“Thanks for making me sound like some materialistic airhead.”
He wasn’t doing this right. Wasn’t saying this right. Where was that debonair guy from last night? “I didn’t mean that.”
“So what did you mean, Romeo?”
He stood and faced her. “I want Annie safe. I want these women safe. Some of the men who use these services are ruthless, and—”
“I really don’t need details.”
He wanted to go to her, wrap his arms around her, burry his head into her long brown hair that smelled like orchids. But he couldn’t. Because she didn’t see him like that. He was the FBI agent who’d used her and her friend.
“I’ve got a sister. Don’t know if I mentioned that last night. She’s brilliant and pretty and completely safe, but I still see her face in every one of these girls. The potential that they all have. And I see how it gets sucked away if they are in this lifestyle for too long.”
“So this is like your Moby Dick?”
David chuckled. She was perfect. Complete with the random literary references. “Yes. Though lately I’ve felt more like Don Quixote.”
Chapter Seven
After taking the last swig of her coffee, Gemma turned to him. This wasn’t about just her. This was about Annie. Gemma needed to know what her friend had gotten into. Forget her pride. Forget that she might hate this man for the rest of her life. He had information and she needed to make sure that Annie was safe or as safe as she could be. And the only way to do that was to play nice. For now. “Fine. What do you need?”
David’s eyes landed on her.
“What do you need? You guys haven’t even begun to pump me for information about Annie.” She knew the minute she said it that pumped was not the appropriate verb for that sentence. “You guys are obviously keeping me here for a reason rather than hauling me off to some TV cliché interrogation room. So offer some sort of deal and maybe I can help.”
David shook his head. “I’m not even sure I know what questions to ask right now.”
She stared at the wall and tried to think of all the spy novels she’d read. There weren’t many. Crime thrillers never really appealed to her. She was more of a romance girl. Had to live vicariously through someone since her own love life should be deemed a national disaster area.
“The girl’s gone,” the other agent called out from the other room.
Every single muscle in David’s body tensed at once. Gemma thought he was about to Hulk out. When he looked up at her again, he was focused. His eyes took on a golden sheen and he got up and walked out of the room.
She really didn’t know what possessed her to follow. She could hear his clear voice easily from the other room, but she wanted to know what this version of him looked like. She’d seen the transformation from David to Agent No-Last-Name and she wanted to see what she was really working with, see what else he could do besides make her believe that she was the most perfect girl in the world.
She watched from the doorway.
He stood over his partner with his hands on his hips. “Get men outside the other major hotels. Make it obvious we’re there. Park a black and white outside. I want it screaming.”
Gemma bit her lower lip. Goddamn he was sexy when he took control. But she already knew that.
“What are you getting at?” his partner asked.
She rolled her eyes. “Be glad you’re pretty,” she said. She looked up at David. “When your quarry goes to ground—”
“Give them no ground to go to.” A smile played along David’s lips and for a few moments, she was lost in the perfect curve of it. He didn’t take his eyes off her. “We’ve got proof they check in all over, so we show up at their regular places, they might scramble.”
“Still want me to call Samson?” his partner asked.
“No yet.”
Gemma crossed her arms. “I’m still waiting for that deal.”
“Let me get you another cup of coffee and we’ll see,” David said.
He kept her sitting there, letting her stew for a while as radios buzzed with updates and agents handed David sheets of information after senator’s bank statements, after hotel registries. Everyone was busy doing something and all she was doing was warming a chair.
David had spread the paperwork across the bed. He’d tossed his jacket on the chair next to her. He was still in fed mode, the distracted eyes, darting looks as he stared at the pages organized on the bed. “It’s here but I can’t see it.”
“What exactly are you looking for?”
He ran his fingers through his hair and everything below her navel tightened. His business shirt stretched tightly across his chest and she’d be lying if she said that she didn’t want those buttons to succumb to the pressure. And maybe take out one of his eyes.
She couldn’t take it any longer. She got to her feet. “So when I was teaching—”
“I thought you worked at a bookstore.” He frowned.
“When I was tutoring at the university, the process of teaching someone made me understand it better.”
“You are a fount of wisdom, aren’t you, Miss Howard?”
“I’m a fount of bad luck. But maybe if you explain it to me, something will click for you. A clue. Something someone said.”
David shook his head. “Technically I’m not allowed to discuss a case with you.”
Gemma licked her lips and looked over the paperwork. There were schedules, grainy photographs of various girls and financial records.
And one very clear picture of a bloody shoe. She couldn’t help but reach for it.
David caught her wrist. “You don’t want to see that.”
She ripped her hand away but the damage was done. Not only was she more curious about the picture, but his touch had refreshed every memory from last night, sending a ripple of chills along her skin.
He took a step away from her. “I said this wasn’t a victimless crime. A girl was murdered. Different ring than Annie. Could never find the killer.”
