When she stepped out of the bathroom, he was already opening the door to the hall. An assistant was waiting there with a new black sweater. Troy nodded but other than that ignored the man. Troy had his minions and each knew what they needed to do to be indispensable, or rather, to feel that way. In an environment where life was disposable as tissue, even the illusion of indispensability was better than nothing.
She followed Troy into the hall, suppressing thought and emotion. It was the only way she could stop herself from having a panic attack. Her heels clicked on the shiny tile floor of the aesthetically cold hallway and then muted as she stepped into the carpeted elevator. When its doors closed, Troy pushed the stop button and adjusted the security camera so it aimed away from them. He pinned her against the elevator wall, his lips brushing against her ear. “Are you trying to get canceled?”
His words insinuated her death wasn’t a foregone conclusion, that he was trying to save her. She smelled a trap. Once she’d believed he would save her, but he’d fed her to the Agency as though she was nothing. She grabbed his head and pressed her lips to his ear, forcing her body to ignore his hard lines rubbing against her belly and breasts.
“We destroyed the labs, got ambushed. A team member was wounded and will certainly die. That’s a tragedy, not a failed op.” She wanted to shout, to vent her anguish over what had happened, but she refused to beg.
Troy pressed his forehead to hers, his eyes flashing. “Until we know who that shooter was, who controlled him, the Agency’s effectiveness is in question. Your actions tonight made us vulnerable.”
Why had she, for one moment, thought this conversation was about her? Troy’s anger wasn’t sublimated regret that she was getting canceled. He was pissed that she’d killed the shooter. Lucy was still deluding herself that he cared about her. She wanted him to be upset she was going to die. All these years later, despite all the evidence to the contrary, and she still had to remind herself he didn’t love her.
She was a fool. “You’re afraid you’ll be out of a job.”
Troy studied her expression. “I’ll lose a job. You’ll lose everything.”
“My mum thinks I’m dead. My friends, college, everything I’d planned, all that’s been gone a long time now.”
“Your life,” he said.
She shook her head. “That was over the day you stepped into it.” His scent surrounded her, distracting her as despair had her hiding her face against his chest. His fingers bit into her waist. “I was innocent, Troy.”
He forced her to look at him. “No one is innocent.”
She wasn’t anymore. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t go out with a whimper, so with that in mind, she forced a smile. “Admit it. You’re going to miss me.”
The elevator buckled, startling them both. Security must have lost patience with them and overridden the manual stop. Troy steadied her, drawing his hands up her back, pulling her close. She struggled when she felt his arousal.
“Stop. Security wants to know what we’re doing.” He turned the camera so it was aimed at them and then pulled her back into his embrace. “Time for a show. Make it look good.”
Secret conversations in the elevator created suspicion and were grounds for interrogation. She shuddered at the thought. Barrett could make her last moments on earth a living hell. Lucy would play the game as long as there was a game to play, but to do that, she had to steel herself for what was coming, and she had nothing left—she was barely keeping herself together as it was.
Troy grabbed her ass, pulling her hips against him, his gaze never breaking contact with hers. Lucy realized he was enjoying this more than required. He smiled and bent his head, nuzzling her neck. A shiver danced down her spine; she bit her lip to stop a moan.
The elevator door opened. Men with guns poked their heads in, saw their embrace, saw Troy and stepped back out. As cover stories went, it wasn’t a bad one, she thought. The doors closed again. Troy hit the stop button once more and slapped the camera so it aimed back at a wall.
His easy smile had turned into fury in the space of a heartbeat. Still pinned in place, his hips pressing her against the wall, she saw his struggle for composure and was glad she wasn’t the only one having that trouble. His hands were waking her body from its long slumber, and she felt on fire, resenting and loving the moment in equal measure.
