“You are one cold bitch. Sit…down.” When she resisted, Noor shoved her into a chair, leaned forward, and breathed into Denny’s face. “My first inclination is to put a blast between your eyes and be done with the entire matter. However, I reconsidered my options to deal with you.”
“You always had a soft spot, or should I say hard?” Her smile was insolent. She stretched her legs forward and rubbed him between her thighs with the movement.
Noor pushed her leg away with his thigh to keep her from touching him. “Don’t get it twisted. You were an easy fuck. Now, don’t get it wrong, you were superb in the sack, but pussy whipping is underrated. It doesn’t work with me.”
She chuckled softly, tossing back her hair and licking her lips suggestively. “Yet, you kept coming back for more and more. Just like a well-trained pet,” she challenged. Then she reached out and cupped his groin. Her fingers massaged and stroked his phallus through his pants to try to get a rise. The male in him reacted to the stroke. Inwardly, he was repulsed he didn’t have better control of his libido. Angry with himself, he shoved her hand away.
Denny burst into laughter. “If I recall, you kind of liked it rough. Does that backwater country girl do it for you, Noor? I hear heathens are hot-blooded.”
Noor grabbed Denny by the throat before he realized what he did. Sanity returned, and he loosened his hold. “Don’t fuck with me, Denny.”
She was a wild woman. Springing forward, she wrapped her arms around Noor’s neck and crushed her lips to his. She forced her tongue into his mouth and teeth clashed—she whipped her tongue inside his mouth in frenzy. “Is this what you came for?” She breathed, and the heat of her mouth lashed his cheek. “C’mon, Noor, we can do this the easy or hard way. Just like old times…you and me together. Fuck the emperor. He’s as good as dead anyway. The order to have him assassinated given earlier came down from the highest officials of the Federation Conglomerate. And guess who will lead the assault?” she said, laughing and making nefarious, eerie sounds that raked over Noor like salty claws and made him disgusted.
“You’re insane.” Noor sneered.
Noor pulled her hands off. She curled her fingers around him and clung to him. “We were good together. What we had was special, and we can get it back if you let this matter go. It’s not what you think, anyway.” She faced him unblinking. “I was undercover. My mission was to infiltrate the emperor and bring the son of a bitch down.”
“You’re insane and a liar.”
“Listen to me. Think about it. You were sent on your assignment and I had my role to play. You know that the agency never sends in one to do a task. There is always a plan B—always.”
“If that were true, I would have known.”
“How many people know about your assignment? It’s not as if these types of things are broadcast on the evening news. Even within the agency, it’s all NTK or higher, dependent on the case. They sent me in after the emperor and you after Allura because they knew you would succeed in finding her, keep her safe, and bring her back to Sanguine. They chose you, Noor, because you are the best. We knew you wouldn’t fail and you didn’t.”
“Then why did Asher take Allura under political arrest as soon as I returned. She was handed over to the emperor as a bargaining tool?”
“That was Asher’s doing. He rode solo on that one. The emperor and Asher had a relationship that Theopolis used to blackmail my husband and make him snitch. The agency figured this out and that’s why I ended up killing him. He knew we were onto him. We argued and struggled, and he tried to kill me. I didn’t have a choice. Why do you think the agency documented the murder as a suicide? To save my ass and keep the egg off the agency’s face.”
He hated that there seemed to be some logic to Denny’s story. The last thing he wanted to do was give her an inch. “You paid Caroline to try to get to us.”
“That’s not true. Caroline was an informer who got greedy when she realized Theopolis pulled all the strings. I tried to keep her out of his way, but she insisted. She refused to do business with me and forced me to take her to Theopolis. As much as I could, I tried to be a buffer between the girl and Theopolis. He was going to kill the silly fool that night. If it weren’t for me, she’d be dead.”
“You know the bastard raped Caroline. She’s as good as dead, anyway.” Noor watched Denny’s reaction to his words carefully. She dropped her head into her hands and buried it. She exhaled, and her body trembled. She matched his stare, saying quietly, “Damn it, I gave her the pill to block his seed from taking. I thought she took it. She pretended to.”
