since I had a date on Valentine’s Day and even though she’s probably a criminal and a liar who’s gonna end up in prison before this is all said and done… I can’t help myself. I just react.

  The tie grab was unexpected. Shit, who am I kidding—this whole fucking thing was unexpected. But it was the tie grab that got my full attention. Little fucking wannabe dominatrix, that’s what she is.

  Newsflash, Issy Grey. Headline reads: Not Gonna Happen.

  I guide her through the open door, making sure she doesn’t trip over the rug, and kick it closed behind me as I continue my punishing kiss.

  “Upstairs or on the couch?” she asks, still kissing me.

  I don’t answer, just push her up against the foyer wall and drag her coat down her shoulders. She’s wearing a blazer underneath. Something completely professional. It comes off with the coat and they drop to the floor in a heap.

  Her hands automatically go to my coat, but I grab her wrists and tilt my head at her.

  “What?” she whispers, breathing heavy from the instant passion and heat we’ve created.

  “Don’t touch,” I say. It’s not a request, either.

  “What?” she asks again. A small chuckle escapes with her question.

  “You heard me,” I say, undoing the top button of her white blouse. It’s a feminine blouse, low-cut with a tiny ruffle running down the seams on either side of the small, gemstone buttons sparkling in the light coming in from the windows on either side of the door.

  A crooked smile appears on her face. We’re not kissing anymore, but that’s OK. We’ve got time for more of that later. She huffs out another tiny laugh, but this time it’s laced with cynicism. “Is that how you like to play?”

  “Sure,” I say. “My time, my game, my rules. You want me to leave, Issy Grey, owner-operator of one Go Fuck Yourself empowerment establishment? Just say the word and I’m out.”

  She stares at me, still smiling.

  “But if you want me to stay, we do it my way.”

  “Fine,” she says. “But it had better be worth it.”

  “Had it?” I ask. “Or what?”

  “Or I’ll quit,” she says, back up, pressing her body against the wall. “And stop playing. So if you fancy yourself a top, you better know what you’re doing.”

  I laugh. Like… I think this might be the truest moment of pure joy I’ve had since my father died. “I know what I’m doing.”

  “Good,” she says, bowing her head slightly so she can look up at me through her long, thick eyelashes. Her blue eyes are wide and calm. “Because I do too.”

  I rip her fucking blouse open. The tiny fake gemstone buttons go flying, skittering across the hardwood floor. And then I rip her fucking bra open too. The front-closing clasp breaks and Issy l
ets out a small gasp. “Do you have any idea how much I paid for this fucking bra?”

  “I’ll buy you another one,” I say, dragging the blouse and the bra away from her body so she’s forced to present herself to me, naked from the waist up.

  My hands grab her tits automatically, taking what is now mine. Her eyes are still wide, but no longer calm. They’re teeming with shock, excitement, and a healthy side of desire as I fondle her, pinching her nipples hard enough to make her close her eyes and hiss out a breath.

  “Be careful,” she growls. “I have a very fine line, Agent Murphy. And if you cross it, you’re gonna find out where my boundaries are immediately.”

  Yeah. Pure joy. I kiss her mouth again, my tongue pressing against hers, my hands still busy playing with her breasts. “A less experienced man,” I whisper into her mouth, “might take that as a threat, Ms. Grey.”

  “It’s a promise,” she whispers back, her words still laced with dessert and wine. “Not a threat.”

  “But I take it,” I say, ignoring her, “as a challenge. Fair warning of the rules over with, you will now stop talking and just listen.”

  Another small, incredulous laugh escapes.

  But it’s cut short when my hand slides up her breast and lands on the side of her neck. I don’t squeeze. She doesn’t need that extra embellishment to understand what that signal means.

  Her throat muscles move as she swallows down whatever it is she’s feeling. Fear? Probably not. She’s far too capable in a fight for fear to be her first reaction.

  No, that hard swallow was… desire.

  My other hand slips into her slacks. They’re not tight around her waist—kinda loose, actually. Riding low, like her hips are the only thing keeping them up. Like these pants might be left over from a time when she was heavier, but she keeps them around to wear on days she wants to be comfortable at work.

  Or—and this second thought is far more likely—she wears them loose in case she needs to use one of those kickboxing moves she tried on the cops back at her work tonight.

  But who cares?

  I find her wet between her legs and decide I was right. Desire.