The Chameleon

by Michele Hauf

  “Oh, Jack, yes! Slam me against the wall!” She moaned into his kiss as his fingers explored her wetness. Slick and hot, he wanted to feel her all about his cock now.

  She tugged his tie loose and started to unbutton his shirt, but gave up and shoved it up to slap a palm to his chest.

  “Pants off,” she said between furious kisses. The fingers of her other hand raked across his scalp, where he kept his hair shaved at a quarter inch. “Hurry!”

  He was all for fast and furious. Pants down, Jack plunged his hard-on into the softest, hottest, most welcoming escape from the day he’d ever known. All the back-numbing travel slipped into a distant memory. Even the humiliating pickpocket incident ceased to matter. Groaning roughly, he thrust into her heat, and thumbed at her nipples through the bra he hadn’t taken the time to remove. He would come like that, but he wanted to ride this bird a bit longer.

  He lifted her by the arse and carried her to the bed, wobbling with his pants about his ankles. Landing them both on the bed, they disconnected briefly until she greedily pulled him back inside her and locked her legs about his hips.

  “You certainly know what you want,” he muttered.

  “A quickie from the biggest cock I’ve had in a while.”

  He’d take the compliment. He did have a sizable—

  “Oh!” She was coming and he was surprised by that. Most women needed more stimulation. Again, he wasn’t about to argue. But it was time for him to catch up. So he gave a few more thrusts and surrendered to the immense and satisfying release as she spilled out a short but effusive cry. Her spasms milked him to a satisfying orgasm. He slammed into her and shuddered above her.

  Hell. Yes.

  Oi.

  Collapsing on top of her, then rolling to the side, Jack fisted the air triumphantly. “Welcome to Hel-freakin’-sinki.”

  She laughed and slid off the bed, flipping her thick red hair away from her face. Disheveled suited her beautifully. Her dark lashes fluttered over bright green eyes. “Can I use your bathroom, my big Irish bull?”

  “It’s all yours, Red.” Jack closed his eyes.

  Now he took a moment to toe off his shoes and let them drop to the floor. After gliding a hand down his abs, he gently gripped the base of his spent erection. It was a comfort hold. The shudders of orgasm still lingered faintly, and a squeeze of his rod milked them for a few sweet moments.

  “Thanks, Jack Angelo,” Rachel called from the hallway. From his position on the bed he couldn’t see her. “I’m going to head home now. Have a great stay here in the city.”

  Her quick escape didn’t bother him. Too much. They’d both gotten what they’d wanted. Jack closed his eyes and settled in the aftereffects of orgasm.

  It must have been half an hour later that he snorted out of sleep and realized he’d dozed off. He sat up on the bed, laughing because his pants were still around his ankles. His dick was limp but happy. Standing and pulling up his pants, he decided he’d rent a car and drive into the city proper, pick up some new clothes and warmer gear, and have a bite to eat before tonight’s meeting. He also wanted to check out the bank that intel told him was the target.

  He strolled into the bathroom to take a piss. Glancing over the fake marble vanity as he did his business, he hissed at the sight of what sat there. Zipping quickly, he picked up the passport set open like a birthday card to display the inside. His passport.

  “What the hell? How did she?” Jack slapped a palm to the hard vanity.

  Had the two women been somehow working together? The pregnant chick had recommended this hotel. Bloody Christ, he’d allowed himself to be duped by two women in less than half a day. What was wrong with him?

  “You’re already off the clock,” he muttered about his failing instincts. “Stay sharp, Jack. One more job. And then you’re out. For good.”

  He tucked the passport in his pocket, then headed out.

  Chapter 2

  Jack handed over the application for a safe deposit box to the thin man behind the desk, who nodded effusively as if he were headbanging to a beat no one else could hear but him.

  “Thank you, Mr. Angelo.” His chopped Finnish accent was interesting to Jack, but he liked it. “I will take a moment to look through this. Then we can take you into the safe room and let you deposit your items. We do thank you for choosing Aarnivalkea Pankki to trust with your goods.”

