by Zoey Parker
“I’m on it,” he said.
“Right. Outfits and underwear. Matching sets for bra and panties.” I patted him on the shoulder and winked. “Oh, and let’s get those clothes cleaned,” I said as I walked away.
Once she got out of the shower, I was going to see how long she intended to stay.
Chapter Eight
Sierra
With the shower running, I had a moment to text Coyote. I’m alive. Might have found something in his email, but it’s encrypted.
I set my phone down on the counter and cracked the door to see if Gunner was still in the bedroom. I couldn’t tell where he had gone, but he was no longer in there. I looked where my clothes had been and saw they were gone, too. He must have taken them downstairs, I decided.
Just then, my phone buzzed on the counter. It was a text from Coyote.
Can you talk? she asked.
She didn’t wait for a response before she called. Thank God I was alone upstairs.
“Hello?” I answered quietly.
“Hey, it’s good to hear you and know you’ve made it this far.” She laughed.
“Yeah, but I’ve only got a minute to talk before he comes back up,” I told her.
“Holy shit, Sierra! You’re still at his house?”
“Where else would I be?” I asked my boss. “I’m still trying to figure out exactly where the diamond is.”
“Have you found anything other than the email?” she asked.
“Nope, but I sent them all to myself. It looked like only the emails from one sender were encrypted. I didn’t get to look long before he caught me snooping,” I told her.
“How did you manage to get out of…? You know what? I don’t want to know. I’m just glad you’re okay. Can you forward me the emails? I can have someone go over them with encryption software and break them open,” she said.
“Great. Yeah, I’ll send them as soon as we hang up. Then I’ve got to get off of here. I’m supposed to be in the shower,” I told her.
“You know what I love about you, Sierra? You’re incredibly dedicated to your work. Just be careful not to get yourself into any trouble,” Coyote warned.
“Please, that’s the only way I ever get anything done. And you know I’m right,” I joked.
“Yeah, yeah. Just send me those emails and stay out of trouble. Keep checking in when you can.” She hung up.
I quickly pulled up my email and forwarded everything over to her. I silenced my ringer and stuffed my phone back in my purse. I was surprised Gunner hadn’t come back yet. He must have found something else to do.
I closed and locked the door before climbing into the shower.
The hot water relaxed my tired, stressed muscles. I didn’t realize how stressful this job was until the water hit me. I had been on edge since the moment I walked into the club to meet Gunner. It had only gotten worse overnight and again this morning when he caught me snooping around.
I closed my eyes against the hot water rushing over my body and let it relax me. Instead of running me off, he had taken me against his desk. He enjoyed challenging me. It seemed to excite him more whenever we went head to head, either with our wits or physically. I had underestimated him when I first made contact with him.
I figured he would take me back to his place, screw my brains out, and leave me to my own devices overnight and in the morning before kicking me out. Instead, he let me share his bed. He was offering to buy clothes for me to wear and to clean my clothes for me. I didn’t get it. Was he going to ask me to stay longer? Did he really want more punishment from me?
It had felt like he had wanted to say something else to me afterwards. There was something on his mind, and I wondered what it was. He didn’t seem like the kind of person who would hold back when it was time to say something, so it was odd for there to be something he wouldn’t say to me. I felt like I was starting to figure out what that something was, though.
I didn’t want to admit to myself that it really seemed like he was going to ask me to stay or at least offer to let me stay if I wanted to. I wanted to get something back out of those emails and go so I could plan on how I was going to steal that diamond. The longer I stayed, the more I risked blowing the whole operation.
The hot water in the shower was no longer relaxing. It was just hot as I bathed myself quickly. I didn’t want to take too much longer and risk him coming back while I was still in the shower. I needed to get myself back together. I needed to compose myself for him and put my game face back on before he saw me with my guard down.
My body seemed to be getting me more than I had bargained for out of this deal. It happened occasionally. I would sometimes get admirers who just couldn’t take a hint. It seemed that Gunner was going to become one of those admirers, and I wasn’t equipped to turn him down. I couldn’t resist the man. I didn’t want to resist the man. I wanted him. I wanted him more than I wanted that damn diamond I was supposed to be stealing from him.
As I turned off the water and opened the shower door, I looked down at my purse, with my phone inside it. I could have just disappeared off the face of the earth and never reached back out to Coyote. At that point, standing in his bathroom, dripping wet, it would have been easy to just let go of her and my old life, and just give up on the mission to steal the diamond from him and his MC.
It wasn’t that serious yet, so the best thing to do was to get what information I could from him and help her find the diamond. The Sun Stone was priceless, which meant we could get as much as we wanted for it. I just had to stay the course and get it for her first.
