by Ryan Parker
“Why don’t you?”
He stared at me intently. “This is getting into details, Rachel.”
“You said you would tell me.”
He nodded. “I need to be one step away from it, so I recruit people to do the hits. I have someone—a contact—who puts me in touch with groups of people who are, shall we say, less than desirable. Mob guys, drug lords, guys like that. This way, if they’re caught, I’m at least one step away from the investigation and it will give me time to get out of here.”
“Out of Baltimore?”
He looked down, then back up. “Out of the United States.”
That wasn’t what I wanted to hear. “So that could happen almost anytime, right?”
He nodded.
“Why,” I asked, “doesn’t the U.S. government or the British government do this instead of you having to do it? And this guy you told me about, Mr…?”
“Wilshire.”
“Right. So why don’t they do it?”
Finn rubbed his face, like I was annoying him with the questions, maybe. Or maybe it was just the stress of it all. “The British government isn’t going to send anyone to kill people on American soil, just like the Americans wouldn’t go to Britain and do that. Americans would attempt to arrest any potential terrorists here in the country. And that’s not what we want. It’s that simple. So we get the intel before they do, take quick action, and that’s that.” He paused for a moment. “But sometimes they get by. Like in Boston last year.”
“Those guys were from Chechnya?”
“No,” Finn said. “Dagestan. Same region but different politics, different relationship with Russia. But they became radicalized anyway. It was a mess to untangle even after it happened. Before the Boston Marathon bombings, we would find one or two cells per year. It’s only been a little more than a year since Boston, and they’re popping up more often now. They’ve been activated, so this is going to happen more frequently.”
The thought was terrifying. Since 9/11, it had been a widely held belief that there were so-called “sleeper cells” in the U.S. and other countries we were allies with. But they’re always presented as being from the Middle East.
This new threat that Finn was explaining made me wonder how many of them were out there, and whether it was possible to catch them all before another Boston-type attack. “How many guys do what you do?”
“I’ve never been able to figure out if there’s more than nine, other than me. I suspect there are, because I know there are similar operations happening in Britain, France, Germany, Canada and a few other places. And I know there was a team before us, but I only have a little bit of information on that.”
By now, his English accent had faded once again and he was sounding like he’d grown up in the Midwest. It made me think of his upbringing, his family, and…
“What about your grandparents?” I asked. “Do they know what you do?”
Finn looked straight ahead, away from me, and stared at the brick wall. “They thought I was here for school. That I needed to get far away from home. This August will be four years since they both died. My grandmother was ill, but my grandfather wasn’t. At least until she died. He had called me to tell me she had passed, and by the time I landed in London for the funeral he was dead. I think he had no reason to keep going. He died in his sleep on the second night after her death.”
“Oh my God. That’s so sad and…so sweet.” I reached for his arm, gently rubbing it, knowing exactly how he felt having no family. I didn’t want to dwell on the subject, and apparently he didn’t either. “I don’t want you to leave.”
He turned his head quickly toward me, confusion written on his face. “What?”
“You mentioned leaving the country quickly. It just seems like I wouldn’t even know.”
Finn paused for a moment. “I would let you know.”
There was a look on his face, like there was more to what he was saying but he wasn’t saying it.
“Why don’t you just…stop?” I asked. “If all these other people are doing it and you’re worried about getting caught.”
“I’m not worried about getting caught,” he snapped. “I won’t get caught.”
“But you still might have to leave, right? At any time?”
He nodded.
I know it was selfish, but I couldn’t help saying what I said next. We had been sharing everything, and my walls had become surprisingly lower. I said, “What if you fell in love? Would you stop then?”
Finn looked straight ahead. I watched his face in profile, growing tense. “I don’t have any plans to stop, Rachel. This is personal.”
“I know, but—”
“It’s personal,” he repeated, this time more harshly. It was the second time I had drawn a response from him that carried a little anger with it. “I’m not going to stop. I have no reason to. We’re talking about my family here.”
I felt the blood drain from my face, and my breath hitch in my chest. His words stung, like he was implying that I didn’t understand because I didn’t have a family, but I wasn’t sure he meant it that way. Still, I stood up for myself and said, “That is not fair. I’m just trying to understand you.”
Finn sighed, closing his eyes, and then reaching for me. “I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sorry.”
He held me and I managed to stifle the tears that were welling up in my eyes. We sat like that for a moment as he told me he was sorry twice more. Finally, he put his finger under my chin and raised my face. He kissed me. I managed a smile.
“Do you want something to drink?” He stood.
We’d been sitting there for over an hour.
“A drink sounds great. What do you have?”
He started walking to the kitchen. “I have juice, milk, water…but I’m having a beer.”
“I’ll have the same.”
Finn came back with four bottles of cold beer. He opened two and handed one to me.
“What would happen if you did end up getting caught?” I asked.