  “You seemed like a right friendly place,” Jack said, “what with the big potted plants a man can see through the windows. A touch of summer, I say, is what I needed.”

  “You are not happy with our cool weather?”

  Cool? That was the understatement of the day. The weather station had reported a temperature with a single digit for the rest of the week. Jack had not stopped shivering since stepping off the ferry.

  “Not exactly, no. But like I told you, my daughter has decided to move to Helsinki with her fiancé. She’s expecting a little one, so I’ll be visiting quite often. I have some things I’d like to keep safe here.”

  “Very good. Well, it looks like everything is in order. I’ll go find a box number and key for you; then I’ll walk you down to the lower level. Give me a moment.”

  Jack nodded, then spun on the chair to take in the lobby. There were no inner offices that he could see from this vantage. Along the wall opposite where he sat, five cubicles hosted account managers and others sitting before desks. The vast lobby featured a marble floor impressed in the center with a bronze medallion displaying a flame. Probably the country seal or somesuch.

  He wasn’t familiar with Finland. He rarely ventured farther north than Germany, despite his job forcing him to travel the world. By train, automobile, or boat, that is.

  There were six teller windows, but at the moment only one was helping an elderly gentleman. It was a quiet bank. But it was known in certain circles as one of the elite, a place where the rich and famous discreetly kept their millions, and billions.

  It was also the place the crew intended to hit next, according to the inside source who had reported to the ECU.

  Interesting choice, Jack thought. In its own small and unassuming way it was simply a friendly neighborhood bank. On the other hand, this was the sort high rollers sought to keep their valuables. Nothing flashy. Not an institution that had previously failed or gone under due to the crash in 2008 that had begun in Switzerland and spread worldwide.

  He was supposed to meet someone from the crew this evening and get vetted to meet the man in charge, Clive Hendrix. The ECU had a limited dossier on him, and suspected the surname wasn’t real. Again, the info was thanks to the inside source. Was this source a part of the crew? Jack hadn’t been told. But if someone was working for Clive and informing to the ECU, Jack would be able to sniff him out.

  Neither had he a name for the person he was to meet. He’d only been told she was a she, and that she would find him.

  While he appreciated the cloak and dagger and the need to know situation, he could do with a bit of detail. He was flying blind here. And while he was accustomed to keeping one eye over his shoulder, the bollocks-shriveling weather had him focusing on whether a man’s jewels could freeze and fall off.

  “Here we are, Mr. Angelo.”

  The banker in a crisp brown suit stood behind him. Slender and boasting wide, rough red knuckles on his over-sized hands, he waited. Jack stood and shook his hand. Firm handshake. But then company execs were often trained to perform just such confidence-inducing gestures.

  As the banker signaled, he followed him toward the bronze doors that led to the safe deposit box vault room; a woman called out to Jack. He didn’t even notice how close she was until he felt her clutch at his arm and hug up against his body.

  Thick, cloying perfume made him cough as he turned to shuck her off. Rarely could he smell a woman’s perfume, so she must have poured it on. She clung to his arm with gl
ossy red-lacquered nails.

  “Jack, darling, I finished at the shop across the street and didn’t want to wait for you out in the car.” Bright red lipstick provided a focus point on a pale, thin face that fluttered dark lashes and featured a beauty mark to the right of one of her turquoise eyes. “Mercy, it’s cold out there.” Her accent was American. Maybe a touch of Texas? “Oh, darling, now I get to see you put away my pretty things.”

  Who the hell was this woman?

  The bank manager paused by the bronze doors and eyed the woman cautiously and then Jack.

  She wore a tight-fitted red top and skirt, and hugged her breasts against his chest. A tug at his yellow tie with those glossy nails, and she fluttered her lashes up at him. “You’re on,” she whispered. “Show me what you got.”

  He was…on? Wait. Was this his vetting?

  “Mr. Angelo?” The manager waited.

  “Uh, yes. You said the room was down the stairs?”

