It didn’t take long for his moans to morph into words. First, a string of Spanish invectives that would make a cartel hitman blush. Then, finally, the begging she’d been waiting for.
“Please, bonita. I cannot take any more.”
Having broken him, Hammett began to match his thrusts, taking him fully into her throat, increasing the tempo to intensify his pleasure.
Heath abruptly stopped, surprising her. “Not yet, querida. I want to be inside you.”
Not many men could control themselves after a certain point, and she knew Heath was close. It was a matter of pride with her to finish him off.
Hammett bobbed her head even faster, using her free hand to pump at the same time.
“Please,” he said. “Please stop.”
Any second now. Hammett released his balls, using both hands to stroke him.
“No!”
Heath suddenly jackknifed his legs, bucking Hammett forward, onto his chest. He looped his arms around her thighs, lifted her like he was doing a chest press on a weight bench, and plopped her, face-first, onto the seat. Before Hammett could twist around, Heath had her by the wrists, with his face between her legs.
Hammett had had plenty of men, and more than a few women, go down on her. But never in this position, from behind. Rather than struggle and attempt to escape, she waited to see what Heath was going to do.
What he did was similar to what she’d done.
Namely, tease the ever-loving hell out of her.
He used his whole face—lips, tongue, chin, even his nose, to probe every intimate millimeter of her body.
Every millimeter, except the part she wanted him to focus on.
Hammett tried to shut down her body, resist sensation. She refused to come first. This had become a competition, just like the parkour across the rooftops, and she’d lost that one and wasn’t about to lose again.
But Heath was good. Very good. Perhaps the best she’d ever had. And though she knew enough mental tricks to alleviate severe pain, even torture, she couldn’t blot out his insistent, probing tongue.
It only took a few minutes for Hammett to begin to squirm and buck against him, trying to get him to hit the right spot. But he was every bit as cruel, taking her right up to the edge, and backing off.
Hammett felt the wave or orgasm building in her, and receding as he pulled away. Building and receding. Building and receding.
It was wonderfully, exquisitely terrible. She had become a slave, bound to his will, unable to focus on anything but his incessant, relentless teasing.
Hammett almost blurted out, “Just let me come and I promise not to kill you,” but right before
she reached that point, Heath loosened his grip on her wrists just enough for her to twist out.
Like a snake striking, Hammett whipped her leg around and brought her hands to Heath’s throat, finding his carotid and jugular. She put just enough pressure on the points to prevent blood flow to the brain, a less conventional choke hold.
Heath looked surprised, then confused, and then his eyelids began to flutter as unconsciousness overtook him.
But Hammett didn’t want him knocked out. She just wanted him compliant and couldn’t go toe-to-toe against someone stronger. So as he slumped back to the limo floor, Hammett straddled him, releasing his neck just as she sank onto his cock.
Heath blinked, apparently not sure what had happened. Then he gripped her hips, and Hammett rode him hard as she’d ever done before, using her muscles to make him explode first.
The problem, of course, was it felt just as good to Hammett as it obviously did to Heath. He matched her thrusts, his strong hands pushing her down on him, his body surging up into her, and Hammett knew she didn’t have longer before she lost control.
“Chica… oh, chica!”
Heath began to spasm, and confident she’d beaten him, if only by a second or two, Hammett allowed herself to go over the edge. She ground against him as she came, screaming in her throat, her thighs locking, feeling the passion surge through her in burst after burst.
When she couldn’t take any more, she slumped forward, her breasts pressed to his chest, damp skin against damp skin. For longer than she cared to think about, she merely lay there, feeling the gentle rock of his breathing, the sensation of him softening inside her. She inhaled deeply, taking in the scent of his skin, and his hair tickled the side of her face.
This was different than the male escort she’d had the previous night. This was something more. Something real. A connection to another human being. A kinship. An understanding.
It was bewildering to her. Hammett felt something with Heath. Something she hadn’t felt in…
Ever.
But Hammett had spent most of her life trying not to feel. And as emotion washed over her, making her want to—cry, of all stupid things—Hammett pushed up from his body, then reached down and grabbed Heath’s head by the hair and bashed it into the floor of the limousine.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Heath stopped moving.
Hammett stared down, wondering if she’d killed him. Almost fearfully, she reached down, seeking a pulse in his neck.
Strong.
He was alive.
But should she allow him to live?
This was strange territory for Hammett. Her instinct, her training, told her to finish the job. He knew too much about her.
Shit, Hammett felt as if this man actually knew her.
She raised her fist, ready to crush his trachea—
—and hesitated.
Hammett never hesitated.
Instead of delivering the killing blow, she got off Heath, her legs quivering. She found her clothes, her guns, and dressed while she watched his chest rise and fall.
“Just kill him,” she said.
But she didn’t kill him.
And she didn’t know why.
Instead, she left him in the limo, unconscious, and hurried out of the alley, heading back to her rental car.
On the drive to San Diego, when enough time and distance had passed, Hammett tried to convince herself that the reason she’d let Heath live was because he was a really great lay, and it would have been a shame to snuff him out. It had nothing to do with her.
She kept telling herself that lie, over and over, until she began to believe it.
