22. Calista
Chapter 22
Calista
P anic scrabbles little cold claws in my throat and twists my stomach.
Smith seems relaxed, he still pets my pussy like he owns it, touches me like I wish I didn’t want him to.
But I know he’s not. He’s anything but relaxed.
I can feel the buzz of live-wire tension in him. It’s vibrating, slightly heated, a different version of the hunter I know as Smith.
The sexual hunter Smith, I mean.
He’s still a hunter, a deadly creature, but this vibration isn’t fueled with a sexual energy. Just like the lack of interest on his face as he looked around the club earlier. I’m not saying he wasn’t noticing or finding any of the explicit sex acts and extreme nakedness—that woman he got the mask from had her pussy pried open with body jewelry, for fuck’s sake—hot, but he was dispassionate like he had what he needed right next to him.
Me .
That was all an act, a hunter hunting a different, nonsexual prey.
This… This is a man weighing up lightning fast any and all options.
And it’s terrifying.
Because I can almost feel the tension beneath the looseness of muscle in his jaw as he works out what to do.
“Kiss me, Calista.”
Startled, I lean in, my mouth on his. And he drives his tongue between my lips in a deep and primal kiss, then he licks down to my chin, and he sucks that. It takes a moment for the weird intimacy of it all to fall away and for me to realize he’s talking to me.
“The average-height guy? Brown hair, facial scruff? That’s Johnny?”
“Yes.”
“How well does he know you?”
“We’ve met a bunch of times, but most of our relationship’s been on the phone or online.”
“He knows you,” he says flatly. “He’s a fucking agent.”
Smith pulls his hand from between my thighs and threads it in the locks of the wig and kisses up to my ear. “I need you to stay calm and look completely into me.”
“A hard ask.”
“Try.” His sarcasm breaks the tension a little, and I relax. “Good girl. Okay, here’s the deal. There are bathrooms on the top level. Walk past them to the fancy ones, the suites. They each have their own individual locks. Go into the last one on the right?—”
“You know a lot about this place.”
“Jealous?”
“No.” Maybe, but I don’t say that .
“Been here before.” Smith doesn’t offer any further explanation. “Go there, lock the door, and wait for me.”
“How—?”
“You’ll know. And no matter what, don’t take the fucking mask off. Go.”
Heart beating fast, I rise and he smacks my ass. But I don’t look back. I just follow orders.
I want to stay, to confront Johnny, see what the deal is, why he disappeared from Europe. But I’m not stupid. He’s got to be here to sell shit he stole. He might have all of the blueprints or just some of them, but both cases suck. I gleaned from the intel I gathered that even parts could be used to create other weapons, which is one reason it could change the outcome of wars and terrorism. It’s one reason things were done in parts, that anyone who worked on anything to do with the blueprints or the weapon only had tiny parts, and it was all encoded.
It didn’t matter they were trying to find out who stole what or who wanted the weapon’s blueprints. Shit, the whole thing can be a ruse for all I know.
My mind spins.
But deep down, I don’t think it’s a ruse. I think I’m a patsy.
If not one set up by Johnny, then by others.
What I don’t know is why.
And if it’s something simple like he’s so deep under that he’s here doing CIA business illegally on US soil, then why am I wanted? Am I actually under suspicion?
The questions whirl hard and fast enough for me to keep my head down as I move through the club and up the stairs.
Even so, I feel eyes on me, that insidious touch a man can give by just looking, by wanting to touch.
When Smith looks at me that way, delicious shivers skitter along my skin .
When other men do it, a clamminess creeps in, closes hard around me, choking me hard, and not in the good way.
For a second upstairs, I lose my way, and I’m caught in a small crush of bodies near a bar. Fingers skim my skin as they try and slide over my breasts, under my skirt.
That last hand I grab and twist, bending the finger back, and the man’s cry of pain can be heard over the sensuous beat of the music.
The sign for restrooms beckons me. I navigate toward them, moving across the floor, past couples fucking, past humiliating acts like a girl being passed roughly around, her body exposed and touched like she’s prime beef.
I catch her eye, and she narrows hers at me, a clear indication to move along.
Oh hell, she likes it, she likes the humiliation.
So I do. I put my instinct to dive in and try and protect—a useless instinct because I’m hopelessly outnumbered and she doesn’t want it—into the back seat of my head, cramming it down low.
I turn down the wide opulent hall with restrooms on either side. But this isn’t what he meant. At least I don’t think so. I hesitate, and a man in a black suit appears.
His gaze hits the mask, then drops to my breasts for a nanosecond before returning to the mask.
“Miss?”
For a moment I almost scream at him, and I don’t know why. It’s like being alone with my field agent below, down there with Smith and even more naked girls, stretches all nerve endings thin and tight.
“I’m looking for…” I flounder. “A suite?” That’s what Smith said to me. A suite.
“Did your master tell you which suite?”
