22. Michelle
22
MICHELLE
“ S o, yeah, this is my room for the… the night,” the man drunkenly hiccups as he lets me inside. I’ve worked so fucking hard for this invitation, it’s nearly destroyed me and this poor guy, who has now told me he only likes to be referred to as ‘Buck’, but we’re here. Buck might be drunk off his ass and still pretty unpleasant, but Katya can put her gun away. “It’s shitty, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know, it seems pretty nice to me.” I half-carry him in, still keeping the pretense up that I want to flirt with him. “I’ve never been somewhere so fancy before. You must be a very important man, Buck. That’s so exciting.”
“I’m ah… only here for a meeting.” He slumps back on the bed and belches loudly. It takes every bit of self-control I have not to screw up my face in utter disgust. What a pig. “My house is so much fucking better. Now that, you would love. But I got to go where I’m told to because these meetings all have to be very serious and, er, what’s the word? Private. No one can know.”
“Ooh, so you are important, then?” I perch on the bed beside him and rest my hand on his arm. I know that physical contact is key when establishing a connection with my target, but this is about all I can manage. “I love a powerful man.”
He has a briefcase over in the corner of the room. I spotted that the moment I came in. It’s hanging open, too, which means Buck wasn’t expecting guests tonight. He’s made my job just a little bit easier. Now, I just need to get through the whole seducing him part so Alexander doesn’t kill me for being so close and fucking things up for him. Much as I don’t want to be in the middle of this dangerous mess and I don’t want to get any paperwork for anyone, I also don’t want anyone to die.
Well, anyone else , that is, since it seems that I’ve already lost one of the most important people to me.
Don’t think about him, I scold myself. Think about getting this over and done with. Think about getting away.
I don’t just want to be free from this job. I want to be separated from my Russian ties completely. I almost had that. Max made it so I was as close to being an American citizen as I can be, and that’s what I need again. I don’t think that Alexander will ever make that so, but it might be something that I can achieve alone when the time is right.
“You love a powerful man, huh?” He tries to reach over to me. I think he wants to pull me on top of him, but he’s too drunk to do so. I’m ashamed to admit that for the briefest of seconds, I think about the blade in my bag before I push that thought away. No one needs to die here, not even this disgusting, gross man. “Come over here and I’ll show you a powerful man.”
With sheer disgust surging through my system, I sidle over to him. I know that he wants me to straddle him, but I’m not in that place yet. There isn’t enough wine in the world. Honestly, I don’t know how I’ll get through any of this. For now, I lie beside him and let him clumsily kiss me. Although not on the mouth, it’s more my cheek and neck. I don’t think this guy even knows that he’s missing my lips completely. He’s such a mess that he’s just connecting with whatever he can get ahold of.
My eyes squeeze closed and I try to take myself to another place entirely, away from this man and his clumsy grip. Instead, I try to think of Jordan and how amazing he always made me feel when he touched me. He put me on cloud nine every single time. His fingers were velvety, his tongue phenomenal. Oh, my God, he was the best person I’d ever been with.
“You’re a sexy slut,” Buck cries out way too loudly and directly into my ear, snapping me out of my daydream. “Fuck, are you sure you don’t get paid for this shit because I can just tell that you’ll be wild in the sack. A real fucking… fucking freak.”
“I already told you I’m not a prostitute.” It’s hard not to bite back through gritted teeth. “I’m just a normal girl.”
“A normal fucking slut who I’m about to split in half. Do you want to see the size of my cock?”
Before I can even begin to beg him to keep it to himself, thank you very much, he shoves me off him and yanks his trousers down. I squeal, in horror, of course, but Buck takes it upon himself to take it as delight.
“I know, right? It’s huge and you are the lucky slut who gets to ride it tonight. Have you ever been with anyone so big? Oh, and hey, are you one of those kiss and tell girls? Like, because I’m well-known, will you go to the press about me? Because if you do, I want you to mention that I’m a fucking stallion, hung like a horse. I want the world to know that I’m a good fuck.”
Oh, God. I’m in way over my head. I already knew that, but it’s starkly obvious right now. He wants to put that thing inside me, and that’s exactly what Alexander wants to happen too. Both men need to act like I want it, like it’s working for me so I can do what I came here for. But upon sight of him, my thighs automatically squeeze together. I want to run away.