  “Right this way. Shall we?” He pulled open a door and the stairway turned to the right.

  “Let’s both of us go in, sweetie,” Jack said as they followed. “Wouldn’t want to leave my darling sitting out in the frozen car, would I?”

  She cooed and pawed at him in a manner that he’d normally want to shove away. No one touched the tie. Unless of course, he had her pushed up against a wall. But if she knew him—she’d called him by name—then he could only guess she was the one he was supposed to meet.

  Hadn’t he been duped by enough females today? It couldn’t happen again. The odds were impossible. But he’d remain cautious.

  As they landed in the basement and followed the manager down a marble hallway, she clung to him and wobbled on heels that must have been half a foot high. She was still a head shorter than him. And, bloody hell, that perfume was strong. Always surprising to notice for a man who’d had his nose broken so many times it had damaged his sense of smell.

  How had she known to find him here? He hadn’t told anyone where he was going today, or that he’d intended to visit this bank on the sly to familiarize himself with it before stepping into the fray. The ECU wasn’t even in on his every move. Technically. They could track him at any moment with the GPS chip embedded at the base of his skull. But the only time they would keep in close contact and alert him to their actions was when he wore a communications device in his ear and had requested their assistance. He’d forgotten to take that along this trip. Not a mistake.

  Someone must have been following him. Because this was not a wild coincidence. He had a twitchy—if damaged—nose for things like this.

  “We keep our safe deposit boxes separate from the main vault,” the banker explained as they waited for a guard to enter the vault combination. “This is the original vault from when the bank was built in 1912.”

  “Quaint,” the woman said.

  Jack didn’t see any positives in a quaint vault. He wanted security. On the other hand, a thief would not.

  “We’ve installed digital security only in the past year,” the manager added. “It’s a marvel.”

  It was a simple digital keypad, as opposed to a rotating combination lock. Jack counted eight bleeps indicating it was a long entry code. A man would need some hi-tech digital tools to crack this one, and it could take up to ten minutes to get inside. Either that, or he could cut through the steel door. Interesting. Not very secure in this modern age of robbers who utilized every technical doodad to their advantage.

  “You’ll always be escorted into this room. And once inside,” the banker continued, “we’ll use our keys to open and retrieve your box. You can then select any of the adjoining privacy rooms to view the contents for as long as you wish. The admitting employee will remain close to help you return your box to its secure position and escort you out. Do you have any questions?”

  “So many boxes full of pretty things.” The woman on Jack’s arm cooed as they entered the small vault that was about twenty feet long and only ten feet wide. Three walls were lined with steel boxes in varying sizes. Jack had selected a small one strictly for price and—he didn’t have anything to put inside it anyway.

  “Do we get to pick which one we want?” The woman strode in her awkward heels up to a wall of boxes and spread her hands over the fronts of them. “I like the big ones.”

  The manager cleared his throat and when he met Jack’s gaze, Jack managed a shrug and a deadpan, “She likes big ones.”

  “Oh, and yours is the biggest, Jack darling.”

  She started toward him for what he guessed would be an illicit hug, so he gripped his tie, putting out his elbow in blockade. “Ours is over here, sweetie.”

  The manager inserted his key into a small box, and waited for Jack to do the same. “We turn at the count of three.” He counted and Jack turned, and the inner lock mechanism clicked.

  Standard in most medium-sized banks. Not particularly high security to the thief who carried a rotating diamond-bit drill, but enough to keep out ninety-five percent of those who would try hand-picking. Of course, a good old crowbar always seemed to work rather well on these older models.

  Jack pulled out the foot-long box and nodded that the banker should show him out of the room. The woman followed behind them, but when they got out into the hallway Jack realized she was still inside. And the bank manager noticed immediately, too.

  “Uh, ma’am?”

  “I just like to wonder,” she called out from inside the room, “what everyone puts in all these treasure boxes.”

  “You’ll need to exit the room now, ma’am.”

