by Julia Swift
Finally, after at least five minutes of complete silence, aside from the small grunts Aaron emits when the girl hits a particularly sensitive spot through his pants, he snaps his phone shut and tosses it aside. “What now, Hunter?”
That, more than anything else today, sends a chill along my spine. I cannot remember the last time Aaron called me by my given name. I wasn’t aware he even knew I had one.
“The location is set,” I tell him.
He brushes the hooker’s foot away impatiently and shoves to his feet. Standing, we’re almost at eye level. I’ve got a couple inches on him, yet Aaron is stocky in a way I’m not. More fat than muscle, but still, it would insulate him against any punch I might throw.
Then I make myself mentally retreat. I’m not here to intimidate Aaron. Jesus. My death wish isn’t quite that strong yet.
“You could have texted me that,” he says.
“Thought it would be better to talk in person.” I shove off the door and cross the room to stand by his desk, maintaining eye contact. “What’s the plan for Saturday? If I’m coordinating I ought to know the full details.”
“You know the plan.” Aaron waves a dismissive hand. “Get the money, get out before anyone sees us with Casey.”
As he says this, though, his eyes drop from mine to the desk between us, and his hand goes to his pocket. Fidgeting. It’s a wonder this asshole ever wins at poker. His tells are a mile wide.
“That the whole of it?” I raise an eyebrow.
“More or less.”
“What’s the more?”
“Well, we’ll be putting contingencies in place, of course.” Now he lifts his eyes to mine again, a hard line in his. “Can’t be too careful in cases like this.”
“Oh, I agree. That’s why I’m asking.” I shove my hands into my pockets, so he won’t notice the way my fingers want to clench into fists. “This is my last job, Aaron. After this I’m done.”
“I’m aware.” He stares, waiting for my reply. “And?”
Now is when I need to stay hard. Convince him I’m in this for me and only for me. “And if shit goes south on this job, I am never going to forgive anyone involved. So, yeah, I want to make damn sure there are ‘contingencies’ in place. This needs to go smooth.”
“Then we’re on the same page.” Aaron lifts an eyebrow and reaches for the liquor cabinet beside his desk, opening it to reveal a row of scotches worth more money than my life at the moment. He draws out the nearest one, a twenty-five-year label that most collectors would kill for a taste of. He doesn’t offer me a glass. Just pours his own.
“Are we?” I take a step toward him. Not menacing, just enough to show I mean business. “You still haven’t told me any of the backup plans. How am I supposed to run this thing right if I don’t know what your backup drills are going to be?” How am I supposed to protect Sloan if I don’t know your end-game, Aaron?
“We’re running this job the same way we’ve run every job, Gage.” His use of my last name makes me relax a hair. “The various possibilities are need-to-know only. You need to focus on your job, that’s all. Make sure Frederick Casey shows up with the money. If he doesn’t, make sure you’ve got a bead on that delectable sister of his.”
Fury. Pure, red-hot, blinding fury pulses through my body, at hearing him describe Sloan like that. Of course, she is delectable—more than that, she’s absolutely gorgeous. Any sane, hot-blooded guy would kill to be with her. But the idea of Aaron O’Malley, Aaron getting-his-cock-sucked-off-at-business-meetings O’Malley, Aaron getting-a-footjob-from-a-hooker O’Malley, the thought of him thinking about her in a sexual way makes me want to rip his cock off and shove it down his own throat.
But I’ve played better poker games than Aaron has ever dreamt of. Not an ounce of that anger shows on my face. “I know my job,” I tell him. “That’s why I’m wondering why you sent your buddy Topknot out there to do the same job.” I lift a single, cool eyebrow. “He was staked outside Sloan’s apartment today. Freaked her out, actually. I think she spotted his car.” A bit of an exaggeration, but when I combed the tapes from her place last night, I did see her checking the locks on her door, the latches on her windows. She slept with the light on in her bedroom, too. She’s never done that, not in the whole time I’ve known her. Something has her spooked, though what exactly, I never caught on camera. Unless it was something Freddie said to her, when he showed up outside her door.
