23. Twenty-Three
23
TWENTY-THREE
PETER DAVIS
CIA Headquarters, December 2022
Four months together
I learned very early into the relationship that when Eliana Richards is hungry, your main priority should be to make sure she got food as soon as possible.
In every encyclopedia there was a face of her printed next to hangry , because she was the literal definition of it.
Little did she know that I’d planned to make her my snack today. It was a rare occasion that headquarters was so empty in the evening that we could just enjoy time for ourselves without needing to be careful. We might have our own rooms, but the walls are thin around here and currently we had a couple of former undercover agents with us on the fifth floor. I didn’t want anyone to gossip.
But with Nate, Lynn, Oliver, and Marta being out tonight, no one important would get the news of us having some fun, so it wouldn’t have any impact on our careers. You would think that in an environment where almost everyone was in a relationship with a colleague—except of Jakob—it would be easy for us to be open about the love we share.
But we’re not living in Grey’s Anatomy .
HR really didn’t like seeing relationships blooming within the same team. Oliver and Marta got away with it because they were superior, and Nate and Lynn do not work together directly.
But Eliana and I were different.
We just didn’t want to risk any of us switching teams or even agencies. Eliana had switched agencies often enough, it was time for her to settle down.
With me, in the best case.
Eli’s hand pulling on mine brought me back to the moment and I saw that she had already taken a step out of the elevator, slightly turned around to look why I didn’t follow her right away.
“Is this a glitch in the Matrix or did your brain stop sending signals to your body?” she joked.
“Maybe a little bit of both,” I confessed with a chuckle, following her out of the elevator and along the hallway towards the communal kitchen.
Normally, the bright light from the halogen lamps were shining into the hallway, but today the kitchen was dark—which made me wonder who had turned off the lights. I doubted that we suddenly decided to turn off all lights when we left a room because, sadly, we didn’t care about the environment a lot over here. Most of the long-term-stay agents were struggling with so many problems of their own that the last thing they were thinking about was keeping the planet alive for a little longer.
This might sound hard and it was absolutely sad, but it was the brutal reality at CIA headquarters. I’ve seen on Nate how trauma can pull you down.
We rounded the corner and entered the kitchen and my jaw hit the floor in an instant. The room was illuminated by dozens of candles, real and fake ones, snacks were standing on the dinner table, and it smelled like pizza.
“Eli that’s…” I started, but I was short of words.
“I’ve heard a scavenger’s hunt needs to end with a grand finale and this is ours.” I ripped my eyes from the decorated room to look at her gorgeous face and my pulse skyrocketed when I saw her smiling widely. The brown deer eyes slightly narrowed, but her mouth opened, showing off these perfectly white teeth that were too bright to be real.
I think I fell in love with her once again at that moment.
Seeing her so free from the hauntings of her past, so happy and confident was the greatest thing I’d ever watched. She was my favorite evening TV show. Who needs Netflix if you can explore every part of Eliana Richards with your eyes and your mouth?
“The pizza was just delivered, so we should eat it while it’s still hot and fresh. The game doesn’t start for another forty minutes, but we can watch the pre-match report.”
It took me a moment too long to process her words, but my eyes trailed down her body and saw her in the Penguins’ jersey I loved so much on her.
The game.
It was game day!
I totally forgot about ice hockey because of our little scavenger’s hunt and the amazing surprise candlelight dinner.
“Sure. Let’s grab some food,” I responded with my mind still being on hold, stunned by Eli’s sheer presence. She grabbed my hand tenderly and we marched together towards the steaming pizza boxes.
“Pepperoni and bacon, just as you like it on game days,” she commented and I was in awe again. Of course, she remembered my usual order and got me the exact same thing. This was so thoughtful. Not even Liam remembered after all the games we watched together.
“Thank you, Cinnamon. You’re the best.” I placed a loving kiss on her cheek, watched her smile once more, and grabbed my pizza box. Eli followed suit and we made our way to the couches to collapse on them .
“What’s on your pizza?” I asked, curious.
“Ham, mushrooms, and corn,” she answered and for a moment, I saw the reflection of insecurity hushing over her face.
“Sounds good.” I smiled at her.
It didn’t, but I knew better than telling her that in a moment of insecurity.
“You wanna try?”
No.
“Of course,” I answered and slowly moved over to take a small bite off the slice of pizza in her hand. My taste receptors detected the mushroom first before the tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, and the slight nuance of ham filled my mouth in an explosion.