“Pay close attention to anything out of the ordinary,” The Instructor said. “Seemingly random events, coincidences, and unexplainable phenomena might be early warning signs that you are about to be attacked.”
Hammett slept in the back seat, in a 24 hour Walmart parking lot, and awoke an hour before dawn. She used her car’s GPS to find the nearest rental car outlet, and spent twenty minutes explaining to the dowdy clerk that she wanted to return it here, not in L.A. where she’d picked it up. She had to pay extra, which took all the extra cash she had, including a hundred dollar bill she’d sewn along the underwire of her bra. Part of her wondered if she should have bothered returning the car at all—if Isaac had tipped off Guterez, and considered her rogue, she had bigger things to worry about than her expense account with Uncle Sam. But if Isaac had cut her some slack, or had talked to The Instructor to send Heath to help her, then it would be best to play it by the book. She wouldn’t want to have to pay for the car out of her own pocket.
The airport shuttle didn’t leave for another thirty minutes, so Hammett walked across the street to a 24-hour convenience store and went to the Good Humor freezer for one of her favorite comfort foods, a Chipwich. She compulsively checked the date on the wrapper to make sure it was fresh, and then brought it to the smiling Indian guy at the counter.
“Back so soon,” he said, ringing up her ice cream.
Hammett had been so lost in her own thoughts she’d almost missed it. “Excuse me?”
He patted his ample belly. “I can’t eat more than one, but you are so trim and fit and can eat two.”
The cashier obviously thought
she’d been in here earlier, getting ice cream. But Hammett had never been in this shop before.
It occurred to her that this was the second time in a few hours she’d been mistaken for someone else. Did she just have one of those faces? Or did she have a doppelganger running around?
Paranoia kicked in big time, raising the tiny hairs on her arms and neck, and Hammett pushed quickly away from the counter just as a supersonic round cut through the air where she’d just been and punched through a display cooler, exploding a bottle of soda.
Sniper!
Hammett dropped as another round zipped over her head, and then she rolled into the candy aisle, out of sight of the storefront window. She’d automatically noted the egress points when walking into the shop, but the rear exit could be seen from the parking lot, and no doubt the shooter was already covering it, anticipating that’s where she’d run. A textbook move.
Unless the sniper had no line of sight.
Hammett dug out a 1911 from under her jacket and crawled on knees and elbows to the far end of the aisle. She peeked around a display of beef jerky, aimed at the storefront, and squeezed off eight carefully spaced shots.
Rifle rounds that went faster than the speed of sound poked through safety glass like it was wet tissue paper. But the bullets from Hammett’s gun were subsonic, and the storefront window was laminated to resist breaking and entering. So wherever she shot, the shatterproof glass spiderwebbed but remained intact, making it difficult, if not impossible, to see through the millions of small cracks.
Thoughts coming on blurringly fast, Hammett put herself in the sniper’s position, reasoning that even without being able to see, the shooter would assume Hammett would go for the rear exit. Depending on how powerful the scope was, it wouldn’t be easy to readjust focus and find the target, so the sniper’s best bet was to wait a few seconds, then fire at the exit.
That’s why Hammett ran straight for the front door.
She hit it low, hard, and fast, pushing it open, immediately doing a tuck and roll—
—and getting winged in her right shoulder.
Hammett didn’t feel any pain, just a tug, but she knew the pain would come. More upsetting than the bullet was the fact that the sniper had anticipated the move. Whoever was shooting was smart. And trained.
Hammett came up staggering and ducked behind a parked car. Maybe she should have stayed in the store. There was a gunshot, followed by one of the tires exploding a few tenths of a second later. Doing a quick math calculation in her head, she estimated the sniper to be within a hundred and fifty meters.
She glanced at her bleeding shoulder long enough to ascertain an artery hadn’t been hit, and then pondered her next move.
Another shot, and the car shuddered with the round’s impact.
The gas tank. The shooter was trying to blow the gas tank.
Which is what Hammett would have done if her target was hiding behind a car.
It was a bizarre feeling, almost as if the sniper was reading her mind. Maybe they’d had similar training? Similar experience?
Heath?
Someone Isaac had sent?
Whoever it was, the next thing Hammett needed to do was something neither she nor anyone who was trained to think like her would expect. What was a move no one would ever make while pinned down by a sniper?
Running toward the shooter.
She didn’t dwell on it, because she didn’t have time to. Depending on how much gas the car had in it, a well-placed round could ignite the fumes and turn her temporary shelter into a bomb. So, going on pure instinct, Hammett sprang to her feet and began to sprint in the direction the shots had come from.
She could do the hundred meter dash in about thirteen seconds, the hundred and fifty in twenty. As she ran, Hammett put herself in the sniper’s mind.
The target is gone. Find her. What the hell, she’s running right at me? Lock on. Squeeze.
Hammett veered left, and sure enough a gunshot boomed from ahead, but it was a miss. She got back on track.
Eject the cartridge and reload. Locate the target again. Lead her. Squeeze.
A sharp turn right. Another shot. Another miss. Even better, Hammett had seen the muzzle flash, and knew where her attacker was. A van parked at the end of a street at a T intersection, back door halfway open. Less than sixty meters away, she headed toward the van.