“Like I said. Contingencies.” Aaron shrugs.
“And you didn’t see fit to warn me about this? What if your man blew my cover? What if he tipped the girl off to something going wrong?”
“Then lucky you’ll be there to comfort her,” Aaron replies with a steady glare.
“Not for long, if she catches wind of this shit mess. She already knows something’s up with her idiot fucking brother. She’s—” I catch myself. I’m getting too involved. Sounding way too invested. “Unfortunately she’s less of an idiot than him. I think she’s suspicious already. So I’d appreciate it if you’d share the details with me, Aaron, so that I can do my goddamn job properly. If you didn’t want me to handle this one, you should have saved your final favor for a better job.”
He narrows his eyes. But then he spread his hands wide. “I was trying to let you have plausible deniability, Gage. But if you don’t want it on this case? Fine by me. I have it on decent authority that the Casey boy might try to run. He’s rented a hotel out of town, up in Jersey City, under a false name. We were talking about the possibility of bringing the girl in. But if you say she’s suspicious already, we might as well move ahead with it.” He snaps his fingers, and my eyes widen in horror as the hooker uncurls from the couch, grabbing his phone to bring it to him.
“No,” I say. Shit. Way to sound suspicious, Gage. “I mean, he’s not planning on running,” I stammer. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t. I’ll bring Sloan in myself.” I hardly hear what I’m saying. I just want to make Aaron stop looking at his phone like that. I want to grab it from him and crush it against the tabletop. I want to punch that smug, faux-thoughtful look off of his face, and make him swear to never touch a hair on Sloan’s head.
Hell, if I needed to, I could drive that letter-opener on the desk into his neck, and make damn sure he never does myself. Take matters into my own hands . . .
But the moment has already passed. The door behind me opens, a few more gooneys of Topknot’s variety flooding into the room.
“You called, boss?” one of them asks.
Aaron looks past me, straight at his men. “It’s about the Casey girl. We’re going to have to bring her in.”
“Let me do it,” I hear myself saying. “I can make it quick and easy. I won’t even need to B&E. She’s given me her key.” A lie, but a white one. I can talk Sloan into letting me up into her apartment. I’m sure of it. And if not, I can talk Fred into letting me in instead. Either way, I’ll make it happen.
Aaron stares at me, long and hard. I stare back steadily, not letting anything show on my face. Not the anguish flooding through me, or the panic that sends my pulse skyrocketing, adrenaline pulsing through my veins. I look like the rest of them. Blank-faced soldiers awaiting our orders.
“Fine,” he says at last. “You have five hours. After that, I send in the cavalry.”
I nod, just once, sharply. “Don’t worry. You won’t need to,” I tell him aloud. Inwardly, as I leave the office, I think, You’ll need a hell of a lot more than this pitiful cavalry to stop me saving her.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Sloan
I’m lying in the bathtub, floating in the warm, soapy, scented water. Strong, familiar hands caress my legs, run up between my thighs, over my stomach, around my waist, taking their time, feeling every inch of me. I sink lower in the water, letting my knees rise above the surface as my shoulders sink below it. Between the warmth and his touch, I’m ready to let go, to just drift away on the intoxicating high he gives me.
His hands find my breasts, massa
ging at first, then squeezing tighter, his fingers circling my nipples, rolling them taut between his thumb and forefinger, pinching just hard enough for me to gasp. That makes him laugh, deep and throaty, and my body thrills at the sound of his voice so close to my ear. I reach for him. But my arms are too heavy to lift from the water, too relaxed. I can’t make myself move, can’t do anything, as he continues to take what he wants from me. His lips find my neck, my shoulder, my chest. They clamp tight around my breast and his tongue takes over where his fingers left off, licking my rock-solid nipple faster and faster, until a peak starts to rise behind my closed eyes, and sparks fire in the recesses of my mind. I had no idea it could feel like this.