Master? “I… ”
“Your mask. You’re here to observe, then wait for your master. Correct?” he asks, voice smooth, smarmy, and somehow soothing, all at the same time.
I touch the mask. The white thing he put on me. “The last on the right.”
The man—who’s handsome and trying to exude an asexual air now—nods. “This way.”
Down the hall, past the restrooms, and then we turn into a darker hallway lit with small pools of amber light, and we reach the door. He opens it and gestures me in.
“Please lock the door. Your master has a key, but for your own sense of comfort, lock it,” he says. “Some may not respect the mask with an open door.”
He leaves and pulls the door shut. I engage the lock, then turn.
I blink.
It’s like some kind of sex demon’s idea of a classy boudoir. There’s a bathroom off to one side. The ceiling’s mirrored, and there’s an oversized chaise longue.
There’s a bar on a trolley with bottles of water in a corner. I take one, and then after a minute, crack the lid on a bottle of some English small batch white rum, and pour a glass. There’s also a fresh bottle of scotch, which makes me think he somehow booked this.
He made calls and sent texts on our way here and…
My legs wobble.
I’m made of tough fucking stuff. But this whole place is… it’s a lot. I’m not sure what to think. I get the feeling under the layer of respectably debauched sleaze is something else, something darker and a hell of a lot more sordid here.
Down where we were? No, there was another set of stairs, blocked off, a man in black standing guard. The staircase and man had been on the other side of the downstairs floor. I only saw it for a few seconds, and it occurred to me that’s where the nasty shit probably happens. Girls who may not want to be there or have been coerced. The hired help. I don’t know. I try to think about what else I may have seen, but nothing comes to my mind.
We didn’t go near it, and I wasn’t there long enough to conclude anything but eerie feelings about it.
Slowly, I sink onto the chaise and take a deep pull of the rum. The flavor surprises me, like fall air crisp with apples. The spice of vanilla and a sweet warmth that chases it down my throat.
I gulp it down, then chase it with some water. After a while, I pace around and drink some more of the rum, bored, hating being locked in without any stimulation. I could see if this was just a time-out for being too overwhelmed by everything in the club.
But I think it’s more a way to create tension, to get me riled up and ready.
Because Smith’s going to come through that door.
And yeah, heat curls and dances inside me at the thought, because there’s unfinished business between us in the form of sex—hot, sweltering, scorching sex .
The hunter and his prey.
I gulp down a breath to calm my racing heart.
My libido.
My fear.
My temper.
The first and last are hard to wrangle. I feel like a damn cat in heat right now, and I bet he knows it. He loves it. He knows making me wait is effectively making me crazy.
And my God, I want to beat the hell out of him for punishing me like this.
I know he wants to keep me away from Johnny. Smith doesn’t trust anyone, and if Johnny recognizes me, there’s no saying he won’t tell someone where I am. And since Smith wants information about the Collectors, it buys me some time. Time I can use to get me out of the clutches of the CIA.
I drag in a breath. But I can’t give Smith what I don’t have, and I can’t give him what I do. I can give him lip service because it’s words and nothing tangible. And I’ve got skin in the game with regard to Trenton and my brother while Smith’s very interested in the Collectors.
What I need to do is become something he likes enough to keep around. I have to worm my way in, disregard my feelings about him and focus on what makes him tick.
His daughter?
Sex?
Secrets?
Dammit, I don’t know. I don’t know much about him. What he likes, what his hobbies are. I know he’s deadly, has a hunting, primal kink, can draw out orgasms like he’s a magician, and he can make me melt with a touch.
The door opens, and I whirl around, jolted from my thoughts.
“You look…” Smith steps in before closing and locking the door.
“What?”
“Well, now you look fucking guilty. I was going to say delicious.” He comes up to me, his familiar scent swirling under my nostrils. Thank God that he doesn’t smell like pussy because I might be tempted to dismember him with my bare hands. He lifts the mask from my face, careful not to disturb the wig. “Maybe you’re even more delicious because of that guilt. Plotting?”
“Your demise. ”
“Getting old, little girl. Especially when you keep giving up all the opportunities presented to you to run.”
I gaze up at him. We’re so close, and my entire being is pulsating heat through my veins. “You took the bullets away.”
“I didn’t particularly want to get shot again. It hurts. Makes a mess. Besides…” He kisses me, tongue entering my mouth for a slow, dreamy, and carnal kiss. “I took them out before we flew into Miami.”
“Next time, leave them in.”
“Fucking women. Crazy as bats on crack.”
I toss the rum in his face. Then I throw the glass at him.
He catches it, licks his lips, and backs me into the chaise so that I’m teetering to keep my balance. “Or maybe it’s just you.”
The anxiousness builds, threatens to bubble over because of his words. He thought I was going to run. Fuck, should I have? “What?—?”
“Calista,” he says, moving closer. “you didn’t run when you had the chance. Are you going to waste another opportunity to get out of here? Because if you don’t take it, I can’t promise what’ll happen next.”