“You need to start thinking and stop reacting.” His breath was warm against her cheeks. “When we step off this elevator, you can’t afford to let that pretty mouth of yours say what’s in your head. Every eye is watching, reporting to Barrett, who is calculating scenarios.” He ran his fingers through her wet hair, down her shoulders, finally covering her hands as they lay flat against the elevator’s wall. “A mysterious shooter that only you saw? A dead agent? Too many unanswered questions, Lucy. Sloppy.” He cupped her ass and widened his stance, letting her feel how turned on he was. Lucy gasped on contact.
“Only I saw the shooter? What are you saying?”
“I’m saying you’ve gotten yourself into a lot of trouble.” He cupped her breast, gently squeezing.
“Stop.” She knew she sounded scared, and she was. His touch was driving her wild. He had to know she was trembling.
“At least say it like you mean it.” His anger had cooled, and something else had taken its place.
“I hate you,” she said. Her words lacked the weight she would have wanted, but they got her point across. His eyes hardened as he dragged her skirt up until he could touch her panties. Instead of being repelled, he seemed to take her words as a challenge. Ashamed, Lucy was grateful to get his hands where she wanted them without the humbling price of having to ask.
Never breaking their gaze, he kissed her, his body heat a sharp contrast to her chilled limbs. She fought the urge to melt, to touch him, to react to his kiss, because, damn, he was a good kisser, but when his tongue touched hers, her body responded instinctively. She kissed him back and remembered those first days after recruitment, the fear, and seeing Troy as a solution rather than as a man. She remembered how fear had quickly changed to dependence when her seduction turned her into the seduced. Dependence bred affection that blossomed into a delicate infatuation.
The first time she’d made love with Troy, she’d thought it meant he cared for her, that he would protect her. Lucy hadn’t been a warrior, and the changes being demanded of her mind and body seemed too drastic to be possible. Surely, she’d thought, Troy would save her from this place. That’s what men like Troy did for women like Lucy. Oh, she’d been so naïve. Troy did nothing that didn’t serve the Agency.
He broke their kiss as her fingers raked through his short hair, trying to control the angle of his head. “I was told you were dying.” He said it like an accusation. “I came to the transport bay expecting to see your body.”
“Disappointed?” She dropped her hands, pressing them against the elevator wall again. “I’ll be dead soon enough.”
Troy closed his eyes, pressing his forehead to hers. “What you don’t know could fill a library.”
She hated when he acted as if he gave a shit about her. It reminded her that it wasn’t true. “Don’t play a player, Troy.”
He inhaled her scent and then rubbed his face against her neck, drawing his hand down to the curve of her ass. She strained to keep her dignity while waiting for his next move. She hoped he’d reach into her panties and put her out of her misery, but she refused to ask. If this was Troy’s parting gift, she’d take it. She’d wanted it long enough. She just wasn’t convinced he intended to back up his words with action.
“Th-the camera can’t see us, Troy.” She was stuttering. Damn, she was stuttering. She turned her head away, squeezing her eyes shut to hide how much she wanted him. Troy nuzzled the pulse under her jaw, running his lips across the delicate skin. “Get off me.” She didn’t sound convincing, she thought, but couldn’t force the words out of her mouth again for another try.
“You’ve created a hell of a problem
today.” He ran his fingers over the soft material of her panties until he found her moist heat. She squirmed helplessly, distracted by his lips on her earlobe. She melted for him, and she hated that he knew it.
“Touch me,” he whispered.
She ran her hands up under his sweater and reacquainted herself with his size and strength while Troy’s fingers pushed aside her damp panties. She gasped, holding onto him to keep her balance. He had her on the brink of climax as Lucy tugged his sweater over his head, needing to taste his chest, to feel him again.
His lips found hers, and he kissed her as if seeking to dominate, but she met it with a mirrored ferocity. Lucy let Troy do what Troy did best—consume her, mind and body stripped of the horror of her day. He replaced it all with blessed pleasure, growing bolder with every sigh and gasp that escaped her lips.
