by Margaret Kay
“Left at the next path intersection, by the bathroom building, Team One,” Garcia advised.
“Shit,” Cooper cursed, taking a step back.
Instantly, Madison felt the loss of his warmth on her body. She fell in step beside him, her mind reeling from that kiss. Holy. Fuck. She didn’t think she’d ever been kissed that way.
“We need that tracker planted,” BT’s voice came next. “Xena take the lead. You have a better chance of getting closer to him than Coop.”
“Roger that, Control,” she replied and then hastened her pace, pulling in front of Cooper. She moved in close to the subject. He walked with purpose, carrying the backpack by his side in his left hand. They were already out of the park, walking down the crowded sidewalk. The bus stop was ahead. If he got on the bus, they’d lose him. She had the micro tracker pinched between her thumb and middle finger.
“Easy, Xena, don’t get too close,” Razor warned, watching as he now tapped into the street cams. He hated sitting in a surveillance truck out of the action.
“He keeps looking back, like he knows he’s being followed. We’ll switch at the next block,” Coop said. He had dropped back a half of a block behind her.
“I think he’s heading for the bus. I have an idea,” she whispered.
“I think he’s made you Xena, back off,” BT transmitted.
“Please, pretend you know me. I think this guy is following me,” Madison said linking arms with the subject. She glanced nervously behind herself. The bus stop was a half a block in front of them.
“What the fuck is she doing?” Razor broadcast. “Xena has made contact with the subject.”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, no Xena, break from the subject,” Coop spoke in a purposefully controlled soft voice into his comms. He wanted to scream it to her.
The subject’s eyes raked down her body and then back up again, a leer curved his lips. “I don’t need to get tangled up in whatever shit you’re in, sweet-thing,” he said with a unique pronunciation of his words, a Mexican accent combined with a Texas drawl.
“Please,” she begged, again looking back, behind them. “I don’t see him, but I’m sure he’s there. I promise I’m not involved in anything. I don’t know who he is or what he wants, but I’m sure he’s following me.” She felt him try to pull away. She grabbed his arm more tightly. “Please, just walk with me to the end of this block. My car is in that parking garage on the next corner.” She gave him her best panicked and scared expression.
“Why me?” He demanded.
“I looked around for the guy who most looked like he could handle himself.” She squeezed his arm. “You jumped out to me. Please, I will be very grateful if you escort me to my car.”
His eyes wandered over her body again in an obviously slow way, a hungry grin curving his lips. “How grateful might you be?”
“Not that grateful,” she said. “I um, I’m not like that, I don’t just,” she made herself nervously stammer. “But I would really appreciate your help.” She batted her eyelashes, focusing her blue eyes on his dark browns. She tried to project her most innocent expression.
He laughed. “Now that’s not much incentive.”
“I could schedule a massage for you for free. I’m a massage therapist.”
His lips tugged into a wide smile. “Now you’re talking.”
They passed the bus stop.
“Not that kind of massage. Just a regular, no sex massage. I’m not a hooker or anything,” she insisted.
“You’ve never let a massage go a little too far?”
“No,” she insisted. They had reached the end of the block. The entrance to the parking garage their car was in was across the street. “Please, walk me to my car and I will give you a sixty-minute massage, but just a massage,” she cautioned. She reached into her purse and grabbed one of the business cards with just a name and the decoy phone number. She also was ready to plant the tracker on him.
He took her card. “Maddie Hayes,” he read aloud. “Sounds like a stripper name.”
“I’ll tell my mother that you think so.” She looked back again, pretending to still be worried. “Do we have a deal? You walk me to my car and I’ll owe you a sixty-minute massage.” She slid her hand up his back, under his hoodie, planting the tracker in a seam. “You’re tense. These muscles could use a good rubdown, loosen them up.” She massaged for a few seconds that he found pleasurable, so pleasurable his cock hardened in his pants.
He eyed her flirtatiously for a long moment, a suggestive smile glued to his face. “Sure. Sixty-minutes of your hands on me could lead to just about anything.” He walked her across the street and into the parking garage.
He closed her car door and watched her drive away.
“Tracker planted,” Madison said after she left him in her rear-view.
“That was reckless, Xena,” Coop scolded. “Anything could have happened.”
“But it didn’t,” she argued. “And I got the tracker planted. Plus, I have an in with him later if we need it. I’m falling back to the rendezvous. You got him Razor?”
“Affirmative,” Razor confirmed. “Signal is good.”
“Where did asshole number two go? Anyone got eyes on him?” Cooper barked. He was pissed that Madison had gone off script.
“Yep, I’ve got Pretty-boy heading for the parking lot on South Columbus. I’m on him,” the Birdman answered.
“He parked off Roosevelt. Where’s he going?” Jackson asked.