I grabbed a towel and dried myself. As I rubbed the towel against my skin, however, I could still imagine his big, firm hands with their soft skin rubbing on my body, probing around my breasts and under my ass.
“Yeah, I need to get out of here,” I told myself with a laugh.
With the towel wrapped around my body just under my arms, I peeked out the door again and looked around the room. I was still alone.
I left the bathroom door cracked so I could watch the bedroom door for Gunner while I grabbed my phone to see if Coyote had said anything back to me yet.
It’s not encryption. It’s code, she texted.
What does that mean? I asked. And why hadn’t I seen that? I had cracked codes before when I was working on my own. I shook my head. I was out of practice and distracted.
It means it’s going to be harder to crack. I’ve got a guy, though. I’ll send it over to him. It may take a few days, she responded.
What am I supposed to do in the meantime? I asked. I didn’t like the way this was going. Or maybe I did like it, just a little too much.
Hang around if he’ll let you, she messaged back.
I sighed. “Great. The longer I’m here, the harder this is going to get,” I said to my phone, as if Coyote could hear me talking.
If he won’t let you stay in the house, hang around him or the MC, she messaged. She was giving me the opportunity to get away from him and watch from some distance.
“Got it, I messaged her back. Then, I took a deep breath and added, Will try to stay here. There’s something here. I knew there was some piece of information that would help me find the diamond in Gunner’s house.
BE CAREFUL, she texted back.
I laughed and put my phone away again. It was good to break the tension. I knew that staying put me in danger and put the job in jeopardy, especially if he continued making sexual advances. I was able to see past it all so far, but I knew it wouldn’t be long before shit got complicated.
I didn’t do complicated well, and I didn’t want to just jump ship in the middle of the gig.
“You got this,” I said to the wet-haired woman staring at me in the mirror. We shared a smile and a wink, and I walked back into his bedroom.
I walked around the bed, running my hand along the edge of it. There was no shirt laid out waiting for me.
“Dammit, Gunner, you were supposed to leave me a shirt out,” I said, half am
used at the opportunity to browse through his closet.
I let the towel drop to the floor as I walked to his open closet door. On one side, he had all of his suits hanging.
“How many suits does one man need?” I asked myself as I ran my hand along the tops of the hanging jackets. Then, I couldn’t help but laugh when I looked down and saw the countless pairs of dress shoes underneath his suits. “Oh, Gunner,” I said, putting a hand to my mouth to stifle my laughter, which was about to turn into cackling.
I turned around and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror on the back wall of his closet. I knew how I looked in the mirror to myself, but I wondered what I looked like to him when he threw me on the bed, or when he took me on the desk. I tore my eyes away from myself and turned to the other side of his closet.
On the side opposite his suits, he had normal clothes. There were black t-shirts and blue jeans, all in different states of age and wear. He had one pair—just one pair—of old black boots he must have worn for riding. His vest with his MC colors was also hanging on that side of his closet.
I pulled down an old shirt that looked like it had some classic rock band’s album art on it. I didn’t recognize the logo or the artwork, but it looked futuristic and metallic, which was ironic because the shirt looked older than either of us.
I pulled it on over my head and pulled my hair out of the neck of it while the aged cotton settled on my shoulders. It was soft and comfortable, like wrapping bedsheets around me. And it was the perfect length, stretching down past my crotch to hide the fact that I wasn’t wearing any underwear.
I looked at myself in the mirror, enamored by the way the artwork weighed down the fabric between my breasts, making the shirt fit the contours of my chest perfectly. Gunner wasn’t that much taller than I was, just enough to make it noticeable, enough to make him comfortable in bed. But his shirt swallowed me whole. I figured that was due to how broad his shoulders were. It gave the shirt extra width that I didn’t need. Except, I did need the extra width since I wasn’t wearing anything else underneath it.
I walked out of the closet, happy with my find, at the same time that he was walking back into the room.
“Cool shirt,” Gunner said.
“Thanks. I hope you don’t mind. I went rummaging through your closet for it,” I told him.
“I trust you didn’t make too much of a mess in there,” he said cautiously.
“Not too much, but you might want to get the house staff to help you put everything back up. You know how it is.” I laughed as he walked past me hurriedly and looked into the closet to find that absolutely nothing was out of place.
Chapter Nine
At some point, Gunner had thrown on clothes, which meant that he had gotten dressed while I was in the shower. When I realized he was wearing slacks and a nice white dress shirt, a burst of ice ran through my veins. I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d heard my conversation with Coyote or my conversation with myself. Neither one would have been any good.
