Chapter 18 DONOVAN
I hated surprises, especially when they went against everything I’d planned for.
This job was supposed to be a quick babysitting gig, but oh no, someone had to go and want to run around town making a noise to let people know they were here.
And now, there was a lawyer talking about a meeting.
That was not on the cards, I didn’t know anything about what they were doing, and that had me on edge.
In the quiet of Maya’s bedroom, I changed into my suit.
Most of it was creased but, a good five minutes in the shower with the heat cranked up real nice got some steam to work its magic.
It wasn’t a tip I learned on my own, this was something Artemis had taught me—something about how pretentious everyone was at college forcing people to wear suits at events.
Art snuck up behind me, his hands around my chest and down to my waist.
“Don’t you dare go for my gun,” I whispered.
“How did you know it was me?” he asked.
I turned and leaned in to sniff him. “You’ve got a smell.”
“I don’t smell,” he said, scoffing. “Take it back, right now.”
Now I was the one rolling my eyes “No, you don’t smell, you’ve got a smell. It’s you, and if it had been anyone else, I’m sure they would’ve made a sound. So, props to you for getting to me.”
Art took my tie and wrapped it around my popped collar, waiting for it. “Listen,” he said, pouting. “You’ve got to be nicer to people. Especially if we’re becoming this power couple.”
“We’re a couple again?” I asked, watching as he got to work on the tie.
“Mentally, we’ve always been a couple,” he said, batting those big lashes at me. “But you’ve just not seen it the same way. Since you abandoned me.”
I laughed. “I already told you, I didn’t abandon you.”
“Yeah, you say that, but look what happened.”
I planted my lips on his forehead, resting them there as I pulled him in gently with a hug.
“I knew people were watching out for you, and I can only blame them for some of the paths they pushed you down.” It was obvious now that Mercy had used the raw rage inside Artemis to get him to do work for her—and probably for free too.
Art slumped his head on my shoulder, giving up on the tie. “You shouldn’t wear these stupid things anyway,” he said. “Just because there’s some fancy lawyer out there.”
“I’m not doing it for the lawyer, I’m doing it for the organization we represent, and who are paying us a whole lot of money to just stand around looking professional,” I told him, staring into his gorgeous eyes. “Now, come on, pretty boy, show me what those hands can do.”
He took the ends of the tie and pretended to strangle me. I played along, falling to my knees in front of him—my entire body thumping against the tile, and the room shaking.
“Oh, you’re kneeling in front of me,” he giggled. “What do I owe the pleasure?”
My chin on his belly, ruffling the top of his shirt as I looked at him from this angle. “Don’t get it twisted, baby, I’m on my knees, but I’m still in control.”
Art grabbed my head with both hands, pretending to stimulate oral sex. I chopped a hand at the back of his knee, forcing him to come down, and he did, right on top of me until we were now laid on the floor from it.
“I missed us,” he said, holding my hand as we staring at the tiled bathroom ceiling, the warm orange spotlights were glowing on us like crazy. “You know, the us who went from hotel to hotel, the us that broke beds, and the us who were happy.”
I didn’t mind that being on the floor was creasing my shirt now. “I missed us too, but more than anything, I missed you.”
“Don’t get all soppy on me now,” he giggled.
Wrestling him into a hold, I was on top and holding both his arms tight across his chest. “I’m not soppy,” I said. “I’m just trying to put down what I was picking up from you.”
“Green,” he said, biting the edge of his tongue playfully.
“We cannot fuck here, Art,” I said.
“And that’s why I miss us, because you would’ve turned me over, ate my ass, then gone right to fucking it,” he said, now twitching and struggling to get out of the hold I had him in.
A knock at the bedroom door outside, followed by Maya clearing her throat to ask us where we’d gotten to. I was quick to release Art and stand upright. We definitely couldn’t fuck, but now it’s all I could think about.