Noor frowned, considering what she said. Caroline never mentioned anything about a pill. “Your story sounds all nice and neat, but I talked with Caroline, and she pointed the finger at you, Denny. She said you enjoyed the emperor’s sick show as much as he liked performing it.”
“I drugged her before she met Theopolis. The bastard is one sick twist, you think I don’t know that? The girl was pumped full of deladivus and my hope was to numb the hell out of her because I knew there was a chance what Theopolis would do. What he did. She probably couldn’t recall her name that night, let alone anything else, Noor.”
“Yes, well, she seemed to recant a decent story, which I believe. Besides, my own eyes saw her condition. The baby she is carrying is cretin. Whether you lie through your teeth or not, I don’t believe she signed up for what happened. If you were on the case, it was your job to protect Caroline and not feed the emperor bait.”
“I did everything I could.” Denny fumed. “Don’t you dare accuse me of anything less, you sonofabitch. You, of all people, know what kind of conditions we work under. Sometimes you have to improvise and hope like hell it works.”
Noor couldn’t believe he was falling for this shit. If he caught Denny red-handed, it would be different. He couldn’t disclaim too many circumstantial parts of her story. Noor sat down in a chair and studied her wearily, wondering just how good an actress Denny could portray. Denny met his suspicious stare boldly. If she was bullshitting him, he couldn’t detect it. Even his hypersensitive sensors picked up nothing except distress in Denny. She could be lying or telling the truth. The agency trained their agents well, and Denny could not only fake her death by dropping her heart rate, she could lower her pulse and do other things to bypass a lie detector, if required. “You better not be feeding me bullshit.”
Denny walked over to him. She slid on his lap and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. She whispered, “You know me, Noor. I’m many things, including still mad about you and hot as hell for you. What I’m not is some sick psycho murderer. Or part of some manic plot to rule the galaxy, which we both know isn’t going to happen. How crazy is that? The emperor will fall like all the other overzealous nutcases who want universal power.” She ran her fingers over his chin. Noor caught her hand and shoved it away. Denny wasn’t thwarted. “My assignment was bullshit just like yours, and we both got caught up in the fallout. There are still some officials we think are conspiring with Theopolis, but we haven’t been able to ferret them out. That’s why I have to keep playing this game. Nobody can know about my part in all this. Until the case is solved completely, my life could be in jeopardy if the wrong person finds out my undercover role. Frankly, if it were me, I would have put blasts in Theopolis’s sick head a long time ago.”
“Why haven’t you?”
“The government wants to know who is all on his side. We need names and a solid list of who might be working with Theopolis before we can make a move. You know the agency. They like to be thorough before playing rough.”
Noor rubbed his eyes, intensifying the acidy burn he felt in the sockets. He massaged his temples and tried to wade through the dark murky details of the case, and Denny’s lies or truths. Disgruntled, he admitted to himself it was difficult. Like him, Denny had to be a chameleon to work covertly and present two faces, lie with ease, and sink to the lowest level of scum to survive. He couldn’t remember how many times he had to
do the unthinkable to infiltrate successful knowing if he failed he was a dead man.
He decided to test her. “Did you fuck Theopolis?” He felt her tense. Her pause was unsettling, a little telling.
Then she looked him in the eyes. Tears were on the surface of her eyelids and she shuddered as if it hurt to answer. “Yes,” she said finally. “I didn’t have a choice. You don’t refuse a man like Theopolis.” She whimpered pitifully. “You know, no matter how much you rub your skin raw and try to cleanse the vileness from your body…his touch, taste, and scent is permanently branded in my brain.” Denny laid her cheek on his shoulder. Her voice trembled as she said, “Make me feel clean again, Noor.” Her pelvis ground into his, a friction of heat surfaced, and against his will, he felt his cock react to the stimulus. Her lips caressed his throat…
Commonsense should have kicked in, but he found it didn’t work like that when she slid up her skirt and spread her legs over his thighs. Urgently, she worked on the zipper of his pants, released his cock, and stroked him until his length thickened and strained between her fingers.