But he’s not finished yet. Nowhere near it. Those hands run down my body, grabbing my ass tight for a second, lifting me off the floor of the tub. I can almost feel the added heat from his body, almost sense him somewhere above me, but before our bodies touch, he lets me go again, hands delving between my thighs instead, parting me wide open. The warm water bubbles around me, the lavender scent I poured in tickling my senses as his fingers glide along my slit, slowly, painfully slowly, until they hit home, brushing across my clit lightly, teasing.
My hips buck, out of my control, I can’t help the motions anymore. I’m completely under his spell. One of his fingers slides into me, and my lips part in a gasp, but no sound comes out. It’s all I can do to remember how to breathe, as he adds another finger, another, until he has all four inside me and he’s fucking me slowly, making me ride his hand, his palm grinding against my clit, just hard enough to make white hot pleasure close across my vision. I can’t see anything, can’t feel anything but him, and I can even catch his scent now, mingled with the bath around us. That familiar, heady masculine scent that I’ve missed so damn much.
Missed it. Why have I missed it?
His hand twists inside of me for another thrust and I cry out, losing that train of thought. This, this is where I belong. Who I belong to. This is right. I don’t need anything in the world but him.
Except . . .
There’s the nagging sense, back in the depths of my brain, that I’m missing something here. He delves in deeper and I writhe beneath him, the water splashing around us. His palm circles harder and harder against my clit, until I feel myself start to convulse, nearing the peak, almost at it . . .
My eyes fly open. I’m panting, drenched in sweat, tangled deep in the sheets of my bed. Alone.
Shit. Just a fucking dream.
Because the moment I open my eyes, cruel, finite reality comes crashing down. He’s gone. He’s gone, and I will never feel like that again—so completely possessed by someone, so utterly belonging to him, and him to me.
How is it possible that my stupid, impulsive, reckless heart could find itself so attached to so completely the wrong person? How could it be that I felt so at home in his arms, when he was lying to me all along?
How did everything feel so real, when he was only pretending . . . ?
I shove myself out of bed and stumble to the shower. Unlike the lavender-scented bathtub of my dreams, my shower only smells vaguely of mildew. I turn the water on hot and fill my palm with the cheap bath soap from the drug store, lathering it into a frenzy in an effort to get the bathroom, or at least myself, to smell a little bit better.
Normally I like the eucalyptus scent of this, subtle and unassuming. Today, it’s not enough. But I make do, taking my time to rub it all over myself. I can’t help it—part of me still hasn’t woken up yet, and as I run my hands over my hips, my ass, my thighs, I remember his rough hands in the dream taking control of me.
I finish soaping up, turn to rinse down, and I let my hand drift between my legs, pressing at my clit. It’s not the same, but if I close my eyes and lean against the cool shower wall, I can almost imagine him here beside me, touching me instead, leaning over me to catch my eye as he parts the lips of my pussy and presses a finger deep into me.
I’m working myself into a state, almost there, part of me knowing it’s a terrible idea to get off to him, after all this, but most of me not caring because it’s the only fantasy that takes me anywhere near the climax these days. I squeeze my eyes tight and I see him on top of me, thrusting into me, his cock so big he’s stretching me, engulfing me, totally claiming me for himself and there’s nothing I can do about it and I wouldn’t want to because—
Fuck.
The door buzzer sounds, right as I reach the edge.
Doubly frustrated now, I shut off the rapidly cooling water and stumble out of the shower, my legs shaky. Even in dreams and fantasies, I can’t finish anymore. Damn him.
I towel off as fast as I can, even as the buzzer rings once more.
“I’m coming!” I shout grumpily at the shower door, even though I know, obviously, whoever’s downstairs at my door can’t hear it. I wrap the towel tight around my body and stomp across my living room, leaving puddles as I go. This had better not be my idiot brother again.
But if not him, who? UPS? I haven’t ordered anything that I can remember.
I press the talk button. “Hello?”
Crackling silence on the other end. It carries on for so long that I’m about to disconnect, when the speaker finally clicks on. “Sloan, it’s me.”
I stare at the speaker. This cannot be happening. Cannot be real. I’m still dreaming, that’s it. I’m still lost in the happy dream place, in the bathroom full of lavender, where it would be totally normal for Gage to show up at my door.
