She surprised me by dropping to her knees, her delicate mouth opening to take me inside her. It wasn’t quite what I’d wanted, and definitely not what I’d expected, but the heat of her mouth was enough to drive me out of my mind.
I leaned forward, bracing myself on a shelf as my eyes slid closed and I lost myself in the feel of her wet tongue dancing around my shaft. As innocent as she appeared, she knew what she as doing. It had been such a long time … the women I’d attracted lately were not the blowjob-in-a-storage-room type. They were the half-interested, lost-in-their-own-desire kinds of women. But Heather … she was definitely different from every woman I think I’d ever known.
And the way she looked up at me as she did this thing, as she offered me a depth of pleasure that was beyond all I’d anticipated, was overwhelming. I touched the side of her face and ran my hand over the top of her head. Then I grabbed a great handful of that thick braid and encouraged her to take me deeper, to swallow every inch … oh, fuck me! So good!
***
My head was spinning when I finally walked out of that storeroom. She was gone—long gone—but I could still smell her on my fingers. I could still feel her. I could still taste myself on her lips. There was nothing more exciting than what she’d just done, what we’d just done. Even hours later, as I watched her move around the floor, pausing to talk to this salesman, that clerk.
“She’s engaged, you know.”
I turned from my daydreaming hours later, from watching Heather speak to the other temp who’d started just yesterday, to find Tilly leaning over the back wall.
“I kind of figured you didn’t know,” she said, gesturing toward Heather. “She’s engaged to some guy in the Marines. He’s overseas. Afghanistan, I heard.”
“Yeah?”
“She used to talk about him all the time. Not so much lately, but it can’t be easy, being the one left behind.”
I didn’t want to believe her. I wanted to keep thinking about the possibilities that lay ahead, of the dinner Heather had finally agreed to have with me. But there was this little voice in the back of my head … good things never really were what they appeared to be.
Don’t get attached.
She’d whispered that in my ear more than once. I thought she was talking to herself, reminding herself that I was just a temp. But maybe it was meant for me. Maybe that was her way of telling me she wasn’t available for more than that one night.
“I’m sure it isn’t.”
***
My childhood friend arranged my death. He worked it out with some unseen source, slamming his vehicle into the back of mine, forcing me into a barrier. I broke my wrist and my nose. It could have been worse. My family believed it was worse. Much worse. There was a gravestone in the family plot with my name on it, two dates below it. The date of my birth and the date of my death—at least, the day they’d believed I’d died. And they did believe it. Luke saw to that.
It was surreal to see that gravestone. Megan took me there and showed me photographs Hayden had taken of my funeral for surveillance. Showed me the grief on the faces of the people I left behind.
I’d been so wrapped up in what happened to me that sometimes I found it difficult to remember that they’d all gone through this thing, too. They’d believed I was dead. They’d packed up my home, sold it, tied up all the loose ends of my life. My money went to Amber and the baby I didn’t meet until he was a year old, the family I thought of every day I was gone.
My belongings went to Megan. It took her months to finally open the package that held the things I had with me the night I “died.” The final message I tried to send her, the one that would have given her a head’s up on the whole lie, she didn’t see until nearly a year after I was gone. Until I’d been held captive by that sadistic asshole for a year.
Deep down, I know it was hard for them. I knew they grieved for me and did the things they did because they believed me gone. But it didn’t change what I went through, the months and years I was forced to do things that still gave me nightmares. The few pleasures that got me through the long days and nights. The anticipation of seeing my child, of making a family with a woman I barely knew. And then to lose it all in one conversation, in one stark moment of reality.
Was that how it was for Heather’s fiancé? Was he in the middle of a war zone right now while she and I enjoyed pleasures that should have been reserved for him? Years ago, the idea of being with a woman who was willing to cheat on her man would have outraged me. It would have made me sick. But now?
I studied my face in the fogged mirror after my shower, trying to decide if the changes within me were reflected on the outside, too.
I’d lost so much. What difference did it make to some unseen stranger if I enjoyed what his woman was willing to give me?
I should have felt guilty for thinking that. But I didn’t.
My cell rang as I was headed out the door.
“Hayden.” It didn’t surprise me that he was calling; Hayden was notorious for keeping a close eye on agents in the field. Those not in the know might have called it micro-managing. Those of us who had insider info knew that this was the only way Hayden had left of showing his caring side, most of which had been obliterated when his fiancée was murdered in front of him.
“How’s it going, Peter?”
“I should have a report for you in a day or two on this case.”
“Good, but that’s not why I’m calling.” Hayden hesitated, making me hesitate as I stood in the doorway of the apartment. “Waverly told me you asked for some background on a woman called Heather Bryant?”
“I did.”
“I have the report here, but I have to say, I’m curious why you would ask for background on someone not associated with the case.”
“She’s the secretary to the head of the department. I just wanted to see if she had any unusual associations with the people I’m vetting.”
