by Tara Brown
I sat in a seat, not near the one he had put my luggage on, and buckled myself in. When the door was closed the engines started and I turned my head, assuming it was now safe to talk. “Where the hell is everyone else?”
“They’re coming. We will meet them in Dubai. I have a meeting and you will be my assistant.” He smiled from the bar at the back where he was mixing a few drinks.
My eyes narrowed. “What? Does Coop know?”
His smile turned into a grin, a grim one. “He does now. I imagine the orders have come down the line to him.”
His words brought a sigh from my lips. “You have to be kidding me. You mean he and Luce and Jack will be coming to Norwich, waiting for me?”
He shook his head. “No. They were found in Heathrow and redirected from there.”
I turned in my seat, staring at the movie screen at the front of the plane. It was a wide-screen TV. Servario had never seemed like much of a movie buff but the large screen made me think otherwise. There was a hallway at the front of the plane, obviously the pilot’s area and maybe a washroom.
I folded my arms as Servario came and sat next to me, placing the cocktail on my tray. He sipped his scotch, rattling the ice in the glass. The tension was thick enough to get lost in. The heat of his body next to mine in the seat was enough to drive me to naked madness. I turned sharply. “Why are you doing this?”
He shrugged, sipping his drink. “I thought maybe we could talk.”
I rolled my eyes. “You don't talk.”
He reached into the back of the seat in front of me, pulling a folder from the pocket in the chair and placing it in front of me. I stared at it for a long second, worried as to what I would find inside.
He seemed pleased with himself. It dawned on me then, he had pulled the folder from this seat, like he knew I would sit here. I hated being predictable.
I lifted my glass, chugging back the cocktail and passing it to him as I opened the folder. The last time anyone gave me a folder, it was to show me images of my husband and my best friend having an affair. Needless to say, the idea of opening folders made me sick to my stomach.
When I lifted the beige cover of the folder I paused. The image was one I didn't expect. I turned to him, almost scared to ask, “Why do you have a picture of Coop’s sister?” She was the one I had assumed was one of us, an agent, but Coop had sworn up and down that she wasn't.
He didn't answer right away. He looked into my eyes, searching for something. “She works for a man I know. Just thought that perhaps you might want to know about this, before something unfortunate occurs as a result.”
My mouth went dry. “She’s an agent?” I knew it!
He shook his head. “She’s not. She’s sort of the opposite of that.”
My mouth got drier. I reached for his scotch glass, taking it in my hands and lifting it to my lips without taking my eyes from his. “She’s a double agent?”
He shook his head again.
“FUCK!”
“Don't swear, Evie,” he warned as he nodded, realizing I understood what he was trying to say. She was a bad guy, selling information to the wrong people. She and Coop came from a long line of agents. And Rachel was the one sister I assumed was one of us. She just made me think it. Coop believed her cover story of being a clumsy, whimsical, artsy photographer. I think they all believed it. I think I was the first person to see past it, see it for the act it was.
“So she sells secrets, like James had been doing?” James, my dead husband, who had betrayed the world and me with it.
Servario’s stare answered for him. He neither nodded nor spoke.
“How long has this been going on?”
He shrugged. “I know the man she works for. I would assume a while.”
I almost gagged. My insides burned for him—for Coop. I knew this pain. I knew what it felt like to know the person you trusted and loved had not only betrayed you but endangered your life and the lives of millions—billions.
“Why are you showing this to me?” If I knew anything about Servario it was that his desire to fuck with me was stronger than any other desire.
He pressed his deliciously sexy lips together and sighed. “Do you recall when I hung you out to dry, as you so eloquently put it, and left you to fight for yourself so I could save your children?”
I nodded, recalling hating him for leaving me to die but stunned he had been worried about my kids. He had left me to survive on my own, something I hated about him.
