by Zoey Parker
Fiddler’s Rooftop wasn’t located at the very top of the hotel. Instead, one wing of the hotel stopped several floors below the main section, creating a kind of terrace. It made for the perfect place to put a restaurant. We exited the building and seated ourselves at one of the outdoor tables overlooking the city.
One of the benefits of getting her out of the house was that it would give me the opportunity to get a little information out of her about who she was and what she did for a living. It seemed things were beginning to move beyond our initial arrangement—a few days of good, adventurous sex—and I found it appropriate to talk a little more about what was really going on.
“Do you know why I brought you here?” I asked after we ordered drinks and sandwiches.
“Because you wanted to show me you weren’t afraid of heights?” She narrowed her eyes at me and laughed.
“No, not quite,” I started.
“No! You don’t mean to tell me you’re afraid to be this high off the ground, do you?” She looked at me wide-eyed and put a hand on mine as if to assure me I was okay. I chuckled. It was pretty obvious she was just trying to avoid any serious conversation by making jokes.
“It has nothing to do with heights or anything like that. And for the record, I’m not afraid of heights.”
“Oh, good. That’s a relief.” She made a show of running her hand across her forehead in mock relief.
I shook my head and laughed.
“So, why did you bring me here?” Her voice turned serious.
“I wanted to talk to you a little bit. It’s been bothering me that you know so much about me, but I don’t know anything about you.” I tried to keep my tone light so I sounded less concerned than I really was.
“Well, I think you know a lot about me,” she said with a suggestive smile.
“Maybe I’d like to know more.”
“Like what?” She almost sounded peeved, like I had hit a nerve.
“Like your last name. Sierra what?” We’d spent almost a whole week together at this point, and I didn’t even know her last name. If it had just been sex and we were looking at the end of our arrangement, it wouldn’t have mattered. But we weren’t looking at that. I was faced with the possibility that this would continue for the foreseeable future.
She didn’t answer right away. She sat and stared at me for a minute first. I could see in her green eyes that she was thinking about what to say. I found it very odd that she wouldn’t just give me the information.
“It’s Farrow,” she finally said. “I thought I had told you that before.”
“If you did, I forgot it.” I was fairly certain she hadn’t, but I wasn’t going to accuse of her of lying to me.
“What’s with the sudden need to know things?” Her guard was up. Not a good sign. If I continued to follow through with my current line of questioning, it seemed likely that I would discover things I didn’t need to know.
“I just figured we ought to know more about each other if we’re going to keep our arrangement going.” I thought that sounded reasonable enough. There may have been an element of that initially, but as I watched her attitude change, I realized I needed to know what I was up against.
“Well, what else do you need to know? Want to know what I do?” Her tone was becoming almost confrontational now.
“Sure. That’s always good to know.” I tried to ignore her tone and keep things light, but it was getting hard. I did not want this to become a fight between us. I did not want it to become strictly business.
“I work for a collector.” Her tone softened a bit.
“What kind of collector?” My interest was piqued. Of course she worked for a collector of some sort. I still wasn’t completely convinced she hadn’t bumped into me so she could locate the Sun Stone.
“Art, jewelry, antiques, and other valuables,” she said nonchalantly. She was either hiding something or trying to downplay what she did. Neither reason for her tone seemed like a good one. However, her line of work brought me right back to the idea that this was all set up.
“Who’s the collector?” I asked, trying to probe gently. I was mindful of my tone. I didn’t want to sound too pushy.
“My employer doesn’t like for me to go around telling people their identity.” She stared at me squarely. This conversation was starting to enter the realm of business now. We were no longer two lovers enjoying lunch at a rooftop bistro in the middle of beautiful, sunny day.
“I can appreciate that.” I nodded, backing down to keep her from shutting me out completely.
“Thank you.”
“Are you at work right now?” It was a loaded question, I knew. I also knew that she would catch what I was asking her if she really were at work trying to find out the location of the Sun Stone. Her answer would tell me a lot about what was really going on between us.
“No, right now I’m at lunch.” She smiled spitefully and winked.
I knew a little bit more than I had before, but not much. I knew enough to go behind her back with the guys in the MC to find out more about who she really was. I hated to have to go behind her back like that, and I didn’t feel like I really needed to in order to protect the diamond. If she hadn’t figured out that it was at the house by now, she probably never would.
I needed to know who she really was so I could protect myself, though. Plus, if she worked for a legitimate collector, there was a possibility I could get her to turn on them for me.
“So, do you help your employer track down valuable jewelry and works of art, or what?” I asked, trying to take a different angle to get more information out of her.
