6 - Olive
A soft chime wakes me and when I open my eyes I’m rewarded with a spectacular view of an approaching thunderstorm through our floor-to-ceiling bedroom windows.
Brose stirs in the bed next to me, his voice thick with sleep. “Turn the chime off, Olive.”
For being a stickler for rules, he’s very hard to wake in the mornings. But that just adds to his appeal, I think. That he likes his sleep.
I reach over, tap the alarm clock, and the chime stops.
“Thank you,” he mumbles, his face now under the pillow.
I swing my legs out of bed and stand up, stretching. I have my back to him, but I know he’s watching. And when I peek over my shoulder, he is. One eye open, staring straight back at me.
This is a morning routine with us. In fact, after two years, pretty much everything is a routine with us. I smile back and he winks, then closes that one eye for a few more minutes of sleep as I make for the bathroom.
By the time I’m showered and changed, he’s up and dressed. I come out of our closet pulling on a trench coat as I watch him knot his tie in the mirror over the dresser. He winks at me again and I smile.
“Hurry up, hurry up,” I prod. “We’re gonna miss the train.”
We’re not gonna miss the train. It’s not Amtrak, for fuck’s sake. It’s the Blue Line out of CORE headquarters. But this is just what I say to him. It’s just part of the routine.
Brose turns and smiles. “How do I look?”
He looks delicious is how he looks. And if we didn’t have work, I’d just tackle him sideways onto the bed and have my way with him one more time. But we do have work, so I just compliment him. “Good enough to eat.”
Brose walks towards me, grabbing his coat off a chair as he passes, and by the time I’m pulling the door open, he’s shrugging it on.
We walk the long hallway, saying hi to other agents as we head for the stairs, and then go down to the main level where there are dozens of people congregating in the large, open lobby.
This particular estate—internally called Grid-21—is but one of hundreds of CORE estates all over the world where operatives, like Brose and me, live. It’s on a forty-acre tract of rolling hills and woods just outside of Leesburg, Virginia, and houses about fifty agents at any given time.
We do not all live in the same house, of course. Brose and I live in the main mansion, but there are nine more houses on the property. All brick, all luxuriously furnished, and all free.
It’s kind of a good deal.
Plus, this place has direct access to the trains below ground. Which means Brose can take his time waking up and we’ll still be able to stop by the dining room for a takeout beverage and a pre-bagged pastry.
He grabs a paper and gets the lemon muffin with coffee, black. I take the scone with a chai latte.
And then we hit the escalator and five minutes later we’re two hundred feet below ground and the station noises replace the soft conversation and kitchen sounds upstairs.
We walk out onto the platform and take a seat on a bench. Brose opens his paper and I sip my tea and people-watch.
I know everyone’s faces. Lots of them give me little waves. But I don’t really interact with anyone, nor they with me. It’s pretty much like this with all paired-up operatives. We’re together. No one else matters.
Brose and I have been a team for the entire two years I’ve been above ground. He’s my life.
Thinking this makes me want to look at him, so I slide my eyes to the side and watch his face as he reads.
“What?”
“Nothing,” I say, my voice sweet and soft.
He doesn’t look at me, but I get a lopsided grin. “You’re thinking about last night, aren’t you? You’re imagining yourself over my knee.”
I wasn’t, but I am now.
He flicks his paper, then gives me a side-eye. “There’s always more where that came from, Olive. All you have to do is ask. I’ll bend you over the back of this bench right now, right here in this station. And then I’ll fuck you from behind as everyone watches.”
There is no way to stop my grin, so I cut eye contact and look straight ahead.
“You’d love that, wouldn’t you?” he asks. “You’re such a dirty little whore.”
He calls me this all the time, but not in a mean way. Nor a literal one. “Only with you,” I say.
He scoffs. “That might’ve been true last week, but I know you’ve been secretly fantasizing about that Ean Shephard guy.”
Which isn’t a lie. But he can’t know that for sure, so I deny it. “You’re the only one I fantasize about, Brose. And don’t make promises you can’t keep. If you thought you could get away with bending me over this bench, you’d have done it long before now.”
He laughs. And, probably, starts weighing the pros and cons of following through with his offer. But the high-speed train arrives, sliding along in front of us in near silence until it comes to a stop.
I grin at him, winning, then pan my hand to the train.
He stands up, folds his paper, grabs his coffee and muffin and gives me a slight bow of his head as he passes and enters the train.
He heads to our usual seats in the back of the car. A table for two. I don’t like moving backwards, so Brose takes that seat, leaving the forward-facing one for me. This is one of the small ways of showing me he cares.
And I love it.
I love everything about him. His dark hair, his green eyes, his muscular body, and his big dick. Brose Sinclair is absolutely perfect. My dream man.
