9. Chapter 9
nine
Mark
W hether or not I felt ready to talk about it, it was time to confide in Lucas.
“Would you believe me if I told you she was my CI?” I asked.
“Not when you phrase it that way.”
He looked at me expectantly, waiting for an answer, but Bee was waiting, too. After the way we left things this morning, she wouldn’t be calling me unless it was damn important. I had to answer.
“Hello?” I answered gruffly, stepping away from the table. Unsurprisingly, Lucas followed me.
“Hello. I want to place an order for pickup.”
What? Before I could get my confusion under control, Lucas pulled the phone back far enough to tap the speakerphone button.
“Yes, that’s right,” Bee said, as if I’d responded aloud. “Large veggie pizza, but hold the onions. When will it be ready?”
“I can have your order ready for you in twenty minutes,” I said. Something was very wrong if she was speaking in code.
“Good. I’m starving. I can be at your pizza place in twenty.”
And she hung up.
“Okay,” Lucas relented. “Maybe I believe she’s your informant after all. Is she finicky? Would she freak out if I met with her, too?”
I could have gotten away with it. Lucas clearly believed the lie. But I was starting to believe he was really my friend, so I relented.
“Let’s get out of here. I’ll explain on the way.”
There really was a pizza place next door to my apartment building. We ate the exact pizza she’d “ordered” from me the night we met, back before we knew anything about each other. So I called in an order under her name for pickup just in case she was hungry or needed some kind of proof of her cover story, and stood in front with Lucas, five minutes ahead of schedule.
Bee arrived a couple minutes early, but held up her hand to stop me before I could greet her. She looked at Lucas suspiciously, but I waved him off. He was safe to talk in front of.
But she still didn’t speak. I cocked my head to the side in question, and she held up her arm, that same fancy watch around her wrist. She held a hand up to her ear like she was trying to listen, then pointed to the watch, then cupped her ear again. Was she being bugged?
I took her delicate wrist in my hands, carefully unfastening the watch, and handed it to Lucas. He typed something on his phone, then gestured for us to follow him inside the pizza parlor.
The proprietor greeted us with a smile, but that disappeared when Lucas showed his FBI badge. Bee’s breath caught in her throat. Then he showed first me, then Bee, then the owner, the message on his phone.
When she asks about her order, say that it’s running late. It will be another 15 minutes.
The owner nodded.
“Hello, I’m here to pick up a large veggie pizza with no onions,” Bee said, her voice holding just the slightest tremble.
“We’re running a little late. It’s gonna be another fifteen minutes.”
“That’s fine,” Bee said. “I’ll just wait out front.”
The owner nodded, and our little party of three headed back outside. I stayed huddled close to Bee, but Lucas held the watch up and stepped several feet away from us, toward the noise brought about from the street traffic.
“Why did you bring the FBI with you?” she accused, but didn’t move away when I pulled her close to me on the bench in front of the pizzeria.
“He was with me when you called. Lucas is trustworthy, Bee, I promise, but I won’t tell him anything you say if you don’t want me to.” She was more important than any case.
She hesitated, then nodded. “I might be paranoid, but I think my watch has hidden spyware inside it. It could be transmitting my GPS coordinates, or possibly recording audio.”
My already solemn face turned grim. I recalled that her father gifted her that watch. “Which do you think it is?”
“I don’t know for sure if there’s anything. I can’t open it to check because if it has been altered that would alert him right away.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I altered the watch myself?” The sadness in her voice mixed with the sheepish expression on her face put a knot in my stomach. “I have a client that sends me a bunch of watches with a bunch of computer chips and I put them together so they can sell them on their online spyware storefront.”
“What’s the website?” I asked, pulling out my handy-dandy notebook to write down any relevant information.
“No more cheaterz dot com. That’s a ‘Z’ on cheaters. They’ve been a client for a couple years, but I worked on two watches like that one not long ago. One had a GPS tracking device, and the other records audio. I don’t know which one I have, or if I have neither one.”
“Why are you still wearing it?”
“I don’t want to seem suspicious. But that’s not why I called.”
“What’s more important than someone spying on you?”