“C’mon, make me feel good,” she murmured. “Fuck me and make me forget, if only for the moment.”
His mind whirled with indecision, none of it having to do with whether he would take Denny up on her offer. He loved Allura. The hesitancy came from having to morph back into his undercover mode to get what he wanted. A place filled with darkness and void of conscience, somewhere he hated to dwell because it meant doing the unimaginable to bring closure to a niggling feeling he had about Denny. Before Allura came into his life, he wouldn’t have given it a second thought, but that was in the past, when he lurked in seedy deceit if it meant getting his man, or in this case, woman. He was trained in war, and would use any means necessary to win.
She rotated her hips, rocking and swaying, churning her pussy over his cock. She moaned pleasurably, escalating the pace, driving against his dick with a desperate need when he felt nothing.
Denny went to kiss Noor. He refused her.
“Tell me something, did you enjoy being with Theopolis? When he mated, because that’s what his species does…did you see his true form?” Noor gripped her hips and held Denny still. His features went cold and unyielding. “What was it like being with a species that fucks like animals?”
“What are you talking about?” she said innocently.
Damn, she was good. Real good.
“You do know Theopolis is a cretin, right? I mean, how could you miss that? From what I learned, during mating it’s difficult for them not to reveal their true features.
“No, he’s not any different than you, but he is a mad man.”
“You’re a lying bitch.”
She slapped his face.
He slapped her back.
She went to gouge his eyes out, and he caught her hand. With little effort, he shifted and lifted Denny from his lap. She struggled and fought him. She had strength and knew tactical maneuvers to bring the biggest assailant down. All of which she tried, but he thwarted each attempt.
Then, realizing she couldn’t win, he assumed Denny decided to pull an Asher move on him. She reached beneath the chair cushion, produced a T-400 stunner, and pointed it between his eyes.
“You going to kill me like you did Asher?”
She smiled slyly, and he expected her to hiss with the expression on her face. “It’s not that I want to. I mean, really, it seems a waste of good cock. You were always the best, Noor. You had everything going for you except your damned conscience and this nasty little impulse to do what is right.”
“It’s called upholding the oath we took and ethics. Remember that…to serve, protect, and all that very long agreement you signed, swore, and vowed to, or have you forgotten because greed, power, and wealth have clouded your mind? You…are…insane.”
“And you are stupid, naïve, and ignorant to think this bullshit life we live under the government’s thumb will amount to anything but dysfunction, burnout, and if we’re lucky, we will have the balls to put a blast in our heads before we lose it.”
“News flash, you have already lost it, Denny. You are sick and more deranged than I believed.”
The weapon pumped air when Denny jerked back on the trigger. She kept hitting the release lever. Click. Click. Click. Nothing happened.
“If you were that smart, you would have known to check your weapon after you had told me where you kept it hidden. That is colored liquid. The canister is blank. Now, get the fuck off of me.”
Noor stood and spoke into his intercom. He rambled off the coordinates for the tactical squad to come and make the arrest. “You had it going for you. With your looks and intelligence, you had it all, except you let greed manage you to make a stupid decision. Maybe, you aren’t as smart as I believed.” He shrugged. “I suppose that is what happens when you rise to the top on your back. Really, nobody took you too seriously, and your days in command were numbered.”
“You bastard!” She dived for the table and grabbed a weapon in the top drawer. Before she could pull the trigger, Noor withdrew his stunner and nailed her.
Later, the crime scene investigators worked the case, and Noor wanted to leave but had to go through the motions with Internal Affairs, answering questions they already knew the response to because he transmitted the entire encounter with Denny. Everything that happened was recorded and the images fed to the agency database. The interrogation was a formality but still irritating.
“What the hell is this?”