I swallow hard. “What do you want?” I ask, and I hate the way my voice cracks, giving me away. Last time I saw him I was angry. I’m still angry, but now I’m hurting, too, and I don’t want him to see that. He doesn’t deserve to see how much he hurts me. He only deserves the anger.
“Please let me up. It’s important, I swear, or I wouldn’t have come.”
“Fuck off,” I tell him, and I disconnect the speaker.
There’s a long silence on the other side. Long enough that I let out the breath I didn’t know I was holding and let my body sag against the doorframe, my legs shaking beneath me. Part of me wants to cry and part of me wants to scream and a very tiny part wants to chase him down the block to just ask Why, but I have way too much dignity for that.
I collect my towel around me, ready to head back to my room, to dress for another day of paranoid couch-hanging, since my brother has convinced me it’s too dangerous to go to work right now. Which is sounding crazier and crazier the longer I’m cooped up in this apartment alone with my thoughts.
That’s when the doorknob turns.
I yelp.
Brilliant, Sloan. That will fend off the attackers. I dart toward the kitchen, trying to spy if I left a rolling pan out somewhere, or a knife, a pot, anything I could use to defend myself.
The door creaks open and I duck behind the counter. Shit. Why do I put everything away? Oh probably because I haven’t cooked in a week, I’ve just been ordering delivery. Dammit.
“Relax. It’s just me.”
That does not make me relax. It does, however, make all the wind rush out of my lungs. I feel like I’ve just been sucker-punched, my stomach churning with the metaphorical kick.
I pull myself to standing on legs shakier than ever, and lift my head to face him. My dream. My nightmare.
Gage. Towering over me, tall and shapely as ever, his hair still hanging across his eyes in that shaggy, unkept, I-couldn’t-care-less-what-you-think-about-me way that is too sexy for words. He hasn’t shaved in a few days, either. Unfortunately that level of rugged stubble looks fine as hell on him.
Bastard.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I clench my fists, ready to shove him backwards out of here if I have to. Except, of course, I can’t let go of the towel wrapped around me. The towel that his eyes wander up and down appreciatively.
The only small satisfaction I take from this whole situation is the way his throat bobs hard when he swallows, his mouth parting slightly.
<
br /> At least I still affect him in one way. He may have been using me all along, but it’s gratifying to see that at least some of the physical attraction between us wasn’t just for show.
His expression melts into a deep frown. His eyes, when he finally manages to drag them away from my assets to meet my gaze, are twin pools of sorrow, lined in bloodshot red, hung underneath with bags as heavy as my heart feels.
He’s suffering too, it looks like. I’m not sure why he’s in pain, but I feel a surge of vengeful pleasure. Good. I hope his boss or whoever sent him after us is angry at him. I hope he’s making Gage’s life hell right now.
Then Gage opens his mouth. “I had to see you.”
I can’t help it. I bark out a laugh. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You just broke into my house—”
“I meant everything I said to you, Sloan. I meant how I felt.”
Twist the knife, why don’t you. It’s not enough to break my heart, to play me once, but you have to try it again, take me for an utter fool? “You can save your pathetic attempts at seduction for the next girl whose brother you need to rob, got it?” I storm across the room toward him, but he surges past me into the apartment.
Rage shudders over me. I grab my cell phone and snap it open. “Get out right now or I’m calling the cops. Breaking and entering is a crime, Gage. How did you even get through my front door?”
He raises both hands in front of himself, a pathetic attempt at a peace gesture. “Sloan, please, just hear me out. You aren’t safe here. The fact that your next-door neighbor let me in without even a very thorough explanation is proof enough of that. I didn’t mean to do this to you, I swear, but we can talk about it later—”
“Right. You just accidentally fucked me to get closer to my brother.”
“That’s not what . . . ” He spins away from me and runs a hand through his hair, his shoulders sagging as he glares out my window. “That’s how I met you, yes. My boss—Aaron O’Malley, the guy from that letter—asked me to get close to Freddie. He suggested I try to use you, since you’re the only person Freddie talks to really.”