by M James
Zach looks at me, and I see something in his eyes, that unreadable expression that I wish like hell I could puzzle out. “I can’t,” he says simply.
“Why?” I swallow hard, knowing I shouldn’t be asking this many questions. Across from us, Erin is sitting delicately, sipping at her champagne as she watches us. I feel so fucking paranoid.
“I have obligations.” Zach bites the last word off, taking another sip of his drink.
“To Sonya?” Stop, I think to myself, but I can’t. I can’t stop pushing him. I can’t stop pressing for answers.
“Sure.” He shrugs. “It’s not really any of your business.”
He doesn’t say it unkindly, exactly, but it cuts to the quick anyway. “Of course not,” I mumble, taking another sip of my drink, mindful that I can’t get even tipsy tonight, or Vincent will be pissed at me. April will be able to tell if I get drunk, and even if she doesn’t say anything, Vincent will find out one way or another. I’ve learned that the hard way.
Dena comes back with our food, a myriad of small plates scattered across the table. She points out each dish, each one carefully selected by the chef for us—and I’m sure he knew that we’re part of Vincent’s party tonight. There’s caviar on toast points, thinly sliced beef tartare with a tiny poached quail’s egg in the middle, fresh glistening sashimi with a drizzle of ponzu, grilled lamb lollipops with a droplet of mint jelly on each, and barbecued octopus with a glaze on it and blackberries. Only the lamb and the sashimi is anything I’ve ever eaten before, and I go for the lamb first, eyeing the beef tartare suspiciously.
“It’s pretty fucking good,” Zach says, swallowing a piece of it dipped in the raw egg. “You should try it.”
When did you become so adventurous with food? I want to ask, remembering Zach as the kind of guy who lived off of burgers and pizza in the high school cafeteria, who always had a bag of chips on him, who loved Twizzlers. Not someone who ate raw beef and immediately followed it with a grilled octopus tentacle. But I don’t ask the question, because that would be saying out loud that I knew him before, and that’s dangerous here. I don’t know who might be listening.
As we nibble at the food and Dena brings us fresh drinks, still fresh-faced and smiling as if she’s having the time of her life, the lights go down and come up on the main stage. The curtains draw back, revealing a huge champagne coupe filled with bubbles. As a gorgeous busty blonde in a sparkling silver corset, thigh-highs, and feather boa with curls and red lipstick sways on stage, the main show begins.
I’ve never seen a burlesque show, but there’s something incredibly erotic about it, about the sway of her hips and the shimmy of her shoulders, the way she undresses a little at a time, teasing in small glimpses of skin, moving across the stage with a serene elegance that dares anyone to treat her performance as anything but art. I wonder what Zach thinks of it, if he finds it arousing, if he’s looking at the blonde onstage.
I can’t stop myself from glancing sideways, wanting to see his reaction. But when I do, my heart stops.
Because for just that moment, at least, he’s looking right at me.
I feel something tightening inside of me, an ache that squeezes my heart and spreads through me, pain and regret and desire all mixed up together until I couldn’t begin to untangle it all if I tried. I wish desperately that this was something different, Zach and I out on a date maybe, taking in a show, eating some odd food, and having fun together. But the truth is that Zach and I could never have afforded something like this together. We’re only here because we’re with other people, the kind of people who go on those kinds of dates, who own these kinds of places.
Zach and I, together, would never have been that.
We would have been something so much better.
And for just a second, as I look sideways at his handsome, chiseled face, at the tensed line of his jaw and the swoop of his blond hair, I let myself imagine what it would be like to slide into his arms, to curl against him, to lift my lips to his cheek as I slide my hand up his thigh, teasing him the way the woman onstage is teasing everyone here, except later I’d make good on that promise, I’d unzip his slacks and slide them down his thighs, running my fingers over the light blond hair there, I’d unbutton his shirt so that I could see his muscled chest. I’d go down to my knees, not because I’m forced to but because I’d want to, because I never got to do that to Zach, never got to taste him, feel him filling up my mouth, hard and thick, never got to swallow him down as I made him groan with pleasure.