Instead of indicating that he had heard anything he shouldn’t have, though, he gently took me by the arm and walked me downstairs.
“We need to talk,” he said firmly.
I knew it! I was busted. He had found out that I had sent those emails to myself. He knew what I was up to, and I was about to disappear. I was about to learn why he called his MC The Immortal Devils. Hell, just the way he moved in bed was enough reason to call them that!
“Is everything okay?” I asked nervously as he guided me down the winding spiral staircase and out the back door to where a couple of plates and glasses of wine waited for us on a table on the patio.
“I don’t know yet,” he said, “but maybe we can figure that out while we eat lunch. Please, take a seat.”
I was too nervous to eat, but I wasn’t about to turn down his offer. I sat down in one of the small chairs on either side of the little round table. I found that I was incredibly self-conscious with his house staff present. I tried to cross my legs but realized the shirt wasn’t quite long enough to keep from showing me off that way, so I sat with my legs down and closed.
“Couldn’t we do this inside?” I asked him. “I’m kind of exposed out here.”
“No one is going to notice,” Gunner said, laughing. “Eat,” he said, nodding at my plate. “I had them prepare this with you in mind.
I looked down at my plate. It was a salad. I saw two different types of lettuce, spinach, and another leafy vegetable I didn’t recognize, probably kale or something crazy like that. There were cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, red onions, and bleu cheese crumbles. I picked up my fork and rummaged through the leaves to see if anything else was hiding in there for me. There was also bacon and grilled chicken, but it wasn’t lying right on top like at restaurants. It had been tossed in with the vegetables, like a sane person had made it.
I shook my head and laughed. I was relieved that he hadn’t skipped out on the meat.
“What’s so funny?” he asked with a knowing look in his eyes, and I could see he had done it on purpose to see my reaction.
“You had me worried there for a minute,” I told him. “I was starting to think this was just rabbit food.”
“What gave it away?”
“I dug into it to see if there was anything else. I’m glad there was. Is there any dressing?” I asked.
“What would you like?”
“Ranch or bleu cheese,” I told him.
“I’ll get you both.” He put his napkin on the table and got up to go inside before I could stop him and tell him not to bother. He came back a moment later with bottles of both ranch and bleu cheese dressing in his hands.
“You really didn’t have to,” I said.
“No, it’s fine. We might as well make it as enjoyable as possible, right?” He gave me a look that told me he wasn’t just talking about the salad. That was his philosophy on everything.
“So, what did you want to talk about?” I asked as I poured a little bit of both dressings over my salad. Might as well make it as enjoyable as possible, right?
“I want you to stay,” he said bluntly.
I knew it! That was what I was hoping this was going to be about. I was so thankful that I hadn’t been busted, or that he wasn’t going to call me out for it. He busted me when he found me in the office. But he was asking me to stay! I just didn’t know what to say to that, unfortunately.
“I don’t know,” I said hesitantly. “I don’t want to impose.”
“You’re not imposing. I really enjoyed last night and this morning,” he started.
I felt my face blush. I must have been turning bright red like my hair.
“I did, too,” I said modestly, trying to downplay just how much I really enjoyed the sex. “But is that the only reason you want me to stay?” I asked, trying to channel the spurned lover. I was really just messing with him to see what he would say.
“Definitely not,” he said. “But let me ask you something. Have you ever done anything like we did last night and this morning?”
“Yeah, last night and this morning,” I said between bites of food, unable to resist the opportunity to take a stab at him.
“I’ll take that as a no,” he said.
“Well, you still haven’t answered my question,” I said, dropping the hurt act and sticking with usual smart-assed tone.
“I’m not going to say what you’re trying to get me to say,” he teased, “but I will tell you that I enjoy this right here, too. I enjoy that you challenge me even in conversation. Talking to you is fun.”
“Good. I’m glad I’m entertaining. Now, what were you saying about the sex?” I smirked as I returned to my salad.
“I was going to say that if you would agree to stay, I would be willing to teach you more about the sensual arts,” he said slowly, in a very seductive tone.
Talking to him without underwear on was dangerous. All I had to do was open my legs and he could be inside me immediately. Staying so we could explore each other
sexually would be dangerous, too, but it would also give me more time to hunt for clues as to the whereabouts of the Sun Stone.
“I’m not sure I understand what you’re offering me,” I told him, mainly because I wanted to hear how he would describe my time with him.
“I’m offering more of what you’ve already had. I’m offering you the chance to explore your body with me, your desires. I want to let you explore everything that turns you on and gets you off.
His voice and his words were turning me on. I wondered if he knew that. Shit, he probably did.