The Birdman tailed him into the public lot. Mendoza pulled a set of keys from the outside pocket of the backpack and he got into a car, a black Jeep Wrangler, CJ-7. The Birdman wove between the parked cars, brushing the Jeep and shoving the tracker into the Velcro closure as he passed. He continued to the last row of the lot, and pulled a set of keys from his pocket, pretending to press them to the lock on the driver’s side of a random car as he watched the Jeep pull out of the lot.
“Tracker planted on the vehicle Mendoza pulled away in, black Jeep Wrangler, CJ-7, good shape for its age, Illinois plates.” He recited the plate number.
“Good job, Birdman, fall back to the rendezvous,” BT’s voice said.
“Roger that, BT,” the Birdman acknowledged.
Cooper picked up the Birdman, and they were the last to arrive at the rendezvous point. By the time he hopped out of the black SUV, he was spitting fire. Cooper pointed his finger at her. “You went off script.”
“I got the job done,” she defended. “If I’d been in Ops, I’d have ordered it to go down that way. I saw an in, and I took it.”
“You weren’t in Ops. BT ordered you to back off!”
“You taught me that if you’re made, sometimes you make it look like you’re interested, make eye contact, smile,” she defended.
“I never taught you to make direct contact.”
“She got the job done,” Agent Williams of the DEA defended her, confused why Cooper was reprimanding her. “Good job, Xena,” he told her.
She smiled and nodded, her eyes daring Cooper to say any more. He didn’t. Agent Williams praise seemed to calm Cooper down.
“Where did Diaz go after I pulled away?” Madison asked.
“Back to the bus stop,” BT advised. “He got on and is riding towards Riverdale. Glad you got the tracker on him. We’d lose him once he’s in the hood without it.”
Vindication. Madison knew the bus was his destination, and she knew if multiple transfers were his course, they’d never be able to keep the surveillance going.
“Return to base for debrief Shepherd personnel. Agent Williams, I’ll stay in contact with you regarding Pretty-boy’s location,” BT ordered.
“We’ll stay in touch,” Agent Williams told Cooper and then shook his hand. The six DEA agents got in to their cars.
The seven members of Shepherd Security headed to their three vehicles as well. Madison threw the keys to the car she had to the Birdman, and she purposely got into the van with Anthony, which pissed Cooper off even more
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“She got the job done, Coop. What’s the problem?” Jackson asked as Cooper pulled the car out onto Lakeshore Drive. “She improvised, which is what we all do.”
“I know,” Cooper agreed. “This guy, there’s something about him. I don’t know. I have a bad feeling.”
Jackson gazed out the window. Cooper’s feelings were usually dead on. “Then we play it by the numbers and make sure we have sufficient resources on him.”
Shepherd waited in the team room on subbasement two. As the team stowed their gear in the lockers, he began the debrief. He had listened in on the Op and had quite a few questions. “Good work,” he began. “I have Miraldi looking into the Jeep Mendoza got into. It’s not reported stolen.”
“Ten will get you twenty its owners left it in the long-term parking at O’Hare,” Garcia said.
Shepherd nodded. He agreed that was probably the case. “DEA has all normal entry points under surveillance. If the intel we got from Juan Carlos is right, there is a big shipment of drugs on its way to Chicago for distribution to the entire Midwest. We don’t want to let this one slip through.”
“Both these guys were cool. They’ve run this play multiple times, I’m sure,” Cooper said. “There are some big holes in the dossier on Diaz. Mendoza, we know has links to the Colombians. Diaz, we don’t know where the hell he came from or what all he’s into. How the hell did the DEA not have eyes on him before now? He seems to have quite the organization going in Mesa.”
“I don’t know, John. I am glad we got the tracker on him though.” Shepherd nodded to Madison. “Good play, making contact. We’ll see if he calls to take you up on that massage. I’m guessing he will.”
More vindication. Madison shook her head yes. Her eyes shifted momentarily to Cooper. His gaze was on her with an unreadable expression. She held her head a little higher and returned her attention back to Shepherd.
“We’ll stay on top of both these assholes and in contact with the DEA. All of you are on alert. Go home but be prepared to be called back in at any time.” Shepherd’s eyes scanned all members of the team. “That’s all.”
Madison was the first to leave the room. She took the stairs to eight, with the intention of getting her things and getting out of there before Cooper could connect with her. Talking with him was the last thing she wanted to do. She even decided that if he called or texted that evening, she’d ignore it.
Shepherd left the room next, but the remainder of the men lingered.
“I think we should change Madison’s callsign to Hot Lips from M*A*S*H,” the Undertaker joked.
“Oh, grow the fuck up,” Cooper growled. “I’d have kissed any one of you to keep our cover intact.”
“I’m glad it wasn’t me,” the Birdman said.
“I’m glad it wasn’t me either. Angel would have been jealous,” Jackson joked.
“I’m glad it was Madison,” Mother remarked. “I wouldn’t have enjoyed watching you lip-locked with anyone else on the team, wouldn’t have wanted that image burned into my brain.”