His trousers abraded the delicate skin of her thighs. She covered his hand playing inside her, rocking against it. His other hand slipped under her sweater and cupped her breast, flicked the hardened tip casually, repeatedly, until she couldn’t breathe, then it disappeared. She heard him unzip his pants, felt him rip her panties off and felt the sting of silk bite her skin. He lifted her, slamming her against the elevator wall. She gasped as he penetrated her, his first thrust sending her on a spiraling-upward climax. She whimpered against his mouth as he kissed her, thrusting, demanding everything she had to give. Lucy’s climax triggered Troy’s release. When their breathing slowed, and Troy’s hips ceased to thrust, he smiled against her lips.
She held on with trembling arms, acutely aware of his fingers biting into the flesh of her thighs, keeping them connected. She felt bruised and sore; the elevator wall was hard, and Troy’s scent surrounded her. Still her body squeezed him, her hips arched forward, seeking the pleasure only he could give her. A wave of self-disgust broke the spell.
“I hate you,” she whispered against his cheek, tasting his sweat.
“It’s not me you hate.” He thrust once more. She gasped as a spike of pleasure stole her breath.
She did hate him, she told herself. She really, really hated him.
Five years ago a casual acquaintance of her mum had asked Lucy for a favor, and before she knew it, she was standing in the middle of an office with ten people dead and dying, carrying a briefcase of cocaine. She’d kept waiting for her mum and her powerful friends to save her. They’d never come, forcing Lucy to fend for herself for the first time in her life. Lacking any skill set beyond shopping and partying, she’d welcomed Troy’s guidance. He was, after all, the deputy administrator of the Agency, and her mum had taught her the necessity of attaching herself to powerful men. She’d trusted him to use that power to protect her.
That Lucy didn’t exist anymore.
Chapter Two
Troy stepped back, pulling out of her as Lucy’s legs dropped to the elevator floor, her skirt slipping into place. She felt vulnerable and wanted to escape.
“We’ll talk about this later,” he said.
Lucy didn’t have a later. It was a miracle the sirens hadn’t blared yet. “There’s nothing to talk about.” Just to piss him off, she opened the elevator door before he set himself to rights. Ignoring the waiting security guards in full battle gear, she blindly walked down the hall, heading toward the interrogation room.
Damn, damn, damn, she thought. Her last act on earth was going to be screwing the enemy.
She heard Troy say, “Stop her.” A security guard touched her shoulder. Lucy tensed, looked at the hand and then glared at the guard. Even though he held an assault rifle, he was smart enough to drop his hand.
“This way,” Troy said, buckling his pants. He shrugged back into his sweater, looking as put together as he had before he rocked her world. Whereas Lucy’s hair was mussed and she looked as if she’d been ridden hard and put away wet, but she couldn’t care less. She was a dead woman walking.
Troy led her down an unfamiliar corridor, and her anxiety amped to the point where she became numb. It took her by surprise. She’d assumed she’d welcome death when it became inevitable, maybe finally feel relief from the fear that had plagued her since she’d joined the Agency. But that wasn’t what she was feeling at all. Not at all.
Troy stopped at a door, opened it and motioned she should enter. There was a chair in the center of the otherwise empty eight-by-eight-foot room. One wall’s length consisted of a window that overlooked the facility’s main training room. As Lucy stepped inside, she saw recruits and agents going about their usual activities, match after match of recruits trying to annihilate one another and prove they were worthy of advancement to agent status.
“Sit,” he said.
Lucy ignored the chair. She’d be sitting in it soon enough. Instead, she stood at the window, trying to recognize any of the agents below. Recruits stood out because of their obvious fear and self-pity. They fought one another on the mats, showing their strengths and weaknesses. Potential prospects for crews. Gym class on crack. If you’re not picked, you don’t survive. If no one will work with you, the Agency won’t invest time and money to make you into an agent. Automatic cancellation.
Five years. Lucy had lasted five years in this hellish world. The recruits below would replace her, or not. They were all disposable in the end.