* * *
Jinksy gave us both an earful once our comms were back in, he must’ve gotten it from Mercy, who’d left a message on the phone I had in the briefcase, untouched, I was a professional, what did I need a phone for? Taking selfies? Scrolling social media?
We were stationed outside the guest bedroom, trying to reply to Jinksy but also very much listening in on what they were talking about inside the room. I’d tried to get one of us to go in with her, but the lawyer refused at every attempt.
“Fifty million,” Artemis whispered, his mouth opening wide with shock.
“What for?”
“A lawsuit,” he continued in a whisper.
“Keep listening,” I whispered back. This was his true calling, to gossip, to probably get arrested one day for insider trading, that was the life I saw for him—only to have him bailed out by the rich businessman he’d managed to find.
I’d wanted that for him, once upon a time, but now, he was mine.
All of him, completely. “We’ll need to make notes for Mercy later. ”
“Really?” His face scrunched up slightly. I saw how he’d already become jaded to her and the organization. He didn’t know what he was signing up for. “Why?”
I rubbed my fingers and thumbs together. “She pays.”
He giggled, clapping a hand over his mouth to keep himself from making anymore sound. I knew that would have him paying more attention.
“You’ll both be properly debriefed the next time you arrive,” Jinksy said. “And Mercy is going to want a good excuse as to why the two of you had your comms out most of the night.”
Maybe Mercy didn’t need to know all about the night we had together on the sofa. I’d tell her, in detail, if she asked, but it was probably best that she didn’t know how I sometimes like a bit of finger inside my ass when receiving head.
We stood around for a while, the noise inside the room got louder at times.
I heard some of it. The Ashford family were threatening to sue her for fifty million if she went ahead and published the article.
They also demanded removal of all unverified trafficking allegations.
Of course, it was unverified, they had those people brought over through so many shell corps, they had their hands clean so to speak.
The bedroom door crashed open with Maya clopping out in her high heels.
The lawyer chased after her, carrying an open laptop with faces on a group call staring out.
“I don’t care if they sue me, the article goes out, which should force the FBI to show their hand with all the information I’ve given them,” she said.
“My benefactor is ready to back me with any suit, and any amount. Just do your jobs.”
Following after her, the glee in Artemis’s eyes from the up close and personal gossip. But still, no sign of finding out who this benevolent billionaire—assuming so since they had some deep pockets to offer her any amount of money.
She went right to the dining room for leftover breakfast. While in there, Artemis palmed some of the sausages and just chowed down on them almost feral. I wished he’d go at my sausage with the same ferocity, maybe less teeth, but same passion.
“What?” he asked me, his cheeks stuffed with sausage. “I’m eating.”
“Please could you leave the dining room,” the lawyer asked. “We need to finish this meeting.”
Maya sat at the head of the dining table, pouring hot syrup over a pancake stack. “No, they can stay,” she said. “As long as one of them gets me a mimosa, hold the orange juice.”
Art shrugged, leaving the task of being a waiter to me. I sucked it up, this would all be over soon. I grabbed a bottle of champagne, popped the cork, which had a number of squeals in response—shock from the lawyer, excitement from Maya, and disappointment from Artemis.
“Don’t make this a habit,” I said to Maya as I poured it into one of the long flute glasses. “I’m your protection detail.”
“I know, I know,” she said, slicing through the pancake stack. Not even listening to the chatter through the video call the lawyer was trying desperate to push in front of her face. “But thank you, I appreciate it.”
I saw the lawyer eyeing the bottle in my hand. “You want some?”
She laughed. “Please.”
“No, no,” Maya said. “Ms. Davies needs to stay sober.”
“I’m not Ms. Davies,” she said. “I’m Maura Beck.”
Maya shook her head as she looked from me to her lawyer, and back again. “Ms. Beck, your—”
“Yes,” she said, nodding and tapping a finger on the computer. “That’s my father on the other side of the screen. Now, I’m supposed to show him I can handle this, I ca handle you. And I’m—well, I’m not sure if I can handle you.”