“Wow,” I breathed.
“Better than expected, huh?” Eli winked at me, her insecurity back where it belonged—with her father.
“Very delicious, not gonna lie.”
She grabbed the remote control and turned on the television, pressing the buttons until we were greeted by two reporters in front of an ice hockey rink, discussing statistics about ice time, penalty times, goals, and assists.
“They need to learn how to check cleaner. The penalty times are through the roof this season,” Eli commented.
Was there anything hotter than the woman of your dreams in a jersey of your favorite hockey team, eating pizza, and commenting accurate observations because she wasn’t only looking good, but smart and into the sport as well?
I don’t think so.
God, I would marry her right away.
“You know I love you, right?”
She just nodded, her mouth still full of pizza and her eyes fixed with the screen. You could call it impolite; I call it passion.
“The Penguins are facing a difficult match today, the Rangers having a phenomenal season so far and they’re eager to continue that winning streak. Will Pittsburgh finally end it or will they be crushed in their own arena?” the moderator announced before they were heading into yet another ad break.
Eli sighed, her eyes finally ripping off the screen and towards me, but instead of focusing on her beautiful deer eyes, all I could see was the string of cheese hanging off her lip. I didn’t waste another moment, placed my pizza aside, and leaned in to get it off her lip with my own mouth.
She wasn’t expecting that move at all, but gave in to me after a short second of tension. My teeth nibbled carefully on her lip and she parted them slightly so I could slip my tongue in. The moment our tongues touched, I could feel the ecstasy running through my body and I scooted closer because she was drawing me in like a magnet. Eli shifted positions slightly by pushing me back against the backrest before she made herself comfortable in my lap. Her lips crashed against mine hungrily, her hands gripping my neck. I felt her thumb on my pulse and I loved that my heart was only beating for her right now.
“Someone could catch us,” I whispered when she stopped to catch a breath.
“Extra point,” she answered, her pupils starting to blow out slightly, the dark of her iris making the brown around it appear even more appealing.
Gosh, I loved that woman so much.
“Aren’t you scared about the consequences?”
“Right now, I don’t really give a fuck.”
And her mouth was back on mine, her hips grinding slightly against me, rippling a moan out of my throat. I wrapped my arms around her body and under her shirt, her skin hot against my palms. I needed to be close to her. Touch her.
Our heads moved in unison and I felt myself getting weaker and weaker with every second. Eliana Richards had me in a chokehold and I knew I couldn’t let her go away without riding me right here on the couch in the communal kitchen.
I bet she looked like an angel when she came.
“I love you, Eli,” I mouthed in between moans, the effect she had on me was a little much for me to handle right now to form cohesive sentences.
“I love you too, Goldie.” She bit my lip afterwards, pleasure and pain mixing into each other like a cocktail of love.
Suddenly, she let go of my face and stripped off her jersey off before repeating the same with her sports bra .
“Don’t judge. I dress to function, not to look pretty,” she panted, fighting out of the sports bra.
“No worries, Cinnamon. I love you in any sort of clothes.”
“And naked?” she asked, her breasts on display right in front of me.
Oh hell fucking yes.
She was beautiful in the dim light of the kitchen, her skin flawless and covered in freckles and birthmarks. It made her so special that I couldn’t stop myself from leaning in and kissing every spot that were in reach of my lips.
“You’re so damn beautiful,” I whispered on her skin between the kisses, my lips wandered up her body and to her neck, sucking slightly. I was hitting a nerve there as her head fell back to give me more access. Even though she was half naked in front of me, I kept my hands behind her back, politely exploring everything except for her breasts because I knew if I walked that path, there was no going back.
“I can’t believe you’re mine, Cinnamon. I’ll mark you so everyone knows.” I sucked on her tender skin, very surely leaving a love bite that she would need to hide the next few days.
“Forever yours, Peter,” she hissed at the slight sting on her skin, giving in to me completely.
Eliana was scooting closer to me, pressing her breasts against my chest before realizing that I was still in a shirt. Quickly, she grabbed the hem of it and pulled it over my head, kissing my lips afterwards .
“Show me how much you love me,” she said, and it burst the chains that were holding me back before.
Finally, my hands wandered around her body to carefully wrap around her breasts, and from that moment on, all I could focus on was the bliss that was clouding my brain while Eliana took the lead and guided our relationship to a new level.