Sniper

by Lagomarsino, Giulia

  I finished serving drinks and moved to the corner where I could hide myself slightly from everyone. I knew this was going to be bad, but I hadn’t expected someone to outright command me to a room in front of everyone else. I shook off the promise of what would happen after the game and listened to the banter at the table. It was difficult to follow the conversation since I didn’t know who any of these men were, their businesses, or how they knew one another.

  I was beginning to regret offering myself up for this job when it seemed like the men weren’t talking business at all. I had thought I might get something out of tonight, but if they were talking about anything that might help me, they were talking in code. I could have saved myself the embarrassment and the promise of what would happen later if I had known this was going to be a bust.

  Hours passed and I only went over as I was beckoned. My feet were killing me from standing in one place for so long in these heels and my body started shivering from the chill of the room. When I was moving, it wasn’t bad, but just standing here really let the cold seep into my bones.

  The man with the evil eyes motioned me over, so I pushed the cart and stood next to him, waiting for him to tell me what he wanted. Instead, he slid his hand around my waist and yanked me onto his lap. His fingers dug into my side painfully, sending shivers down my spine. “What do you think, gentlemen? I think she’d make a fine example of our products.”

  His right hand skimmed up my chest again until his hand was wrapped around my throat. His nails dug into the sides of my neck, making it difficult to swallow, let alone breathe. I held my head high, trying to keep the pressure of his hand off my neck. My body shook in anticipation of what he was going to do. Would he fuck me in front of everyone at the table? I blinked back tears that tried to fill my eyes and tried not to make eye contact with anyone.

  “Watch it,” one man said, eyeing Evil Eyes.

  The older man looked over at Jeremy as he puffed on his cigar. “This isn’t how we do business.”

  “The way you do business is a thing of the past,” Evil Eyes said harshly. “Your contribution to our little project is minuscule at best. I could have you replaced with the snap of my fingers. And I could make you disappear just as fast. No one would ever find your body.”

  My heart was thudding so loud in my ears that I barely registered the meaning of the conversation. I had been looking for answers and I had a feeling if I stuck around, I would get them.

  The man shoved me off his lap so harshly that I stumbled and fell to the ground. Jeremy stood quickly, shoving back his chair in the process. “I think that’s enough for tonight, gentlemen. I think we all got what we came for. We’ll resume next week.”

  Jeremy walked over to me and hauled me up by my arms. “Go to the room across the hall and get something to cover yourself with.”

  I nodded and slipped out before he had a chance to change his mind. When I shut the door behind me, I sank down to the floor and took deep breaths, needing to wash the feeling of that man’s hands off me. I stood quickly and went to the closet, flinging the door open and searching for something to wear. Everything in the closet was men’s clothes. This must be Jeremy’s personal closet for at the club. I grabbed a t-shirt off the top shelf and a pair of sweatpants. It was all way too big on me and my heels would look ridiculous with it, but I didn’t care. I just needed to get out of the club.

  I opened the door just a crack to make sure no one was in the hallway and slipped out the door. I ran through the back halls to the dressing room, ignoring anyone that was looking at me. I snatched my purse out of my locker and pushed out the back door of the club. I was shaking hard, finding it difficult to walk, but I pushed on, knowing that when I was in the safety of my apartment, I would calm down.

  I hurried down the street and raced up the stairs to my apartment. I couldn’t find my key in my purse, so I reached over the door where I left the spare. There was nothing there. I stood on my tiptoes and felt around, sure that I had just missed it, but the ledge was empty.

  “Shit!” I pounded on the door, angry that I had locked myself out, but the force of my fist pushed the door in. I knew I wasn’t that strong. Someone was in my apartment. I slowly pushed the door open and let the light of the hallway fill the apartment. There was a man sitting at my table, and only one man I knew that would break into my apartment. He was here to take me. I shouldn’t have come back here.

  I spun to run out the door, but my heel slipped, making me crash into the doorframe. I took one step out of the apartment before a hand clamped over my mouth and I was hauled back inside. I screamed behind his hand and struggled my hardest to get away, but he was stronger. There was no way I was going down without a fight. Using all my strength, I stomped my spiked heel down on his foot. His grip loosened and I spun out of his arms and threw my weight behind my fist, hitting him in the face.

  “Fuck! Shyla, stop.”

  I had been just about to send my knee up into his stomach when I recognized the voice. I instantly flicked on the light switch to see Sniper leaning over slightly, favoring his right foot. I was still breathing heavily and now I was shaking even harder than I had been before. I pulled back and slammed my fist one more time into his face, making him stumble back a step as he gripped his nose.

  “Fuck, why did you hit me? You already know it’s me.”

  I shook out my hand, feeling the pain shoot through my knuckles. Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to punch him again. “Because, asshole, you broke into my apartment and waited for me in the dark. Who does that?” I shrieked.

  “Who leaves a fucking key above the door frame? Don’t you have any sense of security? You’re practically inviting people into your apartment!”

  “I’ve never had any problems.”

  “Until tonight! Believe me, you wouldn’t have made it five steps down the hall. An attacker would have dragged you back inside and no one in this shitty building would have helped you.”