“I usually just handle the deals. I help them procure different pieces once they’re located.”
“So, you’re the one who negotiates prices and such.” I nodded. “Not too bad.”
“You can say that. I do all the work, and they get to enjoy the art.” Her tone let me know the conversation was over. She went back to her food without another word.
I sat back in my chair and watched her eat. She wouldn’t even look up at me. She had all but admitted to me that she was after the diamond for her boss. It seemed we were right back where we started. Since she hadn’t come right out and asked about the diamond, I was going to have to assume she either didn’t realize I had it or didn’t intend on making a legitimate purchase.
However, that didn’t stop me from letting her finish her meal or from taking her back home with me afterwards.
Chapter Sixteen
Sierra
The mood definitely changed after Gunner started asking me about my work at lunch. I wasn’t really that dishonest with my answer. I felt like I told him enough that I wasn’t lying, but I could tell it wasn’t enough to put him at ease. I couldn’t come right out and tell him that all of this was just a job, that he was just a job, and that my boss wanted me to work him until I had the Sun Stone in hand.
I had told him that I procured valuable artwork, jewelry, and antiques for my employer. Really, Coyote just wanted jewelry, but I had to list the others so it seemed less obvious. On the way back to his house, I got a text from Coyote. Since he knew a little bit about my work, I didn’t feel quite so self-conscious about checking my phone. If anything, I felt like it would make what I told him seem more legitimate.
Check your email, the text said. The emails were decoded. You might be surprised.
I quickly texted her back, As soon as I’m somewhere private.
“Work?” Gunner asked, breaking the thick, awkward silence between us. His voice was heavy with accusation.
“Yep, just letting me know I’ve got an email with information on my next assignment,” I told him.
“I guess that means you’ll be moving on, then?” His words came out as a question, as if he were asking me rather than making an observation.
“Not necessarily.” I tried to keep a light tone, to both lighten the mood and make myself feel less guilty about what I was doing. I didn’t like that this conversation
felt like a break-up, but if there was information pertaining to the location of the Sun Stone in my email, it meant we didn’t have much time left together.
“That’s another thing,” he said suddenly. “Where’s your place? Where do you live?”
“I don’t have one.” I sighed.
“What do you mean you don’t have one?” I could tell he was getting annoyed with me.
It was silly. We weren’t dating. We had just been sleeping together for a few days. I had been allowing him to use me to pleasure himself while I waited to hear back from my boss about what was in those emails. Yes, it was time to move on, for many reasons. One of those reasons was the way he was acting about everything in the car on the way back to his mansion. Unfortunately, if I did have information waiting on me to tell me where the diamond was, I was going to need to stay on his good side to make my job easier.
I had to find a way to bring him back around.
“With my work, I usually just stay in hotels,” I told him. “I’ve never really been one to settle down. When it’s time to go work another job, I usually just pack up my clothes and go. I’ll get a suite nearby for a few nights or something, and I’ll stay there until I’m finished working. Then, the piece I picked up for my boss gets shipped back, and I move on down the road to the next job.” As I finished my explanation, I realized I had essentially told him that I was only with him on work. I wasn’t surprised when he followed up with another question.
“So are you on a job right now? Am I your job?”
“No, I’m home now, sort of. This is where I call home, so I got a room here after finishing a nearby job. You are not work. You are my pleasure.” I let my voice grow more seductive as I finished, hoping he would buy it and not keep thinking that I was trying to work him over for something I probably wasn’t even supposed to know he had.
“Are you going to have to leave for your next assignment?” He rephrased his question from before and asked with a more pleasant tone.
“I don’t know yet. I’ll check my email when we get back to your place, if you don’t mind. If it’s local, I don’t have to leave.” I knew my job was local; I was already on it.
“Well, if you do have to go…” He paused like he couldn’t bring himself to finish what he was saying.
“If I do have to go, we’re going to have to have a lot of sex before I leave,” I finished for him. The air in the car was starting to let up already. The crisis had been temporarily averted.
“Yes, exactly.” He laughed. “There are a lot of things I’d like to do to you still, so we’ll have to do as many of those things as we can before you have to leave.”
“I agree.” I reached over and placed my hand on his leg. Work wasn’t supposed to feel this way, and normally, it didn’t. Normally, everything was relatively simple. I turned on my mark, teased the hell out of them, and got what I needed. Then, I would create a situation where we would fight, and I would storm off. I rarely had to sleep with anyone.
Most marks were nothing like Gunner, though, and I never—never—developed feelings for my marks. Not that I had feelings for Gunner or anything, but I could tell that he was upset by the idea that I would probably be leaving soon. I was concerned for Gunner’s well-being. I was fine. No feelings here.
