He ends the call and pulls his earpiece off, tossing it in the desk and directing his attention to Charlie. She sits in the chair across from him and gives him a searching stare.
"We have to leave. I thought we had the time to stay, go let you work. But we don’t."
Paxton frowns, “I don't understand."
Charlie laughs. "Neither do I. But EJ says it's time to go, so it's time to go. I don't ask questions."
He's quiet for a long moment and then, "What do you want from me?"
"Come with me," she says, softly. His eyes widen and his breath catches in the back of his throat and he shakes his head, hard. Not quite denying her as much as he's disbelieving. She swallows the urge to smile and stands. He looks nervous but hopeful, completely willing to do whatever she asks.
"Please," she murmurs, slipping into his lap. Her hands are in his hair, that angel soft halo that makes her want to corrupt him.
"Charlie," he whispers and then she kisses him.
There are, she knows, a thousand ways to get what she wants. A thousand ways to manipulate the situation. But the way she prefers has always been the one that comes the most natural. She kisses him and lets her lips do all the work, teasing and soft, pleading and quietly begging. And his hands tighten on her for a moment, the bruising grip of desperation and hope fulfilled and she allows herself the tiniest of smiles. Too easy. Pax had always been too easy.
"Of course, I'll come. If that's what you need," he murmurs against her lips. She nods and he sighs. "How soon?"
"Now," EJ says from the door. The girls suitcases are still packed and she abandons them there to walk into the office and take the phone from where Charlie left it on her chair.
Pax looks between the two girls, and Charlie can feel the concern coming off him. She ignores it and presses a kiss to the soft skin under his chin. He shudders when her tongue flicks out, licking over him, and his grip tightens just a little. “Can you be ready in ten?”
*
He doesn’t ask any more questions. Just rises and starts gathering his computer equipment. They wait in the kitchen and EJ rummages through his drawers before finally finding a dusty old charger that plugs into the phone. She makes a low triumphant noise and shoves it into her purse as Pax emerges from his room with an overnight bag over one shoulder and an apprehensive look on his face.
The car is crowded now, even with the almost empty backseat. Crowded with Pax’s eyes on her and his concern like a tangible thing as EJ pulls out of the parking garage. Crowded with EJ’s quiet, frantic energy, making her knee bob and her fingers drum against the steering wheel.
“What now?” Charlie wonders aloud.
EJ is quiet for a long time, as they drive, almost until they’re out of the city itself. For whatever reason, Pax is silent. Charlie has figured out that when EJ gets like this, the best course is to let her have a little time to think.
“We need to go someplace safe. Somewhere he wouldn’t think to look.” She’s quiet. “The problem is, anywhere I would suggest, he’d know. Same for you, Charlie.”
“Me?” she says, her voice going shrill. “Why the fuck would he care about me?”
EJ gives her a dirty, disbelieving look, before she refocuses on the road.
“Go north,” Pax says abruptly. “I’ve got a place we can go.”
*
EJ is numb when they pull into Memphis. She didn’t think she would be, but there is only so long you can linger on the edge of frantic madness before it ebbs into a kind of numb waiting. They stopped only once on the five hour drive for gas. Charlie made a face, but allowed Pax to coax her into eating some chips and chocolate, drinking a little bit of water before she curled against him and fell asleep. Pax watched EJ drive for a while, holding the sleeping blonde.
He was withholding judgement, for now, but EJ wasn’t so stupid she didn’t know it was coming. It was just a matter of time and severity.
Not that it really mattered. At the end of the day, Charlie would chose her. Would follow her. Not because she didn’t like Pax—she probably did, in her twisted way. But because Pax was like so many other boys they had both seen. Sweet. Fun. But ultimately, disposable.
She tucks that thought deep, where it won’t reflect in her gaze when Pax searches her eyes, and concentrates on the road.
When they stopped for gas, she grabbed a cheap adapter and the phone has been charging for the better part of three hours when they finally reach the outskirts of Memphis. She follows Pax’s directions and when he directs her to park the Nova on the street, she balks. There’s a brief argument that ends when Charlie sweetly asks Pax if there is any place safer for the car.