Last shot, then I have to get out of here. Eject and reload. Locate target. Squeeze.
Another veer right. A shot and a miss. The side panel door slammed closed as Hammett got within twenty meters. The van was going to bolt.
And go where?
If Hammett had been the shooter, she would have plotted the escape route. Don’t drive east into the rising sun; glare could fuck up a quick getaway. That meant west toward the harbor.
So Hammett stopped chasing the van and cut west, anticipating where it would wind up. She pulled her other 1911 and beat the van up the street, skidding to a stop and firing into the windshield at the driver.
The van made a hard right, tires screeching, but it was too top-heavy and rolled. It hit its side, skidding across the pavement, and crashed into a parked car.
Sirens shrieked in the distance, and at least a dozen people, on the sidewalks and in traffic, watched, slack-jawed. Ignoring them, Hammett ran to the van, going in through the rear door, crouching and ready to fire, and coming face-to-face with…
Holy shit. Except for the hair, which was shorter and dyed red, and the gun, a Mauser rifle instead of two .45s, Hammett could have been looking into a mirror.
Her double appeared shocked, eyes wide, mouth slightly open, which was probably how Hammett also looked. Then they both reacted, the woman bringing up her weapon, and Hammett slapping her upside the skull with one and a half kilos of 1911.
The double went down, and Hammett aimed, both fingers on both triggers.
“Are you okay?”
She swung one gun around, to the man behind her. Young, fit, yuppie in a suit on his way to some boring 9 to 5 job, stopping to help. He immediately raised his hands. Hammett saw his car parked a few meters back, a Lexus, still running.
Hammett cleared her head of all the confusion, all the questions, emptying her mind like dumping water from a glass, and immediately reverted to her training.
“She’s hurt,” Hammett said. “Get her into the car.”
The guy didn’t move. Hammett fired over his head.
“The car!”
She tucked away one gun and grabbed the rifle, The good Samaritan lifted the unconscious sniper and brought her to the Lexus. Hammett opened the rear door.
“Put her in the backseat, on her stomach.”
He complied.
“Do you have jumper cables?”
“In the trunk.”
She considered shooting him. It was a practical thing to do, because he’d seen her up close, and he’d no doubt report the car stolen the moment she took off. But the clerk at the convenience store had seen her as well, and so had the store’s surveillance cameras. Hammett was trained at keeping her head down when video was being recorded, but when the shooting started that hadn’t been her main priority, and her face could have been caught on tape. It would take the authorities a while to sort everything out, but killing him would make them a lot more eager to catch her, and there were at least a dozen witnesses watching. It would be impractical to kill them all.
“I need your wallet and your cell phone,” Hammett said. He handed them over, looking appropriately frightened. She put his things in her jacket and pouted, sticking out her lower lip. “Don’t fret, lover. Think about the story you’ll be able to tell the boys back at the office.”
Then, on impulse, she grabbed his tie, tugged him close, and kissed him, jamming her tongue into his mouth, then shoving him backward onto his ass. She climbed into the Lexus, floored it, and took off down the street.
Ten blocks later, confident she wasn’t being followed, she pulled into an alley and got out. Hamme
tt took the battery out of the man’s cell phone, pocketed it again, and then got the jumper cables from the trunk. Her doppelganger was still unconscious. Hammett patted her down, finding nothing, then hogtied her with the cables, tight as she could.
She needed someplace private to think, and get some answers. Luckily it was still early morning, and the place she had in mind wouldn’t be open for a few hours. Hammett did a search on her GPS, set her coordinates, and was there in six minutes.
The parking lot was empty; a good sign. Hammett pulled up to the front door, noting the open and closing times. Assuming an employee got here an hour before opening, she still had plenty of time to get some questions answered. Driving around back, Hammett let herself into the building using the tire iron in the trunk of the Lexus. Once she opened the door, she was greeted by an explosion of welcome noise.
Barking.
Hi, puppies.
Hammett went back to the car, heaved up the sniper in a fireman’s carry, and took her into the shelter. She found the shower area where the animals were given their flea baths, and set the woman down on the concrete floor, near the drain. Part of her wanted to go exploring, pet some dogs and cats, maybe feed a few. Perhaps she would, when she finished the interrogation. Right now, she had to figure out what her twin knew.
Hammett used several leashes to better bind her intended victim then searched the office cabinets for pet meds, finding a cache. She did a quick cleaning of her shoulder wound, judged it didn’t require stitches, and taped on a bandage. Then Hammett kept searching meds until she found the supply of epinephrine. Dogs and cats, like people, sometimes suffered from anaphylaxis and needed cardiac resuscitation, and the EpiPen worked similarly for all mammals. It took three shots to wake the woman up, and when she roused, she threw up all over the floor.
Hammett used the hose attached to the wall to wash the vomit away, giving her enemy a cold soaking at the same time. Then she shut off the water, sat on her haunches, and stared at the woman.
The resemblance was startling.
“You know how this works,” Hammett said. “I ask you questions and hurt you if I don’t get the answers.”
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