That question drew a little laugh from Finn. “That would be a rather complicated situation, politically, so as best I can figure, I would be quietly deported and handed over to the British government. That’s the official way things would be done, anyway. As for how they’d really go down? Wilshire has money. He can buy anything he wants, even people’s freedom, just as easily as he buys their deaths.”
“Scary guy,” I said.
Finn nodded his head. “Powerful guy.” Finn grabbed my hand and held it tightly. “I’ve compromised you enough already by telling you these things, and we’re taking a huge chance here, especially considering who your employer is.”
I shook my head rapidly. “No, no. I don’t do anything like that for the FBI.”
“How often do you undergo additional checks?”
I shrugged, lifting my beer bottle toward my lips. “Once a year or so.”
“And those are just the ones you know about.”
I had never even considered that.
“Polygraph?” he asked.
“I’ve done it twice since I got the job.”
“You need to think very carefully about this,” he said.
The connection I felt with Finn after all of what happened today was an unbreakable one. I’d never before met anyone who didn’t have any family.
I had never known my family at all. Finn had his for eighteen years, and lost them. I couldn’t help but wonder which was worse. So I asked him what he thought about that.
He looked at me again, studying my eyes, pausing for several seconds and I thought he would have the answer, but he said, “I don’t know.”
It was as good an answer as any, as far as I was concerned.
“When we sat down,” he said, “I told you that you were going to have to make a decision.”
I nodded. He’d never explicitly stated what the decision was, but I knew. “I’ve already decided. I’m not going anywhere.”
There was no way
I was going to leave him, and I couldn’t bear the thought of him leaving me forever, disappearing into the world, no doubt leaving without a trace and I’d never find him again.
Before I could say what I wanted to say, he asked, “Have you told anyone about me?”
Shit. I had told Tara. Not much, though. She didn’t know his name, but she did know that I’d been seeing someone. That could very well have been enough to unravel my connection with Finn. I had to be truthful with him, so I told him.
“Okay, that’s not complicated. But if the subject comes up again, you have to make sure you tell her nothing more about us.”
I moved closer to him, clinging as closely as I could to his body. I rested my head on his chest.
He spoke, and I heard his words as well as felt the vibration of them in his chest. “I’m never going to let anything happen to you.”
My body flushed with warmth at his words. I knew he meant them. I trusted him to live up to them.
He kissed the top of my head.
“One other thing,” he said.
“Hmm?”
“You haven’t even seen my bedroom yet.”
. . . . .
Finn led me up the stairs, past two empty bedrooms, and down the hall to the master bedroom.
“You’re the only woman who has been to my house,” he said, “let alone in here.”
The room was long and narrow, taking up the entire back of the house. The vaulted ceilings were painted white, the walls a deep bluish-gray, decorated with black and white modernistic prints that looked like Rorschach tests. A bathroom was at one end of the room, a fireplace at the other.
Two sets of French doors led out to the balcony that overlooked the backyard. Finn pulled the white sheer curtains aside, letting what little light there was stream into the room. He opened the doors, allowing the sound of the driving rain to filter in.
I felt light-headed as my body anticipated what was about to happen.
He stood facing me, with the backs of my legs against the bed. As he lifted my shirt, he pressed his body against mine and I could feel his excitement. He bent his neck, cupped my breast and lifted it to meet his lips, taking a nipple into his mouth.
My head rolled back and I held onto his shoulders.
He kissed up my chest, to my neck, and I felt his fingers untying the drawstring on the pants he had given me. They fell easily to the floor and I stepped out of them.
I loved being naked for this man. Loved the odd mixture of extreme vulnerability and total assurance of comfort.
“Undress me,” he said.
I untucked his shirt and slid it up his body, my hands underneath, feeling the muscles in his stomach and chest. I worked the buttons free, then slipped it over his shoulders and it joined my clothes on the floor.
His chest was broad, covered by a thin dusting of fine hair. I put my hands on his pecks and felt how taut they were.
When I looked up at his face, I saw his eyes smoldering with intensity. I kept eye contact with him as I lowered my hands down his stomach and found his belt. Hearing the metal-on-metal clink as I unfastened the buckle was like a chiming alert.
My hand slipped beneath the waistband of his boxers and before I knew it my fingers were touching the base of his erection. I moved my hand to wrap it around his girth, and felt how thick he was—throbbing with excitement, eager to fuck me.
His hands came up to the sides of my face, and he pulled me to his mouth. A searing hot kiss followed as my hand explored his length. The skin was velvety soft, sheathing his hardness. A rush of excitement burst through me as I thought about how I was the only woman who had ever been in this room with him. I was the sole object of his driving desire.
“God, Rachel, your touch is so perfect.”
My breasts felt heavy and he took each of them in his hands, cupping them, rubbing my nipples with his thumbs.
I kissed his neck and down his chest and stomach, lowering myself to my knees. I finished unzipping his pants and pulled them down along with his boxers. He kicked out of them, as I stood. We were standing naked with each other, his cock eagerly pressing against my stomach.