“Watch it, Trio,” Cooper warned. “And I’m pulling rank. Hot Lips will not be her callsign. We’re sticking with Xena.”
“The Warrior Princess,” a few of the guys echoed.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Cooper barked.
“Nothing Coop, just brings fantasy images you probably don’t want associated with our girl,” the Undertaker said.
“Watch it, Sloan, you don’t want to go there with me.” He knew his voice was unduly harsh.
After Madison grabbed her gear from her office, she ran into Yvette just outside of Ops. It was just past eighteen-hundred. Yvette just came on shift. “I’m sorry I missed the Grant Park Op,” Yvette said. “BT gave me a quick update. Sounds like you were the star of the show.”
“Did you also hear that Cooper reprimanded me for it?”
“No, BT didn’t share that part. It sounded from what BT did tell me that it was a successful Op. What was Cooper’s issue?”
“He was mad I went off script and didn’t follow BT’s orders. But I was on-sight, he wasn’t. I knew it was the best way to get the tracker planted. If I’d been in Ops and it had been another woman in my place, that is exactly what I would have told her to do.”
“But Cooper didn’t think it was a good idea?” Yvette asked.
“No, obviously not. It got the job done, though,” she defended.
“Cooper’s reasonable. He’ll come to that realization on his own, I’m sure. Don’t let it eat you up. I’m sure he’ll talk more with you about it tomorrow.”
“Yes, I’m sure he will,” Madison agreed. She was dreading the inevitable conversation.
Later that night, Cooper found himself outside of Madison’s place sitting in his car. He’d turned the engine off an hour earlier when he pulled up. The cold night air had crept in on him as he sat there wrestling with an uncharacteristic indecision. He told himself he came to talk to her, to clear the air and be sure she had no misplaced feelings regarding that kiss they were forced to share. It was just to keep their cover, meant nothing.
The longer he sat there, the more he questioned his own motives. He couldn’t get that kiss out of his head. He’d known he was attracted to her for, well, since he met her, and that kiss, yeah, it had been something, got every part of him humming. Even now, just thinking about what it felt like to have his lips on hers, made him hard.
Finally, he pulled himself from behind the wheel and marched up to her door. He raised his hand to knock, but she pulled the door open before his knuckles made contact with it. Madison stood there with an unreadable expression across her beautiful face.
“I was wondering if you were going to come to my door or just sit in front of my house all night,” she said. She stepped back and motioned him in.
“I was on the phone,” Cooper lied. He shut the door.
She didn’t invite him in past her foyer. She stood with her arms crossed, blocking him from stepping into her living room. She stared at him with expectancy. He eyed her curiously and leaned his back against her front door. They stared at each other for a few quiet, awkward moments.
“Look, Madison,” Cooper said. “I stopped by because we need to talk about the Op today.”
“We debriefed at the office,” she said. “Was there more?”
Cooper laughed and shook his head. “You are Xena till the end, aren’t you? Tougher than any guy.”
How dare he? “What exactly is that supposed to mean?”
Without warning he took hold of her and drew her in. He kissed her like he had earlier except this time, there was no one watching, no one listening. He turned and pushed her against the inside of her front door and pressed his body to hers as his mouth aggressively made love to her.
When their lips parted several minutes later, they were both breathless and shell-shocked. Wow! That was some kiss, even more explosive than the one earlier. He didn’t remove his body from hers and she didn’t demand it either. Her hands were fisted in his jacket, pulling him closer, holding him in place. She stared at him with surprise and desire.
He ran his fingers slowly over the soft flesh of her cheek and then down her neck. She sighed out loud, her chin angled up, and her eyes closed reacting to the tingles his touch sent throughout her body. She panted and moaned as his lips pressed hot kisses down her neck to her collar bone, and over the delicate flesh of her chest working closer to the low-cut neckline of her t-shirt. His hand slid up her side, to her breast that he discovered wasn’t constrained by a bra. He felt over the perfect fullness and he moaned when his fingers came in contact with a hardened nipple.
When his eyes refocused on hers, they both knew what would come next, what neither would deny any longer. Without a word spoken, from the entry to her bedroom, clothes hit the floor, bodies entwined in a carnal dance set to a frenzied rhythm. Hands and lips explored, pleasure filled gasps and moans filled the room as the truth of the attraction they both felt was embraced.
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They made love. It was perfect, passionate, powerful. There was no awkwardness, no shyness in the sensual expression of desire each touch silently communicated. Raw emotions passed between them. It was both erotic and fulfilling. They both knew this physical coupling was an unavoidable act that had been waiting to happen, which until now, they had deprived themselves of. And then, after mutual, earth-shattering climaxes, they held each other, lovers caressing each other with exploratory, gentle, and purposeful strokes, a dramatic contradiction to the intense intimacy they’d just shared.