  “Why are you even here? I’ve met you a few times and now you think you can come to my apartment and help yourself inside?”

  “Fuck, I don’t know. I guess I came to make sure that you were okay after the game tonight.”

  “How did you know it was tonight?”

  He walked over to my fridge and pulled out ice, stuffing it into some paper towels. He snatched my right wrist, the hand I had been cradling against my stomach, and pulled it toward him. I hissed in pain when he set the cold ice on my knuckles.

  “Where’d you learn to punch like that?”

  “Would you believe me if I said Tae-bo?”

  “The Billy Blanks videos?”

  I laughed slightly. I knew it sounded ridiculous, but I loved those workouts. “Don’t judge. He does an excellent job teaching self-defense moves.”

  “I wouldn’t say excellent. That couldn’t have taught you how to hit someone without practicing on an actual person.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe I go around punching assholes that break into my apartment.”

  “Just one problem, you don’t even have a tv, so how are you doing those videos?”

  HIs question immediately killed the banter we had going. I pushed away from him and went to sit on my couch. I was tired and starting to crash from everything that had happened. I couldn’t take anything else tonight. Sniper sauntered over to me and stood with his arms crossed, his eyes boring into my mind. The man wasn’t going to stop.

  “Can we not do this right now? I just want to go to sleep.”

  “Why are you wearing Jeremy’s clothes?”

  “How do you know that I am?”

  He jerked his head toward my shirt. I looked at it and saw some kind of insignia with SEAL Team written under it.

  “So, what happened that you needed to wear another man’s clothes home?”

  “He was just being nice.”

  “You have your own clothes that you wear to the club. Which means that either something happened to your clothes or you were getting dresse
d and out of there in a hurry. So, what the fuck happened?”

  I stood, anger washing over me as this man continued to throw his way too intuitive questions at me. I didn’t need to tell him jack shit. “It’s none of your goddamn business what happened. I didn’t ask you to come here and check on me. I don’t even know why you bothered. I’m just a stripper, so why drive over here to check and see what happened?”

  He didn’t say anything, so I walked toward my bedroom. “Lock the door on your way out.”

  I felt the air shift around me just before he spun me around and shoved me up against the wall outside my bedroom. His body was flush against mine and his lips were just inches from mine. “I don’t fucking know why I’m here. You would think that I would just walk away, but for some reason I can’t.”

  “Don’t come here and try to be some good guy that’s gonna save me,” I breathed heavily. Tonight had fucked with me and I really shouldn’t want him, but dammit, I wanted him to erase the touch of that prick.

  “Did anyone fuck you?” His voice was low and deadly and his face showed murder.

  “I told you it’s none of your business,” I snapped.

  “Did anyone fuck you?” he shouted.

  I tried to push him away, but the man was like a hulk. He didn’t budge even an inch. “No, I didn’t fuck anyone. I-”

  His lips crashed against mine before I could finish my sentence. I gave a half-hearted attempt to shove him away, but quickly melted into his kiss, wrapping my arms around his neck and running my fingers through his hair. My body was on fire and every kiss seemed to wipe away another memory from tonight. He shoved my sweatpants down and I quickly stepped out of them. Just moments later, he hoisted me in the air with his hands on my ass and shoved my thong to the side right before he thrust up into me.

  Wrapping my legs around his waist, I thudded my head back against the wall, enjoying every time he pushed himself further inside me. But it wasn’t enough for me. I needed more. I pushed off the wall and dug my heels into his ass for support. I started bouncing on his dick, taking over and giving myself what I needed.

  I stared at him unapologetically. I didn’t want to be pushed around by another man. This was my decision and I was going to fuck the way I wanted. He groaned the harder I bounced and then tripped on his jeans that were still around his ankles. His arms wrapped around me as we crashed to the ground, but I didn’t give him a chance to recover. I planted my feet on either side of him and rode him until I could feel myself tighten around him.

  His hands slid under my shirt and cupped my breasts, tweaking my nipples until I was squeezing his dick hard. He lifted his hips and thrust up in me hard and fast just a few times before groaning and coming inside me. His fingers dug into my hips as he held me in place.

  “Fuck, Shyla. You fuck like you dance.”

  And just like that, I felt like a bucket of ice water had been poured over my head, killing the heat between us. I stood and walked away, treating him just like he had treated me the last time he was in my apartment.

  I couldn’t tell what pissed me off more, the fact that I had been more concerned about fucking him than about my daughter, or that his comment reminded me that none of this was real. He was just someone that liked to watch me dance and fuck me. This would never be more and I couldn’t trust him, so why was I wasting my time with a man when I should be writing down what I heard tonight and trying to figure out if anything could relate to my daughter?

  “Lock the door on your way out.”

  I got into the shower and pushed Sniper from my mind. He was a good resource for getting information from my boss, but he was way too intuitive. He would figure things out sooner or later and there was no telling where his loyalties would fall.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Sniper

  I KNOCKED ON Cap’s office door. I had to get this shit with Chief straightened out fast. For all I knew, he had already talked to Cap and made a deal.

  “Come in.”