I never got to do so many things with him that I’d give anything to do now.
When Erin glances away, enraptured with the woman onstage, Zach looks sideways at me again, and even in the dim light, I can see his jaw working.
“Stop looking at me like that,” he says, his voice low and deep and dark, and it sends a shiver of something through me, making my stomach clench hard with desire in a way that I’d forgotten I could.
I don’t know what possesses me to respond the way I do. Maybe it’s the dim lighting, making it seemingly impossible for anyone to see me. Maybe it’s the throbbing, pulsing rhythm of the jazz, drowning out my words for anyone else and seeping into my blood, making me wish for dark corners and sultry kisses, stolen glances, and embraces, making me want to desire and love in a way that I’d given up on.
Just that small taste of fantasy, and suddenly I want Zach, want him in a visceral way that makes it hard for me to resist. It’s as if there’s a drug sliding through my veins, like what Vincent mentioned earlier, making me possessed, making me crazy.
“What if I don’t want to?” I whisper.
Zach grimaces, but I see that muscle leap in his jaw again, a signal that he’s holding something back. “Stop it, Rain,” he hisses, and the sound of him saying my name sends a thrill through me.
I feel dangerously on edge, ready to make a leap that wouldn’t be good for either of us. “I don’t want to stop,” I whisper, careful to keep my voice pitched low enough that neither Erin nor April will be able to hear us. They’ll just think we’re talking about the show.
I think.
I hope.
Do I care?
I should. Right now, it’s the furthest thing from my mind.
“I want you to tell me the truth,” I whisper. “About Sonya. About your fake name. About why you won’t look me in the eye. Is it because of Vincent? Because if it is—”
“Stop it!” Zach hisses sharply, his jaw clenched, and he still doesn’t look at me, but I see his hand fisting at his side, as if he’s trying to stop himself from doing something. Maybe reaching out for me. I have to believe that he wants me as badly as I want him, that this is tormenting him, too. “Don’t make me do this, Rain. I swear to god, you’re better off not knowing. Just stop. Stop poking before you find out something that’s going to hurt you.”
I can’t hurt more than I already do, I start to say, but I don’t get a chance to, because there’s suddenly a sound that I don’t register at first, a sharp, flat crack that deafens the space around us, and I don’t realize fully what it is until another one comes, and I hear people start to scream.
It all happens so fast that I don’t realize anything until I’m already on the floor, Zach’s body shielding mine as April throws herself at Erin, dragging my sister down to the floor as well as the champagne glass falls numbly from her fingers, shattering on the hardwood. Dazedly, I see the liquid trail over the dark surface, and I can hear my blood rushing in my ears, my heartbeat racing.
But through it all, somehow, I’m terribly, viscerally aware of Zach’s body on mine.
And part of me doesn’t ever want to get back up, if I can just feel him on top of me, holding me.
Protecting me.
15
Zach
My training kicks in so fast that I don’t even have time to think about it. One second I was trying desperately to get her to stop asking questions, to stop looking at me like that, to stop making it so goddamn hard for
me to keep from doing exactly what April wants me to do and seduce her over to our side, and then the next I heard the crack of a gunshot. I knew the sound immediately. I’ve heard enough of those dull cracks to last a lifetime. I heard those shots and the screams, and my muscles snapped into action, my body moving without me telling it what to do.
The only thought in my head was Rain.
Now, as I shield her with my body, looking around for the direction of the shots, I breathe in the clean sweet scent of her perfume, and I feel momentarily dizzy. My senses are swimming, but despite that, years of training can’t be overcome. I glance over at April, and an unspoken thought passes between us as she grabs one of the holstered guns beneath her jacket and shoves it across the floor towards me, like a bartender sliding a drink down the bar, except this is way more deadly. It flies straight into my hand, and I see her pull the other, shielding Erin as we both slowly rise to look around.