“Someone stole at least $70,000 worth of merchandise from my store. I’m kind of afraid to call the cops about it, but I also don’t want to call my dad. If he’s low enough to spy on his own daughter then I don’t want his help with this.” Her voice was filled with misery and betrayal, making it difficult to keep my hands to myself. I wanted to comfort her, hold her in my arms.
“What do you need from me?” I asked. Someone walked close by on the street, rolling his eyes at us, so I scooted even closer, wrapping an arm around her as I put my face in the crook of her neck. It would just look like we were making out now unless someone looked closely. “Bee, what can I do for you?” I whispered in her ear.
“Do you have access to forensic accountants? Can you find out if my Dad purchased something from that company?” she whispered back, her lips brushing against my ear. I fought off a shiver.
“We’re deep into his financials, so I can confer with Lucas. He’s been digging through the paperwork.” She nodded. “What else can I do for you, honey? Do you want me to investigate the theft? With that amount of money, that’s grand larceny. A felony offense.”
“No. I’ll deal with everything else myself. I just need to know if he’s spying on me before I can figure things out.”
She looked up to meet my eyes, our faces less than an inch apart. She was so beautiful. Almost too beautiful with her dark hair framing her big beautiful doe eyes.
Another pedestrian walked by and I put a hand on her cheek, turning her head closer to me to make her harder to identify. I could be seen around here. She couldn’t.
“Why would he spy on you in the first place?”
“I don’t know. I think it’s a test.”
“Do you think you’re passing or failing the test?”
“Depends which bug is in the watch.”
“Are you in any danger?”
“No. He’s my father. We always put family first,” she said, practically spitting out the last two words. Yeah, I got that from her already.
“How will you know if he changes his mind and family comes second?”
She shrugged, which did little to reassure me, but it was her life, her choice. I glanced over at Lucas, but he was doing his best to ignore us, just hanging out next to the curb. I had to trust Bee’s judgement.
I glanced at my phone, seeing only a few minutes had passed.
“We have nine more minutes until we can pick up your pizza and I have an idea… sprouting. Wanna go upstairs and make out for a bit?”
A laugh burst out of her, and she hurried to cover her mouth, eyes wide.
“Is that a yes?”
She giggled, shaking her head. “No, but thanks for making me laugh.”
“Thanks for making me smile,” I returned, my hand under her chin. I wanted her to see the sincerity in my words. “Thanks for calling me.”
“I trust you,” she said simply. If she didn’t want me to kiss her, she had to stop saying things like that. As if she could read the desire, the emotion in my eyes, she trailed off, “In another life…”
Yeah. In another life things wouldn’t be so complicated. She would’ve stayed that first morning, and we would have been happy together the last month and a half. Maybe we’d already be starting that family we both wanted so much.
“Are you sure?” I asked, hand moving down to her stomach again. Maybe if she was knocked up, we could make it work. An old school Italian family would want her to marry her baby-daddy, no matter who he was, right?
“I’m sure. I had my period last week.” Her blush turned her cheeks a gorgeous bright red. It was unnecessary. It was part of life.
“Damn. When you eventually give in I’ll have to try harder next time,” I teased. She rolled her eyes, but still smiled. We both knew there wouldn’t be a next time.
“I’m not sure how that would work. I think you were pretty thorough before.” She was leaning close, mouth next to my ear again. I could feel the smirk on her lips. Damn, I liked her all sassy and sexy.
“I don’t know,” I shrugged, the wicked side of me taking over. What was the harm in some dirty talk if we knew there was no opportunity to act on it? “I think I could get deeper in that sweet pussy if I tried.”
And Bee just fucking melted in my arms, a low moan leaving her lips.
“You like that?” I whispered, holding her body tight to mine. I could feel her nipples hard against my chest. “We made slow love before, soft and gentle. I think I could make love again going hard and deep. Would you like me to be balls deep inside you when I come?”
She shook her head no, but pressed her chest harder into me. I glanced down and saw how tightly she was clenching her thighs together under that pretty sage skirt.
“If your skirt was a little shorter, we could practice. I could slip my hand inside and see how deep I could reach with my fingers alone.”
“Mark. Please.”
“Please, what? We have six minutes before we can go back inside. What do you want from me for these six minutes?”
