27. Smith
Chapter 27
Smith
H er flight down the stairs is thrilling, unexpected. And I wait, counting seconds, giving her the time to think she’s lost me when what she’s done sinks into her pretty little brain.
Calista’s run and unintentional invitation beats in my veins. The rings have trackers, but I don’t open them. I’m aware of her, my senses heightened whenever she’s near.
This isn’t a run from me, she’s after Trenton’s widow.
For answers.
But it doesn’t look like Trenton’s wife is willing to dish them out judging by the way she moves.
Jones is waiting at the Obsidian Knight headquarters, but any meetings aren’t planned to start just yet. He has, through Reaper, a copy of some of the blueprints. They’re probably the pieces that have hit the market. Jones can turn the smallest thing into nuggets of vied-for gold. Even if I didn’t make it to the meeting, I highly doubt it would matter.
I will.
But right now, I have this to deal with .
My blood’s bubbling, and I’m ready to hunt down my meal.
I head for the private elevator that’s tucked away and take it down to the ground floor, just beating the main one, just beating her. I want to cut it close, to watch where she goes. This time, I’ll trust instinct over tracker.
She’s about half a street ahead of me. Moving fast but carefully. Different than Berlin, but I can pick her style.
Calista’s trained. She can tail. But the rest of it, what makes her so good is an innate need for anonymity. It’s why she hides behind a computer. She likes to find things, track things, do things without being seen. It’s security, and it offers her different ways of peering into other lives.
She’s too pretty to vanish, and to me she’s a fucking beacon of light that draws the eye, sets all instincts quivering.
More than once, I need to move deeper into the shadows as I follow her. More than once she turns a corner and I have to trust my instincts.
She’s closing in on Trenton’s widow. And she is his widow. A quiet word with Mercer earlier today, and he confirmed that the man’s dead.
“I killed him,” he’d said.
And I believe him. There was no need for him to lie.
So now I’m intrigued about those accounts.
On paper, his widow changed her last name and runs a few centers for recovery, yoga, all that new age fucking shit. And she comes from her own money.
Mercer decimated the dead man’s accounts. I didn’t ask why. I can surmise, though, and I already know from Orion the guy was a friend of his and Ivy’s family. Not hard to put it all together.
Mercer killed the guy because the man did something to Ivy.
And now Calista’s tailing his widow in hopes she’ ll find the prick who raped her mother, the dead prick who’s more than likely her father.
The woman turns onto Greene Street. At this time of night, SoHo’s quiet, the shoppers gone. Not much nightlife here. An older, distinguished man comes out of a building.
Calista physically gasps and I can see her body quake like she got a shock.
We both know who the man is, and if I let her do what I think she’s going to do, she’ll crash and burn whatever’s going on.
I move fast.
Swooping in, I grab her, haul her up into my arms, and I kiss her, spinning her until we’re against the recessed door of a fancy store. I pin her hands behind her back, dropping the other from her waist to slide between her legs where I stroke up and over the seam of her pussy.
The lace is wet, and it doesn’t take much to push aside, even less to shove two fingers into her. Then I press the heel of my hand against her clit.
“What the fuck are you doing, sweetheart?”
“Get off me.”
“Not what you were saying earlier when you were licking my cock like it was your favorite lollipop. Remind me to buy you one. Or maybe some flavored lube. Toys?” Shit. Focus! “What the fuck are you doing?”
She moans low and half pushes me away, half pulls me to her, and I’m betting myself she’s fighting herself over her safe word. Calista both wants to use it and wants to ask for more.
I curl my fingers inside of her and start a slow stroke that hits her G-spot as I slide out and push back in, keeping the movements steady, changing pressure with the rhythm of her breathing .
It takes everything I have to concentrate on my surroundings, to use every fucking piece of training.
Only problem is, no training can prepare a man for the power of Calista.
But I do it, and the shadow passes by us without a look.
It’s only then my body relaxes, and I lean into the stroke of her velvet insides, the squeeze of that tight pussy. The heat. Her wetness and then I breathe her in, letting the intoxicating scent of sex weave its spell.
Her hips move into each slide of my fingers.
“I’m waiting, Calista.”
“Stop.” Her hips rock into me, fingers bite my arms.
“Not the right word.”
“I hate you.”
“That’s three and boring to boot. What did you think you’d accomplish with confronting?—”
“She’s Jon Trenton’s wife.”
“Widow. Changed her name to Everton. I think it’s her maiden name.”