Charlie might think that Pax is wrapped neatly around her finger, and the perfect toy to use and throw away, but EJ isn’t so sure. He’s resistant already, especially when EJ is involved, and that almost guarantees problems down the road.
It occurs to her that he’ll need to be removed.
She wonders if Charlie knows yet—if Pax does.
The phone throws sunlight as she turns the Nova into a parking garage, and her stomach drops.
He always told her that she didn’t have the balls for the hard decisions. Mocked her for playing his game while keeping her hands clean. She wonders if he’s still laughing.
Once they’re parked, Pax leads them upstairs to a corner loft. She leaves her bags at the door and drops onto the couch, her fingers running over the curves of the phone. Pax is moving around the apartment, a high end loft in a renovated warehouse that had to cost a small fortune. She hears Charlie making the appropriately impressed noises. It's vaguely annoying how attentive Charlie has been to Pax. She didn't expect that, when Charlie suggested his place to hide.
She’s dissembling, letting herself be preoccupied by anything but the thing that’s been forefront in her mind since she opened that damn envelope.
“Stop being a weak bitch,” she mutters to herself and thumbs the power button. She tosses it on the couch beside her and pulls out her laptop, connecting the USB as it comes awake.
The files start scrolling and the phone goes off, buzzing persistently against her leg as she reads the file names. There are dozens, name after name after name. So many she knows, and more that she doesn’t. A list of locations. She murmurs a low curse.
“What?”
Charlie sinks into the couch next to her, and leans over, resting her chin on EJ’s shoulder. Her breath tickles EJ’s chin, and for a moment, she considers pulling away. The phone buzzes again.
“It’s a list. Jacobs was preoccupied with being raided by the authorities. It’s why he put the car in my name. When I was in college, he hired a kid who hacked NORAD to encrypt his records and files. But it wasn’t enough for him. He kept the most important stuff on a thumb drive.” She laughs softly. “We have everything, Charlie. All of his accounts, safe houses, everyone he’s ever blackmailed—everything. We could cripple Jacobs with this.”
Charlie is silent and still next to her.
“Is that what we want to do?” she finally asks.
That is the question. Being able to do something doesn’t mean that they should do it. But. She closes her eyes and sees Jacobs smiling at her across from that damn kitchen table in his bayou mansion, sending her home and dismissing everything she’s ever wanted. Dismissing her.
“Yes,” she whispers.
The phone buzzes.
“Are you sure,” Charlie asks, shifting away to study her. “We can explain this right now. Tell him it was a mistake. He’d believe that, wouldn’t he?”
“Yes.” But the idea is taking root and she doesn’t want to claim it as a mistake. Jacobs has spent a lifetime teaching her and believing that she will never be good enough.
Too girly. Too weak. Too emotional. Not strong enough for the hard decisions.
She cuts a quick look at Charlie. “I’m doing this.”
“Why?” Her look is endlessly sympathetic, almost painful to look at. “You love him.”<
br />
She laughs, “Because fuck him. Fuck him sending me home, for letting me see behind the curtain and then deciding that it’s too much me. Fuck him, Charlie.”
Charlie nods. "Ok."
"Ok?"
"Ok. I'm here, whatever you want to do. If that means we cripple him, I'm here. If that means let's go home and pretend that this was all a bad dream--I'm still here. You tell me what you want."
"You know he'll come after me. After us."
Charlie smiles, a slow, sexy thing that, for just one second, makes everything vanish except for the almost uncontrollable urge to kiss her. "Let him," she murmurs, and then she stands. Saunters away from the couch and EJ.
Which leaves her alone with a phone she doesn’t want to answer.
It goes off like clockwork, every five minutes. Buzzes against her palm twice before the call ends and it sits silent in her hand.
Every five minutes.
He's determined and stubborn, she'll give him that.
When it rings next, she answers. "Hello?"
"Where are you?” he asks. She's known him long enough and well enough to know how angry he is, from the slight roughness of his voice, the speed with which he asked the question.