“Erin—” I hear Rain whisper, and I glance down at her. Her dress is up around her thighs, and I’m momentarily distracted by that, by the creamy slim length of them. I can still remember how they felt in my hands, how I slid them apart, how good it felt when they wrapped around my hips as I slid into her virgin pussy for the first time. Just the thought is enough to make me half-hard, even now, adrenaline pumping and danger present.
“She’s safe,” I say sharply. “April won’t let anything happen to her. Stay put, both of you, and we’ll make sure you’re fine. Nothing will happen as long as you listen to me.”
Amazingly, Rain goes still at that, her eyes wide and round as she looks up at me—but trusting. “Zach,” she whispers, not even a sound really, just her mouth making the shape of my name, and it sends an answering pulse through my blood.
“I’m here.” The words are so quiet that I’m not even sure if she hears them, but I want to believe that she does, even as I hold back the flood of things that I want to say following it. And I always will be, just like I promised. See, I’m protecting you. I’m here when it matters, even if I’ve been gone all of this time.
But I can’t say those things to her. One wrong word, one person overhearing, maybe even Erin figuring out why I look so goddamn familiar to her, and Vincent will figure out everything, and my cover will be blown.
It doesn’t change the fact that I want to kiss her, here and now, that I want to push her dress up higher on her thighs, lean over her, spread her legs apart and have everything that I ever wanted all over again. I know she wants it too—I can feel it coming off of her in waves, just like I did a few moments ago, that connection that we’ve always had.
April is the fucking snake in the garden, I think grimly as I tear my eyes away from Rain, searching for the shooter, looking for Vincent and Sonya. I know they’re probably in a back room somewhere by now, shielded by the rest of the security team, and that makes me twice as angry, knowing undoubtedly that Vincent is hiding rather than coming to make sure his fiancée is safe, to protect her. I’m doing his fucking job for him.
And April wants me to do more than that. She wants me to take all of those things that I wanted, to seduce Rain, to promise her things that I can’t follow through on. To make her love me again, even if I know I’ll have to walk away in the end. And right now, it’s so fucking hard to tell myself that I have to keep fighting it, not when my pulse is throbbing in my temples, my blood rushing with adrenaline, my cock hard, and my balls tight with the desire to fight and fuck all at once, to protect the woman I love, to take out whoever is threatening her.
Everything that I lost, I could have again if I went with April’s plan.
Just for a little while, anyway.
There’s another gunshot then, and I hear a scream, the thud of a body. I lunge forward atop the couch, just in time to see a man all in black making his way around one of the stages, headed straight for our couch.
Almost certainly headed straight for Rain.
I don’t even flinch. I don’t hesitate, I don’t think. I let him get just a little closer, close enough to believe that he might be scot-free, and then I bring my gun up over the arm of the couch, and I fire.
The man falls, just as the doors to the club burst open, and I hear the sounds of a SWAT team coming in. April and I both drop our guns, hands up, since we can’t identify ourselves as FBI right now—not in Rain and Erin’s hearing, and definitely not where someone who knows Vincent and Sonya or who works with them might hear. We’ll have to clear it all up later, in police custody.
The NYPD is fast and efficient, that’s for sure. There’s a rattle of gunfire, and a moment later, the club goes silent, the air thick with the acrid smell of smoke and hot metal. There’s the rattle of boots, and a second later, cops are surrounding us, eyes narrowed as they look down at the four of us.
“Ma’am?” One of them addresses Rain. “Are you alright?”
“Yes,” Rain says quickly, scrambling to her feet and smoothing her skirt down. She’s pale, her voice shaking slightly. Still, I’m impressed at how composed she is under the circumstances—especially considering the gunfight at the Italian villa only a few weeks ago. “April is part of our security team, and Chase—well, he’s not, but he protected me.”
“I see.” The officer frowns. “Are you injured at all?”
“Thanks to Chase, no.” Rain bites her lower lip. “What happened?”