She gasps and clutches at my arm, and so I slow because she’s tight, getting tighter as blood rushes and makes her sensitive walls swell. I don’t want her to come.
I want her to stay on the cusp.
I want to toy with my pretty, delicious prey.
The intimate chase shifts and twists into something new. I’m taunting her, leading her to me and holding everything she wants just out of reach. Her orgasm is mine, and I dangle it, playing with her.
“Confronting her,” I whisper as I lick her earlobe, “will get you nowhere. She thinks he’s dead. What are you going to do? Announce who you are?”
“She… oh fuck… she was with…”
I lick just inside her ear and her cunt spasms once, twice, I pull back and let the peak slide back down to a simmer. “With the senator. Your mentor. And you thought what? Confront them both with one stone? We both know what he wants, don’t we?”
She looks up at me, so close that her breath bleeds heat onto my skin, and the faint scent of scotch tickles my senses. Her silence is a damning yes.
And she’s caught, tangled in everything.
“Why does he know her?” Calista asks, not answering. “He might know where her husband is.”
“Sweetheart…” I stop, stroke her into, shifting my fingers so I’ve also got her ass involved, and she thrusts against them at both ends, slowly coming apart.
Her damn husband’s dead. But I don’t push it. “Riley’s got a noose, and he wants to see how well you’re going to fit it on yourself for him. Because you walk up to him in front of someone else and he’ll wrap it right around your neck. You’re a fucking gift. If he brings you in…”
“No, he wouldn’t do that.”
I’m not so fucking sure. But I just shift, pressing against her as her hips move, my erection something she can’t ignore as I slowly work my fingers. She gasps and bites my shoulder.
“Oh my God.”
“You’re spinning wheels. Besides, you’ve got other issues, and I’m going to fuck you so hard you’ll lose the ability to speak.”
“Smith…”
I work her, pumping into her, stretching both holes and she’s teetering, losing herself. “Were you going to blow up everything by telling this woman who you are?”
She’s slipping, drowning in sensation. Her fingers loosen and she’s pushing and pumping, grinding with her hips.
But from somewhere, she finds herself, her strength, and her head snaps up.
“Code!”
I almost laugh because she really is something amazing.
She did, however, use her safe word.
I pull free and step back to lean on the other side of the door, facing Calista. “I’m not touching. Just listening. Well? Were you?”
“I don’t know. I needed to do something.”
“What do you think that would do?”
“Maybe she knows?—”
“Where he is? If he’s alive…” I almost tell her what Mercer told me, but at the last minute I don’t. It gives me a bargaining chip, something to play with. “I’ll help you, but otherwise…”
“What?”
“Spin your wheels until it’s time for us to make a move. Tonight’s info gathering, okay?”
“I still don’t trust you, Smith. But right now, you’re all I have.”
She suddenly grabs my tie and pulls me to her and kisses me, and then she turns and runs, heels clacking.
And I laugh.
Oh fuck. I know the prize tonight. And it’s going to be worth the wait.
I count to five, and then I take off after her. It’s madness. I should be sitting down across from Jones and playing the part of intermediary between him and the people interested in the weapons. I should be sitting this young woman down and making her get me everything on every last fuck who’s had a tie with the Collectors.
The setup, for me, of letting some go, isn’t enough. I want them all to burn. Any who thought of touching my kid. Any who’s done something to underage girls or destroyed someone for pleasure.
And then I should be handing her in to the CIA contact with money and a need to win points with the agency and letting them do what the fuck they want.
I should do all of that, kill who needs to be killed and walk the fuck away.
Yet my blood’s on fucking fire. I want to deep dive into her, take all I want, everything she has to offer for me. And I’m going to. Right before she gets handed over.
I catch sight of her at the edge of Prince Street, just past Broadway. My phone buzzes and I check the message.
What I want to do is take her somewhere, bend her over, and fuck her senseless. I want to claim that sweet ass I had my finger buried in.
But not yet. I’ve got a meeting to get to.
I send a text to Reaper, and I follow her, right up until she’s about to go into a wine bar. Then, sliding a hand beneath her arm, I steer her fighting, melting body away. Fighting because she wants to run, melting because she wants to flow into me and get the orgasm I taunted her with.
She glares at me. “Smith?—”
“Calista.” I hold out my phone a moment. “Just got word. The senator’s gone to the sex club.”
As much as I want to, I don’t see a way out for her.
I need what she has.
For Jones.
I need everything about the Collectors.
For me.
But Calista?
She’s either going to a CIA black site prison or she’s going to die.
And there won’t be anything I can do to stop it, no matter how much I want to.