Gemma held her arm tight to her chest and shivered. She looked over the evidence on the bed. She licked her suddenly very dry lips. Annie, what did you get yourself into?
Somewhere in there was the location of her best friend. Somewhere in there was a way that Gemma could help Annie, as Annie had always tried to find a way to help her. Gemma could do the rescuing this time.
“If you weren’t completely lying to me at the bar, you seemed to be a well-read man. Tell me a story. I can be very helpful.”
He chuckled and looked into the other room. “One condition. You tell me the story of Diane and Gemma.”
“We’ll see how good the story is.”
David looked back into the other room one last time, exposing the perfect line of his pale neck. She stared at the space below his ear that had made every inch of him quiver. It was amazing how she could hate someone with every breath she took and still want to rip his shirt off.
“The bureau monitors these rings as best they can, but most are discrete, under the radar.”
“So are you after the rings, or after the man who killed the girl?” Gemma asked.
David pressed his lips together and exhaled loudly. She wasn’t exactly letting him tell his side of the story.
“Sorry, please tell me how you are tracking down the ring that Annie is allegedly a part of? I’ll listen.”
David turned back toward the paperwork and put his hand on his hips. Agent David again.
“We started out trying to find the killer. It was a pretty high profile case, you might have heard of it in Atlanta. The feds were brought in when her book was discovered, we assumed it was revenge or a john with a violent streak. The trail went cold fast. Samson, my boss, started sending us on prostitution case after case with good intel each time. We bagged not only girls, but their bosses as well. In total we’ve busted three rings in six months.”
“So how many girls did you sleep with?” Her voice was calm, but she dug her fingers into her arm so ha
rd she was sure there would be bruises. “I mean you would need to be thorough.”
“Gemma, I—” David turned toward her and she could feel the wall of heat off his chest.
“Don’t Gemma me,” she snapped. “Not with that tone.”
“Until last night, Renner was working the assets.”
“I bet he was.” She tried to pay attention to the paperwork, the picture of the girl in the surveillance photos that could have been her, could have been anyone.
“You don’t understand. There’s a pattern that goes on between a girl and her john, a rhythm that happens. I’ve watched it, listened to it a million times.”
“And us?” The entire hotel room seemed to stop moving as she listened for his answer. Every inch of her skin tightened as she waited for some ounce of truth in all this.
“You weren’t by the book.”
It sounded like a confession of some sort, but he probably had Acting 101 at Quantico. Rage sizzled down her spine, and her fingers tightened around her arms until she winced at the wound on her knuckle. The anger burned into her core until her cheeks were flush and she couldn’t even see the bed of evidence. “Good to know there is a book for this sort of thing.”
David’s voice dropped to just between them. “Renner made it look so easy. So I was sure that I could be Agent Hadley and seal the case.”
“What happened?”
“You.”
“Is this an apology? Because it had better be good.”
He stepped closer to her. “As an agent, I could say I was doing my job. I was gathering intel for an active investigation.”
“Does kidnapping your asset also fall under doing your job?”
“We don’t kidnap, we detain.”
He put his hands on his hips and his shirt strained across his broad chest again. Her fingers itched to set those buttons free from their strangling hold and run her tongue around his perfectly tight nipples.
“As a man, I was selfish.”
“How?”
“I took something I wanted.” He took a step toward her and she could feel his breath down her neck. “And I wanted you the first time you mentioned Jane Austen.”
How dare he mention her favorite author at a time like this. She turned toward him to levy an insult about using her personal icon as a weapon of seduction, but he caught her arm and pulled her to him, holding her tightly against his frame.
She didn’t have time to fight or push away. An instant later, he was kissing her. She froze as his mouth descended on hers. She wanted to bite him, push him away, but her anger still consumed her. Not anger at being tricked or being seduced into this situation by a lying cheat. Anger that she wanted him. She wanted this federal agent who was after her best friend. Wanted his lips on hers, her body around his.
He pulled at her lower lip, begging for entrance. And she gave it to him. She ran her tongue across his mouth and ran her hands up his strong chest. She explored his mouth more thoroughly than she had the night before, making sure to absorb the taste of this man who wanted her almost as much as she wanted him.
David slid his hands down her sides and around her ass. He squeezed her cheeks roughly and she gasped, pulling away.
His eyes were heavy as he looked down at her. With a small wink, he lifted her from the ground and her knees caught around his waist.
She locked her arms around his neck and was just about to speak when he whirled them around and walked across the bedroom out of the sight of the few agents left in the outer room.
David pressed her against the wall inside the bathroom and kissed her again. His thin suit pants did nothing to suppress the pulse of his cock against her. He moved against her, slowly rubbing himself against her mound, finding a rhythm that made her breath catch in her throat.
He left her lips and trailed down her neck, taking a moment to suckle her earlobe. “It wasn’t a lie, Gemma. Never doubt that.”