“Anything I want?”
“Always.”
“I…want you to keep talking to me. I don’t want you to kiss me.” She definitely did, but I knew what she meant. Her head was still at the crook of my neck, hidden from passerby. Her lips brushed my neck, slightly moist as if she had just licked them.
“I want to kiss you,” I told her. “I want to kiss you hard enough that we forget why that’s a bad idea, until we forget everything except the need to touch, feel, connect in the way god intended and make you mine forever.”
I felt the small moan she held in rumble through her chest, felt her hand sidle over to grip my shirt hard at my waist. Her other hand reached up to cup my face, keeping me close to her.
“I want to feel how hot and wet you are for me, how ready you are to take my cock when I slide two fingers inside you.”
“God, I want to feel that, too,” she whispered. Good girl, playing along. “I want you to wrap me up in your arms again, reading my mind and making me feel so good when you touch me.”
“Then I want to lay you down on your back, rest one of those sexy fucking thighs up on my shoulder, and fuck the living daylights out of you, hard and fast until my balls are slapping against your ass with each thrust and you’re begging me to come inside you.”
She let the moan out this time, though softly, trying not to make a scene.
“Tell me the truth, Bianca. Do you want me to be balls-deep inside you when I come? Do you want me to bottom out, fucking your goddamn cervix, so everything I give you goes right where it needs to be?”
“Yes,” she whispered, soft and breathy.
“I’m going to remember that yes when I touch myself tonight. Have you thought of me when you touch yourself?”
“Every night.” It was my turn to let out a low groan. I wrapped my hand around her neck, just holding her close to me, breathing in her scent for another couple minutes until I glanced at the time again.
“One more minute, Bee. Tell me what you want.”
“I want the whole package.”
“Pun intended?”
“Of course. I want you to make love to me every night. I want to feel you cum inside me and know we’re building a family. I want to throw everything else aside and start over, just you and me.”
I swallowed hard. Just because she said it didn’t mean it was going to happen.
“But more than anything, I want you to kiss me. Right now.”
I pulled back to look into her eyes. She nodded. She really meant it—the kiss, at least.
I turned my body more so my bigger frame was blocking her from the people walking around, and then gently pressed my lips to hers.
It wasn’t the hard, wild kiss either of us wanted, but I still felt her lips tremble against mine. I felt the tear that slid down her cheek as it hit my own and pulled back to wipe it away.
“It’s okay, honey, don’t cry. We’ll always have the memories.”
“What are you remembering?” she whispered, pulling back farther to wipe her eyes again.
“Oh, definitely the way you feel wrapped around my dick,” I smirked, trying to break the heavy tension. I knew it worked when she laughed again. “Never felt anything better, I swear. I’ll also remember how dark your eyes were in the shitty lighting of that tiki bar, and how I’ve never seen a brighter brown out here in the sunlight. It’s beautiful.”
Her smile was sweet now, exactly what I wanted.
“I’ll remember the taste of your pussy just as much as the taste of your tongue, Bee. I’ll remember your little laugh and the way your lower lip pouts just a little before reality hits and you feel sad. I’ll mostly remember your beautiful heart, though. Your kindness and sweetness and care.”
“You shouldn’t put me on a pedestal like that. I’m no angel,” she countered, a saucy eyebrow raised.
“You’re a mafia princess who works for a living. You volunteer your spare time working with kids. You don’t eat any meat to reduce your carbon footprint on the planet. You believe you can make a difference.”
“You make it sound like I’m naive.”
“Your faith that you can make the world a better place doesn’t make you naive, but it makes me want to protect you.”
“I can protect myself.”
“Even if you can take care of yourself, that won’t stop me from wanting to do it, too.”
She sighed, putting her forehead against mine for a couple of seconds, then pushed herself away from me. She stood, brushing off her skirt, smoothing her shirt, and patting her hair to make sure nothing was out of place. Then she walked confidently over to Lucas, gesturing for the watch.
I stayed seated while she latched the offending piece back onto her wrist and entered the pizzeria. I didn’t move until she emerged again, but still only gave her a small wave and smile until she climbed into her car, parked several yards down the street.
And then she was gone.