Fiscal, a new investigator who specialized in technology, looked at Noor. He held up a wireless transmitter that he had retrieved from behind Denny’s ear. He twirled the small receptor between his fingers, examining the mechanism. “Looks like one of ours.” Fiscal removed the tiny implant module and put it in the reader that fed back the data to the screen. “It’s definitely one of ours, but the frequency is set to a network that doesn’t belong to the agency. Here, look at this.” He showed Noor the network address that appeared on the monitor. “See, we can track where all our devices are located by this access point address, which is tied to a main controller at headquarters. The bandwidth feed derives from our leg, but the output signal returns to another network. R-1000-487-303-500…that’s not one of our hosting addresses. Hmm, not anywhere close. Maybe I can find out who it belongs to by doing a back trace and overriding the security on the network.”
“Don’t bother. It belongs to my father.”
Noor felt chilled and numb walking to his vessel.
Chapter Forty-four
Sitting in the cabin of his vessel, Noor stared at the command console for a long minute until it became a blur. That didn’t stop him from focusing on the touch-screen, the bells and whistles, and all the latest snazzy gadgets a cruiser came equipped with before him. If he wanted to order a latte and have it delivered from a café airvendor, he just had to find the closest vendor’s wireless signal and send a message with his location, and presto, he had caffeine.
The technology for information had surpassed even his imagination and he considered himself a pseudo-geek and enjoyed having the latest mechanisms that virtually kept all lines of communication open—with the agency, businesses, family—and available twenty-four-seven. There was no such thing as unavailability when you needed to contact someone unless they set a privacy mode. Even then, he was savvy enough to override the frequency and interrupt it if he felt it was an emergency situation and he needed to reach someone. He didn’t use the capability often. But enough he could do it if he wanted. So, why he sat motionless in his seat and refused to interlink to his father’s communicator was beyond him.
Maybe he didn’t want to because he was afraid of what he might learn. His father was a straight shooter—Noor grinned at the Texas lingo he had picked up from Allura—then his expression turned somber. His father wouldn’t bullshit or lie, even if the truth hurt.
If he heard what he thought he would, it would pain him like hell.
He went
for it and tried to connect. Noor relaxed back, closed his eyes, and waited for his father to answer.
The command center voice filtered through the speakers in the vessel. “I’m sorry, sir, your father isn’t answering the call. Would you like to leave a message?”
“No, keep trying until you get an answer.”
Minutes passed that seemed like hours.
“Sir, I rerouted the call to make contact, but your father’s access point address appears to be in sleep mode or set to private. How would you like me to proceed?”
“Override.”
“I’m overriding, sir, one minute while I try to link and obtain connectivity. Would you like to listen to some music while you wait?”
“No.” What he wanted was an answer.
Noor watched the other vessels whiz by on the ultra freeway as he sat there trying to reason out Denny’s purpose for transmitting to his father’s network. A multitude of things came to mind. None of them made sense except the inevitable, which left him feeling sick in the stomach.
The sensation intensified when he heard his father’s voice. Even through the intercom, without the monitor on and unable to get a visual, he could hear the strain.
Tier Rynoir said, “There is a reason why I have restricted access set.”
“I know, but I needed to reach you,” Noor paused and blew out a breath. “I just left Denny Sterns’s residence, and outside of having to kill her, there is more unsettling information I need to discuss with you. Denny transmitted something that used a lot of bandwidth, so I suspect an image, to our family network ID R-1000-487-303-500.”
Tier Rynoir hesitated before saying, “Remember when I cautioned you about putting Allura on the system?” Noor felt his world sinking deeper into a black hole. “That is your wife’s interlink address.”
“A straight feed went to Allura.” It was more of a statement. He already knew the truth.
“Yes, and me and your mother just spent an hour trying to console your wife when she received the visual of you and Denny in a damnably delicate position. Man to man, what you do is your own business. However, in the future, I suggest discretion, and certainly make sure your wife—who I shouldn’t have to remind you carries a pistol—isn’t getting a direct feed of your adultery.” Noor heard his mother’s voice in the background. His father came back online. “That advice is hypothetical, of course. You know better.”
Pure Desire [Pure 3] (Siren Publishing Allure) Page 34