“You want to taste it?” Buck shakes his cock around as if that will make it any more appealing for me. “It’s tasty, everyone tells me as much, and it’s been around the block, if you know what I mean. Plenty of people—women—have had a taste.”
He’s about one second away from grabbing the back of my head and forcing me down there. I know I should go with it because of all the lives on the line, but I can’t help what happens next. I don’t have any control over the tears that explode out of my eyes and start pouring down my cheeks at the speed of light. Shit, I’m a goddamn fucking mess.
“Come on, get back in the mood,” Buck growls. “I’ve decided that I want you now, so get over here already.”
“I love… I love someone else,” I wail without meaning to. I seem to have lost all control of myself and it’s humiliating. “I’m sorry, I can’t do this because I love another man and… and he’s dead. They killed him. He’s dead.”
“Oh…” Buck doesn’t cover himself up, but he does have the decency to look surprised. “That’s really awful.”
“I just want to be able to be me and live the life that I want, but they won’t let that happen. I don’t want any more of this.”
A thick silence floods the room which is only broken up by the occasional sobs that I can’t keep inside. Buck wants me gone now, I’m sure of it, and I want to leave too, but Katya is out there with a gun and I just know that Alex has his bare hands ready to tightly wrap around my neck, to choke the life out of me. I would rather be here in this mess than there.
“I know what you mean,” Buck finally tells me quietly. “I get it because people are stopping me from being myself too.” As I turn to look at him, to see what he’s talking about, I’m shocked to see tears on his face too. What the fuck is going on now? “See, none of this is me. I’m not the asshole I pretend to be, nor am I a womanizer. I’ve been told that because of my position, I can’t let the world know that I’m really a gay man. They would rather I sleep with kiss and tell girls who will leak stories about me than fucking allow me to just be myself. What sort of world is this where I can’t just be who I am?”
Wow, even in what is considered the ‘free world’, there are still restrictions, which is crazy. I didn’t think that would happen in a place like this. Buck is an asshole because he’s contained in a box where he doesn’t fit, just like I am. I don’t know if this gives us a bond or anything like that, but we certainly do understand one another. We’re coming from a similar place in life.
“I just want to sleep.” Buck rests his head back on the pillow and slides his eyes closed. Although I do notice that the tears are still making their escape. “I don’t want to deal with any of this shit anymore. I just want to sleep it off. I’ll have to get back into professional mode, ready for my meeting tomorrow, and I can’t have this baggage with me. Let’s just… forget all of this, can we? Don’t tell anyone about it and we can just act like it never happened. Just… please don’t tell anyone.”
“I won’t,” I promise him, glad that I can at least give him that much. I’m about to betray him and make his life worse than it already is, but I won’t out him to the world. That isn’t my responsibility, nor would I want to do that to him. Although if he keeps getting drunk and spilling his secret to random women, then he won’t be able to keep it away from the world for long.
He snores almost instantly. What a freaking eventful few moments. One minute, he was waving his cock in my face, and the next, we were both weeping about people we can’t have, and now he’s crashed out. He honestly has my head spinning. I can’t keep up with him. But this is so much better than seducing him, so now I can just get what I want and get out of here.
I tiptoe over to the briefcase, not sure how deep a sleeper he is, and I rummage through the papers. I know exactly what I’m looking for, but it’s a challenge to focus when my pulse is throbbing and my emotions are everywhere. As much as I want this life in America, is it going to be the same without Jordan? Will I ever find anyone like him? I can’t imagine it. He was special, wonderful, caring in every single way. I can’t see there being another person like him on the planet.
On the other hand, he probably died to try and keep me alive, so I should at least attempt to give it a go, even if it’ll be empty without him… but there I go again, getting too carried away with the future. One step at a time is the only way I’m going to get through this, so once I have the paperwork, I need to get it back to Alexander. After that, I’ll worry when I get there.
“Ah!” Is this it? It certainly looks like it. And so do these other papers. Of course, I feel sick to my stomach and unbearably horrible as I take these items from Buck. He’s going to want me dead along with Alexander in the morning. But I hope that he doesn’t really remember me. Luckily, he didn’t spend a lot of time looking at my face because he didn’t really want me, so I might be safe in that department. Then again, I could be in even more danger. Who the fuck knows?