Soon, we were pulling up the drive to his house and pulling around by the front door. We were greeted by his staff as they opened the doors to let us both out.
“I’m going to go check in with my boss,” I told him as I started towards the house without.
“That’s fine. I’ve got some business to handle, too,” he told me.
“Okay, I’ll find you when I’m finished.” I gave him a warm smile as I walked through the door and headed to the back patio. I wanted privacy, but I also wanted to be able to see where he was while I was checking my email.
I pulled out my phone and watched through the window as he took the hallway towards his office. I didn’t like the looks of that, especially after our conversation in the car, but I couldn’t allow myself to be bothered by it either. The sooner I knew where that diamond was, the sooner I could cut whatever was going on between us short and get the hell out of here.
I pulled up my email. Sure enough, there was a new message from Coyote.
I’ve included the text from all of the emails you sent me, just in case there is anything else you need to know, but they do tell you where the diamond is and how to find it. IT’S IN THE HOUSE, she explained.
“Of course it is,” I replied to the screen on my phone. Why hadn’t I realized that already? Gunner was just confident enough to pull something like that. And he probably never thought anyone would figure it out. I continued reading Coyote’s email.
I managed to get a copy of the floorplan for his house. In the email where he mentions the location of the vault where he’s keeping the diamond, he fails to mention how to get down there to the cellar. Apparently there is a hidden panel in one of the walls that opens a door to the cellar. You’ll see it on the plans. I’ve attached a copy. If you’ve been through the house, you’ve probably passed it a hundred times or more.
I had been through the house several times. I hadn’t noticed any strange panels or anything like that. I looked up in the windows to see if Gunner was watching me. Satisfied that no one was watching what I was doing, I tapped on the attachment and opened the floorplan of the house. I then saved it to my phone and closed everything.
I wished I hadn’t just read that email, especially after the way things had felt all morning and in the car on the way back from lunch. Gunner was the first person to make me question what I was doing for a living. I was starting to realize that it really wasn’t a living at all. I had avoided attachments because they got in the way of work, and after spending so much time so close to someone else who had done the same thing, I found myself wishing I could find a compromise.
I wouldn’t be able to find that compromise with someone I was stealing from, though. That much I knew without a doubt.
I put my phone back in my purse and walked inside. I needed to find a way to reconnect with Gunner before he realized that he actually was my current job, if he didn’t already know it for certain.
Before following him to his office, I went upstairs to change clothes. I knew how I would do it, how I would work my way further in. Luckily, when he sent his staff out to purchase clothes for me, they came back with a pair of jeans. I pulled them on, imagining that the hugging sensation of the fabric was Gunner’s hands running up my legs and over my ass.
Oh yes, we were definitely going to have to have more sex before all of this was over. It was going to be a shame to have to get someone who could please me so well to run me off, but with the money we were going to make off that diamond, I could buy a lover as good as Gunner. At least I told myself that.
I looked through the shirts he had bought for me, looking for something appropriate for getting on the back of his bike. The only thing that even came close was a slinky black tank top.
“This will have to do,” I said as I took off the blouse I had worn out to lunch and pulled the tank top over my shoulders.
I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. My clothes looked so natural. Normally I wore professional clothes or something to sneak around in. I rarely wore anything that was just normal. It felt good. I looked like I belonged in some of the older photographs I had seen of Gunner and the other members of the MC.
“And for good measure, let’s take this off,” I told my reflection as I reached around behind my back and unclasped my bra. I pulled it off under my tank top and tossed it into the bedroom. I turned around and looked at myself again.
I liked the way my top rested on my uncovered breasts, the way it held their shape instead of the bra’s shape. I touched myself and ran my hands up and down over my shirt, getting my nipples hard for Gunner.
“Oh yeah, he’ll love that.” I smiled at my reflection. When I asked him to take me out on his bike and showed up lookin
g like I did right then, he would forget all about our strained conversations at lunch and on the way home.
I still wasn’t sure if I was even going to go through with stealing the diamond for Coyote. I knew that at the end of the day my loyalty rested with her, but I was still pretty torn over having to ditch someone who was taking such good care of me for someone who simply made sure I made as much money as I could.
In the meantime, it was time to reach out to Gunner’s biker side.
Chapter Seventeen
Gunner
“Her name is Sierra Farrow,” I told Duncan over the phone while I looked out the window of my office.
“Farrow,” he repeated. “It doesn’t ring any bells, but I’ll have someone look into it. What are you thinking?”