I saw Maya’s shoulder deflate just as she tipped the flute of champagne up into her mouth.
It was something I’d imagine Artemis would do, in fact, I wasn’t too sure he wasn’t seeking inspiration from her.
And I was the bad influence. ”Ok,” Maya finally said.
“If you two—you—” she said, gesturing to me and Art. “We need a moment. Take a plate.”
I left the bottle of champagne on the table, only to see her roll her eyes—I wasn’t going to fetch a bucket of ice to go with it.
I was drawing my wait staff services at popping the cork.
Artemis had a plate of food—mostly stacked pancakes with a surrounding of fruit and syrup, leaking over the side.
“You’re making a mess,” I grumbled. “I’m not going around cleaning up after you, you know that.” I closed the dining room door and stood in front of it as Art sat on the lounge seating, making more of a sticky mess.
“I always thought if you weren’t a cold-blooded killer, you’d be out there cleaning up spills and serving people drinks,” Jinksy said.
“I’ll take this fucking comms piece out,” I grumbled. I gave a singular chance for someone to make a fool out of me. One chance.
“How long have we known each other, Don? I’m just joking around.”
Artemis barely looked up from his plate—too busy trying to lick the syrup clinging to his fingers and stringing trace lines across his trousers.
I stared, resisting the urge to go over and baby him.
The instinct had grown much stronger since we’d bared our souls again to each other.
Igniting that flame again—not through anger or hate, but through the connection we shared before.
“I think I put too much syrup on my pancakes,” he said, holding both hands up to me. His face so soft and submissive, as if begging me to cup a hand beneath his cheek, then lick his fingers clean for him.
“Maybe that’s a lesson in too much of a good thing,” I said. “We’ve all got to control our urges.”
“What urges do you have?” he asked, licking his fingers, one at a time, up and down. “Tell me.”
“Yeah, what urges?” Jinksy asked, ruining the skip in my heart as Art was almost ready to beg for me—and be very unprofessional.
I pulled my comms out. “My urge to warm this hand up,” I said, holding the hand up. “And getting that nice, peachy ass of yours a whole lot redder.”
“Doesn’t sound professional.”
“Fucker,” I let out, biting the tip of my tongue. He was goading me, he knew exactly what he was doing, and I fell right for it. “When we’re back at Sanctum, you’re in trouble.”
After nearly deepthroating his fingers down the knuckle, he pulled them out and smacked his lips. “Fun trouble or—”
“It depends on how I’m feeling,” I said.
“Can I still finish my pancakes?”
“In fact, I want you to eat all the food on the plate, all the pancakes, all the fruit, and the syrup licked clean,” I walked toward him, my voice shrinking to a growling whisper. “And then, maybe I’ll have you lick the droplets of syrup from the floor.”
He back straightened. “And what else are you going to make me do?” He smiled. This was a game, one with limits, and if he was smiling, this was a game he wanted to play.
“Eat up first,” I told him. “I want you command you when you’re stuffed full, and you’re gonna be extra bratty because I know all those pancakes will make your little belly hurt. It’s why I’ve been forcing you to eat bland food while training you. I know you that well.”
He nodded, his head bowing in the ultimate act of submission before going into to eat the pancake stack.
I walked around the back of the sofa and removed the comms from his ear.
I didn’t need Sanctum listening to us talk.
I crouched behind the sofa, my arms outstretched to squeeze his shoulders in a nice massage.
“I need that,” he grumbled, leaning into my touch.
“I know you do,” I said. “You were holding the plate lopsided, maybe we shouldn’t have fallen asleep on the sofa. Not comfortable enough on the upper arm.”
It shouldn’t have been this possible to keep forgetting we weren’t just here together alone, but that we were watching over Maya.
I quit the massage, telling him he could get more of it back at Sanctum—not by the physio team, I would be performing those duties on him.
We just had to wait until Maya was done with what she came to town to do—and I thought it had been straight forward, but she was unpredictable—too much like Artemis.