“Well, I moved quickly, ensuring the kids and your mother were safe. I discovered Rachel was responsible for your locations being leaked. She is the reason your cover was nearly blown. She was also the reason you were on that boat to fight for your life. She sold you and Coop out to James.”
I paused. The information on the phone—the phone he had traded me for once. “This was the secret on the phone that you traded me to James for? You wanted his informant?”
He nodded slowly. “She double-crossed us all in Split. You were meant to be taken to a brothel and sold into sex slavery. I had guys there who would break you free and help you kill everyone in the brothel. When you never showed up I used the new information I had to discover Rachel, Coop’s sister, had sold us out. She was working with James at the time. He sold her out for you, not caring about anyone but himself. He wanted you more than anything else.”
My insides twisted into a knot. “How could you let us go to Coop’s parents’ house and not tell me?”
“I was watching. I was hoping she would slip up but she never did. I needed all the evidence I could gather on her; young Cooper isn’t going to trust me just because he has to. He will think I’m up to no good.”
I tilted his glass up and finished off his scotch with a shiver. As I brought it down he grabbed my face. The kiss he forced on me was unexpected, and yet the most welcome feeling in the world.
The glass fell to the floor as the jet plane took off. Servario cupped my face desperately, sucking my tongue and caressing with his. Our mouths fought the force of the takeoff, frantically clinging to each other. It was madness.
I was dating Coop and despised cheating, but in my heart it didn't feel like cheating. Servario had told me he loved me long before any claim on my heart was made by Coop.
I had told Servario I loved him too. He had tried to force me to take it back but I couldn't. I loved him, even though he was seedy and wrong for me. He unbuckled my seat belt and his, lifting me into the air and walking, stumbling, to the back of the plane.
He pushed us through the door I had pondered, violently slamming it with a rough kick. I broke from the intense kiss to see a small bed and a closet full of women’s clothing. I sighed, “You put a bed back here?” My mood started to drop off.
He nodded, his eyes filled with passion and his lips moving as if he were going to say something but he didn't.
“You are such a pervert. Seriously? Who puts a bed on a plane and a closet full of women’s clothing? You make me sick.” I shove and wiggle until my feet touch the carpeted floor of the shaking plane.
He grabbed at me roughly. “They’re for you. The bed and the clothes and the plane—it’s all for you.” His expression looked broken for a second, like I had wounded him.
I paused, worried he was telling the truth. “Who puts a bed and clothes on a plane for a girl he isn’t seeing?”
He steps toward me again, lifting my face. “I see you. I always see you.” I could see he was struggling with the feelings he had. He fought them and apparently had lost.
I tried to step back, I honestly did. It was the right thing to do. But my heart was his. It had always been his, I just didn't know it. I lifted my fingers up into his longish hair and pulled his six-foot-three body down onto my five-foot-four one.
We spun and fell onto the bed with him crushing me into the soft mattress. But we didn't kiss and we didn't fuck. We paused, staring at each other. It was delicate and frightening.
He rolled to his side and trai
led his fingers up and down my torso, tugging at my blouse and brushing against my stomach like it was an accident. He traced heat trails up and down me, touching nothing that couldn't be explained away or considered innocent.
Chapter Two
I woke from my slumber to find him staring at me from the chair. It was unnerving that Coop had done it the day before and now today it was Servario. Waking that way twice in a row was spooky.
But Servario spoke, never keeping his thoughts to himself when it benefited him to say them aloud. “I want to fuck you but I want you to ask me to do it.”
I scowled. “No. Weirdo.” He was such a freak. He was a finger-in-the-ass freak and I had already played this game with him too many times to count.
He nodded. “I am going to offer you a deal and you have to choose.”
I rolled my eyes. Actually, they might have rolled themselves.
“Don't roll your eyes at me, Evie. You know how I feel about disrespect.”
I lifted my middle finger from my side. “This is how I feel about your deals.” Had he just made love to me when we got on the plane I would have done it. But he had lost the control then and this was his way of getting it back.