It was a lie, but it rolled off my tongue quite easily. I should have been ashamed of how easy it was for me to tell lies, but that was another part of my moral compass that had changed irrevocably during my captivity.
Hayden hesitated. “Everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine.”
“Okay. I’ll forward the report.”
I disconnected the call, crossing the hall to jab my finger against the call button for the elevator. The woman from next door happened to choose that moment to step out of her apartment. She was a tall blonde, the kind of woman who only indulged in casual affairs because her main love was her job. She smiled at me every time we ran into each other. I found myself smiling back tonight.
It never hurt to keep your options open.
Chapter 7
Heather
There was something different about Peter tonight. He was just as gentle and kind from the moment he picked me up, but there was something more reserved about the way he looked at me, the way he touched me. His constant seduction had been overwhelming, but I found myself wishing he would go back to that as we studied each other across the dinner table, nothing to say to one another.
“You’ve been temping long?”
He shrugged. “Off and on.”
“Why? Do you not like the idea of a permanent, day-to-day job?”
He smiled, the light dancing in his eyes. “I like the challenge of a new situation every few weeks.”
“Commitment must be difficult for you.”
A dark shadow crossed his features, turning them into something a little less handsome. It was clear there was some raw nerve that I’d just touched, but then he brushed it off, lifting up his wine glass to take a sip before turning the tables on me.
“You’ve worked at Reynold Robotics for a while?”
“Three years.”
“You like it there that much?”
“You don’t?”
He inclined his head a little. “I suppose. The people are nice.”
“They talk a lot.”
I l
ifted my own wine glass, sipping the rich red that he’d ordered. I’d wanted to argue, aware of how expensive this place was, how much a bottle of wine like this one could cost. He was only a temp after all, but I didn’t want to embarrass him.
He didn’t seem to care though. He ordered another bottle of wine before the first was done. And he asked for the most expensive cut of steak on the menu even though I knew for a fact that it cost a few dollars more than he made in a day at Reynold.
“Do you have family in the area?”
I hated that question. I played with the wine glass a moment longer than necessary, trying to form the words in my head before I spit them out. I always tried to put a shine on the reality of my life, but it never really seemed to work out very well. The truth was just too ugly to make pretty.
“My father is dead. My mom is gone.”
“Any siblings?”
I shook my head. “No.” I picked up my wine glass again. “It’s complicated.”
“Aren’t all families? My brother and I have a terribly complicated relationship.”
“You have a brother?”
“A sister, too. She and I were extremely close once, but … things have changed.”
“Why?”
He just shook his head, that dark cloud crossing his face again. It made me want to tell him everything about me. It made me want to know everything about him. It made me want to curl up in his arms and—
“So, there’s a rumor around the office that you’re engaged.”
My heart sank. I was wondering when he was going to hear that particular bit of gossip.
Our eyes met, and I could see the anger in his eyes. It was pretty obvious he was trying to hide it, but it was there, clear as words written on a white piece of paper. I suddenly understood the change in attitude, the way he seemed to be cooling off toward me. He thought I’d lied to him, that I was playing the same game with him that he was clearly playing with me.
Neither of us spoke for a few minutes. I didn’t know what to say even though he was clearly waiting for me to say something. What did I say to that?
“When you said this was temporary, that we shouldn’t get attached, you weren’t talking about me, were you?” he finally asked.
“It’s … complicated.”
He snorted, swallowing the last of his wine and pouring himself some more from the new bottle.
“Doesn’t seem complicated to me. Either you’re engaged, or you’re not.”
The waiter chose that moment to arrive with our entrees. I stared down at my steak, trying to figure out a way to put it all in words that didn’t sound manipulative or that weren’t flat out lies. When I looked up at him again, he was playing with the stem of his wine glass, his expression unreadable.
“When I was twelve, my dad beat my mom so badly she was in the hospital for three weeks. When she was discharged, she went to a shelter, but he found her and told her if she didn’t come back, he would kill us both. Then he showed up at my new school and said he was taking me out for ice cream, but we ended up hiding out at a hotel for a week while my mom frantically did all she could to find me. She finally agreed to go back to him, to drop the charges against him, and become a family again just so that she and I could be reunited.”
I lifted my own wine glass and took a steady sip, hating the taste of the bitter grapes against my tongue, but reveling in the oblivion the slight buzz promised me.
I could feel his eyes on me, but I refused to look up again. I needed to tell the whole story before he stopped me.
“It was only a month before he started leaving bruises on her again. Six weeks before he drank so much one night that he lost control and tried to slam her head into the television. I intervened and he cracked my head open. I had to have fifteen stitches.” I reached up and touched the scar that was barely visible thirteen years later.
“The cops came, and Mom lied to them. I think she’d finally come to the conclusion that no one could help us. That no one could stop him. I think that’s when she started planning it out.” I closed my eyes, trying to imagine what that must have been like for her.