Jacobs might be trying to appear indifferent but he's furious.
"Do you really think I'm going to tell you that?" She asks.
"EJ, you’re fucking with more than just me here. Grow up and tell me where the fuck you are."
"Go home. That's what you told me: go home and forget."
There's a beat of silence.
"Fuck you, Jacobs. You want what I've got? Fucking take it. I dare you."
"Don't do this, EJ. Don't make me do this."
She laughs.
He curses, "You’re fucking forcing my hand. You know that. If you don't come back to me, you’re forcing me to take action and it will end with you dead. I can't stop that."
"I didn't ask you to," she snaps and kills the connection. She tosses the phone down and stands. Pax and Charlie are watching her from the far side of the loft and even that pisses her off, them standing together, his head bent toward her.
Fucking throwaway toy.
"I'm going out," she says, grabbing her purse and the thumb drive. And then she's gone, Charlie's voice echoing behind her.
*
She isn't dressed for going out, but that doesn’t stop her, or even really occur to her, until she’s in a bar a few blocks away, pulling her hair off her neck and securing it in a messy knot at the base of her neck.
Even so, she drew attention as she walked down the street, and she draws it now, perched on a stool at the bar, methodically shredding a cocktail napkin. The bar is busy with the after work crowd, pretty assistants and women in power suits, cocky men with their ties loosened or discarded, and sleeves rolled to their elbows.
And all of them notice her. The bartender eyes her as she pulls a beer, pops the top and serves it to the grinning guy across from her. She makes her way slowly down the bar, filling drinks and chatting, before she finally lands in front of EJ.
The napkin is long since shredded, and EJ is twisting the pieces into tight little curls of nothing that the bartender eyes.
“When I was a kid, I used to do this, and burn them. Always tried to light the next one with the first—the goal was to keep it going until there was nothing left to burn.”
“How’d that work for you?”
EJ flashes a quick grin, “I usually ended up burning the fuck out of my fingers.”
She laughs, a quick startled burst of noise. “You were kinda fucked up, weren’t you?” she says, half-admiring.
EJ smiles, that slow sexy smile she wields like a knife. “I still am, darling.”
The bartender blinks, uncertainty shadowing her big brown eyes, so similar to Charlie’s, and EJ waves a hand dismissively. “Never mind.”
“What can I get you?” she says, choosing the safer topic. She places a fresh napkin in front of EJ and sweeps the shredded one away.
“A red-headed slut.”
The bartender flushes a little, and turns to the bottles. Despite obviously being flustered, she works quickly, efficient as she pours the Jaeger and schnapps, adding a splash of grenadine and a lime wedge. She presents it and gives EJ another quick smile, before turning to her waiting customers. EJ considers her, the slow sway of her hips and luscious curve of her ass. It’s a distraction—something to pull her focus from the shit storm she’s landed in.
She knows it, knows that seducing the girl isn’t fair or productive. And it doesn’t matter at all. She smiles again and downs her drink.
Seduction has always been easy. Sometimes, she thinks it’s because Jacobs is the one who taught her, and he’s the master. Other times, she thinks that’s giving him too much credit. But just now, she doesn’t give a fuck about why it’s easy. She just knows it is.
It’s simple thing, really. Laughing and quick glances she’s sure the girl—Karla—catches, self-deprecating humor, gracefully declining the offer of drinks from the guys who approach her. She slips Karla her credit card and leaves a hefty tip and her number after she’s worked her way through three red-headed sluts and a beer. She wobbles a little as she plays darts with a gay couple who are watching the slow play with an air of amusement.
“You know she’s like the white whale, right?” one asks. “Guys try all the time to get Karla to go home with them. And she never does.”
EJ grins and throws a dart, making a face when it lands in the outer ring. “I’m not any guy.”
The bar is thinning out, that quiet calm before the storm that happens as the work crowd heads home to their mortgage and dissatisfied spouses and screaming children before the younger, wilder crowd shows up. It’s what she’s waiting on.