“You let me pick your clothing, fucking you how I see fit, and treat you the way I want so badly to, and I will hand over Coop’s sister to the right people with all the proof.”
I sit up, completely stunned he would bargain this way to ensure his heart wasn't in the sex. “You are an idiot. What is the other option? Let her keep doing all those bad things and compromise our mission?” I scoffed, “Oh, okay, Servario. Sure. I’ll let you humiliate me so you don't feel like we made love and love each other, and you can treat me like a whore for that. Dipshit.”
He shook his head, a smug look crossing his face. “She will vanish with all the evidence and Coop will always wonder. His family will never have closure.”
I sigh. “I really thought you were smarter than this. I know what Rachel has done and I have the evidence in the folder.”
He lifted a syringe from the table next to him. “This is a drug that will take all your memories of the last twenty-four hours. They will be gone, completely. And I will fuck you anyway.”
A sarcastic smile crossed my lips. “You can’t make me hate you. Nothing you do anymore makes me think you’re as scummy and horrid as you try to be. This whole walking contradiction thing with the buying me clothes and putting in a bed and then bribing me for dirty sex so you can get away without feeling something for me—it doesn't work. I see you too, just so you know.”
I stood on wobbly legs and walked to the clothing rack, lifting the tiny red dress that looked like it might be a tube top, from its hanger. I walked back to the bed, undoing my shirt one slow button at a time and dropped it to the carpet. I dragged my bra off, letting my breasts linger in the air, exposed. I knew his face had an indifferent look upon it, but I also knew there was no way he was indifferent. I knew he loved me and he wanted me.
I pulled the tight red dress on, dragging my pants and underwear down with it. I kicked everything off to the side so I was just in the slutty red dress, and fluffed my hair like a porn star might. I turned to face him, letting him see the finished product. He didn't budge but I could see the fire. I backed away slowly, heading for the door and aware that if I ran he would chase. We had played that game all too often as well. “I love you, Servario. I have loved you for a while. I hate that I love you as much as you hate that you love me. But here we are, over international waters and land. We are in La La Land and no one has to know we love each other here. We can safely be open to everything and nothing all at once.”
He clenched his jaw tightly, offering me a slightly softer version of his pent-up sex face. “You have to take it back. I won’t ever choose you, ever.”
I nodded. “I know, and yet I love you anyway.” It was true. I knew he wouldn't choose me over the rest of the world. He had a duty as a double agent and he took it seriously. Too seriously.
No matter what, he would always be him, the ungettable get. The unattainable man behind the mask.
My hands reached behind me, clutching to the doorknob. I turned it, opening the door slowly, as if fleeing a tiger, and slipped out into the open jet plane, closing the door behind me.
I turned and walked back to my seat, curious as to how close we were to landing. The jet was dark as the skies had yet to see the morning sun. We were flying through the night, a red eye with a black heart.
I sat down, hating the fact my bare ass was on his seat. God only knew what he did in them. He liked to pretend he didn't have sex on his planes with anyone but me, but I was smarter than I looked, most days.
The door to the back didn't open and I had to admit it bothered me. I wanted him to rush the door, scooping me up and pinning me against the wall.
Instead, I fell asleep looking like a prostitute with my ass on his seat, no doubt getting an infection.
We landed with a jolt that woke me instantly. I blinked away the confusion of where I was and what was going on. It always took a second when we were on mission. I was used to warm mornings in my house with a cup of coffee as I planned my day around dropping my kids off at various activities or school.
His body was in my peripheral but not next to me. I shivered, realizing I was still in my disturbing dress and not just bare-assed but also barefoot. I grimaced, standing and walking to the back after the plane settled.
“Don't change, just add some shoes and makeup. You know what the girls I associate with look like,” he muttered from behind his laptop.