  “Don’t rush me!” When one of the security guards entered the room, she tripped out and tugged at her uber-tight skirt. Jack fancied he could see the line of her mons with each step. Well, he did. She was slender and quite the looker. But he didn’t like the blatant act.

  On the other hand, she was drawing all the attention to her. Which he didn’t mind at all.

  “We’ll take this room here.” Jack nodded toward the second room away from the vault, and the woman eagerly walked toward it. He gave her a little shove and then entered and pulled the door shut behind him. The walls would not be soundproof, so he kept his voice low. “Oi. Who the hell are you?”

  She clutched his arm and hugged up to him again. This time she dragged her tongue up the side of his cheek, then winked at him. “I’m your sweetie. You forget that so quickly, Jack Angelo? We’ll talk about your need to go banking on your own when we get out of here. That wasn’t part of the plan. Hurry up, will you? These heels are killing my arches.”

  Lasering a dead stare on her, he opened the box, and then closed it. Then he gripped her by the upper arm. Her jaw clattered as he gave her a good solid shake. “I don’t like playing games, little girl. Who are you?”

  He hadn’t anticipated the toe of her shoe slipping between his legs and sliding up to nudge his right leg forward. Jack’s balance wavered and that gave her the ability to shove him against the wall and notch her forearm up under his chin, pushing roughly against his throat.

  “I’m your new watcher, Angelo. Or is it Gentleman Jack?” She shoved her arm harder, making him wince.

  Not many knew him by that name. Which could only mean she had details about him. “You the one supposed to meet with me later?”

  “Later is now,” she said. “And I’m not sure what to think about you, or if I’m willing to vet you to Clive after this bold move. Put the damn box back and let’s get out of here.” She stepped away from him.

  He caught himself and stood, straightening his tie and slapping a hand to the box. With a sneer at the not-so-sexy-anymore woman, he shoved the door open and with a lift of his chin, then summoned the guard to help him return the box. The woman waited in the hallway, tapping one foot loudly and sighing as if this were the longest she’d ever had to wait on a man. Box returned, Jack strode by her, assuming she’d do wha
tever worked best for her act. He didn’t know her. He didn’t want to know her either.

  His watcher? What the hell had he just walked into?

  Once outside the bank, the wind smacked him in the face and he cursed his need to have left his overcoat in the rental car, which was parked half a block up the street. Tugging at his tie, Jack faced the brutal wind and with rushed strides quickly reached the vehicle. He turned the ignition and twisted the heater to high. It was like an icebox in the car, and he shoved his hands between his thighs to warm them.

  The passenger door opened and in slid the woman in red. She set a big leather bag on the console between the seats and shook out a long and shivering, “Brr! It’s like the tundra out there.”

  “Listen, lady—”

  “Get over it, Jack. Whatever problem you think you have with me, lose it. We’re tied at the hip now.”

  “I think you need to explain—”

  And what she did next stunned him more than the fact she’d invited herself into his car. She pulled down her skirt, revealing black lace panties, and long bare white legs—that goose bumped in the freeze—and shimmied it off. Rolling the skirt into a neat tube, she then dug in her bag

  A tilt of her head caught his stunned look. “What?”

  “Who are you? And what are you doing?”

  “I just said it was friggin’ freezing out there. And I am walking around in a skirt with no nylons! Who does that? Why fucking Helsinki, of all the places in the world?”

  Was he supposed to reply to that? He felt as incensed about the climate as she obviously was. But the sudden need to pull down her skirt and get naked in such weather baffled him. And her accent had noticeably changed. It sounded like, hmm…

  From the bag, she pulled out a plastic baggie and put the skirt in it, then tugged out another baggie and from that one unrolled some dark pants. Pulling them up her legs, she winked at him as she did so. “Better, yeah? Hey. We were not properly introduced.” She offered her hand to him. “Saskia Petrovik.”

  He took her cold hand, guessing his was no warmer, and shook it. Only because he wanted to make a connection. Nice and firm. Strong, too. And her accent was decidedly Russian.