“Can they see us?” Lucy kept her eyes on a young woman on the mat squaring off with a much larger male recruit. She was nearly half his size but appeared fearless. The fight was over quickly, the woman dragged away unconscious, but Lucy recognized that this woman, this recruit, would find her place here. Fearlessness couldn’t be trained into an agent, whereas skill and strength could. She’d do fine.
A loud siren pierced the uncomfortable silence in the interrogation room, freezing everyone down on the mats. The haunting sound hit Lucy’s body like a cold wave, shocking her into a stupor. Raven was finally dead. The medics would come for Lucy now to cancel her. She didn’t know whom to mourn first, Raven or herself. Knowing about a consequence wasn’t the same as experiencing it.
Lucy didn’t want to die.
She contemplated running, barreling through any obstacle in her path. She was good—she might make it. She certainly knew she’d enjoy the attempt. But it was futile. Lucy had decided long ago that she didn’t want to suffer the slow degeneration withdrawal from gene therapy would cause—the shock, the pain, dying alone. The blood drained from her face.
Troy pressed a button on the wall to the right, and the glass turned semiopaque. “They can’t see you anymore.” He was giving her privacy to come to terms with her fate. Sweat broke out on her upper lip. She didn’t want his kindness.
“So the elevator was a goodbye screw?” She saw Troy’s eyes flash with anger.
“Sit, Lucy. I won’t ask again,” he said.
On trembling legs, she sat, staring through the glass wall down onto the bare-knuckle brawls that had resumed now that the novelty of the siren had worn off. Watching brought back painful memories of her days on the mat, the damage she’d inflicted and received. Lucy stood on a mountain of sacrifices made for her survival. She’d never wanted this life. So why wasn’t she relieved?
“We need to talk.” He leaned against the wall, contemplating her, and then he pulled a small device from his pocket. Lucy recognized it as a scrambler. It blocked listening devices. He flipped it on and put it back in his pocket. “Speak freely.”
“You speak freely. I have nothing to say.”
He didn’t try to hide his impatience. “Fine. There are things you need to know about Colombia.” Lucy forced herself to be still, to give nothing away, when in fact she was teetering on shock. In the past, Troy would never have allowed her to even broach the subject of her recruitment. He’d freeze her out or simply walk away. Now he was initiating the topic. If she needed a sign that the sky was falling, this was it. “The Agency knew you had nothing to do with the cartel when they recruited you.”
“Nice of you to finally admit it.” She’d deduced that years ago, but co
uldn’t see how it mattered now.
“Your recruitment was necessary for another operation I created.”
“You planned my recruitment?”
“I designed the op, so, yes. Barrett’s predecessor signed off on it.”
Pain twisted in her gut. She’d been a case file all along. A pawn. “The details?”
“Classified.”
“I’m moments away from being juiced. Have the courtesy to tell me why.” He stepped toward her chair, forcing Lucy to crane her neck to see him. If they were ever going to put their cards on the table, now should be the time. She played with the idea of telling him she’d loved him all those years ago, to acknowledge the only good thing that had come from her time in the Agency, but pride wouldn’t let her give him that coup. He might denigrate what she’d felt, and she didn’t have the strength to live through that. Troy waited, staring at her, and then she realized what he was waiting for. “You need something from me.”
“Quid pro quo.”
“You have nothing I want. I already knew I was innocent. Knowing you were behind it doesn’t really surprise me.”
Troy acted as though she hadn’t spoken. “Four agents have been killed in action over the last four days. Four agents, four days.”
He was wrong. Lucy would have heard the sirens, unless it had happened while she was on ops, but something like that wasn’t kept secret. Agents would buzz about it. She’d have known. “Four agents dead and four crew leaders canceled.” She didn’t believe it.
“Do you know anything about it?”
Lucy recoiled. “I just heard it from you, and personally I think you’re fucking with me. Eight dead? I would have heard something.”
“You keep saying eight. It’s only four agents dead.”
His insinuation that the crew leaders hadn’t been canceled, that Lucy might not be canceled, had her heart racing. “What information do you need from me?”
The Seduction of Lucy Page 2