I sighed, not even considering changing. I knew what would happen. He would do his impatient act where he stood at the door, barring the way until I wanted to act like a big girl and put my proper spy clothes on. It always meant I ended up looking like a hooker. It was my most believable act which I felt said very little about my personality. Luce, my only other female partner, was never asked to dress like a whore.
I slipped into the back room, staring at the bed for a moment. Bits of feathers, foam, and mattress springs covered the room. He’d raged, tearing it all to hell like a child.
I made a mental note to add this to the reasons why we would never work. I had children enough to raise; I didn't need to add another who was wanted by every agency in the world for one heinous act or another.
The closet was still pristine, apart from a few feathers from the pillows. I ran my fingers along the pieces, separated by color. The varying fabrics tickled my fingertips, each one holding promise of a fun time. Pantsuits, dresses, skirts, blouses, tanks, and even a few pieces of lingerie. Every one of them designer and costing more than my monthly mortgage payment. To him it was nothing, akin to dropping a dollar in a bucket for a homeless man. No, for him spending all this money on clothing for a woman he couldn't ever have was just a regular Tuesday. He was bizarre in the most extreme ways.
I glanced at the red dress, knowing I looked slutty but I could do better. Servario wasn't a regular criminal mastermind. He was a savant of the underworld, and for that reason I could get away with a much nicer outfit. I lifted a black bustier-styled midriff tank top by Diane von Furstenberg. It made my boobs look like they were seventeen instead of thirty-six so that was obviously a better choice than the tube dress. It tied up from the bottom to the top in the front with laces, revealing my pale skin through it. It was a classy attempt at slutty. I peeled the red dress down my legs, pulling on the white, low-slung skirt, also by Diane von Furstenberg. I contemplated wearing some cute wedges but I knew he would need my legs to look their best. Okay, and I really wanted to wear the red Jimmy Choo lace pumps. They had a golden heel and I imagined if I were ever to get married again they would be the secret hiding beneath my wedding gown.
My life made that dream laughable but a girl could dream.
I used the makeup he had set up in the drawers, including of course, the Russian Red MAC lipstick we had both become so fond of. I teased my dark hair and gave mysel
f a once over. The heavy black makeup made my eyes pop. The falsies and Younique 3D Lash Kit made me look like I was related to the Gabor family, only a brunette.
I stepped back, excited by the fact I looked classy and sexy and there was no way his eyes would be able to stray from the incredible amount of cleavage shown in the laces of the shirt.
I walked out, leaving my green bag on board. Lord knew we were coming back this way. I just hoped and prayed Luce, Jack, and Coop would be with us.
I walked, praying to the gods I didn't twist an ankle or slip in any way, to the front of the plane. He glanced back, scowling at me. “You look too nice for where we’re going.”
When I walked past him, I lifted my skirt, flashing my bare ass at him. “I kept it just trashy enough for you.”
He made a noise, of course he did, but I didn't pause. I hurried to the dark Rolls Royce waiting for us on the small runway, as per the usual. Even in a country in the Middle East, he was able to fly in under the cover of his badass umbrella.
When he climbed in he sat too close, smothering me with heat and all the leftover things we hadn’t said to each other and all the damage caused by the things we did say.
He reached over, lifting me up into his lap to straddle him. I opened my mouth to protest but his eyes darted to the driver.
“You know how I like it, Estelle.” He unzipped his zipper, bringing a gasp from my parted lips. I shook my head, pleading with my eyes, but I could see the vacant look in his stare as he shoved himself inside of me. Unfortunately, my body had been prepared by all his advances and messing around. He slid into me with ease, not even bothering with a condom. He knew I was unable to conceive but that didn't mean he hadn’t been with other people.
His hands crept up my thighs as I hovered over him, his cock head inserted in me. When his fingers gripped onto my hips he dug in, forcing me to circle in his lap as if it were a dance. He massaged as if he was waiting for me to sink down onto him, taking him all in. But I didn't. I hovered there, unsure of my next move. He’d called my bluff as I had called his. He always had to win.