“Three shooters,” the officer says, his voice tight. “They’re all down. But we’ll have to take this man in for questioning.” He nods towards me. “You say he’s not part of security, but he shot a man. So I’ll need to take him down to the station.”
“No, I—” Rain starts to protest, but I touch her arm, and she jerks, going very still and quiet all at once.
It takes everything in me to remove my hand when I want to touch her so much more.
“It’s fine,” I say quickly. “I’ll get this cleared up and be back in no time. Just let Sonya know where I’ve gone if you see her.” It’s the truth, of course. As soon as I inform the officer of my FBI status and what I’m doing here, the most he’ll be is annoying that they’re having to deal with the Feds.
“I’ll take Rain and Erin back to the house,” April says firmly, glancing at me. “As long as there’s nothing else you need, officer?”
“Just to see your security badge, ma’am.” The officer frowns. “You’ll have to excuse me if I can’t take anyone’s word under the circumstances.”
April nods, reaching into her pocket as she walks towards the officer. She carefully turns herself so that one of the columns is shielding her from view, raising her hand so that no one else can see the agency ID that she’s holding.
The officer’s expression changes immediately. “Very good, ma’am. I’ll let you get back to your job then. Come along, sir.”
Rain’s face is carefully neutral, but I can see the curiosity in it—she’s too smart not to have picked up on how cagey April was about her identification. On the other hand, Erin is sitting as still as a stone on the couch, pale-faced and slightly green, and I see a puddle of vomit on the hardwood floor.
“Let’s go,” April says, reaching for Erin and guiding both her and Rain away from the table with its abandoned drinks and food, steering them towards the door.
Rain looks back at me once, and that’s enough to make my heart feel like it’s tearing its way out of my chest.
I don’t know how I’m going to keep fucking doing this.
All I know is that I have to if I’m going to save her in the end.
All of the nonsense with the cops is easy enough to clear up. Once I’m at the station, I show them my FBI identification, explain that I’m undercover and that I couldn’t identify myself at the scene. A quick call to my supervisor, and my story is confirmed, meaning I’m in and out of the police station in under an hour and headed back to Vincent’s house.
April intercepts me the minute I walk through the door, grabbing my elbow and pulling me into the empty living room. There’s a
pleased, almost victorious look on her face that unsettles me a little—anytime April looks that happy with me in her vicinity probably means that I’m not going to like whatever’s happening. On the plus side, our bosses probably aren’t pissed about how things were handled. But I have a feeling whatever April’s about to tell me, I’m going to be pissed about it.
“Vincent’s going to want to talk to you here shortly,” April says, her voice low and harsh. “And I want to make sure that we’re on the same page about how things are going to go from here on out.”
“Okay,” I say slowly, crossing my arms as I watch her. “I have a feeling I’m going to be told how things will be, whether I like it or not.”
“You’ve got that right.” April purses her lips. “Because I outrank you, Rostov, and I call the shots. How I feel that you’ve performed on this job makes the difference between whether you get a promotion after we take Vincent down or get desk duty. So you need to shape the fuck up and pull your head out of your ass. You’ve been given a real cushy job, chasing pussy to keep it busy while the rest of us do the real police work. So quit complaining, and when Vincent tells you what he wants, act like it’s your dream come true.”
I feel, personally, that the look of annoyance on April’s face is unfounded. I don’t think she’d appreciate being used to seduce men. Apparently, I’m just supposed to think it’s a grand time when I want to be doing real detective work, actually doing the goddamn job I signed up to do. But I don’t say any of that. “What is he going to say?” I calmly ask instead.
“Vincent is pissed about the shooting,” April says. “He feels threatened, so he’s lashing out at everyone around him. He heard that you protected Rain and I went for Erin, so he’s pissed at me. Says my job was to watch Rain, not her little sister. But apparently, I’m being moved to Erin’s security detail while still partially keeping an eye on Rain, and he’s putting you on Rain’s primary security. I guess he asked Sonya, and she vouched for you, told the story about your little shootout at the bar again and how well you’ve protected her.”