  I walked in, giving Cap a chin lift as I walked over and sat down in the chair across from him. Cap eyed me speculatively. I had bruises all over my face and my nose looked like it had been busted up. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that I had been in a fight, but I wasn’t about to admit to Cap that I had been beat up by a girl.

  “You want to talk about it?” he asked, jerking head toward my face.

  “Not even a little.”

  “So, if you don’t want to talk about why your face has been rearranged, why are you here?”

  “I need to talk to you about something.” Cap nodded and set down his pen, realizing that I had something important to say. “I went to see my old Master Chief from my Navy days. He owns a strip club in Pittsburgh now and he asked me to come by the other day. He wants to hire us for a security detail.”

  “That’s fine. Have him give me a call.”

  I hesitated. I didn’t want to be suspicious of a man that I had served with, but I had to think about the men I worked with now. I couldn’t put them in danger for someone that was dirty.

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea. He wants us to make sure a shipment arrives safely, but when I asked him what he was transporting, he wouldn’t tell me.”

  “So, you’re thinking he’s doing something illegal.”

  “I don’t want to, but it’s pretty standard to know what exactly you’re protecting. I just don’t get a good feeling about this.”

  “What kind of man is he?”

  “I haven’t seen him in years, but I always thought highly of him when we served together.”

  Cap thought on it a moment. The thing was, we always took it seriously when one of us was uneasy about a job. We all had been in this field long enough to know when something wasn’t right.

  “If he calls, I’ll ask him to come in and meet with me. But it’s probably nothing as bad as you’re thinking, but we’ll err on the side of caution.”

  “I’d like to be in on that meeting.”

  “That’s fine with me, but if he asks you to leave the room, I can’t do anything about that.”

  I stood, knowing our conversation was over. There was nothing more I could do right now and I had a job to get back to.

  “Chance, I need your team in the conference room in a half hour.”

  “Will do, Cap.”

  I called the guys and told them to meet me upstairs in fifteen minutes and headed for my locker to get some shit I needed. When I headed back upstairs, Jackson and Gabe were already waiting for me in the conference room.

  “Holy fuck, what happened to your face?” Jackson asked when I walked into the conference room. He sat up and instantly looked like he was ready to go to war.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” I grumbled.

  I was still pissed that Shyla wouldn’t tell me what had happened last night, but I had to admit, she had a great swing.

  “It was a woman,” Gabe grinned. “What’d you do? I hope you didn’t compare her to the stripper. Women don’t really like that.”

  “I don’t have to compare her. It was the stripper.”

  “What?” Jackson practically fell over in his chair. He had just put his feet on the table when I let that piece of information slip. “Did you learn nothing from your marriage?”

  “Yes, I learned that I don’t want to be married.”

  “So you fucked a stripper? Man, your dick is gonna fall off before you ever get the chance to find another girl to marry.”

  Leave it to Gabe to become the romancer in the bunch of us. Ever since he fell for Cazzo’s sister, everything was about love and marriage. I’d already had that and it was not something I wanted to repeat.

  “I’m not getting married,” I said irritatedly. “Which is why a stripper is a great solution.”

  “Because you’ll die of a deadly illness that you contracted before you ever find a girl that’ll try to tie you down?” Jackson asked.

  “Because she’s hot as fuck and she knows how to mov
e her body. We both know it’ll never go anywhere. In fact, I should have been doing this all along. There have been way too many women that have tried to get my phone number after a quick fuck.”

  “Sure,” Gabe snorted. “We’ll just start going around to strip clubs and find loose women that don’t have any STDs and don’t mind being fucked as long as they don’t expect anything in return.”

  “I’d get on board with that,” Jackson admitted.

  “I’m not going out looking for strippers. I already have one. There’s a spark between us that makes the sex unbelievable and I already know when she gets off work, so dropping in is fairly easy. And, I can get up and leave right after sex. It’s one of the things I love about her.”

  “Wait,” Gabe said, shaking his head in confusion. “Let me get this straight. You have a regular woman that you go see. There’s great chemistry, you know her work schedule, and you’re finding things you love about her.” He looked over at Jackson with a raised eyebrow. “Sounds to me like he’s found himself a relationship.”

  “It’s not a fucking relationship. We fuck and that’s it.”

  “Hey, I’m not judging, man. When I fell for Isa, it happened so fast, I didn’t know what hit me.”

  “I’m not falling for her. I went to see her because I knew that she had some shitty job last night.”

  “And you wanted to make sure she was okay,” Jackson said sweetly as he batted his eyelashes and held his hands together under his chin. The bastard. I couldn’t wait to give him shit over Raegan.

  “Look, she got herself into some shitty job for extra money and I told her not to fucking do it. I was just checking on her!”

  “That’s so sweet,” Gabe chuckled. “He doesn’t even realize he likes her. He’s checking up on her and making sure she’s okay. Next thing you know, he’s gonna be checking out her place to make sure it’s safe.”

  I looked away, not wanting them to see the flush of heat crawling up my face. Too damn late. These guys were like attack dogs. They just wouldn’t let shit go until they tore every last scrap of information from you.