20. Calista
Chapter 20
Calista
M y feet are like hot coals and knives rolled into one, but high heels, though I don’t often wear them, are a superpower of mine. For some reason, I can walk and run in them. Though usually not this fast, not for so long, and definitely not ever in six-inch platform stripper heels.
But I don’t dare take them off. Not until I can get somewhere I can disappear. Somewhere I can get to a computer.
On my thigh is a garter, and secured in that is a credit card I pilfered from Smith. He has a few so he won’t miss it immediately.
And I know using it is like shooting fireworks up to announce my whereabouts, but I also don’t intend to be free for very long. I’m just hoping its long enough to check up on the Estonian connection.
Maybe send a message to Riley, if his old private number still works.
Smith didn’t take me to a sex club. He took me out, like he doesn’t think I’m okay… no, like he doesn’t trust me. Which is fine by me, because that goes both ways.
The streets are crowded with partygoers and girls in bikinis and heels. There must be a nighttime pool party somewhere, but after a few people give me weird looks as I run past them, I dart around a corner, down another street, and force myself to slow to a brisk walk.
I turn onto another street, this one with colorful buildings. My senses are overwhelmed at the scents of cooking meat and the sounds of laughter and chatter while people play chess and checkers at tables on the sidewalks and in little cafés.
What I need is a place with a computer. There’s salsa music floating out of one place and it’s big, a café, yes, but also a place where people dance. I go in, intent on asking someone if there’s an old-fashioned internet café or something like that when I spy a little closed-off area at the back.
I look behind me, but I don’t see a man over six foot whatever in an expensive suit following, so I head back, taking note of the location of bathrooms and exits other than the door I came through.
Bathrooms are down a short hallway that probably leads to the kitchens and the manager’s office.
Good. Places to hide and run to if I need. But I don’t think Smith’s following me.
“Think” being the most troubling word in the mix.
“Excuse me,” I ask the waitress, “can I get a coffee and use the computers?” I point to the ancient-looking machines that probably fell off the back of a truck about ten years ago.
She nods. “Enter your credit card details on the screen.”
I find the one farthest from the noise. With a clear view of the entrance, I pull out the credit card.
My café Cubano is strong and sweet, the computer slower than the dead .
I stab in the card number and dive down into the dark web to see if I can contact Senator Riley.
I call the old number over the computer and leave a cryptic voicemail stating I’ll be in touch again, but if he gets the message, to call me on a number generated by the BurnEd app, one that creates untraceable temporary numbers. I link it to an app that translates and stores any voice messages as a text, and then I start to search other things.
Chatter on the weapon.
Information about Johnny.
And Trenton.
My search still comes up empty for Trenton. By all accounts, he’s dead, but his wife’s in New York. And a son… how did I miss this every time I’ve researched him?
I copy her details down and send them to my Jane Doe cloud, and then I deep dive into other things.
She did an interview over some center she opened, and even though there is no direct link between her and Trenton, I manage to connect whatever dots I have. I send all that to that cloud, too.
Then my fingers freeze over the keyboard.
There’s a picture of me and Henry. It says I’m wanted for questioning.
A movement captures my eye, and I look up, eyes wide. There, at the door, is a man in a suit.
It’s not Smith, but I’m so jumpy I shut everything down and slide into the darkness of the hallway.
I lock the door of the bathroom and lean against it, trying to stop the race of my pulse. I’m alone, so why?—
“Because,” I whisper, “he’s on his way.”
It’s in the air. My blood. My senses.
And every second I spend in this bathroom means he’s closer to getting me. He probably discovered the missing credit card. He might have had an alert set up. I don’t know. All I know is I need to run.
With a breath, I unlock the door and pull it open.
And stop.
Smith blocks my way. “Hello, little girl. Going somewhere?”
“Away from you.”
He doesn’t touch me as he moves forward, and instead of standing my ground, I back away from him. Before I know it, he’s closed the door and locked it. The dulled sound of sex-soaked salsa permeates the rickety wood of the door. He backs me against the counter with the sink.
“That’s the wrong way,” he murmurs, lifting me onto the ledge, his hands burning brands into my hips as he does so. “The door’s behind me.”
“You locked it.”
“True.” He kisses a trail up my throat, pausing to suck where he’s bitten me before and my entire body throbs. A moan breaks free. “I expected more of a chase. But perhaps my prey wanted to get caught.”
“No.”
“Not ‘code’? Just no?”
“I don’t…”
His hands whisper over my skin, one slipping down along the split in the skirt, and I don’t even understand how he has such an incredible hold on me.
I want to fight him, I do. I want to go toe to toe and show him his prey has teeth but there’s a heaviness inside that tells me maybe I want to be caught, that I want to curl up for him, offer myself to him. Because I fought already. Against horrible men.
Men who weren’t playing a sex-fueled game. Men who hadn’t given me a safe word. Men who wanted to hurt and intimidate in the wrong way.
Maybe I want to feel warm and wanted by someone I want, now that he’s caught me.
But I’m not telling him that.
I won’t ever admit it to him.
“How did you find me?”
He slides higher up my thigh, then up my body. “You should check wigs for trackers. Clothes, too.”
“Asshole.”
Smith kisses me and I cling to him, kissing him back, suckling on his tongue. The kiss is deep and soft, with a romantic edge, one dipped in erotic intent.
When he finally steps back, his blue eyes burn hot as he looks down. “Fuck, you’re gorgeous.”