“She sent me here, to the home of her childhood best friend. I didn’t even know they’d still been in touch. I was told later that she called her out of the blue a few weeks before she gave me the bus ticket, told her she was in trouble, and begged for her help. Begged her to take me in. I think she knew all along how it would go.”
“Heather …”
I shook my head. I didn’t want his pity. I didn’t want the look that the few people I’d told this story offered me. I wasn’t looking for his sympathy. I just wanted him to know the truth. All the truth.
“She was methodical about it. Planned it out to the last detail. She wanted him to suffer, but she wanted to be sure what she did was fatal. She waited until he began drinking again and on the verge of one of his benders. She slipped the drugs into his booze and then waited for him to fall unconscious before she tied him up. And then she waited for it all to wear off before she started in on him.
“A neighbor testified at her trial that he heard screaming in the morning before he left for work and then again when he returned that evening. Twelve hours, she made him suffer. And then she calmly called the police and waited for them to come. One veteran homicide detective said on the stand that it was the worst case of torture he’d ever seen and he’d been a P.O.W. in Vietnam.”
Reading those words in the court transcripts was not something I had ever forgotten. When I was eighteen, when I was old enough to investigate it on my own, I’d wanted to know every detail. Now … I wish I hadn’t been so curious.
“She refused to allow me to go home, refused to see me at all. Still won’t let me come see her in prison. She doesn’t want me damaged by what they did to each other. So I stayed here with her childhood friend, Rose Phelps. And her family.
They adopted me, treated me like their own. Even put me through college. And their son, James, was my whole world in the years afterward, the only person I could turn to when I needed someone to talk to. We were the same age. We did everything together. We knew each other’s secrets. I would do anything for him, and he’d do anything for me.”
“He’s your fiancé?”
I looked up at him then. There was something new in his eyes now, but it wasn’t the pity I’d expected. It was almost … understanding.
“He wanted to be a Marine. When other kids dreamed of being doctors or dentists, James dreamed of being a Marine. But he was afraid … I was his beard from the time we started high school all through college. It just seemed logical to keep the charade up while he was away at Basic. And, not long after I started at Reynolds, he came to see me. Everyone jumped to conclusions, and James let them believe what they wanted to believe and … well, there you go.”
“But you’re not really engaged?”
“We are. But it’s more symbolic than anything else. No one but me and a handful of guys we went to college with know the truth.”
“That he’s gay.”
I inclined my head slightly, and Peter began to laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
“Does he realize what year this is? Gay marriage is legal. A famous Olympian just came out as transgender. There’s a transgender actress playing a transgender on television. The military has repealed the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Act. They’ve even passed policy, allowing transgender in the military to ask for a change of gender on their records! How could he be afraid of coming out now?”
“If you think all that really makes a difference, then you’re living with your head in the clouds.” I studied his face a moment. “He grew up in a conservative Christian household. His parents have actually told him that if he comes out as gay, they’ll disown him. He was beaten up in his own church for smiling at the pastor’s son. He was teased relentlessly in school when he was simply seen talking to a boy who was openly gay.” I shook my head. “Things have not changed as much as you think they have
.”
“But why you? Why saddle yourself to this man while he lives his dream?”
“Because I owe his family everything. If not for them, I would have grown up in the system.”
“There’s a big difference between gratitude and servitude.”
I shook my head, sipping from my wine glass again. “It’s my choice.”
“And this?” He gestured between us. “How does this affect your little plan? What if someone sees us together? What if your secret comes out?”
I shook my head. “It won’t.”
“But what if it does?”
I studied his face for a long moment. “Why would it? You’re a temp. In a week or so, you’ll be gone.”
“And you don’t think I’ll come back?”
“Why would you?”
His eyes moved slowly over my face, down along the curve of my breasts, then slowly back up, a light dancing in those perfect eyes when he saw the blush on my cheeks.
“A man likes to be wanted, Heather,” he said in a slow, gentle drawl. “You obviously have no idea what it’s like for me to look at you and remember how incredible it feels to be inside of you.”
My cheeks were burning. I reached up and pressed the backs of my hands to them.
“I’m looking at you now and I’m imagining my hands sliding over your breasts, feeling those perfect pebbles of flesh pressed against my palms. And your lips … the memory of where they were just a few hours ago makes me feel as though I might explode if I don’t touch you very soon.” He made this soft sighing sound, his eyes darkening with need. “If I thought I could get away with it, I would take you into the bathroom right now and—”
“How’s it going?” the waiter asked quite loudly, smiling hugely as he approached our table, the smile faltering as he glanced down at our untouched plates. “Is there something wrong with your meals?”
“Not a thing,” Peter said, sitting a little straighter and pushing his plate to one side. “We just got distracted.”
“Of course.”
The waiter’s eyes fell on me, and I swear he could read my thoughts because he suddenly smiled again, dropping a wink at Peter as he lifted his plate off the table.
DRAGON SECURITY: Volume 2: The Complete 6 Books Series Page 5