His breath chilled the moist line of kisses down her throat and she shivered.
“You are going to get in trouble,” she managed, though her thoughts were more focused on the way he circled his thumb over her taut nipple.
She was already in trouble. She wanted him inside her. She was already wet with the thought of him taking her against this wall, easing this terrible throbbing between her legs.
“You’re worth it.”
She couldn’t reach his belt buckle with him pressed against her like this. “Put me down,” she whispered.
He did as told and went for the button on her jeans first. Ladies first, as seemed to be his motto last night.
Gemma leaned back against the wall as he pulled her jeans and panties quickly down her legs. This was wrong in about ten different ways, but the moment she felt his breath on her inner thigh, she didn’t care, couldn’t think of anything else but him.
He rose, hovering over her again, unfortunately with his pants still in place. He traced a long finger up between her legs and cupped her in his hand, pressing in on everything that ached.
He circled his thumb around her clit and she gasped as he slid a long finger inside her. It only took a moment for him to find a rhythm that made her widen her stance and sigh.
She held on to the shirt at his shoulder and buried her face into the soft cotton to muffle the gasps that shook from her as he slid in another finger, widening her, filling her more. Every muscle in her body clenched and throbbed as he made deep circles within her.
But it still wasn’t what she wanted, what she needed to burn away her anger for a moment. She reached down for his belt buckle.
“I want to make sure you come first,” he whispered in her ear.
Gemma’s entire body quivered before he increased the speed at which he stroked her. Her knees buckled beneath her and she clung to him as the tension within her grew. She tightened around him, pulling at him, wanting him in farther.
He held her waist, supporting her, and the coil wound tight within her came undone. She exploded, clinging to him as she bit her lower lip to keep from crying out at the release that washed over her in wave after wave of shuddering bliss.
As she was still ebbing from her orgasm, she heard the soft sigh of his pants hitting the ground.
She groaned as the tip of his rigid cock slid against her, when he’d slid the condom on, she couldn’t say. He lifted her, pressed her against the wall, and she opened for him. He pushed into her easily, as if he already knew every fold of her body, every inch of her flesh.
Finally the ache was fulfilled. As he slid in and out of her in long, slow movements, she closed her eyes and relished in the completed sensation of being his. Of being within his arms. She lifted her head and trailed her lips up his neck, wanting to taste the perspiration there. She pulled her tongue to the spot behind his ear and kissed him gently.
He groaned against her temple and his body hardened. He slammed into her, grinding his hips into hers as he buried himself to the hilt. He slammed in again and again until his release. She felt him fill her, succumb to the same passion she had.
Slowly he lifted her from him and settled her feet against the ground. He held her against the wall, their chests meeting as they caught their breaths.
She unclenched his shirt and pulled away enough to look up at him. She didn’t know what to say. As if every word from every book had flown out of her head as she looked into his wide, hazel eyes.
Renner did the honors of breaking the silence between them. “Hey, might want to see this,” he called from the other room.
David froze and looked like a kid with his hand caught in the candy jar. He quickly retrieved his pants from the floor and tucked his shirt back into place.
Gemma went cold against the wall. She wriggled her foot back into the right leg of her jeans and bent over to pull up her underwear.
“Take a moment. I’m going to see what he wants.”
And then he was gone, just like that. Like that morning. Not even a lame offer to see her later or a small kiss.
Son of a bitch.
* * * * *
David leaned over Renner’s shoulder and looked at the screen. “What am I supposed to be looking at?”
Renner stared up at him.
He looked at the screens again but there wasn’t any new information there. “You said you had something?”
“You totally hooked up with her.” Renner was fighting a smile.
“What kind of unprofessional…” David couldn’t finish the sentence. His partner would sniff out a lie in two seconds.
Renner laughed. “What is it about this girl? I mean, she’s pretty, but what?”
David shook his head. What had driven him completely insane? Right, everything about her. “She’s brilliant.”
“Well, get it together. The other agents are heading back. They haven’t seen anything yet, though the night is young. Fuller has probably already warned her handler about what is going on so we aren’t going to find any of them working tonight.”
“Doesn’t mean that we can’t find Annie,” David said. “Gemma is willing to help us.”
“Was that before or after you left her post-coital in the bedroom alone?”
David’s face burned. “You said you had something?” he asked.
Renner chuckled until his phone buzzed on the desk before him. His face turned stony as he held the screen up for David to read the text.
“Samson wants an update.”
David pushed away from the desk and began to pace the room. His boss was going to nail him to the wall for this one. Not only had he lost the real asset, but she’d had enough time to get all the girls off the street for the evening as well.
Without something golden to give his boss, he wasn’t going to point out that Samson had passed along old intel.
“How much time do we have before he shows up?”
“He’s overseeing on the other side of the city. I’ve still got eyes on the lobby and I haven’t seen him yet. A few hours?”
Pride and Prostitution Page 5