A cool breeze from the air in the bathroom hits the fabric covering my nipples, the wetness between my thighs.
“You fuck.”
His mouth twitches. “Is that an invitation or are you telling me where to go?” With one quick flick of his fingers, he undoes my zipper and the dress falls around me.
“What do you think?” I make no move to cover myself.
Right or wrong, I like it, the kick of adrenaline it gives me, like how it ups the desire in my blood. And yes, I fucking love that he looks at me like I’m a dream come true. What woman wouldn’t get off on that?
And I need it after Cuba. Need it with a desperation I didn’t know I had.
“I think your body is for sin, my sin. My pleasure. My prize. This is your chance to use your word.”
“If I use it,” I say, knowing the answer, “you’ll stop?”
“Yes. ”
He leans down to lick one nipple and then the other, pleasure streaking through me. Smith raises his head. “Well?”
“Code.”
He takes a step back and my chest tightens as all my nerve endings cry out in protest.
I reach out, catch his jacket, and pull him in. “Change your mind?”
“Testing the word.”
His mouth twists into a smile, one that doesn’t reach the blaze in his blue eyes. “Verdict?”
“I don’t have to like you to want you.” I lift my face to him, but he doesn’t kiss me.
Instead, he moves back in.
“True.” He slips his fingers over the garter and holds up his card. “Naughty.”
“You’re slow on the uptake.”
“Who’s to say I didn’t notice it missing from my wallet?”
“Most people have this shit on their phones.”
“I’m old.”
“What are you going to do?” My voice is breathless.
I want his punishment. His touch. I want whatever he might throw at me.
“This.” He sucks and bites my nipples, pulling one into his mouth to roll it with his tongue before his teeth come down and he pulls back, then he goes to the other one.
Smith shifts from nipple to nipple, back and forth, turning me into a furnace of need, of sensation, that makes me moan, makes me dig my short nails into his neck, and I’m not sure if I want to push him away or pull him to me.
Yes, I do. I’m sure. I want more. I don’t want him gone.
Not that he’s going anywhere, but the desperate need for more pushes, hard .
He kisses and nibbles down until he pushes my thighs apart, wide. And he licks a path over my slit. He sucks my lips and tongues my pussy, then shifts up to my clit as he drives two fingers into me.
I groan, raising my hips, and the sensations spread like molten heat through me. God, he’s like someone with a PhD in sublime pleasure giving. He slides his fingers in and out, pumping, rubbing over my G-spot, and my head falls back as the soft-rough wet of his tongue moves over my sensitive flesh.
“You know,” Smith says, looking up at me without stopping his delicious assault, “your mouth tastes sweet like sugar and strong like coffee, but your cunt… it’s the mother of all fucking delicacies. I could eat you all day and night.”
I gasp as an orgasm slams into me, that wild rise of pleasure hitting, and I come hard. He pulls out his fingers, pulls me off the edge of the sink, and turns me around.
I’m limp as a rag doll and I let him move me.
“But you’ve still been bad, stealing, running, deliberately letting yourself get caught. And this…” He fingers my asshole. “This is going to be mine.”
My heart leaps and dances as behind me in the mirror, he releases himself and pumps his thick cock, then lines up.
The concentration on his face is an aphrodisiac of its own.
For a moment, I think he’s going to claim my ass, and I want him to, even though my heart’s a little wild at the thought of something so big in that tight hole.
But he doesn’t.
He slams into my pussy, holding himself at full entry as he reaches balls deep. “And nothing, nothing will be as fucking perfect as this. Me in your cunt. Except your mouth, and I suspect that tight little asshole of yours will be my undoing.”
He starts to play with it as he pulls out and slams back into me, angling himself so that his thick cock splits me open, invades deep, and rubs my G-spot as he hits all the way in and then pulls out.
Each push into me is a revelation, each withdrawal filled with anticipation of him driving home once again. Because he feels so fucking good stretching me, filling me, his cock hitting all the right parts of me.
And then… oh… God…
Smith pushes a finger into my ass, and he starts to fuck me in both holes at the same time, as he brings his other hand up to my mouth and pushes two fingers in.
“Oh fuck,” he says, gazing at our pleasure-soaked reflection in the mirror. “Look at that. You’re the perfect little slut of a sub, the perfect little tasty prey. But I think you want me to take your ass. Look at your face as I fuck all your holes, see how you push back to meet me, so eager, so hungry. I think you want me deep in your ass.”
I try and answer, but garbled sound comes out and he half closes his eyes as he slams into me again. “But I don’t think so. Not when you didn’t really want the chase, when you let yourself get caught.”
Oh. Fuck…
He comes, shuddering into me. And watching him own me sets me off again, and his cock seems to get bigger as he spurts. I come hard around him, spasming.
When we’re done, he pulls out and turns me, walking me back into the door, kissing me hard.
“You know we can finish this here, because I think I might love you down on your knees on the tile in the bathroom, or maybe…” His eyes glitter.
“What—”
“I have a place and we can finish there—because, darling, I’m far from finished—and then?”
I narrow my eyes. There’s a Smith-shaped bomb coming. “What?”
“We can talk.”
Talk? For a moment I’m dumbfounded. He wants to… talk?
I don’t understand his game.
“What do you mean, talk?” I ask carefully.
He waits a beat. “I mean, tell me what I need to know, everything, and I don’t give a fuck how classified.”
“Or?”
“Or we head to Washington, and I hand you over to whoever the fuck is paying me. Your call, Calista.”