Finn wrapped his hands around my waist. “I want you now.” He lifted me with ease, setting me down on my back.
“I’ve wanted to taste you all day,” he said, kissing down my neck, my chest, stopping at each nipple and tracing rings around them with his tongue. They hardened into tight peaks under his movements.
He crawled up on the bed, pushing me farther back on it. He raised my legs with one of his large, strong hands holding my ankles together. My feet were in the air, and I was completely exposed to him as he knelt.
He licked the backs of each calf, then down behind my knees, where it almost tickled a little, but this was too hot an experience for tickling. Down my thighs, kissing, sucking…staying there, sucking…
Sucking on the back of my thigh.
Marking me?
I wouldn’t have objected to that. We had shared so much, and he had given me the choice to walk away. I committed myself to him, and got the same in return.
I was his. He was mine.
When he parted my legs, he guided one to drape over his shoulder. He pushed the other out, far, spreading me wide open.
“I love it when you’re so open for me,” he said, echoing my thoughts.
“Finn…” My voice trailed off. I couldn’t get any words out. I’m not even sure what I would have said, anyway.
He used his fingers to part me, exposing my overly excited clit to him. When his tongue made first contact with it, I wanted to stay like that for a while, maybe hours, maybe days…I just didn’t want him to stop.
But he did stop.
He moved up along my body until his face was close to mine. He kissed me. “We’re going to come together this time.”
He held himself steady as he knelt between my legs, bent over, kissing me, and I could tell he was rolling the condom on.
“Ready, Rachel?”
I nodded.
“Good, because I was going to fuck you either way.”
I felt the head of his cock notch into my excited flesh. He grinned, then pushed a little, barely entering me.
“You’re so tight.”
“Uh huh…” The pitch of my voice was high again. Finn had a way of making me sound unlike my usual self.
With one hard thrust he pushed all the way in, sending my head into the pillow as my back and neck arched, taking all of him in.
I gasped. Finn was so deep, I wasn’t sure I could take any more without coming fast.
His mouth went to my neck and I felt his lips suck on my skin, then his tongue lapping at me as he said my name again and pulled back—almost all the way out, then drove back inside me with a long stroke.
I’d never had sex anything close to this before. I’d thought about it, but only because of the words he had written to me for months. Finn did it with great skill. Totally in control, and totally focused on our mutual pleasure.
His hips rocked back and forth, then in an almost circular motion, as his cock filled me and touched every part inside me.
“You feel so fucking good,” he growled.
He lowered his head to my chest and took a nipple into his mouth. He sucked it in softly, but then pressed his lips together, teasing and pulling my nipple to its full hardness. He looked at it, licked it again, and then gave the same attention to the other one.
My hands went to his biceps and I felt them flex as he fucked me harder. He was almost fierce in his thrusts, his breathing getting deeper and shorter.
He was pounding ecstasy into me as he stroked himself to his own pleasure. I wanted him to get off on it and have the best orgasm he’d ever had.
He kissed me again, taking my tongue into his mouth and then sucking on it. The intensity of his fucking increased and I started making little noises into his mouth, which only made him move his hips with more force.
I felt his cock throbbing, pulsating,
getting closer to coming. My hands were firmly clenching his upper arms and I felt his muscles grow tighter. I looked up and saw him tilt his head back. Then he faced me again, took my lips in a wild kiss and said, “You’re going to make me come.”
I’d never had a man so determined to fuck me like this. Never had a guy talk to me so sweetly and so dirty at the same time. I’d never been turned on this much and it made me want to give Finn whatever he wanted.
“Do you want it?” he breathed.
“Yes, come. I want you to come. I want you to come…on me.”
His eyes flicked down to meet mine. “Touch yourself,” he commanded, and pulled out of me, then took the condom off.
Having watched him touch himself earlier, I wanted to see it again. This time to completion.
I moved my hands between my legs. Looking down the length of my body, just beyond my hand, I watched Finn stroking himself again. Slowly, evenly. My gaze drifted up to his eyes and I saw that he was looking straight down, watching my hand.
“Beautiful,” he said. “Show me how you do it.”
I circled the pad of my middle finger around my clit, slower than I wanted, but I was trying to tease him a little.
He told me to lift my hand to his face, and when I did he took my fingers into his mouth, sucked on them, then said, “Do it more.”
I lowered my hand again, circling my clit a little faster, then slipped one finger inside.
“I love watching you finger yourself,” he said, his voice raspy. “It’s just like I imagined so many times.”
I watched his hand close around his cock harder, as he began to stroke himself faster, all the way from the base to the head, where his hand made a twisting motion before sliding back down his length.
It was a beautiful thing to see, and I could have watched for much longer, if we both hadn’t been about to come.
I gasped and shook as I began to feel my orgasm rising within me.
“Come with me…” His voice was low and breathy.
I had been close, but his words made me come faster. I struggled to keep my eyes open because I didn’t want to stop watching him.