So while he was right, I’ve had a few small sexual fantasies about that Ean guy who works for Collin, it’s meaningless. Just urges, nothing more.
I’m gonna marry Brose one day. And while I do understand that he’s my boss at the moment, it won’t always be this way. I won’t always be under his authority. One of these days I’ll get promoted and we’ll be equals. We’ll be one of those iconic duos. Like Bonnie and Clyde, except we’re the good guys.
Brose looks out the window, which is a screen and not actually a window since it’s pointless to have train windows when you’re underground, and watches the news. Our train rides are typically silent like this. He likes his thinking time and I’ve gotten used to it as well.
But I don’t stare at the screens. Don’t care about the news. I watch the people in the car with us. Some of them are teams, like us. But most of them are young women like me sitting alone and facing forward, so I only get a glimpse of their backs.
This first leg of our journey is quick once we pick up speed. This is a commuter train, so we get off and board the Green Line in the station below Winchester. Then we begin the twenty-minute journey to the station below the Mule Pit.
Six months ago, this station didn’t even exist. It’s all part of our operation, a place only for us. Well, not really. There are about a hundred other CORE operatives who spend a day here and there at the Pit, just to make it look full and to fill in odd jobs. But it’s only seven forty-six am and Brose and I are running this operation, so when the train stops, we’re the only ones who get off.
I exit first, Brose following, and then he takes my hand and, together, we walk up the stairs that lead to the locker room inside the bar.
I pause at my locker to change, but Brose doesn’t wait. Just leaves, heading to the control room.
There are six dresses to choose from. Five of them are fairly modest, since they were all made in Disciple. But there’s one—a knockoff that I found in a second-hand store in Charleston—that’s got a sluttier feel to it. It’s more of a bra and panties, but with a long, thin fringe covering my torso and back. The fringe is an iridescent green and turquoise color so it shimmers like something out of a fantasy under the bar lights.
It drives Brose wild when I wear this one and I always end up straddling his lap in the control room, grinding over his legs with his hard dick inside me.
I’m super horny this morning, so I put it on with these very expectations firmly in place.
Then I leave the locker room and find Brose in front of the screens.
Brose turns to look at me. “I hope you’re ready, because he’s coming.”
“What?” I walk over to the screen where he’s pointing. And sure enough, there’s Ean Shephard riding his motorcycle through the woods, just like he did last week. “Well, fuck,” I say. “Finally.”
“We do have his credit card.”
“We do,” I agree. “But he sure did take his time. I’d pretty much given up on him, to be honest.”
“I doubt he could get away. Since Collin and Charlie fell out, Collin would be on high alert about everything this guy did. And Ean, being CORE, would’ve picked up on it and bided his time. But the good news is, he’s here.”
I grab a stool from across the room and roll over to sit next to Brose. “I don’t really understand why Charlie sent him in this way. I mean, he’s CORE. Why not just give him the directive and let him do his job? Why all this complicated stuff?”
“He was CORE, Olive. He’s obviously not anymore. He’s obviously out of control.”
I almost snort. “Then why is he even still alive?”
Brose looks at me, squinting. “For this , obviously. They needed to fuck up his life so he could get past Collin. He’s still a spy, but he doesn’t even know he’s spying.”
“A sleeper, huh?”
“Yeah.” Brose is tapping the keyboard now, getting new angles of Ean from other cameras as he makes his way into the canyon by way of the stairs. “A sleeper.”
I rest my elbow on the desk and sigh. “Poor fucker.”
“Yep,” Brose agrees again. “If I ever get to that stage, Olive, just off me, OK?”
I chuckle. “Agreed. And you me, Brose. Please don’t let me go out as the butt of someone’s joke.”
He looks at me, his green eyes shining, but also dead serious. “We’ll go out together.”
I nod. “Deal. Just like Bonnie and Clyde.”
The bar isn’t even open yet, so neither of us gets up to greet Ean when he finally makes his way into the canyon and pulls on the Mule Pit door. It doesn’t open, so he pounds a few times. Of course, we’re not gonna let him get away. Not after waiting all week for him to come back. So when he turns away, ready to give up, Brose says, “You’re on. Don’t fuck it up.”
I get up, walk out of the control room, and quickly make my way up to the door. I push it open and just barely catch a glimpse of Ean as he’s turning around the corner of the brick building. “Hey!” I call.
He turns and comes back a few paces.
“Was that you at the door?”
He nods. “Yeah. You know why I’m here.”
“You left your credit card.”
“Can you get it for me? Then I’ll be on my way.”
I smile. “Sure.” Then I hold the door open. “Come on in. I think it’s in the office.”
He hesitates, and for a moment I think he might not take me up on the offer, but then he relaxes his shoulders and gives in.
Following me inside.