So when Karla ducks out back to smoke in the alley, EJ is waiting, a cigarette already lit. The alley is dark and dirty, and it’s perfect. She sees the girl’s eyes go wide in surprise and the flash of hunger before she silently offers the smoke. Their fingers brush and the girl gasps, a quiet noise of surprise that she tries to cover by pulling away, bringing the cigarette to her lips with shaking fingers.
EJ watches, a smile turning her lips. “I make you nervous,” she says softly. Karla’s eyes meet hers, so briefly, before they dart away. She licks her lips nervously and shrugs. EJ slides closer. “Why?”
“You don’t,” Karla says, a hint of steel in her tone and EJ laughs. She reaches out and claims the cigarette, pulling on it and letting the smoke linger in her lungs as she studies the girl. She drops it, and reaches for her as she exhales, and surrounded by the fog of smoke, she hooks a hand around the other girl’s neck.
“Have you ever fucked a girl, Karla?”
A shudder and a blush claim her, and EJ laughs, low and delighted. “A virgin, then,” she murmurs. Karla licks her lips again, and EJ smiles. “Tell me to stop.”
The girl shakes her head, a tiny motion, and EJ is kissing her, pressing against her soft curves.
It’s been too long, EJ thinks, since she’s been with a woman. She’s missed the sweet curves, the tentative press of lips and tongue, the way she can lead, the tangle of hair to pull. She jerks softly and Karla whimpers, her eyes wide and soft and dazed as EJ nips at her earlobe. “Be quiet, sweetheart.”
Then she reaches down, undoing the button and zipper of her tight black pants. She’s naked under them, and EJ grins against her lips. “Naughty girl.”
Karla purrs a response, a noise that turns choked and broken when EJ slips her finger into her pants, and brushes against her wet pussy.
“Quiet,” EJ says, with a wicked smile. She kisses Karla then, a hard kiss as she slides her fingers through the girl’s wet heat. Karla moans, her lips desperate and greedy as EJ nips at her. Her hips tilt, when EJ goes still, and she whimpers out a broken plea.
This is why she fucks women. Because of the lush curves that are begging to be stroked, and the drugged look on her face as she waits, her whole
body tense, the silky sweet heat, her little nails digging into EJ’s shoulders—it’s desperate and hungry and demanding, and it’s fucking addictive. She slips one finger deep into Karla’s pussy and the girl makes a choked noise as EJ yanks down her V-neck black top, exposing a plain white bra trimmed with lace. She pulls it down and catches her nipple with her teeth, tugging lightly on the pale pink bud as she strokes Karla’s pussy with one finger.
The girl almost comes off the wall when EJ adds a second, and when she bites down just above Karla’s nipple, and rubs her clit, hooking her fingers and stroking hard inside, the girl screams, a weak breathless thing that fills her head as EJ revels in the shudder and spasms of this sweet, little bartender.
When Karla is breathing properly, again, she slips her fingers free of the other girl’s body, zips her pants and adjusts her top. Leans in to kiss her one last time.
“Does your boyfriend finger fuck you that good?” EJ says, and Karla’s eyes go wide.
“How do you know I have a boyfriend?” she whispers.
EJ shrugs once. “You do. And when he’s fucking you tonight, you’ll be thinking of me.” She winks at the girl and straightens. And even though she’s horny as fuck, and can feel the girl watching her, she never looks back as she leaves the alley behind.
Chapter 19
Charlotte is anxious, and doing her best not to be. But it’s been hours since EJ stormed out, hours since that call from Jacobs, and even though she trusts that her friend will be smart out in the city, there is a lingering fear.
And she wants her back. Simple and complex and something she refuses to look at too closely. Some things shouldn’t be examined closely, because scrutiny doesn’t always lead to something she wants to see.
She leans against the wide, floor length window and watches the street. They’re up six stories, and it’s dark—she has no illusions about seeing EJ in the masses, but it’s soothing to watch and hope.
“Charlie?” he murmurs and she tenses, just a little. She can see his reflection in the window, his expression obscured by the shadows.
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